[“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” - Sun Tzu]

This actually fits surprisingly well, Ophelia thought. If it is true that this world’s Battle Power can only estimate the value of Skills, then it can be made completely obsolete with the right Skill combinations.

[My interest is in seeing if we can communicate with others with you as a conduit... Maybe a thought sharing spell like telepathy would work... If it doesn't? Oh well.

Well, also the side benefits of being able to share hard-to-express emotions like the true depths of your love to FELICIA]

“No!” Ophelia flat out refused with what little willpower she had, to turn herself into a walking telephone for the voice’s amusement.

[Lucy is Felicia's clone!!! Because Felicia really likes beatkin !! She made another body by mixing beastkin catgirl blood. Investigate Lucy's past !! To find clues to find Felicia !!]

“A-a clone?” Ophelia stuttered and stared at the catgirl. No... It can’t be! Can it? Ophelia did for a second mistake Lucy for Felicia but that was in a migraine induced confusion! There was absolutely no way a meeting with Felicia would be this... empty.

[I highly doubt this clone theory, it’s not impossible though, so do as YOU like.]

A different voice commented on the theory. The uncertain doubts of a nameless, faceless, possibly imaginary entity were surprisingly comforting.

[Did you try to release your aura yet? I think it's sealed for now. But you could try to with your bloodlust for a starter, it's the most potent energy in your body right now. My guess is that this puny monster will be greatly weakened after feeling it.]

Ophelia tried to release her aura. Nothing happened.

“Release aura!” She commanded. Still nothing. “Wait, “puny”? The thing is over forty feet high!”

[I suspect that those gifted skills will be upgraded with sufficient levels...at least you are now capable of impregnating FELICIA or be impregnated by her, your preference]

“I suspect so too.” Ophelia agreed. She did not say anything about the rest of what this voice said. She wanted to find Felicia but kept avoiding the question of what she would actually do once she found her.

[I wonder if there’s a difference between spells and skills in this world?]

“I think so far, there have been only skills in this world,” Ophelia tried to recall if she ever heard the word spell from anyone apart from her voices.

[Anyway, since you seem confused Gl=girls love=lesbian, Bl= boys love=gay, it’s not a particularly perverted knowledge, though your opinion US is not particularly wrong, the majority of people are perverts in some way, the only difference is that WE are saying everything that comes to mind with no filter.]

Ophelia remembered one of the reasons she despised nearly everyone at her school—nothing but falsehood.

[Name's Arlie well at least at the moment. I am a little busy training a new paladin of mine at the moment. Mostly teaching her how to hunt from the air. Anyway, have a drop of my blood. May not be much use to you now, but I have traveled many realms in my long life, and it contains a record of all life I have encountered. Many mages and alchemists would kill for this, so keep it safe and whatever you do don't ingest it. Doing so could kill you.]

Blood ran down Ophelia’s nose and fell into the burnt earth at her feet.

“...”

Ophelia dug out the a small pile of dirt with her dagger and walked over to Lucy.

[Dirt with a Drop of Blood]
Consumable?
Grade: Special
Effects: Unknown]

“Hold this,” Ophelia said and placed the dirt into the catgirl’s hands. “Don’t eat it!”

By this point it seemed that Lucy had seen a bit too much weird shit for one day and just stared at the dirt in her hands, then at Lucy, then at the dirt again.

[I’ll try gifting something...

Salt
Grade: Special
Effects: Unknown
Note: Take this container of magical salt with a grain of salt]

A tear rolled down Ophelia’s cheek from her left eye. Was it from the painful pun? Either way, Ophelia caught the tear in the palm of her hand, the tear dried up, and now Ophelia had a literal Grain Of Salt with an unknown effect.

[Grain Of Salt
Consumable?
Grade: Special
Effects: Unknown]

Ophelia placed the grain of salt into dazed Lucy’s other hand.

[Hadiah
[Keterampilan: Create Knife Lv.1
Aktif.
Serangan Fisik: 7
Biaya: 1 % M P
Aktif selama 1 menit.]

Ophelia didn’t understand a single word of what this voice said apart from “create knife”. However, an informative tab appeared to clear things up.

[Attention duelists! A maximum number of Skills has been reached for Level one! Increase Level to increase the maximum number of Skills!]

Assuming that the “gifts” had ended, Ophelia snuck toward the meatball monster, that was still playing “dolls” with two of Ophelia’s short-lived companions.

 [Ophelia.setSkillLimit ()
{
SkillLimit = 99;
}]

A high pitched noise made Ophelia flinch and instinctively close her ears, though it did no good. It was as if an ancient fax machine was shoved inside her head and the receiving sound was set on a loop. Ophelia fell to the ground in pain.

[Health points: 65%]

[I highly doubt THAT would work...a world system would be more complex than THAT.]

[Do you want to bet?]

[Actually? Yes. I bet you, with no stakes, that citing code in someone's head won't change the system.]

[Well we can grant her skills, so we can influence the system]

[I still don't think our code would affect another world's world system]

Thankfully the fax noise stopped, but now Ophelia was distracted by the two voices at the same time, arguing with each other.

"Voice: [Spells:]

[Friends Forever - lvl 1 (0%)

#You lack friends? No problem!# Raises a corpse nearby (halved stats) who will be your friend/under your control]"

[Attention duelists! A maximum number of Skills has been reached for Level one! Increase Level to increase the maximum number of Skills!]

Ophelia swiped away the tab as soon as it appeared. By this point, she expected it to appear each time the voices tried to give her a new spell.

What Ophelia did not expect was to see Thunderage’s lower body rise from the flames and wobble back and forth. It was hardly more than two legs and mutilated stomach, holding together only due to the fact that Thunderage used to be some kind of a mix between a golem and a machine. It still counted as a raised corpse with halved stats, but was completely out of Ophelia’s control.

"Voice: [Spells:]

[Favor For A Friend - lvl 1 (0%)

#You want me to do what? ! Well we are friends so I will do it for you # Choose a corpse nearby. It will explode and deal damage to everything surrounding it (piercing damage if the corpse contained bones). Damage depends on the spell lvl and the former battle power of the corpse.]"

[Attention due—] Swipe!

Ophelia ignored the announcer tab that was getting repetitive. However, seeing that the voice did in fact somehow manage to raise a corpse—or part of it anyway—and was now speaking of explosions, Ophelia made sure to stay away for Thunderage’s walking bottom, in case it did go ‘boom’.

[You have knives and your fighting a self-cooking meatball try eating it?]

“How about you try to eat a ball of guts, forty feet in diameter, that is also on fire?”

[I have already sent a message at the Allmighty Spaghetti Monster to deal with it.]

“You did what now?” Ophelia asked the voice. “What message?”

Ophelia hoped the voice was joking or that the message wasn’t received. Because so far most of the voices’ attempts at interaction with this world either failed or outright made things worse for Ophelia.

[Here. Have a bag of aphrodisiac love potion cookies

Erotic Love Cookies
Effect: Those who eat one fall in love with the first person they see. Lasts forever
Effect: Those who eat one become extremely aroused and must satisfy themselves with the target of the effect above.
Number of cookies: 24]

“Seriously!?” Ophelia couldn’t believe her eyes, blinked and rubbed them twice when she saw an open bag of cookies on the ground in front of her. She took one out for inspection.

[Erotic Love Cookie
Consumable
Grade: Special
Effect: Those who eat one fall in love with the first person they see. Lasts forever.
Effect: Those who eat one become extremely aroused and must satisfy themselves with the target of the effect above.]

“This is… this has to be one of the most powerful items in existence,” Ophelia uttered, still shocked.

[Ophelia, you need to focus. Defeat the monster first and then you can drift further into insanity. There is also a catgirl who is waiting to be domesticated, don't you want to pet her everywhere?]

“Right! The cookies and the catgirl can wait!” Ophelia said and put the cookie back into the bag. “I Have to deal with that thing first!”

Meanwhile, the fiery meatball monster got tired of playing with its “dolls”. It hovered them both above its spherical mass and unrolled its meaty upper layers, like an alien egg hatching. Then it unceremoniously threw the bloodied and motionless adventurers—Calean and Babette—inside and closed back up.

“Buuurp!” the meatball’s upper layers opened for a second to let out a satisfied belch.

Not having many options, Ophelia risked using her new [Corrupt Cheat] skill. A black aura formed around her for a couple of seconds and disappeared. Ophelia felt rejuvenated and lighter on her feet, and checked her Status to confirm what if anything had changed.

[Name: Ophelia]
[Race: Human]
[Level: 1 (20%)]
[Battle Power: 313]
[Health points: 130%]
[Mana points: 37%]
[Strength: 2]
[Constitution: 2]
[Dexterity: 14]
[Willpower: 0.5]
[Intelligence: 1]
[Physical Resistance: 0.5]
[Magical Resistance: 0.25]
[Physical Attack: 44]
[Magical Attack: 1]

Looking at her intelligence stat Ophelia recalled the snide remark of one of the voices. I don’t care what this says—I’m not dumber!

Just as Ophelia was ready to try her luck against the meatball another voice spoke.

[So my weapons weren't able to make it through huh? I guess I overestimated our connection. Hmm, maybe you'll be able to strengthen the connection between us as you level up. Anyways, I hope this good luck bracelet will make it through.

[Good Luck Bracelet
Luck+5]

[Attention duelists! There is no luck stat in this world!]

The instant the tab disappeared Ophelia was pulled to the ground by her left arm. She collapsed and saw that what pulled her down was a thick, rusted cast iron bracelet.

[Cast Iron Bracelet of Misfortune
Grade: Special
Wrist
Strength: -10
Constitution: -10
Dexterity: -10
Willpower: -10
Intelligence: -10]

“Argh!” Ophelia could barely move. The bracelet felt like it weighed a ton and anchored Ophelia to the ground. She tried to pull the bracelet, off but it was no use—it was made to fit.

“Stop sending me weird shit!” Ophelia shouted in anger.

The meatball monster threw away the two bloodied bodies and rolled in Ophelia’s direction.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Ophelia cursed as she kept trying to squeeze out her hand.

Meatball stopped and swiped one of its tentacles along the ground in an arc.

“Fuck!” Ophelia grabbed her dagger and cut off the thumb of the trapped hand.

[Health points: 110%]
[Peramently gained +1 to Willpower]

“ARGH!” Ophelia cried in pain but was able to free herself from the bracelet just in time to jump over the incoming tentacle. Having missed Ophelia the tentacle grabbed the bag of cookies.

[*hums O’ Fortuna*]

The meatball brought the bag of cookies closer to its mass as if to inspect it, then hovered them over itself, opened up, and threw the bag inside.

Having dealt with the cookies, the meatball was ready to unleash its tentacles once more when it noticed Thunderage’s lower body wobble in front of it.

The monster shivered across its entire body to the point that the ground itself shook. It grabbed the walking legs and brought them close to its body. It gently caressed the lower half of Thunderage, even slid a tentacle between Thunderage’s buttcheeks.

Finally, the meatball expressed its love in the fullest – by eating. And eat it did, even rubbing each of the tentacles that had held Thunderage against its opening, like a human would lick a finger.

The second the meatball let out another belch, its upper part violently exploded, sending its gory guts in all directions. The flames disappeared. The ball slowly lost its form, losing its battle with the gravity. It tried to hold it shape, pressing itself together with its tentacles.

Ophelia did not waste the opportunity and unleashed seven Deadly Knife Throws—all that she had mana for—one for each of the meatballs tentacles and one at the gory ball itself. The knives struck true, cutting away a piece from each of the tentacles, even scoring two Critical Hits—two tentacles were cut right where they connected to the main body.

Having completely lost two of its limbs and bleeding out of the other four, the meatball continued to fall apart until, finally, it stopped squirming. Forever.

[Congratulations! You have gained 12 Demon Soul Stones]

[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[Level up!]

[Congratulations! You are now level 5!]
[Congratulations! You have gained 20 Free Stat Points!]