Limitless Evolution As a Snake

The intersection instantly devolved into pure, chaotic nonsense.

The dark elf scout was flipping through the air, her criminally tight leather outfit straining with every single acrobatic dodge. It was a certified miracle of engineering that those straps were still holding together. She rained glowing, lime-green arrows down onto the chunky, amethyst-encrusted beast while the radioactive capybara aggressively waddled after her, utterly trampling the dystopian scenery.

I looked at the battlefield from behind my concrete pillar. Then I looked at the glowing Midnight Shroom, which was currently sitting completely undefended right in the middle of the street.

A slow, wicked grin tried to spread across my scaly face, but it instantly choked out and died.

Wait. What the hell was I actually doing? This isn’t a video game or a manga. This is real life. If I die here, there is no checkpoint. I don’t get a retry screen.

In my old life, my biggest adrenaline rush was finding a formatting error in a client’s spreadsheet or accidentally hitting ’Reply All’ on a company-wide email. I was a professional risk avoider. A certified corporate coward. And right now, a high-definition dark elf baddie was getting aggressively trampled by a glowing, radioactive brick wall of a rodent right in front of me.

My tiny reptilian heart started hammering against my ribs like a trapped hummingbird on crack. Thump-thump-thump-thump.

Holy shit, can snakes have heart attacks? Because I was pretty sure I was about to experience a profound cardiac arrest. My vision blurred, and my scales felt cold and not the cool, tactical kind. The paralysing, I’m about to throw up my own spleen kind.

I can’t do this,

I kept thinking, frantically pulling my tiny red tail closer into the shadow of the pillar.

I should just stay here. Safe. Inside my little concrete crack. Let them kill each other. I’ll just eat dirt and huff dust for the rest of my life. Dust is fine. Dust is safe; the dust bunnies are my friends, right?

[System: Oh, bloody hell. Are you seriously chickening out right now, Matt? Look at you, you absolute potato; you’re practically vibrating yourself into a square knot. Don’t tell me the corporate soft-cock energy is taking over already.]

Old mate, my heart is literally about to explode!

My thoughts were frantic and dripping with pure panic.

Look at the size of that capybara! It just flattened a dumpster! If it steps on me, I’ll turn into mush, and it glows like my old gaming RGB keyboard.

[System: Yeah, and if you stay behind that pillar, you’ll spend the next three hundred years being a useless piece of red plastic until a stray sewer rat mistakes you for a random strand of spaghetti and inhales you. Think about it, ya weapon! That Midnight Shroom is pure, unadulterated evolution fuel. It’s sitting right there. Undefended. It’s free real estate!]

The blue interface paused, flickering with a subtle, deep violet hue that seemed to hum with pure, unholy temptation.

[System: Besides... you saw the side quest. You saw the extra rewards. You’re really gonna let your virgin energy win out just because you’re scared of a giant hamster? You want to look back on your second life and realise you were too much of a bitch to touch a single dark elf nipple? Come on, mate. Do it for me. Do it for the gains.]

For the gains...

The words echoed through my soup-filled human brain.

The system was right. I didn’t get reincarnated as a premium red pipe cleaner just to file tax returns for the underworld. If I were going to survive. I had to stop acting like a mid-office worker and start acting like a predator, or something close to it.

A massive wave of desperate, degenerate adrenaline flooded my tiny system, forcibly drowning out the panic. The hummingbird in my chest stopped screaming and started revving like a chainsaw.

A slow, genuinely wicked grin finally forced its way across my scales.

Alright, old mate. Activate Thermal Camouflage. Operation: Steal the Glow shroom is officially a go.

[System: Oh, you cheeky fucker. Are you actually going to steal from an elf and a giant rodent? I love it. Do it. Go, go, go!]

The freezing cold sensation washed over my spine, instantly wiping my heat signature off the map. I uncoiled from the shadow of the pillar and slithered out onto the open pavement, moving at my maximum, staggering speed of two kilometres per hour.

I am a ghost. I am a shadow. I am a premium, tactical sentient spaghetti noodle sliding through the dust.

Above me, a stray green arrow thudded into the asphalt, showering my scales with debris. To my left, the elf let out a fierce grunt that sounded shockingly similar to a moan, as she slid under the capybara’s stubby legs, her absurdly toned thighs practically illuminating the gloom.

Focus, Matt, focus. Tear your eyes away from the high-definition fantasy fan service. Get the vegetable. Secure the bag.

Ignoring the system’s geographical commentary, I reached the crack in the pavement. The Midnight Shroom towered over me, its pulsing purple cap the size of my entire head. Up close, it smelled like pure, concentrated evolutionary power, and honestly? A bit like honey BBQ chicken wings from a pub at 2 AM.

[System: Alright, Ocean’s Eleven, you’re at the vault. What’s the play? You don’t exactly have hands or pockets to carry a magical fungus, mate.]

I have a dead man’s stubbornness and a flexible jaw.

I didn’t have time to gracefully harvest it. I slid right up to the base of the stalk, unhinged my lower jaw with that familiar, deeply unsettling click, and opened my mouth wide enough to swallow a mango. I clamped my fangs directly onto the glowing purple stem and yanked backward with the full weight of my tiny body.

SNAP.

The mushroom popped out of the concrete. The rush of pure magical energy hit my tongue.

[System: Bloody hell, you actually got it! Now move your tiny red ass! The camouflage is ticking down, and I’d rather my first gig as a god system not blow up in the first bloody week!]

Slithering with a comically oversized, glowing purple mushroom clamped in your jaws is the geometric equivalent of trying to escape a bank heist while carrying a lit neon sign between your two fangs.

But as the massive, glowing cap of the mushroom finally forced its way past my throat, transforming me into a comically distended, pulsing neon-red lump, the chaotic sounds of the battlefield suddenly changed.

The heavy, thunderous stomping of the capybara missed its mark. A sharp, tattered leather skid echoed across the pavement just a few meters away.

The dark elf had just rolled backward to reset her stance, pulling another lime-green energy arrow back to her ear. Her emerald eyes instinctively flicked toward the middle of the street to check on her setup. To check on the glowing prize she was using to lure the giant rodent into her kill zone.

The bait was completely gone.

”What?!” she gasped, her melodic voice cracking with sheer bewilderment. ”Where is the shroom?! The bait is gone!”

[System: Uh, Matt? Mission Control, we have a problem. The lady boss just realised someone nicked her trap.]