Reincarnated as the Monster of all Monsters

It took many minutes of carrying before Luisa stopped her coughing and it was lucky that she did, as Hanna was reaching the end of her tether regarding Luisa and having to carry her around, so once she saw Luisa had stopped, she promptly let go and Luisa landed face first in the dirt below.

Hanna ignored the weak and muffled protest at the action, choosing to simply continue walking, Luisa would catch up with her eventually and she didn’t want to deal with Luisa right now, for she had far more important things on her mind and adding Luisa‘s complaints would help her understand anything.

Questions upon questions flooded Hanna‘s mind as she aimlessly walked through the plains before her, the occasional houses or farms she came across showing very clear signs of being abandoned in a hurry, probably due to the still ongoing war, with the usual occupants choosing the safety of a nearby city, she briefly contemplated to simply take one of the houses as her own, but she quickly disregarded that idea, since the original occupants could always return and, based on how well they are connected, their disappearance would most definitely raise a few eyebrows, maybe not directly after the war has ended, but Hanna doubts anyone would return to their houses in the open plains, unless they have a unmistakable assurance no war would be coming back.

There was also the simple possibility that an army might just March through this area at one point, possibly a battle could take place here and Hanna most definitely didn’t want to be stuck in the middle if that happened. As much as the pain and misery a large scale battle would produce was tempting, Hanna wasn’t about to risk her own life in such a way anymore.

The way Hanna understood her situation, prior to waking up in that prison cell, she hadn’t been in full control of her body, partially being controlled by the spirit of the first Margenko that had become a divine like entity. This entity further claimed that she did not posses a soul and if it wasn’t for that spirit, the world itself would have obliterated her. That much was somewhat simple to understand, but everything else wasn’t.

What had changed about her was easy enough to see, so easy in fact that Luisa had pointed it out to her, she still very much enjoyed the pain and misery of others and she did still enjoy being the cause for that pain and agony, but the way she felt this pleasure was different somehow.

Back then it had been a basic need to her, if she didn’t get to experience those negative emotions it would affect her rather severely, she would grow tired and she would slow down both physically and mentally and she expects if she didn’t experience them over a longer period of time, she would outright die, experience negative emotions was on the same level to her, as eating or drinking was to any other living thing.

When she first awoke in this world, she had read a book had claimed that her race feeds on negative emotions, she believed it didn’t actually equate to eating and drinking.

Now however she didn’t feel anything of the sort, now she simply felt amused, like watching a dog chasing a ball that was never thrown, when she had slowly drilled her claws into that mans flesh and saw how he withered in pain, screaming his lungs out for help that simply didn’t come, rather then feeling the gratification of a hearty meal, she simply felt entertained.

But what did that mean? She definitely wasn’t in full control, after all she most definitely hadn’t been a sadist in her old life, that she knew for a fact, so something else must still be influencing her mind right? Was it her race? Maybe Dark Margenko simply didn’t posses the physical capability to feel remorse? But that wouldn’t explain why she enjoyed the pain of others, so something else then.

Hanna‘s thoughts ended abruptly as she felt something heavy hit her body and she stumbled to the ground.

"Ah, my apologies I didn’t see you there. Or maybe you simply didn’t see me? Who knows hmmm?~" A rather low pitched male voice spoke.

Looking up, she was met with the sight of a rather small looking individuals staring down at her, his entire being was covered by black garments making him hard to spot in the starless night sky, his head was covered by a large black hood hiding his face except for two large red eyes and if Hanna squinted enough she could make out a smirk underneath that hood.

In one of his hands he was holding a large scythe with a long black blade adorned with skull imagery.

In other words she was staring at a perfect recreation of what she believed a bad grim reaper cosplay would look like.

“Hey now, I put a lot of effort into my look! And you aren’t even wearing anything, so you don’t even have the right to talk at all!"

"Oh great another person that can read my mind, I have been meeting a lot of those lately…"

"I mean… you do have a godly entity inside of your body and are currently in the process of completely assimilating her into your own being, of course your gonna attract a lot of people of our status dear sister."

Hanna blinked once, opened her mouth a few times without saying a word, and then proceeds to simply stare at the… thing, he definitely wasn’t human, and said nothing. The thing simply gave her another half hidden smirk and presented his hand for her to shake.

"Oh dear, seems you didn’t get to ask your questions to her yet… well it‘s definitely not my place to answer your questions but I can answer at least some of them, if you let me. My name his Paul and I am Death, please to meet you!"

This was her breaking point, nothing made sense to her anymore and she could feel an upcoming headache from it all. Why was everything turning so confusing?! She can’t believe her turning into a different race and therefore becoming a sadistic psychopath was the easiest thing to understand in this entire ordeal!

For the first time since arriving in this world, Hanna felt like crying, in the span of just a single conversation, her entire existence got turned upside down and now she simply felt overwhelmed with everything around her, she wasn’t guided by the instincts of her Margenko passenger inside her body and now everything simply felt so much larger then her.

She felt lost and confused and she absolutely hated this feeling.

Either choosing to simply ignore her very obvious signs of being completely lost and not understanding a thing, or simply being to oblivious to notice them, the thing calling itself Death simply began talking again, his hand still outstretched waiting for a handshake that wasn’t going to happen.

"I‘ll try and get over this as simply as possible okay? As you have been summoned by an imperfect summoning scroll you‘ve lost your soul, you know that much right? Welllll, that is not possible, because nothing can exist without a soul, everything got it, even the rocks and the leaves of a tree, everything got a soul! Now of course your hole got stuffed by that divine first Margenko that was fleeing the other gods at the time, but you see, your hole being filled prevented you from being torn to pieces by the world itself, but it didn’t mean you had a soul!

Think of it like food on a plate, if some one put a picture of food on your plate, you would have food on your plate, but you wouldn’t have food on your plate right?! You should understand that at least!"

Even if she hadn’t been in such an emotional unstable state, she wouldn’t have understood that explanation, but Hanna was busy trying to keep her overflowing emotions at bay to prevent a total meltdown, which stopped her from mentioning that fact to Paul, who took her silence as confirmation and continued his talk, that was rather close to bringing Hanna over the edge.

"So basically, you still lack a soul, it since nothing can exist without one, your body is trying to rectify that mistake by taking in everything it can reach and transforming it into a new soul, which would completely alter your self from what you have been previously, at least according to previous cases where someone lost pieces of their soul, due to some cursed weapons or something similar. Their souls reformed themselves but the particularly took on characteristics or traits they often witnessed around themselves during that reforming process!

For example: there was that one guy who chased an wizard all around the continent, he got him eventually, but was struck by a cursed dagger in his leg, he had been brought to a sheep farm to recover and once he did, he actually started to develop a rather large appetite for grass and he started to grow white hair all around his body!"

"P-please stop talking…"

"Or that one brat that got stabbed by a cursed wooden stake, yes that really exists, and then a bunch of bats decided that his unconscious body was a great place to rest each day and when he woke up he had turned into what is now know as a vampire, or that one girl who…"

He kept on blabbering about other examples that were just like her, not that it was helping in any way or form, if anything it made it all just that much more terrifying…

She hadn’t believed it was possible anymore, but of course the self proclaimed manifestation of death did it, Hanna actually felt terrified by something, the hopelessness she was feeling right now at not knowing what was happening, what‘s going to happen to her, it absolutely terrified her and for the first time she mourned the fact that she actually wasn’t controlled by the divine spirit inside of her, under her control she didn’t have to fear the unknown, when she was under the control of the spirit she couldn’t fear the unknown, all that mattered was her needs that demanded to be satisfied, nothing more and nothing less, there had been no room for worries or thoughts of the future, only the here and now mattered.

It was a simple and easy life compared to now.

"…and judging by the fact that she is currently dissolving inside of you, I guess your gonna take a lot of inspiration from her in your new soul, but again, I really don’t know, it the first time something like this had happened and trust me if I wasn’t needed so desperately all over the world I would stick to you and find out, because judging from the way everything is looking in your core right now, I‘d give you at most 20 minutes before the new soul is fully formed, but alas, people are dying and I already play a rather dangerous game by staying around you for so long and talking to you, the world doesn’t like it if I stop my duties for this long, so for now, toddles."

In an explosion of dark smoke, Paul disappeared, not that Hanna noticed or even able to notice in the first place, as she had collapsed after she heard that she would barley have 20 minutes before something completely unknown would happen to her very being.

She went down an endless spiral of thoughts about how her very core of her being was about to be completely altered into something completely unrecognisable. Would she become a mindless shag of a person, endlessly roaming around with no mind or purpose?

What if she inherits the divine position of that bitch inside of her, that she was apparently absorbing, would she then immediately be found and killed by the other divine’s?

These and many more similar thoughts were racing through her mind one at a time, making her more and more terrified by the second, a very small quite and rational part of her tried to remind her that, just because it never happened before doesn’t mean it was necessarily something negative that would happen to her, but against the might of fear it didn’t stand a chance and it was pushed far back into Hanna‘s mind, where it could never be heard.

Hanna wanted to scream and run, hide away from all the terrible and terrifying things that could happen to her, and so she did, she ran aimlessly around the dark forest, no goal or destination in mind, she just needed to run and get away! Obviously it was all pointless, but she did so anyway, stumbling over bushes and branches, cutting at her own skin whenever a bush of thorns was in the way, behind her, her black blood burned away at the ground or any plants that were unfortunate enough to come into contact with it.

Eventually her legs, and every cut across her body felt like it was burning, but she kept on running away from something deep down she knew she couldn’t escape from, but in her terrified mind she just kept on running.

Suddenly, there was a great pain in her chest, she ignored it at first and continued to run, but the pain simply became more and more intense, eventually forcing her to stop and gasp for air at the pain she was feeling, but it only got worse and worse.

She clutched her hands around her chest, her claws digging into her own flesh, but the pain from that was nothing compared to the pain she felt hammering away in her chest.

She fell to the ground moaning in agony and gasping for air, she was now frantically scratching at her own chest, to rip out whatever was causing her this incredible amount of pain, all around her, parts of her own flesh littered the floor, smoke rose into the air as her blood burned away anything it came into contact with, but it was all for naught, the pain wouldn’t end and adrenaline and fear could only keep you going for so long.

Her movements slowed down and shortly after almost ceased completely, except for the thrashing around on the floor, but even that was slowing down by now.

Her vision was growing blurry, at the edges she could make out a blackness. She started to hear screams, or maybe she just thought she was hearing them, was she even thinking at that point? She wasn’t sure and it was becoming more and more difficult to even remember breathing, had she taken a breath the last few moments? She did not know.

Didn’t want to know, as everything around her became ever more slow, her pain and agony only ever increased, everything from keeping her eyes open from forming a simple thought, was overridden by incredible pain.

And then, she fell into a well of blackness, with no end insight.