Aalam
Aalam was angry and very, very confused.
This wasn’t exactly a rare situation for him. Confusion in general made him angry, as he hated not knowing what to do. And social interactions were often confusing.
Sure, he’d been getting better at them over the years before his death, but the main reason for that was Mila putting things in the right context, and now she was the problem.
The strategy he’d found best for understanding human interactions was to look at what a person wanted. If he could figure that out, every action of that person from then on usually made sense, at least until what they wanted changed.
Running various models in his head, however, the two wants that made Mila’s actions make the most sense were one, that she actually did love him and wanted what was best for him, or, more likely, two, that she wanted the type of power which, in this new world which functioned as a litrpg, seemingly only he could give.
The problem was, better than anyone, Mila knew how he thought, while he didn’t know her at all, so he couldn’t trust his judgement.
Given he wasn’t completely missing something, however, and what she wanted was one of the two cases which made the most sense, she would at least need him alive and to grow more powerful, so it was probably best to work with her.
“You mentioned Diana just now. Do you know if she’s still alive?”
“She’s fine.” Mila was speaking a little faster than normal, which was odd, and it could mean several things, but Aalam ignored the part of him he’d trained up to try and actively interpret such signals, as it was entirely pointless given who he was talking to. He’d been starting to believe her when she was confessing before, yet it had obviously been a lie, so it was better to just ignore the parts of their conversation he couldn’t understand and focus on what he could, just the words. “She’s Nana Xara’s other apprentice, so I’ve been getting several pieces of information about her.”
Aalam nodded. It made sense given what he’d assumed as Diana had probably had a stronger start than either he or Mila, and she hadn’t had to take care of an insane person.
“She’s apparently in a love triangle with two men,” Mila continued, causing Aalam to get slightly more confused. “As a result, she’s apparently more fun to watch than you and me. Oh, and those two Legendary grade skills we gave to Nana Xara were for Diana, so she’s a yin yang summoner of some kind.”
“There’s a way to get back to Earth?” Aalam decided to ignore all the weird details Mila was giving and instead just focus on what was important.
“A possibility.” Mila’s aura seemed to calm down slightly as she sat down crosslegged on the floor just outside the entrance to the soul well. “If we defeat all the invasion forces and make Roland the leader of this planet, he’ll get a token to participate in the next instance of the F Rank Trial Tower. We can then use that token to instead participate in the trial ourselves. If we do well enough, there is the possibility of rewards which will allow us to get there even during the integration.”
Aalam narrowed his eyes, going over what he’d learned about the F Rank Trial Tower from the Yin Yang Sage’s information boon. If the information he had was correct, there were four major problems with what Mila had just said. First, a Trial Tower token would normally only allow one person to enter, not two. Second, a Trial Tower token was useless to them, as they were both monsters and wouldn’t be able to use it. Third, such a token wouldn’t work even if they weren’t monsters, as the user would have to have at least some contribution to getting rid of the invasion forces, which they couldn’t get as non-natives. And, fourth, even if they were somehow able to undergo the test of the Trial Tower, there were no rewards in his knowledge set which would allow them access to a System hidden world undergoing an apocalypse style integration.
Some of these problems he could think of solutions for, but not all of them.
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“Why are you lying to me?” Aalam almost growled the question.
“Oh.” Mila seemed to realize something and she quickly reached down to her waist, took off a bag of holding from her belt, and tossed it to him. “With Nana Xara’s instruction and my second uniqueness, I was able to fake myself as a native. The proof is in there, the rewards I received for ending one of the invasions, though I missed two of the generals.
“As someone recognized as a native by the System, I can also take you as a familiar, which would end the quest to kill you and allow you to accompany me into the Trial Tower.”
So that was her play, trick him into accepting the role of a familiar while keeping their master servant relationship. She’d still be able to benefit from her second class and any run over nascent energy, but if she altered the familiar contract enough with her Devil’s Contract skill, she could force him to do anything she wanted.
Seeing his reaction, the crafty woman acted like she’d just realized this and quickly clarified. “But you don’t trust me at all right now, so such a contract is very much not something you would accept.” She acted like she was thinking for a few seconds. Then she said something surprisingly reasonable. “Nana Xara has told me about the insane skill merge she thinks you are planning, and one of the possible merge combinations for one of the Legendary grade component skills you need, Noble’s Senses, uses the Rare grade contract skill Lord’s Binding. I can get that for you and the other skills required for merging together Noble’s Senses from the Epic and Rare grade rewards for shutting down other invasions. Then you can create the familiar contract yourself.
“Given the effects of your class and the fact the skill has the Noble category, the strength of the bond will still be quite strong, but you should be able to break it if your Law Egg of Severing advances into a Law Larva, as the skill is only Rare grade.”
Aalam couldn’t see anything wrong with her logic, and he knew her abilities.
Technically, she could make him unable to see her true information through their bond, but she’d lose her second class if she did, so it was unlikely. Instead, she probably wanted the rewards which would come from being able to bring him into the Trial Tower with her.
“There are no rewards from the tower I know of which would allow someone to enter into a System hidden world undergoing an apocalypse style integration.”
“Oh.” Mila acted like she was honestly confused about that. “Nana Xara said there were, but I didn’t ask for specifics. My guess is it has something to do with Diana being there and Nana Xara being able to communicate with both her and me.”
Aalam’s glare became a bit fiercer and he felt himself again grow more mistrusting. “Why not just ask her?”
Mila looked a little embarrassed. “I’m deliberately blocking her from being able to watch us right now. She has some voyeuristic tendencies and I wanted privacy.”
It took Aalam only a few seconds to figure out how Mila could block the Yin Yang Sage from being able to watch them over her bond and then another few seconds to figure out what type of reward from the Trial Tower would allow them to get back to Earth.
If someone on Earth created a teleportation portal able to get to other planets and connected it to the System, anyone could teleport in so long as they knew the right passcode and had the right System permissions. The reward that was possible to get from the Trial Tower then was the ability to purchase those permissions, but, given they were in a completely different galaxy cluster from Earth, the boon they needed was a very rare one, requiring them to do very well in the tower.
“Do you trust the Yin Yang Sage?”
Mila looked surprised by the question, and Aalam himself was somewhat surprised he was asking for the liar’s opinion, but more information was always better, even if it was from an unreliable source.
“Mostly.” Mila took a second, seemingly having to think about her answer. “There was a biography in the tutorial and, if it and the things Nana Xara has told me are true, she doesn’t have anything she could gain from lying to us. This of course is predicated on us having accurate information about her in the first place, but, if we do, she was one of the most powerful people in the universe and then died of old age.
“Any enemies she had who she couldn’t handle herself, we wouldn’t be able to do anything about until we are at least A rank, so us getting revenge for her is pretty much impossible. The only bad case I can think of is if she has some way to take over either my or Diana’s bodies, but I doubt that is the case.
“If she had such an ability, I’d think it would be something easier to do when she was at her most powerful rather than a System-bound soul.
“I don’t know everything, however. So it is probably best not to talk about it when she can listen in.”
“Could you send Diana a message for me?”
An odd expression crossed Mila’s face, maybe guilt, but Aalam actively wasn’t paying attention. “I don’t think so. Nana Xara is cagey about anything to do with the origin or purpose of the System, and she’s cagey in the same way when talking about communicating with Diana.
“My best guess is that no one in an apocalypse style integration is supposed to know the powerful monsters born on their world were once people. I’ve been an odd case as I have the Omniglot Reader racial ability, which is apparently quite rare, but the normal situation would have just been conflict.
“I don’t think Nana Xara can send any information about us being alive to Diana as that would break some rule of the System.”