"Wake up! Ooooy, wakey wakey!"
A gentle wake up call stirred me from blessed unconsciousness. At first, I just stared at the girl with the grayish hair who was kneeling beside my bed and trying to wake me up, but after a few moments, I recalled where I was and what that meant for me.
And with that realization, I groaned loudly and pushed my head into my pillow.
"I'll get up in a bit," I grumbled out in response to Syr. Not hearing an immediate response, I glanced towards Syr to see her having a puzzled expression. That's when I realized I spoke in my first language.
"Ah, sorry. Getting up now." I corrected this time in japanese so she could understand me.
"What language were you speaking there? I heard a few spoken in my time here as a waitress, but that didn't sound like any of them," she asked, looking very curious.
"Don't know its name. Always spoke this way before. Learned little common from goddess." I explained to her my totally made up circumstances. In truth, I've learned japanese for a number of years, I'm just shit at actually speaking it. Never had to use it before for extended periods of time, so I'm very unaccustomed to it.
"I see. If you don't mind we could talk a bit sometimes. I would love to hear more of your language." She asked me with a radiant smile. Damn, I'm bad at dealing with busybodies like her. I'll just okay it, and try to avoid her as much as possible. She's also very observant according to the story, so that's another reason for me to stay out of her way.
"Okay. Sometimes." I responded.
"Excellent," she clapped once with her hands. "Oh, I came to wake you up because it's almost time for breakfast. Everyone already used the washroom so you can use it right away. After that, we're all having breakfast down at the bar, so come down when you're finished. Okay?"
With that, she got up from her kneeling position and left the room, but not before smiling and waving at me, once again. I tiredly returned her wave, then as she closed the door, I flopped back down on my pillow. After letting out a string of unintelligible noises and screams that were muffled by the pillow, I got up and made my way to the dreaded washroom of uncomfortableness that awaited me.
I wasn't planning on flogging myself and begging for forgiveness for daring to lay my eyes on a pre-pubescent female body, even if it was my own now, but I expect it will be kind of awkward for a few weeks at least. Meh, I'll survive.
During my stay in the washroom, I noticed that it was a fairly modern, tiled bathroom, nothing at all like I would imagine a middle-ages bathroom to be. The toilet was also a modern water-washing one in a small separate room, not in the same airspace as the bathroom, thankfully.
The other thing of note there was a fairly tall and wide mirror, which allowed me to see what I looked like now for the first time.
My most obvious feature, which very much surprised me how I didn't notice up until now, was my curly, emerald green hair and same colored eyes. Of course, the eye color I couldn't have known, but I remember how some locks of hair obstructed my view yesterday, and yet I still didn't pick up on it. My brain must've deemed it low priority information compared to all the other shit I had to deal with.
Other than my hair, I didn't find anything out of the ordinary. Yes, I was small. Yes, I was fairly scrawny. I would be surprised if I hit fifteen kilograms, even with my gear on. Even a fully grown pallum rarely grows taller than 1.2 meters, so I doubt the current me measures even a full meter. This may prove a significant detriment for me in the dungeon if I can't put sufficient weight behind my attacks, but I hope my ability will help me out with that too.
I quickly finished with the morning routine, or what will probably become the morning routine, then approached the bar where the staff and Mama Mia were already gathered. I assumed that this communal breakfast was arranged for today so I could be introduced to everyone.
I think I would honestly prefer an encounter with a couple of bloodthirsty goblins than a social situation like this where everyone's attention is focused on me. Damn it, I have to get through this, then I'll be able to sequester myself away in my room and experiment to my heart's content.
"Hello everyone. Forgot to introduce myself yesterday. My name is Avrora. Hope we get along from now on." I said, then bowed a little towards everyone. I may or may not have been fidgeting and kneading my hands the whole time I was speaking, and maybe even after that.
This may have been the first time I spoke clearly beside the two practiced sentences I opened with yesterday. This was of course due to the fact that this kind of introduction is the first thing they teach in a japanese class and make you practice it to death. It was very repetitive when I did it, but now it came in handy.
I glanced up from my bow to see most of the staff with small smiles on their faces. Ryuu Lion was of course still her stoic self. Aside from Mama Mia, who was a dwarf, there were two humans, three cat people, and an elf.
The elf, of course, was Ryuu Lion, the Gale, former Level 4 adventurer. I made a note that her hair was dyed green, much like the color of my hair, unlike her depiction in the anime, where she was blond. Interesting. I have to say, seeing her in reality like this, her beauty and fairy-like quality were not exaggerated in the slightest. Even without hormones and a sex-drive in the equation, I was still captivated by her for a few moments.
The other human, besides Syr, had a light brown hair that I might've mistaken as blond yesterday. I don't remember her name, but I think she was a bounty hunter before working here. She is also Level 4.
That leaves the three cat people, the energetic brunette, Anya, then the girl with the black hair, who I think used to be the actual assassin, and finally the cook. I know about Anya that she has a brother in the Freya Family who she is on bad terms with, and she's Level 4, but not much else. The assassin girl's most memorable peculiarity that made me remember her was that she is a shotacon.
Thankfully, I'm not in danger from that angle.
The third cat girl was much younger than the other two, and she had a hat on with holes for her ears. She also had a much different uniform on, which marked her as a cook instead of a waitress. I don't remember her name either.
"You lot heard the shrimp, her name is Avrora and she'll be staying in the second-floor storeroom for the time being." Mama Mia introduced me further to the girls.
"As for my good for nothing employees here, you've met Syr already, so I'll start there. Next to Syr is Ryuu, then Anya, Lunoire, Chloe, and finally May here." She pointed to everyone as she said their name in turn. Everyone also nodded or waved or said hello to me as their name came up, so I reciprocated their greeting the same way.
"There are others that help out from time to time, but these are the ones that you'll meet the most here. Now that everyone is introduced, let's eat," she said while gesturing to the remaining empty place between her and Syr for me to sit. I gingerly proceeded to do just that. I waited to see if there was any kind of ceremony before starting with the food, but seeing Anya chomping away with great gusto made me discard this possibility. Thus, I began consuming my first bit of food in this new life. It was a simple breakfast with sandwiches, but it tasted very good, especially after a near day of going hungry. I was glad I managed to avoid the popular skit of having my stomach rumble at an inopportune time.
"Aah, Loki Familia yesterday was a pain in the ass nyaah~", I was suddenly all ears towards Anya, who started complaining. "But that Aiz girl sure is something, Level 5 already at thirteen years old. As expected of the Sword Princess nyaah~"
That was an important piece of information I happened upon here. That means my estimate of about three years was unexpectedly accurate. Nonetheless, knowing for sure that I only had three years to catch up with the heavy hitters of the city, it made my stomach tight with fear.
When the others dispersed to start their day, I nervously shuffled towards Mama Mia and gave her the rent money of five hundred Valis we discussed. She acknowledged the transaction and I retreated back to my room as fast as possible while trying to not seem rude about it.
Situations like this make me want to jump in head-first into the dungeon, but I know I can't do that yet. There are two things that I have to do before delving in, no matter what.
Firstly, I have to take care of the matters with the Guild. I know I have to register to be able to sell magic stones to the Guild, but since I don't have an actual god to represent me, things could get hairy. I remember other adventurers that used to belong to a familia whose god resides outside, but I can't recall any that that still do after becoming active in Orario. I hope that doesn't mean that only by being in a local familia can adventurers be allowed to go into the dungeon.
Converting to another familia is of course out of the question. At this point, I can't even be sure my Falna could be taken over by another deity, or if they could, then would my advantages go away in the process? I can't take that risk. Judging from the fact that I can update my own Falna, Gaia must've intended for me to work alone too. My other reason to keep to this path is that I, honestly, can't trust any of the gods.
There are maybe two gods whose familia I wouldn't mind joining that are currently here in Orario, but there is a problem with both.
The first is the Miach Familia, whose god, Miach, is generally a nice guy. However, his familia ended up in dire straits after a member lost her arm in the dungeon and Miach took out a huge loan to replace it with an artificial one. Due to the financial ruin this brought to the familia all the other members left, only leaving the girl and Miach, barely making ends meet.
It may be possible that this hasn't happened yet, but the girl whose arm was lost was Level 2, so I can't really do anything if it happens in the near future. Maybe, if I gain power fast enough I'll able to do something about that.
Of course, the reason I wouldn't join is not because of their bad situation, but because I would probably bring even more trouble to their doorstep once my ability gets discovered. Because, I'm not deluding myself, it will be. All I can do is hide or disguise it as long as I can.
The second possibility would be the Hephaestus Familia. They would probably be able to deal with the attention I would bring after a while, but I'm not a smith so I wouldn't be welcome there.
As far as I know, Hestia only came down a few months before meeting with Bell, so she's most likely still up in Heaven, but even if she wasn't I'm not sure I would choose to join her familia. Her overly chipper and energetic style would be my natural kryptonite.
I have a hard time thinking of myself as extraordinary, but that's what the gods would most likely view me as if they discover my unusual ability. I need to keep in mind that it's my ability that's important, not me. If I can keep that hidden, then I'm just a bottom of the barrel adventurer.
The other thing I have to do is train up my ability before even stepping a single step into the dungeon. I'm not for bragging but I would probably shit myself the first time I saw a goblin on the first floor if I didn't have the equivalent of a ten inch concrete wall between me and the enemy ready to deploy. I'm just confident like that.
I'm thinking of spending about a week with mind-numbing training, and then going to the Guild to register and deal with the possible road bumps as they pop up.
I'm currently in possession of 25 000 Valis, or rather 24 500 now. That would be enough for another forty-nine days if I didn't use it for anything else. That seems a lot, but only because Mama Mia really put me up cheaply here. She might hope that I would give up on being an adventurer and settle down as a helper here, but I can't do that. Not just because of Gaia and her presumed intentions for the one with this Falna, but working in the service industry would mean interacting with people far more than being an adventurer, so dungeon delving wins hands down.
But, to be able to do that I have to find out everything I can about the Falna and how it works, so I can game the shit out of it. I will have to procure some paper and writing utensils because I will need to keep copious amounts of notes about everything that could have an effect on stat growth. Number, difficulty, species of enemies slain, general state during battle, level of tiredness, being hungry or thirsty or low on Mind, emotional state, anything could have an impact.
First things first, I needed to check if my status changed from yesterday, so I pricked another place on my forearm and opened up my Falna. After I connected to it and dug around a bit I noticed that my Magic stat went up quite a bit, despite the fact that I only played around with it for a short while yesterday.
Still, if I want to hit at least 300 in Magic by the week's end I'll have to dial it up to eleven.
Name: Avrora Lvl. 1
Strength: 0 I
Endurance: 0→1 I
Dexterity: 0 I
Agility: 0 I
Magic: 0→15 I
Skills: Invictus
At first, I didn't know what I did to gain that 1 stat in endurance, but then I remembered how I poked myself with my dagger to draw blood. It's a bit funny to get a stat raise from that.
To get ready for the dungeon I have to first hone my most powerful weapon, which is, of course, my Absolute Territory. I know my other stats will also need to be raised if I don't want to be one-shotted the second my Mind hits empty, but if I'm right, Absolute Territory will become the foundation on which I'll be able to build my other stats on.
Thinking back on yesterday's experiments, playing with force vectors was fun and all, and I can see much potential in min-maxing with them, but if I have to set, double check, and manifest each vector by conscious thought, then I would be half-digested by the time I finished.
I need to make it work as fast or faster than if I used a limb to do the same. It needs to be instinctual, in time. Of course, that also has its dangers. For example, if someone tries to jump me as a good-natured surprise, then reflexively ripping them apart might not be the best course of action. I don't think I will have to worry about that exactly for a while yet, but it would be best to keep ahead of things like that.
Closing up my Falna for the time being, I started looking for some items I could practice my telekinesis with. Running my gaze around the room I didn't find anything that wouldn't be in danger of breaking or making a bunch of noise if dropped unexpectedly. I had a feeling I wouldn't be juggling chairs and tables just yet.
Aha, that gave me a perfect idea, which I already thought of yesterday, so why didn't I think of it right away? Damn, I hope having a higher Mind stat will make me less stupid.
Anyway, I took a few coins from my jacket and placed them on the bedding, so even if they fall, they won't make a noise.
My first instinct was to start defining vectors, but I squashed that down for now. I needed another way to visualize it.
After a few minutes of trying, I managed to move a coin by imagining a third hand reaching for it and picking it up. This was a good result, but having a manifestation of a hand in mind at all times felt heavy on Mind use. It doesn't mean this method was useless, I noticed that touching the coin with that phantom hand provided me with feedback that was close to touching it with my real hands. This should also improve in the future.
The feedback itself reminded me of the same property of my Territory. For my next try, I inspected the coin through the virtual representation of it provided by my Territory. I could see, or feel or whatever to call it, in my mind's eye every ridge and bump on the surface of it, even the parts that I couldn't currently see in fairly high resolution. This is probably due to the fact my Territory is not even close to its max diffusion, so its detection abilities are focused on a much smaller area than yesterday.
Keeping my attention on the coin's virtual representation, I had a feeling that I should be able to use it some way. After an unknown number of minutes rolling on the floor, groaning and racking my brain, I remembered how I connected the force vector to the object itself yesterday, but now thinking about it, it wasn't so much as connecting it to the object itself, but to the model of the object produced by my Territory. Following that logic, if I can control the object's model in my mental-space, it will move the object in the real world.
Now I only needed a way to make that happen. After another x number of minutes, I came up with the brilliant idea of injecting the wireframe model of the coin in my mind-space with 'telekinesis-juice' and controlling it that way. Well shit, if it works it works, and work it did.
In essence, I'm saturating an object with my power and moving it that way. This method has the advantage of not needing eyesight, always being aware of the object, being able to freely manipulate its orientation without complicated vector shenanigans, lower Mind usage compared to the phantom hand method, and the ability to somewhat reinforce the object itself if need be. Disadvantage being low power when Territory is in a more diffuse state, and it takes a bit to prepare the object.
All in all, it was a well spent three hours coming up with it.
Finishing with that milestone for today, I sprawled out on my bed, relaxing for a bit. Closing my eyes used to only bring me darkness, but now I can 'see' everything within my territory around me. Of course, there are no colors, no light, no shadows, not even objects behind something else can escape detection within my Territory. This gives me an inkling of why this ability of mine will become worthy of the name Absolute Territory in the future, if it all goes right, of course.
Since laying on the bed doubled as perception training, I decided to just keep my eyes shut and rely on my space perception to do my telekinesis practice. I quickly identified the coins lying around and 'juiced them up' as preparation. I think I'll just call it marking instead. So, in the end, I marked ten before they started to become a bit hard to keep track, so I stopped there for now.
Next, I started moving them in various random ways, but it was still hard to split my attention between too many, so they ended up bunched together and moving the same way sometimes. Nonetheless, I was sure that this kind of coordination would've been beyond me, even via imagination, before arriving in this world.
It was during one of those random paths I noticed that even though a coin left my territory it didn't immediately leave my perception or control, only the amount of power I saturated it with started to rapidly decrease. Once the coin was back in my Territory it quickly filled up again without any problems. This was an interesting discovery once again.
If the loss of charge on the item in question doesn't exceed a certain threshold, then it might be a viable way of launching projectiles out of territory bounds while still being able to retrieve them. This bears more investigation in the future.
I tried to judge my Mind consumption, but I could only tell in vague terms how much was left and how fast it was depleting. If I didn't move the coins, then it was still decreasing, but only just, probably because of the upkeep of the marked coins. I took away the marks one-by-one to see how many I could support without going into negative Mind and it turned out to be seven.
To sate my curiosity, I exchanged the seventh coin with my dagger to see if size mattered, but the result wasn't that simple.
The dagger took up much more mind to mark properly, and if I wanted to stay at parity with regards to Mind regeneration and consumption, then I had to unmark all the other coins. I didn't know what metal the dagger was made of, but it seemed to be able to house a much larger amount of magic. I tried moving it out of my territory and as I expected, it was losing charge much slower than the coin was.
This means that higher-quality crafted items are better used as returning projectiles, and other miscellaneous items, such as stones, would fare better as one-shot discard items.
It would be nice to test exactly how much force I can apply to these projectiles if I go all out, but I really don't want to mess up anything in the room or in the immediate vicinity of the Hostess of Fertility. It wouldn't do to get kicked out on my second day here, so the high-powered tests need to wait until I'm in the dungeon and alone.
Close to an hour later my mind started to feel somewhat sluggish, which I assumed was a sign that my Mind reserves were running low, therefore I unmarked everything and walked to the window at the back of the room to get a little fresh air. I left it closed thus far, but it could do with a little air exchange. I ran into a minor problem that I wasn't remotely tall enough to open it, but the handles were well within the range of my Territory, so it became a good chance to practice my telekinesis with an everyday task. I hoped that performing such mundane tasks with the help of my ability would increase my finesse with it.
Opening the windows allowed me to rest my chin and arms on the windowsill and take a bunch of large lungful of fresh air. Thanks to the universally advanced sewer system, there was no disgusting stench the old cities used to have present here.
Through the window, I could see the paved inner courtyard of the pub. Chloe and Lunoire were currently in the process of airing out the laundry. I tried my best to not stare at them, but I couldn't help but steal a few glances, especially at Chloe, the cat-girl. I know I saw more than a few cat-girls since yesterday, but I long since mastered the skill of ignoring individuals in a crowd besides the space they take up if I need to avoid them, and I would never do something as embarrassing as ogle someone face to face, as it would have been with the waitress girls here. It was amazing how having feline ears and tail was just a perfectly ordinary thing here.
I moved my gaze to the sky and my thought process to the possible Guild problem I had. After ruminating on it for a while I decided that it would be best if I first found out if I needed to come up with plans for circumventing Guild rules at all, or there was an easy way of becoming an official adventurer open for me. The time I would be wasting on a plan I might not even need would be much better spent on reaching my stat goals before the dungeon.
Damn it, now would be the perfect time to visit the Guild. I really want to find a valid reason to stay in this room, but anything I can think of sounds like an excuse to me right now. I grumbled for a few more minutes, but then I closed the window, stashed most of my money in my bedding, then set out for the Guild. With luck, I managed to not come across anyone on my way out of the pub.
On my way towards the center of the city I remembered I should test if my Territory could be sensed by other people. If I tested it in a crowd, then the possibility of people attributing it to me would lessen considerably. Therefore I expanded my Territory to its max area and watched for any signs that the people coming and going noticed something. I kept this up until I reached near Babel, but I've found nothing out of the ordinary with regards to people's reactions.
Instead, I've found out that I was able to disregard unneeded details observed by my Territory, for example, I was able to hold back my Territory from going clothes-deep awareness of people to skin-deep. The reduced resolution of a fully expanded Territory also helped, but I think I will be able to rein it in in the future. I realize that this makes my ability an exceptional peeping tool, but I still have some standards that prevent me from using it for that purpose willy-nilly. I'm not gonna sanctimoniously say that I will never use it to that end till the day I die, but I'll be sure to keep it to its minimum. I wouldn't want to be scanned like that by others either.
Walking near Babel caused me to come across more adventurers, which made me notice the fact that some people felt different when they crossed my Territory. Since those people were obviously adventurers by their appearance, it seemed I was able to tell if people possessed a Falna or not. I have no idea of the implications of this fact for now, since it's usually not a great secret if someone has one, but it would be best to keep this on the down-low too.
During my walk on the road leading towards north, called North Main, I contemplated on who I'd like to have as my advisor if I can register successfully. Since I only know two from the story, it's not really a hard choice. One is a pink haired human girl called Misha, but her bubbly personality would most likely heavily grate on my nerves, so the only real choice is obviously Eina Tulle, a half-elf guild employee, who was the protagonist, Bell Cranel's advisor in the story.
She always cautioned Bell to not take unnecessary chances and tried to thoroughly educate all her charges about all the ins and outs of the dungeon. I really admire that determination of hers to do all she can to prepare her adventurers against everything the dungeon can throw at them.
This doggedness on her part was partly caused by an incident where a relative beginner adventurer under her care ended up dying to an Infant Dragon. I don't know exactly when that happened, but I'm pretty sure it was more than three years earlier than the start of the story, so I sadly can't do anything to prevent that anymore.
As I mulled over the subject, I finally arrived to the Guild building I was looking for. It was a fairly robust building, covered by intricate stone carvings and colorful flags. I had absolutely no idea if they represented something or they were just purely decorative, but it did a good job of distinguishing the building from others nearby.
The entrance was covered by purely decorative saloon doors, but because of my height, it was easier to duck underneath than to push for me to get inside.
I decided on the way here that in case Eina Tulle wasn't here, then I would only case the joint today and come back some other time when I could talk to her. Yet, my final struggle against my grim fate of having to talk to someone amounted to naught, since Eina was present and accounted for in the lineup of the receptionists. Thankfully I still had some time to gather my wits about me before I had to speak with her, since she was handling another adventurer's business currently.
After a few minutes of talking, the adventurer apparently finished his business and left the building. So, without further ado, I steeled myself and stepped up to the counter.