Mary sighed to herself as she ate her skewer. As excited as she had been at the start of the expedition, she felt like the novelty was starting to rub off her. She had expected epic fights, filled with skill and ferocity, but instead she had mostly participated in almost massacre like attacks. The rat boss had been the best fight so far, but she had been knocked out of the fight before she could even see the good part.
'(Chew) I wish we could fight more.' She thought to herself, 'I'm tired of waiting in the shadows for the poor monsters to fall into the traps.'
Granted, the traps were a lot easier than outright fighting and Mary had to admit Steel's plans had been very effective so far. She had even been able to use one of her lower top tier fire spells, Flame Wreath, and a darkness low tier spell, Shadow Split, so she had felt a little satisfied.
She went over the events of her first real adventure up to this point in her head.
First, they had camped in the grasslands where Steel had surprisingly unmasked her disguise and revealed her true self to him. That had been very scary for her, because Steel's anger had scared her to her core. Normally, he seemed like a relaxed kind of guy; easygoing and cheerful with a strange hardness to his eyes. His anger had been palpable enough to be felt in the air, and she had been terrified of him.
She'd been put into a situation unique to her life; her true self naked to the world. Normally, she put on a regal air in the tower, though for some reason it always felt like everyone was humoring her for some reason. When she disguised herself, she always cut loose a little, but never too much. She had never been so scared before, as if the world itself was free to judge her now.
Steel, while still angry, had somehow found it within him to at least tolerate her presence, coming up with a test so she could earn his forgiveness. Acting, nice, was something she had always had inklings to do, but had never really tried to follow before. He had charged her to treat everyone nice, as he would visit her in the future in a disguise. While sad she wouldn't see him for some time after the expedition, she had resolved herself to overcome this obstacle, no matter what.
She looked down at herself, examining her clothes. Since she had been "unmasked", her clothing had really changed. Gone were the regal clothes and casual outfits, now she was dressed in a long black skirt that stopped halfway below her knees and a black top with a hint of a neckline and short sleeves. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her face had a more natural look about it. Instead of a princess, mage, or teacher, she felt more like a woman on an adventure in this.
She'd been quite surprised to find this and other outfits like this in her inventory bag, along with a note from some her closet friends. They wished her look and told her normal clothes were ill suited to adventuring, so they packed some clothes they had enchanted themselves. Her heart had glowed at the letter, thanking them as she reread it.
After the grassland incident, they'd traveled to the dungeon base and entered the dungeon, after she had dealt with some annoying flies in her way. They had spent the entire day fighting rats, disgusting rats! Well, these rats were actually kind of cute, so she didn't mind it too much. Actually, just from seeing the armadillos and the rats, Mary figured that everything in the dungeon was a more cute form than if they lived outside.
The huge rat had been really scary too. She had wanted to avoid the fight, but Whisper was in trouble. Whisper had been her closet friend for many years, and she wasn't going to just abandon her to avoid trouble. Even then, Steel had faced the battle confronting them the same as always; cool, calm, and smiling.
That was the weirdest thing she had found about Steel. It wasn't that he smiled all the time, but his mode was always eerily positive, yet somehow...wrong. Only when he got really angry did he lose that calmness, and in the heat of battle his smile would become real. It was almost like his normal self was a flawed container, occasionally leaking out a hidden bloodthirstiness and hatred. Even though she was grateful for his test and acceptance of her reasons for lying, she thought he had recovered much too fast.
His grief from losing his friend during the raid had taken a day to hide within himself, and he didn't seem at all bothered by the dungeon being her resting place. Even with Echo and Shadefur, he didn't treat them quite right either. He kept treating the wolf like a person, not even thinking about who she actually was as a monster. He may have owned Echo, but he didn't treat the slave like a slave at all; more like another pet. Even when she talked to him, his eyes would occasionally drift from her face for a moment, almost as if he was bored.
"I think." She whispered to herself, "He lost the ability to truly care."
Like Eric had said, Steel's core was covered by his new desire to protect. It did not, however, mean that was what the core thought behind his actions followed. 'If his desires can be covered up like that, can his emotions also be a facade?' She wondered, 'Maybe who he is now is merely a remnant of how he used to be, merely serving as a shield for his new self; not caring for anything but revenge and maybe his lost friend.'
She had never had the opportunity to meet Hunie, but she had heard a lot about her from Mema and the patrons of the Adventurer Guild. Hunie had been able to pierce his shell somehow, and Mary wished she could talk to her and ask how she did it.
.
At least he seemed to have an interest in keeping his group mates alive, even if it was mostly selfish. His focus with her seemed to be to make sure she went back to her father happy; she could read him pretty well to know he was interested in her power. It was similar to his pets; he wanted them alive to help him grow in the future.
That being said, she wasn't the best person reader in the world. At times, Steel did seem to honestly care about each one of them; to the point of risking move them necessary to protect them. She could tell whether he was being selfish or selfless by a strange gleam in his eye that only appeared when he was selfless. Oddly enough, she earned a skill from her special observations.
She looked at the god screen again, rereading the description again for herself.
Skill Name:Skill Rarity:Skill Rank:Skill Experience:Soul's WindowAF16%Your experience with hiding intentions and knowing one's true self has trained you to be able to see a hint of another's motives.Passive Effects:Focusing on a person will have their eyes shine a little when they act their true intentions.Costs:N/ACool downN/A
The skill was a rare A type skill, just below the unique skills. It was the first time Mary had ever received a skill that wasn't related to magic, and it filled her, somehow, with a great sense of happiness. Her first adventurer skill, gained through her travels and battles and not from training.
She looked over at Steel, who was in the process of skinning the armadillos. The process used a lot of time, but Mary knew the quality would be so much better than the normal god given drops. He even announced earlier his skill level had increased, which made his ability a little better. Deciding she'd rather be productive than wait around, she got up and walked over to Echo, who was swinging his sword next to Shadefur, who was gnawing on a bone.
"Echo, want to come scout ahead with me?" She inquired.
Echo cocked his head and nodded, a tiny glow in his eyes. Mary turned to Steel, "Hey Steel, Echo and I are going to scout ahead okay? We won't fight, just seeing if we have any more fights."
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Steel turned his head with a worried look, "I'm not so sure that's a good idea Mary. What if something happens to you?" His eyes did not shine, revealing his extra reasons.
Mary put her hands on her waist, "Look, you're going to be a long while trying to skin those rocky monsters and We're tired of waiting around with nothing to do. Even weakened as I am, I'm still strong enough to fight and so is Echo. Believe me, you'll hear if we run into anything bad, okay?"
Steel's face struggled for a moment, "Nothing I can say to change your mind?"
She crossed her arms, stating flatly, "Nope."
Steel sighed and scratched his head, "Okay fine, but don't go farther than the next room alright? Your disguise skill and shadow clone thing won't work on the armadillos."
Mary waved her hand, "I got that Steel. Don't worry about us and concentrate on finishing up perfectly."
Slowly shaking his head, he turned back to his work, Mary seeing for a brief moment the shine of worry in his eyes. 'This is a really great skill!" She thought gleefully as she turned to leave with Echo, "Ignoring the possible complicated nature of this skill, it's really useful for talking with him. I bet it can work when I buy some new clothes and magic books too!"
Yes, at her core, Mary was a mage nerd with a huge love of adventure. To put it simply, she was a geek of magic with a princess upbringing, and more of her personality was starting to appear the more she was on this raid.
That didn't stop her from being ambitious, however. Her original goal had been to get Steel on her side, for her eventual rise through the rank mages of the human realm. She wanted to be an Archmage herself, and to do that she had to have three things; magical might, political influence, and fame. When she had heard about Steel's unique class, she knew he would rise high and gain the favor of many influential people. If he had worked for her, than she could have used his influence to rise as well.
Now, she wasn't so sure about her goals. Her dream of being an Archmage had come from her constant presence in the tower. Being out in the world like this had rekindled her adventuring dreams, and maybe some other emotions she had long denied to herself.
The two reached the end of the tunnel, no corners obstructing their vision into the next room. Echo tugged at Mary's skirt and pointed, his eyes wide. "Yes, I see it that Echo. It does seem to be the stair case." Mary said confused. Ahead of them was an exact copy of the staircase room they had previously come from, but it was way too close to the start of the floor.
The two of them had walked down the farther tunnel, but even then this meant the second floor was less than half the size of the first floor. Mary's adventuring nose twitched, smelling something wrong. The question now was, 'what should she do?'.
Her natural instinct was to go check it out and report to Steel, yet his scolding voice from her previous mistakes kept popping up into her head. Not wanting to mess up again, she took a step back. "Come on Echo, let’s go back." She tried to pull the little slave back, but found that for some reason she couldn't. Echo turned his head and cocked it at her, gesturing at the staircase. "No Echo, I don't want to go into there yet. Let's go get your master first." She let go and turned to leave.
Echo's hand shot out and grabbed hers, gripping with a strength surprising for such a small person. He began to pull her toward the staircase. "Echo let go, it hurts!" She cried out, desperately trying to pull away from him. Echo ignored her and kept walking toward the staircase.
Desperate, Mary summoned a huge fireball and set it off between them. The explosion blasted the two of them apart, severely burning her and destroying her clothes closest to the blast. She hit the wall hard and slowly sunk down, body aching in pain. She rotated her head over to Echo, who had slammed into the other wall.
The little slave lay unmoving and badly hurt, smoke rising in several places. Shockingly, his eyes opened and he got up, his gaze moving to meet hers. He slowly trudged over to her, one leg dragging behind him, his face giving no indication of pain. Mary gazed up into his face, his eyes black and desolate with no shine to them.
"Echo, I know sometimes wrong here. Please fight whatever is happening." She pleaded with him, but he ignored her and kept walking forward. His hand stretched out to reach her, and she shut her eyes.
A loud thud resounded in front of her, and she opened her eyes to see Shadefur grappling Echo to the ground. The wolf was having trouble with the strangely strong Echo, but was managing to cope by pinning his limbs. Mary felt Steel's healing spell on her a moment later, feeling her strength return to her quickly.
"Save Echo, he's not himself!" She managed to gasp out. Steel nodded, pointing his shield at the duo wrestling on the ground.
"Shadefur move!"
The wolf jumped out of the way just in time to avoid the darktacle that wrapped Echo in a cocoon of darkness. Steel seemed to wince as he held his shield up.
"How the heck is he so strong? Even 20 in strength shouldn't give me this much trouble." He muttered, Mary able to hear him still.
'Whisper, I need you.' Mary called within herself. The ball of light appeared from her chest and bounced slowly up and down.
"Oh, what a good nap. What's up Mary? Wait, what happened to you!" The ball glowed white in worry at Mary's injured form.
"Something's wrong with Echo, see if you can snap him out of it." Mary said, pushing herself up the wall slowly.
The ball nodded, just as the cocoon broke and revealed Echo again. The boy still stared dead-eyed and walked forward heedless of his injuries. Whisper flew over to him and rapidly circled his body. This actually managed to raise a face of annoyance on Echo's face, and he swiped for her, failing to touch her incorporeal body.
"He's cursed!" Whisper announced, retreating from the slave, "Something's controlling him through a link of darkness!"
"Good to know, how to we break the link?" Steel shouted, launching another darktacle to slow him down.
Mary coughed a little, finally managing to stand up while leaning on the wall. "Give me a second, I'm familiar with darkness connections like this." She began chanting with her hands outstretched. Echo's face seemed to grow angry and he began moving faster, quickly breaking each darktacle touching him.
"Hurry up Mary, my darkness skills aren't helping!" Steels shouted as he gulped a mana pot and tried Earth Wall on Echo. Echo burst through the walls easily, Steel's spell unable to make a thick and large wall at the same time with his mana reserves.
"Spirit of fire, return the power to the spirit of darkness. Spirit of darkness, accept thy mana. Flame Cleanse!"
From Mary's hands, a whip of fire burst forth and wrapped itself around Echo. The slave cried out wordlessly as he was enveloped from head to toe in flame. Blackness seemed to ooze out from between the flames and dissipated into the air around them.
Once the blackness stopped oozing, the flame disappeared, leaving an unconscious Echo behind lying on the floor. "Milna's Blessing!" Steel cast his recovery spell on Echo quickly, healing the major damage from the skirmish.
"Damn, he's got a broken arm and internal injuries" Steel muttered, rubbing the arm he had broken in the rat fight. Steel had figured out to heal almost everything with Milna's blessing, but the healing for anything within the body was cut back unless an open wound revealed the place of injury. Steel's arm wasn't broken, and he had refused to comment on how he had gotten it healed so quickly when it should have taken 3 days instead of 1 day to heal.
Steel turned to Mary, "Able to explain this one?"
She shook her head, "Nope. Let's go back to you skinning now. It seems to be the safer choice."
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Sorry guys, I couldn't even get one chapter done yesterday :(
Author-sama apologizes. Now, let's see what interesting theories show up in the comments this time. Crazy stuff yo :p.