Lia’s head swam as she read the description of the artifacts that were, apparently, now hers for her private use. She had heard of many of these before, of their use in epic battles and legendary events, and now they were…hers. Or, rather, they had been combined with a person, who was offering herself to Lia. It was an odd sensation, one that pressed on her the full weight of the position she now held.
“What are you reading, Lia?” Rose asked, walking into the room. “Did everything go well with Alisha?”
Amelia had told Lia and Rose that she would be able to handle the situation herself, so Rose had taken the opportunity to spend some time with Chrys, doing whatever Chrys felt like doing at the moment.
“It’s…complicated.” Lia said, putting down the paper.
“Well, I’m good with complicated.” Rose said, sitting down next to Lia and resting her head on Lia’s shoulders. “Let me hear it.”
Lia explained the situation to her, and Rose listened intently to her story. When she had finished, Rose gave a sigh. “I suppose we should have been a little more conscious of what Amelia considered to be ‘normal’. But what’s done is done, and I think we should make the most of it. First off, we need to make her understand that she’s not an object, as much as her physical form may sort of be one. Personhood is not defined by what you look like, it’s defined by your ability to think and feel.”
“I agree.” Lia said. “But…wearing her, all the time? I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I think you should do it.” Rose said. “The advantages it gives us are just too much to overlook, especially when we still have the threat of the summoned Hero on the horizon.”
“But…clothes?” Lia said. “She’s a person, and it’d be like I was naked under her eyes or something.”
The door opened, and Amelia stepped inside. “I believe it’s a good idea.” She said. “Monster armor is weird in that it can cover everything, but that sort of effect won’t be easy for Alisha to do. The more of you she covers, the less effort will need to be put into it, and the more she can focus on protecting you, and clothes are far more comfortable than plate armor.”
“Is that how it works?” Lia asked doubtfully.
“Yes. She’s trying to replicate an effect that should normally come from your species, so it’s only natural that she’d have to put in extra work to do so. Besides, what does it matter if she’s a shirt or a ring? She wouldn’t dream of seeing you in a sexual light when she’s fulfilling her role as a magic item, it’s no different than when she’s being a ring. Besides, it would make her happy to be something so prominent, and would be a motivator for her to work harder. Give it a try for a while, you won’t even notice a difference.”
Lia pursed her lips, thinking about that for a while. “Fine.” She said eventually. “But not as regular clothes, she’ll have to be some sort of overcoat or jacket.”
Amelia reached into a pocket and pulled out Alisha. “I’ve robbed this body of its senses for the time being, since I figured you might want to talk privately.” She explained. “Do you want me to undo that?”
“Yes, please.” Lia said.
Amelia placed Alisha down on an end table and snapped her fingers. “It’s done.”
“Alisha, can you hear me?” Lia asked.
“Yes, my Queen!” Alisha responded enthusiastically. “Do you need me for something?”
“Yes.” Lia said. “I need to make one thing clear: despite what Amelia may have told you, you are not an object, you are a person, and I will treat you as such.”
There was a pause. “I’m not sure I follow.” Alisha said. “What do you mean?”
Lia frowned. “I mean I don’t like treating you as an object.” She said. “I feel like you should be given better than that.”
“I’m happy with it, though?” Alisha said confusedly. “I’m fine if you treat me like a person, but I feel like being an object helps me push my limits.”
“What?” Lia asked, taken aback.
“Yeah. I’m going to be your equipment from now on, so I need to throw away my notions of what I can and cannot accomplish. It feels easier to handle the whole two bodies thing or control my transformations when I treat myself as a high-specs piece of equipment. Besides, I really am more object than person at this point, so there’s nothing wrong with it. We can just say that I’m an object who’s also a person, and be done with it.”
“Then that just makes you a person.” Lia pointed out. “You can’t be both.”
“Why not?”
Lia opened her mouth to speak, then realized she didn’t have a good argument against that. “It just…feels wrong.” She said.
“If all these artifacts were just combined with the slime, and not with me, would you call them an object or a creature? The slime was literally incapable of doing anything by itself, it just sat there doing nothing, and would be the same with the equipment.”
“I…I guess an object.” Lia admitted.
“There you have it.” Alisha said. “You’ve read fiction where artifacts have minds and can take humanoid form, right? It’s just like that.”
Lia groaned in frustration. “But, but it’s not the same.” She said. “The slime was basically an object before, it had no feelings, no will of its own to do anything with. You do, and I would argue that those sapient artifacts you mention are people. It doesn’t matter what your ‘true’ form is, since that’s so malleable anyway! I mean, look at me, I can turn into all sorts of different things, but that doesn’t make me any less of a person!”
“Lia.” Rose said gently. “Let’s not push this too far for now. If she’s mistreating herself or being mistreated because of it, then we’ll revisit this, but she says it’s helping her so for now, “an object that is also a person” is a good enough compromise. After all, it doesn’t make her any less of a person if we say she’s something else on top of it.”
“Fine, fine.” Lia said. “We’ll give it a trial run on the condition that you interact with me and with others as if you were a person, not as if you were an object. You need to prove that you can be both without losing any of what makes a person a person.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Yes, that means you can speak without being spoken to.” Amelia added. “Just use your discretion.”
Lia frowned. “Why specify that?”
“It was one of the things I told her earlier.” Amelia said. “I had to make her position extra clear.”
“I understand, my Queen.” Alisha said. “I won’t let you down. Now…would you care to put me on?”
Lia shook her head. “Not yet. I need to go evolve, and that might play havoc with you. You just…wait here, go get something to eat or something while I do.”
Alisha’s form shifted, and soon a miniature version of her old body was sitting on the table. “Sorry, I don’t have enough mass to make this full-sized yet. I’ll need to absorb a bunch of stuff before I can, but it’ll come with time.”
“Just don’t slack off and go days without.” Amelia instructed. “Your extra mass is slowly consumed by your body to keep it operational, and the more mass you have in use, the more mass you consume. I’ll show you one of our feeding stations, make sure to gorge yourself there daily.”
Alisha flew up, then landed on Amelia’s shoulder. “Lead the way, Mistress.”
They left, and Rose pulled Lia in for a quick kiss. “I’ll be waiting here when you finish.” She said. “I’m looking forward to seeing what you end up picking.”
“Thanks.” Lia said, giving her wife a smile. “Be back in an hour, okay?”
With that, she headed off to her room and began to look through her options. There were the usual, upgrades to Kitsune Exemplar, choices to move back to previous Races she had had, other slight variations in the kitsune line, but one in particular stood out from the rest.
Supreme Empress (Kitsune):
The Supreme Empress is a unique Calamitous race for the leader of the swarm. The swarm contains some of the most important people in the history of this world, many storied objects, and has proven itself a player on the world stage. As leader of the swarm, you are its Pride, and its strengths become yours.
The Supreme Empress excels at bolstering the strength of those under her command, providing vastly decreased Mana and Stamina consumption of buff spells or Skills, and an equally large increase to their effectiveness. If a swarm member has an ability that passively buffs other members of the swarm, you are considered to always have the benefits of that ability even if you are out of range of the ability (if multiple members of the swarm have the same or similar abilities, only the most powerful applies). Creatures personally converted by you gain a boost in power, and all bound races have their bindings slightly loosened.
By taking this race, you will gain the Pride Title, and a personally tailored associated Skill, Will of the People, which allows you to choose one swarm member and gain copies of their Skills for twenty four hours. These copies are then evolved and brought to the maximum level for that evolution. Heroic Skills cannot be copied by this ability. This Skill has a cooldown period of twenty four hours, and can be set to automatically choose the same member of the swarm every time it expires.
Compared to a Fledgling Kitsune Exemplar, Supreme Empress (Kitsune) provides a massive boost to all stats. Additionally, you will become a kitsune with a humanoid default form instead of a fox default form.
It was clearly head and shoulders better than her other options, so there wasn’t much point in deliberating any longer. She walked over to her bed, laid down in it, and began her evolution.
----------------------------------------
Rose’s head snapped up as she heard the sound of their bedroom door opening. “Lia! How’d it–” She stopped suddenly as she took in Lia’s new appearance. “You’re…you’re…”
“I’m what?” Lia asked, fidgeting nervously.
“Gorgeous.” Rose breathed. “And those tails…”
“Did I gain more?” Lia asked, twisting around to look at the tails. “Wait, five? Um…is anything else different about me?”
“Just use my eyes to see.” Rose said. “It’ll be easier that way.”
“Um, okay…”
Rose felt Lia’s presence enter her mind, and she obediently began to look over her wife. The first and most obvious thing was that she now had five bushy tails, each knotted at the end like her old one had been. The second most striking thing was her clothes; she was wearing a long, flowing, flower-patterned robe of some sort, tied at the waist. It was oddly familiar to Rose, and after a few moments of concentration, she recalled that it was called a kimono, a piece of clothing that had been brought to this world by summoned Heroes but had never fully caught on.
Though…now that Rose was looking at her wife in one, she couldn’t fathom why they hadn’t caught on. She could only assume that it was because they were impractical pieces of clothing, though much like how Olivia could move freely in her highly impractical armored dress, Lia didn’t seem inconvenienced by it in the slightest, another perk of the garments being a monster’s clothes, no doubt.
And, finally, Lia’s body had slightly but noticeably changed. She was taller, her skin was smoother and missing the few imperfections she had before, and her chest and rear had gained a slight amount of size as well. It was as if someone had taken society’s beauty standards and moved Lia a significant step closer to the ideal.
“Woah.” Lia said. “That’s…different. I mean…I knew I was going to look a little different when it said I would move to a humanoid default form, but this is…otherworldly.”
“What race did you pick?” Rose asked, her curiosity overwhelming her. “To get four more tails at once, it must be significantly stronger, right?”
Lia nodded, and explained her new race to Rose. “So…yeah.” She finished. “My magic stats are double what they were before, and my nonmagical stats have been brought up to that level, so they’re all even. It’s, um, really strong, but looking at the number of levels I have to gain and the experience costs for them…it’s going to be a long time before I evolve again.”
“You made the right call.” Rose said. “I mean, a Sin Title and all the passive strengthening stuff? That’s fantastic. What does the Title do? Can you see what buffs you’re currently under?”
“Let’s see…the Title doubles my stats inside of territories I rule, and…yeah, I can see the buffs. That adds up to…roughly one point five times most of my stats, as well as a bunch of status resistances.”
Rose did some quick mental math. “I think that makes you just barely stronger than an unbound Ophelia while inside our territory.” She said. “That’s insane.”
The door to the outside opened, and Amelia and a full-sized Alisha walked into the room. “Is Lia done yet? It’s been an hour and I could feel the binding–” Amelia cut off as she came into view of Lia, a wide smile growing on her face. “Look at you!” She squealed. “Looks like you’ve finally got the sort of race that you deserve!”
“My Queen?” Alisha said reverently. “You…you look breathtaking.”
“Thank you.” Lia said, smiling. “Alisha, I have decided to, on a trial basis, allow you to serve as my clothes. However, it will only be as a jacket or cloak, something that would go over my clothes. And, preferably, one that goes well with this outfit.”
Alisha nodded, eyes burning with determination. “Would you mind if I touch your outfit?” She asked. “I would like to get a feel for it before I begin trying to make something that would complement it.”
“Until this conversation is done, you may. After that, I have things to do, so I’m afraid you’ll have to turn yourself into some sort of accessory that touches it, or just be content to wait.”
“I’ll do my best!” Alisha said, approaching Lia and grabbing the sleeve of her kimono.
While she worked, Lia gave a short descriptor of her new race to Amelia, who listened with rapt attention. “That sounds wonderful.” Amelia said. “Whose abilities will you copy?”
“I know for sure it won’t be you, not yet anyway.” Lia said. “Most of your Skills are Hero Skills, so I can’t copy them. I was thinking Rose would be the best option, since she has a lot of Skills that I don’t, but Ophelia’s Skills are attractive as well.”
“You could copy mine, my Queen.” Alisha volunteered. “I have many Skills suitable for diplomacy and information gathering.”
“We’ll do that when we’re doing diplomacy, then.” Lia decided. “Rose, Amelia, do you have any better ideas for a general-use copy?”
“Most of my Skills are directly focused on enhancing my particular fighting style, so making full use of them will be difficult.” Rose said. “But I would be more than happy to teach you to fight like me.”
Lia paused, then nodded. “It’s done.” She said. “I’ll fill you in on the exact details later, but for now…let’s go show everyone else, shall we?”