As Mateo stepped out of the shower, he looked in the mirror for a bit. After a few more minutes of staring at his reflection wondering if Viola would appear, he stepped out of the bathroom, got dressed, and stepped back out into the living room. Beatrice and Elijah were playing a fighting game, evenly matched. They ended a round as Mateo stepped in, holding up a hand.
"Toss me a beer."
Elijah put his controller down.
"Absolutely not, you were on sedatives recently, wait a while before drinking."
Mateo snorted as he went to get a snack from the fridge.
"Assholes, drinking my beer then telling me I can't have any."
He ended up grabbing 4-day old pizza before joining them on the couch. They played some rounds, the loser handing their controller to whoever sat out the previous game. They were all reasonably close enough in skill level so everyone got relatively equal playtime. After a few hours of fun Beatrice stood up with a long stretch, pat some crumbs off her shirt, then turned with a wave.
"Alright, I'm gonna head out for now, it's getting late. I'll be by throughout the week to check on you, make sure you aren't about to die or something."
Mateo paused, realizing he'd been so caught up in enjoying his time with them he'd forgotten to make an excuse.
"Uhhh, actually, small issue there..."
He deliberated for a few seconds while Beatrice turned fully around from the doorway, Elijah also curiously looking up from his phone to see what he was about to say.
"See, I'm actually heading out of town. Tomorrow. I, uh, didn't expect to get hit by a car and all, but I still have some plans."
Elijah and Beatrice, who were both horrifically good at peeking out lies from Mateo, both narrowed their gazes at him as he explained.
"See, it's a bit of a, uh, vacation? Soul search I guess? I'm heading up to work to quit tomorrow morn-"
Beatrice immediately spoke up, having instantly seen an issue.
"Just earlier you complained about me possibly getting you fired. Why would that have been a problem if you planned on quitting tomorrow anyway?"
Shit, she was good.
"Hey, if I get fired then it looks bad on my future resumes than if I just quit."
Elijah spoke up next.
"It also looks pretty bad if you leave without any notice."
"Better than Bea getting an assault charge."
Both of them relented a bit on that. Beatrice still looked dissatisfied, but pressed the conversation on anyway.
"Well, where are you going then?"
A prepared excuse he formulated in the shower came to his lips.
"Crossing the border actually, headed to Canada. Gonna do some wandering, maybe see some sights."
Reasonable excuse, because he'd recently gotten a passport made for OTHER reasons. But he could frame it as preparing for this now. Beatrice tilted her head sideways, looking at Mateo a bit longer before shrugging and turning fully back toward the door.
"Well alright, then. Make sure you call, and send Grandpa some pictures."
Finally, she walked out. A few more seconds passed, then Elijah sighed.
"Alright, well, I don't believe you for a second but I won't push. I did want to talk to you about something else though, now that she's out."
Mateo looked back at Elijah. He'd figured something like this was coming since Elijah'd showed up, so he didn't show much surprise as he scooted a bit closer to him. Once he was settled in he gave a nod, prompting Elijah to continue.
"Well, obviously I came by here to see if you were out of the hospital yet since you usually get out quick anyways, but I wanted to update you on that investigation I was doing. So, you know how there's been a few disappearances over the past 6 months? I think I might be closing in a bit on a few answers."
Right. Some serial disappearances had been happening that had the beat cops stumped, even called over some city-boy detectives, and they'd been looking for a bit now. So far, nine people have gone missing. Elijah had been by his place a few times over the past half year to give him updates. He tried to hide it, but it was Elijah's way of showing some concern, and telling Mateo to be careful in the streets at night.
"Really, the hell did YOU find that they somehow missed?"
"Well like they'd found, there was no particular pattern in the victims besides all being under the age of 30, and they always disappeared in the downtown. Otherwise, no trace save for a piece of fabric from the 3rd victim."
"You mentioned that last week yeah."
"So I started looking into nearby abandoned buildings at random, and I think I might have a trail. Some scrap of torn cloth that I think matches one of the shirts one of the victims was wearing at the time of their disappearance. So I started looking around that area. Pretty sure I might find a trail soon."
"You told the cops yet?"
"They still don't listen to me after the issue a few years back."
"Ah, yeah. Well, I'm sure they'll hear you out if you find something big. Did anyone hire you for this one or did you take it in your free time?"
"Hired. 7th victim's girlfriend heard something from a bar about me being as good as the city cops, so she stopped by. If I do find anything tangible, I'll be telling her. If she goes to the cops with what I find I'm sure they'll listen well enough."
"Makes sense. Well, good luck with that. Are you gonna crash on the couch tonight? Pretty sure you're one too many drinks past the legal limit."
Elijah snorted.
"Sure, if you're offering. You turning in early tonight since you're headed out tomorrow?"
Mateo nodded. Elijah stood up to grab a blanket while Mateo went back into his room and tossed a pillow at Elijah. After a of moving the couch around, they had everything set up. After a fist bump and exchanging a 'good night', Mateo walked toward his room. Before he walked in Elijah spoke up once more.
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"Mateo? You know that if anything's getting you, you can tell me right? Just... trust me a little. I know how you are, man. You aren't the type to suddenly pack up and leave for another country for a while without telling any of your friends till last minute. Some kind of emergency had to have come up."
Mateo paused for a few seconds, before sighing.
"Look, man. I'm sure I'll be able to tell you in the future, but. Not right now, okay?"
Elijah let out a long sigh.
"Alright. Whatever it is, promise you won't get hurt. You'll make your sister sick with worry, more than you already do."
Mateo just walked into his room now and shut the door. He leaned against it for a full 30 seconds in silence before standing up and starting to take his clothes off to slip into something more comfortable for bed. After finally getting himself together, he got into bed, staring at the ceiling. Frankly, he thought it'd be a bit difficult to sleep since he already knew his dreams would have her waiting for him. Viola. He didn't fully know what to make of her. Besides the fact that she was obviously very beautiful, she was also very much not human. There was something about her, the way she carried herself, spoke. Everything. She seemed excitable at a quick glance, but there was something to her that was unnatural. He realized with a bit of a start that her show of saying how many years it'd taken to gather the divine power for this had either been to manipulate him by playing on his pity, or she was otherwise hiding something else from him about the nature of how she'd obtained said power. Begging. She mentioned she knew how to beg. He wondered if maybe it'd been closer to a loan instead.
After deliberating on that for a bit, he instead began to think about the job he'd be doing. Killing another. He'd been trying not to think about it too much as he hung out with Eli and Bea, but the anticipation was fully consuming him now. So for the moment he was trying to build up his schedule for tomorrow in his head. Go quit his job. See a couple of friends. Make sure his place was picked up well enough. Visit a few places... as he organized this all in his head, he finally drifted off to sleep. Immediately upon losing consciousness, his mind was taken to the Realm of the Gods once more. He sat up, in full control of his body now unlike last time. Viola was sitting in a chair now, looking down upon Mateo, who was on his knees before her, crossing and uncrossing her legs.
"Welcome back!"
Mateo opened and closed his mouth a few times before speaking.
"This still feels weirdly off. Like I'm not really here."
"Well, because you aren't. At the moment I just have your soul here."
"I, uh. See."
After a quick shake of his head as he struggled to grasp that still, he looked up at her again.
"So, if you only have my soul right NOW, how are we planning on getting me to the other world tomorrow?"
"Well, I was debating leaving your shell here and just moving your soul into a new body, but I doubt that'd work out too well for us. So instead we'll just have you go as you are. Tomorrow at noon, step up to a mirror, any mirror, and place your hand against it. I'll grasp it through the reflection and pull you through."
"Oh. Huh."
He briefly considered if something similar to his situation had happened to others, and that was the cause of some of the missing persons cases in the area.
"Alright, well. Explain the two 'Skills' I obtained yesterday. I can guess what they do well enough based on the names, but I still don't get what they fully mean."
"Well, it's a simple enough thing. Those two skills were 'Divine Blessings'. They'll be your slowest growing skills of all the ones you receive, but they will be some of the only ones that don't degrade as you move between worlds."
"Wait, seriously?"
"The blessings of the Gods are strong. They'll also influence the other skills you obtain across the various worlds. As soon as I've scrapped together more divine power, I'd like to grant you a few more divine blessing skills. Like bows and projectile enhancements."
She seemed excitable, like she finally had a game she'd been waiting for the launch date of for the past 30 years. With the skills and magic, one might be inclined to think that was her real line of thought.
"Slow down, explain the skills themselves. Like, what even is a skill?"
"A skill is like a blueprint to use magic. Physical Enhancement skill? It's simply instruction for magic to enhance your physical body. Active Skills require casting, while Passive skills are always active unless switched off. Within skills, you might have Spells, which are like mini blueprints-within-blueprints, though most spells stop working in other worlds if the structure of magic is too different. Both of your Divine Skills are Active, so just stick out your hand and use gun generation real quick. It's simple, just focus energy into your hand, then say 'Gun Generation' out loud."
Mateo stared at her, then stared down, pursing his lips as he absorbed all of that, before nodding and sticking his hand out.
"Gun Generation!"
After a moment, a small swirl of magic appeared in his hand, before a gun appeared in his hand. It looked something like a rough antique flintlock that he'd find in a museum than anything he'd ever shot before. Viola stared at it with a sigh.
"Impressive you managed to do that first try, but I guess that's what you're looking forward to with a level 1 skill. Well, onto the ne- oh dear."
Mateo paused as he felt light-headed, dropping the gun to the ground.
"Huh..?"
He awoke in the real world with a start, feeling nauseous. He was suffering a nosebleed at the moment. Running into the bathroom, he looked into the mirror for a few seconds before vomiting his pizza into the sink. Gross. He quickly cleaned it all up before limping back to bed. Feeling exhausted, he fell face-first into his pillow with a groan, fading back off into sleep.
Viola gave him an apologetic look as he appeared.
"I suppose I should have warned you about that. See, the lower your remaining internal magic goes, the more sick you'll feel. And admittedly, in this divine realm as only your soul, the magic cost of using divine skills is reduced."
"Wait, you mean that'll be even worse when I'm in a physical body doing that?"
"Sorry, but yes. For now, you may not be able to rely on any of my skills until you build up more internal magic. Work on obtaining the Magic Bank skill as quickly as possible in your new world."
"Wait, you said skills were a blueprint, how does a blueprint also allow me to store more magic."
"I said like a blueprint, don't get so hard stuck in the definition. Besides that, yes, it's a passive skill that exists in most worlds that creates an internal bank of magic, using magic, to store more internal magic."
"Oh, I guess that makes sense."
Viola patiently nodded.
"Well, now that you've had your cherry popped, you'll be more ready next time, no?"
"Wait, you mean we're about to keep doing that..?"
"Of course. No better way to train your magic than to use it."
"Oh, no..."
After waking up several times throughout the night to dry heave into the toilet then pass back out, he elected to just sleep on the bathroom floor. Hours later, he was looking completely sick in the divine realm. Viola stood above him.
"I was hoping your mana banks may improve faster due to your bloodline, but it seems fast healing was the only blessing bestowed upon you by your blood."
"... hey, how do I know if the skill has leveled up?"
"Oh, well normally you'll get a little ping in your head that shows it off."
"It hasn't leveled up yet..."
"Of course. It wouldn't be THAT easy."
"How do I check progress to the next level..?"
"Normally you won't be able to unless you get the right skill for it, but I can do it for you. Let's see..."
She held out her hand, and something like a 'skill window' appeared in front of them both.
[GUN GENERATION (Divine/Active) LEVEL 1 - 21% to next level]
[BULLET GENERATION (Divine/Active) LEVEL 1 - 54% to next level]
[REGENERATION (Demonic/Passive) LEVEL 2 - 2% to next level]
[ENHANCED EYES (Yokai Art/Passive) LEVEL 1 - 12% to next level]
Mateo stared at that all.
"Is... the regeneration thing why I heal so fast?"
"Yes, and I imagine your sister has the same thing."
"That answers quite a few questions actually..."
"I'm surprised it's level 2, though. Normally skills like this will stay level 1 for life on Earth unless they see pretty extensive usage. How often have you been getting hurt?"
Not answering that, he instead asked another question.
"What type of skill do I have to obtain to see this on my own?"
"It's called Status Window, though it's another Divine Skill. One I can't give you. I don't have the divine power to spare, and I figured an actual combat skill might be more useful right now. Still, you improved your internal magic a bit tonight, that's something to be happy about."
"Right... does that mean I can rest now?"
"Of course, of course. You should get as much sleep as you can; tomorrow's the big day!"
She clasped her hands together happily.
Mateo gave a sigh of relief that he'd be free of this finally as he awoke back on the bathroom floor, groaning as he sat up. He shuddered before standing up and turning the sink on, desperately lapping up some water after he'd dehydrated himself gagging, then returning to bed, finally slipping into a far more peaceful sleep.