> Chapter 2 (Why is it Always Pants?)
Getting Papilion to stuff my soul back into a corporeal form was always a chore, and the ineffable ass seemed to think it was hilarious to change up which species and gender they assigned the wandering souls they found wandering out in the void. I don’t mind switching things up from human, but I have a primal aversion to the male gender. Though, the time they had made me a golden crow was the absolute worst -- one encounter with some phoenixes only a year into life, and I was back out in the void.
Standing up, I inspected my body. I was taller now, appearing around the size of a normal child of 12 or 13. I was also no longer a boy, thank fuck. However, looking down, I realized that I was once again in need of a pair of pants. I sighed.
With the index finger of my right hand, I drew a circle in the air and invoked a preset script. Millions of tiny symbols of code swarmed off my hand, arranging themselves around the circle. I pulsed a few million mana into the runes -- a trivial amount for me at this point -- and the space inside the circle folded open. I reached in, and pulled out a pair of stretchy skinny jeans and a baggy T-shirt which read, “I became a god and crafted my own universe in order to have somewhere to store a warehouse full of spare clothing, and all I got was this shirt”. It was, admittedly, a bit wordy, but they can’t all be winners.
My classes hadn’t quite finished restoring yet, so I’d need to actually talk to people to find out where the school was now, which meant talking to the knightly orders in the capital city of Lyon. I planned to gather eroded iron off the road surface as I travelled, so by the time I reached Lyon, I should be back to my normal 185 cm frame.
I checked my bearings. Based on the stars and the positioning of the sun and moons, I estimated that I was around six or seven thousand kilometers from Lyon. I could be there in a matter of hours, but that would draw entirely too much attention. The laws of this time meant that my very existence was exceptionally illegal, though the nation of Rolland had no way of actually enforcing that particular law against me -- unless they felt like waking up a particularly grumpy winged reptilian, and even then, I considered my odds against her to be quite good. However, I had the benefit of foresight in this case, and Lun'kat hadn't been spotted in decades at the point, and wouldn't until the war kicked off.
I’d have to take the time to go and say hello at some point -- I kinda missed that old grumpus.
I decided to keep my pace around 200 km per day, which would be quick but reasonable for someone at the level 128 that I’d be spoofing myself down to, especially considering I didn’t need to stop to eat or drink. This did still mean it’d take me more than a month to reach the capital, but I had at least a century before events required me at the school. Plenty of time.
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Twelve days later, I was on the road between two completely forgettable towns, when several men holding a variety of weapons stepped into my path.
“Hello young traveler, we’re collecting toll payments for the continued safety of the road here,” the ugly one in the center shouted at me.
It appeared that I was being accosted by bandits. Oh no, I was in so much danger.
“No thanks,” I said with a smirk and continued walking, stepping around the man.
“Oi, miss, stop where you are,” he continued. “Don’t you understand this is a robbery?”
I was quite certain that unless they called down the avatar of Thanatos himself, none of these men had a snowball’s chance in hell of actually harming me. Especially since my classes had finally finished restoring. I had also managed to acquire another 80 kilos of iron and finished purging the remainder of the useless contaminants from my body. Just for the hell of it, I decided to check:
> [Current body material composition by mass]
>
> [Iron: 98.45%]
>
> [Carbon: 1%]
>
> [Manganese: 0.5%]
>
> [Phosphorus: .03%]
>
> [Sulfur: .02%]
Perfect. Maintaining the correct alloy composition was a trivial task, but it was always nice to see that the background processes performed as designed.
I stopped, turned to the man, and smiling, I replied, “Oh dear, am I in danger?”
He blinked. After a momentary hesitation, he said, “Um, yes, miss, we’re very dangerous men, and you are in danger.”
Just to see what I was working with here, I ran a quick [Data dump] on my immediate proximity.
> [Leader: Lv 273]
>
> [Warrior: Lv 131]
>
> [Warrior: Lv 129]
>
> [Ranger: Lv 132]
>
> [Ranger: Lv 131]
>
> [Laborer: Lv 128]
>
> [Warrior: Lv 133]
>
> [Warrior: Lv 129]
And so on.
At least they hadn’t been at this very long, and had likely only managed to kill a couple [Merchants] who had been overly attached to their goods. There probably wasn’t even a bounty notice out for this crew. Who knows, I might even be able to convince the lot to save myself the hassle and turn themselves in.
Lyon was in a period where they put limits on who was allowed to class up past level 128, and even tighter restrictions on people over level 256. The fact that this bandit leader was over 256 indicated that he had once been sworn to either some lord or organization, and had since been released from service. Any reasonable person would have simply gone to some other group and obtained employment, but no, this man had turned to banditry and recruited others under his banner. I figured he would best serve as an object lesson on why it was a bad idea to accost random people on the road.
My smile grew a bit wider as I said, “I’m afraid I don’t have any funds on me right now.”
“What?” The idiot was clearly confused. “How do you not have any money?”
“I surrender!” came a voice from the back. I looked, and it turned out to be the man who had identified as a [Laborer].
The bandit leader turned around to face the other man. “What the fuck, Jason. Why are you surrendering to a single teenage girl? She doesn’t even have any weapons,” he said.
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“A single teenage girl, walking the High Road, alone, wearing weird clothing, with no apparent supplies? Boss, have you identified her? She’s coming up as a level 128 artisan, and her eyes feel like staring into the space between stars in the night sky. I don’t know what you have to do to get that as an artisan class. On top of that, instead of looking scared from all of us pointing weapons at her, she just looks excited. No thank you, I choose life.”
I had actually forgotten that I had set my spatial [Worldwalker] class as my primary. Oh well, having the spatial element in my eyes did make my [Gaze Into The Abyss] passive skill just slightly more potent. I decided that now would be a fine time to see if I could make the bandit [Leader] shit himself.
Using my [Reconstruction] racial trait, I crafted a two meter long claymore and casually held it over my shoulder with one hand.
The [Laborer], Jason, dropped the spear he had been holding and took off running back in the direction I had come. The majority of the other bandits were staring at me, eyes wide and mouths slightly agape. Their intrepid [Leader] glanced around at them, and then finally turned back to see me.
“So, what do I owe you if I can’t pay?” I asked, innocently.
He smirked, “Well, missy, if you can’t pay, then I’m afraid we’re going to have to take you into custody. Don’t worry, we’ll contact your folks, and then they can pay your toll in your stead.”
I tapped my chin, pretending to consider his generous offer. “Hmm, no, I don’t think that will do at all,” I replied. I was honestly surprised. The idiot didn’t seem to have noticed my sword at all. I supposed I’d have to be considerably more obvious about his impotence in this situation. I decided to turn off my [Debug: Spoof Level Display] script just to see if anyone noticed. Evidently a few of them had, as another five bandits all dropped their bows and took off running in the same direction Jason had.
The leader turned to watch them go and frowned. He turned back to look at me and said, “Now listen here, little girl, you’re going to come with us. Your parents can pay us or not, and...“
While he was looking at me, I simultaneously activated [Black Steel Juggernaut] and pulsed the active ability from [Anathema], clearing out all of the active buff skills these idiots had going. My [Juggernaut] form conjured an extra 500 kilos of steel in the form of black magnetite sand. This swirled around my body, adhering to my “skin”, and growing me to the much more intimidating height of 195 cm and my appearance changed from a teenage girl to that of a hulking figure in black plate armor with glowing red eyes.
His pants darkened as he collapsed backwards onto the ground, and I detected a fresh, new stench waft toward me. I grinned internally -- nailed it.
It had been a while since I had such low level mortals to toy with, so I decided to show off a bit. Activating both [Overclock] and [Warptime], my speed and dexterity multiplied to a godlike amount. Standing still, I considered each bladed weapon the bandits currently held leveled in my direction, then changed them all to a fine metallic dust, calling the metal to my hand. I’d have to locate some more trace elements to maintain my alloy, but this amount would add another couple centimeters to my height.
I then deactivated the two enhancement skills. While flashy and effective, they did burn through a hefty amount of mana to keep active. I think a few of the bandits may have even had weapon reinforcement abilities, because I thought I saw my mana a few points lower than the two skills alone would have eaten. Oh well, I'd be back to full in under a minute anyway.
“No, I don’t think so. I do have a question for you, though. How many pieces?”
“Wha.. What?” the [Bandit] [Leader] stammered. “What do you mean? What did you do?”
I sighed, loudly. “I ate your weapons, idiot. Now come on, answer the question. How many pieces do you want to be?”
“What?” he said again, clearly broken.
“Ugh, fine. I’m bored anyway,” I said, dismissing [Juggernaut] and reabsorbing my sword. They were completely unnecessary for this level of trash, anyway. “Go follow your friends and turn yourselves in to the guard,” I continued. “Otherwise I’m coming back here and turning you all into [Dust in the Wind], now fuck off and leave me alone.”
I decided to rotate my [Bladesinger] class back to the top position, the glow of molten iron from my Crucible element returning to my eyes.
No one moved. I crossed my arms and tapped my foot on the ground. “Seriously, go. NOW.”
To their credit, they did all turn and run at that point.
Oddly, it seemed that there was currently a bit more of a breeze than there perhaps should be. I looked down and groaned. Absorbing the iron from the bandits' weapons had made me grow just enough. My pants were destroyed.
[Name: Ada]
[Race: Katabasian Human]
[Age: #OVERFLOW#]
[Mana: 987,498,460/987,498,460]
[Mana Regeneration: 834,353,419 (171,668,215,959)]
Stats
[Free Stats: ]
[Strength: 25,168,500]
[Dexterity: 25,278,653]
[Vitality: 31,243,848 (47,420,350,302)]
[Speed: 39,555,243]
[Mana: 98,749,846]
[Mana Regeneration: 99,201,765 (20,410,763,149)]
[Magic Power: 116,591,992 (23,988,802,354)]
[Magic Control: 117,856,256 (24,248,924,672)]
[Class 1: [The Bladesinger - Crucible: Lv 4095 ]]
[Crucible Spirit: 4095]
[Bladesong: 4095]
[Anathema: 4095]
[Imbue Arsenal: 4095]
[Black Steel Juggernaut: 4095]
[Reflow: 4095]
[Transmute: 4095]
[The World Is As You Will It: 4095]
[Class 2: [The Desolation - Sand: Lv 4095 ]]
[Sand Spirit: 4095]
[Scour: 4095]
[Shatter: 4095]
[Wings of Desolation: 4095]
[Dessicate: 4095]
[Entropy Inversion: 4095]
[Dust in the Wind: 4095]
[The Only Thing They Fear is You: 4095]
[Class 3: [Worldwalker - Space: Lv 4095 ]]
[Spatial Spirit: 4095]
[Warptime: 4095]
[Displacement: 4095]
[Hammerspace: 4095]
[Gaze Into The Abyss: 4095]
[Stardust: 4095]
[Gate: 4095]
[Rift #LOCKED#: 0]
General Skills
[Soul Bonded: 4095]
[Debug Mode: 4095]
[Hyperthreading: 4095]
[Overclock: 4095]
[Cunning Linguist: 4095]
[Data Dump: 4095]
[Remnant Superiority: 4095]
[Ada's Vow of Eternity to Alex: 4095]