The fourth night of the month of wind.
Rin had committed to use this night to learn and understand how to use his skill properly. He felt that his odds for survival were really low for some reason... and wanted to increase those odds any way he could, the fastest way he could think of was to activate his skill successfully.
He thought about the last time he’d tried to activate his skill... flexing his body using his meager strength will only result in a traumatic event, “Let’s not try that again...” he pushed the memories and feelings of shame he acquired that fateful day into a tiny corner of his mind, hoping to forget them forever.
Rin refocused once again at the task at hand, “Thinking about the evil god's reaction to my worlds knowledge of magic… couldn’t I use that as a reference?” he tried to remember the knowledge of his previous world regarding things like “learning to use magic in another world”, a theme that was common in certain circles.
Having a clear image when trying to cast a fireball spell was a common point, without having that the spell would fizzle or fail to cast correctly. Imagining the fire created to take the form of a “ball” would often result in success, “Maybe my shapeshifting skill also needs a clear image to work…? When I tried it for the first time I didn’t really try to imagine anything specifically... so, naturally nothing would happen? When thinking like that it makes sense… let’s try imagining my nails growing longer for a bit and see what happens.”
As a result, Rin’s fingernails started to grow longer at an abnormal pace, “Oooh!” he was excited at first... then he was troubled, the nails had grown far too long. They were now over ten centimeters in length, “... I can’t let my nails remain this long, it would give out the impressions of suspicion or be plain creepy to others and put them on guard against me in the future… Can I reverse the process? Let’s try imagining it…” as he focused his consciousness the nails started to shrink, just like how they had grown in the first place, “cool!” he exclaimed in his mind as an adorable baby smile appeared on his face.
“Now, for the and most important part.” he closed his eyes and started to focus, trying to remember the skill window he’d used during those five weeks inside the evil god’s domain before being reincarnated, “hmm… nn!” suddenly a skill window that wasn’t very unlike the one he used before appeared within his mind.
There are normal skills, resistances skills and special skills categories to choose from inside of the skill window, he opened the tab for the special skills category and selected his only skill, an additional window opened when he selected the skill.
Special Skills: [Shape Shifting lvl 1]
「 Forms:
- Human (Alexis).
- Empty Slot.
- Empty Slot.
Current form: Human (Alexis).」
What he saw was the form he currently had and empty slots that he assumed would eventually save the additional forms he will learn inside it, “I can only have two more forms saved huh? It seems a bit limited... but then again the skill’s level is only lvl 1 so maybe I shouldn’t expect too much from it right now, maybe the saved forms slots can be overwritten? So many questions, I’ll have to find out eventually when I get the chance… OH!? Wait a bit, Alexis? Is that the name I’ve been given in this world?” Rin had a bit of complicated feelings about this, to truly take on a completely new identity with his old one intact inside of it, “... it feels like it’s starting to sink in a bit now, the reality of dying once and being reborn.”
“... oh well, nothing I can say or do about it now. I need to focus on my skill instead, there is so much to do~!” he concentrated and opened his skill sub-window and smiled as his eyes glistened like stars inside his mind.
A sub-skill is something that accompanies a main skill, [Fire Magic lvl1] have a couple of sub-skills when starting out, “Flame shot” and “Empower Flame” are just two sub-skills it starts with, depending on the individual and the training involved the skill can start with more than just two sub-skills. A sub-skill can also not be leveled, only the main skill can, which in return strengthens the sub-skills of the main skill.
Rin… no, Alexis had spent almost all of his skill points on only sub-skills to empower his “trash” skill that he chose, spending the 99 900 skill points on only sub-skills. His shapeshift skill was only 100 points after all, without the proper sub-skills he would’ve been doomed from the start. He had also chosen not to arbitrarily increase his own statuses using his precious skill points since statuses can be raised through things like training and the like, while skills and skill points are very limited and some are even impossible to acquire naturally.
Alexis’s shapeshifting skill had become a unique skill with only one of its kind in the whole world. In fact, him possessing a “monster skill” was something abnormal to begin with, a human would never be able to learn the shapeshifting skill. He’d been able to learn it thanks to a certain evil god somewhere who had summoned him as a “black straw”, not as a human. A black straw’s only summoning criteria would be that the creature that was summoned had to possess an evil inclination and intelligence. He was never recognized as a “human” in the first place, this was something he had discovered by chance while playing- ehem! Trying out various things with skills in the sub-windows. He’d tried mixing and mashing thousands upon thousands of skills and sub-skills during his stay for those five weeks, and after carefully spending his skill points he put them all into sub-skills that he thought sounded useful or attractive to him.
“A-hahahaha!” Alexis was overjoyed as he looked over his list of sub-skills and found the one he was looking for, [Regeneration lvl 1] “Yoosha!” he fist pumped in the air... inside his mind, “with this, the risk of me dying will go down significantly…!” in truth, the regeneration sub-skill had always been active and was the only reason why he had survived the ordeals so far, Alexis had no means of knowing this at the time, and regeneration was in fact a common skill that monsters and highly active adventurers would gain naturally over time and was not a hard to acquire skill in the first place.
“Now, to improve the odds for survival even more I need to think about what I can do right now… shifting into an adult form and running away would probably stand out like crazy, not to mention, me not knowing anything about this world would just end up with me dying somewhere in a gutter or eaten by a monster… or worse. No, I need to be patient here and first learn how to survive… thinking about it, I don’t even know the language yet.” he remembered having declined the evil god’s favor of granting him a “language comprehension” skill before being reborn.
He didn’t really want to owe the evil god any favors if he could help it, also, being a baby that could completely understand the language and talk fluently would stand out way too much! Thinking about it in hindsight he was glad that he’d declined the offer even more after thinking about it for a while.
“Nn… troublesome… although it’s troublesome... people often said that learning a new language is something everyone should try once... who knows, it might be fun. Maybe experimenting with my skills and learning a new language will help keep the boredom of growing up from an infant to an adult back for a bit.” Alexis then started to plan out his long term plans for the coming years of having to grow up again as he continued to browse his sub-skills to look for other ideas and things that he could still do.
Alexis only had 1 point of MP available to him as his min and maximum amount. The reason he wasn’t troubled by this fact was that the shapeshifting skill was a skill that used the energy from “Stamina points” instead of MP to trigger the changes to his body and a few of his sub-skills followed this trend, mainly the monster sub-skills he possesses. Some of the sub-skills that he has require MP to use as well but until he finds a way to increase his MP they will stay unusable.
Skills that use stamina are often the most complicated to use in return for not using MP and could even be dangerous to the skill user if you made a mistake, the stamina points are essentially the value of your body’s total energy, it’s used passively during the days in order to live and it sustains your body at all times. Eating food and resting is the basic way to recover yourself after spending the stamina points. If you somehow run out of stamina you will almost immediately feel faint and most likely blackout and die from your body not having the energy to sustain your life anymore.
“Let’s see… Aha! Now there’s a great idéa!” Alexis had decided on his next course of action while looking over his sub-skills. He had decided to try to use another one of his sub-skills, [Reconstruction lvl 1] and pair it with his regeneration skill to try and accelerate the development of his eyes, being almost blind had been very scary in these last days of extreme events and horrifyingly traumatic experiences for him.
“Let’s try it out right away… imagine, imagine…” he continued to mumble as he accessed his skills and imagined his eyes changing, maturing and developing slowly. He felt a slight change but also fatigue throughout his whole body as his breathing got rougher, he had consumed quite a bit of energy for a tiny baby’s body.
“I’ll have to use the stamina skills more carefully if I don’t want to run out of energy and kick the bucket all of a sudden… that would even be more tragic than dying from the one possessing those nightmare inducing hands… I’ll take my revenge on that person one day for sure... Just you wait, kukuku…!“ Alexis’s inner dialogue had turned dark as he was planning his revenge on the one who had caused him so much shame and misery in such a short period of time since being born.
Seven days later, the eleventh of the month of wind.
Alexis woke up from the beams of bright light entering the room, “I can see!” he had successfully developed his eyesight over the course of a week, but because it went so fast he suffered a bit of pain in his eyes from the bright light, he had kept them close during the week since he couldn’t see properly anyway and had only focused on their development.
This was something completely unthinkable and impossible he’d done, a normal baby would take around twelve months to develop their eyesight to the point of being able to see clearly and around the ages between three to five years old will their eyes be fully developed. However, Alexis had developed his eyes without any form of imperfections in them and his vision was already abnormally good, this was also why the light hurt his eyes a bit. He didn’t realize what an absurd thing he had done at the time, he was only happy to be able to see again and didn’t think too deeply about it.
When his eyes had adapted to the brightness he started to look around inside the bedroom as best as he could. The only things he could see inside of the room was an old dresser and a woman that was resting on a couple of blankets right next to him. “Waah~! So this must be my mother…? She looks really pale, is she alright?” a rasping sound could be heard as the pale lady breathed in her sleep, her hair was black as the night as her skin was pale as the waxed moon, the contrast of the two made the other one stand out more. Her cheeks looked a bit sunken in and her eyes had dark rings underneath them. Her face was that of a young and beautiful lady, as if a master sculptor's porcelain doll had fallen ill one day and started to waste away slowly, like a single flower stalk inside a glass of water that was slowly waiting for its end by the window of the room with a single beam of sunlight showing of the brilliance of the flowers white and fragile porcelain petals.
“It’s a real shame, if she was healthy I’m sure she’d be even prettier... “ Alexis couldn’t help but to think of what a damn shame it was for such a beauty to waste away in a room like this.
Around an hour had passed before the pale lady woke from her sleep, as she sat up she yawned and stretched her arms a bit and then looked towards Alexis with her deep, dark eyes filled with motherly love as she spoke some words he couldn’t understand and gently stroked his cheek. She then stood up and opened her dresser and started to get ready for the day.
“... Oi oi oi! I know you think that I’m a baby, and in truth it’s exactly like that, but this is still embarrassing to watch…!” Alexis had at first become so enchanted from what he saw that he forgot how to breath for a moment, her skin was glistening like a single snowflake being hit by the first light of dawn, he was sure that the light that hit her body would turn into a magnificent kaleidoscope of colors and held his breath unconsciously.
He only regained his senses after he saw how malnourished she looked underneath her nightgown. All of her ribs could be seen and her arms and legs were thin as tree branches, it was surprising that she could even stand up with such a frail looking body.
“... is she sick or poor, maybe both?” Alexis thought as he continued to peek between his tiny fingers...
After the woman got dressed in a plain and simple looking black dress she carried Alexis to the living room with his crib and left him there and went into another room, “This is my first time seeing this room… there seems to be another room that mother entered. Hm… everything is a bit shabby and the air is damp… come to think of it, the air has always felt quite damp. I wonder if we are living close to water?”
He hadn’t had so much time to feel the differences while being awake since the time he was born. At first he thought that it was natural for the air to be feeling this damp, but after spending a night in the warm and dry crib inside the bedroom he started to think that it must be the air around where they live instead. Today, it felt especially damp inside the living room and you could hear the rain on the roof of the house and from outside.
As he continued to turn a bit and look around the room all he could see was a small room that had almost nothing inside of it, “Aah, my family must really be poor then after all, maybe that woman is only so skinny because of that? I hope so. Just my luck though, to get born into poverty… now that I think about it, there was such a stat, wasn’t there?” he remembered seeing the luck status as a real status back then in that place, “If luck really had something to do with it all... my luck was only 5 last time he saw it, and I didn’t decide to change it either…”
Had he chosen to increase his luck above a hundred, he would probably have been born from a woman of a noble house, or even a royal family. Instead he was born from some poor fishermans family in a remote village at the end of the world.
Alexis had no way of knowing this but he had made a similar assumption, that if he had an absurd amount of luck everything in life would somehow roll his way, like throwing dice with loaded dice or his own dice having 3 out of the 6 sides with the number 10 on them instead... but it would also make him stand out more.
Just like those famous individuals of heroes and demon lords. He simply didn’t want to take that risk and had settled with his lower than average luck instead, Points were precious after all...
Alexis continued looking around the room until he noticed a small shadow in the corner of the room. “Ah, what’s that? Is it some kind of small animal?” He thought, as he squinted his eyes a bit.
What he saw was in fact Gloria hugging her legs with her head buried between her knees and muttering softly while trembling now and then. She had been punished by Stella the entire week through her meals, every day she got dried sardines for her meals, her cheeks had sunken slightly.
“Uwaah… I wonder who that is... ? Is her hair blond from birth? I’ve never seen a real blonde haired person before, she looks like a 10 years old. She has a brown one-piece dress with brown leather pants under her skirt...? Why does she have pants under her skirt? Is that normal in this world? However, she looks just like a small wounded animal, poor thing… why is she here?” he continued to try and piece things together, maybe he’d met her before when he couldn’t see so well, “Now that I think about it… the one with the small and rough hands seemed to have a small chest…?! Could this tiny girl possibly be the dreadful Nightmare Hands?!” Alexis had hit the nail on the head this time, he was sure of it. She is the one who had shamed and wounded more than just his manly pride!
Alexis decided to watch her for today and to try and learn more about his target for revenge.
“Kukuku…” at first he’d laughed an evil laugh as he planned his revenge against her. However, “she looks a bit starved and cold, has mother been punishing her everyday since that day? Or was it perhaps something unrelated that happened recently? I don’t remember encountering the Nightmare Hands since that time after all.”
Gloria hadn’t been allowed to go near Alexis since the day she’d almost accidentally ended his life several times, unless she wanted to suffer a fate worse than death, by dried sardines...
“... I’m happy that she’s being punished and all… but if it isn’t me that’s giving out the punishments I won’t feel any sort of satisfaction from it!” seeing his target of vengeance suffering from somebody else’s punishment felt pointless to him, he wanted to enact his own revenge in his own ways, otherwise it was pointless!
“I wonder if I can get mother to stop the punishments on the Nightmare Hands for now?” Alexis had nicknamed Gloria, Nightmare Hands, from all his traumatic experiences…
“Hm... If I heal the scars on my body that was left by the flames would she be more lenient towards her? I can imagine that seeing my scars makes my mother's temper flare every time she sees them… Let’s do that, at least it will be interesting to try to do it.” Alexis closed his eyes after having decided on doing so. The pain from all the light had been building up in his eyes all this time so he needed to rest them a bit.
At dinner time he watched the tiny girl eat at the small table while crying tears and muttering something that he couldn’t understand. He assumed it was something close to whining or pleading about her meals. The pale lady ate her simple rice and vegetables meal in a silent and refined way from her bowl.
Suddenly, three knocks were heard on the door. A third person appeared inside the house, “Hm? This must be the third presence that’s been around on some days,” Alexis recognized Yu-bas voice from before but he had never seen her.
He tried observing the third woman he’s ever seen in this new life for a bit, “Hm… She’s pretty tall for a woman, almost as tall as the door… does that make her about 190 cm? She looks to be a bit older than 30, her face is pretty with just some lines here and there to show her age. Her green hair has some white streaks in it… wait, green hair?! Is that natural?! I’ve only seen green hair in anime and such, it’s hard to believe a real person could ever have it... Her sharp eyes have a golden amber shine in them with a glint that hinted at her wisdom… hm, well, at least her clothes remind me a bit of indian tribes clothing combined with the traditional shrine priestess outfits of japan, it fits her really well.” he felt that he could learn many things from her eventually.
Yu-ba had visited to help with the magic stone she’d left in Stella's house before.
“Oh? Excuse me for intruding on your meal Stella,” Yu-ba greeted Stella after entering the house and removing her shoes. She glanced at the pitiful Gloria that was sobbing while munching her sardines and gave out a small sigh. “... she’s still being punished huh? Well, it’s not my place to speak about it. Today I came to perform the appraisal ceremony, honestly it should have been done earlier but so many things happened at the same time that we had to push it back for a bit.”
“Don’t worry about it Yuzari, ” Stella answered with a kind voice to Yu-ba. “It’s fine as long as it’s performed. No harm done…” she glanced over at Gloria, who in turn jumped a bit and turned her head to avoid eye contact.
“Mmh, if Stella says so I’ll take your words for it,” Yu-ba rolled out a big leather scroll with a magic formation on the floor inside of the room. “Well then, let’s get started shall we? Place little Alexis here for a bit.” she pointed at the center of the magic formation.
“I didn’t know a magic formation was necessary to perform the appraisal ceremony…?” Stella tilted her head to the side a little.
“It’s true that the magic formation is not necessary, I only have it this time to enhance the magic stone’s spell for a better appraisal. Don’t worry too much about it.” Yu-ba waved her hand while reassuring Stella.
“Well, if you say so Yuzari,” she picked up Alexis and placed him at the center. He was calm the entire time and just tried to look around, listen and learn as much as he could at the time. He wasn’t as scared as back then when he couldn’t see anything. Yu-ba and Stella sat next to where he was laid down on their knees while Gloria watched on all fours with curious eyes from a bit further away.
“Now then,” Yu-ba took out the magic stone and placed it on Alexis belly, a bit under his belly button. “Invocation activate! [Appraisal]!” she channeled magic into the formation first and then the stone and activated the spell resting within. The spell in the stone was [Appraisal lvl 3], the magic formation was a consumable item that was very rare and could raise spell potency of magic stones and the like. It had artificially raised the skill level to lvl 4.
“Ooh,” the information from the spell appeared inside Yu-ba’s mind. She then took out a notebook and started to write down what she read, sweat started to form on her brow as she kept channeling magic inside of the stone and the formation. If she stopped even for one second the spell would cease and the formation would collapse, the ingredients within the ink would be consumed and could not be activated again. It was an arduous task to complete, channeling, reading and writing all at the same time was required to perform the ritual.
“Haa, haa, “ Yu-ba was breathing hard and holding her chest while using the other arm to hold herself off the floor. The magic channeling had been intense. Continued activation of two mid-ranked spells really took a toll on her body.
“Here Stella, you will need to read this... “ she tore out the page from her notebook and handed it to her.
A large gasping sound was heard from Stella as she covered her mouth with her hand and continued to read while tears started to swell in her eyes, “T-this… how can this be possible?!” she exclaimed as tears started to flow down her cheeks while she trembled from the sadness she felt.
“What does it say? Nee, let me read it as well,” Gloria sneaked a peek over Stella's shoulder to read the note as well. “Kuh!? H-how could something like this be…” her voice trailed off as she bit her lip and looked down at the floor, trembling in frustration as she clenched her fists. Alexis was mostly confused by the whole scenario but he couldn’t understand it very well.
The information on the note revealed by the appraisal skill that had caused everyone grief was as follows
Name: Alexis
Lvl: 1
Age: 0 years.
Race: Palrevian
Gender: Male
HP: 24/24
MP: 1/1
Stamina: 14/15
Skills: None.
The appraisal lvl 4 skill could not even reveal his basic status, but people would often never need to see these. It was the HP, MP, stamina and normal skills that gave all the advantages in combat and these things are also the most important things for evaluation in this world. Resistance skills would have been great to see as well, but it would require an appraisal with over lvl 5, special skills and statuses is only shown at lvl 8. Nobody knows what a level 9 or 10 appraisal would reveal since there has never been such a magic stone or skill holder in this world before.
“To be born without any skills at all, and the MP being as low as one single point… this has never happened before, not even once in all of history.” Yu-ba was holding her head with one hand at the troubling fact that a skilless child could be born.
“How could this be?! Even at worst a child is blessed with at the least 3 skills that they can raise throughout their life! Like the thought body or swift legs skills. There are countless skills out there! How could something this absurd happen?!” Gloria was making the most noise trying to comprehend the situation.
“...” Stella was crying quietly while holding Alexis to her chest as tears fell down her cheeks and landed on him.
“Tsk... this is a bit troubling, I don’t understand anything about what just happened…” Alexis thought to himself unable to comprehend anything that had happened, he witnessed the eldest of the women use something like magic on the stone placed on him and the scribbling in the book. Anyone who looked at that started behaving weirdly, “It can’t be helped, for now I’ll just rest until night to start with my scar treatment, focusing any more energy on understanding this is just exhausting.” he thought as he closed his eyes as he decided to wait for night when everything was calm.
Later that night, Alexis was lying awake in his crib inside the bedroom browsing his sub-skills. There were many things he’d yet to try out, but for now he concentrated on the task at hand, healing his scars.
“I’ve already confirmed that [Regeneration lvl 1] and [Reconstruction lvl 1] can be used with relative ease, let’s try using them first and go from there…”
Keeping his eyes closed and focusing, trying to feel the changes that were happening through his shapeshifting skill. He found out that while regeneration works, it would take about 10 years at the pace it was replacing the damaged cells, using reconstruction to speed up the process to around twice the speed, meaning around 5 years.
“Ugh, the level one skills are really weak huh. And they’ll stay level one until my main skill [Shape Shifting lvl 1] raises in level… having normal skills in the sub-skill slots might have been a mistake. Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk, combining skills worked to some extent, maybe more combinations could speed up the process even more. I got nothing but time so… let’s try it”
After several hours of experimenting Alexis was successful in finding a method that would work.
“I knew getting only awesome sub-skills was the right call!” he retracted his previous statement somewhere along the way… “I’m a little disappointed that they don’t work as I thought they would when I first decided to pick them… well, it’s a happy little surprise nonetheless.”
He had found out that combining the four sub-skills of [Regeneration lvl 1] [Reconstruction lvl 1] [Fluid Manipulation lvl 1] and the special skill that’s unique to mostly slimes, [Split lvl 1] had been the key to healing at an astonishing rate, even using only level one skills.
Regeneration and reconstruction were the skills in charge of healing the scars, fluid manipulation helped speed up the process overall, but split was the one responsible for the success. Alexis had picked [Split lv 1] for fun after browsing all the mimic type monsters and seen that slimes had it. It was their only way of reproducing themselves. He thought that he could eventually split himself, like those ninjas in animes that made clones.
“It would have been super cool… too bad, maybe one day.” he said to himself as he had to give up on the plan of cloning himself for now.
The skill would have worked as intended if he were a slime, but he was human after all. When he activated the skill, healthy cells inside his body started to split instead. Using fluid manipulation to move all the new cells to where they were needed and reconstruction to change the properties of the cells, regeneration used the perfectly shaped cells like pieces of a puzzle instead of regrowing completely new cells from scratch.
The result was astonishing to say at the least, Alexis had healed all the wounds on his body in only a few hours instead of the expected 5 years.
“Combination successful! With this method, even if they are all low level skills they can still be incredibly useful when put to work like this. Thinking about it, couldn’t I have used this method on my eyes to almost instantly develop my eyesight? Oh well, this trick will be good to remember in the future when I need to regenerate or reconstruct myself further. For now I should sleep, this method was a lot more stamina efficient than when I used reconstruction and regeneration for my eyes, but it has still taken quite a large sum of energy to regenerate such a big area on my body… goodnight~“
Alexis stretched a bit and yawned as small teardrops formed in his eyes from his tiredness and soon fell asleep.
In this one night he had completely healed all the scars that covered his right arm, shoulder and back. Another impossibility, since the regeneration skill was a skill not capable of healing scars to begin with; its only purpose was to close fatal or dangerous wounds. The higher the skill level, the faster and more efficient it would become, but it would always leave behind scars since it prioritizes healing speed. Only healing magic was capable of healing without leaving behind scars.
“Nn... hopefully mother’s mood will brighten a bit with this and stop Nightmare Hands’ punishments with this,” his thoughts trailed off as he fell asleep.
The twelfth of the month of wind.
Stella woke up this morning and carried out her usual routine of getting dressed and preparing herself for the day. She felt exhausted from all the tragic events that kept happening to her family, was she cursed? She thought to herself as she faced her own image inside of the hand mirror she’d received from her mother.
“First my brother sets off and never returns, then my husband… and now my son is bound to suffer for the rest of his life, being unable to strive for any sort of greatness throughout his life; born without any magic potential or skills, and scarred by Gloria's stupidity… Grr!” she thought to herself as she bit her lip and clenched her fist after remembering the events that left her son irreversibly scarred for life
Everytime she would see her son’s scar her anger and frustration would flare. She hated Gloria for what had happened, but she was still her best friend; Gloria had tried her best since then to show how sorry she was and had tried to earn Stella’s forgiveness.
Stella relaxed her clenched fist and let out a long sigh, “Getting this angry every morning can’t be good for my health… I have to be there for Alexis,” she thought to herself. As she finished dressing herself, she looked over to where her son was sleeping.
“WHA-!?” She rushed over to Alexis’ side and sat down on her knees, she lifted his arm slightly as to not disturb his sleep, she held a hand over her her mouth as tears flowed down her cheeks as she muttered to herself in a quiet voice, “H-how’s this possible? The scars… they’re gone!”
She quickly started to wipe the tears away on her sleeves. She carefully lifted his crib and moved out into the living room where Yu-ba and Gloria were still sleeping. She put down the cradle and tried to wake up Gloria who was snoring loudly, she grabbed her shoulder and called out to her.
“Gloria! Gloria! Wake up! Something amazing has happened!” she shouted, trying to rouse her from her obnoxiously loud sleeping habits.
Yu-ba had woken up from the loud shouts and was about to question Stella about what it was that had happened, when suddenly Gloria that stirred from being forcefully woken up from her deep sleep accidentally kicked the crib that was closeby. The crib skidded across the room and slowly came to a halt after a short glide across the floor.
Stella looked over her shoulder to see Yu-ba standing next to the crib, she made a small hand gesture signaling her that everything was fine. Stella gave out a small sight and stood up next to Gloria.
Stella raised one of her feet, “I said, WAKE UP!!” a loud crash could be heard as she stomped Gloria's head straight through the floorboards in one go.
“GU-HIIIIIII!!” A loud scream was heard from Gloria that was literally planted like a pillar inside of the house with her head stuck in the floor and her body standing straight up, rigid from the sudden pain from the impact.
“These two never change... ” Yu-ba mumbled to herself as she put her hand over her face.
“Ugeh! Why am I stuck inside the damn floor this time?!” Gloria asked out loud as she tried to push herself out of the floor with her tiny arms.
Stella sighted as she turned and walked over towards Yu-ba instead, “Good morning Yuzari, did you sleep well?” she said with a smile. Yu-ba was a little shocked, she hadn’t seen her smile in a very long time except when she’d given out the punishments to Gloria these days.
Yu-ba had a feeling of dread and started to have cold sweats but tried to keep a straight face as she answered her, “Yes, it was a pleasant rest… until the screaming and loud noises that is.” she succeeded with keeping up her appearances, a small victory for herself.
“Yes, well, there is a good reason for that I can assure you,” Stella answered back to her.
“A good reason you say?” she answered, raising an eyebrow questioningly.
“Yes, look inside the crib at your feet, you’ll be surprised, I’m sure,” Stella said with confidence in her voice, as she pointed to the crib with her finger, her lips still showing a warm smile.
“Hmm, hmMM?!” Yu-ba’s eyes opened so wide they were about to pop out of her head, “Wha-! Stella! How- what- this?!” stumped for words as she crouched over the crib, her mouth hanging open from the shock, she was utterly dumbstruck at what she saw.
If Alexis had been awake, he’d surely have another traumatic experience burned into his mind from seeing Yu-ba over him like that…
“Wha-what? I didn’t even do anything this time, I’ve been a good girl…!” Gloria protested as she finally freed herself from the floorboards.
She then walked over to the crib and pushed Yu-ba away from the crib to take a look, “Let me see what all the fuss is abou-- !!” before finishing her sentence she saw Alexis, and that he was healed, all the scars on his body from the fire was gone. Her mouth hung open and her eyes almost popped right out of her head. “--EEEEH?!!”
“Alright! Alright! Shut your gob Gloria,” said Yu-ba, “before you dislocate your jaw.” She hit her on the head with her staff as revenge from being pushed on her behind by her earlier.
“Ouch!” Gloria exclaimed as she rubbed her head. She sat down on her butt next to the crib and looked up at Stella, she had been quiet the whole time and had a smile on her face.
“She’s smiling… nothing good ever happens to me when she’s smiling…” Gloria thought to herself as she stifled a gulp.
Both Yu-ba and Gloria looked at Stella and waited for her to speak, and after a few nervous moments went by, Stella spoke, “Yuzari, did you lie to me during the appraisal ceremony?” she asked Yu-ba as she raised an eyebrow and looked at her.
Yo-ba instantly, frantically, shook her head from side to side denying the accusation. Gloria was secretly impressed over how fast she could move her head despite her years, her head shook so fast it looked blurred to her.
“The child must have a skill that didn’t show up during the appraisal,” Yu-ba continued when she answered Stella’s question, “There’s only resistance and special skills that won't show up, and there is no resistance skill that I know of that have any kind of healing effect, so it must be a special skill…” Yu-ba explained what she thought about the situation as he scratched her head and sat cross legged on the floor, grimacing her face as she tried to figure out what had happened.
“But, isn’t Alexis a human…?” Gloria asked, “I knew it! Stella can’t be human! How else do you explain that crazy murderous intent and strength, now it all makes sense,” she said out loud to herself, she crossed her arms and nodded in agreement with her brilliant conclusion.
“...” the two other people in the room looked at Gloria with a pitying look on their faces, as they both placed a hand on their forehead they let out a sigh.
“I’m human, idiot, and so is my child.” Stella said.
“Eh? But I’ve never heard of a pure human being born with a special skill before… I have one since I’m a half-elf, that much I know… are you sure you’re human? Really, really sure?” Gloria had a doubtful expression on her face as she asked Stella.
Stella answered the question with a roundhouse kick buried firmly in Gloria’s face. A loud crash noise was heard as she slammed against the wall, she stuck there for a short while before sliding down the wall leaving a small trail of blood and collapsing on the floor..
Stella gave out a “Hmph!” as she stared at Gloria’s on the floor. She then turned around and started to arrange her hair once again.
“Hmm...” Yu-ba was lost in thought as she tried to wrap her thoughts around what skill the child could possess, it was utterly impossible to understand. A special skill was something that only a few races are born with, and within those that are known, none of them possess any healing properties. The elves have a natural affinity for spirits and are born with their blessings, giving them extraordinarily long lives and a special magic skill: [Spirit Magic lvl 1] at birth.
The beastmen would be granted a number of special skills, [Beastial Strenght] [Beastial Swiftness] [Beastial Senses]. They can’t be taught or learned and are completely unique to the beastmen races, there are some variations depending on the individual, it is said that the royal bloodline of the beastmen’s children can be born with more than ten special skills at the same time. Add the normal skills and the child would have a bright future ahead of him.
This was the case for most races in the world. The more skills and special skills you were born with, the more prestige you would get.
Humans however, were the exception. They are the only race that will never be born with a special skill. In rare cases such as a half-human being born, like Gloria, they could be granted special skills if they were lucky, but most of the time it was a worse version of the real skill or they would be unable to fulfill the conditions required to use it.
Gloria had the [Spirit Magic lvl 1] skill, but she did not possess the [Spirit’s Blessings] and was unable to even use it. That would be the most common scenario for half-humans.
Yu-ba knew that both Stella and her husband, Gerald, were both humans. So how in the world could he have a special skill?! And it's not one that matches any of the races’ skills that she knows of.
“Ugh... I give up,” Yu-ba said as she stood up suddenly.
“Yuzari? Did you figure something out?” Stella asked, still sporting a flawless smile on her face.
“... No. But I do know that it must be a special skill. One that has never been recorded in history before.” she answered as she shook her head slightly, “I’m going to go back to my house in the village and try to search for answers. Since Alexis is fine now, you could start cutting Gloria som slack… even if you don’t forgive her there’s no reason to punish her anymore, right?” Yu-ba said as she left through the front door.
Stella sighed as she looked over at the twitching body of Gloria that was still unconscious on the floor in a pool of her own nosebleed.
“I’ll think about it…” she muttered as she squatted down next to Gloria and poked her twitching body with a smile on her face, “Maybe I should make something nice to celebrate today…” she thought to herself as she let out a small laugh.
That day, Gloria had tears streaming down her face as she ate until she felt like she would explode… as Stella served a cass-berry pie as dessert, Gloria truly exploded as she barfed in the backyard, losing all the delicious food she’d finally gotten to eat.
Tears of blood streamed down her face this time as she cried...
“Well, it seems like it turned out alright in the end… I think?” A certain baby thought as he witnessed the good mood at the dinner table and his mother smiling for once.
“Hey… Stella, I’ve been meaning to ask but; does Alexis’ eyes look green to you?” Gloria asked as she wiped tears and barf off her face, she was a mess.
“Green…?” Stella looked down at Alexis resting in her arms, her sweet little baby, “He’s kept his eyes closed alot so that I haven’t had a chance to see them that much recently, but they were not green when he was born--!” as her eyes met with Alexis’ eyes she was shocked.
His eyes was of the brightest of green jade, so green that new grown spring grass would look brown and the leafs on trees might as well be colorless in comparison, they were so clear that every light in the room could be seen reflecting in those pair of eyes, the depth of them seemingly swallowing every spec of light that entered his eyes endlessly.
The irises of the eyes were unlike anything she’d ever seen before in her life, they were absolutely perfect, without any form of flaw in them, something a mere human would never have...
“Stella. Stella!” Gloria shook Stella’s shoulders, “Huh? Wha-?” Stella responded as she lifted her head and looked at Gloria.
“Are you alright?” she asked with a worried expression on her face as she held onto Stella’s shoulders.
Stella had started sweating from her forehead and had become even more pale than her usual self. She sucked in air heavily into her lungs trying to catch her breath. She had stopped breathing for the entire duration she had looked into her son's eyes.
“Huff… huff… I’m alright,” she said as she wiped sweat off her forehead with her sleeve, “It was just as you said… they’re green.” Stella confirmed.
“… You know what this means, right?” asked Gloria.
“...” Stella bit her lip and nodded her head slightly.
“Gimme a break… this kid of yours is turning out to be weirder and weirder by the minute,” Gloria said as she let out a sigh and slouched her shoulders.
Normally, Stella would’ve kicked Gloria through the wall for her remark… but this time she couldn’t refute it. Her Alexis was changing, becoming something she could not understand anymore… and that look in his eyes, at the end of where the light went, at the bottom of that deep, dark abyss; she felt an indescribable sense of dread.
Stella looked down on her son again, only to find him sleeping once again and she could not help but shiver as she recalled what she had just experienced.
That night she thought, felt strangely cold.
【STATUS】
Name: Alexis
Lvl: 1
Exp 0/10
Age: 0 years.
Race: Modified Palrevian (Modified Human)
Gender: Male
HP: 24/24
MP: 1/1
Stamina: 17/15 (100)
Strength: 0 (5)
Agility: 0 (6)
Spirit: 2 (5)
Intelligence: 48
Wisdom: 99
Luck: 5
Skills: None.
Resistances: [Cold Resistance lvl 1] [Heat Resistance lvl 1] [Poison Resistance lvl 1]
Special skills: [Shape shifting lvl 1]
Titles: [Black Straw]
