POV – Tobias

Absentmindedly staring at the door leading to the stairwell, where Rin had entered moments prior. I’d thought a battle was going to happen since Rin had grabbed my arm and reached for her bow, but apparently not.

Ever since Rin grabbed my arm, I’ve had this constant bizarre sinking feeling. Although that’s not entirely accurate description… it’s like this odd mix of decisiveness, hope, and loneliness.

It sort of feels like I need to change something. That I need to do something important, yet... can't. I don’t know.

I shook my head and tried to stop thinking about it. The feeling was too vague and intangible. I couldn’t imagine what I needed to do. While the feeling didn’t dissipate, I tried to ignore it and stepped toward the petrified Stanley to cure him.

Cutting into my arm far deeper than before, I winced and let the blood flow onto his stone form. The deeper cut allowed me drip a more significant amount of blood onto his body before it healed.

Actually, it hurt a lot less as well (although only relatively). The petrification began to dissipate directly after the second cut.

The process was interesting. The blood seemed to be absorbed entirely by the stone. If I were a scientist, I would probably go crazy to figure out how it works and run multiple experiments to find out the specifics.

Ultimately though, my preference for blood staying inside my body was more than any amount of scientific curiosity.

Similar to Rin, I tried to avoid looking at him directly as the petrification dissipated. I’m not actually sure whether petrifying gaze is still active. If it is, looking at them directly would just petrify them again.

I might need to get glasses or something until I get this under control. For now, I’m controlling myself by avoiding focusing my vision on them… but that isn’t exactly a permanent solution.

Before I could talk to Stanley, a flash of light appeared and he disappeared. Glancing his previous location in the now empty room, I felt my mouth open and closed my mouth like a goldfish.

Stanley had completely disappeared and, judging by the flash of light, he seems to have been teleported somewhere.

Where he’d been teleported to? That was anybody’s guess.

Whelp… There goes my translator. I had so much I wanted to ask Rin too. I suppose I’ll have to settle for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions (using writing).

Feeling woozy, I sat down on a wooden bar stool. Rubbing my wrist, I realized that I probably should’ve waited for a couple days before curing Stanley of petrification.

While my physical regeneration speed had certainly increased, losing large amounts of blood certainly wasn’t healthy. I probably won’t die from it… probably. Might be best to avoid testing that.

I realizing that I was left alone in this abandoned room and felt somewhat overwhelmed. With Stanley’s statue in here, at least I had a companion. Now I was just sitting alone stupidly in a room.

Well, I suppose there’s that statue of the barkeeper… but I wouldn’t exactly count him as a companion.

Feeling awkward sitting in this room alone, I placed both my feet on the floor and stood up. Let’s just follow after Rin.

I began heading toward the door, but stopped midway and backed up.

Something wrong…

“Who’s there!” I pulled my musket into my hand and slowly pointed my gun around the bar. It takes far more than an ordinary person to cause me to have an ominous feeling.

I felt something brush against the back of my leg. Soon I saw my body glowed in a soft light.

A soul attack?

Pulling my necklace of a Sleeping Fox, I found it glowing brighter than the rest of my body. Its shiny silvery color had turned into a brown dull copper along in soft light indicating that it was just used.

Instantly, I activated my ability to become unnoticed and dove behind the bar. The unperceivable active should cause them to temporarily lose my position. Although I don’t know who attacked me, they made it past my passive soul defenses.

Meditating slightly to examine my soul, I realized that my entire soul was quite weak and my defenses had countless holes throughout them. It felt like a flickering flame on the verge of going out.

When did this happen? A moment ago? It shouldn’t be… Now is not the time.

Focusing, I rebuilt the defenses with temporary ones to help defend against another potential attack.

Looking back at where I was just standing, I didn’t find anything. The entire room felt empty, yet the ominous feeling hadn’t disappeared.

Holding back a cough, I felt dizzy and weak. My body still hasn’t recovered completely from my previous injuries and I still had difficulty control my body properly.

Any sort of combat is definitely not a good idea.

My coma meant that I was in Dream Realm for an entire week. That must’ve been where I received my soul injury. Damn, I should’ve realized earlier. All my symptoms point toward a soul injury. While my body had been after a full week, my soul couldn’t have ended up in a worse position.

That explains why I’ve had difficult controlling my body and felt so tired when I awoke for the first time. If our connection is based around the soul, it could also explain why God-hunter thought I was talking quietly.

Obviously, the Dream Realm had begun to cause more damage than simply exhausting my soul. Did I lose any memories? Probably, but I have no idea which ones.

I clenched my teeth in anger and quietly examined the room.

My soul injuries aren’t important at the moment. Finding whoever attacked me is.

They must be using an artifact for stealth. Otherwise I would’ve spotted them immediately in this small room. Their spiritual attack should be their ability, as I doubt they have an artifact that can attack souls.

I could really use one of Rin’s electric grenades. Maybe, I could…

Coming up with an idea, I quickly began planning out how to implementing it. A ward with a movement activation condition would certainly discover their location. The only trouble is that the process of creating a ward would certainly expose my position. The blue light from creating wards is too obvious to be easily hidden.

Before I could act, the staircase door opened and Rin entered the room.

My brain went into overdrive and countless scenarios ran through my head. Rin entering the room had caused the situation to go from bad to the worse case scenario.

The possibility of exposing their position through wards had vastly diminished with Rin entering the equation. Additionally, Rin didn’t have the same protection I did against spiritual attacks.

I clenched my musket and realized that I now had an entirely different problem.

Staying hidden was no longer a valid option as Rin would become the sole target available. I couldn’t allow that. However, with my weakened body, I also wasn’t in a position where I could fight head on.

Running is the only option.

Jumping over the bar, I teleporting toward Rin with my shoes.

I swiftly pulled her into the stairwell. Pushing the door closed behind us, before leaning against it.

Temporarily relaxing, I closed my eyes in relief.

Thinking back to a moment ago. Something had brushed past my leg before the soul attack happened. My mind flashed.

An animal or monster? One that requires physical touch to implement its spiritual attack.

A person wouldn’t brush against my leg. They would choose to touch my arm or more easily reachable location. Only something small and fast would choose to my leg to implement the attack.

A monster shouldn’t be using artifacts... so a monster with duel abilities? One for stealth and another for a spiritual attack. A pet? Maybe of the petrified barkeeper?

The spiritual attack shouldn’t be particularly strong if it’s from a monster with duel abilities.

My mind flashed as I made another connection.

I found Rin sleeping when I arrived.

Rin normally wouldn’t sleep on the floor. However, Rin didn’t seem alarmed by the fact she awoken in a strange location. Does the spiritual attack cause unconsciousness and short-term memory correction?

Opening my eyes, I realized I was still holding onto Rin’s arm.

She was looking between it and me with a curious expression. Despite that I avoided looking directly at her. It wouldn’t be a joke if I accidentally petrified her again. We aren’t necessarily safe yet.

I let go of her arm, pulled out my fox necklace to show her. Before pointing back into the bar and explaining, “Monster. Soul attack.”

Hopeful she’ll understand from that.

Rin’s expression didn’t change. She still just watched me, causing me to feel slightly awkward.

This… I’m not sure if it’s worth fighting it. We don’t have anything to gain and I’ve already used up a portion of my abilities.

Doing a mental check, I’ve still got the barrier from the glove that recharges every thirty minutes and the levitating stone plate. Not much else, though. I’ve already used my daily teleportation and petrifying eyes.

Hmmm… I pulled up the system inheritance menu, only to find the format completely changed.

<Mutated Fire Basilisk>

<Petrifying Gaze: Those gazed upon shall be turned to stone.>

<Basilisk Blood: A valuable commodity used to heal and cure petrified creatures.>

<Flame Resistance: Immunity to most high temperature attacks.>

<Flaming Breath: Can release a variety of magical flames out of their mouth upon command.>

<Monstrous aura: An aura that interferes with and absorbs mana in an area around them.>

What…

I blinked multiple times as I examined the system. All mention of cooldown or mention of it being an inheritance had disappeared.

Instead of being an inheritance screen, the system seems to be identifying me as a flame basilisk. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of it all.

I quickly pulled up my ability as well.

<The Unnoticed. [Rank 5, 6%]>

<Active: Become unperceivable for 2 seconds. Cooldown 24 hours.>

<Passive: Goes unnoticed by most existences.>

Rank 5?! Wasn’t it rank 7 the last time I checked?

I felt a headache, I should really be checking the system more often. I hadn’t even thought to my ability since I actually killed anything strong recently. My ability needs corrupted mana to evolve. Meanwhile, my inheritance had stagnated since giving away the inheritance manual so I never bothered checking it anymore.

Before I could think further, an automated system alert popped up.

<Warning! Personal system battery reduced to 14%>

<Please reconnect to the system mainframe by returning to any area connected to the system to recharge.>

<Remaining time estimated: 53 hours.>

<Reminder: Examining your own abilities or using the system will drain system power faster.>

Reconnect to system mainframe? Wait… Didn’t it say the monstrous aura is constantly absorbing mana? That might be preventing the system from reconnecting and recharging.

Then reason the translation function has broken down is because the system entered some kind of power saving mode? Then… maybe I can manual turn on the translation function?

System console. Turn on translation.

<Unrecognized command.>

System console. Automated translation on.

<Unrecognized command.>

System console. Turn off power saving mode.

<Power saving mode turned off.>

“Rin, can you understand me? In your language?” I asked, looking up from the system notices.

Rin had moved back to sit on the stairs and turned back toward me and nodded, “Mhmm… You fixed the translation feature?”

“Temporarily.” I glanced back toward the system menu and saw the estimated time had decreased to 20 hours.

Regardless, this made my life far easier. At least in the short term. In the long term, I have no clue how I’m going to solve this. This is a completely different problem than the one I was expecting.