Chapter 4: Other Transmigrators

“There are only two?” whispered Felix, as we started to head towards the distant sounds of combat.“Two that I can see with my soul sight and spatial sight. They’re fighting a monster,” I whispered back. “They look like they have around grade 8 in [Fortitude]. Their other physical stats look a little bit higher, although still maybe grade 10 or 11 at most.”

My friends didn’t ask me any more questions as we continued making our way towards the source of the ruckus. After walking through a few more streets, we finally approached the source of the ruckus.

In the middle of the street, two transmigrators were attacking a monster. The monster itself appeared to be some kind of giant wooden doll. If it had been dozens of times smaller, I could have easily mistaken it for something a young child might play with for fun - however, this creature was nearly three meters tall. Its life force wasn’t much higher than the two transmigrators fighting it - I estimated it to have around Grade 9 [Fortitude]. Based on its life force, speed, and power, I could probably kill it with ease - and any of my friends could do the same.

Far more interesting were the two ‘people’ fighting the wooden doll. This was because they looked like giant wolves, rather than humans. One had snow white fur, with a streak of red fur near its snout. It looked almost like a hybrid between a wolf and a fox. The other had matted, dark gray fur. The white-furred wolf ‘monster’ was constantly dodging and dancing underneath the legs of the much larger tree monster, while getting in the occasional opportunistic bite on the creature’s legs. Meanwhile, the gray wolf was considerably slower - but its bites and scratches were much stronger. Each one sank into the wooden doll’s exterior with ease before ripping away huge chunks of wooden flesh.

“Miria? Where are the transmigrators? I just see wolves fighting a wooden doll?” whispered Anise. She was still looking around, and her eyes were still sparkling with anticipation and curiosity. I chuckled.

<Those two wolves have souls shaped exactly like humanoid souls,> I said.

< Some kind of shapeshifting ability?> asked Felix.

<That’s my guess,> I said. <After all, most different kinds of animal or monster have very differently shaped and differently colored souls. However, these things look completely humanoid when I look at their souls, but look like regular wolves if I don’t use my soul sight.>

Anise’s eyes locked knot the wolves now, and she started staring at them with an intensity that made it seem like she was trying to look through the wolves instead of at them.

<Well, if they’re fellow transmigrators, should we step in to help them?> asked Anise. <If we’re planning to team up, lending a hand in a fight might not be a bad idea. It’ll show that we mean no harm, at least.>

<They might see it as encroaching on their fight and trying to steal Achievement,> said Felix. <How about we step into the middle of the street, so that we can see them, and then announce our presence? That should be enough to show that we don’t have hostile intentions.>

<What if we distract them and they get hit by the monster?> asked Anise

<We can always prevent the tree monster from seizing advantage of any gaps in their attention. I don’t think this tree monster is actually threatening enough to push past us if we actively try to defend them. Its speed and power are both quite lacking,> said Sallia. <I’m pretty confident I could chop off one of its arms in an instant if it nearly punches one of these wolves.>

<If one of them still get hurt, I can heal them,> I said. <It would be an even better way to show that we have no hostile intentions if it actually comes to that.>

<Well, if they get hurt just from that, they probably won’t be that useful in a fight for more lives, either,> said Sallia. <After all, this monster really doesn’t seem that threatening. If they struggle to fight it, they’re going to struggle a lot more with whatever is guarding the lives.>

I frowned. That… wasn’t entirely wrong, but Sallia’s analysis felt a bit too deterministic to me. There was a chance that they had unique Abilities or skills that could make them useful, even if they had an unimpressive fight or two. After all, there were a nearly limitless number of different skills and abilities we had seen in our journey so far - who was to say what these two might or might not have access to?

<In any case, I still favor announcing our presence,> said Felix. <Sneaking around their battlefield might make them think we’re looking for an opportunity to ambush them. I don’t want to spend the next half an hour trying to convince our potential allies that we aren’t out to kill them and rob them or something.>

<I agree,> I said, after a few moments of thought. Anise also assented a moment later, and finally, Sallia also nodded. The four of us descended the stairs, before Felix hollered out to the two wolves that were fighting.

“Do you two need any help?”

The white wolf’s head snapped towards us, and despite its bestial face, I could still see shock in its eyes as it glanced towards us. True to Anise’s speculation, the wooden doll took advantage of the white wolf’s lapse in concentration to throw a giant punch at it. However, the white wolf used some kind of ability to dance out of the way at the last second. I couldn’t quite tell what had happened - it was about to get punched one second, and then the next second, it was a few meters to the left. That wasn’t unusual in and of itself - after all, I had seen plenty of spatial magic before. However, the white wolf hadn’t used any spatial magic at all. Instead, it felt like something about the world itself had twisted for a fraction of a second, and that just… somehow resulted in the white wolf shifting position. I had no idea what principles it worked off of at all.

Our new potential allies had some tricks up their sleeve. Not that I expected anything else. I figured most members of the Market who were five worlds old had unusual abilities and tricks up their sleeve.

“We can manage on our own,” said the gray wolf. His tone didn’t sound like a wolf at all - instead, it sounded like a well-educated man was speaking in a pleasant baritone voice after an afternoon of sipping tea and reading books. His voice also sounded distinctly human - even though his body looked exactly like a giant gray wolf. That only reinforced the idea that they were shapeshifters.“But we appreciate the offer.”

The wooden monster roared in frustration, and tried to stomp on the gray wolf. The gray wolf grunted, and a barrier made of inky materials appeared in front of it and held the wooden doll’s weight for a fraction of a second. The white wolf seized the opportunity to pounce on it and nibble at its neck. The wooden doll tripped, nearly catapulting the white wolf into the distance, but I saw several thin tendrils of something spring out of the white wolf’s paws and keep it attached to the doll as it flopped over.

Once it was on the ground, the gray wolf leapt on top of the creature’s skull and then ripped at it. To my surprise, the creature’s skull tore away as if it were wet paper, and inside of its skull, I saw… nothing.

The gray wolf leapt inside of the monster’s hollow head. The wooden doll bellowed in pain, and struggled to slam one of its fists onto its own skull - but the white wolf hopped onto its hand and started savagely tearing at its elbow, which caused its motions to turn into disorganized spasms of motion.

A moment later, the wooden doll froze. The gray wolf strolled out of its savaged and battered head, and the two wolves reunited right next to the creature’s corpse. Then, the gray wolf’s body started to ripple. Its limbs drew back and reshaped themselves, until they turned into perfectly ordinary human limbs… except for the fact that there were four arms instead of two. A moment later, the white wolf did the same.

Standing before us now were two relatively buff men. One had gray-brown hair, four arms, and a rather gruff demeanor, while the other looked at least a decade younger, had white hair, and a much slimmer physique. The man with gray-brown hair looked like he was in his late forties, which surprised me a lot. In the Market, people had some level of control over how their body looked. I had taken advantage of that to perfect a few features of my face and body, and my friends had also shaped their own bodies based on their ideas of beauty and what they wanted their physical shape to be. For this man to appear to be in his late forties, he had to want to look like he was in his late forties.

The boy, on the other hand, looked like he was barely sixteen. The age mismatch between the two of them only heightened my confusion.

“I’m Kexley,” said the brown-haired man. “And this is my brother, Valeksi. Pleasure to meet you.”

I blinked in surprise, before I gave him a nod.

“I’m Miria. These are my friends, Felix, Anise, and Sallia.”

Kexley gave us appraising nods, before he grinned.

“I take it you’re also people who live in this rotten, broken down skeleton of a city,” he said. “Since you approached us, you must have a purpose. Shall we talk inside the store? We’ve already cleared out the guardian.”

I nodded. The six of us headed into the building. It was time to get to know these people, and see if we could work together.