"A girl, huh?" I pinched the soft skin of my forearm after I'd taken my living form once again. After resting for a while I'd decided that it was probably best to acquaint myself with my new form little by little, because I'd probably need to use it once I got out to the outside world. I leaned my head back against the crystal I was sitting against, feeling the cold seeping into my bones before I swapped back to my undead form. "So did the goddess just make me a girl for fun, or did she have some other purpose in mind?" I wondered aloud, looking at the glowing crystal sky.
"Well, no use thinking about it too hard," I stood up looking around me once more. I hadn't seen any monster since I set foot on this floor, though I hadn't exactly ventured very far yet. "Let's test out some skills then," I flexed my fingers trying to activate my Summon Weapon skill without the system's help. I felt a glow of power around my hand and tried to concentrate, shaping it into a sword. It took a few minutes, and I felt the system's guiding power helping me along, but once it was over I held a simple steel sword in my hand. "Mm," I gave it a few test swings. "Not too bad for a first attempt, definitely better than that trash I spawned with."
I tested out my improved Dark Slash and found both its range and power had significantly increased. I tested out my Dark Magic too and found I could simultaneously summon five of the dark balls of flame and their power and accuracy had increased, even to the point of having a slight homing effect. I found that the Corruption Magic I had gained didn't really have a clear form of its own, but it could be applied over other things—so I could apply it to my Dark Magic to give it a Necrotic effect, or put it on swords or arrows to inflict the effect that way. It didn't seem super flexible or powerful yet, but it was still at level one, so I wasn't too worried. Plus its effects were pretty hard to test out on solid blocks of ice, so I wasn't entirely sure how they'd affect living creatures.
"Alright," I turned to Rufi, trying to put the events of the last few hours behind me. "Let's go find some monsters."
"Ruf!" Rufi chirped, and we set out together down the field of snow.
Grace, Leticia, Almara, Kelichi, Shawn, and Will stood at the memorial plaque for Ray Gardner holding candles. A large tomb had been prepared inside the Chapel of Saints with enough space to hold all of the 27 summoned, should the necessity arise. A grim reminder of the fate that awaited them should they fail to stop the Demon King.
"He was a good friend," Kelichi spoke first, kneeling before the plaque. "He always noticed when people around him were down. I didn't have enough time to get to know him well, but even so I could see the light of his character, which shined so brightly even when there was no one around to see it."
Will spoke next. "Ray, I never got to know you, but even so I respected you a lot. Coming into a new class in a new country, you never backed down. I'm sorry…I never made things easier for you."
Finally Grace approached, putting her hand on the plaque. "Ray, I'm sorry. We should have been there for you when you went down. We've only been in this world for a little while, it's hard to believe someone's already gone. I promise we won't forget you. Some may say that in a situation like this one casualties are inevitable, but I don't want to believe that's true. We'll get stronger, for you, for our classmates who will continue to be in danger, for the people that the Demon King's rule threatens to kill."
Seven snow foxes surrounded me and Rufi, ice crystals hanging over their heads, ready to launch towards us. I summoned several balls of dark flames and shot them towards the crystals, rushing towards one side of the group as I made a cut in the air with my sword. Dark energy raced out through the air, slashing one of the foxes in half and taking another's leg off.
Rufi followed behind me shooting out more dark flares at the crystals from the foxes I had turned my back towards. I leaped over the dead fox, breaking the encirclement, and turned taking a crystal Rufi had missed with my sword. I sharpened my dark magic into arrows, then sent them towards the other foxes, increasing the homing effect to make them dart around the ice crystals the foxes summoned in defense. The arrows took one in the head, killing it instantly, and another in the rear flank. The sharpened flames didn't go out immediately, so seizing the opportunity I reached out with my corruption magic and managed to instill the necrotic effect into the wound, a creeping rot slowly seizing the fox's body as it writhed in pain.
Applying the effect over that distance had distracted me, though, and one of the foxes used the opportunity to leap and take a bite at my rib cage. It latched onto one of my bones, ice slowly seeping from its teeth, but Rufi quickly came to my rescue, sinking her teeth into the fox's neck.
The two uninjured foxes watched me, baring their teeth, then sent up a blizzard smoke screen. I shot dark magic into the storm to clear the visibility, but by the time I did they were already dozens of meters away. The fox I had hit with corruption magic died quickly thereafter, while the fox I had wounded with my dark slash tried to limp off, but I shot out a dark arrow and ended its life too.
"Five kills, not bad." I took a look at my ribs where the fox had bitten me and used my Evernight Touch to heal the damage. "I'm definitely a lot stronger than I used to be, though I feel like I'm still a little lacking in versatility."
I looked down at Rufi who was greedily munching into the neck of one of the foxes, his face covered in blood. "You hungry little one?" I said, amused, scritching a part of its side that wasn't stained with red. "I thought you were undead like me, I guess that's more or less your living form, huh?"
I looked up into the field of ice and snow. "I still have a long way to go, huh."