The bone-mutt didn't even have time to whimper or realize it was just a minor mob in some twisted progression fantasy, which was probably for the best considering how much it smelled like a wet mop left in a bucket since the last carnival.
My shadow did this weird, oily ripple on the gray rocks, stretching out like a puddle of spilt diesel before this little thing made of pure, translucent geometry just kind of fell out of it.
It was definitely a fox, or at least the universe's best attempt at rendering one with a bunch of floating glass shards and nine tails that looked like those cheap neon fiber-optic lamps you buy at the street market in Brás.
The creature didn't make a sound, which was weirdly creepier than some epic roar or a cutesy anime bark, and it just stared at the bone-thing with a complete lack of interest that reminded me of the guys who work at the DMV back in São Paulo.
Then it just yawned, opening a mouth full of jagged crystal teeth, and bit down on the literal air between them with a dry, sharp crunch that echoed inside my molars.
It wasn't that it bit the monster's throat; it bit the coordinates in the local grid where the monster's neck was supposed to exist, leaving a clean, square hole in reality that leaked a gray smoke smelling like burnt rubber and damp basements.
The rest of the beast's body just stood there for a weirdly long second, balancing on its rotten paws like a table with one leg cut too short, before the whole mess tipped over and dissolved into a pile of gray grease.
It didn't look cool or legendary; it looked like a kitchen accident where someone dropped a giant bowl of gray soup on a hot concrete floor, and I could feel the grease splattering against the hem of my high-top sneakers.
I stood there staring at the grease puddle, wondering if this meant I was now technically a pet owner and if I'd have to pay some kind of fantasy world tax on a magical nine-tailed fox that clearly didn't obey the laws of physics.
I crouched down, ignoring the way my expensive silk skirt was soaking up the local filth, and reached out to touch the fox's snout because I have zero self-preservation instincts when a creature looks like it costs more than a brand new apartment in Pinheiros.
The crystal was ice-cold against my fingertips, a dry and sterile kind of cold that didn't feel like ice but more like touching the metal casing of a server rack in a room where the air conditioning is set to absolute zero.
It didn't bite my hand off, which was a huge plus in my book, and it just leaned its sharp, geometric head against my palm with a faint clicking sound that reminded me of a hard drive struggling to read a scratched CD.
"Your name is Profit," I said out loud, my voice sounding weirdly flat and congested in this heavy, purple air that felt like trying to breathe through a wet towel you used to dry a wet dog.
I figured naming it 'Profit' was the only logical choice since the whole point of this transmigration scam was to make sure I ended up on top of the pile instead of being some tragic side character who dies in the prologue to motivate the hero.
The fox seemed to like the name, or maybe it just didn't care about human labels, because it gave another dry click and its nine tails did a synchronized wave that made the ambient light bend in a way that gave me a fresh migraine.
Then the system panel flickered into existence right in front of my nose, smelling strongly of ozone and hot plastic like a cheap hair dryer that's about to give up on life and start a fire in the bathroom.
The text was still in that atrocious font that made my eyes bleed, rendering the message [Territory Claimed. +100 Sin Points.] in a shade of neon magenta that clashed horribly with the natural purple of the bruised sky above us.
I couldn't help but think that whatever entity designed this user interface probably didn't have a degree in visual communication or any sense of aesthetic decency, but a hundred points was a hundred points.
Since I was already covered in monster grease and questioning all my life choices up to this point, I figured I might as well check out that fourth gift the system had shoved into my soul without asking for my consent or a signature on a digital contract.
I focused on the messy pile of bones and gray lard on the ground, feeling a sudden, sharp pinch behind my eyeballs that felt exactly like that time I accidentally got a bunch of lemon juice in my eye during a family barbecue.
My vision didn't just blur; it literally fractured, splitting the horizon into a thousand tiny, golden hexagons that started spinning at different speeds until I felt like I was going to throw up my breakfast.
The normal, ugly colors of the Death Lands just drained away, leaving everything in a high-contrast grayscale that made the rocks look like they were carved out of old newspaper, while everything else was covered in floating strings of glowing runes.
These weren't cool, mysterious ancient letters, but strings of data that looked like the back end of a messy website, detailing the exact weight, composition, and market value of every single pebble in my field of view.
The carcass of the bone-mutt was glowing with a faint, sickly green light, and a bunch of floating numbers informed me that its ribcage could be processed into a low-grade fertilizer worth about three copper coins if I could find a merchant stupid enough to buy it.
There was also a small, bright red dot pulsing right in the middle of the gray grease, about three centimeters below where the monster's liver would have been if it wasn't made of pure, concentrated corruption and bad vibes.
The data string next to it called it a 'Corrupted Bone Core' and gave it an estimated value of twelve silver coins, noting that it could be used in alchemy to brew a potion that either cures paralysis or gives you explosive diarrhea, depending on how long you boil it.
It was a weirdly specific detail for a system to include, but I guess when you're an all-knowing cosmic interface, you have to find ways to entertain yourself at the expense of the mortals.
I didn't have a knife or a pair of gloves, and the thought of digging through a pile of monster lard with my bare hands made me want to go back to my old life of paying a massive Fies debt while working in a cubicle that smelled like coffee and despair.
But twelve silver coins sounded a lot better than zero silver coins, and my father didn't raise a quitter who leaves money on the table just because things get a little slimy and gross.
I reached into the center of the gray mess, my fingers sinking into the cold, gelatinous grease with a squelching sound that I will probably hear in my nightmares for the next three decades if I survive that long.
The core was about the size of a billiard ball and felt like a piece of polished anthracite, vibrating slightly against my palm with a frequency that made the fillings in my teeth feel loose and itchy.
I pulled it out with a wet pop, leaving a string of black slime connecting my knuckles to the dead beast, and I couldn't help but let out a dry, barking laugh that probably sounded a lot more insane than I intended it to be.
I wiped the grease off on the side of my dress, which was already ruined anyway, and stared at the dark crystal while Profit made another one of his hard-drive clicking noises in approval.
"This place is actually a goldmine," I muttered to myself, my fingers cramping slightly around the cold stone as I realized that being exiled here wasn't actually the death sentence everyone in the capital thought it was.
There were no competitors here, no greedy merchants trying to undercut my margins, and no taxes to pay to a king who probably spent all the realm's treasury on golden toilets and expensive horses that he didn't know how to ride properly.
It was a complete and absolute monopoly on high-level monster materials, assuming I didn't get eaten by something bigger than a starved pitbull within the next twenty minutes or so.