Things just keep getting worse. I’m getting a sneaking suspicion that this maybe isn’t a pleasant place.

While I don’t think the second will affect me, not having any proper magic, the first reduces my mana regeneration by almost half to 5.4/minute.

After dismissing the notification, I take a look around, dropping quickly into a corner of the room. It doesn’t appear that anyone has noticed my passage through the portal, so I take stock of where I am now.

From the messages, I can tell that I’m not just in another place – I’m in another world. Again. At least I didn’t die again, although given the circumstances that possibility still exists. I was in a lavish palace a moment ago, but this is clearly a fortress. The walls have a different mana density to walls I’ve seen in the past, so they probably aren’t made of normal stone, although that doesn’t mean much to me.

Almost a dozen portals stand in the middle of the room I’m in. That’s… Not a good sign.

The people within it are demons, although there are also small, ugly beings with wings that are acting similarly to slaves to the demons, grovelling and doing the dirty work of the demons. I see one of the demons call them ‘imps’.

As for the particular demon who had preceded me through the portal, he is hurrying through hallways, demons bowing their heads as he passes. But their subservient appearances vanish like smoke after he passes, a few even scowling at him behind his back.

Upon taking another look around, I see that the behaviour isn’t specific to him: none of the demons appear to like or respect their superiors… Or anyone else, in fact. Beyond a thin veneer of courtesy, all the demons seem to abhor each other.

Strange. I didn’t think a group of people that hate each other could co-exist.

…Unless they’re forced to? Food for thought.

‘My lord, something unexpected has occurred. The pawn has been killed by paladins.’ The demon bows and scrapes.

‘Paladins?’ The second demon spits in disgust. His clothes look like they’ve been nicked from the late prince’s wardrobe. Probably were, too; almost all the demons here are wearing clothing identical to what I’ve seen in cities around the Empire. ‘Disconnect the portal to the palace. Begin the invasion immediately through the others.’

The first demon looks startled. ‘But we aren-”

Glaring, the demon in fancy clothes punches the other demon in the face, sending him sprawling to the ground. ‘I only kept you here because your magic allowed the possibility of crossing to Odwia. But the portals are constructed now. Give me one reason I shouldn’t just kill you.’ He sneers.

‘Because,’ gasps the demon mage from the floor, ‘when I created the portals, I bound them to my life force. Kill me, and they will immediately lose all function.’

The richly dressed demon snorts. ‘A compelling reason.’ He turns, waving his arm to dismiss the demon mage. ‘Disobey me again, and I will kill you regardless.’

The demon mage gets up. ‘I will need some sacrifices.’

‘The prison is as full as ever.’

I think this is my cue to do something. But since it’s a fair distance between there and here, I think I’ll quickly pop back over.

As I start using telekinesis to levitate, I find that it feels more strenuous than normal – is the gravity larger, here?

Discarding the thought for now, I move through the portal and the scenery shifts back to that of the palace basement. Everyone’s still alive – good. I start a telepathic link with Ferdinand. “Hey. I’m still alive. Unfortunately, there’s going to be a demon invasion unless I shut down the portals from the other side, so this is goodbye as far as I can tell.”

He responds as soon as I stop talking. “Isn’t there any other-”

“Nope.” I interrupt him, speaking with forced bravado. “I’m pretty sure the portal leads to another world, so I doubt I’ll be able to get back. But who knows, it’s me we’re talking about after all. Maybe, someday. Anyway, I’m a bit tight on time here, they’re about to cut this portal off to stop the paladins from interfering. On the plus side, I shouldn’t have much trouble getting out of there. So, goodbye Ferdinand. It’s been fun.”

“Goodbye Gerald. Than-” He begins, but I cut him off again.

“Hey, no sappiness. See ya!” I cut off the link and pop back through the portal.

He’s almost to the portal room, so I don’t have much time to act. Thankfully, combining absorb and telekinesis means that destroying inanimate objects is child’s play for me. Slicing through the bases of the portal archways one by one quick as blinking, they fall to the floor and break into several pieces, the vortexes of mana within them dispersing and slowly returning to normality.

With that, the demons are cut off from invading – and I’m cut off from going back.

Just as I escape through the walls and into an adjacent room the demon mage sprints into the portal room, no doubt disturbed by the sounds the portals made as I destroyed them. He immediately calls for the guards and orders everyone to be on high alert for an intruder.

Fat lot of good that’ll do them.

Nobody suspects the fork.

Nobody.

Ever.

And if they do, they should see a psychiatrist.

Quickly returning to the richly dressed demon’s room, the demon mage grovels pitifully. ‘My lord… the portals have been… destroyed. There is an intruder in the fortress.’

The goblet in the richly dressed demon’s hand deforms and crumples as he clenches his fist.

Seeing it, the demon mage gulps. ‘We will find them immediately, my lord. And I can rebuild the portals. I just need… time.’

‘How long?’

‘Perhaps two weeks, perhaps less…’ Drops of sweat roll down the demon mage’s forehead.

‘You have three days.’

‘Bu- Yes, my lord.’ The demon halts his protest as quickly as he starts it, no doubt remembering his earlier conversation.

So he can rebuild it…

We can’t have that, now can we?

After collecting things from several places around the fortress, the demon mage returns to the portal room and starts tinkering away.

The guards continue to move around the fortress, checking every nook and cranny, including the room I’m in. Nobody even glances at me, although they do find the hole I made in the wall to get here. After the guards leave the room I tunnel back into the wall through the same hole and move up the wall until I reach the roof. Then I tunnel along the roof until I’m above the demon mage.

For some reason, he’s smiling to himself as he works. I don’t think that’ll last long.

Dropping down directly onto him, I absorb my way through his neck.

 

 

Hey, another le-

A dark mana rises from the corpse and rushes towards me. I try to absorb it, but as I do, I can feel my durability decreasing, so I stop and try to escape through the walls.

But wherever I go, it follows without stopping or slowing, no matter how many twists and turns I make.

So, I leave the castle and head out in a random direction. Maybe if I go far enough from the origin of this magic – the demon’s corpse – it will fade away.

My slim, sleek body line allows me to pass through the air with little resistance, letting me to maintain a greater speed than the evil mana behind me while keeping Psi expenditure below my regeneration rate – although only just.

Actually, I still haven’t used the stat points from that level up. 5.5, huh? I don’t like the 30’s. They don’t let you distribute stat points evenly into two stats without going to two decimal places. And I ain’t going there. One DP is far enough for me!

2.5 to Int, 2.5 to Wis, 0.5 to Dex.

It may be tracking me, but it isn’t very fast. I can literally do this all day – all week, if I have to. It should run out of mana eventually. Or perhaps it has a limited range?

One eye on the spell following, I have a look at the landscape, getting an idea of what sort of world this is.

The ground is cracked and barren, not a blade of grass or any other plant softening its surface as far as the eye can see. The only liquid around is something slow-flowing and thick I don’t recognise, but if I were to venture a guess based on what I’ve seen so far, I’d say it’s lava. Thank god that I can’t feel heat… or should I thank the gods?

Meh, I don’t know enough about them to care.

Up ahead I see trees jutting out of the ground like skeletal hands, without even a single leaf on their branches. What’s this place called, the forest of death? Nope, not going there.

I take a right turn at the forest, and soon enough run into a broken tower, shambling forms roaming mindlessly up and down its broken staircases. I give it a wide berth.

Hey, this place looks nice. A clean building lies ahead, bearing a symbol that makes me think it’s some kind of shrine. Inside are a group of people – they look human, too, though after fighting a doppelganger that doesn’t mean much to me – praying to some god or other.

‘Now, let us drink of the blood of the heretics.’ One says solemnly.

Goodbye.

Behind me, the spell putters out and dissipates. Took it long enough.

Whew…

What do we do now?

…Oh, right, he’s on another planet. That makes communication somewhat difficult.

Well, first of all I should probably double-check that they aren’t able to reconstruct those portals.

Turning around, I head back the way I came, although in much less of a hurry this time. The demon mage said weeks, the angry demon said days, I think I can spare a few minutes. As I levitate across the desolate landscape, I come across a large dog.

I look at the dog.

The dog looks at me.

The dog opens its mouth, and I take 0.2 damage to my durability.

I absorb the dog’s face. It dies, and I absorb the rest of it.

 

 

Holy moley, I’ve almost levelled up again. Without 95% of my exp going to Ferdinand and absorb effectively letting me double my experience gains, it’s shooting upwards.

Sadly, I don’t come across any other monsters I can kill for that last iddy bitty bit of exp I need to level up… Well, almost 3000 exp, but y’know.

…It feels strange. Not too long ago, I was stuck on the floor of a cave, hoping desperately that something with a useful skill or trait would walk my way. Levelling up wasn’t my primary concern, but even then, the hundreds of exp I needed felt like they would take ages to accumulate.

But look at me now. I can move on my own, see just over a literal mile in every direction and hold my own in combat, albeit in an unconventional way. Among other things.

I’ve really come a long way, haven’t I? Metaphorically and literally speaking. A year ago, just an ordinary university student living on my lonesome, on Earth. A few months ago, a helpless fork living on my lonesome in a cave, on Odwia. Now, an awesome fork… living on my lonesome, in – literally - Hell.

…If I say it like that, I haven’t come very far at all, have I? And I still have so far to go… Let me just check my list of priorities.

1. Find a way to regain human form and/or human senses while in fork form. (High priority)

Well, I’ve technically made progress. I have the skill that can do all of that. Shame I can’t use it, and probably won’t be able to for a long, long time.

2. Find out how I died. (Low priority)

I still haven’t found anything about that. A bit hard, when I’m not even on the same planet.

3. Find and obtain skills or traits that could allow me to write. Write Ferdinand a book about death flags and the like. Possible name: (at least) 101 things you should definitely never ever say and when you should especially not say them. (Maximum priority)

Hey, I remember this one. Well, I think I’ll downgrade it to medium priority. Even if I manage to get a skill that would allow me to write, it’s not like I can lug a book around until I next see him.

4. Jelly beans. (High priority)

…What? When did this get on there? Let’s see, let’s see… When I was six? Seriously?

I remember now... I was at this kid’s party, and I went over to get some sweets, but all the jelly beans were already gone. I remember bugging my mum to get me some for weeks afterwards, but she never relented. Probably for the best, they’re filled with sugar. Anyway, let’s wipe this off… Although, I would like some jelly beans… Let’s just change it to lowest priority.

5. Obtain skills and traits that will allow me to better defend myself. (Maximum priority)

It’s going fairly well on this front. I wouldn’t say it’s such an urgent thing anymore, but I would still like some more diversity and flexibility in my abilities.

Let’s see, I think I need a healing skill or spell, something that lets me cure poison for others… Others may be able to carry some sort of antidote or cure potion, but that’s not really an option for me. A couple of buffs might be nice. A way to carry other people when flying. Some sort of skill or spell I can control in flight and use to attack from a super long distance… Paired with mana sight, that would be deadly. I have stealth mostly covered, as well as scouting, and traps aren’t really a problem. Maybe some crowd control abilities? Even a simple ‘slow’ would be incredibly useful in all sorts of situations.

6. Obtain traits that multiply my Intelligence and Wisdom. (High Priority)

Man, would these be useful. If I had a times two multiplier on even one of them, that would send my mana sight range from 1.69km to over 3km. If I managed to get a times 10, that’d be 16.97km. If I got both times 10, that’d be one hundred and sixty fricken nine kilometres. RADIUS. That would let me see, like, almost half of Tasmania if I stood in the middle of it. I just calculated the volume of a sphere that large. It’s over 20 million kilometres cubed.

Imagine having the visual acuity necessary to snipe someone from a few cities over.

…Of course, the changing wind patterns along the way, various obstacles and bullet drop would make that literally impossible, but that’s beside the point.

7. Learn magic. (Medium priority)

Mm. I’d love to. Problem is, I have no clue how. I’m sure some of these demons know magic, but even if one was willing to teach me, I don’t think I’d be willing to learn the type of magic they’d be teaching.

…And that’s the end of the list. Oh, I should probably add:

8. Find a way to get back to Odwia. Similar method could probably be used to return to Earth.

But do I really want to return to Earth? Odwia at least is a must; it’s way better than this place. But Earth? I didn’t really have many friends. The small network I had at school kind of drifted to near non-existence after it finished, with both me and them not terribly interested in putting in the effort to keep it going.

And my family… Well, they must think I’m dead. If I go back, only to leave for Odwia again, that would only bring more pain and worry to them than I already have. It’d be like stabbing someone with a knife, leaving it in for a while then taking it out and applying a bandage, only to slam it back in again a bit later.

I suppose I could stay there. Without any… bodily functions, I wouldn’t need money, and it’s not like the law takes into account living forks; I’m pretty sure that even if people knew about me, according to the system I wouldn’t exist. So no need to worry about things like voting, either. I could live out my life in peace and quiet, like I’ve always wanted.

…Except. Except I couldn’t. I couldn’t just sit there doing nothing for years on end; I’d go mad. Again.

I could take up a hobby. But my form restricts me severely.

And even then… Well…

Come on Gerald, admit it already. You’ve known this for far too long to be avoiding it still; especially now, when there’s very little to do.

…I’m immortal, aren’t I?

I’m made of metal, mithril even. I doubt mithril rusts or corrodes, but even if it does, I could just absorb the damaged bits of myself and self-repair them back. I don’t have any organs or anything that can degrade over time.

So, I’m immortal.

…I remember when I was much younger, I heard about an ancient Chinese emperor or someone similar that ate mercury pills, hoping they would grant him immortality. Instead, they killed him. We laughed at that. I don’t know about the others, but I wasn’t just laughing at the irony of ingesting a poison and thinking it will grant you longer life.

I was laughing because I couldn’t imagine why anyone would even want immortality. I never saw the allure of it. Oh, I’ve heard all the stories of people searching for the recipe to the mythical philosopher’s stone or turning to darker means in attempts to indefinitely prolong their lives, but it just never made sense to me. What do you do with infinity?

‘If you had all the time in the world, what would you do?’

I’ve heard the question before. My answer would always be the same. I’d see my dreams realised. I’d learn more about what few things interest me, perhaps teach a few others the same. But that would only last me two centuries, max. I can’t imagine what I’d do with a millennia, let alone a million years.

Why would anyone want the misery of being unable to make substantial emotional connections to others, because you know that if you do, you’ll have to watch them die? You’d have to watch everyone you know and love die. Again. And again. And again.

If I were able to gain any superpower or supernatural ability, immortality would be one of my absolute last picks, right down there with the ability to destroy the planet I’m standing on by blinking and the ability to kill anything I look at.

Heck, I’d probably choose them over immortality. I’d just cut off my eyelids. Can’t blink if you have no eyelids. Or blind myself, can’t look at anything if you’re blind. Then I’d just have a short miserable life, rather than a long miserable life.

And yet here I am. The powers that be chose… Me.

I’ll have to watch Ferdinand die. And Marco. I liked Marco.

Unless… I can find a way to make Ferdinand immortal too… But… no. That would just be consigning him to the same hell as me. It would be horribly selfish of me to make him suffer through pain just to lessen my own.

…I could kill myself.

No… I couldn’t do that either. Then I’d be making him watch me die. And worse, a suicide. That would be just as selfish. I could vanish and kill myself.

And what? Make him think I abandoned him?

He’d get over it.

What if he didn’t?

…At least I wouldn’t have to suffer.

Is it worth causing pain to another to reduce your own? Even if the pain caused is less than that reduction?

………I don’t know… I… I don’t feel like it should be.

Then again, it can’t be as bad as it sounds. If I’m immortal, there must be others. If I can make a few immortal friends, it might not be so bad.

But how do you find an immortal? They won’t be in plain view. Live in the same place for a thousand years, and people are going to notice that there’s something different about you. That means that immortals are probably more likely to either roam around… or live in seclusion.

People who roam… Adventurers, wandering mercenaries and warrior, explorers, travellers.

People who live in seclusion… Monks. People who want to be left alone.

Adventurers… why does it always come back to adventurers? I don’t even want to become an adventurer. All that fame, all that attention… What’s the point? It’d just be painful.

I shake myself out of my downwards spiralling contemplation as the fortress appears on the edge of my vision.

The demons within it are still frantically searching for their ‘intruder’. I already left, y’know?

Ooowwww, that’s gotta hurt. The head honcho demon is killing everyone he sets eyes on in rage, pounding skulls and chests into a pulp with his bare fists and feet, uncaring whether they are imps or demons.

…I take it that there’s no replacement for that demon mage.

He punches through a wall and screams in anger and pain as his fist bleeds.

I think my work here is done.

---

¹Since Ferdinand is literally on another planet from what the main viewpoint is following, continuing to put his status here would be pointless, as well as a potential spoiler. From here to an unknown point in the future, it'll just be Gerald.