Screech, to be perfectly clear, isn’t really that fast. He base agility is… pitiful, she is no speedster without use of her skills. Truly, pathetic in that aspect. So it is with, absolutely no defensive intent, that I state; this was something that I could have dodged, easily.

Yes, she did use her skill that can let her ramp up to insane speeds at the cost of dropping every other stat she has, but no, that’s not what she used it on! Probably! I think so! I mean I could’ve dodged her, so it’s likely!

No, the reason I stood perfectly still as… what even has she turned into? Ah, hell I’ll think about that in a moment. Hm-hm-hm… as I was saying, the reason I stood still, is because she didn’t have a single thought of harming me. The link that monster tamer provides to my summons is a little deeper than the surface level of simply being able to communicate.

It’s not as if it’s straight up empath levels of emotion reading or whatever, but I can get a vague sense of the intent or emotion that Screech, or Jerry or Jasper for that matter, are feeling at any given moment. Like in this instance, Jasper is freaking out at Screech’s sudden movement, Jerry is… still quiet, and Screech?

Not a single bone in her body is bent on breaking mine. Or, you know, stabbing me, or blowing me up, or any other clever euphemism for bashing my brains in. Speaking of bones, what the hell happened to hers?

Having dashed straight into me, or flown into me, I suppose, I expected one of us to topple over in the next moment, but no… is she doing what I think she’s doing?

I guess [Morrigala Metamorphose] didn’t exactly put a restriction on “what” you could transform into, just the stats that would carry over… but I, frankly, don’t really get the point of this.

Instead of cracking open her skull on my chest, Screech practically melts into my tunic, like she literally vanishes, leaving only her brown feathers in place. Or, well, lots of places actually! The feathers left in her place wrap around the entirety of my tunic, lining the outfit in what some would perhaps mistake as a feather suit.

Is she… she is fine, right? Like, my summon didn’t just game end herself?

“Uh, Screech?”

“One second please don’t interrupt me here I’d rather not-”

Oh, she’s fine.

Speaking of summons in need of check ups-

“Easy Jasper, I’m fine. I wouldn’t be worried about her or Jerry right now, and instead the… you know.” I gesture in the general direction of the village in the sky, particularly the growing mob heading for the ladders.

“The that. Speaking of, the that, I think it’s about time we get moving, way, away from it!”

And do that I shall! Turning on my heel, I… go plummeting straight to the ground!

Woah, what the hell?

What just happened? I barely even twitched really, that was just enough force to spin around on the gravelly rock here and… instead I’ve ended up sending myself sprawling across the floor! Caught myself, didn’t take any damage, so we’re fine, but… yeesh, what was that?

My body feels lighter, very much so, and it’s… odd. It doesn’t take too long to adjust to, I’m honestly more used to this than I am to being on lower stats, muscle memory doesn’t bleed away that easily and I’ve spent quite a long time dealing with superhuman ability via virtual reality, but an increase this rapid is… unusual.

So, obviously there’s something affecting me here, right? Are my senses ahead of my physical form? Am I being hit with a mental attack from one of the mages way u-oh I can’t bother to keep this up OBVIOUSLY it’s Screech and whatever she did. This doesn’t exactly feel like a… bad thing? More speed is good, right? But at the same time, this doesn’t just feel like a higher cap to my speed. Acceleration is instant, as evidenced by-hup!

Rising to my feet once again, I need to consciously put less force into pushing myself up in order to not go flying back for a second time. Imagine if… you tried to break an egg open, and you’ve gotten it down to a science. You’ve figured out exactly how to crack it and at what level of force. Then, you proceed as usual… but then out of nowhere, you hit the egg with, give or take, fifty percent more force than usual?

Obviously, it’d break, right? If say, five, was enough to merely crack it, then seven and a half would shatter it. It’s the same concept here, my movement is a science. It’s been, and still is, being honed over years. I’ve got various levels of experience with various levels of movement, and for the most part, I’d say I can just subconsciously adapt based on what I’m working with. Obviously I’d say I’m better with higher “performance”, but I’m certainly no slouch in other fields… but that’s besides the point.

Well, bla bla bla, I don’t have all day to ramble on to myself here, so to put a satisfying conclusion to my inner ramblings, allow me to sum this up my ever needy OCD!

I’ve been running on “low” power as of late, per se a five, and it’s been gradually increasing over time so I haven’t really had an issue… but in this moment, just now, it jumped to “medium” power, or in other words, seven and a half. This is all just throwing numbers to the void, but it makes sense, I’m quite it sure it does, it does to me after all!

“What the heck did you do?” I ask, genuinely kind of curious. This is like… holy crap. Though unfortunately, for the first time in forever~ Screech does not deign to answer.

Well, figure it out. Well, after the initial flip-flopping about…

I hop twice on each foot, gauging the force of my movement.

I’ve gotta say…

This is “...Not bad.”

I don’t like to make it a habit to complain about things that I can’t control, but… eesh! I was kind of painfully slow for a while there. Micromanaging summons was cool and all, but there was a core part of my gameplay missing there man, shit’s tough! But if I get to have, both?

Hah, hah, hah, hah… well it might not be as much of a problem as it’d seem from the way I’m talking about it. Increased speed is cool, don’t get me wrong, but uh…

Jabbing at the air a few times, imitating strikes with my sword, jumping back and forth…

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

My perception has not, er, sped up to match the increased force, which, is, kind of a minor issue, to put it lightly.

I don’t wanna get tooooooo deep into analogy territory here, I do actually have to, get going soon if I don’t wanna fight an entire village, but… imagine if you started sprinting full speed? You couldn’t just instantly stop at any obstacle… now imagine you’re running at the speed of a car. Perhaps not an exact example, but close enough.

That’s me!

Well, I’m sure I’ll manage somehow. I’m pretty goated, as the elders would say. Pretty goated indeed, borderline world class!

…Well, that might just be stroking my ego, but hey I’ll back it up with fisticuffs galore if need be. But for now? We’re going speeding through ravines! Oh yeah, moving with direction and magnitude! Just uh, hopefully I don’t slam into a wall and cause a rockslide or something. That’d suck!

But uh…

“Screech?”

…Still no response. I can see her stats, right?

Screech-Morrigala Adept

Level 12

HP 1-

Yes, yes I can, so… she’s clearly still among the realm of the living, just… pfffgghhhh this is taking too long, I’ve been standing here for a good twenty seconds now, just thinking, it’s time to get SHMOVING.

Alright, on three, one, two, three!

What, did you think the dramatic countdown would lead to me going flying and falling over, oh silly brain of mine? Haha, no. No, that would never happen, I’m too good.

Taking off running at full speed, my footsteps pitter-patter against the ground in a rhythmic echo, slapping against the slowly hardening path with each step as I make for grounds as far from the village as possible.

It’s mostly a straight shot for a good long while, so there’ll be minimal turning and obstacles for a little bit, which should work pretty well for me right now.

“M???”

“Courtesy of Screech!”

Jasper’s flabbergasted at the sudden boost, and I don’t blame her this is kind of wicked, but there isn’t really much of my attention left to explain it to her. Cause I gotta say, this is definitely a first! It’s basically a rule of thumb to always accompany an increase in player speed with an increase in the players perception of time. There’s been instances of that not always following through, but certainly not to the same degree as this.

It’s a struggle to not go flying head first via hitting a stray pebble at a poor angle, exhaustion isn’t a factor, but the level of difficulty in doing this goes beyond just putting one foot after the other. My main concern was with hitting something, but to be honest, just managing to run in a straight line is a problem.

But still… I will not fall, for this, is my entire bit. Speed, is key. Speed, is my absolute king. If I failed to control even a little bit of uncontrollable speed, I might as well uninstall the game, the embarrassment would be mortifying, even with nobody here to witness it.

…Well, no other humans, anyways.

And so I keep running, I leave everything else in the damn dust. It is difficult work, hard to pry my attention away from, but I don’t fall, don’t so much as stumble.

Eventually, I can’t maintain a full sprint any longer, the path before me beginning to wind and turn around far more obstacles, the ground uneven and full of cracks, all potential headaches in the making, and I need to jog instead.

But I still don’t stop, not for a long while.

Not until exhaustion becomes a factor anyways.

“Ffffffffffffff, okay… how long have I been running?”

“Mmm, mm-mm?”

“Alright… that… should be fine”

My chest… hurts.

I don’t… think stamina got… buffed to compensate… either… just speed. Raw, damn, speed. What is my… stamina… at right… now?

Stamina 29/122

Okay… yikes, just gonna… take a second here.

Maybe… look through my character page while I’m… at it? Maybe there’s… something… on there.

HP… is fine, MP… still recovering, stamina, ouch. What else…? Well, stats are normal, nothing’s been… directly modified…

Alright… skills, then?

[Recall], [Summon], [Tame], yada yada, all my active skills and what not…

[Efficacy], [Capacity], [Communication], [Featherguard], [Shared Effort], [Coordination]... Jury is still out on whatever… the hell… [Communication] even does… by the way… any idea on what the exact increase is on [E-[Featherguard]?

What the hell is [Featherguard]?

Featherguard-Each point of agility is 1.4x more effective, each point of strength is 1.2x more effective, gain 45 max HP, gain 24 max MP. Featherguard is lost upon taking 10% or more of your HP in a single hit, or when dismissed.

HAHHHHH?????

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF BALANCING IS THAT-