Chapter 36

Chapter 36

When Alice woke up, the first thing she noticed was that the pain in her arm and her stomach were gone. Clearly, someone had gone through the effort of fixing all of the problems with her body after the fight. The (presumably) [Organic Mage] that had saved her during the fight was gone, probably off running damage control elsewhere, but Alice still knew that there was no way she could have healed her injuries so cleanly and so well in such a short period of time without some sort of magical assistance.

However, her System notifications didn’t make her feel much better about the fact that she had survived and that her body was patched up. There were a barrage of notifications, but Alice stopped thinking almost the moment she saw the very first one.

You have gained an achievement!

Murderer (Rarity: 4)

You have slain another human being.

Effect of Strength, Dexterity, and Perception increased by 1%. Classes with some relationship to fighting other humans gain experience 15% faster.

Alice stared at the Perk for a long time, not processing the world around her. The title of the bloody Perk was literally murderer. Alice felt...

She felt...

She thought of the man’s head exploding during the fight, and suppressed the urge to vomit again. After that, she took a moment to calm down.

She finally took a look around, processing the fact that she was back in the wagon. They were moving again. Milo and the surviving guards were all sitting in the wagon with her, chatting and mostly leaving her in peace. When he saw that she was up and moving around, Milo gave her a friendly nod, before he turned back to conversing with the guards. Alice gave him a halfhearted nod back, before she sank back into her thoughts.

Did she regret what she had done?

Alice couldn’t honestly say that she did. She knew that the person she had killed had earnestly been trying to kill her. She didn’t know whether they had been motivated by greed or something else, but the fact remained that she had needed to defend herself. If she was put in the same situation, she would probably do it again. The image of people streaming out of the woods and surrounding her with the intention of killing her was one that she would never forget, and no matter how she played the memory back, she couldn’t find any other resolution to the conflict. The moment the attackers had come, someone was going to die.

That didn’t mean that she could wholeheartedly accept the fact that she had killed someone, though. When she thought about the fact that she had killed someone, however, more than the fact that she had done so, there was also a strangely... hollow feeling. The initial urge to vomit was still there, and an image of the man’s head exploding was branded into her mind. Apart from that, however, there was also an oddly hollow feeling. As if none of it was real. It was an... odd feeling. Her initial flinch reaction aside, she didn’t revel in the feeling of having taken another life, and she didn’t feel as much horror as she thought she would, either. Was something wrong with her? She remembered having read somewhere that humans were supposed to feel horrified, traumatized after killing someone. She felt the urge to throw up when she thought about the man’s head exploding, but the guilt she had assumed she would feel was... dulled.

Alice closed her eyes, trying to process her emotional nothingness in a way that made sense to her. Was she still in shock? She wasn’t sure. Was there something else in play here? She wasn’t sure. Alice’s thoughts kept running in circles for what felt like hours, even though it was probably only a couple minutes in reality. Finally, she tried her best to push forward despite her feelings, and began looking at the rest of her notifications.

You have leveled up!

Survivor: 37 -> 38

Student of Kinetic Magic: 13->18

Explorer of Magic: 31 -> 34

Apart from that, most of her Attributes had increased quite substantially after the battle. The only one that was useful in combat but hadn’t improved at all was Strength, possibly because at this point Alice was already long used to using magic in place of her actual physical body for most things. A variety of skills had also progressed quite nicely, especially the ones related to Kinetic Magic.

After a minute or two, Alice frowned. Just looking over her System Notifications after killing somebody felt wrong. Then again, not doing so also felt wrong. More than anything else, Alice just didn’t know what to do right now. She really wished there was something she could know she was supposed to be doing besides stewing in her thoughts, over and over, as she played the entire battle back in her mind over and over again.

After an unknown amount of time, Illa flew herself over to the wagon. Milo and the guards gave Illa respectful nods and a chorus of ‘lady Illa’ sounded out before they returned to their conversation.

Illa turned towards Alice. Perhaps noticing the harrowed and hollow look in Alice’s eyes, Illa stopped for a moment, before she simply sat down next to Alice.

“How are you doing?” Illa asked, after a few moments of silence.

“I don’t know.” Said Alice. It might not have been the best thing to say, but it was the most truthful one right now.

“My job is a lot riskier than I thought it would be, huh,” said Alice, sighing.

Illa actually jerked her head back towards Alice, surprised. “You’re right, actually. I might be underpaying you. I’ll think about upping your compensation if you’re still interested in working for me later on. We’ll talk more about it once some of the tension from the battle has bled off a bit, though, okay?”

Alice sighed, but nodded. Then she realized something. “Wait, if the Sigmusi Colonia is going as far as slipping troops across the border, is a war going to happen? I... I’m not really sure if...”

“If you want to stay in Illvaria if a war breaks out? I don’t really blame you, if that’s the case – as someone from another planet, you probably aren’t very invested in our nation’s struggle. That being said, I doubt it’ll go that far – the Sigmusi empire on the main continent can’t ship huge numbers of troops or Immortals to the Southern Continent or their neighbors will swoop in to make trouble for them while they’re undefended. They’re just doing this because they know they can get away with it without a war breaking out. Illvaria doesn’t have the military strength to contest them, after all – and the Shil Confederacy as a whole wouldn’t take this a direct threat from the Sigmusi, because they know the Sigmusi wouldn’t take it to a full-on war right now. Plenty of them are more than happy to see Illvaria knocked down a peg or two, as long as the Sigmusi aren’t able to threaten the Confederacy as a whole afterwards. So it ends up being kind of a mess of political interests, really.” Illa frowned. “I hate political interests.”

Alice sighed, then turned back to watching the scenery as it flashed by. The wagons continued on, seemingly in peace – for now. But while many of the attackers had fallen, now that the wagons had already been attacked once, her brain wouldn’t stop conjuring images of large groups of attackers lurking just out of sight, ready to pounce on the expedition the moment they let their guard down. She felt... afraid.

She turned back towards Illa, but Illa had already taken to the air again, flying herself towards one of the other wagons. Alice squirmed uncomfortably, before stroking the part of her stomach where she remembered an arrow punching through her. No matter how much she reassured herself that the damage was gone and she had been healed, her thoughts kept drifting towards what it felt like to get shot, and she kept wondering if it was really healed.

She didn’t think she could take her job of being the ‘face’ of Illa’s program in the south anywhere near as lightly as she originally had. She needed to think about a lot of things a bit more. Before that, however, she needed some armor. She had been made very aware of how vulnerable simple clothes left her body, and she wanted to shore that up a bit.

Before she set out, though, she took a look at the Perks she had gained from getting [Student of Kinetic Magic] to level 18.

Railgun

Requirements: Kinetic Disciple level 15 or higher

When you are manipulating only one object, you may move it with far greater force.

Sticky Objects

Requirements: Kinetic Disciple level 15 or higher, Mana Precision 5 or greater

You may spend a small amount of mana stored in your kinetic seed to temporarily make objects you are currently touching with your mana 'sticky,' allowing them to adhere to other surfaces or each other for brief periods of time. Note: This is a relatively light force, and will break apart if stronger forces pull the objects apart.

Extended Skin

Requirements: Kinetic Disciple level 15 or higher, Endurance 100 or greater, Willpower 100 or greater

For the purposes of magic controlled by others, your 'skin' extends approximately 30 centimeters beyond your actual skin, making it far more difficult for others to initialize any magic in that region.

Folds of magic

Requirements: Kinetic Disciple level 15 or higher

When you are attempting to control multiple objects at once with your mana, your control over the objects is improved by a moderate amount. It also becomes easier to focus on multiple objects at once, as well as create multiple mana tendrils at the same time.

Alice thought back to the fight that she had just been in. Sticky Objects was interesting, but simply wouldn’t have mattered in the fight – it was a neat trick, but tricks were hard to utilize when someone was stabbing you in the stomach. Railgun might have helped a lot in some parts of the fight – it would have allowed her to drag away the sword away from one of the attackers earlier and use it to defend herself. That would have helped a lot, but it also came with the hefty restriction of only working if she was manipulating exactly one object. Most [Kinetic Mages] went in a totally different direction, and instead focused on being able to manipulate dozens of objects at once. Alice had already started to level the skills she needed to do the same thing – being able to move multiple objects at once was the easiest way to stop something like a volley of arrows, after all.

Folds of Magic obviously helped plenty with that, and would have helped Alice quite a bit during the fight. If she had been able to multitask more effectively, she could have stopped both the swordsman from stabbing her and the archer from shooting her, which would have left her with far fewer injuries during the fight.

{Extended Skin} was an okay option for dealing with other mages, but right now Alice didn’t think that was her biggest problem. So she discarded the option for now – there were better things available, even if it didn’t seem like a bad pickup.

After some hesitation, she grabbed {Folds of Magic}. She wanted the multitasking options it would help provide, and it would be effective with far less work than it would take to level up her {Divided Attention} skill to the point where it would be useful. And it would synergize with {Divided Attention} as the skill reached higher levels, so it would be helpful both immediately and long-term.

Then, with a sigh, Alice turned back to the guards and Milo. She should at least talk with them about what had happened during the battle, so that she could get a better idea of what she had done wrong, and what else had happened during the fight. There was a lot to unpack, especially from an emotional perspective, but Alice felt that she had tried to deal with her messy emotions enough for right now. She had survival concerns to take care of.