Day 26th of the Sun season.
After the usual morning routine, I wake up Aurora whom I didn't get the chance to talk with as I fell asleep on the bed after the shower.
'There're three kids running laps around the house today Johan, Miles, and Elise, apparently they're friends for a while now, and were interested in learning swordsmanship.'
'They're going to suffer what I did since they're a bit older than me, even more, pain awaits them surely.'
'The boys kept looking at me when I was outside as they ran laps, I guess it must be the blonde hair, kids are always surprised seeing it.'
'Maybe the eyes? They're supposed to be rare too...'
'I wonder if it has to do with my old physic from my past life, even though I didn't have blonde hair.'
'Well no matter, I wonder if Elise is enjoying learning swordsmanship since as a healer she'll probably feel the need to be constantly protected.'
'It would be fun to have Alicia around too, I wonder what she's been up to... Probably whatever nobles do I guess, tea parties maybe? Dancing in ballrooms? I'm sure she's wearing a beautiful and expensive dress... Well, I don't really envy her for that, I've had my share at being a noble though I'd like to see her again.'
'If mother lessons get extra popular I wonder if at some point she won't make a little army,' I laugh at my own idiotic thoughts.
I stop looking at the window from my room and turn around.
'She's looking at the mirror for quite some time now ever since I woke her up.'
I approach her and poke my sister's cheek.
"Hum?" Her cold eyes meet mines.
"Don't tell me you're appreciating the mirror."
"It's not that, my skill leveled up and I don't know why."
"Which one?" I ask curiously despite knowing that it's normal for skills to gradually increase as they are used and abused.
"The cursed... mirror... one..."
"What really!? How!?" I shout loudly out of excitement making my head beat faster expecting something interesting from it.
She looks at me with an upset face, "that's what I've been trying to figure out silly Iris."
"Ah... Right, well I could try to appraise it but since it's a cursed skill I don't know what kind of price it'd be."
"Or the consequences... It was cursed, after all, so don't attempt it, let's get stronger first just in case."
"Alright, I'm not in a rush, speaking on which, how'd it go with Leonor what kind of face did she make?"
"She was extremely surprised at the number of soul stones we made, we're currently ranked F with 158 points and 665 copper."
"We scored a lot of points and it seems like our funds are slightly raising, did the quest finish, or what happened?"
"She gave us a new quest, one that you'll enjoy doing on your own I'm sure," she makes a bored expression as she shows it to me by taking a carefully folded paper out of one of her side pockets from a dress on top of the bed.
Quest
Rank: F
Collect sephy herbs from the west forest.
You'll be rewarded 5 points and 40 copper per herb.
"That place... Did you know there're unexplored ruins deep inside of it?"
"Ruins?" Her expression changed instantly as she heard me looking excited with a strange glimmer to it.
'Didn't know she was interested in such things, but I could use this information in the future whenever she acts lazy,' I smile happily hiding my true intentions from her resuming the conversation right after.
"Yes, the guards told me about it, it seems like it's very dangerous with powerful enemies, so it hasn't been used by anyone in a long time, the adventurers who went in wouldn't come out alive."
"Well, what are you waiting for, let's go!" Aurora quickly ignores the existence of the mirror that had been bothering her the entire morning and ran to the room door opening it and pointing at the exit for me to go through.
'Sometimes I truly enjoy watching her childish side, even though she barely shows it.'
"Yes, after you."
She leaves the door open and proceeds to leave the room and I make her trip on the floor.
"Ouch, why did you do that?"
"Where do you think you're going with my naked body you fool?" I step on her ass with my bare feet which is cold making her bristle.
"Ah... I may have forgotten with the excitement..." We laugh at each other and how dumb and childish we can be.
"I'll wait for you outside," I grab the pouch I enjoy using to store the herbs on my way out.
Once I'm outside I look at the three of them lying down on the grass sweating hard.
I approach them and say, "seems like you guys received a beating."
"You... Should... Join... us," Johan said word by word while breathing hard staring at me with red cheeks.
"I've been doing this for a year, lately I've been spending a few hours handling that whole farming field by myself while cutting trees and turning them into logs, then in the afternoon I do quests for the adventurers guild."
They all look surprised at me, "what kind of monster are you?" Miles asks surprised without a mean to offend me.
"You guys should start collecting all types of titles, it'll help to make yourselves stronger."
"What? They barely give anything though!"
"You need to complete the series which are unlocked once one of the titles is maxed, and then proceed to max every little thing, that's when the fun starts."
"How do you know when a title is maxed?" Johan asked curiously as with his skill he cannot access such information.
"I have a skill that allows me to see, but I believe the adventurer guild has a book that provides such information."
"Yes it does, you'll be able to check it when you pass the guild exam," mother adds, clarifying it for us.
"Talking about that, what kind of exam is it? Neither me nor sister or Elise needed to do it."
"Back in my time, they'd make you fight one of the strongest adventurers."
"Hum... Too bad I didn't get the chance, would've been fun to see the gap," I say smiling excitedly.
A familiar voice comes from behind me saying, "as battle maniac as ever," she then lets out a sigh.
'This one is even prettier,' Miles thought as he appreciated my sister's face.
'Aurora's eyes are very clear, but I still prefer the kind eyes of Iris,' Johan thought to himself as his father had told him how marrying a girl like Iris would make him happy in the future though he didn't specify the reason why.
'Here comes the cold lady,' Elise thinks and then says, "how are you Arara?"
"Apparently a lot better than you Eliass, you look kind of dead, laying down on the filthy grass like your some insect, perhaps you'll start crawling like they do and mimicking their sounds as you do?"
'When did these two develop this kind of friendship?' I thought confused.
'Surprised to see someone other than Iris befriending Aurora,' Rosaline thought amazed as Elise rose a level on her consideration.
"How dare you call me that horrible nickname and even go as far as to compare me to an insect!? I'd get up and beat you up, and make that pretty face of yours hit the ground!" As she tries to get up from the ground her body gives up." Ah, I'm exhausted, you're lucky today Arara, but next time you'll see, just you wait!"
"Pfft, what a weakling," Aurora walks by her while waving her hair with her hand showing her superiority and laughing lightly.
"We have a quest to do, I'll see you guys later," I give a kiss to mother then leave.
"See you soon, be careful!" Elise said with a big smile while the rest of the body didn't care.
"Take care of each other daughters."
"We will!" We shout in unison as the boys stare at us silently while we go.
On our way there I carry Aurora as a book when passing through the south gate, we do this every time to avoid the annoying guard Tyson making questions.
Then we head to the west gate into the forest, once we get there, I look around and hide behind a tree to make sure no one sees us, "you can transform back now."
She transforms into a human and says, "Finally free from the shackles of the system."
"Do you dislike being in a grimoire form? Is it that bad?"
"It's actually pretty comfortable but I enjoy walking more, I've been doing it for a while after all."
"Fair enough, this spot here is different from the last time I was here. That way is the direction of the ruins supposedly," I point towards it with my index finger, "and if you could clear the monsters around here, it'd be a great help so I can gather herbs in peace for a change."
"For the greatest witch anything," she smiles coldly while teasing me and I roll my eyes ignoring her comment, and then proceed to gather the herbs.
Aurora starts exploring the forest, and after 10 minutes she returns," didn't see any particular monster I feel like you were just unlucky the last time."
"I had 10 of those crazy rabbits chasing me!" I shouted slightly annoyed cursing my own luck, since now that sister is here none decided to come out.
She laughed lightly at it and then spoke, "well I'll go explore the ruins now."
"Alright, but be careful apparently many adventurers have died in them, to be fair, barely any comes back alive."
"If it's that bad then it must have something very good inside."
"In a system that rewards people depending on its difficulty, it better have a legendary sword that can cut dragons in half sealed in there."
"Did you make it up or did you read it in one of your books?"
"Just a joke."
"Understood," She walks away from Iris towards the ruins.
After a long walk she finds an entrance with stones around her,' it's dark inside, let me get night vision skill.'
'I might trip as a human with only 1 meter of range,' she transforms into a grimoire and floats.
Some stairs down and now a long hall that lasts for 10 minutes.
'It's a good thing the hall is so long it gave me time to level up the skill a bit.'
'Those are skeletons and slimes?'
'I guess they coexist with one another as they don't have meat in them.'
'I float around them,' the skeleton noticing me starts chasing me.
'It'll even go after a little book?' She transforms back into a human and coats her hands in darkness blocking the sword attack.
'Attacks faster than what I can dodge as I have no agility whatsoever, but its strength is lacking,' she lets the sword go through making him bend, striking his head with her left hand damaging it.
'My dark element doesn't seem very effective, I'll mana coat instead and try again,' she punches the skull before it has time to fight back crushing it.
Notice: 100 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
'Interesting amount of experience,' she grabs the sword mana coating it and slicing the two slimes nearby a few times.
Notice: 50 experience has been rewarded from a slime.
Notice: 50 experience has been rewarded from a slime.
Notice: Aurora has leveled up to 6.
'All points on wisdom.'
Notice: Points successfully spent; Status updated.
'These slimes are a lot more resistant, I thought that all I needed was using my unique dark element, but it seems like I'll have to train my normal mana coating too, but it's tough changing between the dark element to fight one thing then mana coat to fight the other...'
'Now then which way do I go? There are four doors, one per direction including the one I came from, guess I'll keep going through the middle that way I won't get lost.'
'This hall is also pretty long, this place looks like it was made to tire humans as every hall seems to take at least 10 minutes to cross.'
'More skeletons and another dark large room, two of them might be trickier, I'll dark bind the one at the back and kill them one at a time.'
She then approaches the one in the front baiting his attack, dodging it slightly as it went through close to her nose.
Aurora proceeds to mana coat the sword from the last skeleton using it to cut the enemy wrist, making the sword and the hand holding it falls on the stone-paved floor and then the neck which ends up on the skull head drop on the ground.
'That didn't give experience,' she looks at the floor and realizes the teeth are still moving, she mana coats her feet and smashes the skull with all her strength causing a bang.
Notice: 110 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
'That's better,' she runs at the next one stepping to the side making the skeleton miss his swing, proceeding to pierce the skull with the mana sword destroying it.
Notice: 110 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
'Like this is easier, and the experience it gives is really good, is it because it is a skeleton plus a body of some old adventurer perhaps, or did it kill many things before.'
She takes the middle path again,' perhaps monsters and beasts roam inside of this place giving these things experience.'
'I have around 800 mana left, trying to make it as clean as possible so I have enough to escape if necessary.'
'This room has light!' She looks above finding a crack big enough for a human to pass through except every room is around 10 meters tall so that'd be impossible to go through.
'More skeletons? Annoying pests,' she runs at the one in the middle binding the other two destroying it, the sword breaks after piercing the skull.
Notice: 120 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
'I'll grab this new sword that looks as old as all the weapons in here, let's mana coat it and deal with the other two,' she dodges the right skeleton attack crushing his wrist then head.
Notice: 110 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
'These things are consuming a lot of my mana, hum? My monster detector is going crazy? 5? 10? 15? 20? 25? 30 monsters? What the hell is going on?'
Monsters started pouring from all the four entries, 'I see, so that's how the adventurers died, the noise it takes to kill these things attracts even more of them.'
A skeleton archer shoots an arrow at her, which she manages to block with the sword cracking it.
'I'll at least take you with me,' she charges at him while he slowly prepares another arrow, ramming him against one of the walls and then crushing the head with all her strength.'
Notice: 150 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
Notice: Aurora has leveled up to 7.
'All points on wisdom fast.'
Notice: Points successfully spent; Status updated.
'I'll be surrounded in no time like this what do I do?' She looks around as she goes closer to the center which is the safest place to be, since everywhere else is being flooded with enemies, ' 70 monsters detected and increasing...'
'Now then I guess this is where I die, sorry Iris, it seems I underestimated this world,' She opens her arms dropping the sword, and looks above being bathed by the light that transpires her contrasting with the surrounding darkness of the halls as the enemies approach slowly.
Day 26th of the Sun season.
After the usual morning routine, I wake up Aurora whom I didn't get the chance to talk with as I fell asleep on the bed after the shower.
'There're three kids running laps around the house today Johan, Miles, and Elise, apparently they're friends for a while now, and were interested in learning swordsmanship.'
'They're going to suffer what I did since they're a bit older than me, even more, pain awaits them surely.'
'The boys kept looking at me when I was outside as they ran laps, I guess it must be the blonde hair, kids are always surprised seeing it.'
'Maybe the eyes? They're supposed to be rare too...'
'I wonder if it has to do with my old physic from my past life, even though I didn't have blonde hair.'
'Well no matter, I wonder if Elise is enjoying learning swordsmanship since as a healer she'll probably feel the need to be constantly protected.'
'It would be fun to have Alicia around too, I wonder what she's been up to... Probably whatever nobles do I guess, tea parties maybe? Dancing in ballrooms? I'm sure she's wearing a beautiful and expensive dress... Well, I don't really envy her for that, I've had my share at being a noble though I'd like to see her again.'
'If mother lessons get extra popular I wonder if at some point she won't make a little army,' I laugh at my own idiotic thoughts.
I stop looking at the window from my room and turn around.
'She's looking at the mirror for quite some time now ever since I woke her up.'
I approach her and poke my sister's cheek.
"Hum?" Her cold eyes meet mines.
"Don't tell me you're appreciating the mirror."
"It's not that, my skill leveled up and I don't know why."
"Which one?" I ask curiously despite knowing that it's normal for skills to gradually increase as they are used and abused.
"The cursed... mirror... one..."
"What really!? How!?" I shout loudly out of excitement making my head beat faster expecting something interesting from it.
She looks at me with an upset face, "that's what I've been trying to figure out silly Iris."
"Ah... Right, well I could try to appraise it but since it's a cursed skill I don't know what kind of price it'd be."
"Or the consequences... It was cursed, after all, so don't attempt it, let's get stronger first just in case."
"Alright, I'm not in a rush, speaking on which, how'd it go with Leonor what kind of face did she make?"
"She was extremely surprised at the number of soul stones we made, we're currently ranked F with 158 points and 665 copper."
"We scored a lot of points and it seems like our funds are slightly raising, did the quest finish, or what happened?"
"She gave us a new quest, one that you'll enjoy doing on your own I'm sure," she makes a bored expression as she shows it to me by taking a carefully folded paper out of one of her side pockets from a dress on top of the bed.
Quest
Rank: F
Collect sephy herbs from the west forest.
You'll be rewarded 5 points and 40 copper per herb.
"That place... Did you know there're unexplored ruins deep inside of it?"
"Ruins?" Her expression changed instantly as she heard me looking excited with a strange glimmer to it.
'Didn't know she was interested in such things, but I could use this information in the future whenever she acts lazy,' I smile happily hiding my true intentions from her resuming the conversation right after.
"Yes, the guards told me about it, it seems like it's very dangerous with powerful enemies, so it hasn't been used by anyone in a long time, the adventurers who went in wouldn't come out alive."
"Well, what are you waiting for, let's go!" Aurora quickly ignores the existence of the mirror that had been bothering her the entire morning and ran to the room door opening it and pointing at the exit for me to go through.
'Sometimes I truly enjoy watching her childish side, even though she barely shows it.'
"Yes, after you."
She leaves the door open and proceeds to leave the room and I make her trip on the floor.
"Ouch, why did you do that?"
"Where do you think you're going with my naked body you fool?" I step on her ass with my bare feet which is cold making her bristle.
"Ah... I may have forgotten with the excitement..." We laugh at each other and how dumb and childish we can be.
"I'll wait for you outside," I grab the pouch I enjoy using to store the herbs on my way out.
Once I'm outside I look at the three of them lying down on the grass sweating hard.
I approach them and say, "seems like you guys received a beating."
"You... Should... Join... us," Johan said word by word while breathing hard staring at me with red cheeks.
"I've been doing this for a year, lately I've been spending a few hours handling that whole farming field by myself while cutting trees and turning them into logs, then in the afternoon I do quests for the adventurers guild."
They all look surprised at me, "what kind of monster are you?" Miles asks surprised without a mean to offend me.
"You guys should start collecting all types of titles, it'll help to make yourselves stronger."
"What? They barely give anything though!"
"You need to complete the series which are unlocked once one of the titles is maxed, and then proceed to max every little thing, that's when the fun starts."
"How do you know when a title is maxed?" Johan asked curiously as with his skill he cannot access such information.
"I have a skill that allows me to see, but I believe the adventurer guild has a book that provides such information."
"Yes it does, you'll be able to check it when you pass the guild exam," mother adds, clarifying it for us.
"Talking about that, what kind of exam is it? Neither me nor sister or Elise needed to do it."
"Back in my time, they'd make you fight one of the strongest adventurers."
"Hum... Too bad I didn't get the chance, would've been fun to see the gap," I say smiling excitedly.
A familiar voice comes from behind me saying, "as battle maniac as ever," she then lets out a sigh.
'This one is even prettier,' Miles thought as he appreciated my sister's face.
'Aurora's eyes are very clear, but I still prefer the kind eyes of Iris,' Johan thought to himself as his father had told him how marrying a girl like Iris would make him happy in the future though he didn't specify the reason why.
'Here comes the cold lady,' Elise thinks and then says, "how are you Arara?"
"Apparently a lot better than you Eliass, you look kind of dead, laying down on the filthy grass like your some insect, perhaps you'll start crawling like they do and mimicking their sounds as you do?"
'When did these two develop this kind of friendship?' I thought confused.
'Surprised to see someone other than Iris befriending Aurora,' Rosaline thought amazed as Elise rose a level on her consideration.
"How dare you call me that horrible nickname and even go as far as to compare me to an insect!? I'd get up and beat you up, and make that pretty face of yours hit the ground!" As she tries to get up from the ground her body gives up." Ah, I'm exhausted, you're lucky today Arara, but next time you'll see, just you wait!"
"Pfft, what a weakling," Aurora walks by her while waving her hair with her hand showing her superiority and laughing lightly.
"We have a quest to do, I'll see you guys later," I give a kiss to mother then leave.
"See you soon, be careful!" Elise said with a big smile while the rest of the body didn't care.
"Take care of each other daughters."
"We will!" We shout in unison as the boys stare at us silently while we go.
On our way there I carry Aurora as a book when passing through the south gate, we do this every time to avoid the annoying guard Tyson making questions.
Then we head to the west gate into the forest, once we get there, I look around and hide behind a tree to make sure no one sees us, "you can transform back now."
She transforms into a human and says, "Finally free from the shackles of the system."
"Do you dislike being in a grimoire form? Is it that bad?"
"It's actually pretty comfortable but I enjoy walking more, I've been doing it for a while after all."
"Fair enough, this spot here is different from the last time I was here. That way is the direction of the ruins supposedly," I point towards it with my index finger, "and if you could clear the monsters around here, it'd be a great help so I can gather herbs in peace for a change."
"For the greatest witch anything," she smiles coldly while teasing me and I roll my eyes ignoring her comment, and then proceed to gather the herbs.
Aurora starts exploring the forest, and after 10 minutes she returns," didn't see any particular monster I feel like you were just unlucky the last time."
"I had 10 of those crazy rabbits chasing me!" I shouted slightly annoyed cursing my own luck, since now that sister is here none decided to come out.
She laughed lightly at it and then spoke, "well I'll go explore the ruins now."
"Alright, but be careful apparently many adventurers have died in them, to be fair, barely any comes back alive."
"If it's that bad then it must have something very good inside."
"In a system that rewards people depending on its difficulty, it better have a legendary sword that can cut dragons in half sealed in there."
"Did you make it up or did you read it in one of your books?"
"Just a joke."
"Understood," She walks away from Iris towards the ruins.
After a long walk she finds an entrance with stones around her,' it's dark inside, let me get night vision skill.'
'I might trip as a human with only 1 meter of range,' she transforms into a grimoire and floats.
Some stairs down and now a long hall that lasts for 10 minutes.
'It's a good thing the hall is so long it gave me time to level up the skill a bit.'
'Those are skeletons and slimes?'
'I guess they coexist with one another as they don't have meat in them.'
'I float around them,' the skeleton noticing me starts chasing me.
'It'll even go after a little book?' She transforms back into a human and coats her hands in darkness blocking the sword attack.
'Attacks faster than what I can dodge as I have no agility whatsoever, but its strength is lacking,' she lets the sword go through making him bend, striking his head with her left hand damaging it.
'My dark element doesn't seem very effective, I'll mana coat instead and try again,' she punches the skull before it has time to fight back crushing it.
Notice: 100 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
'Interesting amount of experience,' she grabs the sword mana coating it and slicing the two slimes nearby a few times.
Notice: 50 experience has been rewarded from a slime.
Notice: 50 experience has been rewarded from a slime.
Notice: Aurora has leveled up to 6.
'All points on wisdom.'
Notice: Points successfully spent; Status updated.
'These slimes are a lot more resistant, I thought that all I needed was using my unique dark element, but it seems like I'll have to train my normal mana coating too, but it's tough changing between the dark element to fight one thing then mana coat to fight the other...'
'Now then which way do I go? There are four doors, one per direction including the one I came from, guess I'll keep going through the middle that way I won't get lost.'
'This hall is also pretty long, this place looks like it was made to tire humans as every hall seems to take at least 10 minutes to cross.'
'More skeletons and another dark large room, two of them might be trickier, I'll dark bind the one at the back and kill them one at a time.'
She then approaches the one in the front baiting his attack, dodging it slightly as it went through close to her nose.
Aurora proceeds to mana coat the sword from the last skeleton using it to cut the enemy wrist, making the sword and the hand holding it falls on the stone-paved floor and then the neck which ends up on the skull head drop on the ground.
'That didn't give experience,' she looks at the floor and realizes the teeth are still moving, she mana coats her feet and smashes the skull with all her strength causing a bang.
Notice: 110 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
'That's better,' she runs at the next one stepping to the side making the skeleton miss his swing, proceeding to pierce the skull with the mana sword destroying it.
Notice: 110 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
'Like this is easier, and the experience it gives is really good, is it because it is a skeleton plus a body of some old adventurer perhaps, or did it kill many things before.'
She takes the middle path again,' perhaps monsters and beasts roam inside of this place giving these things experience.'
'I have around 800 mana left, trying to make it as clean as possible so I have enough to escape if necessary.'
'This room has light!' She looks above finding a crack big enough for a human to pass through except every room is around 10 meters tall so that'd be impossible to go through.
'More skeletons? Annoying pests,' she runs at the one in the middle binding the other two destroying it, the sword breaks after piercing the skull.
Notice: 120 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
'I'll grab this new sword that looks as old as all the weapons in here, let's mana coat it and deal with the other two,' she dodges the right skeleton attack crushing his wrist then head.
Notice: 110 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
'These things are consuming a lot of my mana, hum? My monster detector is going crazy? 5? 10? 15? 20? 25? 30 monsters? What the hell is going on?'
Monsters started pouring from all the four entries, 'I see, so that's how the adventurers died, the noise it takes to kill these things attracts even more of them.'
A skeleton archer shoots an arrow at her, which she manages to block with the sword cracking it.
'I'll at least take you with me,' she charges at him while he slowly prepares another arrow, ramming him against one of the walls and then crushing the head with all her strength.'
Notice: 150 experience has been rewarded from a skeleton.
Notice: Aurora has leveled up to 7.
'All points on wisdom fast.'
Notice: Points successfully spent; Status updated.
'I'll be surrounded in no time like this what do I do?' She looks around as she goes closer to the center which is the safest place to be, since everywhere else is being flooded with enemies, ' 70 monsters detected and increasing...'
'Now then I guess this is where I die, sorry Iris, it seems I underestimated this world,' She opens her arms dropping the sword, and looks above being bathed by the light that transpires her contrasting with the surrounding darkness of the halls as the enemies approach slowly.
