P-System Log

Jerome: Are those R Beasts?

Aster: They are indeed.

No shit they're R Beasts! How dense are you, [Godkiller]?

Aster: I highly recommend retreating. I believe that I can handle the prevention of their efforts, but I fear that one or both of us may be permanently harmed if we do not first obtain backup.

Jerome: Are you sure?

Aster: I haven't survived six years of adventuring by approaching the most dangerous risks without assistance.

Jerome: If you say so.

No. No, these things need to die. I don't give a shit if this is the Origin System or my skill or my weirdness speaking, but those things are wrong and they do not deserve continued existence.

And Aster just wants to run?

I refuse.

Updated [Objective]: Clear the Maplecrest Dungeon

Details: Eliminate the monsters in the dungeon. Eliminate the R Beasts.

Rewards: XP, Skill XP, Dungeon Core Rewards, Mana Increase,

P-System Message Strongly advise eliminating R Beasts before they can form a threat to you. Hero's Personal Log 023

Beasts? I'm pretty sure those are humans. Or at least close to human.

I think I can do it. I was weak on Earth, but I always told myself that if I ended up in a situation like this I would make the most of it. If that means getting over important things like moral compunctions, I think I'll have to do it.

More importantly, though... is it safe? I might have high stats, but I'm still just level 2. Aster is level 26. If she's unsure of it... should I be worried about myself? Given what she said about most of us with this System dying after extended exposure to R Beasts... it's risky.

Well, someone far smarter than me once said that nothing good comes without risk. And there is something good here. Apparently, the appearance off the R... I'm not quite sure if I should call them Beasts, but the R... enemies? Okay, whatever I call them, I think their appearance triggered the update in my quest.

Do I take the risk and get even more rewards than I would've otherwise, or do I run away and get nothing?

When I say it like that, it seems so obvious.

I'm not going to run.

P-System Log

Good.

Kill them all, Jerome. Take these scourges on existence and remove them from our reality.

Jerome: I'm going to engage.

Yes, Jerome. Good. End them.

Aster: Jerome, I would highly recommend--

Jerome: I'm going.

Aster (sighing): Gods above. It's always the same with you reincarnators, I swear.

Overcharged [Magic Missile] activating! [Magic Missile] dealt 30 damage! P-System Log

What? I didn't do anything wrong with the missile. I burned the W Inertia necessary to overcharge it. The bright blue beam struck out with the intensity of an entire lightning storm condensed into the span of half a second, and I'm sure that it stuck its intended target--the Berserker--head-on.

Jerome: I overcharged that [Magic Missile] with double mana. Why did it do so little?

Aster (inhaling deeply so she can sigh even harder): System grant me strength, reincarnators will be the death of me. Of course you haven't heard of [Resistance]-type skills.

Jerome: Oh, I did see that with Axel.

Aster: Well, you've made your bed. Now we must both lie in it.

The [b̸̟̌̈̐ȑ̷͉̱o̶̗͍͌͐̓p̸͈̂͗ẅ̵͓̕ŕ̴̬̫̑ǫ̸͈̞̿͝ņ̵̺̥͑g̴̭̰̽͗k̴̹͓͇̒̇̀i̵̢̻̅̑l̶̲̬͍͘ȩ̸̰͝ń̴̥͈̻d̶̦̟̞̿͆͛v̴̘͕͚̑͊̃o̴͗̌͘ḯ̴̢̞̱d̴̗̰̎̂͜ë̵̡̼̞n̴̜͉͈͗̚e̵̯͋m̶͚͚̈́͊y̶̪̆] are coming. Uh, the R Beasts, I mean, I'm not sure what just came over me. They're stepping around the raised tiles, which confirms what I already knew. The obviously trapped tiles are trapped, who knew?

The initial rage has died down, which is helpful. Wouldn't want that impairing my judgment, would I? Now all that's left is a deep-seated desire to kill all of the enemy as soon as possible. No problems here!

Less fortunately, the R Beasts are moving towards us. I should be more psyched about this, given that they're opening themselves up to attack, but I'm a little wary of their own offenses, especially since they apparently have [Resistance]s of some kind.

I can sense mana manipulation coming from the [Cultist]. It's wildly different from the type that Jerome, Aster, and Axel were using, but it's still recognizably a warp in reality that I can associate with mana. Perceiving it has that same sense of wrongness, but if I remember right, these guys use a different System. Last time, I think I looked hard enough to unconsciously burn W Inertia, which enabled me to look through the lens of their own System. I'm not sure if I need to do the same to perceive their spells. Aster's spell was able to approximate their System, so maybe her System will do the same to process the attacks.

For my part, I might need to burn W Inertia so that Jerome isn't completely in the dark. I'll just use a handful. Two or three should do the trick.

Oh, whoops. The [Cultist] is done casting. Let's see how that goes. Burning W Inertia now...

Skill invoked: [Tentacle Storm] P-System Log

Holy fuck, even their magic is painful to perceive. The [Cultist] just sprouted huge-ass tentacles from his back. They're not completely real, I don't think, since the appendages stink of the weird mana methods that the R Beasts use, but there sure are a lot of them. I count eight tentacles, four black and four red. They're somewhere between octopus and Cthulhu tentacles, I think, though maybe that's not the best point of reference given I never consumed that much Lovecraft stuff. Whatever, the point is that they're all kind of weird and not-quite-biologically correct (unless their octopuses are weird here) and they're pretty damn fast. They're on the way to Jerome right now, all eight of them.

Hm. Something tells me that they're not going to do extra damage just because they're from an R Beast using a different System, but if the approximation of their System that I can see is correct, that's a [Rare] spell coming from someone with a [Rare] class and ten levels on Jerome. I'm not sure if their System calculates damage differently from ours, since I know their stat sheets and distributions are different from Jerome's and Aster's. Either way, if the approximation is right, I'm not sure Jerome wants to be hit like this.

...not like he has much choice in the matter. I can see him beginning to jump back, but the tentacles are traveling faster than him. Each of them acts like they've got a mind of their own, and it makes for a really chaotic effect, like if you gave control of one octopus to eight different players, each of them on different consoles.

Okay, that simile fell apart, but the point is I don't think Jerome's going to avoid all of them.

[Tentacle] dealt 11 damage to you! [Tentacle] dealt 6 damage to you! [Tentacle] dealt 11 damage to you! [Tentacle] dealt 8 damage to you! [Tentacle] dealt 5 damage to you! [Tentacle] dealt 9 damage to you! [Blazing Spear] activating! [Inferno Spear] cast! [Blazing Spear] dealt 29 damage! P-System Log

That is an awful lot of notifications, holy shit. If my not-quite-human perception maps to human perception in any way, I think the damage and casting notifications should be appearing smaller than, say, stat increases and level ups, and they should be appearing in a corner of Jerome's vision. Still, I gotta say it has to be annoying to be Jerome. Then again, I'd imagine the otherworldly tentacles that just struck out at him might be irritating him more.

They just hit him and went inside him, passing through his skin like it was nothing. I don't know if they actually had an effect on him physically, since he seems more weirded out than in pain or terrified, but they definitely did a pretty big chunk of damage to his Health. Not enough for me to worry for his life, but a pretty fair amount. Each of those tentacles had their individual damage roll, apparently, and they weren't all the same speeds. Six of them were fast enough that neither Jerome nor Aster reacted in time to cast a spell, but they did still end up casting a spell each. The last two tentacles both got hit by the spells, which apparently have a small AoE splash radius? I hadn't known that before.

In any case, the two spear spells nullified the last two tentacles. The set of mana that comprised both spells just cancelled each other out and disappeared into the ether. Didn't pick up any W Inertia, which I guess makes sense given that it wasn't a real monster, just a mana construct from a skill. Or maybe a not-skill, given that the knowledge I have of R Beasts is apparently limited to what my senses can approximate them as.

It is interesting to see how the spells differ, though. I'd imagine [Inferno Spear] is to [Blazing Spear] as [Greater Assess] is to [Assess], and it shows. Jerome's was red and pretty obviously fire, like it was an actual torch made into a solid beam-like attack, while Aster's was bright blue with a color that was far more intense than Jerome's spell.

I can ruminate more on that later. The [Berserker] is sprinting towards Jerome, and he isn't stopping.

Skill invoked: [Strengthen Body] Skill invoked: [E??t?? Wr??h] P-System Log

...that was an [Epic]-rarity skill from the [Cultist], and I couldn't even fully read it. Failure to approximate skills, or something.

It didn't seem to have any immediate effect, but the amount of mana I can sense swirling around the [Berserker] increased dramatically.

Oh, and he's physically glowing bright red now.

Jerome: ....fuck.

Aster (visibly irritated): I warned you.