[Calculating rewards]

. . . . . . .

System> {Error: Host is not responding; repeating message:

[Calculating rewards]

{Confirming calculations}

{Error in applying compatible energy...}

{Transferring energy to [indecipherable]}

. . . . . .[Confirmed]

{Successfully integrated energy into host soul, issuing reward}

{Forcefully displaying current Integrity

{GP(34) > Soul Integrity (3%+1%) + {undecipherable}%

{Reward issued}

. . . . . . .{Attempting to modify host}

*Ding Triumphant noises*

. . . . . . .[Success]

{Congratulations, soul successfully modified; displaying new data}

System>

{New information: [B Tier Modification Successful]

{Gained new passive skill: “Hide”}

{Passive skill Description: Allows users to gain limited invisibility in dark environments; will not provide stealth in lit areas or against higher level perception.}

System>

{Error: Host is not responding; repeating message

*Ding*

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

A loud groan escaped my mouth as I slowly wedged my eyes open, my state of unconsciousness disturbed by the repeated sound of the system alerting me to a new series of notifications filling my vision.

I tried to reach out to silence the thing as if it was some sort of alarm clock, but my hand just pitifully passed through the brightly colored icons. If I was a bit more out of it, I might have complained, but all things considered, it was probably best that I was awakened as soon as possible. After all, as tired as I was after fighting those strange monster-like ants, I hadn’t quite been pushed far enough to consider sleeping in their nest a good idea.

Trying to think back to what happened I found that My last memories were extremely muddied. I’m not sure if this was caused by the adrenaline dump I was under from fighting the ants or something else, but I really couldn’t remember much. The last thing I could remember was placing my hand on one of the ants, hearing a ding, then everything went black. While I wasn’t sure exactly what had caused it I at least had a likely culprit currently floating in front of me.

Examining the large wall of text being displayed, I was met with a bunch of confusing-sounding information. Okay, this has been happening a lot lately, I mean I really wanted to make it known that since I fell into this world, everything seemed to be moving a bit too fast. And honestly, I hoped that if I made it out of this place alive, I’d have a bit of time to collect myself.

You know maybe if I survive I’ll take a vacation, clean that house up a bit, consider everything that happened since I got here, maybe have an existential crisis or three, over my gender, life, and possibly my soul being toyed around with, all while drinking a nice bottle of champagne, heh, sounds nice, but well with my luck I doubt I’ll make it that far, with a sigh for all my misfortunes, I began examining the information in front of me.

Looking at the wall of notifications I noticed that The lines appeared to have repeated a few times, with several warning messages noting that I was unconscious. I guess this means that the system continues operating even when I’m unconscious. I can’t say how useful that information is, but hey at least give me some points for trying to learn something. What was particularly notable to me was how the system kept mentioning something about a reward.

It seemed whatever had knocked me unconscious wasn’t negative. Though I wasn’t sure what exactly it was, hovering in my vision was some sort of error as well, followed by further mention of my “soul integrity.” Again, I had been ignoring it this entire time, but it was unnerving that even my soul was being tracked in such a haphazard manner. Trying to stay on topic, I diverted my distracted attention back to considering the details that I could understand, simultaneously noting a couple more things to complain to the goddess about.

Shifting my vision to the part which seemed to give more information on the reward hesitated for a few seconds before looking at it. It’s not like I didn’t want to look at it, but looking around me at the two ant corpses and the small pile of ash at my feet, I was scared that whatever reward it was just going to disappoint me further. Looking back at the display I tried to motivate myself,, it’s not like I had much choice other than to keep moving forward until I either won or couldn’t move anymore.

Displayed in the reward section was the rather dimly lit words “B Tier Modification successful.” Further down was a description of this supposed modification, I can’t say I was particularly pleased about the idea of being modified, I mean what would have happened if it wasn’t successful, would I have turned into an ant or something? Look no offense to Mr. Ant over there but I had had my fill of transformations for now.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Looking at the “skill” and its description, I was a bit surprised it at least seemed useful. Though it didn’t seem particularly powerful, What was described was the ability to hide in the shadows, even if it was a bit juvenile in concept, it certainly would be useful in this darkened cave. And it should serve as a nice complement to my “masterful style” of um, flailing my knife about until I managed to land a decent hit on my target,

A notification suddenly sounded out, distracting me from further fantasizing. Along with the sound, two new items appeared in the corner of my vision. The first was a familiar icon which was next to a much smaller-looking symbol that appeared unfamiliar to me. The icon, which was in the shape of an S, was blinking with a slight green tinge to it, and the symbol next to it seemed to be some sort of cloak. As much as they were drawing my attention, I decided I’d check what they were after I finished confirming what exactly had happened to me.

The only other changes besides the rather ominous sounding soul modification was that my soul integrity had increased by a percent, or I guess by 33% depending on which way I looked at it. I’m still not sure what exactly that meant, but I don’t think I have any choice than to throw it with the quickly growing list of things I have to look into once I’m in a better position.

Huffing frustratingly, I got rid of the long line of notifications in front of me before slowly getting up into a more stable position. Contrary to my thoughts that my circumstances would have further worsened after my time being unconscious, my body felt surprisingly light, very similar to how I felt after touching the ant, but somehow this lightness felt more intrinsic to me. What surprised me further was how much better my body felt.

I was no longer hungry, and it even seemed my thirst had been quenched. Looking around the cave system, it was as if I could see a bit farther, though it wasn’t to the extent that I was entirely sure how much better it was. What I was sure of was that, along with that strange skill, my body had been improved. Bringing my hands in front of my face, my skin seemed much lighter, in color having an almost surreal beauty to it. All the aches and pains I had been trying my best to ignore had gone away.

Everything was so much better that I could have been fooled into thinking that all I had suffered from up until now was just a dream if my vision wasn’t currently being taken up by a mix of cave wall and ant corpses. I was sure there were more changes than just what I could see on my hands, but I really didn’t have time to go over my entire body again.

Checking my map, I noticed that there were a lot more red dots around me. Huh, yeah, guess I don’t have much of a choice other than to celebrate my health and keep struggling for survival, looking at the ash pile at my feet one more time before stepping slowly out from the wall I had collapsed onto. I continued into a corner so I wouldn’t be attacked from behind while I checked the system further.

Pulling up the new system window which was blinking brightly, I was unfortunately met with a new wall of text explaining another addition to the system. Despite myself, I couldn’t help but let out a small huff as I began to read.

System>

{Goddess’s super cool otherworld safety system v.1!

[Hey! So if you’re reading this then you made it over to the other world safely, not only that but you got your first skill, or um something else happened either way that’s cool I know you could do it! Well anyway since I’m the most gracious and wonderful goddess yeah I uhhh figured it wouldn’t be right to throw you into another world unprepared, so I prepared some stuff for, well anyway I’m sure you already read the tutorial so I don’t need to uhh explain it again. Uhhh, moving on This is where you’ll find all the super cool op abilities you get, or maybe they’re useless trash, depends where you ended up I guess, ehhh it’s alright, anywhooo have fun, happy you made it this far!]

{Current Active Skills: ^0

{Current Passive Skills ^1 . . . [Expand Section]}

Letting go of my breath, I did my best not to yell anything since I didn’t want to attract the attention of any further ants. So it seems that the phony goddess wasn’t lying when she said she included some further bonuses for me. The only problem is this whole thing feels like a scam. Well, actually, as much as I wanted to call it that, I guess it had helped me out a bit. But hey, now’s no time for arguing about stuff like that. The point is, where’s this tutorial she mentioned, and what sort of op skills is she talking about? All I had now was one section entirely empty, and the other section having a skill just used for hiding myself. However, before I continued my rant, additional text at the bottom of the panel caught my eye.

{Soul evolution progress 4/50}

It wasn’t so much the text itself that I found interesting, after all, it was yet another progress bar counting up to something I didn’t understand. But what was interesting about it was the word evolution, and the progress bar seemed to reflect my current soul integrity value. The word evolution here seemed to imply that, well, if I did indeed raise my soul integrity up, I’d undergo some sort of change, a change impactful enough to be noted in the system. My only problem is I wasn’t sure what this change was, if it’d be good or bad, or if it even was the type of change I was thinking of.

Resting my head in my hands, I started mulling over everything I had learned related to my soul since coming here. I never considered myself a stupid person, but all this information was starting to make my head hurt. But putting everything that I know right now together, I think this is basically the gist of things: once I killed one of those ants, I was able to absorb their energy. This seemed to benefit me in three ways: one, it gave me GP; two, it physically restored me, and three, it seemed to positively impact my “soul.” Furthermore, this process seems to be actively shaping my body, as well as furthering the power of the system. I’m not sure what these weird monsters, that light which swallowed me, and the system have to do with each other, but somehow it doesn’t seem as if they’re entirely connected, and yet they’re clearly not entirely separate. After all, the system seemed to be able to absorb some of the energy, but it also seemed like the chance of this major change happening was low. So basically, I didn’t know much, but I also felt like I was starting to get a better grasp on things, which was a pleasant feeling.

While I was distracted with my thoughts, I was still being careful to check the map. Luckily, it seemed like most of the dots in my vicinity had cleared up. This gave me enough room to start testing something I had been meaning to get to for a while. I quickly walked over to one of the dead ants on the ground, slowly pulling out my knife. I held it over the thickest part of the shell I could find and slashed against it as hard as I could. Instead of chipping and bouncing off as I had expected, the blade left a long gash in the shell, even exposing the graying flesh underneath at some of the thinner parts.

Clearly, I had started to get stronger in some major ways. Continuing this practice, I started to focus on my body. My feet felt incredibly light as I ran back in further. While I didn’t seem to be running with any great degree of grace, I was confident that I was moving faster than I was able to move in my past life. But yet, despite moving like I was sprinting, the exhaustion never came. Stopping once again before the now mutilated ant carcasses, I raised my knife and quickly slashed down onto one of its legs. With a light sound, the blade drew through the air and cut cleanly through the leg of the ant. Recovering before the blade even fully exited the wound, I stabbed it directly into the skull of the ant corpse and looked on happily as the blade pierced deeply into the shell. While it hadn’t gone all the way through, the result was plenty satisfying. Combined with the previous gouges and cuts I had been making, I really was happy with how much I had improved.

Combined with this, I noticed something: every time I ran into a dark area of the cave, the small gray icon would begin to shine faintly with a yellow glow. I had been too excited earlier with testing my new strength to think much about it, but now that I had begun to get tired from running back and forth so much, I decided it would be a good way to rest by testing that.

Sauntering over to a darker part of the cave, I looked up and noticed that as I predicted, the icon was lit up slightly, as if signifying it was available to be used. Not sure what else to do, I tried thinking about using it and even softly calling out the skill name, but nothing seemed to happen. Walking out of the darkness and back into the soft glow of the illuminating moss, I confirmed that the icon went back to being gray. Confused, I tried stepping back into the darker area and crouching down, thinking about hiding myself. This seemed to be intentional enough to trigger something, as the skill symbol began to glow a light green.

Examining myself, I didn’t notice anything different. I thought I was going to turn transparent or something, but I still looked the same as always. I guess the skill name was hide, so maybe I wouldn’t be able to test it fully unless I had something to hide from. But doesn’t that seem unfair? It’s like if someone gave you a bag, told you it was a parachute then asked you kindly to jump out of the plane, you'd at least want to check if it was actually a parachute right?! Sighing, I took one more look at the map, which was now beginning to repopulate with splotches of red. Before getting up, well, guess I’ll have one more card to bet my hopes on. But something nagged at my mind as I continued staring at the map, trying to hold back my apprehension as I began to wonder how many more cards I would need to face what lay ahead.