Consequences are not aways easy to see

*Crack*

"Not enough." Aki smiled and tried again with a piercing intent.

*Chink*

"Needs more strenght and perforation then." He muttered, not felling stressed at all that his tenth attempt had resulted in failure yet again and made his eyes start to bleed again. "Maybe if i add more points, add another propulsor and spin it the barrier will break..." His mutters suddenly stopped and he looked up.

"What are you doing?" Asked Anna as she approached, who'd made her way through the tunnels after feeling for his smell.

"I must have forgotten to tell, but i'm in the middle of something very important, which i need to do alone otherwise i will hurt you. Please leave." His voice was normal, but he didn't actually seem to care for what he was saying.

"Does it hurt?" She asked while trying to get closer.

"Of course it hurts!" He said with some anger, calming down imediatly. "Anna, love of my life, please, don't get closer. Take those cooking lessons you wanted, because this is going to take a while." He explained more calmly, but with a bit of scorn before starting to wipe his face from the blood.

"What is wrong? You haven't said you love me yet, and you certainly woldn't do it the first time like this." She said with a lot of worry and a very serious frowing face.

"It's nothing you should..." Aki stopped himself. He'd tried doing it the normal way, but there was no reason to shove her away like an idiot. "Look, i'm not myself right now. I can't even feel my normally numbed feelings. I don't want to ruin our relationship while i'm like this, so please, don't try to help."

"What do you feel then?" She asked.

"My personality. Which is generally very cuddly and murder happy, but my feeling of touch is barelly here anymore, so i only receive mental responses." He cut his arm off, grabed it with the other and started growing it back. "Nothing. Pain gets me number. Anger too, so please, step away." He explained, as if to a child before starting to bite in the cut off limb in his hand to get the energy back in his body.

She made to leave after that, but she stopped after one step. Aki barely noticed that, but he decided to scare her away and go back to breaking this thing holding his emotions.

"What about guilt than." She muttered. Aki only had a snap of moment to understand it, but when he finally noticed she didn't actually ask him more than stated, her head was already flying.

He imediatly caught it before it could even actually begin it's arc and put it back in place before making a rapid surgery with time magic stopping the bleeding and oxigen leeking while he turned his hand's immune to the field's effect and sewed her head back with mithryl threads and an orichalcum needle while not receiving any damage from the spell she'd used to cut it off to begin with.

"What do you think..." Before he could even finish such sentence, the sound of glass breaking and someone with sharp nails fingering a blackboard filled his ears. Stunned, Aki lost counciousness for a second, but when his eyes focused again, he felt it.

He felt it all.

[Congratulations! Through rigorous training you have raised your WIS value. Your unique skill Mental alacrity Lv 10 has evolved into Soul revolution Lv 1. Nihilistic Mind is now level 2.]

"Urrrrr.... What the actual fuck woman? I was, argh, my head. I hate you. Fuck this, Ima just gonna lay down for a bit. Never do that again." He complained while groaning and shutting his eyes. Everything just felt... More. And it hurt like a bitch. Including the already healed arm he'd cut off. Ghost pain, but still. "I've heard people telling others telling someone to find a girl that can make them see the world in a different light, but this is ridiculous. Arcenis, this was your idea? It worked. But never again. Shoot me in the head, liver and whatever else, however many times necessary, drown me in my own blood, shove a fucking cactus in my arse, but don't do it again." He complained, feeling his tongue against his mouth in all its movements while the driad grinned while using his lover's face. Aki had no clue if his sensitivity was because he'd never felt like a normal person or because of his magically enhanced body.

It was likely both with the later having way bigger a part in it, but it felt good to tell imself he was more now.

*****

Leaving a steaming bath in complete nakedness, Aki was happy to announce to all he was much better, though his prisoners were a bit abashed.

"I will be transferring you four to a more secure and habitable location now that my EQ is back, try not to cause much trouble, would you?" Aki said towards the two quiet man he'd not bothered to talk with yet.

"Wait, we're still prisoner?! Why!?" Arlo screamed indignant.

"Why should I release you? If you are from the same village, than you understand how much danger I'd have from doing so. Back there I was just a normal third year with a few more loose screws than normal, yet here I can be whatever. Plus have a magic dick. Simple mistakes from my part are unacceptable." He explained with a calm tone, causing the cute teen to pout. "It's not like we are enemies either though, so you guys can just relax a bit and treat it as a vacation. I have plenty of simple books and Ju can attend to your questions while I try to contact your base and other matters." He said and waved it off. "There's also plenty of high quality lube by the way." Both man blushed, Arlo more so, and showed completely different reactions, with one talking about sexual harassment and the other making a thumbs up. "And for you two~" Aki non-chalantly turned to the other two and waves his hand before their pupils started to dilate from the liquid drops that fell on their face. "WEED!" He said and laughed. Yes, he always wanted to do that.

It didn't take long for one of then to fall over when his skin absorbed enough of said plant extract. It was absurdly easy to magically enhance this plant, which naturally got darkness nature, but strangely didn't present the usual corrosive properties plants of such element have. So Aki infused light and arcane magic into it and found out that the thing got about a hundred times stronger.

He would have tried it, but he hadn't had too much time to just spend lazing around, and although Anna and Ela explained it was a great product, before the arcane magic was infused, now he couldn't get high at all thanks to his new race.

For some reason it was now even written in Italian instead of Latin.

He felt he should try to get a sixth sense skill and try to swing a shovel around or something, but he felt the original author had garnered enough respect he should at least not make fun of his setting.

Aki really though it strange he'd yet to get a detection or perception skill though. He'd yet to check any unique skill but mental alacrity, but there were few that could have been hogging the XP for a skill like that.

Looking at his unconscious prisoners, Aki started carrying them away with telekinesis and had Ju deal with the other two. Currently, she was using the form of a purple little girl with a pink ahoge, so Aki couldn't resist hugging her before going out.

She tried bitting his head off again, but hugged him too.

*****

"So you mean that there actually is a group that actually calls themselves laughing daisy?! But that name is terrible unless... Is your boss a snow elf, scantily clothed vampire with sadistic taste, grows plants into people to better cultivate them, oh my gods, the little shit does that kind of gardening? Yeah, I was going to try for an Alliance with the loot I'd holed up, but even I have my limits on tolerance, you know? That's utterly disgusting and degenerated work right there. Oh, don't look at me like that missy, mind magic is effective on offense just as well as on torture and you know that. Now, before I look into leveling a torture skill and study your bodily functions from inside out, any info you want to give and lighten your load?" Aki said to his prisoners in his new dungeon. The woman spat on him, but he controlled the liquid to hit her eye, which sizzled and popped, inciting screams of pain.

Her eye popped back as the galvanized cavity filled with new tissue.

"I see. I shaw leave you two with flesh crawlers for the night while I go to my bed. I'd use trolls, but I actually couldn't find any in the whole forest." He explained as the probes invaded them through existing and new holes.

*****

"... And now i'm kind of scared. Can you promise me?" Aki explained with a serious face about what had happened earlier and how he was now a bit traumatized.

"I mean, yeah, i promise not to hurt myself to wake you up." Ana said. Truth be told, it was very confusing hearing about something like this incident, but the fact that she actually noticed she'd consider doing exactly that to her very well atached head, was also kind of scary. 'What do i actually feel for him right now?' She asked herself.

"That's a relief." He said and hugged her. Aki wasn't the best at it, but he problably noticed she was thinking of something. "I'd much preffer you just try and help me some other way really. All that time i was actually quite scared of seeing you and the kids while feeling no love, so i kind of burried myself underground real deep. I was probably going to do lots of idiotic shit if not for Arcenis. Can we just stay like this for a bit?" He rapidly let out. She'd never heard of a male so ready to share their feelings and insecurities, never mind one that would ask for confort like this. She hugged him back and hummed an answer. 'He just said he loves me, didn't he? Should i say something special too?' She thought to herself with some anxiousness as well. "By the way, I don't need to worry about my beard growing overnight anymore apparently, do you think I should keep it or not? I mean, I know it makes me look cooler but..."

"You hug me and Alma too much for keeping a beard." She promptly said.

"Right? Yeah, I'm a gonna leave it like this. By the way, how was your first day at the school? Ah, we should probably sit down right?" He asked, but caught her hand and went towards the sofa he'd arranged when remodeling the cave's inside into a noble house.

She didn't really mind this, he'd warned her this kind of behavior might happen and she should tell him the same moment, but wasn't something like this fine? As they sat down she began to think how to describe her day.

"I actually really liked it. The children were kind of unruly but really sweet too. Some didn't pay much attention or had some difficulty, but explaining to then wasn't bothersome as much as disappointing, while also gratifying when they actually learned or committed to it." She said, eying her lover's grin.

"That's great dear, do you think you want to keep doing it?" He asked her with one of the biggest smiles she'd seen him allow himself.

"I don't know if I'm really qualified though."

"Not anywhere bigger than your current class, no you aren't. That's part of it of it though, if you want to do something than you gotta put effort into it. Look at me, I was only the shadow of the mage king I am today when we met!" He said with a cheeky smile and pompous air. It was luckily easy to tell he was joking as he came back to normal right after. "You can always study with me. I may not be a good teacher, but explaining some details to someone as smart as you shouldn't be a problem. When we finish with the normal material you can even read the more advanced and complex books with me." He said, looking for all that looked like he somehow sprouted a tail and couldn't stop waging it.

"I think that might be good. Don't expect too much of me though." She said, not sure she would be able to reach his expectations.

"Yeah, no, i still don't think it will be a problem. Anyway, I got the perfect... ideas for us to choose from for the school building." He said, likely not intending to say that last part at first. Anna just smiled tough. He was trying.