As my eyelids blinked open, the first thing I noticed was how dry my lips felt; cracked, stuck to my teeth and caked with blood. Then, it was that incessant ringing in my ears, refusing to go away. I could've sworn something was blaring a noise into my ears, but whatever it was, the ringing blocked it out. It was probably nothing, I would've thought, if I didn't see a familiar box floating in front of my vision.
[
I struggled at first to comprehend the Monarchy System's message, the blood loss not helping my mental acuity. When I did, however, I made the switch right away. Me? Deaf? What the fuck happened to me while I was unconscious?
The instant I accepted, a trail of messages started to fill my sight, blocking the captivating sight of bloody dirt beneath me.
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...What? I could sort of understand a few of these messages... but skills? I couldn't have been more lost.
"Status." I croaked out, my voice hoarse and gravelly.
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Name: Thanren of Aldfield
Pure Sin: Envy
Alignment: 100%
Body: Severely Damaged
Resources: N/A
Mind: Normal Condition
Resources: N/A
Soul: Critically Disrupted
Will: 0/5
Skills: Entries Revealed
Monarch:
Envy: Lv.1
[
What the fuck is a Monarch Skill? The System should be able to explain it, at least, if I ask it to... I hope. What do I ask it for then? A description?
"M-M-Monarch Skill Description."
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Monarch Skills are the epitome of a Monarch's power, a representation of what they can achieve and accomplish. No matter what form a Pure Sin Status takes, some manner of a Monarch Skill will appear. For example, as a Monarch of Envy, your Monarch Skill: Envy takes a specialised form of one of your Adapted Skills, able to be levelled but not ranked up. The more you preform actions and overcome adversities that relate to your Pure Sin, the higher level your Monarch Skill will be. As the Monarch Skill levels, you will be granted more and more access to the Monarchy System as a whole and receive many boons. Level your Monarch Skill young Monarch, and you will grow beyond your wildest dreams.
[
That... didn't explain much. I could instinctively recognise what it mean by a Pure Sin and 'levelling' up but everything else was nonsense. Let's start with ranking up. The levels of the skills seem intuitive enough, simply how powerful they are. Yet, the meaning of rank seems elusive, seeming like a superior form of levelling on one hand, and something completely different on the other.
"Skill Rank Description."
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Ranks are, at a base level, similar to levels. However, not all Skills can actually rank up, even if they can level up. Ranking up, instead of deepening the strength and meaning of your Skill like levelling, broadens it until it encompasses all. To be more specific, [REDACTED].
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What a load of bullshit. Well, it was a stretch to test it anyways. Now, for Skills and Resources.
"Skill Description."
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There are many types of Skills, but the majority of them fall into two categories. Adapted Skills and Monarch Skills. Adapted Skills, similar to Resources, are donated to the Monarchy System by the Monarch themselves and adapted into a usable and scalable form. Adapted Skills can range from simple things such as foraging and fire-starting to anywhere like philosophy and combat styles. Upon levelling a Skill up, the capabilities of that Skill will increase and, when used, will be able to display more of its true potential. Upon gaining a new Rank in an Adapted Skill, [REDACTED]. Monarch Skills are [See Monarch Skill Description].
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
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"Resource Description."
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Resources are a measure of certain qualities and, occasionally, [REDACTED] that, when traded to the Monarchy System by the Monarch, transform themselves into visible and quantitative pools to tap into. To list all the possible Resources would be impossible as almost anything not governed by the realm of Skills can be transformed into one with ease. When an Attribute is damaged, a combination of Resources associated with that Attribute can be used to forcibly repair it, bypassing natural requirements with the help of [REDACTED] and the Resource(s) in question. If you have the chance to transform a [REDACTED] into a [REDACTED] Resource, these [REDACTED] will [REDCATED].
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Much more useful on all fronts than the previous two descriptions, but, especially the Resource description, they both still contain redacted information. It seemed the Monarch Skill is more useful than I had thought. Drawing my eyes from the stream of system messages, I investigated my condition. Just like my Status cruelly displayed to me, it wasn't pretty. Deep lacerations across my chest, light and various wounds everywhere else, alongside a broken leg. Fantastic.
Drawing myself upwards the best I could, the pool of dried... bodily fluids peeled away from my body where it had dried onto it, smelly and sticky. I tried to look around for the backpack I had lost, though, among the random debris of shredded wood and exploded ground, my chances of finding the thing itself weren't good. The contents that it once held though? I could certainly see some of that. About a few metres from me was a broken sword, the shards of iron making it up sprayed across the ground, and a half-open first aid kit lay strewn a few paces away from it.
Resolving myself once more, I crawled towards the kit, pain shooting up my broken leg every time I leveraged it to push forwards. The pain is only be temporary, Thanren, you just need to get to the kit and you can fix it. Hopefully. Maybe. Unlikely. It's worth a shot anyways.
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Huh. Don't really understand why it recovered but I'm not complaining. Navigating around the shards of broken sword, I reached out and grabbed the kit, moving it towards me and beginning to look through it. There was some gauze, a couple sets of bandages with clips, tweezers, and a small vial of alcohol right next to a bigger, smashed bottle of something else, the label on it disintegrated. I began to practice on my other leg at first, bringing it out from under me and moving to a more upright position. I unscrewed the vial of alcohol and dapped it on some of the gauze and began to clean the scratches and lacerations covering the leg. I considered biting down on something to help with the pain, but I strangely found it easier to just ignore it rather than acknowledge it. A mindset that I've seemingly adopted with the Monarchy System as well, as if it was protecting me from the horrific trauma of what I had just went through.
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Now came the big question. Did transforming my will into the Resource Will remove my genuine will? Well, I could for sure say it didn't, after all, here I was persevering through it all, doing whatever I could to survive. So, why wouldn't I 'adapt' my bare-bones training into a Skill that could actually grow into something effective enough to matter?
"Accept."
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"S-Status." I called out, stuttering as I wiped a particularly nasty wound with the gauze clean.
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Name: Thanren of Aldfield
Pure Sin: Envy
Alignment: 100%
Body: Severely Damaged
Resources: N/A
Mind: Normal Condition
Resources: N/A
Soul: Severely Disrupted
Will: 0/5
Skills: Entries Revealed
Adapted:
First Aid: Rk.0/Lv.1
Monarch:
Envy: Lv.1
[
And there it was. The 'Rk.0' part seemingly stood for the rank, and, as I probed it further with my mind, represented that the skill was at a 'base stage'. With the latter part of the Skill name obvious, I continued on, finishing up my disinfecting and beginning to wrap up the particularly heinously bad areas with bandages, clipping them tight. One area, however, had a large wedge of wood inside of it. Leaving it in would probably be best, stopping the wound from opening and doing a better job than my bandages ever could. The only problem was the chance of infection, a chance too big to ignore. Dipping the tweezers in the alcohol, I started feeling at the wood chunk, every prod and poke blinding me with pain. I didn't budge though. I didn't cry. I simply... was.
I really shouldn't be this calm in a situation like this. Looking back on my past actions, one would imagine that I would be screaming in agony, cursing the Saviours for putting me in this position by now. But I wasn't. I wasn't me this moment. I was someone different. I wasn't Thanren of Aldfield. I was the Monarch of Envy.
Giving one last yank, the wood was dislodged, my newly revealed laceration squirting blood. It must've hit an artery. FUCK!
[
Ignoring the new system message, I began my work with a new-found urgency, trying to psyche myself up to be confident and utterly... failing? I wasn't shaking or panicking so I guess it had worked somewhat. After finishing the excruciatingly painful disinfection, I wrapped it as tight as I could with my strength, using multiple pins to keep it from unravelling.
With that all over, I breathed a sigh of relief and lent back, dropping the dirty gauze and bandage wrap to the floor, taking in what had just happened.
[
That was only one limb.
One limb.
One FUCKING limb.
Screaming into the sunset-orange sky with vengeance, my hoarse voice made it sound like an animal's dying breaths, tears streaking down the cheeks of my face, stinging me where it met open cuts. It was all THEM. They were the cause of all of this. I was going to die here, my medical supplies running out, falling to disease. A coward's death. A death THEY caused me.
And it was the least of my limbs! I still had a fucking broken leg to deal with and two arms! The arms, though bad, could be ignored for the most part, but the leg? The leg?!
I was done.
Unless... looking back on my system messages, ignoring the level-ups of [
If I had any Will left in me, I imagine I could've done something at the very least, anything that could've helped me somewhat. No. I had been drained of all of it, for what? A few more weeks of suffering, crawling on the floor, trying to search for food and water, and ultimately dying to dehydration. Or would the infection from the leg take me first, giving me a disgusting, painful death? Or would it be a wild animal, looking for its next meal and deciding I was it?
I needed to do something. I needed those Resources. I needed that Skill. And then what? Would it even help me in the end? Or give my just another delayed demise?
But that's just the thing. In any other situation I would've agreed with myself, the rational thought of Thanren winning me over, distrusting of the Monarchy System to the very end. Except now? I wasn't Thanren of Aldfield, the cowardly scum reaching for the coattails of his betters, looking for any chance to climb to new heights. I was the Monarch of Envy and I don't need just one Resource or Skill. Every Saviour would've had more equivalent Resources and Skills than I could ever possibly think of. So why not? Why can't I just convert everything? WHY CAN'T I JUST HAVE THEIR POWER?!
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"Status."
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Name: Thanren of Aldfield
Pure Sin: Envy
Alignment: 100%
Body: Severely Damaged
Stamina: 3/3
Mind: Normal Condition
Mana: 0/0
Soul: Severely Disrupted
Will: 0/5
Skills: Entries Revealed
Adapted:
First Aid: Rk.0/Lv.3
Resilience: Rk.0/Lv.1
Monarch:
Envy: Lv.1
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