Haah, haah, haah, haah&

　　Th& That was a shade? But it was—he was& That was me, wasn`t it?

　　B-, but, then again, this might just be like a doppelganger thing, and once you beat it, it returns to its original form. Yeah. That`s gotta be it, right? I can`t see it, but right now, I must be sitting on top of, like, some sort of faceless worm creature or whatever. That`s gotta be it. Yeah. Yeah&

　　Tentatively, I pull the bush out of my inventory.

　　There, just below me, lies my own corpse. Eviscerated. Every organ torn out and strewn around. My throat pulled out, my rib cage broken, my arms bloodied and my abdomen emptied. I look down and my trembling eyes slowly find themselves to my face. It`s pale. Deathly so. And ashen, too. Weirdly enough, the WHITES of my eyes are starkly yellow, as though I`ve got liver failure or something. I look horrible. My cheeks are sunken, my entire body is bony and thin, like someone grabbed the display skeleton in a biology classroom and stretched a piece of dead skin over it. I just look horrible. There`s no other way around it. The fact that I`m dead changes nothing at all. If I compare the skin of my hand to the skin of my dead body`s chest, it`s the same colour, even though one is completely bloodless.

　　Breathing shallowly, I stagger to my feet.

　　&Moleman&!

　　That lying cheat&! I ought to send him an angry PM, but I`ve got a feeling that doing so won`t help. And, also, I`ve got good reason to believe that there`s more than one of these& shades.

　　I look at the bush in my hand. It`s my sole source of light. Without it, I can`t see at all. But with it, I won`t be able to fight.

　　Biting my cracked lips, I put the bush back into my inventory, making darkness fall once more. The only smell I can tell from the shade is that of my own blood. It`s weird. My blood smells exactly the same as goblin blood.

　　&I wonder if it tastes the same, too?

　　I pause where I stand. I was going to just keep moving, but&

　　&It`s not like it`s actually me. It just looks like me. And fights like me. And acts like me. But, in reality, it`s just a shade. An enemy. That means if I loot it, it`s not like I`m looting an actual human being. It just looks like one. It`s basically like a goblin.

　　After only a second or so of further hesitation, I finally decide to just go ahead with it. It`s going to get sold by the end of the floor anyways. Might as well get it over with.

　　Hunching down, I begin by collecting my organs and putting them in my inventory. Compared to goblin innards, mine are a bit bigger, but they feel like they are of worse quality. Is it something to do with my diet and lifestyle?

　　&Nah, can`t be.

　　I`m not sure how long it took to disassemble my entire body, but once I`m finished, I feel like I`ve gained a newfound understanding of my own anatomy. Lots of lean muscle. Little fat. Most of my weight is in bones.

　　Disassemble Lv.3>

　　Once I`m done, I spend a minute or so just groping around on the ground, trying to make sure I didn`t miss anything. Nope, I got everything.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

　　watches you with pity.>

　　&Now hang on just a minute. I normally try to ignore you people, but, really? You`re the goddess of solitude! Shouldn`t you be my greatest advocate or something?

　　Got no response to that, huh? Well, whatever. I`m in a forest of weird creatures, so it`s not like I have time to hang around in one place anyways. Since the shades will apparently be banished once I do the thing with the chalice, it`s not like I need to spend a stupid amount of time personally defeating every single shade. I just need to get to the chalice.

　　Getting back to my feet, I start to head out, but I soon have a thought. I wonder what shade meat tastes like?

　　Summoning a lump from my inventory, I give it a quick once-over. It`s very thin. I wasn`t able to cut many specific cuts since there was so little meat to work with. I mean, this is my entire left breast and it`s barely enough to hold in my hand. Still, it`s better than nothing. I bite in. Hm. Eugh. It`s super stringy. Really tough meat, all things considered.

　　Fang Lv.8>

　　Indigestion Tolerance Lv.8>

　　Indigestion Tolerance Lv.9>

　　Ulcer Tolerance Lv.3>

　　&For some reason, it feels like I should take offence to this. But, on the other hand, since I`m the one actually eating this suspicious meat, it feels perfectly warranted. It really is that bad. Ah, I wanna eat more gobling meat. I hope I`ll get to meet more goblins so I can—

　　Something rustles. My feet lock in place.

　　Enhanced Hearing Lv.3>

　　It`s subtle. Incredibly subtle. Barely even there at all.

　　Sniff sniff sniff.

　　It`s hard to tell over the smell of blood clinging to me, but if I focus hard, if I focus very, very hard, then I can barely, just barely, make out the smell of blood clinging to it.

　　Enhanced Scent Lv.1>

　　&I really hope that doesn`t mean I have a stronger smell now than I did befo—

　　My brief distraction is enough to give the shade incentive to strike, and from the eternal darkness flies the sound of wind and the smell of blood, and only by a deft side-step am I able to avoid a slice to the throat that would otherwise have killed me, but now instead rips a small incision along the length of it, peeling a bit of my skin and bringing forth a small burst of blood.

　　I leap towards where I`m pretty sure he went and am met with a faceful of tree.

　　O—oooww&!

　　But I don`t exactly have time to recover from my arboreal snogging before he`s on me again, and in turn I`m on him, and we roll and claw at each other like foul beasts, snarling and spitting, and clawing and drawing blood that I`m sure is splattering everywhere, but although we are equally matched, there is one thing I know that he doesn`t. Namely, how I fight, and how I think.

　　groans.>

　　Despite what I might think and feel, I`m not actually that quick to take to biting.

　　I can`t see him, I can barely hear him, our scents are mingling together since our blood is the same, but in a brief pause, in a tiny moment where he pulls in a breath, I go for it. Thrusting my head into the gap between us, I hook my teeth into his throat, making him squeal like a pig and claw at my back. My shoulder blades are getting exposed but it doesn`t matter and I just keep gnawing into his throat, chew-chew-chewing until I can feel his throat get crushed between my teeth, but if he has the same resistances as me, then it won`t be enough, so I keep chewing, and I chew up up arteries and his tendons and his flesh and his throat and his spinal cord and his neck and his brain stem and in the end his entire head goes rolling.

　　Fang Lv.9>

　　Fang Lv.10>

　　Sharp Fang Lv.1>

　　<[Level Up]>

　　Strength has increased by 2.

　　Stamina has increased by 4.

　　Magic Power has increased by 1.

　　Sharp Fang has increased by 1.

　　Eviscerate has increased by 1.

　　Stealth has increased by 1.

　　Sharp Claw has increased by 1.

　　Enhanced Hearing has increased by 1.

　　Enhanced Scent has increased by 1.

　　Blindness Resistance has increased by 1.>