After picking through the remains of the bar, taking a fresh look at Matt’s stats, and comparing notes together, Matt and Lucy came to one conclusion. Yes, Matt was a badass now. Kind of.
“I think it’s a combination of things. The first and biggest thing is just that people can’t seem to touch you. Like, I was watching that whole fight. It wasn’t like they didn’t try to hit you, Matt. They tried pretty hard. Some of those hits were coming in from behind, and you still even dodged those. How did that work?”
Matt tried to think back to the battle, which wasn’t easy. He was barely aware of what was going on at the time. Adrenaline was pumping through him and he was too focused on the moment to include any strategic thinking. But he did remember several very distinct pulls in several very distinct directions during the fight, ones he hadn’t questioned at the time.
“I think it was Survivor’s Reflexes.”
“Not Spring Fighter?”
Matt shook his head. “The only skill I have that actually tells me to do things is Survivor’s Reflexes. My combat skill makes me better at hitting, but it doesn’t say where to hit. Spring Fighter makes me better at dodging, but it doesn’t actually tell me when to dodge. Those skills are just physical capability things, not guidance.”
“Was Survivor’s Reflexes ever that good, before?”
Matt recalled the times when he used the skill in the past. “No. But think about it. We got all those stats and skill level-ups from killing the Scourge, that's gotta count for something, right? And we got dozens of stats afterward as well. We've been playing it pretty safe on Gaia ever since. Me killing a group of Clownrats wasn’t going to even require it to do anything. Between better PER, better DEX, and a very upgraded skill…”
“You think it was a shift in kind, not just intensity?” Lucy asked.
“Something like that. Like, maybe, it finally had the stats it needed to shine, or something.”
Lucy thought about this for a moment before moving on.
“The second thing is the shovel, honestly. It works far too well.”
“It’s pretty sharp, yeah.”
“Sharp, but that’s not all. I watched those demons fight, Matt. A bunch of them tried to put up magic shields, or made their bodies glow before you hit them. It didn’t matter. Hell, I bet you didn’t even notice.”
It was true. He hadn’t.
Lucy continued, “That thing demolishes magic, Matt. I don’t really know how defense magic works, or how defense skills work because you don’t really have them. But however they work, they must influence the mana in the weapons that hit them. For that shovel, it’s like pushing a plastic pin through a magnetic field, or something. It doesn’t even react.”
“Didn’t we already know all this?” Matt said, careful not to actually talk too much out loud about the Nullsteel itself. It was fine for Lucy to talk since the system couldn't hear her, but he didn't want the Ra'Zor system instance to learn too much about them.
“We knew some of it. It deflected Leel’s fireballs, so we’ve thought of it as being anti-mana. But it’s more than that. It’s anti-mana. And body skills run on mana. Everything does.”
Matt nodded. He wouldn’t talk about it anymore, but it was nice to know he had a weapon that defied most kinds of conventional magic-world physics.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, although I’m not sure about this last one. First, did you expect the bar to go flying like that?”
“Hm. I think I hoped it would, but…”
“Not quite like that?”
“No. I would have been happy if it just kicked up some chunks of wood, or spilled glass on the ground.”
“Yeah, I thought so.” Lucy put her hand under her chin. “I think what probably happened is that you poked the shovel down deep enough that you hit dirt.”
“And activated my digging skill?”
“Yup. Which means…”
“I can charge skills.”
“Yeah. Which isn’t the biggest deal right now, since you can only have one attack trait at a time, and that's the charge trait. And the only skill you have is digging. So you pretty much just became a better digger. But it’s good to know.”
—
Eating the demons wasn’t exactly pleasant, but after consuming acid bats, it wasn’t going to be the grossest meal Matt had ever had. Whatever moral compunctions he had against it were wiped away by the fact that the demons had talked about eating human children like it was a normal life goal as opposed to a horrific war crime. If he got some skills that let him clear out a few demons a bit faster, it was worth whatever ickies he’d experience doing it.
Stolen novel; please report.
Matt pondered his current situation as he gathered little bits and pieces of meat from the battlefield, careful to get as many varieties as possible. Given that the demons didn’t evaporate on death, he had plenty of time to do it, and he felt pretty confident that he could at least get away if any other baddies showed up.
The biggest change to his situation was one of loyalty. Before experiencing what the demons were like, Matt could have imagined a situation in which he’d side with them, as underdogs, against humans like Leel. After hearing all the human barbecue talk, he doubted that the humans would be that bad, even on the off chance that they did generally suck. At the very least, it seemed okay to clear out unfriendly demons, and he suspected there would be no shortage of those.
The bar had a kind of wood burning stove and a heated pot of oil. Matt opted to flash-fry all the little chunks of meat he had collected. After they were done, he carved off a very small piece of each, then ate them one-by-one, swallowing them like pills while attempting not to taste them. He might have to eat demons, but he certainly didn’t want to develop a taste for them.
For the most part, the powers he got from the demons were pretty underwhelming. Most of them seemed to carry a kind of generic defense trait which offered resistance to fire and something called “blight” but still seemed broadly inferior to even the minimal defense trait he had picked up from the snake.
A few other demons turned out to have unique traits. The crab, for instance, had some kind of barehanded attack buff that would make strikes with Matt’s hands and feet sharp. That wasn’t incredible, but was good enough to put in one of Matt’s spare slots as a kind of holdout weapon, at least for now. One of the eagles had a skill that enhanced attacks while diving from the sky, but it required a certain minimum height to work that made it impractical for anything Matt was likely to do with it. He wasn't exactly looking to suicide dive bomb on demons any time soon.
The real winner came from the wolf because, as Matt found out, apparently not all powers he could absorb came from the baseline biology of a creature. Training, it seemed, came into play.
Sheep’s Clothing
This skill allows you to disguise yourself as any creature, so long as that creature is not more than twice as large or less than half as small as your current size. To other creatures, you will appear to move, breath, and otherwise act as that creature does, so long as the behavior in question is a mundane action (like walking, breathing, or chewing). It will also translate your words and adjust the sound of your voice to fit the form you take, allowing you to communicate verbally.
This skill does nothing to influence your choices, however, and only affects the baseline, superficial aspects of disguise. If you say something confusing or act in a way that would be inconsistent with your cover, the skill will do nothing to prevent other beings from finding it suspicious.
Meta-Trait Occupied: Movement
Matt had no idea why Palate of the Conqueror would categorize Sheep’s Clothing as a movement trait, and he couldn’t ask Lucy without giving the system more information on Palate of the Conqueror than he would have liked. Still, he wasn’t going to knock it. He had stumbled into a place where he was kill-on-sight for every demon who saw him. And as much as he had dominated this fight, it was possible he had just got lucky or faced an unusually weak group. He had no desire to find that out the hard way.
“Hey, Lucy. Does your information on the demons say anything about how strong this particular group was?”
“No, not really. It’s general information on types, sure, but nothing you wouldn’t guess from looking at them. It didn’t even identify the mage demons as magic users. I think it mostly fails when personal choices and training come into play.”
“Oh, too bad. I was hoping it would say they were elites, or something.”
“Elites? Matt, I’m pretty sure you just attacked the human equivalent of a militarized college drama club.”
“Lucy…”
“These were actors, Matt. Not a legendarily tough group, I’m afraid. I’m surprised they weren’t wearing berets.”
Matt gave up and began to scour the room for loot. When Lucy got on a kick, she could go on for hours.
—
“It’s like, they were probably as elite in combat as a guy who is really, really into Tim Burton movies. Does that make you feel better?” Lucy asked.
“That guy,” Matt said, gesturing towards the crab, “Was at least probably really into Edward Scissorhands.”
Lucy gaped at Matt in awe. “That was the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”
Matt bowed. “Thank you. I’ll accept my awards later, after we get out of here.”
The demons, as Matt had observed, were not much for weaponry, or at least this particular group wasn’t. But where they lagged behind on weapons, they didn’t seem to have the same disregard for armor, which was what Matt really wanted anyway.
It was actually a problem that he had done so much damage with his shovel, and another problem that the undamaged pieces of armor he did find tended to be soaked in blood. But after a half hour or so of picking through the carnage and another several minutes of work at the fake tavern’s well, Matt had a whole, mostly-matching suit of leather armor. He didn’t know if any of it was special, and had no way to find out minus cutting them into smaller pieces again. But it was at least far better than nothing at all.
He also found money, or what he at least assumed was money. They were, true to his manga expectations, small disks made of what appeared to be gold, silver, and copper. Given that the copper was shiny instead of the blue-green oxidization he’d expect from the actual metal, he assumed some substitutions had been made in terms of actual material. It didn’t matter. Trope satisfaction was trope satisfaction. He packed everything he could into a single salvaged purse, and tucked it away into his backpack for future needs.
“So, are we off?” Matt asked.
“Looks that way. Although…” Lucy's voice trailed off.
“What?”
“I don’t see any reason we’d leave this building standing, do you?”
For the first time, Matt considered what his “change as much as possible” prize-winning objectives on this planet would look like in practical situations.
“Lucy, you are a genius.”
“I know.”
If the tavern had anything at all, it had a generous supply of flammable liquids. A few minutes and dozens of gallons of cheap liquor and cooking oil later, Matt and Lucy walked towards adventure, their backs turned against the towering inferno of the burning tavern.