I'm in the Feudal Era!

I’m in the FEUDAL ERA!

Chapter 14

I was surprised I was alive. It’s a bad sign when you start to think that on a regular basis. I had woken up several minutes ago and took those minutes to stare at the ceiling. At first I had thought that I was in Kaede’s hut, but as I took a brief glance around I realized that was not the case.

As I continued to lie there I felt something by my hand underneath the blanket that was covering me. It felt like hair. I took a few strands between my fingers and pulled. “Ouch!” I said while rubbing my head and sitting up. It was hair. And apparently mine. I looked down at the rest of my body and noticed other things. Not only has my hair grown outrageously long, but my breasts had grown bigger as well. And if I wasn’t mistaken I was taller as well.

‘Well.’ I thought. ‘Either one of two things had happened. I had either gotten a new body or I had been in a coma.’ I had shut my eyes and crossed my arms as I pondered this. When I opened my eyes again I noticed that there were stripes on my arms. ‘Stripes! They certainly weren’t there before.’

Just as I was about to start freaking out a man walked into the hut. He was tall and very handsome. He had beautiful forest green eyes and messy flaming red hair that came a little past his shoulders. He was pretty hot if you had a thing for red heads. At that moment I was thinking, ‘Does he know I’m not whoever this person is? And if not how will he react to me hijacking someone else’s body?’

“Relax.” The red head said. “You look like you’re about to have a heart attack.” He bent down and placed a basket beside me containing fruit. “I found you by the river. Or more precisely, that mangled thing you called a body, by the river. Honestly you humans don’t know how to take care of yourselves.”

“So you know I’m not whoever this body belongs too.” I said.

“Of course. I’m the one who put you soul in that body.” He said calmly.

“My soul!” I said startled.

“Yes. You didn’t think that was your original body did you? When I found you your body was pretty much destroyed. So on a whim of mine I took your soul as it was leaving your body and put it in this one.” He said this like there wasn’t a problem.

“But what about my body?! Did you bring it back too?” I screeched.

“I told you it was pretty much destroyed. It might have been fixable but that type of major healing is beyond my level of expertise. Not to mention you soul would have to stay in that body for me to heal it.” He said sounding a little irritated.

“I have to go find it.” I said starting to get up. ‘Maybe it can be healed my Kaede or somebody.’ I thought.

“It’s no use.” The man said. “Once a soul is taken out of a body, regardless if the soul is still in this world, that body begins to rot. Without a soul a body is nothing more than a corpse.”

“But we could at least bury it or something.” I said desperately. I didn’t like the thought of my body being left to the elements.

“Fine you win. We’ll go find your body.” He sighed.

We left the hut and walked in what I suppose was the right direction. To be honest the demon’s hut, for I’m sure that’s what he was, was not that far away from the river. We made it there in about five minutes, as soon I saw the river I rushed forward and started looking for my body. I looked and looked but I couldn’t find it. ‘How hard is it to find a body?’ I thought. “Didn’t you say it was supposed to be around here?” I questioned.

“It was right here.” He was standing at one point along the river bank.

“Well what happened to it.”

“I can think of several things.” He said calmly. “One is that it could have been swept back into the river. But I doubt it. Another is that wild animals could have eaten it. But I doubt that too.”

“And what else?” I asked.

“The most probable is that someone has taken your body.”

“Ok. I don’t like any of those options, but the third is the worst. Can you explain why you think that the other two are not possible?”

“As you can see this part of the river is calmer than the rest. It is because of that that you were able to pull yourself out of the water. You came out pretty far so the current as it is right now wouldn’t have been able to pull you back in. But if the river swelled it could have done just that. But it hasn’t rained for about a week so flooding is impossible.” He paused to see if I understood. I nodded that I did so he continued. “The second is easy enough to understand. The scents in the area suggest that no wild animals have been here. Not to mention they probably would have just eaten it here. You should be able to smell the scents too.”

He was right. I could smell something in this area. A lot of scents mingled as they got further away from the river, but at the spot where my body had been, there were only three. Two of them were very faint, one more so than the other. The third was stronger and was very pleasant to the nose. The faintest scent had a very nasty smell to it and I refused to believe I smelled like that. “That nasty scent isn’t mine right?” I asked.

“No. Strongest one isn’t your either.” He said. “What I think happened is that whoever the weakest scent belongs to is the one that took your body.”

“Why do you think that? Isn’t it just as likely that the stronger scent could have taken it as well?”

“No. Neither scent was here when I first found you. The stronger scent is newer and doesn’t really mingle with yours. Not to mention that scent continues into the forest alone, while the other two just disappear.”

“All if this is a little to much to handle.” I said. “Plus I think I’m getting a little dizzy.”

“It’s because this is too much new information for your soul. Your five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, have been heightened since that is a demons body. Your soul is being overwhelmed by trying to process all this information. You will have to stay here for the time being.” He explained.

“Why?! I need to get back to my friends!” I yelled.

“I have never put a human soul into a demon’s body before. I’m not sure if you will be able to use the powers that body has or not. I don’t think you want to find your friends and kill them by accident because you weren’t properly trained.” He said. “Look let’s go back to my hut. It is getting dark and this is a very dangerous place to be at night. I promise I will explain more once we get there. I’m sure you have plenty of questions.”

After another five minutes we made it back to his hut. When we got there I went back to the place I had woken up, and sat down. I did have a lot of questions but I wanted to think through them before I asked. I was so deep in thought that I hadn’t realized that the demon had finished making dinner. I was starving so I ate the meal provided. After dinner I was finally ready to ask my questions.

“Ok, so I was thinking about what you said. You said that without a soul a body is nothing but a corpse. If that is true what about this body? Did this body have a soul before you put mine in? Or if not how were you able to keep this body from rotting?” I asked.

“No, the body didn’t have a soul already attached to it. Under certain conditions, I am able to preserve a body to use for later.” He replied.

“Then why didn’t you do that with my body?”

“One condition to me being able to preserve the bodies is that the body in question has to be healthy. The body that you’re in now had nothing physically wrong with it. On the other hand your original body was a mangled mess. And before you ask, as I’ve already said, the level of healing that would be involved was beyond my skill.”

“Alright. So why didn’t you just take me to someone else to be healed?”

“You don’t understand how badly your body was ruined. To give you a picture of how bad it was I will say this, I did not take your soul out of your body, it had already left. All I did was capture it before it flew away.”

“So I really and truly died.” I said. The demon nodded slightly. ‘I feel like I got ripped off. I mean I didn’t see a white light or anything.’ I thought. I was kind of disappointed. It was then that I thought of something else. “If someone has taken my body that mean they plan to use it right? Is there a chance my soul could be put back into it?” I asked hopefully.

He didn’t answer at first. “Well I suppose so.” He said finally. “If that person could succeed where I could not and heal your body, I guess I could put your soul back in. Of course you would have to find it first.”

“That’s great!” I said excitedly. “That means all I have to do is find my body and bring it back here! Now that I have a goal nothing will stand in my way! Mr. Demon,” I said, “I will need your help for me to learn how to control this body.”

He sighed bemusedly. “The name’s Daisuke.” He said. “I will help you out. It’s not like I was going to let you romp around wildly with that body anyway.”

“Excellent! My name’s Amaya by the way.” I said sticking out my hand. “Nice to be working with you.”

“I feel the same.” He said taking my hand and shaking it. “We have a long ways to go before you’re ready to leave, so I suggest we get some sleep. We will begin in the morning.