Chapter 49: Back to Herself
Freya walked back into the chamber, fish in hand.
"Surpriiise~!"
Only for her jaw to nearly come unhinged from the shock.
Not because Aldric was being manhandled, no, no, no...
But because the person manhandling Aldric was none other than...
Mei?
Poor Aldric was laboring through push-ups, her comfortably seated cross-legged on his back, and that was precisely the thing one forgot a little too quickly behind her cute face and crippling shyness, namely that she was two meters of solid muscle, with all the weight that inevitably came with it.
Aldric, bright red, trembled under the load, while Laïa counted along, humming, perfectly at ease.
"Sixty-seven~"
"Sixty-eight~"
"Sixty-nine~"
Oh, so she’s learned to count that far now, Aria would be proud of her progress!
Delighted that all this served Laïa in one way or another, she stepped over the tableau and joined the elder sister, focused as ever on her lessons.
"Look, Naïa, I caught two fine fish."
"You—" She broke off as she turned her head, and her gaze fell on the fish. "...Ah."
"What is it? Why the face?"
"Those horned fish, they’re called Hornblades, and from what Aria told me, they have a toxic gland, which makes them very tricky and very delicate to cook. If you cut the gland wrong, the whole flesh of the fish ends up contaminated, without you even noticing."
"Aaah... I see... a bit like fugu, then..." Freya replied, disappointed that her little catch might not make it onto the plate, the comparison only sharpening her craving to eat it all the more.
"There might be a solution anyway. After all, we’ve got a taste-tester on hand." Naïa let out, turning her gaze toward Aldric, still suffering under Mei’s weight.
The two girls exchanged a small, diabolical laugh, before setting to work in the kitchen.
Besides, I’ve got my Minor Heal, just in case.
Let’s just hope it makes him suffer a little, just in case~.
Naïa then set about showing her the procedure, exactly as Aria had taught her. She began by detaching the horn with a sure hand, explaining in passing that it made for a solid, sought-after material for the forge, before moving on to the most delicate part. The gland, nestled just beneath the gills, had to be removed in one piece, without ever cutting into it, exactly as with fugu, failing which the poison would spread at once through all the flesh.
Once the two fish were prepped, Laïa lit a fire and grilled the fillets, the smell of which soon filled the chamber. Then they held out a piece to Aldric, who bit into it and froze, eyes wide.
"This is so good!!"
They watched him, on the lookout for the slightest sign. He clearly didn’t understand why. They waited a little longer. He finished his piece, so they held out a second, this time taken from the other fish.
"I’m not hungry anymore! Do eat some yourselves." he said out of pure politeness, but the girls insisted, and he ended up swallowing it too, with no more apparent effect.
Naïa and Freya, satisfied, high-fived each other, while Aldric, for his part, still understood nothing of the situation.
So the girls set about eating, sharing the fish in good cheer, while Laïa kept playing with Aldric, slipping in a few questions along the way, not quite innocent ones...
And so it was that Freya ate, for the first time across both her lives, something she’d hunted with her own hands.
It’s not so bad, in the end.
It was at that precise moment that Aldric choked all of a sudden, a coughing fit doubling him over.
The girls froze, the blood draining from their faces all at once, bracing for the fatal instant.
Then he caught his breath, wiped his eyes, and lifted his head toward them with an embarrassed smile.
"Wow... it’s so good I swallowed it wrong, eating too fast..." He scratched the back of his head, awkward. "Sorry for scaring you..."
A silence, the time it took for the relief to settle, then Laïa was the first to snicker, at once joined by Naïa, and even Mei let out a small laugh behind her helm, so that the whole chamber ended up laughing heartily, Aldric included, without quite understanding why.
The meal stretched on like that amid the laughter, Laïa continuing to badger poor Aldric with questions between bites, while Mei, for once, had let her guard down enough to smile for real.
And it was while watching the three of them, so relaxed with one another, that Freya’s gaze lingered on Aldric, and a dull unease came to spoil a little of the moment’s sweetness.
Did I really make the right choice, keeping him alive? Spending so much time around him like this, aren’t the girls at risk of getting too attached to him as well?
Then, as if to press right where it hurt, something took hold of her.
Wouldn’t he be more useful turned into mana? A human carrying a god’s blessing, wouldn’t that offer a colossal boost, maybe on par with the Winter Calamity? How far would my dungeon come along, with that? Maybe I could speed up this tier, get enormously close to the next, or even reach it in one go? Maybe—
"Madam?" said Naïa, gently shaking her shoulder.
"Ah, yes... sorry... I was lost in thought... what is it?"
"Are you done eating? I was going to bring the leftovers to the Mycofoxes."
"Yes, yes, I’m good, go ahead."
What just happened there?
Her mind went at once to her skill, the one that hadn’t shown itself in so long she’d ended up forgetting it.
She glanced around her, but nothing.
Isn’t that strange? I really felt like I was getting carried away, slipping into some kind of fever, when the skill wasn’t even active?
It was the system that answered her questions.
[ The skill Word of Greed was indeed active. ]
But then why didn’t the notification show up?
[ Since the last time you saw it, the system decided to remove its visible notification, in order to streamline your experience! ]
[ The system hopes this suits you! ]
What?! What, what, what?
The world around her seemed to sway for a brief instant, as she grasped what that implied.
You’re telling me that without my knowing, this whole time, this skill has been able to influence my own thoughts and those of others through my words, without my realizing it for a single second?
[ Affirmative. ]
She rose without a word and headed toward the Heart chamber, to be alone, already thinking as she walked.
Because it wasn’t just a notification that had been hidden from her. It was proof, in black and white, that this system she’d been living alongside from the very start could unilaterally decide what she was allowed to see or not. Everything she thought she had a handle on slipped a little further from her grasp with each revelation.
And all these thoughts, one after another, converged toward a single, same conclusion.
Even if it’s not for now, even if it’s not right away, one day I’ll have to free myself from this system, and until then, be far more wary of it than I’ve been so far.
[ Unfortunately, dear host, the system is a part of you, and you are a part of the system. ]
Her emotions taking over again, she started shouting through the corridors, before stopping dead, one hand pressed against the cold rock, her breathing heavy.
"What in the world is wrong with you?! Put the skill’s notification back, then!"
[ It shall be done, as the host desires! ]
The ease with which the system granted her request surprised her far more than if it had refused.
Did I work myself up over nothing?
Had she extrapolated too far? Had she distrusted the system wrongly? Could it really have done that for her own good? Had she simply grown too paranoid?
Is the system my friend, or my enemy?
[ The system is merely an artificial intelligence designed to assist the host and fulfill the function it was created for. It is neither your friend nor your enemy. ]
Closing the notification with a wave of her hand, Freya kept coming back to the same point. She was quite incapable of saying whether the system was toying with her, whether it was really as neutral as it claimed, whether it wasn’t, deep down, an enemy advancing behind a mask, or whether—
And that was precisely the hardest part. Knowing nothing, staying in the most complete fog, exactly like with Aria, whose very state she had no idea of, unable to say whether she was even still—
She let out a long breath, and pulled herself together before the thought could go all the way.
Get a grip, Freya, one thing at a time, it wouldn’t do any good to know anyway.
She slapped both her cheeks.
Whether the system is a friend, an enemy, or perfectly neutral doesn’t matter, so long as it’s useful to me, so long as I use it to my advantage, and so long as I reach my goal in the end!
On that resolve, Freya sat down at the foot of the Heart, and spent the hours that followed thinking, really thinking, about the course to take going forward.
Because she was now fully aware of it, lately, she’d panicked far too much, given in to her emotions far too much, tossed from one revelation to the next, one situation to the following, without ever catching her breath. Everything had chained together far too fast, and she’d let herself be overwhelmed by the unknown instead of facing it.
That wasn’t her, that, not the Freya she’d always been.
It was time to become harder again, colder, more calculating, the one who always kept a move ahead and never let her gut decide in place of her head.
So she went back over everything from the start, methodically. The dungeon and its reconstruction, the mana to grow, the new chains to set up. Aldric and what she really intended to get out of him. The baron, the barony, her conquest plan to pick back up where she’d left it. And Aria, who would have to be recovered one day, one way or another.
Piece by piece, the fog lifted, and the path took shape before her, clearer and clearer, sharper and sharper, until at last she knew, precisely, what remained for her to do.