Body of Problems

I stared at the reflection of myself for several minutes. I almost wished I could have returned to my vegetative state at that moment. This went beyond a simple mistake. I was neither a man, nor was I human, or at least not entirely. This heaped a whole extra helping of complications on myself.

First of all, and I’m at least 80% certain this is not just my own fetishes talking, but Cow Girls were among the most sexually exploited Demi humans on the internet. Utters, man! Utters! They were absolutely, pure fetish fuel. A Cat Girl might have been better than this.

Second of all, what was the hierarchy of humans and Demi humans? It would be impossible to approach a native without that much information at my disposal. I might be shot on the spot or stabbed or whatever the technology level was here. That might even be the most positive outcome depending on the situation.

I could see nothing positive about this at all. This had to have been intentional! Was I actually in hell? My mind was racing.

The sound of the waterfall peacefully echoed in my ears as I stared comatose into it’s white, shimmery waters.

On second thought, this didn’t change my plan of action. I still needed to find shelter and food. The inside of a waterfall was fine for a respite but it was not shelter. I need to establish a base and then slowly explore the area. If I found civilization, observation was the first step and I’d make decisions based on my findings.

I took one last look at the bovine maiden before me and headed back to land. I decide to make temporary camp next to this waterfall. I used my clothes to dry off then made a fire to dry said clothes. I didn’t think it was good idea to go searching around the forest naked.

I heated up the water to kill all the bacteria and drank it. I expected it to be salty but it seemed like it was freshwater, so it was all good.

About an hour had passed since seeing myself and I was back in my mostly dry clothes, seated on a log, leisurely sipping hot water. I felt like crashing for the night, however, it was only about midday so that would have been a contradiction of my surroundings.

The waterfall and small pond were surrounded by high hills. It was kind of weird, maybe a meteor created a crater here or something. At this point I was just trying to keep my mind occupied. The hills were a double edged sword, no one could sneak up on me and I couldn’t go anywhere, if an attack were to happen there was nothing I could do except run in circles or jump in the water. There wasn’t really any hiding here.

My mind wandered further. The cheery glasses angel had said that this world was made up of mostly women, so perhaps it would be unlikely for me to run into any men who might try to do me harm. Though that was only the men, there were still wild animals and possibly even monsters to contend with, and he didn’t say there “no” men.

I began to wonder what my stats were. In certain varieties of this type of story characters could display stat screens. This didn’t feel like that but…

“Status!”

“Stats!”

“Open Status!”

“Status Open!”

I tried for several minutes to the point where I could imagine a throbbing vein popping out of my forehead, unfortunately there did not appear to be stats in this world, or at least there was no way of accessing them at the moment.

Still, I should try to see what this body can do. It would be good to know how this girl’s body holds up compared to the ones I used to be familiar with. I stood up from the log and walker around it. Something I’d noticed since realizing I was barefoot was how tough her feet were. She could step on literally anything and feel nothing from it. Now that I knew she was a cow, I was curious about her kick.

“Cow Kick!” I called out an attack name just for fun and stepped on the log. This log was less a log and more a downed tree and miraculously said tree broke in half under the force of my foot. A thunderous cracking sound echoed around the fishbowl. I pulled my foot up and out while hopping backward.

“Holy shit!” I would not want to be on the receiving end of that. It was possible that everyone was this strong here and such an attack was actually ineffective but for now I would say I was quite a it stronger than basically any human that ever existed on Earth.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I spent the next couple of hours testing my abilities. I could run at a speed of approximately 30 kilometers per hour and could run at that speed for at least 20 minutes without getting tired. This was an approximate measurement since I was just running around in the crater. It was now officially my head cannon that this was a meteor landing sight (it was just cooler that way). 

My skin, overall, as much thicker than in my previous life, but sharp object could still cut me it just required a bit of additional force. The skin on my feet was still at least twice as tough as anywhere else.

I tried punching the log gradually putting more force behind it and determined that I was about 3 times stronger than your average human back on Earth. If I put just a little bit of force behind my punch I was able send bark flying. My kicks were still twice as powerful as my punches though both were pretty deadly if I was putting my all into it. The tree was now just a pile of wood chips on the ground.

It had to have been around 3 or 4 when I finally settled down. I’d made a lot of noise down here yet nothing seemed to approach suggesting maybe there was some kind of blessing stopping animals from coming near. On the other hand, considering all the unexpected developments of my character build I would bet anything beneficial to my survival was unintended.

I brushed some hair out of my eye and lowered myself to the ground. A bit of sweat had begun to gather, just a little. I wasn’t exactly tired by this point but I could certainly stand to rest for a minute.

It had been over a 120 years since the last time I’d exerted myself like this. I played some sports in college, but wasn’t any good, it was just something to pass the time. Once I graduated, my activity level outside of work pretty much went down to zero. I went to the gym every week, or every other week, or sometimes once a month, it varied. It was mainly just to justify the membership my brother had gotten me.

The more I look back on it, the more I think, why me? I wasn’t very health conscious, I didn’t work out, I ate fast food at least every other week and somehow didn’t get fat much to the chagrin of my coworkers. On top of that I was fairly tall which I’d heard automatically shortened your average life span. Average. I felt average and looked average, aside from my height. I was always just the tall guy, aside from that… or despite that, I lived longer than anyone and I didn’t want to. The only positive about living as long as I did was that eventually I became “normal” height, yet I couldn’t enjoy since I was laid up in a hospital bed by that point of my life.

I looked at my hands and the wood chips at my feet. I was in a new body now, a better body. I was actually strong, and maybe even special. I had yet to prove it but I didn’t feel average anymore.

I had power now…

…and now I had to go to the bathroom.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I raced up the side of the crater and back into the forest. I stumbled down another hill until finally I was in a secluded flat spot.

I took a History of Entertainment course in college and there was a unit on American Comics and Superheroes. One of them was called The Flash. My whole running up the hill maneuver felt like something he would do. I could just picture him running full tilt up the side of that fishbowl, ignoring gravity and jumping out the top with speed lines racing behind him.

I stifled a small giggle as I finished my business. I felt bubblier and more excitable since entering this body. That was only natural considering my previous circumstance, but I also think it has to do with this body in particular.

Snapping my overalls back on, I took look around me. In the distance I could hear birds chattering and even further I swear I heard some growling, yet it was still impossible to confirm. “Hmm” If I were The Flash I’d be able to chase them down before they had the chance to run.

I took a deep breath, bent down and prepared to dash. It was time to test out for real what my new body could do. I’d mostly gotten used to my new center of gravity, so now was the time.

The animal couldn’t have been that far away, it was likely my senses were better than a normal human, still they had to be relatively near by. After a pause, my legs pushed off the ground leaving a dust cloud my wake. The trees and bushes zoomed by me. A quick jump propelled my body a good four and a half meters. In the distance a large brown mass of fur was attempting to get away. It looked like a roided out greyhound. It was a matter of seconds before I was close enough to grab the thing.

I sprang at the animal which could just barely get my arms around. It attempted to bite me, it’s teeth were bared and lunging with blind aggression.

“Bad dog!” I screamed and punched it in the gut. It let out a yelp. I slammed it’s body to the ground and held it down with my foot. Now what? Do I just release it? I hadn’t thought about what I should do after I caught it. My stomach growled. I couldn’t eat this thing, right? Plus cows were supposed to be herbivores. The dog was now laying dead still and staring up at me with fear.

I was part cow but also part human, so I might be able to eat meat but I began to wonder how it would affect my body. Would this body be able to metabolize the meat in the same way or would it be better to stick to plants. Actually, cows main diet was grass so it would solve my food problem if this was the case, but my human brain was pushing against it.

The dog let out a whimper and lowered it’s head to the ground as if accepting it’s fate.

“Hmm.”

As I was staring at the dog a light bulb suddenly went off in my head. Greyhounds were supposed to be hunting dogs in my previous world, so what if this creature who resembled one, could be used in the same way.

“You.” I pressed down a bit to get his attention, “Hey, I’ve got a proposition.” I let up on the pressure and picked him up.

We brought his face large doglike face up to mine. “Hehehe”

The dog’s fear of death only grew.