“Connie, how much Blood Money would it cost to make me a Hero?” Lia asked.
Connie snapped her head up, looking away from the book she was reading. “Absolutely not.” She said. “I don’t know what brought this about, but I’m not subjecting you to that.”
“What do you mean “subject me to that”?!” Lia asked. “Now that the Urge is gone, Rose and Amelia are doing just fine!”
“Being a Hero is a heavy responsibility, Lia.” Connie said. “I’m not fully at liberty to explain everything, but there are…duties that all Heroes must perform, and even they aren’t fully aware of them, we have to do some memory manipulation each time we’re done.” She paused, frowning. “I suppose, Hero or not, if you succeed, you’ll likely end up pulled into these duties anyway, but I’m not preemptively signing you up.”
“It can’t be that bad.” Lia said. “Not as bad as having to sit around and watch those two risk themselves while I’m forced to do nothing.”
Connie sighed. “So that’s what this is about.” She said. “Lia, I understand what you’re getting at, really, I do, but you just need to be patient. Amelia and Rose are stronger now, but you will catch up, Hero or no. Amelia and Rose have had a long time to get acclimated to the strength of a Hero, I fear it might do more harm than good to give you such a potent immediate power boost.”
“And what about summoned Heroes?” Lia asked. “They get the immediate power boost and it isn’t an issue.”
“They also have significant training periods and are getting used to a new system to boot; they expect things to be different, and take their time adjusting to it. You’d keep your system and expect your stats to function the same, on some level it’ll be harder. Theoretically, evolving would solve the issue, but you’re a ways off from that now, and becoming a Hero isn’t going to help that. And, besides, we have to get approval from Jerry when making a Hero, you’d have to take it up with him.”
Lia grit her teeth. “And…and what am I supposed to do? They won’t let me help, and it hurts me to see them throw themselves into danger for my sake.”
“Lia, Matthew thinks you have potential to beat the Lord of Monsters, and he is the guy for assessing power. You are plenty strong, you just need time to grow into it.”
“But…this is the hardest it’s going to be, it feels wrong to leave it all to them right now.” Lia said feebly. “It’s just…”
“Lia,” Connie said gently, “like it or not, you’re the ruler. To lose you is to lose everything. The others can, eventually, be brought back, but you can’t. And while this may be the hardest time in this war, it won’t be the hardest time of your conquest. The Lord of Monsters will surely be a similarly difficult trial, and all other planes you fight will have more resources and stronger people than this one. You’ll have your time to shine, just let them protect you for now.”
Connie paused, gave another sigh, then continued to speak. “But…there is one way to give you a quick power bump. I doubt it would be enough to change their minds on your participation, but it’s better than nothing.”
Lia perked up. “Oh?” She said. “What’s that?”
“You still haven’t killed Ira.” Connie replied. “I know you don’t have an easy way right now, but I’ve cooked up a device that can do it. I can’t give it to you for free, not until you’ve conquered this plane and I can officially…merge our finances, so to speak. Still, I can give it to you for dirt cheap, and killing Ira would provide a lot of experience, among other benefits.”
“Other benefits?” Lia asked, raising an eyebrow.
“For one, you don’t need to have part of your Dimensional Storage dedicated to his cocoon anymore.” Connie said. “But…I think I’ll leave the rest as a surprise, because I’m not totally sure of it yet. I think it’ll be well worth your time even if the other stuff I’m thinking about doesn’t come to pass, though.”
Lia nodded. “Alright. How much for this device, and how do I use it?”
“Three thousand Blood Money, and you just place it up against the cocoon and it’ll annihilate whatever’s inside. Only works on cocoons, though, and I would make it cheaper, but…it’s expensive to manufacture, sorry. That’s covering the cost of production, and it’s as low as I can go.”
“Unacceptable.” Lia said. “Raise the price, I can’t have that.”
“But–”
“But nothing. You’re providing a valuable service to me and deserve to be compensated.”
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Connie sighed. “Fine. Three thousand and one, take it or leave it.”
Lia frowned. “I–”
“I’m trying to treat my lover to something nice that would help her solve a problem that’s causing her a lot of distress.” Connie said. “If I could, I would give it to you for free, but I am bound by my position as Goddess of Commerce. I just…don’t want to be in a relationship where I’m constantly leeching off of you; you know you would do the exact same in my position, so please…just let me have this, okay?”
Lia hesitated for a moment, then shook her head in defeat. “Fine.” She said, transferring the Blood Money. “Three thousand even.”
Connie’s face bloomed into a smile. “Thank you!” She said happily, a small two-pronged device appearing in her hand. “There you are. You, uh, might want to go do this somewhere else, though; I doubt anyone wants the house to smell like burnt flesh.”
“Duly noted.” Lia said, putting the device into her Dimensional Storage. “I’ll go do it out in the valley, then. Thanks, Connie.”
“Of course!” Connie said brightly. “Be back by evening, I’ll have dinner ready.”
Lia nodded. “I’m looking forward to it!”
Alisha cursed her own lack of foresight as she walked back to her house. After some discussion, she had recently been barred from the Queen’s house under the pretense that her presence was unintentionally making certain confidential things complicated, and she had used her main body to take her old humanoid form for the meeting, the combination of which meant that she had no idea where the Queen was.
And that, unfortunately, meant she was unable to assist her. So, she had little choice but to help by doing what she did every night – transformation practice. She was slowly but surely increasing the number of abilities she could grant a wearer at once, and was up to an astounding six at the moment.
That sounded nice, but it wasn’t anywhere close to enough. Alisha wasn’t going to be satisfied until she could give everything she had to the Queen, and the fact that the Queen was frustrated with her own power was a clear sign that Alisha wasn’t working hard enough. After all, were Alisha able to grant her all of the effects that Alisha had access to, she had no doubt that the Queen would be allowed to help the Mistresses.
So, she began running through her exercises, shifting her form from artifact to artifact as a warm-up, before moving onto more difficult things such as granting the effect of an artifact while looking like a different artifact, or granting multiple effects at once.
It was very hard work, but she had been making slow and steady progress. She had seen several breakthroughs in the past, one when the bindings had been lifted, one after leveling up several times, and a few after she had obtained certain Skills, but they just weren’t enough.
So, she began to step up her efforts. She took the body that she had in Aura, split off a little bit to act as a sensory relay in case something urgent happened that needed her attention, and sent it off to go hunt monsters.
She hadn’t put too much effort into leveling Skills that helped her multitask with different bodies, so two high-complexity tasks like stretching her transformation abilities to the limit and trying to keep her other body from dying while fighting monsters was stretching herself to the limit.
But she wouldn’t progress if she didn’t push herself, so it was well worth the effort. The progress was slow, painfully slow, but there were, unfortunately, no shortcuts to this. She had already taken the shortcut to power, and now she needed to learn how to use it.
So, it came as a surprise when a couple of hours later she was assaulted by a heavily uncomfortable sensation, like her soul itself was itching, and then a window popped up in front of her.
As one who has gained more strength from absorbing the power of others than anyone else, you have gained the Title Gluttony, and a personally tailored Skill, #@!#%?@ *!1|#)_~ :[+! Your personally tailored Skill has been forcefully altered by a higher power. You may choose to reject this Skill; if you do, you will instead receive the Skill you would have gotten, but you may not check the other Skill beforehand. Gluttony: Symbiotic Equipment: |
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