Vlak Root Cove ( 11 )

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- Vlak Root Cove | Demon Continent

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Good lord. What a journey, it was hard and... boring. I did nothing but sit in my room the whole damn time, but... to say it was useless would be a flat out lie.

I've already made myself proficient in Void, though I haven't figured out any form of use outside of Material... but, it's whatever. More importantly I have proved it's effectiveness and suitability as a crafting material. Despite it's instability, if it can be maintained then it's strength appears to be even higher than my special metal... though, it has one downside... it messes with A.I. in it's primal form just like special metal's post-refinement form.

Anyways, the journey was relatively noteworthy in it's aspects, the biggest one being Void Materialization but also I got some more knowledge on Dragons.

Dragons seem to be ridiculously strong, in fact it seems that top guilds struggle hunting down even lesser or ancient dragons... a pity, because if we players could hunt them effectively then it would allow me to properly analyse their biology in their most effective form.

Luckily for me, there is a large Dragon Den full of Adult Dragons a little bit ahead... first we are going to take a rest at an Inn here in Vlak Root Cove, for around... 3 days? Yeah, we are going to be doing a little bit of Magic practice and also we are going to try and find a corpse here.

According to rumors heard by Anise, supposedly the Crusader of Light died and was buried here. Jujigun was his name right? What a guy, always acting so friendly... heh.

Yeah, we need to confirm his corpse and the date of his death so we can cross that with the other rumors from Arch about the beings of light and fire burning down the place were Asi was... if he died before that incident then it's likely Ashley and Jujigun saved Asi, if he died afterwords it's likely that Ashley is dead. If we can't find a corpse, then it's likely a third party saved Asi on accident who then took revenge against the Demon Lord.

Am I rambling again? Ugh... damn.

Alright so, we are about to dock our ship into the harbour... luckily, it's around midday at this time... 3 or 4 pm to be a little more precise. That means we have enough time to buy lunch, find and book an inn, try and look for the guy's corpse for a little bit, then back to the inn and sleep... and then figure out what do to from there.

Right now my whole crew is gathered at the front deck of the ship, Syn and Scarab are still testing their new bodies and getting used to it for the most part so they are doing various stretches and whatnot. Dice is eating, because of course she is. I have no idea what though.

Anise is recounting what she learned about Dragons and Magic during here studies on the ship, she actually has found a few cool things about them... like, how fresh Dragon Blood can apparently increase stats, but that is just a rumor... nobody dares to take Dragon Blood for themselves, it's worth it's weight in Gold as a ritual component.

I am kind of surprised how powerful true dragons are and how much profit can be made off of them...

Right. Magic. Ahem, so she is going to try and polymorph the rest of my crew to get them player stats... which means their looks are going to change a little bit, but that is nothing new. They'll probably be set to level 1 so their combat effectiveness might dip but it would get much stronger as time passes!

After all, players are MUCH stronger than NPCs... which is unfortunate, because NPC cities get raided all the time... taken over and whatnot... kinda like what Babushka tried to do to Morin.

I wonder what would of happened if I didn't decide on a whim to help out Morin... I might not even be here right now... huh.

...

Why do I smell undead...

- " Dice, Syn, do you sense any undead in the town below? "

It's feint... a vague smell amongst multitudes of others but... it's pungent. Weird enough I don't smell anything indicative of battle... no fire or blood... oh, oh geez that is an overwhelming smell... damn, is the whole city smoking cigars or something?

Dice - " Mmm... no, I don't smell or sense any undead... but it's hard to tell, it's difficult with the smoke... "

}{}{ Scans indicate small amount of Undead, not worth mentioning. Otherwise, it seems there is either; a psychedelic drug being either smoked by every citizen at once, a mass incense burning, or some sort of chemical smog in the air. }{}{

Ick...

Why is this town worse smelling than the prostitute house my mom worked at?

Ugh... System, can you like... turn my nose off?

| Denied |

Of course.

Alright well, I'll just have to put up with it for now.

Anise keeps droning on about Polymorph... specifically she is debating to herself if the tattoos and wings I gave her will carry over, she is also audibly listing the things she would change about me if she could polymorph me, which is honestly a little gross.

Luckily, at least according to the spell description, only willing polymorphs can be permanently applied... so if she changes me into something weird and I don't like it then I could easily get out of it... which is an amazingly fresh relief, if I couldn't change back then I know for a fact she would change me into one of her book's ' hotties '.

Though, between her talks of weird stuff like that... she does present me some actually helpful knowledge, theoretically the spell could reverse the damage of Void because of it's interaction. Void would completely remove an object from existing, but it doesn't prevent replacements. So, even if my avatar is damaged by the Void, if even a small portion of me remains then I can be Polymorphed back into a fresh body. But it is less useful as actual healing due to the time it takes to apparently ' charge up ' or whatever.

Eh. Anise is... well, to be honest I do find her cute when she is rambling about these sorts of things... normally she is shy and quite but her eccentricity comes out with her passion... the polar opposite of Dice in all honestly, she is always peppy and full of energy but... she can be really scary.

Like... horror game scary, not like ' oh haha-! She gets really made when you insult her cooking ' but more like ' I have accidentally glanced at cobalt and now I dread every day on this earth ' kinda scary.

Yeah, I have no doubt in my mind she is... well, getting a little used to me not punishing her for her Yandere-esk tendencies... but to be frank, I don't think I can intervene. After all, she is my counter... and moreover, one that is actually in par with me.

Anise?... yeah, I could beat her in a fight... Jotun?... maybe, depends on a few variables... Syn and Scarab? Easy. Dice? No fucking way.

Can't be done.

...

Ok, I got a little off topic... anyways, I guess we are landing now so I'll have to pack up Jotun's ' things '. Yeah, remember those pirates a few days ago? Jotun, as she beat all of them in duels, now has the authority to deal with them as she pleases. So, with help from Anise, she has turned them all into living flesh cubes.

It's fucked up honestly, but what am I going to do about it? Nothing. Either way she is probably planning to do something with them, maybe give them to Anise for experiments or Dice for a quick snack... either way, I am NOT going to interfere.

These girls fucking scare me... how the fuck does the System expect me to date one of these girls?

Dice is a fucking cannibal yandere.

Anise is a fucking sadistic researcher.

Jotun is a battle crazed lunatic.

Jeez... I should of properly raised them when I had the chance...

Maybe then they wouldn't of turned out as bad as me...