There must be a reason why even a Ruler called this body impressive, but that also raises some worrying questions.
Did the Ruler of Kindness just off an important native? Did she just ruin a potentially rewarding quest line?
I wouldn’t be surprised.
“She has really tough bones, they’re even stronger than mine!” Lily says while touching one of the arms. “I think she might even be over level 400 and have a third trait.”
“I don’t think we’ve seen any demons that powerful in the area,” Tess notes.
“She could’ve come from really far away. You saw how quickly she moved,” I say.
Looking down at Biscuit biting my shoes and pants, and pulling them in revenge for what I’ve done. I wonder what I should do with this ankle biter, but it’s cute when Biscuit embraces his puppy form and behaves like one as well, so I decide to let it go and move closer to the body. Biscuit follows and attacks me again.
(Asshole. Asshole. Asshole.) He keeps repeating, constantly sending thousands of words into my brain with each thought.
“So you can probably learn something from her?” I ask.
Lily nods excitedly. “I’m already out of finger bones from that Champion back on the fifth-floor, so this one should be a decent replacement. I’ve improved since last time, so I might be able to get more out of it. Her heart is unusually big as well, and probably gravitational in nature. I wonder if she compressed or strengthened her body with the help of gravitational energy.”Tess gets the same idea I do. “In that case, this could help Min-Jae improve his training.”
Lily agrees. “Yes, I already thought of that and started preserving the parts he’ll need to examine.”
As she says it, the body, though broken, starts very slowly repairing itself. The broken arms begin to gradually snap back into place, the wounds start closing, and even the eye looks better now. It’s probably taking a lot of mana and effort from Lily. The stronger the body, the more it requires, so it makes sense that it heals more slowly.
Maybe she’s not just doing it to avoid looking at the broken body, but also to practice healing someone like this.
Another worrying thought forms in my head. “Let’s hope her tribe doesn’t come looking for her.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they did,” Tess sighs and looks up at the sky. “Those guys do like to mess around, and they don’t seem to care about the consequences. We might have to move now because of that, and even then, it’s possible that they could track us and blame us regardless.”
“You can flip off the sky. You’ll feel better.”
“Maybe next time, Nat.”
“As you wish.”
“You don’t want a piece of her?” Lily asks me as she looks up from the body.
“That offer sounds a bit weird for some reason, and I'm sure you’re trying to make me look like a creep. And not really, it wouldn’t be that useful to me right now, and I already have too many other things to work on. Just in case, though, when you’re done examining it, don’t take a piece or anything like that. Throw the body to some monsters to eat or something.”
“I already thought of that. There are a few around here we can toss it to. We’ll have to deal with the demons sooner or later, but I’d rather it be on my terms than theirs,” Tess says.
“Just have Lily kick their asses.”
“What else, Mr. Demon Expert?”
“You have to admit, I have the most experience with them. It’ll work for sure.”
“I wouldn’t say experience, more like familiarity. But yes, I know from watching you what works. Minimal speech. The harder you kick their asses, the more they respect you. Questioning the strength of their hearts is a challenge.”
"Tess, are you indirectly calling me a demon?”
"Maybe."
"Nat, I’m sure I could make you look like a demon if you wanted. I even thought of that myself. Look."
At first, I want to stop this petite bulldozer healer from showing off, but my curiosity stops me.
I watch as her body grows taller and her limbs stretch. Her frame shifts slightly, and her clothes tighten as they become a bit too small. She rises to match Tess’s height. Then, her eyes turn red. Starting from the roots, her hair begins to fade to white. Finally, a pair of horns emerges from her forehead, curving backward in an elegant arc.
Her face remains almost the same, changing only slightly to fit her larger structure.
Lily smiles and does the thing I think she’s most proud of. Her heart starts beating at a different frequency... no. I activate my eyes and expand my senses as confusion hits me. What did she do?
Tess says something, but I don’t listen. Instead, I stare at the place where her heart is.
Lily knows how dangerous messing with a Mana Heart can be, so she wouldn’t risk growing it any bigger or changing it too much. At most, she would do something like what I did, building onto it, some construct or something. But she doesn’t have the talent for that. So what did she do? Her heart feels almost like a kinetic heart, very demon-like.
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Only when I focus in on it do I start to pick up on the differences.
Then, I get it. She’s hidden her real heart and built something akin to a fake heart right next to it. It probably shouldn’t even be called a heart, as I’m sure it doesn’t pump blood. It’s just some kind of fake organ that beats strongly and noticeably even to my senses.
I remember that Lily saw my heart working a lot during both of the tournaments and with our experimentation later. Still, to be able to mimic it to this point. It’s damn cool.
Satisfied that I was able to pick up on what’s happening, I look up to meet Demon Lily’s eyes. For some reason, she’s blushing, but while I would expect her to turn away shyly as she used to, she doesn’t now. Well, she’s likely ashamed I was able to see through her, so maybe I should compliment her a little.
“That’s actually impressive work. You made it look almost completely natural, seamless, even. It draws attention right away, but it doesn’t feel fake. You barely notice it at first, and even then, only if you look too closely. At that point, it would be considered a challenge to a fight, so you could probably beat that demon before he says anything.”
She doesn’t say anything. Neither does Tess.
I shift slightly and glance down at Biscuit, who’s still trying to chew through my boot like a dog possessed.
“And it’s not just the placement,” I add, still analyzing. “It’s the way it moves with everything else. You almost forget it’s not the real thing.”
I nod again, satisfied. “Good stuff.”
"Tess..." Lily pleads in a weak voice.
The blonde glances between her and me before saying, "I’m sorry. In situations like this, I’ve never been able to tell if he’s messing with people or if that’s just how he is."
While Lily starts returning to her normal form, I reach to the ground and lift up Biscuit, who twists a few times in an attempt to escape, but I pick him up and hold him against my chest. Maybe I should use that minion communication token already. I wonder how Vega’s been doing.
"The others are almost here," I say, and jump out through the hole in the tree Lily made.
I absorb the kinetic energy of my fall and gently land on the ground. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this. It just feels way too cool to the more childish parts of my brain.
Taking a few more steps, I then stop and wait, looking in the direction where I sense the signatures of the rest of the group.
Noodle appears first, quickly slithering between the trees in his giga form, where he’s as thick as a car. Flames of his Fragment of Eternal Fire still flickering across his scales. In shades of purple, blue, and green.
As polite as he is, he stops in front of me, his tongue flickering as he tastes the air around me and the mana as well. Then he nods politely, and I return the gesture.
He then shrinks further and rushes into the base, likely to join Izzy, whose emotions he must be feeling due to their bond.
Min-Jae exits next, by the side of the laughing blonde, blue-eyed boys. I swear these two have gotten even taller now, and I start to realize they might grow up to be handsome, just slightly below the levels of Lioren and Channeler.
I wonder, does growing to adulthood with mana flowing through your body and leveling up actually make you more handsome? If it does, I find that deeply unfair, since most of my growth seems to have happened just so mana could make me more handsome.
Some people really have it too good.
(You’ll have to chew their shoes or something, Biscuit) I send through our link.
Biscuit quickly looks up and tilts his head in a confused manner, making his ears flop around his head.
Min-Jae spots me and waves. The blonde twins are still laughing about something, probably an inside joke that started before they could even speak in full sentences. They reach me fast, skipping the greetings, like we’re in the middle of a continuous conversation that only paused because they were too far to shout.
“Did you kill her?” one of them asks.
“Unfortunately, not yet,” I say. “Everyone keeps asking that.”
Another one smiles. "We know you that well, at least."
"I guess," I agree. "By the way, the connection you guys built to connect to Sophie was a good job."
“Nah, it’s fine,” the one, I guess, is Dennis, says, waving it off. “We already got thanked by Izzy way too many times, no need to pile on more.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, getting their attention. “Izzy’s nice; she says thanks for everything, so sometimes it doesn’t feel quite as... rewarding? If that’s the right word to use. I saw what you two did, and it must have taken hundreds of hours to complete. I think you really did a good job, and for all it’s worth, you have my thanks as well.”
Aaron, next to Dennis, seems even more awkward and shoots me a playful look. “We know you probably want to thank us because you feel responsible for what happened to everyone in Beyond, but damn, Nat, you can be stupid as fuck sometimes.”
“Stupid as fuck,” Dennis nods seriously.
“Stupid as fuck!” Min-Jae quickly adds.
Aaron’s expression turns more serious, but there’s still that smile on his face he almost always keeps, which makes it so easy for me to tell him apart from Dennis.
“You’re the only one blaming yourself. But for now, if you’ll let us, I need to go see Sophie. If my face is the first thing she sees when she wakes up, she might just fall in love with me.”
Without further talk, he rushes toward the base, with Dennis right behind him. The two superhumanly fast guys push each other away to get there first.
Min-Jae stays behind and shrugs awkwardly. “Ehm, I didn’t call you stupid as fu...”
“It’s fine,” I wave it off.
He nods and also rushes in to check on the others.
It takes a few more minutes, but finally, Maya appears as well. Her body is surrounded by a massive mana construct in a humanoid form. The construct looks like a suit of armor, but it’s not solid. Its surface shifts constantly, flickering between dark blue and near-transparent pale blue. Purple lines run through the mech, glowing faintly. There is no face, just a smooth plate where one might expect eyes.
Maya floats just inside of the chest, sitting within a web of thin mana threads. The construct moves with her, responding like it’s part of her nervous system, and not something she’s piloting.
As her feet touch the ground, it shakes slightly, showing the weight of the armor. Even from a short glance, I notice places she’s made multiple improvements, and when our eyes meet, I recognize that look of being caught in a deep state of focus, trying to maintain the armor and move it properly. As always, there are also a lot of high-quality mana batteries lining her body.
She takes a few more steps, and I notice that the armor is dragging some sort of big, bear-like monster behind her by its legs as she walks.
With her final step, the mana armor breaks apart and collapses into particles that rush back into her body. The pale blue and purple threads slide over her skin, forming glowing purple and pale blue tattoos looking things that wrap around her arms, spread across her shoulders, and reach halfway down her back. They're clearly visible because of the tank top she's wearing, and they pulse slightly for a moment before settling.