Starting from Zero

I\'m sure that thing can easily kill me in any situation and I won\'t have any chance to get prepared.

Is that Red Moon?

The unknown figure wiped out all bomb boats within 30 seconds and returned to our ship. Now I can clearly observe it as--a werewolf? It\'s one of those typical mythology monsters in movies, a bipedal wolf-like creature, which stands about two meters tall. Though that\'s not very high compared to ordinary orcs.

It, or she, has pure white fur. She would look amazing, even beautiful, if not for those sharp fangs sticking out of that slightly opened muzzle. The heavy breathing indicates that she\'s exhausted from the attack. Blood, as well as some unknown yellowish liquid is dripping down from those long, pointy claws.

Nobody moved, since no one knows who this is or what to do.

Red Moon?

That doesn\'t feel right. Red Moon is a...Divine Demon Mage, if I remembered right. That\'s nowhere near a werewolf.

Her companion maybe? But why did she jump from the ship herself?

I have too many questions, but I don\'t think I need an answer when I saw Gale running to the creature. The werewolf fainted and fell into Gale\'s arms.

He signaled me to come over.

"So she IS Red Moon?" I\'m still not 100% sure about that.

Gale however, did not give me an exact answer either. "I guess. Well, I don\'t know. She told me she had some transformation skill like this but...this is the first time she ever used it in front of me."

"That\'s not important now. Take her to the cabin!"

We carried her below. One man is not enough to lift her now. When I went past Hawk I gave him a kick on the leg to wake him up.

"Tell everyone to get back to the cannons! Don\'t stop firing!"

"Eh, huh? Oh!"

He finally remembered our situation. "To the cannons you lot! Don\'t just stand there, fire! Hit\'em until you can\'t find any targets!"

We went into the lounge room and put Red Moon onto a bed.

"Hey Gale? So...what should we do to her?"

We thought Red Moon is unconscious for good so we are not expecting her to...suddenly lunge at us!

Gale tried to press her down, only to be knocked out of the room by a claw swipe. I turned for the door, but I didn\'t get to advance a single step when I felt a stinging pain on my shoulder and fell down.

The creature bit my shoulder. Those fangs pierced my Dark Dragon Lord armor like paper and sunk into my flesh!

This is no time to go easy on woman now (and I don\'t think this is a woman at all). I punched at Red Moon\'s head with all my strength. It didn\'t work!

Out of desperation, I removed the small shield on my gauntlet and used it to bash her head. Blood is coming out but she\'s still not releasing the bite!

Gale stumbled back into the door while holding his head. He saw the scene and came to separate us, and he\'s slammed away again!

It\'s quite funny if you think about it, a Knight, a big brother, is thrown away like a total defenseless toy figure by his little sister mage.

The pain on my shoulder ceased. I quickly moved back a little when I saw the bloody beast maw coming for me again, aimed at my neck this time. I tried to block, and she locked her bite onto my left arm. With some creak and crack, my gauntlet is torn into a strange shape.

Oh come on I\'m gonna waste a ton to repair it again!!

"-ARHHHHH!!"

She\'s biting harder, I can\'t hold it back and screamed.

I managed to curl up my leg and gave her a good kick on the stomach. My arm is free but from the shape of it I can tell it\'s already broken.

"Argh!"

I didn\'t have time to do anything before Red Moon charged back and pinned me down again. We rolled on the ground all the way towards the door.

I opened up my claw blades on the right hand to block another bite. Creak! Those straight blades turned into curved metal.

She didn\'t stop for any second before biting at my face again. This time my right arm is caught!

"Ziri!!" Rose appeared. Not knowing what to do, she just ran to us and stabbed Red Moon\'s back using her staff. Of course that won\'t do any damage. Rose is also sent flying by a wolf claw.

Gale rushed to her and saved her from crashing into the metal wall.

"Requiem, [Melody of Tranquility]!!"

Yuri showed up and slowed down the deadly attack!

Red Moon stopped. Her teeth are still inside my arm but she\'s not making any further moves. I watched as her eyes turned from bright red into black, then she released me and stood up.

I crawled and rolled towards Yuri with all the embarrassment and unmanliness you can find. This is the first time something scared the shit out of me. Those reckless attacks will only give me nightmares! In real life!

Red Moon looked around, raised her head and made a distant howl. The sharp and terrible wolf howl grew weak, and finally turned into the whining of a woman. That two-meter tall figure became smaller, all the white fur slowly disappeared.

Okay...she turned back into the real Red Moon, but…

"DON\'T LOOK!!"

Rose turned my head towards another direction. Aww my neck! Gale also turned around in panic. As you can guess, Red Moon is naked now. Usually every player has a non-destructible underwear, and a pair of simple bra for female players. But for some reason Red Moon is now standing in the cabin without a single string on her.

"Ahem!! I\'ll go get some medic." Gale left towards the sick bay.

"I\'ll come too!" I quickly followed him. Rose is behind me too.

"Yuri, take care of Red Moon, and ready your song just in case she goes crazy again!"

"Okay. Leave it to me!"

We came to the doctor (Rose pushed me all the way from behind). An NPC priestess healed my broken arms, but she aren\'t going to fix my left gauntlet which looks like a waste metal can. And the claw blades on my right hand...they look like twisted bread! Ugh! Money! Gone! And I haven\'t paid all my debt yet!

Gale is fully recovered since he only suffered small injuries. "Is your armor alright?"

"No! Totally no!" I waved my left arm, creating a clanking noise. "It almost came off. And look at this!" I pointed at my shoulder and right arm, where series of teeth marks can be seen. "Aren\'t your dear sister strong. Even cannon shots can\'t kill me, but she almost did. Remind me next time to never get her nerves again. I\'m not going near that werewolf or werewolfess or whatever, ever again!"

"I didn\'t know, she never showed me! I guess I should say sorry too. And don\'t worry about your armor, I\'ll help you with it."

Now that\'s a lot of relief.

"Now I think about it, why did she hate me so much? She knocked you away twice but she only kept her attacks on me! Okay I know, so she\'s trying to get revenge for what I did to her before!"

Rose chuckled beside me.

"...Funny?"

"Of course you\'re funny."

"Me?"

"So you want to know why Red Moon bites you?" Her chuckling turned into mild laughter. She\'s trying to hold it back. And she failed. "I think I know why she chose you, not Gale."

"Why?" We asked in united voice.

Rose pulled our arms together. I\'m at loss first. But as I observed... Gale\'s arm is, well, strong, a typical man\'s arm, with muscles. While my arm...is white as cake cream. Now if you place our arms in front of a starving wolf, the choice is too obvious.

"Bah--hahaha!" Gale caught the idea and began to laugh.

"Heh heh. So this---AHHHHHH!!"

A searing pain went up through my arm, followed by unbearable itching, as if a thousand ants are crawling under my skin! An unknown feeling sapped all the strength from me, then I fell flat on the floor.

"What-what\'s wrong?? Ziri?" Rose held me up in panic.

I\'m starting to convulse, then the pain forced me to straighten all my limbs and roar. That roaring is nothing human-like. My voice slowly turned into wolf howl.

My left arm is bared now, and I noticed patches of black, soft fur emerging from it, until they grew longer and covered my whole arm. My nails became sharp claws with metallic gleam. I\'m also growing taller, now I have to lower my head a little to stand in the room!

"Zi-Ziri? Are you... alright?" Rose approached me but Gale pulled her back.

I tried to move my body. Hum, there\'s no strange feeling anymore, the only difference is that I feel super invigorated. I have no problem controlling myself. I raised my hand(?) and looked at those terrifying natural weapons, wooah, scary.

I looked at Rose and tried to use my tongue. "Rose?"

"Ziri? You\'re...you?"

"I guess so." I moved my neck. Boomp! I bumped into the ceiling. "Well, a bit hard to move around in here."

"You are not frenzied or something?" Gale asked since my situation is totally different from the crazy Red Moon.

"Duh, I\'m speaking to you. Oh god, my armor!"

Did I break up my entire armor outfit like this??

I looked down to find that my armor set also became bigger with my body. Even the leg guards changed their style to suit a werewolf\'s reversed leg joints! So now I\'m an armored werewolf, a big one!

"Can you turn back?"

"Let me try!"

I ordered my brain. Then my body returned normal pretty well. Not a single of those beast hairs can be seen now.

"All good."

"Impressive," Rose stroked my arm. "you know, that fluffy body is actually pretty cute. How about just go out like that next time?"

"You want me to become a real \'wolf\'?" (*) I hugged Rose, ready to kiss her. "As you wish!"

We laugh. All the stress is lifted from us.

"So, what kind of bonus do you get after that transform?" Gale asked. "Maybe we can also find out why Red Moon went out of control."

"One moment."

I opened my status window and noticed a message telling me that all attributes are doubled upon transformation. But I didn\'t find anything related to side-effects. My skill bar...there\'s a [Transform: Werewolf] skill. It costs 6 MP per second, and I\'ll turn back if my MP bar goes empty.

"I don\'t see any side effects. It\'s just a skill, I can decide when to use it or cancel it on my own."

Now I think about it, my MP regeneration speed is almost 6 per second. Which means... can I keep the form permanent as long as I don\'t use any other skills or spells? Good. It\'s a nice boost and simple to use.

"Hey Ziri, can you turn into that again?" Rose asked while swinging my arm.

"Sure." I triggered the skill and grew bigger. I\'m not getting that pain and itchiness anymore.

"Any reason you want me to do this?" I asked Rose. I didn\'t find her though, she walked behind me.

A strange feeling came up from behind. Someone is touching me, or...not? Weird, whoever touched me isn\'t doing it on any body part I can normally tell. I turned my head and looked at Rose, who\'s pulling on my tail.

"I forgot to check this just now. Now I see it, it feels good. Ohh, bushy!"

"Hey!" I pulled it back. "Don\'t do that okay? Doesn\'t feel right."

She dragged it back. "Oh come on. Don\'t be mean, let me use it for a while."

\'Use\'??

"Ziri? So what\'s going--huh?" Hawk pushed the door open and instantly froze when he saw Rose trying to catch the tail of a 2-meter tall werewolf. He did saw us carrying Red Moon inside, but she was pure white back then, not this pitch black creature, which is me.

"Is that--"

"Oh hello Hawk."

"Ziri??" His jaw dropped. "You--but--how--"

"Red Moon bit me." I picked up my wasted left gauntlet. "See? So what\'s the situation up there?"

"Oh. I was going to tell you that the Japanese retreated. What should we do?"

"What else can we do? We return to the port."

"But all the Chinese boats went after them!" He gave me a sad look. "If we turn back now people may think us in the wrong way."

"Huh. Look at that big hole back there! There are storms on the public sea. Do you think we\'ll be safe? I don\'t care what they or the Japanese think. I don\'t want to damage our ship further for no good reason."

"I get it." Hawk nodded. "I\'ll go tell them."

"Wait!" Gale stopped him. "Tell your flagman to send a message to them. Tell them I order all ships from Goddess Alliance and Righteous League to return to base now. I don\'t agree to this meaningless pursuit either."

"Will do." Hawk left.

"So you agree with me?" I turned to Gale.

"The Japanese came prepared, and we must admit their overall firepower is beyond our people. We\'ll only lose more ships if we continue, and that\'s assuming we can catch their speed at all. We\'re protecting our port this time. But if we go after them, that will be another case."

"Aha. Great men think alike."

I patted on his shoulder, by which I mean I slammed him onto the floor.

"Oh oops. Sorry, sorry. I\'m not used to this yet." I quickly pulled him up.

"Good lord. Nice hit." He rubbed his bottom. "Maybe you can give me a bite too. I want that skill! That\'s perfect for a Warrior class like us."

"Yeah, we go ask Red Moon about the details when she\'s ready. If everything\'s fine I\'ll just bite everyone and create a werewolf army for us. "

"Ziri! Come. Miss Moon woke up!" Yuri ran into the room.

"You\'re--" Okay, another one.

"Easy. That\'s Ziri, and he\'s not going to do anything. Let\'s go see my sister."

Everyone left the room while I followed from behind. Bonk! I hit my head on the doorframe. Geez I really need to remember this. I decided to turn back normal to walk around the ship.

When I reached Red Moon\'s room it\'s packed with people. Everyone came. Well, the battle is over after all.

I squeezed past the crowd and saw Gale talking with Red Moon. She escaped my eyesight when I looked at her.

Huh this is new, the first time she\'s not trying to create scenes with me.

"How does it look?" I walked to them.

Red Moon remained silent so Gale answered me. "All\'s well expect that she lost 100 levels."

"100?!" I jumped. "That\'s ridiculous. 100 levels! Just to win one fight? And, why did she, you know, bite me?"

Red Moon...blushed? She turned to face the wall and covered her head.

"What\'s the deal?"

Gale gave Hawk a signal. The straight-headed Paladin didn\'t get what he meant at all, so Elfy moved in and asked everyone to leave the room.

When the room is clear, Gale explained slowly: "The transformation is a very particular skill. First of all, you don\'t learn this skill. You get \'contracted\' when another one bites you, like rabies. However..." He considered his words. "It has different outcome on different people. Someone resist it better."

"Like me?"

"Yes. The disease turned out to be a powerful skill on you, controllable on free will and no other loss. Red Moon is an incomplete immune. Her transformation only lasts for three minutes, her sanity, one. When one minute passes, she loses all surface consciousness. When the process ends she will lose 100 levels, and she cannot use the skill at all if she\'s below 100. You may not know this but her case is actually a good one. There are other victims who will simply turn into a savage beast until all MP is spent, some people cannot turn back at all, and someone will just die flat. I mean, they die for real. They go back to level zero."

"Jesus cakes. Thank god I didn\'t bite Rose."

"Huh? You actually wanted to bite me??" Rose stepped back. "You\'re a beast you know that?"

"As you can see, I am!" I approached Rose and received a series of love punches.

"You haven\'t told us why Red Moon wouldn\'t let him go?" Rose raised the point.

"Well, about that..." Gale looks troubled. "As I said, she loses all surface consciousness right? The problem is what remains afterwards, her deep consciousness."

" ...You mean, her deep consciousness tells her to bite me? I know she hates me but does she hate me THAT much? She even wrote it into her instinct?"

"Nonono, that’s not it. Normally, she\'s always thinking about you. And a creature\'s instinct is self-protection and finding food. When she turned, those ideas mixed up. She was trying to find food from the one person always on her mind. In other words, she attacked you because you are one of the people she won\'t forget."

The room became silent. I don\'t know how I should respond to that. So Red Moon\'s always thinking about me? Is that normally how things go when someone hates people? I don\'t get it.

Rose went silent too because it just doesn\'t feel right when someone else keeps thinking about your husband, no matter for what kind of reason. She just found herself a rival(?), and a trouble!

As for Yuri... the situation is too much to take in for this innocent girl!

Gale on the other hand, is at total loss as he doesn\'t know what to do with her sister\'s unclear attitude towards me. He\'s her big brother alright, but he\'s still an outsider in a situation like this.

Red Moon never spoke a word from the start. She just wanted to jump into the sea and end all the embarrassment.

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(*) In Chinese, a pervert, hentai, or whatever you call it, is usually referred to as a "wolf".