1 day before the release of the Invidia Overlord.

"Hmm, this isn't it. Nor this..." - Noire

One day has passed after we decided to use the Inventor Lord's hideout to attempt to survive the triple threat of the Inventor Lord/Avalar-forces, that ****ing Irritation Lord and his Earth Disaster goons, and the incoming dragon king that should be controlled by the Scamming Lord. 

...Now that I finally have some time to sit down and think about it, these 12 generals working for the Demon King are a much more significant threat than I first assumed. Who would have thought?

Just as I was amusing that idea, the door to the office room the Inventor Lord must have used before being forced out from the island opened, letting in the awful noise from the Black Baron's automatic cannons and gattling guns. The wretched creature who disturbed my time alone was...that stupid Ghoul.

"Lady Noire, you in there?" - Regina

"Yes, so close the damn door! I cannot hear my thoughts through this rabble!" - Noire

The idiot Ghoul slammed the door after her (with a lot of noise, I might add!) and came up to the desk I had been using for my work. 

"Lady Noire, shouldn't you be helping with the defense?" - Regina

"Gugalanna has yet to recover, so I am resting. You could call me the ultimate trump card~." - Noire

"Yeah, right. It is the cow we're relying on, not you." - Regina

Why I should-!

"Besides, I'm doubting those guns will hold out for long. Why did the Black Baron choose those out of all weaponry in the world?" - Regina

"...Do not look down on guns. Most people do not use them if they need a long-range weapon, mostly because the total attack power of a gun relies on the user's defensive values since they need to be able to withstand the recoil from the weapon whenever it is shooting its ammunition." - Noire

"Defense? For someone who's using a weapon suitable for the back-rows? Yeah, I can understand now why it's not that popular." - Regina

"The Baron's usage of creating automatic guns is more suitable than having people use them for long-range warfare. You should be more surprised over how quickly he managed to remake this island into an automatic war fortress." - Noire

"Meh. I've grown blunt to stuff like that. Even if the fortress is running on Demonic Seawater. I got to hand it to him, that Baron sure knows how to pilfer tech from others and make it his own. I respect that." - Regina

She used to be the "strike force/pilfer force" for Filyn's cover organization, Nequitas. I assume she's feeling an affinity for the Baron's methods. 

"Anyway, why are you here again? Cow or no cow, you can still shoot down some evil bots with that bow of yours." - Regina

"The Curse Creature Cyborgs? It is because of them that I am here. This used to be the Inventor Lord's HQ. He may have some of their blueprints stored somewhere here. Blueprints that hopefully have information about the 'evil bots' weaknesses." - Noire

"Cool! Did you find anything?" - Regina

"What do you think?" I replied as I threw the useless papers on the ground. "There are some peculiar notes in this mountain of paper waste." 

"Like what?" - Regina

"Notes from the army of Avalar. Probably aimed for that black knight. They are telling that Garami has been reported KIA in Avalar regions." - Noire

"......WHAT?! The Champion girl, I mean, boss!? Who am I to suck up to now to get hired?!" - Regina

"Are you seriously considering asking the people that killed you for a job?" - Noire

"Hey, they brought me back to life. Also, my previous boss was the Demon King. The same ****er who blasted me to kingdom come!" - Regina

"Okay, point to you. But these notes are fake. They have to be. How can Garami have been killed in 12 different locations, on 26 different dates at that? Some of them even happened at the same time but at different locations." - Noire

"Huh?!" replied the Ghoul confused as she searched in the paper bin for the report I mentioned. She found them after a while and exclaimed "Wow, you're right!"

"This must be Garami's method of fooling the Avalarians. I do not know how, and frankly, I do not care. As long as it is not my problem." - Noire

"Well, that's a relief. After Onyx had passed, I was getting worried about who to ask for a job." - Regina

Onyx? ...Oh, right. The Lich boss who was the main culprit behind resurrecting this girl. I remember those two fought against each other when the Ghoul led an army against Damavand while we were away, but she was killed by Onyx and that slime-monster boss attacking her together...somehow. 

"What happened? And why do you know this?" - Noire

"Oh, that? Simple. Onyx's magic-whatever was controlling my mind until recently. I had to stay in that coffin that that samurai-spider dragged around, but one day, the fog in my head suddenly cleared. It can't be anything but the spellcaster dying or losing control over his spell somehow. Trust me, I speak from experience." - Regina

"...Which means you are currently independent of any outside forces now?" - Noire

"Bingo, mi amigo! I don't even need grub to keep on going! Being a Ghoul rock! You should try." - Regina

"I politely decline." - Noire

"Your loss. 'Sides, I was only working with the King because an Extra Skill I used to have while alive was practically KILLING me! That ****ing ****er promised me he would have a specialist working for him remove it for me, but he straight out tossed me like yesterday's news when he was done with me! How can he even sleep at night?!" - Regina

"That thing from the Mirror Throne? I remember hearing Garami talk about it." - Noire

"That's exactly it! The world's sure small..." - Regina

"I'd say. ...Just wondering, why was that skill you obtained so bad?" - Noire

I am a proud Extra Skill user myself now, so knowing more about them would not hurt.

"To make it simple, my attributes didn't match it." - Regina

"You attributes?" - Noire

"Do you know the magical number for Extra Skills? It's 5. As that is the highest number of Extra Skills one can take. One can obtain 1 Extra Skill that does not have any attributes, known as 'non-attribute Extra Skills', one for each attribute one possesses, and one final that could be considered a 'representation of the skill user themselves'." - Regina

"......What?" - Noire

"............Yup. I don't get it either. I'm just parroting what I overheard what that Lich told the big boss." - Regina

She must mean Onyx and Garami. I grabbed a clean piece of paper and started to write down what Regina had told me. I am having no luck with searching for a clue to defeating the robot army, so spending my time investigating these limitations for Extra Skills is a more efficient way to spend my time.

Regina mentioned something about "non-attribute" Extra Skills..., she must be referring to skills such as [Demon Lord] and the Seven Sin skills. I was curious about Revi's [Envy] skill..., but no way I was envious of her's incredible ability! I-I mean, she cannot even use it properly!!

A-anyway, [Envy] did not possess any attributes either. And I remember there being an idiot at the first round of the Nightmare Festival that Garami defeated, one that had some "divine something" Extra Skill that for some reason was also without any attributes. And the bull demon who the Irritation Lord helped escape from our prison owned a similar skill without any attributes. A skill that enhanced his martial arts, I think...

Maybe these skills are simply to enhance one's primary combat abilities to ridiculous degrees. Ignoring [Envy] or Lady Filyn's [Pride] skills, all these "non-attributes" skills seem to focus on those aspects. And that makes me remember something else. The Ability-type skills that improve your status values. They do not possess any attributes. 

Speaking of which, when I woke up today, there was a message from the World System. Some sort of update that had altered the effect of the tier 2 Ability-type skills related to enhancing status values. Now they increased the status values by 5 points per skill level instead of 10, but for every 5 skill levels, the natural status growth from a level-up was increased by 1 point for that category.

And as a special bonus, the System had granted bonus points to everyone's status values as if this effect was already in play since the last week started! A happy piece of news for me, seeing as my level skyrocketed when I defeated that mechanical spider.  

But back to the story about the non-attribute Extra Skills. If my theory is right, then what Regina overheard from the conversation between Onyx and Garami may mean that you can only obtain 1 Extra Skill for the categories:

Your own "playstyle". The non-attributed skills may be centered around this aspect. The Seven Sins and Seven Virtues may simply be more-difficult-than-anything-else skills, so they may grant extra effects to compensate.

One's attributes. One for each attribute you specialize in. Regina also mentioned that having "attribute combination skills", tier 2 passive skills such as my [Purified Gold] or [Lunar Gem], skills that grant some of the traits of a second attribute to the ones you possess, may also act as part of the requirement needed to obtain the skills with attribute-based restrictions, as long as the "main attribute" fulfills a second.

Due to this rule, I could have obtained an Extra that requires both the Gold attribute and the Purification attribute, but not one that requires Purification but not Gold. Hmm, did I choose my "combination skills" a little hastily? ...No way.

And as for the last type...maybe it is centered around the user? Regina believes that, at least. Which, when summarized, Extra Skills has to be centered around "something". Be it the owner's playstyle, their attributes, or themselves.

On a related note, Regina also mentioned that these "character-centered" Extra Skills still needed to follow their attribute requirements. This attribute-focused requirement must be the reason why her infamous Ice-type skill was making a mess out of her. She did not possess a single Ice-related attribute. 

"Now it makes sense!" says Regina after I was finished writing down my thoughts on the subject on the piece of paper. 

"The information you gave me was quite helpful. You have my praises." - Noire

"Ha-haa~. It is my honor, Lady Noire~." - Regina

...Oh no. This girl is good. I should recommend her to Garami after all.

"Your praises are a common truth. No need to overdo it." - Noire

"Yeah, you're right. But shouldn't you warn your reptile buddy about this? He had also obtained an Extra recently." - Regina

He's far from my "buddy", but it would be a setback for our blacksmith to lose the ability to obtain a tailored Extra Skill. And there is also Blaze, who must have way more Extras than any of us here...

"You have a point. Let us go and show this to them if they're not too busy," I said as I stepped out from the desk. The paper I had used fell to the ground because of my sudden movements and landed face-down on the floor...?

"Hey, there's something written on the back." - Regina

Or rather, I had taken a paper without recognizing that it was already used. Let us keep this for myself... And hold it. Isn't this...

The paper had written descriptions about opening a secret door in this very office. Feeling curious, I had Regina open the door for me. Mechanical noises could be heard when Regina pulled out the book from the bookshelf, the last piece of a very complicated puzzle that I could not blame the Inventor Lord for having written down the instructions for, and we were greeted by a sight we were not expecting.

From inside the secret room, a humanoid machine could be seen. It was not active, and that is a stroke of luck for us. At least for me.  That is because I recognize that machine. And it is something I wished not to meet again.

"Assault..." - Noire

The Black Baron's "muscles", so to say. It had faced both Mira and Iron during the Velantas war, and that battle only ended due to a stroke of luck forcing it to leave the warzone. After that fight, we suspected that it may have been in a weakened state due to the Black Baron's crashlanding in the Velantas lake after his battle against the Water Disaster, Glavras. 

But now, this machine looks sparkling new! Did the Inventor Lord capture it while it was "running on low batteries"? If so, he did a good job repairing it. My [Observation (Celestial)] reveals it has more firepower than even the mechanical guardian dragon that attacked Gugalanna yesterday. 

"Ehh..., we shouldn't talk about this to the Baron or his goons, right?" - Regina

"No way we are. Let us ask Lord Flammel about this." - Noire

"Good idea," said Regina as she went to the door. But just as she was about to exit it, she paused with her hand still on the doorknob.

"What is wrong?" - Noire

"...Isn't it a little too quiet outside?" - Regina

...She has a point. The shower of gun salutes has stopped. When did that happen?

Following Regina, I peered slightly outside the door and saw...the whole island is covered in some strange, purple fog. No, is this smoke? I made sure not to breathe anything in, but I did manage to locate one of the people outside. 

It was that follower of the ogre, Grangron. The male one. And he was...doing a handstand while dancing a strange dance upside down??? And further into the smoke, I could see Lunatic...spinning on one leg like a spinning top. Well, nothing too strange there..., but then I saw Grangron himself. Naked. And acting as if he was a general making a speech to his troops. Yuck...

Whether it was the sight of Grangron, or maybe because I swallowed some smoke without realizing it, my attention waned and I noticed something else. Something that could potentially be even more horrifying than Grangron's current condition. 

It was the giant snake I (should have) killed! He is alive?! And wearing a comically large gas mask on his face. Standing alongside him is the black knight from yesterday! Smoke is escaping from his armor..., so it must be his handiwork!

"Crap," said Regina after she silently closed the door. "That guy suddenly turned into smoke and disappeared yesterday! We didn't consider that he could do the same trick to suddenly reappear today!" 

"...I think we should not breathe in too much of that smoke. Unless we wish to turn stupid..., but on the other hand, it should not affect you that much." - Noire

"Because, I'm an undead, right? RIGHT?" - Regina

"Let's go with that. Now, defeat that evil knight, brave Regina." - Noire

"That would be a two-against-one scenario! And isn't the snake a C-rank creature? I recognize that type of 'aura' from anywhere!" - Regina

A warrior's intuition? The odds are against her though, and it is not certain that the knight is any weaker than the snake that's supposedly fooled death itself. But I cannot go out there and assist her. I may turn into an idiot if that smoke gets me.

I couldn't see any other of their allies there, maybe because they did not have enough masks for everyone. But if they incapacitated everyone while the smokescreen is still active, they could just turn it off and have the rest of the Avalar faction reclaim the island. 

Gugalanna is still not ready yet, and in this situation, I should save my MP to heal whoever gets harmed by these jokers after the smoke clears. This leaves us with only Regina to fight...

"Hey, do you think the smoke affects machines as well?" - Regina

Regina pointed to the back of the office while saying that. ...Oh. That's right. This may be a double-edged strategy, but if we play our cards right, we may be able to solve this crisis AND potentially destroy the Baron's hidden ace. I hope...

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