150. 'That’s cool too.”

❮ ◈ ❯

Name: Mae -Marie- Maria Gorgona

Age: 24 | Level: 45

Race: Green Lamia

Path: N/A

Affiliation: None.

Titles: The Liberated One.

Potential: A | Host Rank: I

Attributes:

STR: 25 | END: 20

SPD: 35 | DEX: 25

INT: 40 | LCK: 3

Statistics:

STA: 125/125 | MP: 420/420

SWI: 150 | AGI: 95

SEN: 130 | ATC: 148

ATT: 170 | DEF: 85

MA: 130 | MR: 3.04

Proficiencies:

- Mana Control (Lv. Max)

- Dance of the Serpent (Lv. Max)

- Mana Sense (Lv.9)

- Flight (Lv.4)

…

- Magic Theory (Lv.2)

- Runecraft (Lv.1)

Magic Skills:

- Snake Magic (Lv.8) => [Coiling Winged Serpent (T.7), Scaled Flood (Lv.8)]

- Wind Magic (Lv.7) => [Wing Guard (T.8), Wind Blade (T.10)]

- Union Magic (Wind + Snake) – Wind Hoarder => [Serpent of Tempest (T.7)].

Cognitive Skills (Passive):

- Aura (Lv.8)

- Magical Damage Resistance (Lv.7)

- Physical Damage Resistance (Lv.3)

Spontaneous Skills (Active):

- Reinforcement (Lv.9)

- Elemental Reinforcement (Lv.6)

- Projectile Reinforcement (Lv.4)

Unique or Racial Traits:

- Eyes of the Gorgon: Upon eye contact with a foe, a level, and resistance check will occur and if failed, the target will start turning into stone. The speed of the transformation may vary depending on the strength of the victim.

- Touch of the Gorgon: Whenever the holder of this trait touches someone they deem as an opponent, the part of the body that was touched will turn into stone. The applications of this effect depend on the level and resistance of the target.

- Lamia Morph: Allows to change forms between half-snake to fully humanoid. In the former, a boost of +20% will be applied to the Strength attribute; limited to the tail.

Note: A former Boss of the Dungeon Grit Castle in the Tenth Plateau. She was born as such and spent most of her life fighting against invaders. She has always felt absolute loneliness and was able to truly learn what it meant to have someone after being freed by a powerful Host.

❮ ◈ ❯

Rakna closed the status after checking the differences it had went through. Everything about her fighting capabilities was the same but she had now a title, a Path to be selected, a potential value, and a rank; the most basic privileges of Hosts.

He looked back at the lamia who had calmed down from her momentary breakdown. She pulled herself away from Allan with an embarrassed cough and the blond was also a bit red.

“{Come on; mate! You already kissed! I thought the stuff in books wasn’t supposed to happen in real life, devourer! Was I lied to?!}” Higure shouted and Rakna sighed.

‘They met…’ He paused and checked the time. ‘Exactly four hours and twenty minutes ago. Give them some slack. Not everyone is like you.’

“{I don’t think I have ever seen human-lamia children before,}” Fray commented. “{There should be some but they are surely pretty rare. It would be interesting to see.}”

“Whatever,” Rakna muttered as he ignored the voices in his head. He opened the door of the now fixed building and his companions quickly followed after him. “So? How do you feel now that you are a Host?” He asked as they walked around the place, looking for Nana and the children.

“I… don’t know what to say,” Marie replied with a smile. “It still feels a bit unreal.”

“Well, concretely, your life as a whole hasn’t changed a whole lot. Yes, you’re now free to level up and get stronger at your leisure but being able to travel through Plateaus is the thing that will put everything in perspective for you,” the therian said as a few children ran past whilst laughing.

“As he says,” Allan complemented. “I’ll take you to the First tomorrow if you want.”

“Is that a date?” The lamia teased with her newly recovered sultry tone and he almost tripped and fell face-first on the floor. She giggled and turned back toward Rakna who was now leaning against the wall as some of the children played around in the building.

“This agreement you made with Eva… there’s no way for it to be simple. What did you accept to do for her? I promise to do everything I can to assist you.”

Rakna glanced at her and clicked his tongue softly. He extended his hand downward and pointed at the floor with his palm. “[Star Hearth,]” he muttered and tendrils of cold energy shot out from his hand and weaved an entire couch. After a moment, it obtained a realistic appearance and he unceremoniously sat down on it.

“…you can seriously make anything with that, huh?” Allan quipped.

Rakna shrugged. “About the mission, shortly said, I’ll have to do it alone and while it is predictably hard, I still have time to prepare for it since it’ll start in the 100th Plateau. Though, I do have a time limit. We, or at least I, won’t be able to stick around too long in the next Plateaus. I want to reach the 100th in two months at the latest. I think it would be favorable for me.”

“Let’s be honest here, you would have done it all the same even without the time limit,” Flavia said with a knowing smile.

“Who knows. I’m quite impatient, so, yes, indeed, it’s possible.”

“Hey, totally unrelated, but can you make couches for us too?” Allan uttered and Rakna looked at him with a hum.

“No.”

“…”

The werewolf snorted at his silence and his ears twitched as the sounds of someone coming down the stairs reached him. Nana soon entered the room they were in and she promptly bowed again.

“Thank you. This is more than anything we could have ever hoped.”

“It’s nothing. I wanted to test the effects of my card. And as I expected, I was able to restore this building but furnishing it wasn’t feasible,” he said as he looked around the empty room, other than the product of his magic, there was no furniture at all. The Club Card had affected the whole place but it had not included anything inside of it.

“In any case, I’ll give you this,” he added and pulled out a briefcase from his storage. “Alexa, could you withdraw 100k Talys, please?”

[Right away.]

In the blink of an eye, the briefcase was filled with notes and some gold coins. Rakna rotated the case and made it slid toward Nana with his foot. “Here. Take it.”

The young girl gaped at the money being blatantly showed to her. “I-I can’t accept this!”

“That’s a bad excuse. You refuse gifts only when there is something attached to it. If there is not, free money should be accepted. If the donator was dumb, nefarious, or altruistic is of no concern at all,” Rakna uttered and lit another cigarette. “They gave it to you; you take it. It’s as simple as that. Money doesn’t need morals. Underserved money? Dirty money? Bullshit. Money is money no matter how hard you try to spin it to look better. You can do whatever you want with it.”

Nana blinked owlishly at the therian who was going on his rant. She wanted to refute as she felt like she was taking advantage of his kindness, but now refusing this money felt like she would be offending both herself and him.

Flavia face palmed softly. “That’s one of your bad habits, Rakna. You go off the grid too much. Did you not learn after all the essays I made you redo? You went off topic every time.”

“…did you have to mention that?” Rakna deadpanned and gazed at Nana. “Just take it. I have plenty of money at the moment. No point in being stingy. In exchange, why don’t you answer a few of my questions?”

“Questions?” Nana perked up at that. “What kind?”

“Yes, I was curious about a few things. So, I might as well ask you,” he clarified and huffed a bit of smoke. “First of all, can you tell me why you choose to stay in this Plateau if you are so miserable? Because if I understood correctly, Locals can travel Plateaus at will, no?”

“That’s… half-correct. We can indeed jump Plateaus but it’s incredibly dangerous. We are dropped off at random locations, just like Hosts. We generally don’t have the necessary strength to survive that kind of situation and that’s why people like me don’t do it. I can’t bring the children to a sure death for probably most of them. Especially considering that we cannot party up like Hosts and thus cannot be transported together when moving between Plateaus.”

“Additionally, there is a minor fee that we have to pay to do it,” Nana added and sighed. “There is simply no way we would ever decide to do something like that unless we’re tired of life.”

“I see…” Rakna muttered and leaned against the couch. “Second question; other than the rules on giving Quests, do you have anything else that the System allows or prohibits you to do?”

“Um…” Nana pondered for a second. “Well, other than that, usually, Locals are not allowed to fight Hosts without being provoked first, or else the Adjudicators will punish them. On the other hand, you may not know, but Hosts will also be punished if they go over the line. If they try to perform crimes such as mass slaughter, slave dealing on Locals, and other things like that.”

“Last question; Locals are essentially the backbone of the System’s society on all Plateaus,” Rakna said and hummed. “So, if something was threatening them on an even larger scale than what you just said, for example, an invasion of powerful monsters, will the System intervene?”

“I’m… not sure,” she responded. “I’ve heard of cases like that happening but I think it was under certain circumstances. You would need to get that kind of information on other Plateaus or from someone more knowledgeable than me.”

“Uhuh… Alexa, what about you?” Rakna inquired with a quiet voice.

[I’m afraid you do not possess the clearance for that information.]

Rakna was a bit surprised by that. ‘It’s the first time I hear you say that.’

[Naturally. As an S+ Potential, you have a higher clearance than most Hosts and my rank as an AI means that I hold a lot of information. I hadn’t had the occasion to refuse one of your queries until now for these very reasons. But this particular information surpasses what I’m allowed to tell you. You would need to raise your Host Rank by several stages.]

‘Fray, Higure.’

“{Same for me, sorry,}” the lioness said.

“{Hm, I heard a few things,} the storyteller mused. “{I know for a fact that the System does act from time to time. One of those happened while I was still alive, a few centuries back. The cause was a powerful Wild Boss that had appeared in the 826th. An army of Adjudicators was dispatched to deal with it. But to this day, I have no idea why it did so. It would have been taken care of in time. For sure, it would have cost lives but countless other things cause deaths but the System does not resolve them.}”

‘So, a hidden reason, huh?’ Rakna concluded.

Meanwhile, Nana was fidgeting because of his sudden silence. “Is he okay?” She asked the others and Allan shrugged.

“Yeah, it’s fine. He’s probably talking with his AI or the moochers inside his head.”

After a moment, Rakna grunted and stood up. “It’s getting late. No one should bother you anymore if you stay here. Take good care of these children. The 100k I gave you will be a good footing for you, so use it well,” he said and walked out of the room as the couch disappeared with a wave.

The rest of the group bid goodbye to Nana and followed him out. When they left the building, they saw him flick the finished cigarette and gazing at the rather full moon. “I’ll be going to the Pavilion to train and catch up with my skills. Pronos, Tyran, do you want to come?”

The small Asura shook his head from his spot in Evelyn’s arms and the little snake did not even respond as he snored happily in Flavia’s ‘care’.

“Really… are you two even my pets anymore?” Rakna blankly said and took Sonata off his neck before handing it to Evelyn. “Take it with you. Until I evolve it enough for us to be apart for long distances, or find another solution, we’ll have to swap it like this. Anyhow, I’ll let the sorting of the items we got from the Dungeon to you guys. Let’s meet up tomorrow morning at the Trial.”

Allan did a two-finger salute. “Sure thing. Have fun.”

Rakna snorted and buzzed out of view with Flash Step.

“…damn, that skill is cool too.”

AhraManyu

Fun fact that you don't care about; I always went off topic during free essays. God I hated those kinds of assignements. Thank god I don't have to deal with them anymore.

Oh yeah, and as always, don't take Marie's status at first value, there might be things I forgot to include because I'm dumb.