Secrets

"Looks like another Greater C Rank Salamander," I said as I approached Celestina and landed right next to her.

A second later, I sent her an image from my memories through a Relay Spell and she managed to find our next target easily enough. By the time she finished fully drawing back her bow, I finished forming a Tier 4 General Redouble Spell which I then applied to the tip of her nocked arrow's head.

[General Redouble Lvl 2 → 3]

[Skills:

Name: General Redouble Lvl 3

Description: An Adept-level Strengthening Spell that moderately enhances the structural integrity of a non-living item or component. The higher the Lvl, the greater the enhancement, as well as, the more cost-efficient the Spell is to cast.]

Celestina used her own Skills to bolster the power of her shot before she let the arrow 'flicker' downhill over to the Salamander by the base of the lake. To describe it as anything else was an affront to the sheer speed and force with which the arrow traveled.

Unenhanced bullets fired from a regular gun by a regular person would literally disintegrate mid-flight from the friction produced by her arrow if they were shot as fast. But, since her arrows didn't, yet another poor Monster died without even knowing why or how.

Celestina, being the marksman that she was, managed to blow the Salamander's head clean off, leaving the rest of its body for me.

"Did you 'mean' to hit it right between the eyes? Because if you did, that's fucking insane," I said as I waited for Katherine to use her Earth Magic to bring over what was left of the Salamander's body.

I would have been all for flying over to it and eating it where it had been killed, but now that we had a long-range specialist in the party, Katherine needed any and every excuse we could think of to continue using her Spells. I'd never been prouder of her than when she took the initiative and asked for this arrangement after just a couple hours of hunting with Celestina.

"That was precisely what I was aiming at," Celestina said before I noticed that her gaze grew distant and her mouth shifted into a subtly frown. "Though… Without your Spell's aid, I doubt my shot would have been as accurate. I only expected to hit our prey somewhere on the head. Though, the results would have been the same, either way."

I might have continued our conversation if a two-meter long several-hundred-kilogram Salamander carcass hadn't been dropped right before me. Chit-chatting was fun and all, but I couldn't afford to waste any more time talking than I strictly needed to. It had started becoming a real hassle to eat Monsters when most commonly reached the height of their growth at C to B Rank.

Even I was getting pretty big; compared to normal 'not' Magical eagles, I mean. As a Level 1 Arcane Eagle, I was about half-a-meter tall. Yet, I only continued to get marginally larger with every subsequent Level Up; a process that was either absent or completely unnoticeable while I was an Eaglet or an Avian Infant.

Now Level 9, after over a month of relentless fighting with Katherine and Celestina in tow, I had almost doubled my standing height. And as a meter-tall eagle… It was still a nightmare having to eat Monsters that were dozens of times my size. Even when I rushed to consume, 'to devour' everything in front of me, it could sometimes take minutes to fully pick off all the flesh from my preys' bones.

Fortunately, I'd come to realize that as a Monster, my palate could help me ignore 'what' it was that I ate as Rank was practically the only thing that mattered to my sense of taste. I could probably find a disease-ridden maggot-infested week-old rotted corpse and if said corpse were appraised to still be C Rank by the time I got to it, I would still find it as delicious as gourmet fillet mignon.

"Just where does it all go?" Celestina asked as she grew slightly green in the face and watched me eat.

"Not sure," I said in between ravenous pecks. "But I guess," I must have hit a vein or an artery as my face got splashed with blood, "whatever doesn't contribute to my evolution get stored as nutrition in my cells, or refills my Magic Reserves gets disintegrated by my gizzard." It was a strange feeling being able to speak clearly through a Transmission Spell with a mouthful of flesh.

"Ugh… I still can't believe you prefer eating that over cooked meat," she shot me a look of disgust.

"You're just jealous that I can afford to be more efficient," I retorted. "Unlike 'some people' I don't need to bother with waiting for my food to be processed. In fact, it actually makes it taste worse since cooking releases some of the magical essence retained by animals and plants after dying."

"The only thing I have to envy of you is that ridiculous immunity you have towards toxins up to Greater C Rank. Raw or not, eating that kind of Salamander without sanctifying it beforehand would be a death wish for either Katherine or I."

"I'm just built differently," I chuckled.

"Indeed you are," Celestina narrowed her eyes on me as I finished eating the last of the Salamander's visceral organs. "Frivolous eagle, your Skills make no sense. You triple major in Fire, Strengthening, and Healing, yet your physical prowess only barely lags behind your magical abilities. No one, nor any eagle for that matter, should be so strong in so many areas; nor should they be able to grow as fast as you do."

"What is this, a game of Guess Who?" I rolled my eyes at her, "I'm not going to tell you my secret until you tell me yours!"

"Why do you even care so much about my Class anyways?" Her eye twitched in irritation.

"I don't know, maybe for the same reason you care about my species? You know, to be better prepared in case you decide you no longer want to be friendly."

We'd been having this 'conflict' for the past week. Celestina wanted to know how it was possible for me to be both physically fast, strong, sturdy, and also magically proficient as well. She kind of had a point, as my species as an Arcane Eagle was supposed to be specialized with regards to magic. But, I wasn't going to just give her answers without getting some for myself.

"Would you really tell the secret behind your strength if I told you my Class?" She gritted her teeth and asked.

"Eh, why not?" I nearly laughed. I mean, it's not like she'd be able to follow my example as a non-Monster. The 'secret' to my strength boiled down to the fact that I knew how to exploit the advantages of being a Monster and that I'd done so from the moment I was born.

…

As my eyes narrowed on that insufferable eagle, I was ashamed of myself for proposing yet another offer.

Telling him would be foolish, I knew as much. But then again, it wouldn't make a difference whether or not he knew what Class I was, even if I explained it to him.

However, in telling Nova about my Class, it 'might' result in him giving me the secret behind his success. With news of another Great War on the horizon, I needed both myself and my people to be stronger off for it, in the end.

Still, telling the eagle would probably be for naught. It was likely that he would either short-change me with some lie or his method would not be applicable to others in the first place.

The chances of this trade being worth it was infinitesimally small, but it could still be worth something so long as he didn't outright lie to my face. Even if he lied, so long as he tried to make it believable with a sliver of truth to his words, there was a chance that I could take something from it.

Lying on my part wouldn't make a difference, so as much as I hated speaking about it, I decided to be genuine in hopes that it would appeal to Nova's morals. It would be stupid to even think of doing this to another Monster, but Nova was the type that promised to heal me if I asked him to when our standing was much more hostile; and he did, 'just to keep his promise.'

"Fine," I scowled. It hurt just thinking about it, but now I was starting to realize that even after going so long without talking about it, it was countless times more difficult to get the words out.

"Oh come on," the blasted eagle whined as he looked at me impatiently, "it can't be that bad. Even if you said you were an Archer or something just as basic, I'd still respect you."

I nearly growled, I was so infuriated.

"I… am a Lunar Sage," I managed to say. Honestly, I was partly thankful to Nova, for, without his careless words, I might not have grown angry enough to utter those cursed words that had been the bane of my life thus far.

"Lunar Sage?" Nova repeated before closing his eyes — or well, covering his eyes with that membrane birds had which acted kind of like eyelids. A moment later, his eyes snapped open and his blue eyes glowed dangerously.

"No fucking way!" He shouted while pointing a wing at me, "According to my memories, there can only exist one Lunar Sage at a time! That's a unique Class that only a human can be born into."

Of all the things he could have said… He just had to pick at my worst insecurities.

"You see this?" I hatefully spat as I pointed at my forearm. "What more proof do you need to know that I'm just a fucking 'mutt.'"

"You— What?" All that energy in Nova's form instantly vanished as he tilted his head rather curiously at me and asked, "What wrong with your perfectly normal arm? And why would you… call yourself that?"

"Not the arm, imbecile!" If not for the fact that I regularly trimmed my fingernails, I'd have pierced my skin from how harshly I was shoving my finger into my arm as I said, "Elves value purity above all else, and as such most elves are pureblooded, fair-skinned people that never tan."

"Oh..." The eagle 'tactfully' said.

From there we kind of just stared at each other in biting silence as I didn't even want to press for the eagle to answer his end of our deal while I was still coming down from that hateful reminder of what I was.

Alas, I would not be spared from further humiliation as the human, Katherine, asked, "Is… Is that why you've been on our case since we approached Aquavista Lake?"

She might have had the decency to phrase her question in a way that saved my dignity, but I was beyond accepting that.

I sneered, "Yes. It's also the same reason I accepted your pity and begged you to let me join your group. I'm an eyesore that's only good enough to scout for the village beyond its walls."

"Heh…" It started off lowly.

"Ha," But to my ears, in my current state—

"Hahaha!"

—The laughter thundered like the chorus of a hundred villagers, laughing in my face.

Turning to the sounds of uproarious laughter which that hateful eagle couldn't keep to himself, I nearly acted on my rage and drew my bow on him. However, before I could, he asked me, "Eyesore? Mutt? Heh, you really hate yourself don't you?"

Subconsciously, I felt my power galvanized into frigid splendor.

"Nova, that's not—"

Before she could finish her thought, Katherine was cut off by Nova as he continued on to say, "Again, the culture of you idiots baffles me. And to think that this problem is beyond just humans… How laughable!"

"Tell me," he snickered, "are your people really so stupid that they'll let something as benign as skin color sway them into throwing away a 'Lunar fucking Sage?!'"

"I knew you wouldn't understand!" I scowled at him.

"What is there to understand?! Unless you're bullshiting me, you have a one-of-a-kind Legendary Class. Sure, your skin is ebony black, but it's not like you're a cannibalistic demon. A different skin color won't doom all elfkind. But, you know what will?" He flashed a sickeningly dark grin, "Isolation and ostracization. Being raised all your life to hate yourself and your class by the very same people you should deign to support."

"I don't know you, nor will I pretend to know your backstory. But, it just seems to me, with the way that you've been talking and after reevaluating all our interactions since we first met, that I'm somewhere in the ballpark with my guess," he concluded.