[https://i.imgur.com/tkrZLpE.png]
SING CRIER
CH.32 - Havoc Parse
My head pounds with pain.
I crush my temples between my palms.
Blood rushes through my brain...
Crier... Crier... Crier...
Sing suddenly stops writhing; her arms drop to her sides.
Her body droops, almost limp, but joints stiff enough to stand.
Her pupils glow a deep red, glaring at me through the dark.
Mouth hanging slightly ajar... my breath freezes.
『 ... 』
She takes a step forward.
I nearly step back.
Another step.
Another step.
Like an undead, she hobbles unsettlingly.
Her attention locked -- dead set on me alone.
...I force myself to breathe.
She strolls closer and closer still...
No blinking... no emotion...
A husk-like state...
I part my arms slowly...
...and catch her...as she falls onto me.
『 Cri...er... 』
Her arms wrap around me, tightly pulling me into her.
I feel her heartbeat against my chest, and warmth through her skin.
A loving embrace, as if the first in a thousand years and yet...
I can't help but be reminded of all the misfortune this cost.
Everything we went through in Sal'venakai for this...
An unelegant form, piloted by a mindless killing AI... ※¹
Even prepared, I can't help but feel a little uneasy.
『 ...«Identify» 』
Sing
LV.8 | Prophet of Joy
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP 85 / 85
Instead of the regular block of stats and details,
a special translucent black box appears at the top of my vision.
A black box normally reserved for boss monsters... now with "Sing" written on it.
My other half... stripped of autonomy and bound as a monster.
To have to use this now...
at such an anti-climactic time...
『 Gosh Sing... I'm so mad... 』
I slowly wrap my arms around her as well.
The Eldritch Serendipity building in my spine suddenly freefalls.
I wince, bite my lip, and squeeze her until the release of euphoric waves pass.
...Monster or not -- she's still my sister Sing.
『 ...Let's hurry and find her. 』
I whisper under my breath.
As I breathe in and open my mouth to shout for Setsuna,
Eldritch Serendipity reacts by ramping up in levels, stealing my voice.
It seems... being conspicuous is still off the table then...
Someone or something... must be listening...
I quickly glance in the direction of our slain ravenling,
then push Sing's arms away, breaking free of her hold.
She persists in attempting to entangle me
but I keep her arms at a distance.
『 Now's not the time Sing... 』
My Eldritch Serendipity levels are very slowly starting to rise back up.
To me, that says the clock is ticking. We need to act sooner rather than later.
I grab Sing's wrist and begin pulling her in the direction we came, for two reasons.
The first, to increase our chances of finding a hint of Setsuna's whereabouts.
The second, to avoid encountering whatever may have killed our ravenling.
Just because we can win an engagement
doesn't make it a good idea.
The last thing I want to discover hours from now is that
Eldritch Serendipity's version of a safe future is one without Setsuna.
Just imagining that possibility causes my teeth to grit.
Hastily crossing back over fallen logs
and squeezing between crevices of rock, wood, and moss,
I keep my eyes darting, looking for any hints of an orange hue.
There aren't that many things that could have happened to her...
considering how carefully we were listening for our ravenli-
Crack.
The branch under my front foot snaps,
and my upper body lurches forward.
Eldritch Serendipity spikes to level twenty-one.
I reach out to grab anything.
My hand grasps a frond half my size.
It snaps.
Sing doesn't offer any resistance.
I let go of her wrist.
Quickly, I begin sliding down a steep mossy stone hill.
I reflexively pull the frond still in my grip in between me and the ground
then land my upper body on it, fearful of friction against my bare shoulder.
I try using my feet to slow my descent, but the moss is much too slippery.
Seconds pass before I get caught on a root.
『 Nn- 』
A sharp pain shoots up my leg.
I grimace as Eldritch Serendipity shoots up to level thirty-one,
before steadily dropping to a slightly lower resting point.
My balled fists slowly release their pressure.
『 God... I hate forests...
『 Nothing good ever happens in- 』
Sing slides down and also catches herself on a root.
『 ... 』
I let go so she wouldn't... whatever.
I slowly lift my hurt leg to check for damage;
a brief shock of pain buzzes from the bottom of my foot.
It seems I... impaled it a bit on something...
『 «Identify» 』
Sing hops from her tree root over to mine.
I preemptively extend one arm to keep her from grappling me.
...I'm just bleeding a little, I'll be fine, this will heal.
I raise my head and survey the hill.
Just five meters or so from where we fell...?
I rest my spine against the cold moss, a leafy frond in between.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I spare time to control and slow my breaths.
When I open them, I'm met with a gently waving canopy of leaves.
Their rustle and crackle fill my ears amongst the faintest sounds of distant beasts.
I sigh -- then press my lips together.
『 ...Okay. 』
I turn onto my stomach, reach up, and dig my nails into the mossy hill.
After I find leverage, I do it again, and again, allowing my SP to recover in between.
I grab onto roots when I can, but stay away from leaves lest my true damage snap them.
Halfway up I glance down at Sing.
She's already starting to climb,
crimson eyes locked on me, unblinking still.
However, she doesn't climb onto or pull on me,
despite having the higher stats to easily do so.
...Good, I wasn't sure if she would.
As we climb the remaining meters
I resume running through possibilities.
How could Setsuna just silently vanish?
Possibilities involving a struggle are mostly off the table,
not only is Setsuna's health pool inflated, but her voice could rock the forest.
Even if her beak were instantly muted her flailing tentacles wouldn't be.
It's just not reasonable to think considering the effort required.
The more likely possibilities are... her leaving of her own volition...
and incapacitation, either subtle or instant.
A bright light suddenly whizzes by my face,
I duck down and watch as it darts away through the thicket.
『 ...«Identify» 』
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
LV.22 ▬ Fomis Lum
Cotton Wisp
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP ▐ 550/550
MP ▐ 1200/1200
SP ▐ 310/310
P.ATK ▐ 0
P.DEF ▐ 0
M.ATK ▐ 1100
M.DEF ▐ 264
Effects ▐
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Just... a wisp, minding its own business...
I pull myself back up to where we first fell.
Sing follows close behind and almost immediately staggers towards me.
Before she envelops me I grab one of her wrists and resume our backtracking.
That little detour has cost us enough time as it is...
...My limbs lock up at the glassy sound of distant magic.
Eldritch Serendipity's resting point promptly rises to the thirties.
The phantom hand gripping my spine cracks and carves accordingly.
I swallow the pain into my breath and slowly crouch to the ground...
...Adventurers?
Here... already?
I survey the area for a hiding spot
and find a shadowed crevice under a tree to duck under.
As I move to occupy it, I... stop myself... when I remember Setsuna.
I... can't hide yet.
I have to find her first.
Pressing my free hand into my chest,
I get up and begin skulking through the trees as fast as my SP will permit.
Eldritch Serendipity's resting point jumps a few more levels against my decision.
My hands grip tighter in turn.
I... can endure it... it's fine...
Eldritch Serendipity...
I...It does hurt, as much as ever... but I can handle it...
Just believe me -- don't make me explain it...
It's one of those... unspeakable things...
A distant gruff voice grazes my ears, a faint shout.
It's quickly followed by a beastly roar.
Setsuna has to be nearby...
she has to be...
...I hear moving water.
No, that's... not right,
I can't be back at the river,
I still haven't found her?!
I turn back around but run into Sing,
who immediately locks me into another embrace.
I suddenly gasp for breath.
The phantom hand in my spine... weakens its hold...?
Its level plummets once more, down to less than ten,
sending shivers through my veins.
『 S...Stop! Sing! You're messing up my- 』
I shove her arms away
and brace for the phantom hand to return
to inflict even greater agony but...
『 -death...sense...? 』
...it doesn't. Eldritch Serendipity stays low... and... rises at a snail's pace.
It's as if the simple act of Sing hugging me reset the death clock...
That... what? That doesn't make any sense...!
Why would that...?
She nearly slips between my outstretched arms.
I grab her wrists to keep her in place,
then examine her for changes.
...
Aside from... some debris sticking to her dress,
and a surprising lack of stains, there's... nothing different.
Her deep red eyes glow with the same intensity as when we started...
『 Ask... before you bite me... 』
『 Wh-?! 』
I raise her own hands over her mouth
and push until she ends up back against a tree.
『 ... 』
『 ... 』
...I breathe out harshly.
『 I can't wait to have you back to normal... 』
『 These are the two truths of what it means to die. 』
My brow furrows.
I shake my head.
We don't have time for this nonsense.
I'm not sure why Eldritch Serendipity's level reset back to sub ten,
but this means we're clear to keep looking for a just bit longer.
A bit more time to search... with some clarity of mind...
Grabbing just one of Sing's wrists, I pull us back into the depths of the forest.
Not sure where exactly to look from here but... we have to try.
Maybe... she's in there looking for us as well...
...As I burn through my SP the moment it recovers,
I constantly find myself out of breath.
My stomach as well is really aching...
I don't have the Starvation effect yet but...
A sudden sharp shattering pain explodes through my spine.
My eyes widen -- my vision tunnels.
I jerk myself and Sing to one side
as an object whizzes by my ear.
I then hear the distinct thunk of wood being impaled.
Immediately after we land amongst a pile of ferns, I look back.
I see a black branch whose surface swirls as if covered in a film of oil.
My gaze traces the anomaly to its origin, sparsely illuminated by lunar rays.
『 I...«Identify» 』
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
LV.28 ▬ Witch Tongue
Chitinous Fungal Abstraction
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP ▐ 2050/2050
MP ▐ 440/440
SP ▐ 456/480
P.ATK ▐ 1832
P.DEF ▐ 664
M.ATK ▐ 498
M.DEF ▐ 110
Effects ▐ ◈ Regeneration[LV.9]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
This monster... is a Myriad Worlds monster.
Its tree-branch tendril slowly shrinks back into its body,
a dark four-legged mass of crooked lines suspending a chitinous rib-cage-like structure.
A construct of magic... in the same vein as elemental golems and reanimated dead.
It's... it was... specific to a certain old dungeon... Black Star... Brook?
A linear city-based dungeon...
This thing is a long ways from home...
My Eldritch Serendipity rests at about level sixty,
accompanying a searing frost creeping across my back.
Everything but the monster has a shifting blur to it.
I can already tell you... there's no use running away.
I push myself up, Sing does the same.
I'm probably the one its aggroed on, got too close I think... ※²
Just to be sure though...
I shove Sing with all of my weight to get her to fall over,
then start moving leftwards whilst looking for a branch to snap off.
...I can't really tell if the monster is rotating or not, it's too... abstract.
The sparse illumination is naturally making matters worse.
Snap.
Here we are...
『 Hah! 』
I throw the twig as hard as I can...
『 ... 』
I don't think... it hit...
The icy phantom hand abruptly crushes and bends me.
I reactively stagger forwards whilst a deep rumble
groans from the ground.
Shortly after, I hear the rustling of vegetation.
The phantom hand then yanks my spine back like a puppet string.
Half a second later, the tearing crackle of roots being ripped from the dirt.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Just inches from my face, a vertical maze of black oily branches
stands tall after having erupted from the ground, impaling helpless shrubs.
Ah... I guess I was right the first time...
I resume shuffling leftwards whilst the deep rumbling resumes.
At the moment the rumble ceases and I hear the rustle of leaves,
I kick off in the opposite direction.
Half a second passes before the black branches erupt once more,
this time, to my left, where I would have been had I continued walking.
This attack... just aims where you're going to be.
I breathe hard to recover my SP,
and resume moving to the left, sidestepping the oily sprigs.
There'll be just one more and then... a charging attack.
That's right... hah... and then... and...
As my eyes pass over the black crooked structure
and the various skewered vegetations snapped and broken,
I spot berries, small, and plentiful.
『 ...Setsuna. 』
『 Setsuna-kh! 』
I'm thrown to the right by the phantom hand grinding into my spine.
My breath extinguishes. More plant matter is ripped from the ground to my left.
『 Hah... hah... 』
I... can call her now...
I can shout... I think the situation's dire enough...
For once, Eldritch Serendipity's inconsistency is a boon...
『 Setsuna! 』
I shout blindly into the wilderness.
Ahead, the Witch Tongue starts to contort in shape,
forming a sharp web of branches at the arbitrary front of its body.
Its prior erupting pillars shrink into the ground as it does this.
I need a stick... I can't dodge this one...
I scramble to my feet...
There.
I find a long branch, and use my nails to help me snap it off.
Thump.
The monster lunges its front two legs forward.
Thump.
Then pulls it's back two legs.
Thump.
I resume sidestepping to the left, away from Sing.
Thump.
I clamp the branch under my arm
and point the forking ends forward.
Thump.
The creature sidesteps through the trees.
Thump.
I take off my hairclip...
Thump.
...and brace, for the phantom hand to splinter my spine.
The creature drives its front legs into the ground and bucks its branches forward.
I aim my branch at where the black branches look the thickest and use it as a buffer.
My grip slips at the moment of impact.
I dig my nails into the wood.
Crack.
As my branch snaps under the impact force,
its backwards impulse is partially transferred into me.
It isn't enough. The black branches approach faster than I am pushed away.
I thrust my left arm forward, with my hairclip gripped tight.
Clang!
The sharp black branches collide against level one hundred metal.
This time, all the impact force is pushed into me through my arm.
As my body accelerates, the bones in my arm bend and snap
until it's pushed back into my chest.
Eldritch Serendipity [LV. 87]
The phantom hand against my spine hurts more.
...Finally, I'm thrown back,
sent hurtling through the air,
the hairclip torn from my grip.
...My body lands in what feels like foliage.
I roll through them and over tree roots
until my back hits a solid object.
I feel blood coming up.
An overflow of eldritch agony coursing through my spine
spreads the misery throughout my body and then into phantom limbs.
I can't open my mouth to cough, forcing me to swallow what blood entered my throat.
Just after this act, my Eldritch Serendipity plummets to the fifties.
Like a doctor giving candy after a shot,
waves of nonsensical ecstacy follow the release of pain.
This stuns me.
...
When my brain catches up, I blink.
My heart pounds against my chest, thumping in my ears.
I quickly try to sit up... and feel a sharp pain in my lower back;
not from the phantom hand, just actual comprehensible pain.
A thorny burning pain prickles my broken arm as well.
...But I'm alive, right?
I look up.
I tilt my body to one side
as a black mass of slick branches impales the tree behind me,
chipping off some of my hair which promptly also bleeds.
...I roll my eyes.
『 S-ck- 』
...And clear my throat,
before shouting.
『 Setsuna! 』
...
Still...?
Where is she...?
Seconds later, I faintly hear my name being called.
Eldritch Serendipity immediately drops ten levels,
sending a shiver up my spine.
I breathe it out.
『 Crier? 』
Again, my name.
Another shiver as ten levels drop.
『 Crier?! 』
I wince, as it happens yet again.
『 «I...dentify» 』
I cast it on the Witch Tongue,
as blurry as it is, in anticipation of what's coming next.
The fruit of a dozen hours of development.
...Some orange pops into my peripheral vision.
『 S...Setsuna? Is that you? 』
The orange blob moves closer to my face,
its attention darting all over as if to survey my injuries...
It's... it's Setsuna... black sclera, orange pupils, all accounted for...
『 Ah... thank goodness... we were looking everywhere for you- 』
A translucent black box with a red message overlays the top of my vision,
accompanied by the grim din of an omnipresent orchestral shriek;
Sing... starts to scream in agony.
Sing has lost sight of Crier
「 and has become enraged!
『 NO MORE... NOT AGAIN! 』
With my good arm,
I preemptively reach out and grab one of Setsuna's tendrils to keep her in place.
I've seen FATE arrange similar tragedies before.
Just making sure...
For a brief moment, the deep rumble of the Witch Tongue
about to erupt black branches is all I can hear...
In the next... there's only the brisk wind...
...I glance at the monster's stat window.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
LV.28 ▬ Witch Tongue
Chitinous Fungal Abstraction
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP ▐ 2050/2050
MP ▐ 440/440
SP ▐ 413/480
P.ATK ▐ 1832
P.DEF ▐ 664
M.ATK ▐ 498
M.DEF ▐ 110
Effects ▐ ◈ Regeneration[LV.9]
▐ Soul Severed
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The creature suddenly lies limp.
Its soul, severed and sent into the spirit realm.
Seconds of silence pass; allocated time for its soul to lay eyes upon ours.
The twisted result of which, only has one outcome...
...a death even Princess Agehatate couldn't escape.
The witnessing of something unknowable...
A glitch, an error, something only wrong.
A lurid soul unravelling sight...
...leaving a husk with no pilot.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
LV.28 ▬ Witch Tongue
Chitinous Fungal Abstraction
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP ▐ 0/2050
MP ▐ 0/440
SP ▐ 0/480
P.ATK ▐ 1832
P.DEF ▐ 664
M.ATK ▐ 498
M.DEF ▐ 110
Effects ▐ ◈ Regeneration[LV.9]
▐ ◈ Death
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I smile, somewhat content.
Just as practised -- although not as flashy as I'd hoped.
『 Setsuna? 』
I glance at her, standing a little dumbfounded,
looking towards the corpse of the recently deceased monster.
I kind of want to bonk her on the head in anger.
『 Setsunaaa? 』
She looks at me.
I point at the object her tentacles seem to be curled around.
After some hesitation, she shifts a bit to unveil...
a... poorly wrapped leaf-bundle of red meat.
Did she... try copying Ageha? That's-
Her eyes focus on me intently.
I... I shouldn't bully her.
I smile.
『 Cri...er... 』
Our heads turn.
Sing staggers over the monster's lifeless body, covered in blood and oil.
Deep cuts can be found sparsely spread across her body,
having pulled herself across the monster's branches.
Therein, lies the reason she became the monster.
...Our instant-killing attack -- is a soul separation attack.
Specifically, it's Agehatate's twin-fox marking attack, just without the marks.
A melee-contact blow that instead of doing damage, separates soul and body.
Sing has 85 HP... I have 15, if I were the monster, I'd probably be dead.
Just too dangerous to have it be me with all that we don't yet know.
But now we know that our enrage attack does not account for spikes.
Good to know.
Setsuna starts moving towards Sing.
『 No no no no no- 』
I push myself off the ground,
my body having mostly healed,
and rush towards Sing.
The second Setsuna obstructs Sing's view of me-
『 Crier? 』
I push past Setsuna and glomp Sing with a big hug.
『 Shh... shh... I'm here, it's okay... everything's fine... 』
『 ... 』
Phew...
『 We need to get her to the river, get her autonomy ba- 』
Setsuna blinks at me.
I point in the direction of the river.
We immediately hear a reverberating demonic scream,
followed by the commanding shout of a woman and magic.
My Eldritch Serendipity rises just past ten.
『 Oh god... the adventurers are there -- this way! 』
I grab Sing's wrist, one of Setsuna's tentacles,
and start speed walking in the opposite direction.
FATE isn't going to let us rest that easily huh...
Ah... of course, should have expected it...
Better start planning now for the next encounter...
I know its coming, you know it's coming...
Mmm... we've got all that training to pay off though.
...Actually, you know what -- I'm ready.
『 ...Let's dance, adventurers. 』
[END]
「 Hey, over here, look. 」
「 W...W-White hair? S-She was right... 」
「 Call her, quick. 」
「 ...I've already arrived, what did you fi- 」
「 ...Recall all forwards to the line. I'm moving up. 」
「 H-Hey! Wait...! 」