Chapter 11: 11: Morning People (and Fairy)

I woke up to the sound of dishes clattering in the kitchen. It wasn't unusual for the sounds of everyone getting ready for the day to wake me up, what was unusual was me actually feeling like staying awake.

I reached out to the table where my phone was charging and picked it up.

7:44 AM.

When was the last time I actually felt awake this early?

Despite my mental grumbles, the fact remained that I felt awake and probably wasn't going to have an easy time falling back to sleep like this.

In the first place, if I was going to start working at Richard's on Monday then I'd have to start getting up earlier anyway.

Sigh…

I sat up on the couch and looked towards the kitchen table where Noitte and Mile were quietly sitting and pouring cereal. 

It was unusual to see them both sitting silently like that, and despite my best efforts I couldn't help but feel bad about the part I definitely had in that. 

I walked over to the table, prompting surprised expressions from both women. 

"Mornin' Conor! Sorry if we woke you up!"

"We're almost done here honey, we'll be out of your way in a minute."

… 

I appreciated the consideration for my sleeping, but seeing them going out of their way like this just sort of made me feel bad. Mile, in particular, was saying they were almost done while her bowl had obviously just been poured. Her spoon was still sitting next to the bowl, bone dry.

Had I really been such a disagreeable asshole that they felt this worried about slightly inconveniencing me by eating breakfast?

"I mean, kind of!"

…

"I mean, have you ever actually listened to yourself in the morning?"

The ever so helpful Fig flew out of my chest, her white dragonfly wings quickly flapping as she…

Dragonfly wings?

Those… definitely weren't there yesterday, right?

I wanted to ask her about them immediately, but of course I couldn't with other people around.

"Heheheheheheheeeee!"

Fig, for her part, seemed to know exactly what I wanted to ask, zipping around the kitchen and grinning like an idiot while laughing to herself. 

I couldn't really do much but ignore her for now, instead turning my attention back to the two unreasonably apologetic women in front of me.

"Don't worry about it. I need to start getting up early anyway if I'm going to start working on Monday, right?"

Mile smiled brightly at my words, still apparently not able to hide her excitement at my getting a job.

Noitte, for her part, seemed satisfied by my answer and lack of evident annoyance, beginning to shovel cereal into her mouth at what I assumed was her usual pace while also trying to speak.

"Mo yeh! Sho ya gonna sha-"

"Noitte!"

"Wha?"

Mile seemed significantly less amused by Noitte's poor manners than she was, but didn't seem too upset about it either.

"But seriously though, Conor. You start at Richard's Monday?"

"Yeah, that's the plan."

"Cool beans. Any idea how long you're going to work there?"

"I mean, not really? Until something better comes up?"

"Well-"

Mile's face lit up as she seemed to remember something. 

"Oh right! Did you get the email I sent you about your hours and training?"

"Er, no?"

"Well make sure you go over them this weekend, okay? It would be a problem if you showed up to work clueless, you know?"

"Okay, then I-"

Before I could finish my reply Noitte seemed to remember something she wanted to say as well.

"Oh yeah! Conor! I was talking to my friend about her job the other day and-"

The two continued to alternate speaking back and forth for the next thirty minutes or so, only allowing me enough leeway to pour a bowl of cereal and briefly respond to some questions.

How they get this much energy this early in the morning, I'll probably never understand.

I quickly became exhausted by their verbal assault, but fortunately their onslaught had a hard time limit. 

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, followed shortly by Season poking her head around the corner, her face mostly expressionless, but with the additional look of tiredness I generally expected normal people to have in the morning. 

"About ready?"

"Yeah! Just a sec!"

Noitte stood up and quickly slid her shoes on before picking up her bag and checking herself in the mirror. She turned to me and started taking a half step forward before stopping. She looked slightly awkward for a moment, as if she wanted to say something but couldn't. After a moment of deliberation she seemed to decide against whatever she was thinking, instead waving once before she rushed out the garage door.

Okay?

Mile, for her part, simply stood up, grabbed her bag from next to her seat, and calmly walked to the door while speaking to me.

"Have a good day, sweetie. We'll be back at the usual time. Don't forget Luce is supposed to come by today to get the downstairs!"

With that and a final "Bye!", the door to the garage closed and I heard the sound of the garage opening, the car starting, and then the garage closing again.

…

Should I say that it's amazing how much different mornings are when you're actually awake for them? I usually didn't have any sort of conversation until the afternoon, let alone a mother-daughter talkathon.

I sat back on the couch, still not quite tired, but unsure of what to do next.

Fig floated in front of me, tapping her chin as her wings beat quickly behind her.

"Man, I expected Noitte, but it's super surprising to see Mile so talkative first thing in the morning."

"That's true. I-"

…

Wait.

"So about those wings."

"Hehe! Super cool, right!"

"Yeah, sure, but when did you get them?"

"Even I'll feel hurt if you dismiss me like that every single time!"

Fig folded her arms across her chest and put on a sad face as she complained.

Apparently she was too excited to maintain that pose for long, however, as her face quickly brightened as she continued on.

"But since I'm so cool and nice I'll tell you anyway!"

She flew up to me with a wide grin on her face and her hands on her hips, sticking her nonexistent chest out proudly as her new wings beat quickly behind her.

"I evolved!"

Evolved?

Like gotta catch em all style?

You are reading story Inherent Skill of Corruption at novel35.com

Status

I checked my skill information, but nothing seemed like it had changed save for "Corruption" now being "Corruption Lv2". The description was, as far as I could remember, the same as it was when I checked it yesterday, but "Lv2" was probably for more than just show.

"Cool! Right?"

Fig was obviously excited, flying around in circles and making me dizzy. I, however, was mostly confused.

"How did you level up?"

"I told you your mana core is like your heart, but for mana, right?"

"Okay?"

"Well you exercised the muscle enough, so it got stronger!"

"I… still don't think your heart works like that, but I think I get what you're saying?"

I used my skill a few times over the course of a couple of days, so I guess that was enough to leave level one.  

"And you got the wings because you leveled up?"

"Nope! I got them because I evolved!"

"The difference being…?"

"Well, leveling up just makes me stronger."

"How so?"

"Hmmm. I guess I feel more potent?"

"You guess?"

"Yeah! Maybe about twelve and a half percent stronger?"

"That's… specific."

"Yeah, because I just made that up! I really do feel like I can do more now, though!"

She smiled, clearly proud of her joke, as she flexed her tiny bicep and tried her best to look "strong".

"..."

"A-anyway! I don't know exactly how much, but I am a little stronger and maybe a little more efficient?"

"Should I bother asking how much more efficient you feel?"

"Nope!"

"Didn't think so."

Despite her vagueness, knowing that she was stronger was convenient for me. Just last night I suffered backlash from Season and now-

"Oh right! I'm probably still not strong enough to work on Season, though!"

And now nothing, I guess.

"So did leveling you up actually help at all?"

"Er… well probably!"

Despite the positive answer, she seemed to be having trouble looking directly at me while saying it.

Suddenly, her face lit up.

"You could barely make it past Luce's mental defense the other day, right!? Now it should be easy to push her further, you know?"

It was true that it had taken a lot to get my first order through to Luce last time, so the level up might help with that, but it was hard to see that as a huge change.

It was a subtle feeling, I guess. It might be the difference between success and failure, but it didn't exactly feel like a huge deal when I had still managed to succeed last time anyway.

"Well, I can test that on Luce when she gets here, I guess. What about the evolution thing?"

Fig tapped her chin for a second as she thought before beginning her explanation, her voice slightly more subdued than last time.

"So, you know the skill trees in Demoness?"

Obviously I did. 

Each character had a page with their core skills, they generally started with just one or two abilities, but every skill they learned would make it possible to then learn one or two related higher level skills, which would in turn unlock the ability to learn even more high level skills and so on.

It was a simple system which allowed you to build your characters whatever way you wanted while still leaving options open. 

If we were to apply that to real life, then…

"Hmm. The look on your face says you have the right idea!"

Fig flew down and sat on my leg, making herself comfortable as she continued on.

"Well, the root of your skill tree is your inherent skill: Me! The more I evolve, the more skills you can get and the better they get! Probably."

Probably?

"Active Corruption is a sub skill of me, but in terms of skill trees, it would be a low branch that's barely leaving the trunk, you know? If I get stronger the tree gets higher and the branches get crazier and cooler! So maybe I'm the trunk of the skill tree instead of the root? Or both?"

As Fig pondered what part of a tree she would be, I was able to somewhat get the gist of it. Evolving my inherent skill meant more available skills to learn, it was simple, enough, I guess?  All that really leaves is…

"So how do I evolve you, Fig?"

"Probably by a combination of leveling and learning skills?"

"There's that 'probably' again."

"Hey! All I have here is circumstantial evidence! Cut me some slack!"

"Circumstantial evidence?"

"Yeah! You got Active Corruption after using me with Noitte, right? But I didn't evolve then, you would have seen the wings if I had!"

"Okay."

"I also knew the feeling of leveling up when it happened after you used me on Mile. It was subtle, but I felt something change. It wasn't until I went back into you that I could really tell that I'd leveled up, but there was a feeling like 'Ooh! I feel super strong!'"

"...okay?"

"So neither of those things on their own felt like evolution, but nothing else really changed yesterday! So it's probably some combination of the two!"

"Or maybe something you just didn't notice?"

"... just trust my intuition on this one!"

Given that it was information about herself, I felt mostly confident that Fig probably knew what she was talking about, but the lack of certainty didn't exactly feel great.

Anyway…

"Well. The long and short of it is that you're stronger now and can get more sub skills, right?"

"I mean, yeah? Something like that."

"If nothing else, that's good, at least."

"Right!"

As Fig smiled and reclined on my leg, I leaned back against my pillow on the couch. 

Despite having felt energized when I woke up, the fact remained that it was about eight thirty in the morning. Long before I usually woke up. 

Today my main goal was to corrupt Luce when she came over later. Given that, I couldn't really leave the house or anything, so I'd just be waiting for her to get here. Other than that, I didn't really have anything planned.

Normally I would just sleep all morning, play video games or jerk off in the afternoon, and then go to sleep again, so I didn't exactly have a robust backlog of things to do while I waited.

Given that, I closed my eyes, not purely out of sleepiness, but because I had nothing else to do. 

I decided to take the half win of having woken up early and stayed awake for a while. The other half, staying awake the whole day, would have to wait until I had more stuff to do.

You can find story with these keywords: Inherent Skill of Corruption, Read Inherent Skill of Corruption, Inherent Skill of Corruption novel, Inherent Skill of Corruption book, Inherent Skill of Corruption story, Inherent Skill of Corruption full, Inherent Skill of Corruption Latest Chapter