Fissyah and I continued on our quest to find Oblec, the mythical Gremlin of the Karhid Caves. Well— actually, he wasn’t really mythical.

For one, we knew he existed. And for another, I was pretty sure he was just some guy who was kicked out of his home for doing something his friends and family didn’t like and no longer had anywhere else to stay… like some kind of crazy hobo.

Many different kinds of monsters lived in these dark tunnels, most them around my level, but some going far above even Rioke’s level. I kept Fissyah back; we wanted to avoid any engagements we didn’t need to get into. After all, we didn’t want to attract any unnecessary attention. Especially from one of the more dangerous monsters.

[Centis - Level 25 (Combat Power: 633)]

[Centis - Level 17 (Combat Power: 415)]

[Centis - Level 27 (Combat Power: 724)]

…

A group of giant centipedes crawled their way through the tunnels, skittering on the ceiling and the walls, deceptively silent. Fissyah and I hid behind a pack of stalagmites as they went by. When they were gone, I sighed.

“Whew, wouldn’t want to get into a battle with those things. Not only are they terrifying, they’re strong too!”

I could probably take on two or three of them on my own, but a whole group of them wasn’t something to scoff at. The Gremlin nodded, shivering as she hugged herself.

“I’ve seen one before, outside of the Karhid Caves. It wasn’t as large as those— maybe a youngling. Definitely weaker. It took a dozen Dark Elves to take it down, and that was only after it was injured by our own warriors.”

“I see.”

Living in this world sounded like it sucked.

Anyways, we only fought when we had no choice, or if Fissyah needed to eat. She had regular biological needs, unlike me who only needed to eat when I was low on Arcane Essence, and even then, it wasn’t really necessary. I mostly ate because food tasted good.

Fissyah’s training to learn [Arc Shot] also began around this time, but… well, I wasn’t a very good teacher.

“Alright!” I clapped my appendages together. “The first thing you want to do is make a pistol with your fingers!”

“What’s a pistol?” She cocked her head.

“It’s a thing… a weapon, from my world. Basically, you, uhm, use it to fire these things called bullets which move very fast, and if they hit someone, the person dies.” Alright, that wasn’t the best of explanation, especially considering Fissyah’s reaction.

“Woah…”

“But it’s not easy to make!” I tried to elaborate. “There’s, like, a hammer in it, and when you shoot it, it creates sparks, and…”

Her eyes grew wide.“It has a hammer? It creates sparks?! It kills someone instantly? This weapon sounds amazing!”

“Ok, that was a bad explanation. Look, just do this with your fingers—” I morphed one appendage into the shape of a hand, before making it look like a pistol.

“Uh…”

She emulated me, and I nodded.

“Alright, now you want to just aim and feel like you’re pushing out a part of yourself.”

“Pushing out a part of myself?” Fissyah raised a brow.

“Yeah.”

I aimed at a nearby wall, firing an [Arc Shot]. The Gremlin gaped as a small but deep hole was left on the stone. I lowered my fake gun hand, drawing it back into my body.

“Like that. Now you try it.”

She tensed, her lips drawing into a thin line. Her face was that of focus. Of determination. And… nothing happened.

“It’s not working.”

“Have you tried trying harder?” I spoke sagely.

“...Violet.”

I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. Seriously, it just happened for me. My arm was being ripped, like this—” I stretched one appendage with another, and she narrowed her eyes.

“And then what happened?”

“Then it just kind of snapped off like this— ouch.” I winced as it snapped off. It whipped out, falling to the ground. I stared at the bit of purple goo. “That hurt.”

“I’d be more surprised if it didn’t.”

I slid over my broken appendage, taking a moment to re-absorb it into my body. It didn’t happen instantaneously, unfortunately. I had to sort of attune myself to it. And when it became a part of me again, that part of my body felt numb for a little bit— like it was asleep.

Once I was done with that, I looked over at Fissyah. She was just grunting, trying to produce something from her fingertips.

“Still nothing?” I asked.

She nodded dourly. “Nothing.”

“Hmm…” I waved my numb appendage. “Wanna try doing what I did?”

“Absolutely not,” Fissyah said, voice flat.

* * *

Name: Violet [Level 17]

Species: Arcslime

Combat Power: 630

Arcane Essence: 630/630

Skills:

[Appraisal - 10 Arcane Essence]

[Arc Shot - 20 Arcane Essence]

Passive Skills:

[Arcane Restoration - You restore 10 Arcane Essence for every ten minutes of rest.]

[Improved Absorption - You replenish an additional 50% of Arcane Essence from consuming bodies.]

[Morph Shape - Your body can take on complex shapes.]

Special Skills:

[Arc Symbiosis: Fissyah - 50% of Total Arcane Essence]

Titles:

[Destroyer of Fort Erkaed - Arcane Essence +50]

Over the next few days, I continued Fissyah’s training whenever possible. Nothing we tried seemed to work; even when I showed her what it was like to use [Arc Shot] through [Arc Symbiosis], she wasn’t able to replicate it.

And our sessions would occasionally be interrupted by passing monsters, which we would either have a confrontation— that let me level up one more time to Level 17, and Fissyah twice to Level 13— or we would hide away and avoid fighting, like right now.

“Hey man.”

“Sup?”

“Are you a Kanye West fan?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Really? Then prove it: who was in Paris?”

“Nah man, I can’t say that—”

I watched as the pair of Earthen Sirens disappeared down the tunnel, dragging with them the corpse of a Grubby Roach. Once they were gone, I hopped out of the alcove with Fissyah.

“Do you hear that as well, or is it just me?”

“Their sound magic affects everyone, Violet,” the girl explained. “It’s meant to trick the listeners so that they’ll let their guard down.”

“I get that. But their conversation— are we hearing the same thing?”

She shook her head. “No. We’re likely hearing different things entirely. It’s just making a bunch of jumbled noises, you’re only hearing what you want to hear.”

“Oh, so it’s like pareidolia.”

“Para… what?”

I waved an appendage dismissively. “Pareidolia. It’s when you perceive a kind of stimulus— be it visual or auditory or some other sense— and misinterpret it to have a kind of pattern or meaning which it doesn’t have. It’s like seeing faces in rocks, and it’s the reason why constellations are ascribed shapes which they don’t resemble.”

She stared at me. I gave her a confused look.

“Uhm, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s nothing,” Fissyah sighed. “Sometimes, you know an awful lot about weird things that don’t matter.”

“Hey! They mattered in my world… I think.”

She scoffed. “Alright, so what were you telling me again?”

“Oh—” I clapped my appendages together. “What about if you make noises when you try to shoot?”

“Noises?”

“Like this— pew,” I said, and fired an [Arc Shot]. “Pew, pew, pew.”

“Will it do anything?” Fissyah raised a brow dubiously.

“It’s fun.”

“...I think I’ll pass on this one.”

“Come on! You should try it. At least if you’re saying something it’ll be a lot less awkward than just silently standing there… or wait…” I trailed off as she sat down, exhausted.

That reminded me of something. I remembered when I first arrived at Korukh, I had a very brief conversation about the nature of Skills. Well, it wasn’t really a conversation. I was fighting Ebsu, and he brought this bit of information up. It might help Fissyah now.

“What if you tried saying the Skill’s name?”

Fissyah frowned. “Saying the Skill’s name?” she repeated after me.

“Yeah. Like this. [Arc Shot].” I fired one at the wall. “And when you do it, focus your Arcane Essence into the tip of your fingers.”

“Will that even work?”

“I mean, how do Skills even work?” I replied.

She tapped a finger on her chin. “I’m not sure either. I’ve just been told that Skills are gifts from Drasel.”

“So, it won’t hurt to try, right?”

“I guess…” The Gremlin got to her feet and began muttering. “[Arc Shot]. [Arc Shot]. [Arc Shot]—”

I made myself comfortable, watching as she continued this for a few minutes. Then I jolted up and glanced back— into the darkness. Well, I could see into it, so it wasn’t really dark to me. And while there was nothing there, I could’ve sworn I felt something.

What was that? I wondered.

“Violet.” Fissyah’s voice drew my attention back to her.

“What is it?” I asked.

She shuffled her feet. “I think… this won’t help. I think the problem is I’m not even sure I know how to control my Arcane Essence.

“You don’t?” I bounced up to her. “Don’t you have any Skill that needs Arcane Essence to use?”

“I have one Skill— [Lesser Appraisal]— that uses Arcane Essence, and it was… opened up to me when I evolved. It was like a new sense was created. Like I could see more of the world. And while I can use the Skill, I don’t know how I’m doing it.” The girl helplessly gestured at herself.

“Mmm, I think I get it. You’re seeing, but you don’t know how you’re seeing, right?” I made what I felt was an appropriate analogy. “Your eyes are open, and you don’t know why you’re able to see. You don’t know how to control it. You just see.”

“R-right.”

“Well, you’re looking at things the wrong way— no pun intended,” I said, waving a knowing appendage.

“I am?”

“I struggled with this too when I first woke up. It took me a moment to realize that I was trying to do something that I couldn’t do. Just like how you can’t control how you’re seeing, but can only control what you’re seeing by closing your eyes or looking around the room. So, instead of trying to see what isn’t there, see what is.”

I finished, and Fissyah took it in. She blinked a few times, nodding.

“I see, I think… I still don’t get it,” she said. “What does that even mean?”

“It means you should use what you already have, not what you don’t have. You’re trying to draw out some mystical, magical power that doesn’t exist from inside of you, when you can already use magic.”

This time, she got what I was saying. “You mean…?”

“Exactly.” I pointed at her. “Just use magic, Fissyah.”

She stared down at herself— as embers flickered to life around her hands. Her mouth opened, and she faced me.

“That’s—”

But before she could finish, the ground shook. I recognized this feeling. It was the same one from earlier, except more pronounced.

Fissyah and I looked back in the direction the Earthen Sirens had gone. From the shadows, a figure emerged. It was a familiar badger-like monster that I could deal with without a problem. And it was running.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” it cursed.

I leapt in front of the girl. “Get back—”

And the Earthen Siren was ripped back into the darkness. I paused.

“What?”

An undulating, crimson figure— one made up of dozens of segmented armored bodies— wrapped around the giant badger. No… there wasn’t just a single one. There were a dozen of them. They tore the Earthen Siren into pieces in mere moments, before turning their attention to us.

Centises. Or, wait— were they Centii? Centese?

Well, whatever they were, they were coming for us next.

“Hey, uhm, Fissyah…” I turned to the Gremlin. “This time, we should be running, right?”

She stood there, frozen in place. Gripped by fear, unable to move. I shrugged as the skittering came closer, echoing down the tunnel.

“I mean, unless you think I can take them. Which I could try? But it’d probably be safer for the both of us if we just ran. ”

“Run!” she shouted.

And we made a break for it.

* * *

Fissyah heard the snarling, the snapping, the skittering, and the screeching. The Centese came, clambering on the ceiling, clawing their way through the cave to their running prey. Violet’s voice cut through the clamor; a sound of certainty amidst the chaos.

“Come here, Fissyah!” the Slime called out, bouncing towards the Gremlin. “We need to use [Arc Symbiosis] if we want to—”

Before she could finish, a Centis crashed between the pair, stopping them from combining their power together with their shared Skill.

Violet smacked the Centis back, only for another pair to flank her from behind. She unleashed volleys of [Arc Shots], taking out the first three Centese without much of a problem— the real problem was the dozens others giving chase.

Especially the ones that had a Combat Power of 700.

The girl scrambled forward as Violet shouted, “Run, Fissyah! I’ll draw their attention! Come here you stupid centipedes!”

Violet was bouncing around the coiling Centese, breaking their armored shells as she fired the occasional [Arc Shot]. A large, higher-leveled Centese lashed out as the Slime leapt back, loosing her projectiles at it. But while the attacks broke through the shell, they didn’t bring down the monster.

The large Centis caught her, snapping its mandibles and tearing her appendage off.

“Ouch— do you know how long it’ll take to reattach that?”

Fissyah stared with wide eyes as Violet was trapped by the large Centis. Then she looked at the oncoming Centese. There was nowhere for her to go. Even if she continued down the tunnel, the remaining Centese will catch up to her. And even if she escaped, what would happen to Violet? With this in mind, she spun around and stood her ground.

Raising her hand, she unleashed her fire magic at the Centese as she made a dash for the Slime.

“Violet!” she called out, her flames distracting the closest monsters.

But one of the smaller Centis attacking Violet drew back. Even still, it was massive. At least ten feet in length. It intercepted the Gremlin, clicking its mandibles.

Fissyah focused her flames at it, burning the shell, but not the inside of the Centis. It struck down at her as she rolled to the side, panting.

I can’t hurt it. No, she needed something else to bring it down. Her eyes flickered to one of the dead Centis— to the gaping hole left in its head.

She knew what she had to do. Fissyah ceased her flames, pointing a finger at the looming Centis. Exhaling, she reached for what she had. Magic. But not that of the Drasel. It wasn’t one that permeated the air.

It came from within. Not in a literal sense. But it was there.

Motes of spark and ember gathered around her fingertip, coalescing into a concentrated ball of fire. The Centis charged straight at the girl, and she released it. It hammered straight through the singed carapace of the monster’s shell, felling it in an instant, just as Violet would.

You have defeated a [Centis - Level 17 (Combat Power: 402)]!

You have gained experience for defeating an enemy above your level!

You have absorbed its Physical essence!

You have advanced to Level 14!

- Physical Essence Points +20

- Arcane Essence +10

- Skill [Arcane Flameshot] gained!

She stumbled forward, laughing in victory.

“I did it—”

And another Centis crashed into her side.