As soon as I touched the slime cores, I was presented with a message window. We had a good dozen of cores, most of them shattered while others were relatively intact, coming from slimes we killed by literally letting them ooze to death after being cut too many times.
Vespera was immediately on me, propping herself up on the tips of her feet and pushing her chin on my shoulder. I moved my head away to dodge her horns, but she simply pushed closer. I was overcome by the urge to bite her neck. Instead, I simply tickled her.
"Hey! I was tryina read!" she complained.
I let her pout for a moment, turning away and dragging the message window with me. A good distance away, Elyra was sitting on a log and reading a copy of the message on a window she summoned for herself, amused at our antics. Seeing her, Vespera pouted and did the same.
Energy source [Slime Cores - Various Levels] detected.
Consume?
"Do it!" she said immediately.
I, however, knew that it wasn't that simple. "What about selling them for money?"
The demon didn't seem too fazed. "Who cares about money?"
I chuckled. "For the bag of holding?"
"Right, but we can borrow money to buy it, can't we?"
We could. I had checked before leaving, but the loans were nothing short of extortion. Once again this world was sadly similar to my old life, which I hated, but at least it let me understand how certain things worked.
"The less money we can pay up front, the worse the conditions they will force on us."
That's when Elyra came to the rescue. "You are correct, Sol," she said, getting up and walking close to me. "I know you hate being in debt but…"
She took my hand in hers. I felt the soft warmth of her touch, and the way she looked up at me because of our height difference was very endearing. It made me want to protect her.
"I have been thinking about something you talked about a while ago," she continued. "You called them compounding gains, I think? If you don't use the cores now, you will lose the ability to choose a skill."
"It happened already, Sol," Vespera added. "And levels are harder and harder to get as you progress. It'd be silly not to choose a skill now. With it, we will be more powerful and we'll be able to clear the larger debt faster."
I hummed. It really warmed my heart that they both thought about it in terms of we rather than the problem being solely on my shoulders. I know that, by now, I should have gotten used to it, but I still did my best to notice it and appreciate it. They didn't owe me anything, despite their claims.
I blinked and saw the demon girl waving her hands in front of my face. "Hey? You there?"
"Yes, sorry, I was just taken aback by how smart you are."
She frowned. "What does that mean, Sol? Huh?"
Before she could demand an explanation, the System window began to fade.
"Take the skill, Sol."
I did. Or rather, I tried to. I gave the System the go-ahead, and it absorbed all the cores but… other than making the window stop blinking and fading, nothing happened. There still was insufficient energy.
"It needs more!" Elyra said.
Meanwhile, Vespera had already taken off running. "Of course it does! We're idiots. These were just low level slimes. Come on! We need to hunt more!"
What followed was a frantic search for any monster that we could find. Slimes, strange critters, small mutated animals, anything. The only thing we left alone was the actual non mutated fauna, after we found out that it had no cores.
By the time the sun was setting, we were covered in gore from digging up so many cores, but we had done it. There had been a couple of close calls, where the System window had begun fading again, but we kept it alive and now a skill selection window stared at me with all the weight of an important choice. I wasn't going to get many of these, I feared.
1 General Skill point available.
General Skills available:
Kinetic Dampening
Heavy Load Bearing
Environmental Harmonization
Damn. For some reason, I was hoping to get three entire new rolls. But no, in order to do so, I would need to spend a skill point just like the first time around. Indeed, even just thinking about it made the relevant window appear, but I dismissed it. The choices weren't bad at all. In fact, all three were potentially useful.
◈◈◈
We decided to delay choosing the skill for now, because we knew it was time to return to Perseverance's End and turn in what little materials we could carry. The thought made choosing [Heavy Load Bearing] rather enticing, but it wasn't like I had a backpack or anything. But, at least it gave me an idea.
Elyra poked me in the side.
"Ow?" I grumbled.
"You're being selfish again, Sol."
How did she know? Did she feel it through the bond? Right, then. "I'm thinking about what skill might benefit us the most."
"Better," she said. "You need to come to terms with the fact that we are an item, us three. Do you still not understand, Sol?"
"No, you're right," I said. "It's just…"
"…Hard," Vespera finished for me. "We know. That's why we are being patient. Anyway, we can both feel that there's something else bothering you. What is it?"
"Still thinking about debt, and how much I hate it."
"What about it?"
"It's pretty much that, if everybody's System works at least a little bit like ours, then the monster cores, soul crystals and anything that can power it are the real currency around here. Sure, timber and stone and meat are valuable for a city like Perseverance's End, but the true currency for adventurers? Anything that can translate to power."
"Okay?" the demon said, waiting for me to continue.
"It took a lot of cores to get a general skill point for level 4. And I have a hunch that the price will only grow as we progress. What about upgrading skills? The only time it happened to me, I didn't need energy, but what if that too starts to require cores after a certain threshold? What about Class skills? Last time I—we, weren't even offered the choice! Imagine how expensive that's going to be."
"It just occurred to me that there is yet another problem," Elyra said. "What if we gain a level in our class when we have no cores at the ready?"
"It would go to waste," Vespera said. "A big ass problem with how hard Class levels are for us to get."
"There. That's why i'm so deep in thought. If cores are also money, pretty much, then we will have to keep choosing our priorities. We'll need to be careful to never be out of cores in case we level up. But we also need to sell them for coins to buy the things we can't get ourselves."
"Like the bag of holding," Elyra said.
I nodded. "Or weapons. I need a weapon, and armor. Let's not forget about information, and everything else. It feels like I'm back in the grind and, fuck, I hate it."
"No you don't," Elyra said suddenly. It did not escape me that she used an abbreviation for the first time.
"I don't?" I asked.
"You don't. You hated it when you were a hauler, but now you are not one, are you Sol?"
Vespera grabbed my arm and purred in my ear. "You have us."
"That is correct," the angel said, blushing. "You do. But, most importantly. You—ah, we have a magic System that can grow. As long as we do not go too deep into debt, we can grow our power and nobody can take that away from us. Once we have enough of it…"
"…fuck money and debt," Vespera said.
"Assuming power can't be taken away, of course." I added.
"Dark," the demoness said. "All the more reason to become as powerful as heavens. You and Elyra have a big brain, you have experience from your past life, and I can punch things. We'll manage. I know we will. I trust us, Sol."
I sighed. "I… thank you. I'm thinking about picking [Heavy Load Bearing]."
I looked at them as noticed that they were both about to speak at the same time.
"Hear me out," I said before they could say anything. "Yes, it's funny that I'm basically becoming a hauler all over again. But with this, we might not need a bag of holding at all! A simple but large backpack would work."
"Oh!" Vespera's face brightened.
"That's right. One less expense, and no need to take a loan. We are still broke, though. All we have is one silver in our name, and that barely buys a night in a shitty inn. We are going to need to grind a lot. You know that, don't you?"
Neither of the two girls said anything for a while. Vespera kept glancing at me, and I didn't like the way she smiled. It was almost like she was letting me stew on my bad thoughts on purpose.
Finally, she decided I was miserable enough. "Or, you know, we could just take it easy. No crippling debt, no chasing money, no rushing armor and weapons. Just chilling. This is a new life for all three of us, after all, spacer boy."
It was so tempting, and she knew it. She really was a demoness at heart. The worst thing of them all was that it made sense!
"Right?" she added fuel to the fire. "We can stockpile money, slowly, steadily. Heavens, I'll even be reasonable and say we should keep a stash of cores in case we level up, and coins in case there's a tide and we need to retreat to the city. The backpack with the carrying skill is the perfect solution. It's not like you can fight right now, bare handed as you are."
"Shit," I said. "You are surprisingly reasonable."
"She is," Elyra concurred. "Perhaps the most reasonable of us all. Even before we were offered the General Skill, a backpack would have been the perfect solution. You have a lot of Strength to carry it. I was so caught up in wanting that bag of holding…"
"…that you couldn't see anything else, could you?" Vespera said with a smirk. "Trust me, I know how it feels."
"Alright," I said. "Now that we sorted our tunnel vision out, do we still head to the city?"
"Hells no."
We stopped. "Elyra?" the demon exclaimed. She ran over to the angel, checking her face and temperature. "Are you okay? Do you have a fever?"
The angel laughed. "Just because I cursed? It is only fair I drop some hells here and there, with how much you mention the heavens all the time."
Vespera broke out laughing. Holding her sides, almost struggling to breathe, she had to wipe tears from her eyes before she calmed down.
"You're right, you're right. It's only fair, little angel. Now come on, it's still not too dark out. Let's find someplace to make camp. Tomorrow we head to the city and buy the backpack."
We walked. I was mostly silent, letting the demon and angel have a nice chat together. It seemed that, even though they had been imprisoned together for almost an eternity, there were still things they didn't know about each other. Or rather, I was beginning to suspect that the real reason they kept surprising each other—one with her wits, and the other with her unexpected banter—was another. They were changing, and I knew I was the engine behind this change.
It made me feel… strange, but not in a bad way. It showed just how big of an impact I was having on their lives, and seeing it in action meant more to me than any amount of words ever could. When we finally made camp, I felt light, happy even.
When I saved the girls, I had no way of knowing just what sort of irreplaceable treasure they would end up becoming in just a few short days, but now? I couldn't see a future without them. Their presence filled the air, banishing the loneliness and the cold, a light in the sea of darkness that was this world.
I made an Oath, to myself. That I would keep them safe and that I would do my best to bring them happiness and fulfillment. The System stirred, before hitting me with its usual error message. I didn't care. The Oath was not meant for it, it was meant for me.