Olif and Maria were hunting in a neighboring forest. Olif, in particular, was trying to flaunt his skills to Maria and impress her. As an heir of the family, he had the responsibility of forging bonds with other surrounding nobles and uplifting his family even higher.

  Unfortunately, the noble lady didn’t seem impressed; many reached for her hand, and if not for her family, she wouldn’t even entertain him.

  As they were both chatting and riding, they finally spotted some game, a boar, wandering in an open space to the left of them.

  Olif readied his gun, aimed, cocked back the hammer, and…

  *BAM*

  A squeal echoed through the surrounding wildlife.

  ***

  He felt an impact near his heart before squealing and keeling over, blood pouring over his still-warm body.

  He didn’t understand what was happening; just a moment ago he was looking for food and thinking about his potential mate before a deafening sound echoed, and now his body was slowly growing cold.

  Adrenaline rushed down his veins, and he tried to move with everything he had, but his limbs turned unresponsive, and dark spots started covering his vision.

  At the last moments before death, all he thought about was how nice it would be to skewer this attacker and eat the bloody bastard….

  ***

  A long time later he woke up again. This time everything around him seemed much bigger; in fact, in front of him was the biggest boar he had ever seen.

  Strangely it was lying over and exposing its teats, which were being sucked on by a few giant piglets his size.

  He looked down, and noticing his lack of fur, he realized he’s a piglet too!

  What a strange dream he had before... Regardless, he was really hungry now and joined his brethren in the feast.

  As more time passed, he grew bigger and realized that everything was the same size; it was just that he was smaller!

  But how could that happen, impossible, he remembered being very big, so how did he become so small again?

  Anyway, it’s way too complicated for him to figure out, so he continued his life with his brothers and sisters…

  Since they have grown up together, he can recognize each of them just by their scent. For some reason just being around them made him very happy, as if he missed this familial warmth.

  Together they scavenged for food, slept, drank, and explored. What better life was there? But as all good things come to an end, so did this.

  Eventually the deafening sound he only heard in his nightmares happened again; one of his brothers was already bleeding out by the time he processed it.

  With rage and powerlessness overcoming him, he growled and charged in the direction of the sound.

  *BAM*

  A bullet hit him right in the head, concussing him and making him stumble. Without even giving him a chance to steady his posture, another shot echoed.

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  *BAM*

  And here he is bleeding out again. Having a sense of déjà vu, he remembered some of his past life memories; the resentment for this magical attacker grew even higher in his tiny heart.

  More time has passed.

  Like an endless loop, he is born, lives, and then dies, sometimes to diseases, sometimes to hunger, sometimes to that accursed magical stick, but the end result is always the same.

  Death.

  Unknown to the boar, this constant life cycle started to grow its soul; step by step it grew and finally at some point reached a critical threshold, breaking through the first step of its soul.

  Now this was rather an unprecedented achievement. Usually beasts evolve by consuming natural treasures or living in a Jak dense environment and the direction of their evolution always goes into increasing their prowess.

  On the other hand, soul breakthrough is a symbol of the sapient races. And the young of these races are born with it already a done deal.

  In other words, our little boar finally took its first step in a long journey towards killing those pesky humans!

  Waking up once again, he readied himself for the new life, but weirdly this time strange thoughts swirled in his head. ‘Who am I? What is life? Why do I exist?’. This made him really wonder, but after thinking for a bit, he found the answers rather easily.

  He’s a boar, life is an adventure, and he exists to protect his family. Regardless, since he was born in the body of a piglet again, the instincts took over and his big thoughts had to wait.

  As he was living his life, he became curious about everything. ‘Why does the wind wind? Why does water water?’ As a result, he tried interacting and changing the environment around him.

  The first issue he ran into was that he could only pick up things with his mouth, and it was rather unwieldy.

  While doing that, he remembered one of those ‘humans’ standing on their hind legs and having two free limbs.

  After a few attempts during his downtime, he realized that while extremely difficult, it was doable!

  As a result of his odd behavior he was ostracized by other boars and had lower social standing thus resulting in a lower priority for food, weaker body and finally death by a viral infection.

  Nevertheless, our boar was already used to this minor inconvenience called death and continued his research and practice throughout the cycles.

  On the third he was already fairly skilled at bipedal walking and using his front legs as arms; on the seventh he started using very primitive tools for easier scavenging: sharp rocks, long sticks, etc..

  Sadly, further progress seemed impossible.

  Despite the treasure trove of knowledge he achieved, his body didn’t follow suit; it just wasn’t made for these new circumstances, which proved to be an impassable barrier.

  Tens of cycles, hundreds of cycles passed, just as he was losing hope and going through the motion of another life he picked up a peculiar sensation coming from upfront.

  Like many tiny needles prickling his body, his instincts screamed in desire to eat whatever that was.

  Picking up speed and bulldozing through the underbush, he spots the target of his sudden obsession.

  A small purple flower, with its bud on the brink of blooming, glowing in mystical energy.

  Without even considering the strangeness of it, he chomped down on it and quickly swallowed. Then all that followed was inscrutable pain and darkness.

  ***

  [?S?p?e?c?i?m?e?n? ?0?6?5? ?a?c?h?i?e?v?e?d? ?f?i?r?s?t? ?s?t?a?g?e? ?o?f? ?s?u?c?c?e?s?s?]?

  ?[?S?p?e?c?i?m?e?n? ?t?o?o?k? ?2?4?1? ?c?y?c?l?e?s? ?t?o? ?b?e?c?o?m?e? ?a? ?l?e?s?s?e?r? ?h?u?m?a?n?o?i?d?]?

  ?[?S?p?e?c?i?m?e?n? ?p?e?r?f?o?r?m?a?n?c?e? ?w?a?s? ?b?e?l?o?w? ?a?v?e?r?a?g?e?,? ?t?h?u?s? ?y?o?u?r? ?i?n?n?a?t?e? ?g?i?f?t? ?w?i?l?l? ?b?e? ?r?e?v?o?k?e?d?]?

  ?[?O?t?h?e?r?w?i?s?e? ?c?a?l?l?e?d? ?‘?E?n?d?l?e?s?s? ?R?e?b?i?r?t?h?’?]?

  ?[?S?p?e?c?i?m?e?n? ?i?s? ?r?e?c?o?m?m?e?n?d?e?d? ?t?o? ?p?r?o?c?e?e?d? ?w?i?t?h? ?c?a?u?t?i?o?n? ?f?r?o?m? ?n?o?w? ?o?n?!?]?

  Coming out of slumber, the now evolved boar, a lesser boarling, heard, or rather felt, a strange yet omnipotent intent echoing in his head.

  He felt both scared and relieved. The weight of eternity finally leaving his shoulders, but a new fear of death settling in. The fear of what comes after death?