—Sally—

  For the first time since being thrown into this cruel world, I woke feeling… Okay—not great, but not aching, sore, or on the brink of death either. I stretched a bit and sank a bit into the pillow I slept on, eventually deciding to lazily open an eye and pull u[ the system, to check my health now that I'd slept after the fight.

  That’s amazing, how’d I recover so fast?

  Suddenly my pillow moved, and I was forced to shift to stay upright-

  Wait, moved? I opened my eyes fully and inspected my surroundings more carefully. It didn't take more than a second to realise that it wasn’t a nice cushion that I was lying on, but a lap. My eyes followed the legs up to the bloody and ripped shirt, past the six-pack, and up to a familiar Ranger's face.

  With a surprised yelp I tumbled off of Orion’s lap, feeling pretty perturbed that I’d somehow been dragged into his lap again, this time while unconscious. I couldn't let this become routine, for the sake of my pride and so that people didn't make an incorrect assumption.

  But my attention was dragged away from the continuous violations of my personal space by the giant golden rod that I'd been lying next to. The one that was sticking out of his stomach—I wasn't a pervert, or gay.

  A sword was embedded deep in his flesh, blood flowing non-stop past the failing dam of a bandage. His breathing was ragged and wet, struggling and strained from the injuries.

  For a few seconds I just stared, silently shocked by the gore in front of me. For the first time since I met the Ranger, our positions were reversed. There was a bit of schadenfreude in seeing the man—who’d been partially responsible for so much pain and suffering in my life—being in so much pain.

  I crept a bit closer to the Ranger, and hesitantly tapped the blade, the metal making a satisfying ringing noise while Orion groaned in pain.

  I quickly retreated as the Ranger neared consciousness for a few moments, before he fell back into his uneasy slumber. I inspected his injury the best I could from a distance that didn’t make me feel too nauseous. Apart from what looked like incomplete basic first aid, the wound was disturbingly fresh and untreated. A puddle of blood had formed around Orion, and it'd already become dry and cracked, and the blood around the wound seemed to refuse to coagulate. It was like the sword had a mosquito-like effect, sapping the blood and life out of the Ranger without letting him heal.

  I wonder… Would [Appraisal] work on anything? It did work on system concepts, so why not an object.

  [Using [Appraisal – Lvl 1] on: Sacrificial Dagger]

  [Sacrificial Dagger – Level 50 Weapon]

  [An enchanted dagger, made to drain creatures of their essence through their blood]

  Ooh, I’d hate to be him, and it looks like he can’t even reach the end of the dagger to deactivate it.

  My first instinct was to help, to get the dagger out of him and assist him out of the goodness of my heart. But… would that be the best choice for me?

  If he died in this cave… would I still be his ‘animal companion’? Would I be free? And he did put me through a whole bunch of shit, a genuine collection of the worst experiences I’ve ever had. He helped kill my new parents, and played a part in the turn that twisted my reincarnation story into a genuine horror story.

  This could have been a perfect—hell, even stereotypical—Isekai experience, with all of the bells and whistles of a system and good fate for the future set in stone. Even now that I know that I could still get that dream story for myself, the all-powerful skills and a perfect ending, I still kind of hate them. The people who killed my new parents, and then kicked me, objectively ruining my ‘new’ life.

  And one of them was right in front of me.

  Now, I’m not saying I was going to kill him. It’s just that I don’t have to help.

  I could just wander off into the darkness of the cave and trust that I’ll figure it out, survive off of whatever I can find down here. I could make it work, scrape by with the bare minimum and hunt more rats if I got hungry. I know that it's not guaranteed to be fine, but I trust that I could work it out. I mean, my new life has already gone from good to bad to slightly-above-bad in the course of a day. I know that there must be some sort of plot in place.

  And all of that adds up to the choice of whether to be a good Samaritan and help Orion, or leave him on the floor, to the whims of whatever godly being manages this world.

  Did he deserve to die… Maybe. But I could need him.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  As much as it pains me to think it, he probably thinks of me as a pet—an infant that can’t really take care of itself. And if the experience with the rat is anything to go by, I’m not exactly a killing machine. Yet.

  While the bar's been set really low so far, at least Orion hasn't lowered it any further. He was the nicest of the humans that brutally murdered the rest of my new family, and stopped that bitch from messing with me unnecessarily. That woman made me feel a whole new kind of sympathy for the animals stuck in petting zoos.

  Orion could be my ticket to making my problem with being completely helpless—at least until I grow into something a bit more fearsome, far less painful. And an ally in this world would also help me get where I need to go, a lot more comfortably than the alternative of having to do it myself.

  Fuck it, I don’t have to like the man, but he could be the ticket to my survival in this hell-hole, and I could always ditch him later if he’s that bad.

  With my decision made, I carefully climbed up onto the Ranger’s thigh, using the height it gave me to reach the end of the lengthened dagger. It was yet another pitiful reminder that I was tiny compared to my previous size, and to the Ranger—I was barely able to reach the hilt, and it was less than half a meter up from where I was standing.

  I poked and prodded at the handle, feeling around for what should be a button to retract the blade. After pushing around on the wrist-guard of the blade and getting no reaction, I stretched up even further. I had to shift my weight from the weird pads on the bottom of my feet—lizard replacements for toes—and up onto the tips of my talons.

  Though, with my weight being shifted onto the dagger, Orion groaned in pain again. With a silent apology I continued my work, systematically working my way up the handle, until I reached the circle tacked onto the end, the feature noticeably sticking out unnecessarily.

  I pushed at the button as hard as I could, and with a click the blade abruptly shrank to a third of its original size. With the loss of my main pillar of support, the dagger and I tumbled onto Orion’s surprisingly firm chest before clattering onto the floor.

  I shook my head to rid myself of the confusion from the sudden fall, as Orion let out a sigh of relief, his muscles losing some of their tension.

  After carefully kicking the dangerous weapon far enough away that I couldn’t accidentally nick myself, I inspected Orion to see if he was okay. With a grimace I removed the blood-soaked piece of cloth that had been covering the wound, tossing it aside as I witnessed the gruesome wound beneath.

  There was a gaping hole in his stomach that was constantly weeping blood, and the eye shaped pit looked worryingly serious—the 'die in a couple of minutes' level of severity. But as I watched him slowly bleed out, the flood of red slowly abated, and I watched the frankly disgusting act of the flesh beginning to scab at an alarming rate. It looked like all of the natural healing that the dagger had stopped from working, had returned at an accelerated pace.

  With a little gag I cut a bit more cloth off of his quickly disintegrating shirt with a claw and used it to cover the wound, dredging up my old memories of practising first aid. When I finished wiping away the excess blood on his skin, the wound had already stopped bleeding. I was surprised at how fast it'd happened—but I wasn't a doctor, so maybe it was natural?

  With a shrug I decided to go along with the rest of the first aid process, even if there wasn't much point in doing it for someone with the apparent tenacity of a cockroach. With some cloth placed over the wound, I managed to slip another band of the bandage around his waist and over the covering, tying it down to secure it.

  I took a step back from him to admire my handiwork, and if the rapid healing was anything to go by, he should live. And then for the first time—while fully conscious—I took in the sight of the Ranger's body in all its gory glory.

  He was certainly muscular, but not in a way that suggested wasted hours at the gym, it reminded me of someone who spent most of their time working with their body for a job. Toned and lean, an almost effortless grace to his every muscle, like he had just ended up with them by accident.

  The sight of him set my heart beating fast with jealousy. His tanned skin and handsome face had probably landed him with a few easy girlfriends, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more than that. He had the looks to get pretty much whatever he wanted.

  That and the view of his shirt gave—its already begun its metamorphosis into a crop top. The amount of fabric that'd been ripped off had made it… drafty. It reminded me of that female video game archetype that had certain types of people drooling over pixels, the same people also complaining if anyone dares call the clothing choices unrealistic. A male Lara Croft, dirty and with clothes torn in all the right ways, making the damage look like a stylistic choice instead of an accident.

  I shook my head clear of the quickly degrading train of thought before it got any stranger, a new ding from the system helping with that.

  [Congratulations, Your feelings of [cynical transactional assistance, vengeful bitterness from abuse, and jealousy], have caused your [Soul Bond], to evolve.]

  [Orion will now develop physical traits both useful to caring for you, and as a bonus, aesthetically pleasing in your view. The severity of the changes depends on the difference in [Soul] between you and Orion.]

  Oh wow, now this is interesting. So this [Soul Bond] can cause changes in the both of us, and it does it based off of feelings? And because I want Orion to help me, he’s going to physically change so he’s better at it?

  There is so much I can do with this, could I just start thinking of Orion as ‘useful’ to me in a certain light, and he’ll become a more 'useful' servant? What sort of feelings would even result in that? And could those changes affect him mentally? The system had already messed with my memories—albeit imperfectly—but could it change someone's personality?

  It did make me feel guilty, thinking about leveraging this discovery into manipulating Orion's personality, an ethical line that I shouldn't cross. But the hesitation quickly went away when I remembered why I was here in the first place.

  I don't think faking the emotions would work, as the system is sharp when it comes to the nuances of feelings—excluding the whole 'jealousy' thing. Hmm…

  I remember reading a novel a while ago that had a side-character that's inherently evil, that asks someone how to be a good person, and how to want to be better. They are simply told that acting like how they thought a good person would is a start, and the gratitude and satisfaction of doing so would follow in time.

  While the logic of taking a random book's suggestion is sketchy, I'm already practically in one, and it feels like it could work. If I just genuinely tried to act like Orion was my servant, and I eventually started to believe it, then the system should change him to fill that role. If my five or so assumptions leading to this conclusion weren't wrong that is.

  It was a choice that made me feel a bit dirty, but Orion wasn't innocent, and he'd already messed with my memories, and maybe even my soul. He'd already fucked me over in so many ways in this life already, so trying to even the playing field is only fair. Besides, he doesn't deserve my sympathy, if he does end up changed because of this, then he had it coming for forcing the [Soul Bond] on me.

  Another important thing is how the system describes [Soul Bond], I suppose that this also works inversely, if I manipulate—fuck, it feels strange to plot about manipulating people—him to think of me as strong or big or powerful, will I become that? Though it’s not like the changes are exactly equivalent to the feelings. It’s not like jealousy related to giving Orion ‘physical traits useful for caring for me’, if anything they slightly contradict each other.

  So, if the change is influenced by the fact [Soul Bond] came from [Animal Companion], then maybe all changes will revolve around the idea of 'Animal caring'? Or is it just determined from the sum of the feelings? Because the system’s final decision on how to evolve the [Soul Bond] was in the same vein as how I would've wanted. While I’m not audacious enough to try and argue with the system about how it’s technically wrong about how I feel, I can see that it's not wildly inaccurate either.

  I mean jealousy? I… I guess I can see that?

  Well, of course the system could've observed it—now that I give it some thought—how could any real man not be jealous of those muscles? But what confused me, is where it got the notion that my emotions about them are that strong or intense. My feelings about his appearance aren't that special or unique, especially when compared to the other two it listed. The descriptions of them were precise, without any vagueness, and they were intense emotions, they were the distillation of the effects of the past day's events on my psyche. They also are directly related to the final change it made to the [Soul Bond], purposeful emotions that caused an evolution directly tied to them.

  And jealousy, the only thing left for it to have caused is to add the words, 'aesthetically pleasing', to the mutation. While ignoring the scary implication that it changed someone's appearance on a whim for no other reason than a passing thought from me, it doesn't add up why it'd make that change. I'm jealous, and that obviously means that I don't want him to be any hotter. So would the system do one thing I want and one I'd hate? There's no consistency to it.

  With a sigh, I gave up trying to decipher the meanings and actions of a broken system, and slunk away from the unconscious man. I gathered the remaining shards of wood in my mouth and dumped them onto the waning fire, promptly lying next to it when I finished. I happily absorbed the heat emanating off of it as I curled up into a ball.

  Though I should begin to plan on what to do with Orion and the [Soul Bond], enough speculating on how it works.

  I should start to act like I depend on Orion, making sure that he sees me as someone to protect. If I mix that with trying to be useful, that should project a good image of myself onto Orion. If he feels both that I need to be helped and nurtured, and that I can be useful, then it should produce better evolutions for me.

  And if I just continue to think about Orion in the same way I've already started to, then everything should work out perfectly.

  A grin formed on my face as I sat next to the fire, the heat from it seeping into me and joining a rising feeling of certainty in me. My resolution from when I woke up was already coming true. I might've hit rock bottom, but the story is already getting back on track and the future is starting to look brighter already.

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