When I regained consciousness I was lying on the ground in the shade of the mountain, most of my body covered by my coat. I saw that the damage paper doll was once again visible in the corner of my vision and that it was wholly light pink.

Aki and Caei were sitting by my side.

‘You’re awake!’ My girlfriend exclaimed. ‘Thank the gods!’

She gave me a hug, which sent waves of pain down my entire body.

She saw me wince so she quickly let go.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I was just so worried.’

‘N-no problem,’ I muttered through gritted teeth. ‘What happened? The last thing I remember is stepping into the sun.’

Caeileera opened her mouth to speak but I silenced her with a gesture.

‘Actually… I don’t think I want to know.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ she sighed. ‘Just don’t do that again.’

‘Noted. Which is why you are not going to like what I’m going to do next.’

Me neither.

‘Please, don’t!’ Aki exclaimed. ‘It could kill you!’

Was it that bad?

I slid off my coat and saw that my entire body was reddened like my arm previously. I winced seeing that.

Well… it only took me three days to get full-body burns.

‘Yeah… For once, I’m gonna do what the doctor ordered.’

Caeileera nodded and went to retrieve my clothes.

‘I’m sorry for making you worried,’ I said to Aki while Caei was away. ‘Again.’

‘Don’t do something this stupid ever again,’ Aki said with barely-contained anger and stalked off.

‘Someone is in the doghouse I see,’ Caei said when she handed me my clothes. ‘Can’t say I am not mad at you too. What by the Blood were you thinking, you idiot?’

I began to dress and answered:

‘That it’s better to rip off the bandaid quickly.’

Realising those were not a thing here I added:

‘It is a kind of wound dressing you can glue to your skin to deal with small wounds.’

‘You Earthlings and your inventions,’ Caei laughed with a bit of wonder in her voice.

We tried to get moving again. Every slimy cell of my body protested when I moved to test how my skin would react to sunlight this time around. To my relief, it only resulted in minor discomfort.

Hopefully, this means my “skin” is slowly adapting to light.

I lifted my tunic and exposed my belly to the sun. Likewise, I only felt minor discomfort.

‘How is it?’ Caei asked.

‘Not that bad,’ I said and let go of the tunic.

Oh, sweet relief.

And with that, we set off. The longer we walked the worse I felt. I kinda knew my shadow powers would be diminished in sunlight, given how other light sources had that effect too, but I never suspected it would be this crippling. I expected to be down to baseline human, but my movements felt somewhat sluggish; there was the constant discomfort wherever the sun touched my exposed skin; it seemed my eyesight was a bit worse and you know that feeling of one of your ears being clogged? Yeah… my whole body felt like that.

What the fuck?

I focused on the paper doll and saw a new status icon there. It was a smiling sun.

Yeah. Fuck you too, buddy.

Status: Exposed to a Hostile Environment

Effects:

Agility reduced by 25%

Endurance reduced by 25%

Perception reduced by 50%

Description: If you haven't figured it out by now - you are nocturnal. In time, you will adapt to being out during the day, but you will never be at 100%.

Fucking hell.

I opened up my stats and there it was.

Basic Details

Name

Lilyth

Race

Tenebral Slimeling

Gender

Transwoman

Age

33

Level

7 (532/4000 exp)

Class

Shadow Paladin

Rank

Novice

Perk Points

2

Attributes

Physical

Progress

Mental

Progress

Strength

12

0%

Intelligence

16

87%

Dexterity

14

37%

Wisdom

12

0%

Agility

7 (11)

36%

Willpower

15

44%

Endurance

8 (12)

62%

Cunning

8

29%

Vitality

13

67%

Resilience

7

21%

Perception

5 (11)

0%

Faith

3

0%

Appearance

12

0%

Charisma

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6

23%

Damn. That is dire. Still, I will need to allocate the perk points at some point. And why is my strength at 12 with 0% progress? Did I hit some sort of a soft cap?

I checked my notifications.

The following attributes have progressed:

Strength: +9% (100% total progress to level 12)

Your Strength Attribute has increased to level 12 (0% total progress to level 13)

Your total health has increased

Note: You have reached the natural limit your body can reach on its own. Further increases of Strength will require the use of perk points or dedicated training regimen.

Dexterity: +7% (37% total progress to level 15)

Agility: +15% (36% total progress to level 12)

Endurance: +38% (62% total progress to level 13)

Vitality: +30% (67% total progress to level 14)

Intelligence: +3% (87% total progress to level 17)

Willpower: +8% (44% total progress to level 16)

Resilience: +3% (21% total progress to level 8)

The following skills have progressed:

Insight: +7% (52% total progress to level 18)

Bastard Sword - Two-handed: +60% (102% total progress to level 7)

Your Bastard Sword - Two-handed skill has increased to level 7 (1% total progress to level 8)

Air Arcana: +16% (84% total progress to level 4)

The following spells have progressed:

Fist of Wind: +14% (73% total progress to level 3)

Huh. I mean that makes sense. It’s not like I have muscles. Being made of jello does have its limitations. Maybe if I increase my overall body mass? But not sure how permanent that would be.

Getting myself distracted over my stats was not the smartest thing to do as I missed a root protruding from the ground, tripped over it and face-planted on the ground.

‘Ow…’ I muttered, as I tried to gather myself from the ground.

Aki rushed over to me.

‘Lilyth!’ she shouted. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah,’ I lied. ‘Was just lost in thought.’

‘Seems to be a theme today,’ Caeileera said with more of the unusual wryness in her voice. ‘Either you think too much, or too little.’

She was right. I needed to focus. I was in an unknown place. Ereshkigal only knew what horrors lurked here, and the forest was, for lack of a better term, eerie. There was no animal activity there to speak of. No bird singing. No buzzing of bugs. Nothing.

‘Sorry for making you worry, guys,’ I said with genuine remorse. ‘I’ll try to do better. Speaking of - is it normally this quiet here?’

Caei looked surprised by the question, but before she could say anything Aki answered:

‘Yes. There are parts of the forest where no animal goes. No one knows why.’

So there doth be fuckery afoot.

‘Anything bad ever happens in these?’ I asked.

Aki shook her head.

‘People from my village often went to these if they wanted to be alone. It’s a good place to think.’

She threw me an amused look.

‘Though you might want to avoid them.’

‘Yeah,’ I chuckled and started getting up from the ground. ‘I guess I should.’

As we resumed our journey I walked up to Caei and asked.

‘You okay? You feel… off.’

‘It’s… Deirdee,’ Caeileera answered after a moment. ‘I’m worried about her.’

‘I understand,’ I sighed. ‘I know it is my fault she is gone, but I can only hope we meet her again someday.’

Caei grunted an unhappy acknowledgement.

‘I’ll get over it… eventually,’ she sighed. ‘I guess she did what she thought was best?’

‘Yup,’ I said and added with a reassuring tone: ‘She’ll always be welcome with us though. Even if she just popped up now, I would welcome her with open arms.’

‘Thank you,’ she said and gently brushed her hand against mine.

I did my best to ignore it.

‘Are you okay though?’ she asked, changing the subject. ‘You don’t look so good.’

I shared the status with her. She hissed upon seeing it.

‘Do you want to stop until it is darker? She asked with genuine concern.

I shook my head, even though every cell in my body screamed “yes”.

‘I don’t want to force you and Aki into a nocturnal life,’ I said. ‘I’ll get used to it. Eventually.’

Caei nodded.

‘Let us know if you ever change your mind. We can always figure something out.’

‘Yeah. Will do.’

We got to the river without any further incidents. It was a pretty nice spot too. A small clearing surrounded by the blue and orange trees. The day was fairly pleasant too. Maybe twenty-three or twenty-four degrees, with a pleasant breeze blowing.

If I was still human this would be a perfect spot for a date, I thought mournfully. Set up a blanket and a basket of tasty snacks and all three of us could sit here and enjoy ourselves. Alas, it is not to be.

Then it hit me…

All three of us?

Aki suggested we should all wash up, which while it didn’t help me with impure thoughts did sound like an excellent idea. My last bath was in that river next to Goblintown, which right now felt like a lifetime ago, even though it was just two days.

I told the girls to go first, as I felt too tired and needed to rest, which was perfectly true.

I found myself a shaded spot in the shadow and sat against the tree there. It felt so good. The problem while walking through the forest was that it was hard to escape from the sun as I would constantly be passing spots through which light shone. And if that was bad, if we ever had to walk through a place without cover, a sunlit plain for instance, we would have to figure something out.

Still, it was time for me to finally use up my perk points. I pulled up my skill list.

Skills

Lore - General Name Rank Level Progress Insight Novice 17 52%

Lore - Humanities Name Rank Level Progress Linguistics Journeyslime 40 10% Earth Literature Apprentice 25 0% Earth History Novice 10 0%

Lore - Sciences Name Rank Level Progress Data Analysis Apprentice 30 3% Mathematics Novice 10 0% Computing Novice 15 0%

Survival - General Name Rank Level Progress First Aid Novice 2 0% Sense of Direction Novice 10 8% Stealth Novice 4 8% Climbing Novice 1 77%

Martial - Swords Name Rank Level Progress Bastard Sword - Two-handed Novice 7 1%

Crafting - Cooking Name Rank Level Progress General Novice 2 0%

Crafting - Magical Name Rank Level Progress Arcane Writing Novice 1 50%

Arcana Name Rank Level Progress Earth Novice 2 28% Air Novice 3 84% Water Novice 0 5% Umbral Novice 3 0% Sanguine Novice 1 33%

Spells Name Arcana Rank Level Progress Rock Spikes Earth Novice 3 44% Gust of Wind Air Novice 3 21% Fist of Wind Air Novice 2 73% Flickering Lights Umbral Novice 1 0% Quench Torch Umbral Novice 1 0% Shadow Weapon Umbral Novice 1 0% Shadow Barrage Umbral Novice 1 0% Shadow Bolt Umbral Novice 1 0% Blood Lance Sanguine Novice 1 60%

Traits Name Level Progress Neurodivergence N/A N/A The Queen's Raivarian N/A N/A Entomophobia 08/10 Special Hidden Predator N/A N/A Predator's Instinct ??? ??? Elemental Infusion - Air 2/10 Special

Abilities Name Rank Level Progress The Swiftness of the Wind Novice 1 0%

I put one in Umbral Arcana and one in Bastard Sword.

Your Umbral Arcana skill has increased to level 4 (0% total progress to level 4)

You have spent 1 Perk Points (Current Number of Perk Points: 1)

Your Bastard Sword - Two-handed skill has increased to level 8 (0% total progress to level 8)

You have spent 1 Perk Points (Current Number of Perk Points: 0)

While everything in me screamed against using either of the skills right now, Air Arcana was also out due to me still having at least three weeks on the timer.

Status: Elemental Contamination - Air

Level: 3 - Severe

Effects:

* Irreversible changes to body structure have occurred

* Increased effectiveness of Air Arcana-based spells, abilities and traits

* Decreased effectiveness of other Elemental Arcana-based spells, abilities and traits

* Unable to use Earth Arcana-based spells, abilities and traits

Note: The level of contamination will revert to 2 - Moderate 20 days, 4 hours and 52 minutes.

I hated how limiting it was. It left me with only Sanguine Arcana to use during the day and… and…

The next thing I remembered was Caei waking me up, her clothes wet and her hair dripping water.

We really need to get some towels.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I must have dozed off.’

‘No problem,’ she responded with concern. ‘I understand. If you think…’

‘No,’ I waved her off. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘I don’t think you will,’ Caei sighed. ‘But your choice. Anyway… it’s your turn.’

She helped me get up, and I walked to the river. Washing up was an awful experience, as my naked body was fully exposed to the flaming jackass in the sky. Still… It felt good to be clean.

After I was done, I dressed up in a cleaner pair of clothes. I considered putting my greatcoat on, but it was too warm for it. So more suffering it was.

I shook my head and, at Aki’s and Caeileera’s urging, I took the lead to set the pace. Being under the cover of the forest helped some. I was seriously considering asking them to wait until the evening after all, but suddenly there was a loud crack and I felt something punch me in the shoulder. It hurt slightly but wasn't anything to write home about. It also barely registered on the damage indicator.

Did someone just shoot me? That's not a very nice thing to do.

I touched the place where I thought I was shot and lo’ and behold there was a hole there.

‘Cover it with your hand,’ the Huntress urged me. ‘Play the part of being shot.’

Good point.

My worries about being a terrible actor disappeared when the wind moved some of the leaves and a beam of light shone over the wound.

I screamed.