[12] - Re: Covery
IF could still remember the first day she truly met her.
It was an ordinary day. She'd taken a job in Leanbox, and was silently cursing Histoire with every breath she had. She had things she wanted to do, games she wanted to play, but no, she couldn't do that, did she? She was an adventurer after all. She had to work and work and continue working.
She didn't mind, truly. She just wished Histoire could've told her days in advance.
So there she was, hacking through monsters when she heard the earth rumble. She thought it was an earthquake at first. She'd brought out her bike and was ready to ride out at any moment.
But then she saw her. A woman with bright green hair and purple eyes that pierced through all. Her spear was a whirlwind of death, and any monster that dared came close was shredded without mercy. Not a single was spared.
IF stared, awed, remaining unmoving even as the woman turned to her. She'd blinked, before a smile lit her face, and IF was sure she'd ascended to heaven then and there.
Lady Green Heart. Vert. Ruler of Leanbox. She should pay her respects. Her mind reminded her over and over. But she didn't do that. A different urge rose beyond them all, and IF let free a small grin.
"Mind if I join?"
She'd blinked, before she laughed. It was a nice sound, IF realized, like the gentle ringing of a wind chime in the heart of summer. She easily agreed, and IF found herself hunting monsters for hours on end.
She should've been somewhat afraid, she supposed, but she wasn't. She wasn't sure why. When Vert invited her to come to the Basilicom, she agreed to stay for a day. She had to head back soon after all.
…
And then She stayed a couple weeks longer than intended, as subtle payback for Histoire's sudden request. Vert quietly giggled when she admitted that.
And just like the warmth of summer, she faded away.
It's warm. After days of rain, the skies finally cleared. The sun that'd hid from them finally showed itself, and with it came its light. It was warm. IF liked how warm it was.
She felt someone tap her shoulder, and she turned to see a kindly old woman, holding in her hands a basket of baked pastries. IF smiled, silently accepting the basket and waving the woman farewell. She looked down at the basket and smiled wryly. She usually wouldn't, but the woman was scary when it came to giving pastries to everyone.
She sighed. She wasn't sure how long she'd spent unconscious, but it'd been a week since she first woke up on this island. She'd been confused at first, then slightly relieved at seeing Cave sleeping beside her, and then confused again.
She'd woken up on a bed. It was nice that she'd escaped that sub-dimension, she supposed, but she had no idea where she was.
And then a woman and her son came in. They'd stopped, surprised that she was finally awake, and IF finally knew where she was. An island just west of Planeptune, where a small village was built, hidden between the trees.
Falcom's village.
She asked the woman some questions, and she could only sigh in relief at the answers she received. Neptune was Planeptune's CPU. Histoire was its oracle. The Gamindustri Graveyard was not to be entered. She was still in the Hyperdimension, and she couldn't be more relieved.
They found her and Cave on the beaches a couple days ago, she said. The woman had done as much as she could, but the Viral Corruption Cave had was persistent. It was expected really. They didn't have Share Energy. They couldn't heal her.
She wanted to immediately go back, but she stopped herself. Cave was unconscious, her phone was blasted, Cave's was as well, there was no public telephone for her to use, and as awesome as Soul Blazer was, riding over water wasn't one of its features just yet. Shame.
But freeloading on someone else left a bad taste in her woman that'd saved them was a humble gardener, and IF helped out as much as she could. She wasn't a gardener by any means, but she had some minor knowledge at raising plants.
The lady said that she was a genius, but IF had simply laughed softly. She doubted that. Compa was far better than she was.
That wasn't the only reason she decided to stay however.
[ Celestial Hymn* ]
Rank: Starter | 27%
A hymn of the stars sounds. Allows the user to safely absorb a certain amount of Negative Energy. This amount increases as the user's Level rises.
Negative Energy can now be gathered from the world
Negative Energy can be converted into SP (1 SE → 3 SP)
The skill had just…sort of popped into her status. She couldn't find any notifications telling her of where it came from. The name sounded oddly familiar, but she couldn't quite remember why. The most she could remember was some sort of…flower?
She frowned slightly. Trying to think of what happened made her head hurt. She could remember waking up in that sub-dimension. She could remember the daring escape into the abyss, and even the strange glowing orb she found in the end. But whenever she tried to remember what happened before she woke up, static filled her mind.
…
That aside, her new skill brought with it two new additions into her status.
Name: IF | [ Wolf Slayer ]
Lvl 13 [ 19150/30000 ]
HP: 950/950 | SP: 1850/1850
SE: 0/0 | NE: 12/100
Str: 17 | Vit: 14
Int: 24 | Men: 16
Agi: 25 | Tec: 17
Two new bars had appeared under her HP and SP. She didn't know what they were initially, but it didn't take long for her to find what they were. Share Energy and Negative Energy. Energies that a normal human shouldn't have access to. And now she did.
IF wasn't quite sure what to feel about it.
Her SE remained at zero, which made sense. She had no way of storing or absorbing it, although she worried if Share Energy would now react to her. She hoped not. She wouldn't be able to explain that.
Having NE inside her made her feel somewhat queasy, but being able to convert it into SP was a nice boon. It was essentially a second SP bar, and also an easy way to regenerate her SP quickly without relying on SP Chargers. It definitely helped that the conversion is nearly instantaneous.
She'd spent a week slowly draining the Negative Energy from Cave, slowly draining away the corruption in her body. The black patches covering her body had nearly faded. Only her arms remain tainted, and they were growing smaller every time she pulled Negative Energy away from her.
She didn't pull out all of it at once however. Putting aside the time she needed to drain all the NE, she remembered Neptune saying that Viral Corruption wasn't something you could immediately heal from. Suddenly pulling out all the Negative Energy from an organism would cause it to go into shock. Clearly not something she wanted to happen.
Cave should be healed in a day or so. Since 1 NE could be turned into 3 SP, she pulled out 600 NE from Cave every day; essentially a full recharge of her SP. The extra SP was nice. Monsters occasionally appeared on the island, and a good Spectral Charge would usually do the trick.
A couple days before the weekly merchant ship arrived. Cave should be healed by then, and they'd board it and return to Planeptune.
…
She wondered how everyone was doing. Were Histoire and Neptune worried?
IF smiled slightly. Of course they were. That's just how they are. They were probably frantically looking for where she was. Vert and Chika were probably freaking out as well. And 5pb. too.
Her smile fell. She really hoped they were alright. She didn't know if that sub-dimension was created by ASIC, but the threat 'Magic' carried was real. Her and Cave's situation could be an isolated incident, but it could also not be. This could be ASIC's first strike at Gamindustri. A prelude to the first tragedy.
She was worried. She was worried over what this would bring.
…
She didn't know what to do.
"Thank you, Ms. IF. Truly."
IF huffed. "Just call me IF." She said again. Cave gave no response, though she did smile slightly. IF silently sighed. She knew Cave was just messing with her at this point. She…didn't mind, she supposed. "And it's fine."
Cave shook her head. "If it hadn't been for you, I would've died. That Magic was far stronger than I expected, and had you not saved me from that…'sub-dimension', was it?" IF nodded her head. "Yes. If you hadn't saved me from there, I would've fully succumbed to my corruption. I would've become a monster."
IF stared for a moment. "...are you not going to ask how I healed you?"
Cave stared back. "Should I?" She asked. She closed her eyes. "My corruption faded every time I awoke. You were healing me whenever I fell asleep. It's clear you didn't want anyone to know how, so why should I?"
IF sighed gently, feeling the ice around her heart melt. She…would've been uncomfortable telling her, but she wouldn't have minded. Cave was trustworthy. If she promised something, she'd do her best to uphold it. "...Thanks."
Cave smiled. "It's of no issue, Ms. IF."
A comfortable silence fell over them after that. They simply sat around the dining table, occasionally nibbling on the pastries IF brought back.
It felt like home.
"...We'll be leaving tomorrow." IF then said, turning her eyes towards the window. It was sunny outside. "We'll ride on the merchant ship, and we'll stop at Planeptune. Are you fine with that?" Cave nodded, and they settled into silence once more.
IF closed her eyes. There was a lot for her to do. She'd need to report her survival to Histoire, make a new pair of daggers, report the new sub-dimension they'd been trapped in, and make her way to Leanbox. That final one especially terrified her. She didn't want to go on a plane. Not now. Hopefully never.
And then? She knew she had to get stronger. She'd probably spend several days camping at Gapain Field. She'd hunt monsters day and night. Perhaps she'd fight the Elemental Dragon as well. It'd be somewhat dangerous, but she'd fought against the Flame Fenrir already. She knew she could win against something stronger.
She'd probably need to find some consistent source of Negative Energy. As apprehensive as it made her, Celestial Hymn was a skill she now had. Ranking it up would be beneficial.
Gamindustri Graveyard was a definite answer, but she doubted she could get access to it in any form. Histoire would definitely say no, and if she tried entering it by force, she'd immediately be swarmed by hordes of monsters.
Sub-dimensions were another possibility, but she wasn't sure where she'd find one. She could try heading back to Darkness 60, but she didn't know how she'd enter it.
She internally sighed. There was so much to do. Too much. If she could, she'd gladly lock herself inside a library and laze around.
But she couldn't. She couldn't waste this opportunity she'd received. She couldn't let the CPUs deal with ASIC on their own. She couldn't let Nepgear be trapped in that graveyard again. She couldn't let the CPU Candidates be left alone again. She couldn't let ASIC take over Gamindustri again. She couldn't-
She-
…
It'd be fine. ASIC would eventually fade, even without her interfering. Neptune would then get sucked away into the Superdimension. She'd then come back, and then get carried away into the Zero Dimension.
They'd survive. IF wasn't needed to deal with ASIC. She knew that. Of course she knew that. She was just a human. She wasn't a CPU. But-
She needed to do something. She needed to be strong enough to not fall, to be able to stand and carry when the others couldn't.
A human could never compare to a CPU. Perhaps that was true, but IF had broken past the barrier of time already. She'd break that illusion.
…
"Hey, Cave." She asked as she took one last bite from her pastry. The woman tilted her head to the side. IF smiled. "Wanna go hunt some monsters? It's the last day we're staying here, after all."
Cave blinked for a moment, before she smiled back, her scissor blade shimmering into her hand. "Let's."
[Level up!]
IF silently stared at the glistening waters, watching as small waves blew out from the ship. It was sunny today as well, and the sky was cloudless. The sun shined brilliantly, its rays reflecting onto the ocean and glittering like gold dust.
There was nothing around her, nothing but the seemingly endless ocean. It made everything feel small, meaningless, yet beautiful nonetheless.
If everything went well, then they'd be docking in a couple hours. If she drove at full speed, they'd make it to Planeptune in minutes, and everything would continue on from there. It was relieving, and terrifying.
She didn't know what'd happened during their disappearance. She didn't know if that suspicious group had made another move on Leanbox. She didn't know anything.
…
She took a deep breath, and sighed. She knew nothing, but that was fine, she supposed. That was the reason they were returning. All her worries over the future were, at the moment, just worries. She didn't know if all those scenarios her mind cooked up had come true. They certainly could, but they also could not.
She'd find out and move on, tackling each thing that came up one by one.
She brought up Celestial Hymn's description once more. That first sentence still bugged her. 'A hymn of the stars' it mentioned. It sounded familiar, really familiar, but she didn't know why. She tried to remember, but soon pain flared, and she pinched her eyes close.
Her memories were a mess. Patches of it were missing. She could remember things from that other timeline fairly well, but the more she dug around, the more she realized just how much was missing. Places she went to, people she met, monsters she fought, things she experienced. Some of them were lost.
She knew that the Planeptune of Superdimension was being led by someone else. She could easily remember what she looked like, how she was, what she liked and disliked. But her name, the way she fought, the moments they spent together; they were gone.
She frowned. Jumping back in time wasn't done without sacrifices. It made sense, IF supposed. She'd essentially forced her soul back into the body of her younger self. It made sense that some things slipped through the cracks.
It made her feel…apprehensive, she supposed. Not afraid. Never afraid. Memories were fickle little things. They could be twisted, lost, broken. But their influence on her will remain until she closes her eyes for the last time. And those lost memories could be replaced with new ones, brighter ones, more vibrant ones.
She was worried, but never afraid. She'd never let herself fall to fear, and she never would. Fear was a parasite, and one she would never let grow.
…
She looked up to the bright skies above. The sun was shining bright today, and she dearly prayed that it'd remain that way as long as possible.
She smiled.
There were many things she needed to do. There were many things she'd need to prepare for. She wasn't sure if she was ready. She wasn't sure if she'd ever be. But that was fine.
The True Route wouldn't elude her this time. She'd lead everyone to their happy ending. She promised.
