Chapter 46: 46. Hyde

The next day was another typical one for wintering in Salcret. Kalle and Roldy had spent the morning trying something new, the [Esperlock] wanted to work out how far he could push his tier 1 Passive [Fort of the Mind] which granted him passive protections against mental attacks. So, the [Chaos Druid] was using his tier 7 Spell, [Spore of Dreams], to put him under and clocking how long it took him to snap out of it.

"Eleven seconds, still." He had started out at fifteen, but the 'Grand Leader of the Mighty One Man Conclave of Salcret' was far from satisfied. That was Oscars title for him. Kalle was pushing for below ten.

"Are you positive you're still using ten percent of your magic each cast? I could swear I am improving, but not seeing a result," Roldy beamed at that, despite starting to look drained. "I'm pretty sure I am improving too, I'm starting to get a sense for what the dreams are showing you!"

Kalle slumped downed at that but still looked satisfied with their work, it meant it was at least true he was improving, despite the repeating score.

Livia had been watching her guild members going at it all morning. She was taking some notes, and it was going so much faster than before. While she was working to upgrade [Basic Bookkeeping] she had to write everything in a basic cypher, the idea was to use more advanced bookkeeping than the basic version of the Skill could keep up with, forcing it to either evolve or grow redundant, something the [System] did not at all like. Now that she had the advanced version she could finally write normally again, and have it encrypted as soon as she stored it in her office.

That was the case for even a normal [System] user, but apparently it was doubly true for someone with a [System] Mark. She was prioritized, so as long as she guided the Skills she wouldn't have to worry about the spending man hours to accumulate enough affinity-specific magic. That's right, even Skills were powered by magic, not just Spells. Although it didn't require the specific user to have any inherent magic ability at all, although that would almost certainly be developed if they reached a high enough level. The [System] had a vast, unknown amount of affinity-less magic, all you needed to do to make use of it was give it a purpose by your own affinity and through use of the abilities granted by the [System], which made your spiritual physique gradually develop to more efficiently convert more and more affinity-less magic from the [System] to the kind you needed.

This meant you were far more likely to get Skill upgrades and the like if you had a mundane Class which required less power from the [System], which had been part of the reason why Livia chose [Guild Master]. Of course, that turned out to be redundant now that the [System] had decided to prioritize her for increased power usage anyway. Livia was pretty sure she wasn't cut out to be figuring out innovative new high level magic anyway, but it was undoubtedly a missed opportunity.

[Your guildmembers are doing good, for their age and abysmal access to resources, but they are far too few in number.] Livia ignored the voice.

The group enjoyed a quiet lunch, and then Kalle went to the back to work on building a new stack of firewood. Livia went to sit by the side again, and Roldy was still regaining his magic so him and Oscar joined up too. A surprising addition was Mossy, who they saw briefly and seldom. He came for meals each day, and was still growing like only a magic wolf could, but he clearly wasn't particularly attached to the fellowship.

[I'm serious, with only four members, besides you, you will have a very hard time leveling.]

"What do you mean four?"

[Well the beast clearly has potential, the Druid improved its intelligence, so all it needs is the same level of resources as the others and it will develop into a proper member in time.]

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That settled the matter for Livia and so she finally came to a conclusion. Or rather was reminded of the conclusion she had reached this morning.

"Roldy, we can't keep calling him Mossy," Kalle stopped axing away at the logs and the brothers both looked to the mosswolf, which happened to be observing them.

"I know but I'm no good with names, apparently, why don't you like Mossy?" They all gave him the same queer look. "What, he is!" Livia reflexively face palmed at this. "Fine, what, you want me to brainstorm? Uh, Striker, Brawn, Rover, Smoke, Boulder." The three others were almost falling over laughing at this point. "Stop, please stop!"

Once they recovered Livia looked to the Mosswolf. "It would be one thing if he actually liked Mossy, but he clearly thinks you're an idiot." The creature yelped at this and got a bright eyed look. "See, how smart did you make him anyway? Maybe he has a preference." It was Livia's turn to get treated to a triple-serving of the queer, dubious look.

But the mosswolf actually seemed to connect the dots, it went to pick up a stick and loped over to the dirt where Kalle had been axing logs for years. It went to drag the stick in the dirt, and the group were looking shocked. There's no fucking way it can write. Thought Kalle.

Turns out it couldn't, but it had drawn what looked to Livia like a 'H'. She was struck with inspiration. "How do you like Hyde?" The mosswolf dropped the stick at this and gave them his best puppy grin. A real name.

Livia knew the name would stick, and that she would have to be constantly reminded of one of her childhood favorites, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and by extension Earth, but she was coming to terms with it.

That night they threw together a small celebration for their 4th official guild member, and Hyde finally stopped acting so distant.

And the day after was when Livia finally decided that she needed to come clean to the others.

[Are you sure about this?]

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