Of course they were also demons. The System couldn’t have been more obvious. What human mother would ever name their child Seburus or Gregfar? Lucy inwardly shook her head from behind the mirror. Those lesser demons were looking rather pitiful as the higher demon wrung them out for information, but Lucy wasn’t fooled. She had clear evidence of their crimes in the form of the used torture instruments on the metallic tables and the lack of live prisoners in the dungeon cells. She held no sympathy for them.
When the intensity of the demon’s aura had peaked, she was very glad her innate disability to not succeed at physical combat was present in this situation, as it was the best defence against killing intent there was. Killing intent could only harm someone if they could sense it, after all. It could be more dangerous to her if the demon was physically present with a fully manifested incarnation and attuned, able to manipulate mana, but the current abrasion to her soul couldn’t do a thing. She went back to focusing on their strained conversation.
Eventually, it seemed the demon was done with them both, and she heard Gregfar’s body slam against a wall. An unexpected notification popped up.
[Objective: Kill everyone from the town]
[Completion Rate: +1%]
What? How- oh. Oh. It’s the System’s wording again. Everyone from the town, not in the town. That means that every original member of the town had been replaced by lesser demons. I know the background setting of the town is that it only made progress within the last ten years, so I guess the demons have put effort into masking their existence by replacing them. And I suppose manipulating the situation to have an intermediary kill them all counted as killing them myself.
Lucy focused back on listening to the demon as he recited a possession ritual. She decided to come out. The demon already knew of her presence, as a higher demon had far better perception abilities than lowborn demonite soldiers. Demonite soldiers were also considered demon beasts, not even lowborn True Demons, meaning that only meeting the higher demon gave her any completion rate. She stepped out from behind the mirror to inspect the red pentagram. There was one last thing she needed to check.
The demon in human skin spoke up, “I must seem stark raving mad, talking to myself like this. It is said that talking to oneself is certainly not a sign of a sane mind.”
He turned around to watch Lucille inquisitively.
“Unless I have an unexpected audience to resolve this dilemma for me? It is hardly proper to make one’s acquaintance without a name, is it not, young lady?” he suggested.
She knew it had begun then. The best way to deal with people like him was to beat them at their own game. For most people that was a struggle, but she was very good at doing that. Lucy turned around, bowed politely and spoke, “Pardon me for my manners, sir. Lucy Goldcroft, here to make your acquaintance.”
If he was going to act polite until the end, then she would do the same. The Abyssal demon, as she could see from the slowly disappearing demonic script on his face, seemed to smile genially at her, but she noticed the cold glint in his eyes when he did so.
“Why, welcome to my humble abode!” he said. He looked at the bloodstained floor and tables with distaste. “My… former subordinates didn’t have much talent for hospitality, so I do hope you’ll forgive me for their sakes. They could be a little… tiring, to deal with, so I dealt with them instead!”
He swung his arm wide to showcase his new body and Gregfar’s remains on a far wall. “Did you perhaps come here with some intention in mind?” he questioned, showing off sharp incisors - hints of his demonic nature - with a smile.
“Indeed, I did sir. I came here for a special kind of deal,” she stressed, taking a step, both hands behind her back.
The Abyssal raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What sort of deal do you have in mind that it would require you to meet me, Miss Demon-slayer?” He smirked, taking a step forward himself. They were 3-metres-away from each other at that point.
“Well,” she started, spreading out a hand, “I was thinking I might need some… power of a certain kind if I was to progress on my future journeys. Power that can be given in the form of a contract, with certain beings.” She gave a wide smile, showing off her white, perfectly uniform teeth. She took another step forward, spreading out her other empty hand.
“You see, my far too simple-minded parents seem to find pleasure in gaining short-term wealth in the form of selling off their only daughter through marriage.” She shook her head from side to side in a show of disappointment, before shrugging. “I say they are too unambitious.” She made eye contact with the demon, a smile never leaving her face.
The Abyssal raised a hand to the Lord’s chin in thought. He looked at her closely. “And you seem to think this power can be given through me?” He mirrored her wide smile and took a step forward. Then another. And then another.
“How about I give you something more? Something with more honour, more power, more strength.” He grinned viciously. They were a metre apart now.
Lucy tilted her head innocently. “What could be greater than a contract with you?”
“How about you… become my vessel!” And then he lunged.
Well, Lucy never wanted a contract with such a pathetically weak demon in the first place. He had to be nobility ranked or higher to even have a chance.
That doesn’t mean he is weak to the current me. It just means, when considering the entirety of the Demon Realm, that he’s probably in the bottom 5%.
That included the demon beasts as well. He was truly pathetic. The fact he was scaled to her present physical capabilities only emphasised her current lack of strength, however.
When he lunged again, Lucille narrowed her eyes and made sure to track the trajectory of his hand and step aside. She supposed it was a blessing that he didn’t have a weapon, but the demonic energy manifesting into black claws on him reduced the benefit. A slight graze from it, and she would feel intense pain ten times worse than from just a weapon. That wasn’t much of a detriment to her, but the lingering aura would conflict with her mana, reducing the effectiveness of her already lacking spell and skill. She was criminally underprepared for this, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She needed the demon to underestimate her.
And so far, she had been facilitating that by narrowly dodging the swings of the demon-possessed Lord.
Lucy could dodge well enough just by calculating the trajectory of attacks and adjusting for them, but when it came to the so-called mystical ‘battle instinct’ she had a grand total of none. A side effect of her terrible combat skills and immunity to killing intent. She would exhaust herself if she didn’t change something up soon, however, and so at 50 seconds, she spoke, her smile on her face during the entire period of combat.
“That was rather violent treatment for a girl. You need to treat ladies with better respect than that if you want to woo them. Minus five points.” She dodged a particularly pointed punch to the face by ducking.
“You call yourself a lady with that eerie grin constantly on your face? You must be insane to try to keep up the act!”
Clearly, Lucy hadn’t tired him out enough, so she kept going with a shake of her head. “A demon calling me insane? What is this world coming to? How old are you to have gone senile already?”
A vein bulged on the Abyssal’s forehead and she hurriedly dived to dodge the blast of demonic energy shot at her from the demon’s black-clawed hand. She broke her fall with an awkward roll and looked up to notice the pitch-black demonic script had reappeared on his skin, and that the corneas of his eyes had turned back to black as well. The red-black aura thickened around him, and she knew it was a sign he was drawing on more power from his astral form.
“I would be more careful with how you use your words if I were you,” he growled out through clenched, gritted teeth.
She pulled out the dagger from its sheaf on her thigh and ducked under a table as the demon charged at her to slam two fists down onto her makeshift shelter, the metal buckling and stretching with a high-pitch screech, halting just before her eyes.
She quickly slid out and sprinted to where the mirror was, hiding behind it once again.
With an aggravated roar, he ran towards the mirror and tossed the sheet off with one hand, punching the mirror’s centre with the other.
Lucy hissed through her clenched teeth as the mirror shattered, a rain of glass shards showering down on her. She rolled out of the corner she was in once again and hastily stood up to face the heaving demon. She smiled again, but it was strained.
“Seems like your current vessel is a bit too large around the midsection, considering you can’t even catch a weak girl. You should get a new one.”
----------------------------------------
The girl was tiring. The Abyssal could see it. It was present in the way her face had paled, and the way she had to squeeze out her taunts with little strength while taking large gulps of air. While she now had a dagger, it would be of no consequence. The girl would fail to harm him permanently in the end. Even the bright determined spark in her eyes had grown dim over the course of several minutes. He could feel that the end of the battle was coming…. though it was a bit strange that she had kept smiling throughout the whole fight.
He shook his head and recentred himself on the present. The girl would exhaust herself soon enough. He just needed to push her a bit more and not fall for her taunts.
“You’ll become my vessel soon enough, girl. Why don’t you come to me and get this over and done with quickly.” He gestured for her to come over with his elongated black claws.
In response, the girl pretended to backpedal quickly in panic and shouted out loudly, “Help! There's a creepy old man asking me to follow him!”
He scowled and charged forward to try to get her again. She was a very good dodger, he could give her that. Their back and forth of him attacking, her dodging continued for a bit longer, but slowly there were no more metal tables, no more mirrors or objects to hide behind. He was barely tired or injured, and she was there, struggling to stay upright. He had no idea where she got her confidence to fight him.
“Unfortunately, I’d prefer my body to be my vessel,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
The girl swiped at him with her dagger and managed to nick his upper arm, but he just smirked inwardly. Those injuries would be healed before the hour was over.
Eventually, he managed to injure an arm of hers, and she had exhausted herself to the extent she had to lean on a wall to support herself. Her gaze darted towards the entrance, but he didn’t fall for it. Mid-way through the fight she had changed her actions to recklessly aiming for the exit, but he had positioned himself between her, leaning against the pentagram wall, and the exit behind him. He raised a clawed fist and shook it in triumph.
“This is where it ends, my lady.”
“…I ….thought ….you said ….I …wasn’t ..a ....lady,” the girl squeezed out, her eerie smile still present, even as her strength drained away by the second on her trembling legs. “..I guess ..it’s ..true ..a demon ..always ..goes …back ..on ..their ..word…”
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He felt his good mood slipping but refrained from falling for her taunt.
“I suppose this is the end. I can’t say it was very enjoyable.” And he readied his claw, encasing it with demonic energy, and prepared to ram her. It was when he was halfway through the charge when she spoke.
“No, it was not, Asmeristereth!” she shouted.
What?! How?!?
And the girl burst forward with hidden strength, dagger in hand, and her unused mana beaming off it with power. The dagger slipped straight through his breastbone, and into his chest cavity that would hold the heart, pushing the air from him in the form of a gasp. And, for good measure, after withdrawing the dagger, the girl placed a palm on his abdomen where a burst of mana rushed forward, blowing him back and making him spit blood onto the ground. He stayed there on the ground on one knee, breathing heavily.
The girl stood, several metres away, on trembling legs, breathing just as hard, but with a triumphant grin and that irritating bright spark of hope back in her eyes. The girl slowly walked forward to stand in front of him, her dagger wet with his blood.
“It seems I have won, Asmeristereth,” she stated, seemingly calm but with barely concealed excitement from her victory leaking through.
The Abyssal remained silent. It seemed he had no answer. That was until he started to chuckle. Then he started to laugh heavily. And then he started to bellow deeply, slowly standing up as the girl flinched backwards while he doubled over, clutching his injured stomach as he wheezed. Then he stopped, straightening up, to reveal a malicious sneer on his demonised face. He barked out a final laugh.
“So that was your secret plan. Slowly appear to weaken, hiding your true strength until one final moment, where you would go all out by distracting me with a partial piece of my True Name, composed with little clues from the pentagram. Bravo, it failed most spectacularly.” He clapped his broad-clawed hands in mock appreciation.
He sneered again. “Regardless of the fact you must have my whole True Name to control me, and that I know humans have mana, it seems you fell for a trick of mine from the very beginning. You see, this body isn’t my true vessel. What, did you think I would trust my astral soul to some weak human physique? Oh no no, my true vessel is safely sealed away, far further than you could hope to reach before you die, providing me with endless life force and regeneration! How does it feel to have that hope of survival stolen away so quickly? It must be a unique experience!”
The girl licked her bleeding lips from where she had bit them. Her pupils had shrunken in fear. “N-n-not your true vessel?! I stabbed your chest! Then wha-”
He smirked at her horror. “Why, it’s the heart of this body, obviously. One of the most common vital points of any creature.”
The girl stared at him for a while. “The heart?”
He was about to respond when it happened.
With almost inhuman speed, the girl’s frightened expression was gone and went blank, the sickly white pallor of her skin returned to normal, and the trembling of her limbs utterly gone. Her whole body language had switched, the only traces of her former state being the tattered cuts on her strange coat, and the line of blood trailing down her chin from her injured lips. Then just as quickly as it went, her expression switched back to that wide grin she had at the beginning, showing just slightly too many teeth to be natural.
She held out her hand. “So… whose heart is this?”
The Abyssal turned his eyes to the outstretched hand and froze.
…… If it had not been there, beating on her palm, then he could’ve sworn his heart had stopped.
----------------------------------------
Lucille found the sight of the Abyssal gazing at his own heart mildly comical. She didn’t know that the pale maroon tone of a lower Abyssal demon’s skin could change to so many colours in one minute. She imagined she could see the tiny cogs of his brain whirring as he worked out how she had it, why she had it, and why she hadn’t killed him already.
Then he leered when he thought he had found the ‘reason’ why she was showing him. “Ha, it’s protected, isn’t it, and you don’t know how to unlock it. So long as even a single one of those chains is wrapped around it, you can never kill me." He chuckled. "What, going to use it as a hostage, take me to the paladins for a reward? Better try getting out of the room first!”
However, Lucille just smiled gently at him, eyebrows raised, and with a simple, slight twist between two fingers, and a unique shift of her mana, the clasp at the top of the heart came undone. She held it out so the Abyssal could see each of the 20-ish chains slowly unlink from the clasp one agonising link at a time until an unprotected, unchained, crimson-red beating heart was eventually revealed on her bare palm.
Asmeristereth stared apprehensively at the heart, his gaze flickering between her face and the heart until it ultimately rested on the heart. She moved to pull the dagger and it slowly descended. The demon blanched.
“Wait, wait! If you kill my vessel like this, it won’t be permanent. I will return, and find you again. I will get my reven- wait! Wait! Put the blade down! We can reach an agreement! I have money, status here! That contract you wanted!” He rushed his words, hoping to say something that would catch her attention.
Lucille didn’t know why he was so eager to remain in the human world, although there was the possibility it was because he had no other subordinates to replace. But she was willing to play along for a bit.
“Oh? And would that contract guarantee that I can gain whatever powers I wish?” she wondered aloud, her grin back again.
The demon’s expression darkened, and he growled, “Don’t be greedy, you scheming wench. I’ll give you enough to get your creepy grin out of my sight.”
Lucille dropped the smile. She went expressionless once more. She leaned forward and grabbed one of the black horns of the demonised Abyssal and spoke into his ear, her voice bone-chillingly frigid.
“I keep up this smile to give people something familiar to lean on when it comes to me. Something human. People become willing to talk if I smile. Then they become trusting, leaving their hesitancy behind as they spill their secrets. They become just as open, foolish, and unprotected as this heart of yours,” she said, tapping on his chest.
Stepping back, she kicked a black boot against his injured chest, and he collapsed onto the ground, something jabbing into his side. Lucille had turned her attention back to the heart and didn’t see him slowly wrap his claws around the sharp object.
Lucille stepped back with both the dagger and heart, positioning it directly above it. She didn't bother to look at the demon as he struggled to get up, feeling impatient to get the Tutorial over and done with.
He was aware that he had reinforced the heart just by forming a contract, so if he managed to get it from her before the dagger cut all the way through he might just be able to continue to live in the current realm. Lucy moved to cut down with the dagger. Making his mind up, he struck.
With a feral roar he charged towards her in desperation, and as the dagger sliced through the first few layers of muscle, his roar grew louder from the agony, but he continued to push forward.
Lucy went to dodge, and one outstretched grasping claw failed to grab the reinforced heart being stabbed by the dagger, but whether it was because her minor injuries had finally caught up to her, or the fact that her brief burst of anger had made her lose focus, something meant the demon’s hidden weapon slipped out of her attention.
She stabbed the heart, the demon’s body collapsing, and instead of dodging his slowly losing momentum fist completely, the nearly invisible shard of glass held in his hand slipped into her right eye even as she had tilted her head to dodge his claws.
The unexpectedly cold chill of the glass, more than the pain, made Lucy let out a gasp, but she knew she shouldn’t get distracted during a fight, even if it was ironic she thought about this after losing an eye.
She looked down with her one good eye, but the demon’s body was motionless, the battle over. She caught sight of the small black piece of astral soul escaping with a barely noticeable whistle through the air, and the soul shard flew through the roof and out of her perception. On the floor next to him were the gruesome remains of the severed heart, spilling out blackened blood, the traces of demonic influence still there. The rest of his demonised features were fading, however.
Moving quickly but carefully, so as not to shift the shard in her eye, she got down and sliced a curved black horn off him. The glossy flat surface where she had cut through turned dull, contact with mana solidifying it and anchoring it back in the present realm. The main body of Asmeristereth would find himself with a slightly weakened horn on one side shortly if the Tutorial didn't automatically halt at the end of the month.
Slowly standing back up, she looked around and sighed. The mirror, and its shattered pieces, had spread much further than she had thought, interrupting her calculated series of actions, and it consequently resulted in her getting a shard stuck in her eye. She still didn’t know what the silver mirror had been, or why it was there, never having gotten the chance to ask the demon about it, however, she had more pressing concerns. First was to get others in here to see the evidence, and then to find a certain someone she could sense was over in the next town.
Lucy heard a heavy boot thud behind her and she turned around to see the older gatekeeper guard at the room entrance, looking between her, Gregfar’s remains, and the still demonised body of the Lord with a varying mixture of apprehension, confusion, and horror. She smiled.
Step No. 57: Find a witness, complete.
...
There had been several reasons why she had to kill the demon as opposed to escaping once it had been summoned. The most important of which had been that no matter what, to find the demon, she had to have it summoned by herself, or had it summoned by the Lord, in which A: the demon would be able to track her mana or B: she had to be present when the Lord summoned it to ‘Find the Demon’, and the demon would be still able to track her through her soul’s energy. That was fine when she had plans to escape anyway, but not before getting the cursed weapon, and then taking the scammer to the Rostchilde family for his probable bounty, and then leaving the Tutorial before her inevitable death.
This scenario doesn’t work when she finds a separate treasure that won’t kill her unless by her own act of pushing a shard of it deeper into her own head, making finding the other one redundant, or having the whole town filled with people possessed by lesser demon subordinates who are all soul linked to the Abyssal demon, causing her eventual escape to have been a rather thankless and trying task. It was still possible for her to do it but killing the demon would make it much more likely she could get a noble title as a reward.
The result of her calculated risk in attacking the demon was a possibly-not glass shard of a haunted mirror stuck in her right eye and a truckload of shame and regret instead of sleep for the night. Which made her realise something.
As she stood in front of an actual mirror (she had checked) she realised that her mental state was, in nice terms, very very bad. In more accurate terms, she may as well be bipolar. While her emotional state was more….. malleable compared to most, due to her strong soul power, collection of mentally influencing self-applied techniques, and a whole host of other more uncommon factors, it was only malleable when she was the one doing it.
So she shouldn’t even be capable of switching between emotions she didn’t want at the drop of a hat or having said emotions influence her actions to such an extent as to ignore someone who was trying to kill her in the middle of a fight. She tried to remember what the trigger could’ve been and groaned when she realised it had probably been happening since before the Tutorial.
I had thought that was dealt with. If the personality degradation is this bad, I am really not looking forward to the rest of it.
She presently had a thick bandage wrapped around her right eye. The shard had been removed, but to stop the bleeding, emergency spell work had been done by a local healer, who wasn’t able to do healing on something as delicate as an eye. She had said it was fine, because she was on a schedule, and the System would heal all injuries at the end of the Tutorial, even death. This was why she had been travelling with the older guard, who was called Harth, to another town to pick up a certain someone.
She opened the door to the apothecary in front of her to find the old wizened conman sitting there, his formerly white scraggly beard neatly cut and trimmed. He was dressed in lavish mage clothes, sitting behind a lacquered oak bench.
She smirked at the stunned expression on his face when he looked up. “It’s only been a day and you’re taking advantage of my work already. You have more money than what I expected from someone hesitant to part with an iron dagger.”
She nodded to Harth next to her, and he unfurled a thick bounty poster, looked up at the mage, and re-rolled the parchment. He nodded back, before running up to the other man and slamming his sheathed blade against the back of the man’s neck without the conman getting a word in edgewise. The man crumpled onto the bench, unconscious.
…
A few hours later, Lucy and the guard were standing in front of the Rostchilde Marquess, just having finished retelling the story from when she had slayed the Abyss Monster up until the guard came in to see the demonised body. The guard had left after he had done his part and she, having shown the illegal documents from the vault to the Marquess, had now guaranteed that none of the corrupted nobles mentioned in the documents would be getting the town added to their property. She had presented the horn of the Abyssal demon as proof of the Lord’s corruption too so now, at a completion rate of 95%, she had one last objective to do.
“I see,” the Marquess said at the end of the story. His eyes then flicked over to look at the trussed-up conman, who was looking rather wide-eyed at this moment.
“So then, may I ask, how did you come across this particular man during that period?”
Lucy smiled. “It’s a rather amusing coincidence. It turns out, that the man who happened to sell me this enchanted dagger, and who wanted a very specific tome from an adventurer camp, seemed to be particularly antsy after he had received the book.” She shrugged. “So, I decided to mark him to track later.”
The Marquess’s eyebrows went up when he heard mention of an ability to track the man at such a distance, but otherwise did not speak on it. He picked up the spell tome, checking it was real, before placing it back on the desk next to him. He nodded and focused back on her.
“Then what reward would someone with a history such as yours would you like?" he asked. "With the achievements of Abyssal demon-slayer, corruption revealer, and successful bounty hunter, you could gain a noble title if you so wish."
Her smile grew slightly wider. “Well, it turns out that a nearby town has lost, 200-300 odd people?” She tapped on her chin, thinking, before turning back to the Marquess, “Due to the unfortunate withdrawal of a few hundred lesser demons. I believe it may need a new Lord to replace them. Particularly as the former Lord had a history of corruption, someone with no ties but with backing from a higher noble would be suited to the position to stabilise the area while a few queries into the workings of several other noble families are carried out,” she said, winking at him.
The Marquess leaned back in his seat and chuckled, before deciding to play along. “And due to frequent sightings of demons in the area, an accomplished and promising young demon-slayer would be a good fit for the position, who just so happened to be the one responsible for slaying the menace to that town, carrying a good reputation among the people.” He nodded, approving. He stood up.
“So then, Miss Goldcroft,” he continued, “I believe I have decided on a reward for you. For your fine achievements in helping this kingdom, you shall henceforth be known as Baroness Goldcroft, by the authority of the Rostchilde March.”
After shaking hands with him, Lucy stepped back and bowed respectfully. Then, with a cunning grin, she asked, “And where shall I be stationed, Your Lordship?”
With a grin just as wicked as her own, the Marquess responded, “Well, I have just received news that there’s a town nearby that had been recently afflicted by demons……”
...
Lucy was delegated a room in the mansion that night, and she lay there on the bed, looking at her completion rate and new notification.
[Objective: Become Lord of the town without dying by the end of the month]
[Completion Rate: +5%]
[New! Completion Rate: MAX]
[Do you want to exit the Tutorial? Yes/No]
She got up and breathing deeply in preparation, pressed [Yes].
She abruptly felt the bed, air flow, heat of the setting sun, sound of the wind rustling the curtains and everything around her disappear. She opened her eyes to a white room similar to the one just before the Tutorial, although this one had depth to its edges. The only thing accompanying her as she stood in the space was the small ding! that was the sound of System messages and the familiar emotionless genderless voice that followed.
[User has chosen to exit the Tutorial]
[Reverting the User]
Lucy was glad to find her clothes whole and tidy again, all her aches and injuries gone. Her injured lip had turned back to smooth pink skin and her right eye was now unpunctured again.
But why is my vision from it so blur-
[Connecting User to the System]
[Calculating User completion rate]
[Calculating…]
[Calculating…]
[Objectives:
1. Survive until the end of the month: INCOMPLETE
2. Defeat the ‘Abyss Monster’ of the caves without dying by the end of the month: COMPLETE.
3. Become Lord of the town without dying by the end of the month: COMPLETE.
4. Find proof of the Lord’s corruption without dying by the end of the month: COMPLETE.
5. Find proof of the Lord’s corruption and send a message to a neighbouring town Lord without dying by the end of the month: COMPLETE.
6. Learn a skill without dying by the end of the month: COMPLETE.
7. Learn a spell without dying by the end of the month: COMPLETE.
8. Discover the sealed treasure under the town and escape without dying by the end of the month: COMPLETE.
9. Kill everyone from the town: COMPLETE.
10. Find the Demon: COMPLETE.]
[User has completed 9/10 objectives and gained a MAX completion rate]
[User has completed the Tutorial]
[User has gained new rewards! Please check your notifica….]
[User has unlocked their Status! Please check your noti…]
[User has unlocked their Origin Skill! Please check your Sta…]
[User has unlocked their Classes! Please che…]
[User has unlocked their Skills! Ple…]
[User has unlocked the…]
[User has unl…]
[User h…]
[Us…]
Lucille wasn’t listening. That was because she was lying on the ground in the white space, senses sealed. See, as soon as the message telling her that she was connecting to the System had appeared, she felt intense nausea, her head started ringing, and she felt so dizzy that she could hardly tell which way was up. These signs meant she had just received access to huge quantities of soul power, previously sealed off, and her body was busy trying to reaccustom itself to having its senses expand a 10km radius outwards. It made sense she would have access to more quantities of soul power than expected, considering her strangely high mental faculties since she came back.
But this didn’t explain the exponentially increasing, indescribable sense of wrongness and the intense stabbing pain affecting every single inch of her skin, her organs and even her bones she felt coming from her body which she knew shouldn’t happen when connecting to the System.
Or the reason why she was feeling pain coming from her right eye.