That slimy tentacle whipped through the air with a wet, slurping sound that was way, way worse than a roar.
My gamer brain screamed dodge left.
My brand-new body, however, had other plans.
It picked full-system panic and lurched right like an idiot.
My feet—still not used to them—tangled up.
I went down.
Hard.
My chin smacked the ground, and I got a mouthful of dirt.
Classic newbie move.
Pathetic.
From my new, undignified spot on the forest floor, I saw Yael move.
Flash of silver hair, pale skin.
Her elven body was a natural, flowing with a grace Jonny had never possessed in his life.
She sidestepped the attack with an elegance that belonged on a loading screen.
But there was a problem.
A significant, distracting, physics-based problem.
With every sharp turn, her new chest bounced.
Not a little jiggle.
This was a full-on, high-amplitude wobble that seemed to have its own agenda.
It threw off her balance, broke her concentration.
I could see the fury on her face as she tried to compensate.
Another slime oozed forward and spat a glob of acid.
Yael shrieked and leaped sideways, her landing ruined as she stumbled, betrayed by her own body.
My raid leader instincts finally kicked in.
"Watch it!" I yelled, my voice a muffled bark from the dirt.
I pushed myself up, spitting out soil.
"Your new assets are a tactical liability!"
Her head snapped toward me, eyes blazing with pure, homicidal rage.
"What?!" she screeched, barely dodging another lunge.
"The jiggle physics are throwing off your center of gravity!" I shouted, getting to my feet.
Terror was temporarily forgotten, replaced by a much more familiar fury.
"Shut up!" she shrieked back.
"At least I'm dodging!"
She pointed a trembling finger at me.
"You're just standing there flailing your 'starter weapon' around like a moron!"
My eyes snapped down.
In my panic, my new appendage was, in fact, doing just that.
Heat flooded my face.
"What's your plan, pervert?!" she screamed, spinning away from a grasping tentacle.
"Bore them to death with a tactical assessment of your own dick?!"
The insult, so deeply Yael, so profoundly infuriating, was like a bucket of ice water to the face.
The panic vanished.
The shame was incinerated.
All that remained was the cold focus of a hundred all-night raids.
This wasn't a crisis.
It was a boss fight.
A poorly designed, humiliating, naked boss fight, but a boss fight nonetheless.
And I was the raid leader.
"Stop showboating and listen to me!" I roared, my new baritone voice booming with an authority that surprised even me.
Yael flinched.
"I'm the brain, you're the… distraction!" I commanded, pointing at the slimes.
"You have aggro on all three! That's bad!"
"No shit, genius!" she yelled back, ducking.
"Kite them!" I ordered, my mind racing.
"Keep their attention! Lead them in a circle! I need to find a weapon!"
For a second, I saw the old Yael, the one who would've told me to screw myself.
But then, years of ingrained habit took over.
She was the tank.
I was the shot-caller.
This was how we worked.
"Fine!" she snarled.
"But if I die because you were busy doing 'diagnostics' on a rock, I will haunt your naked ass for eternity!"
With that, she took off, weaving between the trees.
The slimes, slow and stupid, oozed after her, their focus locked on the bouncing, shrieking elf.
She was the perfect kite: annoying, fast, and drawing all the threat.
That bought me time.
My eyes scanned the ground.
Moss, dirt, twigs.
All zero-damage vendor trash.
I needed something with an edge.
My gaze landed on a half-buried chunk of granite.
Jagged.
Heavy.
It would have to do.
I scrambled over and heaved it from the ground.
It was heavier than I expected.
This new body had some decent base STR.
It was the size of my head, with one beautifully sharp, chipped edge.
Pathetic.
But it was better than nothing.
"Yael! Bring them around!" I bellowed.
"On my mark, break left! I need a clear shot at the one in the back!"
"What are you going to do, throw it at them?!" she yelled, vaulting over a log.
"Just do it!"
I braced myself, planting my feet.
"Now, Yael! Now!"
She peeled away with a final, insulting shriek.
The three blobs continued forward, right into my trap.
The lead slime was just a few feet away.
I could smell its swampy stench, see the bits of bone and fur in its gut.
I put every ounce of my rage, my fear, and my profound, cosmic humiliation into the blow.
I roared, a raw, animal sound, and brought the sharp edge of the rock down with all my might.
There was a wet, sickening squelch.
The rock connected.
The creature's body convulsed.
It didn't just die.
It popped.
A disgusting explosion of foul-smelling goo erupted outwards, showering me from head to toe.
I was drenched in lukewarm, sticky slime guts.
It was vile.
It was disgusting.
It was the most satisfying thing I had ever felt.
One down.
The other two slimes paused, their simple minds trying to process what just happened.
"It worked!" Yael screamed, a note of genuine shock in her voice.
"Of course it worked, you idiot!" I shot back, wiping a glob of goo from my eye.
"I'm the strategist! Now get ready, we're doing it again!"
The next few minutes were a blur of chaotic, slimy violence.
We fell into our old rhythm.
Yael would taunt and pull; I would wait for the opening and deliver the killing blow.
She'd draw one away, I'd smash the other.
Then, together, we cornered the last one.
Yael, emboldened, kicked a small, sharp stone at it, actually piercing its membrane.
It recoiled, giving me the perfect shot.
I brought my slime-covered rock down one last time.
SPLAT.
Silence.
The only sounds were our own ragged gasps for air.
We had done it.
We had won.
We were alive.
We were also still completely, utterly, ridiculously naked.
And then, it happened.
A soft, melodic chime echoed through the air.
A brilliant, warm golden light washed over my body, cleansing away the exhaustion.
The feeling was electric.
It was pure, unfiltered progress.
In my mind, a shimmering screen appeared.
It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
The glorious ding.
The sweet, sweet promise of power.
"Did you…?" Yael started, her eyes wide as a similar, fainter light enveloped her.
"Yes," I breathed, a wide, manic grin spreading across my face.
"Oh, hell yes."
My status screen was glowing in my vision.
The choice was obvious.
I was a mage.
My brain was my weapon.
I dumped all five points directly into Intelligence.
A surge of energy, sharp and clear, coursed through my mind.
The world snapped into a higher resolution.
It was a pathetic, starter-zone magic missile.
And it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
I looked over at Yael.
She was standing straighter, a newfound confidence on her face.
We looked at each other, covered in slime, and for the first time since we arrived, we shared a look of grim, exhausted relief.
The thorn bush, our original goal, our salvation from this naked humiliation, was just a few feet away.
Finally.
Clothes.
I took a single, triumphant step toward it.
My foot had barely touched the ground when a new notification, cold and sharp, flashed in my vision.
It was not gold.
It was blood red.