In Marcel's body, live several things. First are the sources of energies; both magical, physical, and natural energies from the dragon and elven races constantly battling each other whenever no one's looking. They’re being refined by Marcel’s body. After that is the Dragon Link’s connection, Ains' contract with him, the lightning bolt making up a big fraction of the physical magic inside him, and lastly, a freeloader snake's soul stuck inside his body. 

Today is about the freeloader snake and how it finally makes itself useful in its new home; not that it wanted to. 

It happened a week after Marcel returned from Tharrelan’s dungeon rift. 

Marcel went to his treasure pile and after searching for a while, found another illusory dungeon cube. Excited and thinking about how useful it will be for Ains if he accumulated more soul power for the future; (spoiler: He doesn’t need to worry about that) he hopped right in, but when he got there, he found he wasn’t alone. 

Entering the dungeon space of that cube, he first looked around. Right from the start, it was obvious which kind of dungeon his enemy lived in. A low-intensity fire-type landscape or domain dungeon, although, space inside was very limited. The area perception of the dungeon beast he was about to face had something to do with it. 

This mind dungeon was mostly devoid of life; a few fire element flowers growing atop the solid rock formed above the deep molten lava lake underneath their feet; almost like a drifting island across the waters. The entire platform on which he stood was of cooled molten lava solidified into rocks of uneven sizes bound together, with some lava seeping out of some places. Better be careful, though, all of this is in someone else’s mind. 

Apart from the floating rock platform, nothing else beyond could be perceived. This was his enemy's territory whilst they still lived. Since it was strong enough to project almost the entirety of its surroundings like the Golden Lion, it’s probably also a B-ranked dungeon beast. This should be easy right? 

While he was busy pondering the rank of his enemy and the overall difficulty of this mind dungeon, he suddenly felt some weight on his right shoulder. 

“That’s strange! I should almost be weightless in here. Why do I feel like something’s sitting on my shoulder?” He thought.  

No, no, no! The thought of something sitting on his right shoulder was stupid! After all, he came alone. Apart from his enemy, the only person with access to this dungeon space currently, was himself. Oh, no? Did he already meet-- 

He turned his head slowly to look at his oddly weighted right shoulder in the slow cliché way people do things in scary situations. His suspicions weren’t exactly the right ones. It wasn’t his enemy. 

He looked on his right shoulder to find the Poisonous Three-Colored Inferno Serpent spirit who once tried to steal his body. He doesn’t know what happened to it, but he’s glad he doesn’t have to deal with it again. 

“Whew! It’s just ‘the snake’ from a while ago!” He thought, relieved, but then it came to him. 

“IT’S THE SNAKE FROM A WHILE AGO!!” He freaked out. Just what was that thing doing there, sitting on his shoulders no less. Didn’t that thing die after it was suppressed by his body? Why was it here with him? 

At this moment, he had a lot more questions he needed answered, and he was about to be shocked yet again. 

“I don’t know either!” The snake answered his question, having automatically heard all his thoughts. 

Well, why was it really here?  

Really, it didn’t know. It was asleep after eating its fill of Marcel’s soul power and magic energy when suddenly, it felt a force pressing upon it. When it opened its eyes again, it found itself here, with the last person it wanted to meet in person ever again. 

“Ugh, you again?!” It was an automatic response after he acknowledged the presence of yet another enemy of his. Marcel didn’t want to deal with this body-snatching snake at all. 

“I’d rather not see the face of a murderer, thief, and imprisoner either! You are the last thing I want to see after waking up. Curse you!” The snake stringently voiced its still hostile thoughts after hearing his imprisoner’s thoughts. Somehow, it could hear Marcel’s thoughts, but the other could hear none of its own.  

This was good! It was sign that this ‘filthy boy’ had no control over its sense of self while it could freely hear whatever this little monster was thinking. This is good! Maybe it can successfully manage to steal its body someday after all. 

“You live in my body? Tch, freeloader!” Marcel thought.  

This thought made the snake snap, 

“Listen here! I am not a freeloader! You are the reason I’m stuck inside your body! I was just a snake with a hope to live again while you are nothing but a fuckin’ cretin who stole everything from me. All the skills I had amassed in my life, my spiritual body. You ruined everything! I never wanted to live like some parasite after abandoning my spiritual body. Everything was supposed to be perfect! Why couldn’t you just relinquish your body to me, you fuckin’ FREAK OF NATURE!!!”  

The snake held nothing back. This little monster had eaten everything except the little portion of its soul that held its ego. With that, he acquired everything it owned, including the skills branded on its soul. Marcel was the thief here! How dare he call it a freeloader when all it's doing is eating a bit to not die? 

“Well, I hate you too!” Marcel also voiced his opinion. He can still remember how much trouble this serpent was for him. He almost lost his body to it if not for the reversal his soul pulled. 

“I hate your very guts! If not because I was living inside you and that I get to eat whatever I want inside your body, I would fucking strangle you to death...” It suddenly put a pause in its insults. Something was wrong! Very wrong! 

It realized that it was talking coherently, and that wasn’t even the big part. Normally, it can only voice its thoughts when telepathically connected to another. It was speaking out loud comprehensible words, not through telepathy like usually did. Something has changed, drastically changed! 

So, why was this snake freaking out about suddenly being able to talk from its mouth, even without a spiritual or physical body? 

Well, souls of dungeon beasts have it relatively harder to form consciousness to achieve sentience. This situation only begins to change when they start reaching B-class and above. Even so, different monsters develop consciousness at different rates, like the Golden Lion Marcel fought much earlier during his time in the demon realms. 

Dungeon beast actions before and sometimes, even after attaining consciousness, are determined by its natural survival instincts. Their only priorities are to hunt, feed, and evolve. Nothing else!

When the Poisonous Three-Colored Inferno Serpent first threw itself into hellfire as a normal poisonous snake, it attained the first stages of soul maturity; gaining a small consciousness. As it gathered more information on its surroundings, it slowly blossomed into intelligence, reason, and faint emotions. It then threw itself into the fire again, evolving further, building upon what it already had, reaching A-class, and shedding its physical body to attain its third transformation.

Its soul was almost complete enough to be free of the dungeons, but it still had some problems.

Its thoughts couldn't fully come together, nowhere near the coherency needed to be understood by others. It could only speak in short sentences, with its telepathic speech almost always slowly programmed long beforehand before interacting with other beasts and eventual visitors. It tried to breach this barrier to become fully sentient and earn the rights to enter Vitalis' domain, but even after thousands of years, it remained stuck in the same place, until those 'damn witches' arrived to kill it after receiving news of a soul complete enough to be harvested.

Captured with its soul enslaved to be used as a training artifact for 'barbaric people', it continued to strive for completeness, but it never attained complete soul maturity. Something very important was missing. It wouldn't gain the ability to verbally voice its thoughts until after soul maturity, but then suddenly, it could think clearly and talk? 

“I can’t believe it! I can talk.” Now the snake was certain! Marcel’s body was indeed the best place to live in. The instincts that propelled it to possess Marcel’s body were to be thanked. Living in Marcel’s body not only helped it gain a more complete consciousness but also helped its knowledge come together nicely, some of which the snake isn’t even sure it acquired. Although it didn’t know how it was possible now that most of its soul had been chomped up by a certain ‘filthy boy’. 

Ah, looks like this body can offer it more than it gave at the start of his habitation. Oh well~! It thought, happiness exploding in whatever little was left of itself. Now back to the matter at hand. 

Feeling relaxed after putting away the disbelief and excitement it carried after gaining the ability to speak and think rationally, it put some of its hatred away; you know, sealed up a bit in a drawer for later. The filthy boy’s body was not only its personal food station but could also grant it additional benefits. Its hatred for Marcel had decreased just a little bit. 

“Now go out and find your next murder victim, stupid boy!” It pointed its tail 50 meters away in Marcel’s direct line of sight. Although it didn’t like Marcel, it would cooperate just this once. It has this feeling that it can’t leave this place until Marcel gets out of there. After that, he’ll say goodbye and they’ll never meet again until when it exacts its revenge. 

“Hehehe! Just you wait!” It let out a peal of elegant evil laughter as it imagined its future revenge, for now, he’s got to help this ‘fool’ leave this place so that it can go back to compulsively eating his energy and reaping more benefits. 

“Huh? What do you mean?” He asked. 

“Ha, you really are stupid! We have to work together to leave this place, after that, we’ll be done with each other. Also, can’t you sense that the monster is lying right in front of you? Like I said, 50 meters ahead, dummy!” It yelled.  

Despite Marcel’s good vision, he still couldn’t see anything the ‘snake’ talked about, but he agreed with it. Working together once and then never seeing each other again was a plan he could go along with. As much as it would like to get out of there, however, it felt like this snake was speaking nonsense. There was no beast ahead, just a pile of rocks sitting on the floating network of big rocks he stood upon. 

“Just get moving!” The snake slapped his cheek with its tail. As much as Marcel hated having to follow its orders, he would do so if it got him out. Ignoring the slap too, although it didn’t hurt at all, was also going to be for the greater good. 

“Fine! Let’s go!” Marcel finally started moving and the snake smiled slightly. Every step Marcel took got it closer to the beast it could see and them going their separate ways after dealing with it.  

Moving, Marcel walked in the direction the snake instructed him in taking. With every deviation he made while walking, even by a few degrees from the snake’s definition of a straight line, he’d get called things like ‘smart guy’, ‘guy who definitely knows what a straight-line is’, ‘genius of mathematics’, and other very sarcastic comments.  

He’d taken about twenty steps, but this snake has already insulted him more than he can count. He concluded that the snake... was very rude, foul-mouthed, and verbally aggressive than anyone he’s ever met in his life. Even human thugs are nothing compared to this shrunken snake on his shoulder. Oh, how much he’d like to strangle it! 

After walking fifty meters straight ahead, the snake finally told him to stop and toned down the insults for a bit. It then pointed its tail at something on the floor: a very strange rock. 

The rock the snake was pointing at was a 10 or so centimeter-wide rock with molten lava still flowing through it, although the rock had fully solidified. 

“Strike it!” The snake commanded. 

“But that’s a ro--”  

“Just do it, stupid! Can’t you see that’s the beast? Also... I can feel it! Just do it.” Ah, why can’t this stupid boy just listen to it so that they can leave this place? Being with this person was mildly infuriating. 

What a coincidence! Marcel thought the same. This snake would be on the path to getting strangled if it had a body, though, its original body, unlike normal Inferno Snakes, was more than 7 meters in length and almost half a meter wide semi-physical body, which would make it slightly difficult. 

Suddenly given an order to act when in front of this rock, Marcel forgot something very important. 

“Um... I seem to have forgotten how one fights in an illusory dungeon. What was it one did again?” 

Mr. Snake, hearing this thought, almost face-slapped itself before realizing, it had no hand. 

Unbelievable! Does the freak really have to do this now? What happened to all the attacks it used against it when they fought? Soul power opens numerous possibilities for random improvised attacks. Why did this guy suddenly forget that at this moment? 

Ah, looks like it’ll have to help him. How very infuriating! 

The moment Marcel hesitated, unsure of how to fight, the snake was remarkably furious at it, oozing off a tremendous amount of soul power and killing intent for not only Marcel but the threat hiding in plain sight. Even in his spiritual body, Marcel still felt no aura, remaining completely calm while the hiding dungeon beast started to panic from the terrifying sight. 

Frightened by the dangerous presence sensed, the strange rock quickly opened and running away.  

When the rock opened, it revealed a molten red ferret with its back covered in a layer of thin rock, allowing it to easily camouflage as a glowing rock while it waited patiently to pounce on its prey. Its eyes glowed a deep black. 

After it revealed itself, the snake looked at Marcel with contempt and disgust. If not for him, they would have already been done with this beast and never see each other again. 

“Ah, you’re so much dumber than I thought. I am astonished.” It spoke. 

“Well, I forgot, okay! Sorry!” Marcel said in a silly voice. The snake’s contempt grew when he looked at this boy acting cute. 

“Chase the fucking beast, fool!” It commanded. If it had a blood pressure, it’d be shooting out the roof.  

“Right!” Marcel got moving. 

As he chased the thing, he wondered what to even attack it with. He suddenly remembered how to use soul power, but what he would do with it exactly? Not so much! 

First, he asked the snake if it knew what that creature was. 

“That was a Blazing Rock Ferret, a B-ranked dungeon beast. It looks cute and harmless, but it’s a thirsty killer with excellent stamina. It uses its harmlessness to bait people in and when they get closer, it pounces and rips out their organs to feed. Also, thanks to certain circumstances, they hate witches to the core.” 

“Ah, let me guess! The mind dungeons?” Marcel asked. 

The snake continued, “Honestly, most creatures of the dungeon hate them for it, including me. Just when we develop awareness is when those fuckers swoop in and destroy our chances of growing further. Some races in the dungeons have developed specifically to detect and evade witches, like that ferret for the continued survival of their race. This one was probably just unfortunate.”  

I should also add that the Blazing Rock Ferret race holds a deep resentment for witches, especially their very human-like appearance. Seeing Marcel’s spiritual body form, it was angry and hateful, full of the desire to kill him, but with that ‘terrifying’ snake around, it was scared and doesn’t want to fight. 

The ferret ran with full force and Marcel chased after it. Marcel was unsure what to do at first, with the beast’s immense speed and small body easy to evade, but he thought of something eventually. 

“Freezing it should work!” He spoke, channeling soul power to attack it. 

“Don’t! Ice sends them into a berserk state, same as water. If you don’t want to die, try something else. Its power is almost A-class when berserk.” The snake warned. 

If that’s the case, then what should he do. Well, since it’s a fire beast but water or ice doesn’t work against it, then lightning? No, lightning is compatible with fire. It would do less to no damage if its pelt is fire-resistant enough.  

“Will wind blades work against that thing? Or earth?” He asked. 

“The wind is fast enough, but not very accurate. You’ll just make it feel more threatened and activate its berserk mechanism.” 

“And ea--” 

“No, use either! That thing’s back is built to be durable. It’ll just revert to its rock form. Skewing it with lightning won’t work either.” 

As Marcel thought of how to attack it, he suddenly had an idea, 

“What about a blade of darkness? Would that work?” The snake nodded. 

“Certainly!” He molded his soul power, changing its inherent nature to that of darkness, and created the blade. Afterward, he struck at the running ferret. This attack produced some, um... unexpected results. 

When hit with the darkness blade, the ferret split, however, it didn’t die. A clone of the ferret was generated from the fatal chop right through its body. 

“Oh no! We’ve got a mutated soul on our hands!” The snake said, its face darkened. 

“Huh?” 

“It’s a soul like you and me.” The snake answered. 

A mutated soul is a soul that deviates from the norm, basically, Marcel and everyone around him, especially those of divine origin, this snake who can transfer its soul to possess people and this ferret, with a tenacious soul capable of splitting into clones to increase its likelihood of survival. 

“Is that rare?” The clueless guy asked. He looked worried. 

“Actually... not at all.” The snake answered with a straight face, “One-third of all creatures in this world have a mutated soul of some sort.” 

“Oh... THEN DON’T MAKE IT SOUND BAD!” He yelled. 

“Well, it’s only bad if it’s your opponent with the mutated soul. Who knows what kind of trick they’ll pull?” The snake replied. 

“What do we do? What do we do?” Marcel panicked. Now that just slicing this thing isn’t going to work because, heh, usually splitting once is a sign that they can do it again, he was unsure of what action to take. He was saving himself some effort. This ferret's mutated soul's ability was replication from its damaged parts.

The snake gave some advice, though... "Use the fucking flames, I gave you!”  

It spoke in a manner that made Marcel feel very hurt. After that, it criticized him for panicking when things didn’t go his way for what felt like a long time, foul-mouthed the entire time without holding back at all.  

It spoke any insult that came to mind from looking at Marcel, talking as if he didn’t deal with off-the-rails situations almost all the time.  

Also, what’s this stupidly strong force that’s constantly pressuring it, telling it to change its mind about Marcel? He held an obvious grudge! He will never willingly forgive the bastard called Marcel, though, cooperating so that it can get out of his place is a must. This, it reminded itself. 

This little of theirs took about two minutes and Marcel was still chasing the ferret, or ferrets all the while 

“Hey, don’t curse at me!” Marcel was finally fed up with this serpent. 

“You’re being stupid! Of course, I can curse you! My skill; use the green flames. It burns the soul. Since I’m here, you can probably call its power.” It made itself clear for Marcel to understand. 

“But what help will it do? That thing can generate soul clones!” Marcel wasn’t sure how anything was going to be solved when it could just split to form a new soul. 

“Fool! Don’t you realize it takes the remnants of the past soul to create a new one? Just burn it all and it’ll have nothing to create from. As simple as the ‘Wonders of Magic Manifestation’.” The snake spoke. Its words, however, surprised him. 

“Wait? How do you know that?” Marcel raised his eyebrows. This is something only he’s supposed to know. It was the first-ever book in this world he found so simple, even a 10-year-old version of himself could understand. 

“Ah! Why am I stuck inside a smart but stupid person like you? You feed me well, so I’ll let it slide! It’s because my soul has become a part of yours and I’m slowly gaining access to your memories. We’re merging, as much as I hate to admit it, stupid!”  

The moment those words came out of the snake’s mouth, everything made sense to it. Why it could talk, freely consume Marcel’s energy, and could understand things that it shouldn’t know. All these things were gifts from the person he’s merging with. It’s been a ‘what’s mine is yours’ kind of situation since the moment that mysterious force let it live inside its current host. Its core has already been hijacked and still is.

“What? But aren’t you supposed to just be living inside my body?” Marcel didn’t believe it. 

“Now’s not the time for a conversation! You need to defeat that thing before it destroys your spiritual body and me along with you. Get to it!” ‘Snakey Marcel’ commanded again. They can deal with the matter of merging at some other time. Now, their priority is to leave and go their separate ways, one a dweller of the outside world; the other, a slouchy energy glutton inside the former. 

“Fine! Fine! Let’s do this!” Marcel called forth the Green Flames of the [Poisonous Three-Colored Inferno Serpent] skill and it worked. They appeared while he was in his spiritual body, ready to singe their enemies. He’d never realized that some skills could still be used after one’s spirit exited the body. 

Duh, the soul’s the vessel for many things, including one’s skills. Of course, you can use the soul-related ones while in your spiritual body. 

Anyway, Marcel used the green flames, a little at a time as it drained soul power. It hurt the poor ferret, causing it to divide its soul into two once again.  

Marcel tried harder, draining more soul power to create bigger green fireballs to destroy the clones. It destroyed one of its bodies completely, leaving nothing behind for a new clone to be created from. The ferret was scared, so it ran faster, away from those two ‘scary people’.  

Marcel chased the poor thing, aiming soul-burning fireballs at it as it ran. Some hit it, causing it to split but weren’t accurate enough to cause complete disintegrate. At this rate, every successful attack he launched was going to produce another soul clone. He had to do this fast and kill them all at the same time, but how does one go about doing that? There were currently 16 ferrets. 

And that’s when multi-casting comes in hand. At this point, he can cast two spells at a time, like in Tharrelan. If he stringently divided his attention as he did during the Oni Banquet, he could create at least nine more spells at most after pushing his limits, making the total of spells produced at a time a total of twelve. Because he would be doing this in his spiritual body, he doesn’t have to worry about physical straining. 

Twelve spells, however, will drain his soul power even further but what’s he to do. He still isn’t used to casting spiritual spells on enemies, and he wasn’t sure if [Crushing Fear] and [Golden Lion’s Roar] would work in here, so this is all he can do. He’ll drain himself of soul power to defeat the ferret, then test the two other soul-related skills he possesses when he’s done with this. 

Putting his plan into motion, aiming the twelve spells at the 16 ferrets running around in different directions across their habitat. He successfully hit and incinerated 13 of them. The last three were even more scared and tried escaping but Marcel mustered the last of his soul power to destroy them. He heaved a sigh of relief. This battle was finally over. No more frantically chasing ferrets as they run for their lives. Now they could finally return home after this world cracked and shot them out of the cube. 

The battle went oddly well, though he had to suffer a lot of verbal abuse along the way. He could swear he took more damage from the snake being foul-mouthed than he did in his battle against the cockatrice and a lot of other monsters combined.  

Everything was great! This little adventurer was fun. It was nice to have a companion to traverse the illusory dungeon space with someone. It was always so lonely when he went inside and left alone. Although he didn’t like the verbal abuse, the snake was mostly good company, if it kept its mouth shut or was explaining something, that is. 

After their little adventure came to an end, the mysterious force pushed the snake to reconsider its opinion of Marcel. You know what it hates most about hearing the force beckon it to change its mind? It’s that, strangely enough, it was right! It thought that Marcel wasn’t as bad as he thought.  

Why though? Well, Marcel was a relatively good host to be in. Considering everything that happened between them, he feeds it a buffet regularly, it never has to worry about going hungry and might even have a chance at gaining a body again someday. Also, speaking to this person was good stress relief. Um, abusing him was fun? After spouting whatever came to its mind directly at him, it found itself with low negative energy. Also, eh... how do I say this? If it leaves his body, it isn’t sure it can adapt to the outside world again. 

Inside Marcel’s body, permeates premium, refined energy; the type whoever got a taste was soon drunk on. He wasn’t any different. Living in Marcel's body meant it could live a very decadent life without any worries. Putting all factors together, Marcel really wasn’t bad at all. He fed him, relieved its stress, and purged negative thoughts. Marcel was its perfect wife? Slave? It wasn’t sure. 

Since this might be the last time they ever interacted physically, or spiritually with each other, the two decided to not say anything to ruin the moment. They both savored the moment, their collaboration and victory together. No insults, blaming each other, or calling each other names. Just appreciating each other’s presence with a silent goodbye.  

As much as they hated each other, at this moment, they thought of how much they were going to miss each other. For some reason, however, saying a proper goodbye would make the initiator a loser in their eyes. 

And like that, the dungeon space crumbled around them, sending them both back to their original locations, Marcel, outside the cube, and the snake, into Marcel’s soul. 

* * *

Unfortunately for the two of them, their goodbye was short-lived. They soon found out that their adventurers through illusory dungeons were far from over. 

When Marcel next picked up another and his spiritual body was summoned into the dungeon space, the snake found itself summoned along with him. 

“Fuck!!!” It cried after this realization. And it tagged along with Marcel on all his spiritual, illusory, and sometimes, semi-physical adventures ever since; definitely not that after a while, it liked being summoned or anything! Nope, it ‘definitely’ didn’t want to be summoned at all!