“Connie, how much Blood Money would it cost to make me a Hero?” Lia asked.

Connie snapped her head up, looking away from the book she was reading. “Absolutely not.” She said. “I don’t know what brought this about, but I’m not subjecting you to that.”

“What do you mean “subject me to that”?!” Lia asked. “Now that the Urge is gone, Rose and Amelia are doing just fine!”

“Being a Hero is a heavy responsibility, Lia.” Connie said. “I’m not fully at liberty to explain everything, but there are…duties that all Heroes must perform, and even they aren’t fully aware of them, we have to do some memory manipulation each time we’re done.” She paused, frowning. “I suppose, Hero or not, if you succeed, you’ll likely end up pulled into these duties anyway, but I’m not preemptively signing you up.”

“It can’t be that bad.” Lia said. “Not as bad as having to sit around and watch those two risk themselves while I’m forced to do nothing.”

Connie sighed. “So that’s what this is about.” She said. “Lia, I understand what you’re getting at, really, I do, but you just need to be patient. Amelia and Rose are stronger now, but you will catch up, Hero or no. Amelia and Rose have had a long time to get acclimated to the strength of a Hero, I fear it might do more harm than good to give you such a potent immediate power boost.”

“And what about summoned Heroes?” Lia asked. “They get the immediate power boost and it isn’t an issue.”

“They also have significant training periods and are getting used to a new system to boot; they expect things to be different, and take their time adjusting to it. You’d keep your system and expect your stats to function the same, on some level it’ll be harder. Theoretically, evolving would solve the issue, but you’re a ways off from that now, and becoming a Hero isn’t going to help that. And, besides, we have to get approval from Jerry when making a Hero, you’d have to take it up with him.”

Lia grit her teeth. “And…and what am I supposed to do? They won’t let me help, and it hurts me to see them throw themselves into danger for my sake.”

“Lia, Matthew thinks you have potential to beat the Lord of Monsters, and he is the guy for assessing power. You are plenty strong, you just need time to grow into it.”

“But…this is the hardest it’s going to be, it feels wrong to leave it all to them right now.” Lia said feebly. “It’s just…”

“Lia,” Connie said gently, “like it or not, you’re the ruler. To lose you is to lose everything. The others can, eventually, be brought back, but you can’t. And while this may be the hardest time in this war, it won’t be the hardest time of your conquest. The Lord of Monsters will surely be a similarly difficult trial, and all other planes you fight will have more resources and stronger people than this one. You’ll have your time to shine, just let them protect you for now.”

Connie paused, gave another sigh, then continued to speak. “But…there is one way to give you a quick power bump. I doubt it would be enough to change their minds on your participation, but it’s better than nothing.”

Lia perked up. “Oh?” She said. “What’s that?”

“You still haven’t killed Ira.” Connie replied. “I know you don’t have an easy way right now, but I’ve cooked up a device that can do it. I can’t give it to you for free, not until you’ve conquered this plane and I can officially…merge our finances, so to speak. Still, I can give it to you for dirt cheap, and killing Ira would provide a lot of experience, among other benefits.”

“Other benefits?” Lia asked, raising an eyebrow.

“For one, you don’t need to have part of your Dimensional Storage dedicated to his cocoon anymore.” Connie said. “But…I think I’ll leave the rest as a surprise, because I’m not totally sure of it yet. I think it’ll be well worth your time even if the other stuff I’m thinking about doesn’t come to pass, though.”

Lia nodded. “Alright. How much for this device, and how do I use it?”

“Three thousand Blood Money, and you just place it up against the cocoon and it’ll annihilate whatever’s inside. Only works on cocoons, though, and I would make it cheaper, but…it’s expensive to manufacture, sorry. That’s covering the cost of production, and it’s as low as I can go.”

“Unacceptable.” Lia said. “Raise the price, I can’t have that.”

“But–”

“But nothing. You’re providing a valuable service to me and deserve to be compensated.”

Connie sighed. “Fine. Three thousand and one, take it or leave it.”

Lia frowned. “I–”

“I’m trying to treat my lover to something nice that would help her solve a problem that’s causing her a lot of distress.” Connie said. “If I could, I would give it to you for free, but I am bound by my position as Goddess of Commerce. I just…don’t want to be in a relationship where I’m constantly leeching off of you; you know you would do the exact same in my position, so please…just let me have this, okay?”

Lia hesitated for a moment, then shook her head in defeat. “Fine.” She said, transferring the Blood Money. “Three thousand even.”

Connie’s face bloomed into a smile. “Thank you!” She said happily, a small two-pronged device appearing in her hand. “There you are. You, uh, might want to go do this somewhere else, though; I doubt anyone wants the house to smell like burnt flesh.”

“Duly noted.” Lia said, putting the device into her Dimensional Storage. “I’ll go do it out in the valley, then. Thanks, Connie.”

“Of course!” Connie said brightly. “Be back by evening, I’ll have dinner ready.”

Lia nodded. “I’m looking forward to it!”

Alisha cursed her own lack of foresight as she walked back to her house. After some discussion, she had recently been barred from the Queen’s house under the pretense that her presence was unintentionally making certain confidential things complicated, and she had used her main body to take her old humanoid form for the meeting, the combination of which meant that she had no idea where the Queen was.

And that, unfortunately, meant she was unable to assist her. So, she had little choice but to help by doing what she did every night – transformation practice. She was slowly but surely increasing the number of abilities she could grant a wearer at once, and was up to an astounding six at the moment.

That sounded nice, but it wasn’t anywhere close to enough. Alisha wasn’t going to be satisfied until she could give everything she had to the Queen, and the fact that the Queen was frustrated with her own power was a clear sign that Alisha wasn’t working hard enough. After all, were Alisha able to grant her all of the effects that Alisha had access to, she had no doubt that the Queen would be allowed to help the Mistresses.

So, she began running through her exercises, shifting her form from artifact to artifact as a warm-up, before moving onto more difficult things such as granting the effect of an artifact while looking like a different artifact, or granting multiple effects at once.

It was very hard work, but she had been making slow and steady progress. She had seen several breakthroughs in the past, one when the bindings had been lifted, one after leveling up several times, and a few after she had obtained certain Skills, but they just weren’t enough.

So, she began to step up her efforts. She took the body that she had in Aura, split off a little bit to act as a sensory relay in case something urgent happened that needed her attention, and sent it off to go hunt monsters.

She hadn’t put too much effort into leveling Skills that helped her multitask with different bodies, so two high-complexity tasks like stretching her transformation abilities to the limit and trying to keep her other body from dying while fighting monsters was stretching herself to the limit.

But she wouldn’t progress if she didn’t push herself, so it was well worth the effort. The progress was slow, painfully slow, but there were, unfortunately, no shortcuts to this. She had already taken the shortcut to power, and now she needed to learn how to use it.

So, it came as a surprise when a couple of hours later she was assaulted by a heavily uncomfortable sensation, like her soul itself was itching, and then a window popped up in front of her.

Alisha felt a surge of power fill her as Gluttony activated and her form shifting became significantly easier. It was an intoxicating rush, and she very nearly reflexively accepted the Skill during it, but some part of her held her back, telling her that what she would steal would be her power, and she should keep it.

For once, she was glad for the traitorous instinct; while she personally had no problems accepting the Skill, it wasn’t something she should unilaterally decide. And, while she still had no idea where the Queen was, she also wasn’t intending to ask her. The Queen was, unfortunately, far too nice for her own good; she would just tell Alisha to deny the Skill and take…whatever it is she would have gotten.

So, she was hoping for the opinion of Rose. Amelia would, of course, tell her to take the Skill, but she was biased in much the same way Alisha was. And by process of elimination, that meant that Rose was likely the only one who could give her a truly fair opinion on the matter.

She left her home and hurriedly made her way down the street, stopping in front of the portal to the Queen’s house. She fumbled around the outside for a bit before locating a small wooden button, a “doorbell”, as Connie called it, and giving it a press. Half a minute or so later, the portal flared to life, and Connie stepped out. “Alisha?” She asked. “What brings you here?”

“I was hoping to speak with Mistress Rose.” Alisha said, looking down respectfully. “I need her opinion on a matter of great importance.”

Connie nodded, almost as if she knew what was happening. “Rose isn’t here right now, sorry.” She said. “I think she’s down on the work floor still, try there.”

“Thank you, Mistress Connie.” Alisha said. “If she comes back soon, please let her know I was looking for her.”

“Will do.” Connie said, then stepped back into the portal.

Alisha wasted no time in heading to the portal to the work floor, and asking everyone she saw where Rose was. After ten or so minutes, she was finally able to track Rose down, coming across her in the midst of conversation with Lily. So, Alisha stepped to the side, and waited patiently for their conversation to finish.

After a minute, Rose noticed her, gave her a nod, said a few more words to Lily, then stepped over. “Alisha?” She asked. “I thought you were off training, what’s the matter?”

Alisha gave a brief explanation of the situation to Rose, and a thoughtful expression crossed Rose’s face. “This situation is a first for me.” She said. “I’ve never heard of something like this. But…to be honest, I’m not sure how to weigh in on this. I’m not going to outright tell you what to do, but you are giving up a lot of potential by taking that Skill. If you want to take it, you need to be able to look at yourself and be completely and utterly sure that you’re fine losing that potential.

“If you’re sure that’s fine, then I see no issue with you taking the Skill. I appreciate the sentiment, but I think Lia would agree when I say that I don’t want you to poison your own future for our sake; this is not an easy thing to undo.”

Alisha let that sink in. No, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she would never want to use those abilities by herself, but…at the end of the day, that wasn’t really her role anymore, was it? The only time she had ever actually used what she had already taken was while leveling up, and she didn’t intend to ever do fighting herself unless there was a big problem. She was an item now, and she needed to be the best item she could be. And…if she really wanted to, she could just turn some random person into a puppet, rob them of their free will and move their body as if it were her own.

Besides, the thought of giving the Queen so much more power filled her very soul with delight. While it might not be enough to put her on the level of Rose or Amelia, it was still enough to let her compete with the big players, and that was all that was really needed. So, she took a deep breath, and accepted the Skill. “I took it.” She said. “I can work around it if I have to, but for now…this is what I want. Do you have a way to contact the Queen? I would very much like to take my proper place at her side, and every killed monster without me at her side is a piece of wasted stats.”

Rose nodded. “I’ll let her know.” She paused, then gave Alisha a small smile. “Thank you, Alisha.”

Alisha’s heart did a little flip as she received the praise. “Everything for the Queen, Mistress, everything for the Queen.”

Fighterman481

I had stuff I wanted to say, but it's all kinda dust in the wind right now because my pharmacy messed up my medication and I am currently without a habit-forming medication and am quite dizzy (don't worry, refill is coming within an hour or so but it'll take some time for the efficacy to ramp back up).

(Note from the present: All fixed now, but it's been a pain because now my meds are desychned and I have to go pick them up multiple times a month >_>)

I guess really all I have to say is that Gluttony went through a few revisions, and at one point stole Skills as well, but I decided that was infringing on Envy's territory too much and made it only work with non-Skill or Title things so as to sort of reflect how Alisha interacted with the treasures.

Anyway, next time we'll...do something, I don't know, probably get Lia's perspective on the situation, so...look forward to is, I guess?

And, as always, thanks for reading!