Shutting down the System had consequences, but there were limits. Skills were inherent to people and not granted, thus, they could still be used. However, with her action, Theora had broken the ability for anyone within a certain range to gain quests or to clear them, to read System descriptions or use System-specific Skills like [Appraise], or receive notifications of other types. There were likely other features, but she didn’t use the System very much, so she had no idea what had been impacted there.

The first time she’d done it, she had hoped the System would be gone for good, but within a few days, it had reinstated itself. If it learned anything at that time, it should come back faster now.

Still, she bit her lip. Losing her temper in this overreaching manner, impacting people who had nothing to do with this, she deeply detested it. The only good part was that she didn’t have to look at this despicable Main Quest for a while. She’d make sure to ask in the village if anyone was negatively affected by the shut-down.

“Damn, that was you, right?” Dema suddenly gaped at her. “You can overpower the System? Huh. I can’t even view my stats.”

Theora stared back, an ever so slight amount of blood rushing to her face, and not necessarily in the good way. For once, Dema wasn’t grinning. She looked stupefied and confused. “Ain’t ever seen anything like this,” she said. She kept Theora in her piercing stare. Thoughts must have been rattling in her brain, because, after a while, sounding a little defeated, Dema raised her voice again in a bit of a sullen tone. “You didn’t, like, have to do that, you know?”

“What?” Theora asked, and for some reason, a slight shiver went down her spine.

“I wasn’t gonna pull anything, is what I’m saying,” Dema continued. “I was just gonna have a little fun. Nothing bad. That must have… what. Cost you a fortune of credits? No way that wasn’t some unique one-time Skill. Or is it your Legendary?”

Credits… Legendary Skills… Theora vaguely remembered there being things like that. They had lost meaning to her a long time ago. She caught Dema’s look, and something dawned on her. It was hard to make out from her expression, impossible to tell for sure, but there was a slight possibility that Dema was actually genuinely hurt. 

“I… That’s not what happened,” Theora said.

“I see,” Dema carefully intoned, not arguing maybe for the first time. “Well. I don’t know the first thing about you, your Class, or Skills. My [Appraise] only ever gave me gibberish on you. So it’s kinda hard for me to tell what happened.”

‘I got angry at a quest that kept telling me to kill you, so I lashed out like a child and terminated the System with my basic Skill’ was what happened, but there was no way for Theora to tell Dema that. To even think about telling her that. It was ridiculous, and Dema probably wouldn’t even believe it.

As an amalgamation of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Skills Theora had gathered over her life, probably half of which she’d forgotten and the other half never even read, [Obliterate] was a complex Skill that could be used on virtually anything. With a plethora of unforeseeable results, most of which had a tendency to be irreversibly destructive. Though, even she had been shocked when, a long time ago, she’d used it on her Main Quest out of frustration for the first time, and it actually worked.

Theora was broken, in every sense of the word.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and that did cause a slight shift in Dema’s posture. Probably did not expect the Heroine to apologise for anything, ever.

“Just here to have fun,” Dema repeated her intentions with a nod, almost as if to appease a wild beast. The sentence lingered in the air for a while, and then she added, “I’m gonna think for a bit,” and tapped her temple. With that, a slight smile came back to her face. She slowly paced on toward the village, breaking eye-contact with Theora only after bending her neck with a slightly uncomfortable amount of steps.

Eventually, Theora followed after her. 

Dema did cause the guards at the entrance gate to raise some eyebrows. She looked inhuman enough to make them wary, and they were probably on edge anyway due to not being able to [Appraise] her. When Theora followed and stepped next to her, the atmosphere relaxed, if only a little. After all, Theora looked strong. A complex and reinforced, multilayered coat with expensive looking ornaments, and a high quality sword peeking out from her side. And, she looked human, with wild and puffed curly brown hair, thick eyebrows, and freckles all over her face. Age in her mid-twenties, and very tall. Expressionless and calm gaze, unperturbed by the presence of a monster at her side.

And that monster on her side was a scrawny, small creature in ragged clothes, shivering from the cold.

After asking for a few details like names, levels, Classes and destination, to which Theora gave short and largely uninformative answers, they ended up letting them pass reluctantly. Probably mostly out of pity for the trembling demoness who seemed very much like a captive.

“Let’s find an inn first,” Theora proposed as they walked through the main street. The buildings were interspersed with many trees, a beautiful apple orchard forming the centre of the village. People were taking walks there, and a few children were playing. It was still early in the evening. After taking in the scenery for a bit with a wary glance, Theora added, “Once we have a place to sleep, you can go and have fun. I’ll need to take care of some things.”

“Oh?” Dema’s eyebrows perked up. “Little rabbit’s not gonna keep tabs on me?”

“I can’t today.”

Dema intently inspected Theora’s face, but it was blank, not giving away any information.

“Not worried I’m gonna do something bad after all, huh?”

“Dema,” Theora started, her voice firm, but her expression still calm. “Please don’t do anything. I need to make sure everyone is okay, with the System not working.”

With that, the Ancient Evil’s eyes lit up. “Oh my! I see,” she hummed. “What a shame I don’t have any paper yet. That’s another big weakness of yours showing. I gotta note it down before I forget. But, sure. I already told you I wasn’t gonna do anything bad here. Was just teasing. Rest assured!”

Theora nodded in what appeared to be a thankful gesture, and then she paced further along the main road, eyes intently scanning the buildings in search for a place to stay. She also started counting them.

There were a lot. She couldn’t afford to waste time.