In the end, the plan to try to communicate was too much of a stretch. Even assuming she could single out the Veik princess and that she was willing to cooperate, Sofia couldn’t find a proper way to cross the language barrier, not when the other person looked so different.
She only saw two possible ways to make it work, either to spend a significant amount of time trying to learn the written Veik language, or to try to get a message across through drawings. In both cases, results were uncertain, and she could possibly end up in a much worse situation than where she was right now. Remaining undetected within the hive walls was a much safer position.
I’m still curious about their lack of system, though. And so far the royals are the only ones who seemed to have an actual personality. I wonder… Maybe their species evolved intelligent thought after the system’s creation, so they’re not included?
Or… Is it because of the lack of mana?
That could be it… They live without mana, they don’t produce it nor live in an environment with it. They’re completely disconnected.
The paper people seemed to interact with mana through electricity, I think. I don’t think they actually produced or stored any. I couldn’t feel any of that, at least.
Meanwhile the sunless… Did Tarren produce his own mana? Hard to say, he could just as well be supplied by the system considering he ‘works’ for it.
So is interacting with mana in any way enough to get the system? And being intelligent enough. That would explain why monsters aren’t included. They absorb and use mana even if they don’t produce any, but they’re just not ‘smart’ enough. Sort of?
I should see if I can ask Kyle on the way out.
Sofia spent as long as she could just waiting in the same room, but the time came shortly after when she had to leave her spot by phasing through the floor, as the royal guard roamed around the place, and she couldn’t let it sense her.
Going back to the previous room, she took another tunnel, and kept slowly mapping out the hive, trying to find the Veik King. As she delved deeper and deeper, the number of regular Veik roaming around slowly decreased, leaving place for more and more guards. Empty rooms were rare but existed, and provided Sofia with much needed resting points to get rid of the Spirit sickness.
It took her several days to navigate to the deepest parts of the hive, trying her best to stay extremely safe. She was bored out of her mind, but nothing could justify attacking the creatures. The regular guards and Veik workers had laughably weak imprints, not even giving full stat points for the most of them, and she would have to slaughter countless of them to reap anything of value. The only worthwhile targets were the very rare royal guards, and they were always only hanging around young royal Veik, which Sofia refused to murder for no reason, and they would definitely be caught in the attacks if she were to seriously try to take down one of the massive royal guards.
Finally, she found the king.
Or rather, the king found her.
While she peacefully made her way through the walls in the deepest section of the hive, the gigantic spirit body of the Veik King came to her. Her Identify said as much.
[Veik King - Lv.??? - Imprint power : ??? - Effect : ???]
Sofia’s first instinct had been to turn back, but the speed at which the graveyard skeletons allowed her to move through the spiritual realm was quite slow, and the Veik king was all but slow. He had appeared before her faster than she was even able to react to it.
While Sofia’s mind frantically searched for a way out, the King observed her.
He’s not attacking?!
Aright… I’m… I’m leaving. Sorry for intruding…
The graveyard skeleton slowly dragged Sofia away from the king’s spiritual body, only for her to be grabbed by giant pincers. The Veik king’s spiritual claws.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
I’m fucked.
As if responding to that, a new system notification popped up in Sofia’s peripheral vision.
[Hint 5 of 5 found!]
[Hint 5 : Some foes are not meant to be fought directly, dummy]
Ahah… Yeah, thanks for the tip. AS IF I COULDN’T HAVE FIGURED THAT OUT BY MYSELF! ASSHOLE!
I bet it’s the Human Admin who wrote these ‘hints’. What a shitty sense of humor. Is it funny to know people die challenging the trials you designed?
The Veik King dragged Sofia through the spiritual realm and she could do nothing to resist. In that form, the vast majority of her spells were unusable, she had basically no control over her movements outside of the graveyard skeletons’ pull, and no ‘strength’ to speak of. That was one thing she had failed to take into account about her habit of phasing through walls. It left her soul without a physical body to act as an anchoring point, which meant she was completely open to something like that. The soul protection from the mark of Aphenoreth was not even activating as the Veik king was not currently attacking and simply dragging her around in the depths of the moon.
Right, I have the mark. I should be mostly safe… I know now that it doesn’t prevent all soul damage but a direct attack from this thing should definitely trigger it.
Well… I can’t do anything but let it drag my soul around, can I? There is not even any open space nearby for Pareth to come out…
I was overconfident.
I can still get out of this somehow.
Where are you dragging me?
Pareth, Bookie, stay hidden as long as I don’t actually get attacked. It might still not be too late for a somewhat peaceful resolution…
The Veik king’s spirit pulled Sofia to the deepest chambers of the hive, finally dragging her out of the walls into a closed room. Sofia got to observed the Veik king’s soul reuniting with his empty husk in the physical plane, and she was forcibly brought back to the physical plane as the Veik King crushed the graveyard skeletons sprouting out of Sofia’s soul.
The spell backlashed as it was forcefully canceled, but the Scepter absorbed it, yet Sofia could only fall to the ground as she reappeared in the physical plane, too disoriented by the spirit sickness and the sudden transition from one state to the other.
In this moment of utter powerlessness, Sofia was perfectly calm.
She was ready to teleport to Zangdar as a last resort if the Veik King attacked her, she still had more than 99% of her health, so the one-hit-kill protection from [VPPV] would save her and give her enough time to escape.
But no attack came, she was given time to recover from the spirit sickness while the gigantic gray-shelled Veik king stood over her, observing her with large black round eyeballs.
Pareth was ready to come out at any time but he trusted Sofia’s judgment and kept himself hidden, for now.
It took a good minute for Sofia to recover enough to stand up. The Veik king looked at her but did not react, his numerous appendages and antennae-looking parts were moving around slowly like tree branches rattled by the wind, but that was the extent of his movements. Sofia couldn’t read its intentions at all.
She faced the King. His giant left claw was still right next to her, even without magic, he could crush her into meat paste faster than she could blink, she had little doubts about that.
What should my next move be?
Not meant to be fought… Yeah no kidding. What level is this thing? 350? 400?
It’s not an opponent that should be in the third trial…
In the physical world I can be very fast. But can I be fast enough to escape this place? Is it even possible? No… Unless I’m completely wrong and the king isn’t so high level and just has an abnormally strong spiritual body, then I won’t even be able to leave this room. Let alone escape.
The room in question was some kind of throne room, at least that was how Sofia read it. It was quite symmetrical with impressive pillars and a straight passage leading to a big ‘thing’. Sofia’s best guess was that it was a throne since the Veik had this whole thing with a king and princes, but understandably, a throne for these creatures would look nothing like the human’s version of kingly glorified chairs.
The exit I’m looking for could be in this very room…
Completely lost on how to proceed, Sofia wanted to try to communicate. But speaking without air was impossible, and she was worried that anything she might try, like summoning a bone tablet to write or draw on might prompt the King to react violently.
At the same time, she was scanning the area with her mana senses, but the lack of ambient mana made it very hard to sense anything, and she wasn’t finding any traces of a secret exit anywhere near the throne room.
Sofia felt weak vibrations in the ground. Reflexively, she focused her mana senses behind her to try to see what was happening without looking away from the impassible Veik King.
For the first time since she had entered the Veik hive, she felt mana from outside, strong mana, coming her way. Words were spoken directly in her head.
Hello there, tall girl. Found yourself in quite the situation did ya?
From the way the mana was spread in the approaching individual, Sofia understood who was talking.
A sunless!
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