Peace slowly picked himself up off the alleyway ground and found himself violently shaking.
'W-what?!'
All the revulsions and atrocities flooded his mind, which had somehow gained a newfound humanity.
Peace lurched forward on his hands and knees and began to vomit relentlessly onto the dimly lit cobblestone-paved street. Yet, despite the dim lighting, he was still assaulted by the violent array of colors flooding his mind.
A man's loud shout filled Peace's abnormally large ears.
"These three Jinn shall be punished for their abominable heresy against god!"
'What's happening?!'
For a second, Peace thought he was back on Earth, but that obviously wasn't the case.
Peace crawled to the wall of a building, stepping over a broken glass vial, while draped in a tattered brown cloak. Peace used the building as leverage and pulled himself up, only to find his line of sight had risen. Not just a little either; he was taller than he'd ever been before.
"To defile his creation with their foul presence!"
Peace stepped forward out of the shade, and the light of the sun became blinding. He held up his arm to block it.
His skin… it was a much darker shade than he'd been in life, but it was normal. It wasn't a monster anymore. Actually, his skin was unnaturally smooth, despite the grime on his body and the scrapes on his palms and the small shards of glass embedded in his skin.
"To scorn his will!"
He was no longer in the body of a monster, but he wasn't in a familiar body at all.
Curiously, Peace brought his hand to his face and started feeling the smoothness of his cheeks, which harshly contrasted with his rough skin from before. Then he slowly dragged his hands and touched his ears.
They were long and pointy, nothing like a humans…
'An elf…'
Elves in the game were known to be deathly pale, well, typical elves… Judging by his skin color, he must be…
'Did I possess a Night Elf?'
No wonder the sun seemed so blistering. The innate racial ability of a Night Elf made them weaker during the day and stronger at night. But…
What about the monster's body he was in? Surely going through all that wasn't entirely for nothing? Well, not that he would complain to have a normal humanoid body… If he did meet his sister as a monster, that reunion would probably be quite awkward…
Still, going through that harrowing and despicable experience was life-altering.
Visions of him devouring the corpse flashed through his mind, and he nearly lost himself to nausea again while thinking of the flesh's texture in his mouth.
"For the crime of stealing our youth!"
Pushing past the matter of being in a different body… he knew where he was.
Peace stepped forward, standing at where the busy plaza met the alleyway, and looked toward the crowd of people who were looking at three men at the gallows. All three prisoners were tied down with their necks stretched out.
A person with a long sword stood next to each.
Peace stared into the eyes of the gagged and crying prisoners.
"We shall sever their neck and let our children's spirits be free!"
'They're like me… I'm certain.'
He most definitely wasn't alone in his predicament.
The executioners brought down their blades, and Peace winced, but he forced himself to watch as his compatriots fell to their assassins' blades. He watched their heads fall to the floor.
It was disgusting… who could do such a thing to a person?
Peace, for some reason or another, had a mental resistance to such matters as a monster, but now, he'd somehow lost that resistance.
The crowd erupted in cheers at the slaughtered men who looked no older than he and his sister had been.
One shouted.
"Be free!"
Then another.
"Be free!"
Then another one and another one. The cascades of 'be free' continued like a choir of monks singing their mantra.
To avoid drawing suspicion, Peace tried not to let his revulsion show outwardly.
Peace didn't have the situation figured out, not at all, but the bits and pieces pushed him to believe that being covert was the best… Well, the only course of action. From what he could tell, he would most likely be killed in the same fashion if discovered.
Whether he was in the game Enemies of Corruption or not, whether others were summoned with him or not, whether his sister was here or not, the only thing he could trust at the moment was his five senses.
Even then, he knew many essences in the game which were able to fool those senses, so maybe even they weren't to be trusted.
While he didn't know what district he was in, Peace was most definitely in the last bastion of humanity untouched by corruption: the Immortal Citadel.
Peace rested against the wall of the building, and checked out the clothing under his cloak…
The tunic and long pants he wore were tattered, revealing his sleek yet muddied skin beneath. In his pants, he found a weird, balled-up note and a dozen bronze coins. He slowly unfurled the note and noticed two messages.
He read the larger phrase: 'Alea iacta est'
A little under that message was a smaller one in fine print: 'C'est la vie'
'Huh? Such… is life?'
Did the people here speak French? No, those people he heard in the forest were speaking in a tongue he's never heard before. Well, the fact that he could understand them made no sense, but he, at the very least, knew they weren't speaking a language he knew.
And what was up with that first message? Was it in Latin?
The youthful voice of a kid graced Peace's long ears
"Mommy, look! It's one of the Night!"
Peace looked up and saw a kid who was jumping in place and pointing at him. He meant to return a smile, but instead returned a gleeful death stare. He wasn't particularly in the mood for this sort of thing.
"Get away!" The mom pushed the kid's shoulders roughly. "How many times have I told you they're dangerous!"
'Dangerous?'
While he knew some dispositions and grievances were held between races, elves and humans tended to get along. So, why…
Fretting over it wouldn't reveal anything soon.
But, there was a more concerning matter. Assuming this wasn't all a dream and he'd wake up in this body the next day, the labyrinth was going to open — whether it would be his tomb or his lifeline, he wasn't quite sure. Still, he had to prepare the best he could in the coming twenty-four hours…
Assuming this world had twenty-four-hour-long days…
The game did at least.