[It wasn't too bad of a reaction.]
'Yeah, but why was the range so goddamn large?'
[You know what went into making that spell possible, so why are you complaining?]
'200 whole merds away... Why did I even bother sparing the guards?'
Jane managed to hastily teleport right before the spell activated. It still killed him instantly, but his goal was not to survive in the first place.
'A fox isn't so bad, is it?'
[That's true. It lived a pretty good life before we came, didn't it?]
'Then it got turned into a crisp by magic, and I barely managed to transfer into it's body.'
Jane ran through the forest, his burnt pelt making him look like some black dog. The inside of his body was a mess, having been shredded and haphazardly fixed using magic. It didn't matter too much to him emotionally, but being a fox was pretty annoying. How was he supposed to heal properly when he couldn't even hold a scalpel?
[We need to find a human to take over.]
'I'd feel pretty bad about screwing over some random person, though.'
[Aren't you already planning around that?]
He had teleported thousands of merds away, aiming to lure in more hostile mages. That said, he needed to avoid being caught by the mages from earlier, or else he might really die this time. Jane was aiming to be attacked by a few unorganized mages at most, and to take over one of their bodies. It wasn't that easy, though.
'This is not my body, my name is...'
[What are you, anyways?]
'If we end up as some creepy old man's memories, it'll definitely be this one's fault.'
[Oh, come on. I'll help you take them over.]
As Jane was absentmindedly thinking about his plans, a shard of rock struck him in the side of his torso. The force easily severed his spine and effectively split him in two. His lower half began to dangle helplessly from the rest of him. In response, Jane healed the wound and then concealed himself.
'Shit, it's kind of crooked...'
[You're a bit sick, aren't you?]
Not bothering to conserve his mana, Jane spread it out in all directions, covering a significant radius. In three separate directions, his mana was slow to return.
[This new body isn't too bad, compared to being a fox.]
'That's true, although I wish it was closer to my original appearance.'
[You can always change it like you did for your previous body, couldn't you?]
In two of the directions he detected, Jane used his remaining mana to demarcate the area with negated 'Flesh' runes. Without even a single basic rune available to him, he rushed towards the remaining mage.
---
This time, taking control was a bit easier. Perhaps due to the combination of two minds against one, and significant bodily modifications, the original ego more or less disappeared. In the aftermath of his battle, Jane used 'Cross Distance' to teleport thousands of merds away.
'Huh?'
Rather than ending up on the ground, Jane ended up somewhat high in the sky. Additionally, he was a bit tilted as he fell down.
'What the hell? I definitely teleported horizontally.'
[So it's true that villagers don't get education...]
'Did I really keep this information from myself, just so I could act more educated?'
[Heh, look.]
While nursing his broken legs back to health, Jane went over the memories Vanessa shared.
'I see. The world is a really big ball. That makes sense.'
[What exactly makes sense?]
'That I couldn't see infinitely off into the distance.'
Jane suspected that his previous body's eyes had no actual limit to their detail. Thus, if the world were flat, he could have seen everything in it. If the world was curved, however, that would be impossible.
'On that note, mind telling me how I got those eyes? They were convenient.'
[Why do you think I didn't tell you?]
'God, I remind me of my teacher. It's because I was attached, right?'
[Correct. If I told you how to modify your body in that way, then you would hop to a new body without hesitation. I neither wished to lose my body or to have another tenant... Get out... See?]
He stopped.
'I really need to get that under control.'
[Don't look at me, I'm just a mass of memories.]
His situation was fine for now, and he would be completely stable without further subjugating the original. However, there was a compelling reason for his desire to read the other's memories.
'This guy is a magician, but doesn't act like one. Close-quarters?'
[Those are annoying, sometimes. I never lost to one, but they always pull something crazy and force me to fight seriously.]
Jane had already realized it in the past. There were two ways to break through a mage's defenses. Firstly, use a spell so powerful that it either cannot be properly countered or avoided. Secondly, use an attack fast enough that your opponent cannot tell that your assault has even commenced. Ideally, one would do both. The first specifies the quality of damage done, while the second guarantees optimal delivery. There is no other way to kill a mage.
'I get it. I do react a little faster with my hands, after all. And...'
Attacks whose core damaging component is not purely magic will naturally be free from the delay of forming spells. Thus, magical principles used in aiding rather mundane attacks will have the power of magic and yet the unpredictability of regular combat. That was part of why Jane's aerial strikes worked so well.
[It works, doesn't it? That's how you took down the believers.]
'Right, they couldn't detect it in time. If they had used all of their magic power to defend, then none would have died.'
Jane manifested a chillingly sharp blade of ice, then swung it around a few times. Within his consciousness, there was a foreign presence guiding his strikes. Following his instincts, Jane reinforced himself and lowered his center of gravity.
'I did it like this, no?'
He slashed the space in front of him, or at least he thought he did. The attack was too fast for even his body to register, making him feel like he went from one stance to another without any transition. Incensed by the possibility of another means of attack, Jane lowered himself even further.
[Hmm.]
Crossing dozens of merds with a single lunge, Jane barreled through the spaces between the trees. His hair tore off at the ends, leaving a small cloud of scraps at his original location. Before they even had time to fall, he had already completed his attack. An eerie sound whistled through the air as his hand stopped.
'This is a better than I expected.'
[You used all of your mana on strengthening, so what did you think would happen?]
The blade of ice in Jane's hands shattered into billions of microscopic particles. Frowning, he formed another one immediately.
'Right, I may as well.'
With an unbothered expression, Jane cut straight into his leg and dug out a fragment of his femur. The wound, when healed, left his bone greatly misshapen. Holding the steadily-bleeding piece of bone, Jane got to work.