I stared at the panel that displayed my capabilities with mixed feelings.
It proved that I was a Saint, and I wanted to feel ecstatic about it, but the hunger thing was going up too quickly for my comfort. It goes up 1 percent every 2 minutes... I have less than two hours to eat again.
I turned my gaze to the stats that seemed pitiful and grimaced. Should I ask them about it? I don't think these should be this low.
Nodding at the idea, I turned over to the last thing I wanted to look at, the skills. The panel was very vague about the skills, and I tapped it to see if anything would pop up.
(Curse of Hunger l)
(Chemical Amplifier/Reducer lll)
(Survivor l)
(Observant Eyes l)
(Strengthened Bones l)
The skills seemed self-explanatory except for survivor, but my interest was mostly directed towards the red one. Hm... These seem good, but the curse of hunger skill seemed to be the source of my problems.
I prodded cruse of hunger and pulled my hand back when a panel showed up inside of my hand.
(Curse of Hunger l)
The desire to devour people and fractals alike fills you every moment you don't indulge endless pit in your stomach.
Dangerous things would happen if you were ever starved, but with this curse comes powerful benefits.
Consumed people or fractals will be used to heal injuries to your organs, causing a huge spike of hunger.
This skill can not be improved with skill points. Only when excess is consumed will grant improved and more efficient versions of this cruse.
Ah, so I need to overeat to decrease how often I need to eat... Hopefully. Closing the panel with a thought, I was going to look at my other skills, but my head perked up at the sound of gagging.
The H-sav was finally working, starting with the one in the armor who was wiping his mouth off after taking off his helmet.
I couldn't help but gawk at the tusks protruding from his mouth and dark green skin littered with scars. He turned to me and grinned. "What, Never seen a orc before?"
"No... maybe?" I racked my brain, but I didn't remember what an orc was, so I shook my head, but I had amnesia, so I couldn't be sure.
He gave me a puzzled expression for a few seconds before he chuckled as he held up a gauntlet that glowed. "Now that I can move again. HighJack at your service, call me Jack!"
I nodded, taken aback by how loud he was. Echo caught my attention as she spit out a clump of blackish slop and expressed her disgust at the taste. She turned to me with a conflicted expression. "Given the circumstances, I would be happy to celebrate a new Saint, but I wish you didn't reveal it to us... But now that we're here, I'll take on another temporary student."
"Echo, that's great and all, but how poorly did things on your end go for a child to be the one to save you?" Jack sounded frustrated for some reason but not at her more so the situation.
"Probably the same thing as you, Jack. Also, she's at least 14." She shot back immediately, not even looking at him and focusing more on Pulse instead.
She looked Pulse over, then got up to go to the bar, speaking at the same time. "Pulse found her being crushed by a sluke, then after caring for her, we followed her trail of her bloody footprints... we found out that people were going to try and kill all of us to cover up the-"
Echo paused when coughing erupted behind the bar, and the one with the weird mask rose up. He peeled the mask off and cleaned his face off. I realized he was pretty handsome, with wings twitching on his back that made me question what he was. "-Lab, but she woke up despite having angel's kiss on and ran off poisoned with sluke sap since she was incredibly unlucky."
"Is that why that mission showed up?" Jack was audibly confused and looked at me with a mix of disbelief and respect.
"Yes, did everyone accept it?" They glanced at me and nodded together except the winged person, and it made me nervous. What quest?
He grimaced as he walked over to me and, in very similar motion to Echo, leaned down to me, but it lacked any of the warmth she had towards me. "So we're going to check on the bunker in the sector and drop you off there, so you'll be safe."
I let out a dry laugh at how he immediately got to his plan. Thinking about his plan, it would have been fantastic to go to the bunker and rest, but the slight hunger building inside me reminded me that it wasn't an option. "I can't go into the bunker."
"What do you mean?" He looked a bit annoyed and glanced over to Echo for an explanation.
"I need to keep eating." Jack and him were unsure what that fully meant, but Echo looked like she understood.
He gestured for me to continue with frustration evident in his face, much to my discomfort. The panther all of a sudden growled at him, and he looked ready to fight. "What is that? A fractal?"
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"Stop." Echo yanked him backward and hit him on the side of the head. Having him further away from me calmed me down, as well as the panther.
"Sorry they haven't introduced themselves this is GoldenWing, our so-called leader, since he's supposed to be smart, but he doesn't understand personal space or what an angel is, apparently. Call him what you want since he clearly doesn't care to tell you."
"Den then." I mumbled the name, but Echo still heard me and held back a laugh.
Resentment filled Den's eyes as he stared at me. He backed off at Echo's glare and went over to the bar.
Echo sighed and sat down next to me. I felt far more comfortable with her than Den. "Didn't you just eat that fractal, Was it not enough?"
"No, my panel made my hunger a skill... a cursed one." Echo looked confused but nodded and waited for to continue.
"I have a tracker above my hp, and mana called hunger. I counted the time on the thing, and I have less than an hour and a half at max to eat again. The skill said I needed to overeat to improve its efficiency." I felt drained after speaking so much about what my life was going to revolve around and took a deep breath to steady my growing nerves.
"So what are your stats like then?" Jack chimed in, probably wanted to see if I could handle myself.
I squirmed a bit when I realized how low they were. I considered lying, but it was more important to tell them the truth since my life is on the line and pride felt worthless when the rest of my life was going to be eating monsters. "Low..."
"Oooo, how low! 5? 3?!" Jack seemed very excited for some reason to hear that, and I wasn't sure why.
"Capacity is 3, and the rest are 1." Silence fell over the room, Jack and Echo were smiling but seemed concerned for some reason.
"Is that good?" That was the only thing I could guess from their reactions. Why would they be concerned then?
Echo opened her mouth to speak but stopped. it seemed like she was trying to find the right words. I noticed two of her teeth were longer than the others. They were fangs. "Sort of... Your race gives you a set of base stats that determines how much room for growth you have.
I gave her a puzzled look, but she continued. "So having a 20 in strength, for instance, would be terrible to start with where 5 would be far better.
"But having such low stats overall would be an issue due to a restriction by the system.
With stats like yours, you'll only get them in life-threatening situations or quests involving saving the lives of others."
"So, almost dying 3 times was worth it?" They flinched when I said that. I felt the panther was getting antsy.
"I'll give you pretty obvious advice, but still advice nonetheless. Put those into your physical stats. You'll need the boost for this situation." I agreed that I needed to get stronger, so I don't almost die fighting a blade hound or canary and opened up the panel.
I debated if I wanted more defense or strength but my recent injuries made it obvious I was going to get hit no matter what I did so I on 2 in strength and agility, and 4 in defense.
I winced as a deep pain spread from my heart to my fingertips and toes. The pain shattered and was replaced with searing warmth that faded as quickly as I came.
I clenched my hand and felt much stronger, but I couldn't tell by how much, but it was clearly not 3 times stronger. I would find out soon so I wasn't worried about it.
Pulse coughed, startling me and the other Saints. Echo apologized to me and went over to Pulse to help her.
Jack and the panther walked up to me. Jack seemed happy in this situation. It felt wrong to me, but I wanted some of his optimism. "So what's their name?"
"Huh, what do you mean?" The panther huffed and laid down on my feet with expectation.
Jack stared at me before he shook his head. "What, you haven't even thought about a name for your angel yet? So that's why they were sulking."
My angel, is that who this is? My heart throbbed for a moment as I looked down to my angel, who was sad that Jack had to point this out to me. "I've been bombarded with so many things that I haven't been thinking about what you were... A name..."
Giving her a name was a simple thing, but I hesitated. I didn't think they would like what I would give them. "Why don't I wait a bit and give you a name alongside my saint name when I figure it out?"
Her tail flicked, pleased that I was thinking about it now and purred, sending vibrations through my legs. I brought my hand to her head and rubbed around her horns since they were blocking me from her ears.
Jack coughed to get my attention and saw he was holding some cargo pants out to me. Looking down, I remembered I still wasn't wearing any kind underwear or pants. I thanked him and took them.
After persuading my angel to move, put it on. "So, uh... What do I call you right now? I heard Met call you Mary, but you should use a different one for when you transform, at least a temporary one."
Shivers went up my spine when he called me Mary and just quickly as came it went away but I didn't like it. "I guess I didn't hear her. No, my name is Mar ri. Marri and for a temporary one..."
I remembered what my race was and decided to use that. "Mera. Please don't call me Mary, it feels wrong."
Jack stopped smiling for a moment at my aversion to the name but nodded reassuringly all the same. "Ok, Mera, let's get along!"
"So I've been curious, what's around your neck?" I brushed Elpis and felt them twitch. I was happy they were responsive.
"Elpis! I found them in the lab next to me. They hid in my lungs when Pulse found me." Jack seemed unnerved at what I said and got ready to speak, but Den's voice called from across the room asking for Jack.
Jack looked over to the Den, who was searching the shadow assassin for anything, and sighed. "I'll leave you alone to think of name to talk to GoldenWing on how we should secure this sector... I'm sorry about him as well he's doesn't play nice with the unknown and you... Seem to fall into that category for him."
With that, he walked away, leaving me with my angel. I was warming up to Jack even if just enough to not think he'll kill me when I eat fractals, unlike Den, who seemed like he would do just that to me. Unknown? How do you think I feel.
I pushed my annoyance away and focused on what our names were going to be. I don't have a lot of ideas for them... maybe Eclipse? No, that's basic.
35 minutes passed by without anything really happening besides Den tying up the assassin and then talking about how we should deal with the assassins lurking around and where we should start clearing the sector. "What's a sector?"
After them being baffled they explained that when a normal fracture happens the mega magtec 'Pandora's box' is activated to cut the city into sectors that prevents fractals from going sector to sector to prevent extreme clusters of fractals and make to it easier for Saints to tackle them. There are bunkers in each sector for people to escape to with at least one being at the center of the sector. "How many sectors can there be?"
Den thought for a moment before he answered. "At maximum... 100. That's how many there are in this fracture now, actually."
"That's a lot of sectors! How long will it take clear out the city then?" Den glanced at the air for a second and told me this has been the longest one he's been in at 8 hours and counting, and they usually vary between 1 and 5 hours.
"Putting my question aside, I think we should check on the bunker." I suggested it, but they were already planning on it because they were unsure how thoroughly the assassins were going to be at 'removing evidence'.
With that, we finally left the bar to check on the bunker, but a swarm of strange purple feathered hawks surrounded us immediately. We're they waiting for us?!
"Hive hawks!?" Den yelled as dozens of them flew around us and dove down at us in droves.
The shear number of them forced me and the others to separate from each other except for my angel who managed to stick by me. I unsheathed the dagger and cut the head off of a hawk that tried to attack me. At least their weak.
I heard them screeching about who to target first. And they decided on me since I was the smallest. "Oh no, I hear them talking, and they want to get me first."
My angel hissed violently at the birds when she heard me and snapped one out of the air, crushing it's ribcage in their jaws. Nice!
I couldn't see the others through the cloud of fractals, and all I could hear was Pulse's whip causing explosions and the screeching of the hawks.
I could only kill the hawks that came at me until I saw a way to regroup with the others.
Over and over, I decapitated or gutted. I did grab and pocket a marble one dropped after I did a particularly brutal slash to it. Their numbers seemed endless, but they only managed to scratch me so far so I wasn't extremely worried.
In the midst of me killing another hawk, two sets of talons wrapped around my arms and took off with me, out of the swarm and away from the Saints. My angel tried to chase after me but they were blocked by the swarm. I screamed for help, but it was drowned out in the cacophony of screeching and booms.