Chapter 42: Interlude 4: Interference

Erryn's POV

Erryn started with slimes. You could never go wrong with a slime. At least, not as long as you didn't consider that particular slime. The child had already picked up a weapon skill, so slimes would be no threat. With his personality he'd certainly try to fight, whatever she sent, but that would be no good if the adults chased him away. They should let him fight slimes.

He performed wonderfully. If there was one thing that was odd, it was that despite the way he never tried to act outside of the System, he would still attempt to find uses for skills beyond their original intent. It was a small piece of cognitive dissonance that Erryn couldn't understand, and while he normally didn't achieve much, she had to admit that his abuse of [Far Reach] was impressive. Erryn ordered over some higher level slimes to push him a little further, happy to find that he rose to the challenge.

Unfortunately, the local town dispatched a high levelled team of delvers to take care of the remainder of the slimes. Erryn had hoped that the child would somehow end up visiting the mana field himself, but that had admittedly been unlikely to start with. It didn't much matter; the local ruler had spotted the slimes for what they were and knew they were associated with the child. He ordered guards dispatched to the village. Now the child had another source of knowledge and training available.

Or at least, that was how Erryn had hoped it would be. Despite a promising start, the second set of guards were... boring. And worse, there would be no third set; the second set had settled down to live. The growth of the child slowed. With guards in the village, dispatching more low levelled forces would be useless; the child would never even meet them. She would have to try something while he was alone, but chances were good that she'd only get one shot. After that, he'd be unlikely to leave the village again. She'd have to make that one chance count.

She waited patiently until the child was almost at his second rank, then spawned an orc. The title he would win as an award would be worth it on its own, but such a fight would bring him many more rewards besides. Of course, in order to benefit at all, he would first need to survive the encounter. In that regard he was in luck; as the System administrator Erryn was largely outside of its scope, and if she slightly... encouraged his victory it wouldn't count against his gains. That said, the biggest advantage required no further effort on Erryn's part at all; the surface had nowhere near the mana density required to sustain an orc, and the monster was haemorrhaging its pool. Its empowered roar attack would be completely unusable and its speed and strength would be slightly dulled. It should be enough to give the child an edge. On top of that, he was still close to the village and with a fast catkin girl. With his personality, he would most certainly send her away, and she would run for help. If anything did go wrong, reinforcements would arrive quickly.

Even so, the fight was a close one. Erryn watched both parties go down together, the battle effectively a draw. Despite not needing to interfere in the fight itself, she would need to intervene now or else the child would die, his stacked up gains unrealised. She nudged the System, which was still waiting to see which combatant would perish first before declaring a winner, and watched the child's queued up levels come rolling in. Fortunately, that was enough to lift him out of immediate danger. Backup from the village would be arriving within minutes, and they could take care of the rest.

As expected, the orc attack was immediately noticed for what it was, and the child was rushed to the local town as soon as his wounds were healed, all the while under a constant guard. It was unlikely Erryn would be able to catch him on his own again, but it didn't much matter; he'd got plenty out of that single encounter, and would enter a dungeon on his own at some point. Even better, he had realised the point of the attack, and knew that it wasn't an attempt on his life. But then things took an unexpected turn sideways; the local ruler deemed the attacks on the child to be a danger to those around him, and didn't feel that leaving him under protection was a good idea, in case it put the whole village at risk. Instead, he encouraged the child to enter the dungeon and, despite his previous promise, the child agreed.

That was a slight on Erryn's character. Of course she wasn't going to put anyone in danger. With her stats, the catkin girl would never have done something as mundane as trip over. Even if she did, Erryn would sooner have teleported her away or destroyed the orc than let the girl come to harm. Nevertheless, the misunderstanding was useful. The child was now going to enter the dungeon long before he came of age. The orc had been a stunning success; not only had it given the child a large boost, but it had brought forward the timescale in which he'd make contact with a dungeon core by years.

That thought was interrupted by another warning from the System. It was once again trying to form a unique trait with illegal effects. This time Erryn caught it early; she already had her focus on the intended recipient, after all. She blocked the formation of the trait, and the removal of the one it was supposed to replace, then read the description happily.

[Unusual Soul] - The structure of your soul is somewhat foreign to the lands you walk. You are immune to the effects of soul magic, unless specially adjusted for you. (Rank 3)

Her plan was working perfectly, the child's advancement to rank two pushing its progress forward significantly, but she didn't want to spring it on him unannounced. These traits were nothing more than words around what was already there, so actually swapping them out was unnecessary. The alien edges to his soul had probably been sufficiently eroded by this point that Erryn would be able to work out the rest. She just needed to encourage him to spend time in a dungeon, preferably on his own, so that she could examine him without interference from other souls, and she would be able to communicate properly. Or if the erosion continued further, even proximity to a core wouldn't be needed. A couple more years and he would be every bit as open as any of Erryn's children.

Despite that, she wanted to relay to him that he wasn't putting those around him at risk simply by existing, that he didn't need to go charging into the dangers of a dungeon. Still not ready to reveal herself fully, she looked again at the System, at a feature that had been used significantly in its previous iteration, but that hadn't been used at all in this one. With the Law, it had never been needed. Yes, that would work nicely. She would give the child a quest.

Not just a quest either, but a choice. If that resulted in him not stepping into the dungeon again, it didn't matter. That in itself would be the answer that Erryn sought.

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