Arthur stared for a few seconds at the dead giant in front of his eyes. Blood dripped slowly from his left arm, and the weapon in his right hand was still smoking.
After a few seconds, Arthur dropped the weapon to the ground, fatigue took over his body, his vision became blurred, and his wounds were serious, he was in a lot of pain. However, he was still trying to stay conscious with all his strength.
'This is not a dream, right.' He had been convincing himself that he was dreaming all this time, but he had already reached his limit, the pain in his body, the blood, the tiredness, it was all too real to ignore, and to make it all worse. There was an annoying system alert in front of him.
[His mana level has dropped to 0.]
[If he doesn't increase his mana level, he could die]
This alert had been in front of him quite some time ago. However, he had been ignoring it until he could make sure he was "safe.".
"Shit." Arthur felt resigned, he had fought with everything he had trying to survive, and when it was over, the system would tell him he was going to die, was that fair?
His knees no longer resisted the weight of his body, making him fall onto them in a thud against the ground.
'There has to be some solution, it can't end like this.' He thought. Arthur was not willing to give in even until the last moment he would try to keep his conscience.
[The sovereign's gift has been activated]
[A soul has been found]
[Absorbing it will give you 100 permanent mana]
[Do you wish to absorb it?]
[Yes] [No]
As if it wanted to respond to his words, the system suddenly let out a strange alert startling, Arthur.
For a moment, he left all his tiredness behind and saw clearly, again, in an attempt to read the system.
'Absorb the soul?' He didn't like the idea of absorbing souls, but he had no other options either, his time was running out, and he could feel it, at any moment, he would fall, and he might not wake up again.
So after a determined sigh, he accepted.
As soon as he accepted, thousands of dark purple particles began to form on the body of the giant in front of him until he was completely covered.
In an instant, all the particles began to rise together in a smooth motion, seeming to be dancing in the air. Underneath, the unmistakable body of the giant had disappeared, as if the small particles had, completely consumed it.
The scene in front of his eyes had captivated him, the beauty they gave off in the middle of their dance made him feel as if, he was in a magical world.
*thump*
Suddenly his heart beat with great force making him feel a great pain in the next moment all the particles were attracted to his chest as if they were attracted by a magnet.
"AAAGH," Arthur screamed in pain, falling to the ground while grabbing his head with his healthy hand. The moment those particles entered through his chest, different emotions and thoughts started going through his head at the same time.
Because of this, he was enduring much worse pain than physical pain. The strange thing is that all those emotions and thoughts were not from him.
The anguish and fear that the soul owner had gone through were attacking him as if they were fighting for their own survival. It was an unpleasant feeling.
After a while of enduring this, the pain slowly began to subside until it disappeared completely as if it had never been there.
When the pain disappeared, Arthur felt better than before. He was still tired, but it was different. He no longer had that feeling that if he didn't do something, he would end up dying.
To confirm. Arthur looked at the system again.
[Mana: 100/1100]
His mana had been charged to 100 as well as the maximum, before he had 1000 now, he had another 100 more.
[Another soul has been found]
[Absorbing it will give you 100 mana permanently]
[Do you wish to absorb it?]
[Yes] [No]
Again, the same alert appeared in front of him, surprising him. 'This must be the soul of the other person.' He thought, however, his life was no longer in danger, so he was not willing to suffer the same thing again instead he decided to look for information about this in the system.
With his mind, he began to move as if he had known the system for years. For some reason, he knew how to use it perfectly. In an instant, he found what he was looking for, but there wasn't much information.
[Forbidden skill!]
[Soul Absorption: By absorbing a soul, you will receive a certain amount of mana depending on the species or how strong the owner of it is]
[Forbidden skill!]
For some reason, there were signs saying that the skill was forbidden everywhere, and the information that there was very scarce no matter how hard I looked, I hadn't found anything, this disappointed Arthur.
Then he went back to alert and refused to accept the soul, he knew that if he wanted to become strong. He should have accepted it, but everything that happened had left him too exhausted. He preferred to focus on the wounds in his body before continuing.
The moment he selected "No." another system prompt appeared in front of him.
[The soul will be safeguarded until it has a use].
Soon, the same situation happened again as with the other body, but unlike the previous one, this time, the particles disappeared into thin air.
[Souls: 1]
In a corner of the system, a soul counter suddenly appeared.
'Apparently, souls won't be released to one that doesn't absorb them.' Arthur felt bad about this, it didn't seem right to him to keep people's souls.
*Groowwl*
As he lay on the floor, his stomach began to growl. He still had not eaten anything and had spent too much energy.
Arthur gathered his strength and struggled to his feet. He had the kitchen only a few feet away, so he wouldn't have to endure it for a while.
As he approached the refrigerator, he began to think about all the strange things that had happened, 'So I was reincarnated in my own body?' Slowly he began to remember everything that had happened, until he remembered the images that the mysterious woman had shown him in that forest.
Arthur opened the fridge and grabbed some chips he had in storage, it was pretty empty so he didn't have much choice, then he sat down to enjoy his chips on the kitchen floor. As his broken and bloody arm stained the kitchen floor.
"ARTHUR!"
A time a strange, but familiar, female scream was heard. from the hallway of the house.