She started small, first, what was in front of her, she felt her mana and how it reacted with everything around her apartment. Within it, she felt [More] kinda similar to how it was around the basement where her former self had floated inside the pod.
But outside the apartment? It was desolated, and while the atmosphere wasn't hostile. It wasn't welcoming, only the black flames seemed to welcome her, but now that she knew those were tempering the place... Yeah, she didn't want to mess with them.
So she felt around, the shadows? They seemed to flow freely within the apartment.
The mana? It was calm and relaxing.
One by one she checked everything and found something interesting. While she could [Will] something to happen, that consumed [Idea], the manifestation of her desire brought upon reality. And yet within the apartment, there seemed to be a third force at play.
It wasn't the shadows, while those were fast and almost omnipresent within the apartment (And ruined city in general) it wasn't that what answered her. It wasn't her mana either, or not her normal flavor of mana.
If she willed for any of the appliances to work, they turned and moved, if she willed for a door to open or close, it did so. But it wasn't her shadows or pure mana those that moved them.
"Is it air?" She wondered aloud, trying to imagine how that would go, remembering the wind spells she used before and trying to mimic that without using the actual spell formulae.
"...." It didn't work.
Obviously, she already knew that it wouldn't, but she didn't want to think about the obvious reason. " *sigh* Fine..." And after her feeble attempt at not looking at the truth she raised her right hand towards the outside of her apartment and focused on the weird new sense she had.
"[Railgun]" And intoned the name that both Chloe and Alexanders seemed to love.
Immediately afterward she felt some kind of reflex within her mind activate at the subvocalization of those words, first, she felt as if her consciousness sank within the area around her. It seemed as if she could feel every metallic object within her radius of influence, and within those, her mana clung to the motes of metallic dust taking them towards her hands, floating a mere centimeters away from her index finger.
Afterward, that clump of metallic sand condensed into a small orb that floated there in place, immediately afterward her mana formed a tunnel where it modified the magnetic properties of the barrel and within a second the small sphere of metal that was floating in front of her index finger moved into that channel.
*BANG*
And like that a beam got shot from her index finger, traveling faster than it should be able without damaging anything around her and destroying one of the ruined buildings near her apartment.
"Huh..." Elizabeth couldn't believe herself even though she was aware that part of the [Skill] of Chloe had been left for her...That consumed way less mana than she should if only by going on what Chloe had left her.
But then again "Using the formulae left by the knowledge Alexanders left...Improved the efficiency?" She had mixed part of the information she got from Alexanders memories of science.
In that way she had manipulated the reflexes imbued within her mind to tweak the way her mana manipulated the electromagnetic currents, she had turned the way it reacted with the world around her and saved some mana here and there.
And it felt [Right], she also noticed how the crumbling building outside reformed and somehow felt connected to her, like this apartment...Like the building in the middle of the city.
"Do I need to destroy the whole place?" Elizabeth wondered aloud.
"We would prefer something less destructive Mistress, while the place isn't real. The destruction does take a toll on your [Soul] and [Mana]." Said Sebastian to her left.
The butler hadn't left yet, she had thought he would.
"Fine...Let me think about this then." She said and moved forward to the closest apartment to her.
She would try to seed her mana in each apartment and see if that would work, how long could it take her anyway?
"IT TAKES TOO LOOOOOOONG!!!!" Elizabeth screamed at the injustice of the world.
She had decided to go apartment by apartment to [Claim] the buildings, at some point she tried to take more than one apartment and see if that worked. It did, but it also left her more tired, it saved her the effort of climbing stairs too often so it was a good exchange in her opinion.
She had spent the last month doing so and she had barely managed to [Claim] a few blocks near her apartment, more than half of the city was still unclaimed... And Rossie's mana infusions had started to become more and more ragged.
So she was running around extending her shadows all around to try and claim more and more parts of the [Soulscape], "Mistress there are no more buildings left in this area besides that one." And Sebastian the always helpful butler was around pointing her in the right direction to move.
The building left was a powerplant, it seemed to be the one responsible for powering this side of the ruined city, because of course this cursed place needed personal power stations...No wait, do cities usually have power stations?
Her gut told her no, usually, cities didn't have separate power stations, but her instincts told her that this was better from a broader infrastructure point of view as each part of the city would be independent in case of a crisis on the power grid.
Either way, she expanded her shadows towards it "What's next...." Started asking to the butler when her shadows got zapped and scurried away from the power station. "What?"
The electricity seemed to be destroying any shadows that got close, that...." Shouldn't be possible." Was something hostile within?
She didn't feel anything wrong there "Mistress that is one of the nodes for your new [Thunder] aligned skill, you will need to use the correct mana." Sebastian said.
At this, Elizabeth just grumbled about rude butlers letting her get zapped, "Fineeee, stupid [Soulscape]...Stupid smart-ass butler..." And focused inward, searching for the spark of lighting within her soul.
She felt a chamber within the building in the middle of the city start an engine and in tandem, electricity danced in her hands and so she walked towards the power station. She didn't make it far before noticing an electric outlet in a wall.
She was using electricity...And that power station was right there, so perhaps...
"[Assimilate]" Elizabeth called while a lightning bolt shot from her hand into the outlet, she could feel the energy coursing through the outlet into the power grid, assimilating everything within into her control.
One by one the rooms within the building became a part of [Her Soulscape], it was...Easier. She noticed how the building seemed to become part of her soulscape in a way no other buildings had, the powerlines were hidden deep within the building and encompassed it fully.
Soon her mana spread all over the building and when she thought it would be all...Then it continued spreading, a web of lighting coursing across the city blocks she had taken over already.
Each one shone brighter in her mind after the lighting spread in them, rooms that were dim in her perception turned brighter, and parts of buildings she didn't know existed lit in her mind, she noticed how it seemed that while her shadows always found places to be...They couldn't be everywhere, not really.
There were spots where light didn't exist...And if there isn't light...Then there can't be shadows.
Such an obvious thing, and she had missed it completely.
"Congratulations Mistress, the north block is yours to command," Sebastian said, his presence somehow dimmer this time.
"What happened to you?" She asked to the small butler.
"My presence is a remnant of your former self...Even if your current one is the same, I shall only remain as long as you stay. Only lord Nyxfyre will survive the merge." Sebastian spoke with sudden gravitas, "You will probably need to try and summon us again, and while Miss Beatrice would be easier to summon...I fear my existence will not be."
"Why?" Asked Elizabeth, she...Didn't interact much with the butler, since most of the time she used Beato to translate.
"Miss Beatrice was summoned using your and the consort's mana. While I was summoned entirely from your mana, the signature for Miss Beatrice should be easy to create since The Consort provided most of it. Alas...Mine is not." Sebastian spoke as if this meant nothing. "Do not attempt a folly such as spamming for my creation Mistress. My mission was to guide you to this point and I have fulfilled, we [Minions] do not have a [Soul] or [Life]."
That...Her skill said that too didn't it? That her minions weren't alive. But he felt alive?
"Okay..." Even so, she wouldn't bring that up, she did feel bad for Sebastian as he wasn't around that much, and while Nyx was adorable and sleeping partner, Sebastian wasn't.
He wasn't like Beato either who moved here and there helping them, no...Sebastian was just there...Waiting... Waiting for this? She wasn't sure, but he probably just wanted to fulfill some kind of mission. Probably another of the surprises Alexanders left for her.
Still, this seemed to be a better way to take control of her [Soulscape] so she would do it like that for the other sectors, first take control of the power station and then spread her influence, make sure everything was under her control and spread her shadows after to make sure. "Let's go to the east sector," Elizabeth said trying to not think too much about Sebastian.
"Right this way Mistress, would you like to take the subway station?" And so they walked away.
She didn't take the subway station though, that thing gave her bad vibes, it was weird to see black flames on the surface but nothing underground. Bad juju lies there.
"And that is another sector done!" Elizabeth said with a tired tone, in the end, she hadn't got into the subway even once. So she had to walk all the way from sector to sector.
It wasn't that bad at first, since she had company with her, Sebastian was a good talker when she prodded him the right way... So she missed the guy, and she hadn't even spoken that long with him!
Like...Maybe a couple of weeks total?
He had disappeared completely after she was halfway through the south sector, so she ended up having to rely on her shadows to mark the parts she had taken over already. Those had become easier to manipulate the further she took control.
That in turn made it obvious that she was progressing and helped point her in the right direction...But the disappearance of Sebastian meant that the [Soulscape] was more [Her] than [Previous Elizabeth]...Or Alexanders...
Or whoever this thing was before, she wasn't entirely sure at this point. Not after finding out that Alexanders didn't have a [Soulscape] yeah, that was interesting to find out about. When she finished assimilating the south sector she found a hidden cache with some books about Alexanders.
Among them was one explaining that he was manipulating mana to generate electricity manually and his experiments to try and create a [Core] to help with this. The madman dimension was in the earlier stages of creating mana, and he was already rushing for the creation of skills.
He had got information about [Soulscape] from her Mother and wanted to make one for himself, but he didn't succeed though. But he managed to create a weapon of some kind, the reports ended there and so she filed it away as something interesting to know.
But it was relevant because...That meant that the soulscape wasn't from Alexanders, it wasn't from Chloe since she was a powered, and they didn't have access to a [Soulscape], or not like a [Magical Girl] had.
She couldn't imagine Chloe having one like this either, so that meant that...This was previous Elizabeth's Soulscape?
It wasn't the Cathedral/Library, but this? A ruined city?
Granted she was (Allegebly) the reincarnation of Alexanders, and he did destroy his world (Allegebly) but even so...Was this the reason she could take control of the place like this?
Hard to know...
Now she was standing at the boundary between the west sector and the north sector, the last sector she needed to control to hold all the sectors under her reign... And the first sector she started with.
"With this, I will be able to wake up...Finally..." Elizabeth said to herself, she had rushed the last part, to be honest.
As the flood of mana from Rossie started to crumble faster and faster she was getting bad feelings, the last batch had tasted like blood...Mana shouldn't taste like blood.
So she raised her hands to the sky "[Assimilate]" and intoned as such, calling on the mana she had seeded in all the sectors to rush forward and flood the power grid, she had found that this was possible during her attempts at taking shortcuts with the west sector.
She could call a rush of mana from a previous sector to flood into a new one, finding the spots the mana cut out and walking towards the nearest power node to power it manually, and so she managed to cut time!
Now it was barely over four months since she woke up here!
God knows how much time she spent unconscious before that, she had an inkling that it should be between one to two months between aggregated time after waking up and before waking up.
And then she felt herself be yanked, she was ready this time so she closed her eyes and allowed herself to fly across the space of [Her Soulscape].
When she opened her eyes she was once more in the basement of the central building, within the crystal pod that the previous Elizabeth had been. The pod was open so she just walked out of it, examining the laboratory in detail.
It was still mostly destroyed, with chairs on the floor and papers all around, half of them burned with some having barely legible letters on them, but at one of the stations was a PC with the monitor turned on.
"Return? Y/N" Read Elizabeth from the monitor.
That...Was the dumbest question she ever seen, of course, she wanted to return. Why in the nine planes of hell and seven heavenly planes would she want to stick in her [Soulscape]?
"Yes." She wrote into the computer.
"[Elizabeth Starbright, know that the world changed. You are free of burdens now, but you also changed with the world.]" A voice spoke from the speakers.
It sounded mechanical.
"Doesn't matter, Rossie needs me so I will return," Elizabeth answered with determination.
"[So be it, you are no longer the Inheritor as someone else fulfilled your role. You may keep whatever your parents left for you.]" The speakers said and then a blue screen showed in front of her.
One that she had been trying to summon all this time to no avail.
| Notice: |
| System initialization...Error, the user has a [System] installed.
Uninstalling system....
Resetting stats...
Deleting user configuration...
Removing [Authority]...
Cleaning cache...
-------------------------------
Welcome new user to [The World's System]!
May you become a better and more you!
You have [1] unread message.
You have [■■] unread notifications.
Warning, not accepting notifications can mean you can't get the experience to level up.
You are currently level [1] after the system initialization.
Your [Skill] and [Magic] have been turned into new [Skills] for ease of use. You may still summon magical effects manually if you wish so, but the [System] will not help in the casting nor in mitigating mana backlash from failed cast of [Skills]. Also, no [Proficiency] will be earned that way.
May the [World] bless your travels. |
But that wasn't important, she felt herself grow weary, her body no longer responded like before, she felt weak, her eyelids were heavy, she struggled to breathe, and she felt dizzy. And her nose itched like something was stuck on it.
She tried to swallow something that was stuck at the back of her throat but nothing happened, and while her eyelids felt heavy she still opened.
"Eli-Eli, I'm back !" And just in time, just as her pink-haired friend walked into her room with a big strained smile on her face. She didn't look her way, since she was busy setting some bags near her bed.
"I managed to get everything on the list you gave me !" Said Rossie while placing some medicine boxes on her dressing table. "I even managed to get that new flavor you liked!"
Seeing her like this made her smile "....ie....." She tried to say, but couldn't even pronounce the words right, her mouth didn't seem to want to speak, it was dry.
"And here is your dinner how you like it !" Rossie said after donning a pair of gloves while holding a big syringe that seemed to hold around 40 cm of some weird liquid.
It was at this point that Rossie finally looked at her, she could see that time hadn't been good with her, while her face looked normal and bright as usual, her eyes had dark circles under them, and her hair wasn't as well cared as she remembered.
And she seemed to be losing weight too.
*crash*
And she also seemed to be having some trouble with her hands, as she had dropped the syringe and she seemed to want to cry "A...E...A...Eli-Eli?" Rossie asked with a trembling voice.
"..." She wanted to answer of course, but she doubted she would be able to, so instead she nodded, the motion made her grimace as something tugged at her face.
Looking down she noticed a tube coming from her face, and how it was tied to a railing on her bed, actually this wasn't her bed, was it?
"Am I dreaming?" Rossie asked while walking towards her bed. Tears forming in her eyes.
She didn't seem sure about how to act nor what to do, as if touching her would break some kind of spell she was under. Of course, Elizabeth didn't have that problem.
She focused inwards trying to feel her mana pool, it was there, at the bottom of her consciousness, she could feel her [Soulscape], and her mana pool was miserable, barely anything to work with at all.
"[Shadows...Heed my call...]" She didn't speak, no sound came out of her mouth, and yet...She had spoken and the shadows answered.
The curtains closed, the door closed, and was locked. "I'm so sorry Eli-Eli...No...Elizabeth...I'm sorry..." Rossie was crying in full now.
This wouldn't do at all.
She tried to raise her hand but her body couldn't answer her commands, so she manipulated a shadow tendril to move her hand for her, she was burning mana quite fast.
At the same time, she motioned the shadows behind Rossie to move her forward, so she would sit on her bed. Rossie had enough mana to brush her off, more than enough to break all the feeble attempts she made to isolate them from the outside world.
But she did nothing, she accepted all with tears in her eyes and an attitude that pissed her, this wasn't her Rossie at all, this wasn't the girl she had been living with all this time.
This would hurt her, she already knew it, and the backlash would be no joke, she hadn't even built her mana pool, so it would be bad, but it needed to be done.
So while pooling the remaining mana she had she spoke "[I'm back Rossie]" once more, the only way she had to communicate right now.
And using the shadows puppetering her body she grabbed Rossie's face and pushed it towards her so that her lips would find purchase on the pink-haired girl. Her lips felt parched against the lips of Rossie, she could feel herself losing track of time. It was but a mere tender brush, she didn't have the required strength for more, not yet anyway.
Even as her hands lost strength as her mana flunked away, dropping to her sides she still clung to Rossie's lips, the pink-haired girl seemed to wake up from her stupor as her hands hit the hospital mattress, her eyes confused, she had managed to jolt away her tears.
As their lips parted, a breath hung in the air, pregnant with unspoken words. Rossie seemed to have managed to get control of herself, but even so, she didn't know what to say.
So she would be the one to do it this time so that she would reciprocate even a smidgen of the care the other girl had done to her, she wouldn't be like her previous ignorant self who didn't notice Rossie's advances.
Instead, she would kiss the girl and try not to think about anything else...
And forcing herself she breathed deep and started vocalizing each word, this time not using mana nor that weird [Idea] language that she seemed to have mastered after her trip into her [Soulscape]
Instead Elizabeth "L.....o......v.......e........y........o.........u......" she said one letter at a time, enjoying every second of Rossie's stunned face.
All while it lasted as she was feeling her consciousness slipping, 'Oh right the backlash' was the last conscious thought she had.
Before blacking out.
Oh right, she forgot to slap Rossie...
Well, she would do that next time she woke up. With some luck this time, it wouldn't take her 5-6 months. Oh, and she would need to introduce her to Mother and Father...That would be fun.
She started small, first, what was in front of her, she felt her mana and how it reacted with everything around her apartment. Within it, she felt [More] kinda similar to how it was around the basement where her former self had floated inside the pod.
But outside the apartment? It was desolated, and while the atmosphere wasn't hostile. It wasn't welcoming, only the black flames seemed to welcome her, but now that she knew those were tempering the place... Yeah, she didn't want to mess with them.
So she felt around, the shadows? They seemed to flow freely within the apartment.
The mana? It was calm and relaxing.
One by one she checked everything and found something interesting. While she could [Will] something to happen, that consumed [Idea], the manifestation of her desire brought upon reality. And yet within the apartment, there seemed to be a third force at play.
It wasn't the shadows, while those were fast and almost omnipresent within the apartment (And ruined city in general) it wasn't that what answered her. It wasn't her mana either, or not her normal flavor of mana.
If she willed for any of the appliances to work, they turned and moved, if she willed for a door to open or close, it did so. But it wasn't her shadows or pure mana those that moved them.
"Is it air?" She wondered aloud, trying to imagine how that would go, remembering the wind spells she used before and trying to mimic that without using the actual spell formulae.
"...." It didn't work.
Obviously, she already knew that it wouldn't, but she didn't want to think about the obvious reason. " *sigh* Fine..." And after her feeble attempt at not looking at the truth she raised her right hand towards the outside of her apartment and focused on the weird new sense she had.
"[Railgun]" And intoned the name that both Chloe and Alexanders seemed to love.
Immediately afterward she felt some kind of reflex within her mind activate at the subvocalization of those words, first, she felt as if her consciousness sank within the area around her. It seemed as if she could feel every metallic object within her radius of influence, and within those, her mana clung to the motes of metallic dust taking them towards her hands, floating a mere centimeters away from her index finger.
Afterward, that clump of metallic sand condensed into a small orb that floated there in place, immediately afterward her mana formed a tunnel where it modified the magnetic properties of the barrel and within a second the small sphere of metal that was floating in front of her index finger moved into that channel.
*BANG*
And like that a beam got shot from her index finger, traveling faster than it should be able without damaging anything around her and destroying one of the ruined buildings near her apartment.
"Huh..." Elizabeth couldn't believe herself even though she was aware that part of the [Skill] of Chloe had been left for her...That consumed way less mana than she should if only by going on what Chloe had left her.
But then again "Using the formulae left by the knowledge Alexanders left...Improved the efficiency?" She had mixed part of the information she got from Alexanders memories of science.
In that way she had manipulated the reflexes imbued within her mind to tweak the way her mana manipulated the electromagnetic currents, she had turned the way it reacted with the world around her and saved some mana here and there.
And it felt [Right], she also noticed how the crumbling building outside reformed and somehow felt connected to her, like this apartment...Like the building in the middle of the city.
"Do I need to destroy the whole place?" Elizabeth wondered aloud.
"We would prefer something less destructive Mistress, while the place isn't real. The destruction does take a toll on your [Soul] and [Mana]." Said Sebastian to her left.
The butler hadn't left yet, she had thought he would.
"Fine...Let me think about this then." She said and moved forward to the closest apartment to her.
She would try to seed her mana in each apartment and see if that would work, how long could it take her anyway?
"IT TAKES TOO LOOOOOOONG!!!!" Elizabeth screamed at the injustice of the world.
She had decided to go apartment by apartment to [Claim] the buildings, at some point she tried to take more than one apartment and see if that worked. It did, but it also left her more tired, it saved her the effort of climbing stairs too often so it was a good exchange in her opinion.
She had spent the last month doing so and she had barely managed to [Claim] a few blocks near her apartment, more than half of the city was still unclaimed... And Rossie's mana infusions had started to become more and more ragged.
So she was running around extending her shadows all around to try and claim more and more parts of the [Soulscape], "Mistress there are no more buildings left in this area besides that one." And Sebastian the always helpful butler was around pointing her in the right direction to move.
The building left was a powerplant, it seemed to be the one responsible for powering this side of the ruined city, because of course this cursed place needed personal power stations...No wait, do cities usually have power stations?
Her gut told her no, usually, cities didn't have separate power stations, but her instincts told her that this was better from a broader infrastructure point of view as each part of the city would be independent in case of a crisis on the power grid.
Either way, she expanded her shadows towards it "What's next...." Started asking to the butler when her shadows got zapped and scurried away from the power station. "What?"
The electricity seemed to be destroying any shadows that got close, that...." Shouldn't be possible." Was something hostile within?
She didn't feel anything wrong there "Mistress that is one of the nodes for your new [Thunder] aligned skill, you will need to use the correct mana." Sebastian said.
At this, Elizabeth just grumbled about rude butlers letting her get zapped, "Fineeee, stupid [Soulscape]...Stupid smart-ass butler..." And focused inward, searching for the spark of lighting within her soul.
She felt a chamber within the building in the middle of the city start an engine and in tandem, electricity danced in her hands and so she walked towards the power station. She didn't make it far before noticing an electric outlet in a wall.
She was using electricity...And that power station was right there, so perhaps...
"[Assimilate]" Elizabeth called while a lightning bolt shot from her hand into the outlet, she could feel the energy coursing through the outlet into the power grid, assimilating everything within into her control.
One by one the rooms within the building became a part of [Her Soulscape], it was...Easier. She noticed how the building seemed to become part of her soulscape in a way no other buildings had, the powerlines were hidden deep within the building and encompassed it fully.
Soon her mana spread all over the building and when she thought it would be all...Then it continued spreading, a web of lighting coursing across the city blocks she had taken over already.
Each one shone brighter in her mind after the lighting spread in them, rooms that were dim in her perception turned brighter, and parts of buildings she didn't know existed lit in her mind, she noticed how it seemed that while her shadows always found places to be...They couldn't be everywhere, not really.
There were spots where light didn't exist...And if there isn't light...Then there can't be shadows.
Such an obvious thing, and she had missed it completely.
"Congratulations Mistress, the north block is yours to command," Sebastian said, his presence somehow dimmer this time.
"What happened to you?" She asked to the small butler.
"My presence is a remnant of your former self...Even if your current one is the same, I shall only remain as long as you stay. Only lord Nyxfyre will survive the merge." Sebastian spoke with sudden gravitas, "You will probably need to try and summon us again, and while Miss Beatrice would be easier to summon...I fear my existence will not be."
"Why?" Asked Elizabeth, she...Didn't interact much with the butler, since most of the time she used Beato to translate.
"Miss Beatrice was summoned using your and the consort's mana. While I was summoned entirely from your mana, the signature for Miss Beatrice should be easy to create since The Consort provided most of it. Alas...Mine is not." Sebastian spoke as if this meant nothing. "Do not attempt a folly such as spamming for my creation Mistress. My mission was to guide you to this point and I have fulfilled, we [Minions] do not have a [Soul] or [Life]."
That...Her skill said that too didn't it? That her minions weren't alive. But he felt alive?
"Okay..." Even so, she wouldn't bring that up, she did feel bad for Sebastian as he wasn't around that much, and while Nyx was adorable and sleeping partner, Sebastian wasn't.
He wasn't like Beato either who moved here and there helping them, no...Sebastian was just there...Waiting... Waiting for this? She wasn't sure, but he probably just wanted to fulfill some kind of mission. Probably another of the surprises Alexanders left for her.
Still, this seemed to be a better way to take control of her [Soulscape] so she would do it like that for the other sectors, first take control of the power station and then spread her influence, make sure everything was under her control and spread her shadows after to make sure. "Let's go to the east sector," Elizabeth said trying to not think too much about Sebastian.
"Right this way Mistress, would you like to take the subway station?" And so they walked away.
She didn't take the subway station though, that thing gave her bad vibes, it was weird to see black flames on the surface but nothing underground. Bad juju lies there.
"And that is another sector done!" Elizabeth said with a tired tone, in the end, she hadn't got into the subway even once. So she had to walk all the way from sector to sector.
It wasn't that bad at first, since she had company with her, Sebastian was a good talker when she prodded him the right way... So she missed the guy, and she hadn't even spoken that long with him!
Like...Maybe a couple of weeks total?
He had disappeared completely after she was halfway through the south sector, so she ended up having to rely on her shadows to mark the parts she had taken over already. Those had become easier to manipulate the further she took control.
That in turn made it obvious that she was progressing and helped point her in the right direction...But the disappearance of Sebastian meant that the [Soulscape] was more [Her] than [Previous Elizabeth]...Or Alexanders...
Or whoever this thing was before, she wasn't entirely sure at this point. Not after finding out that Alexanders didn't have a [Soulscape] yeah, that was interesting to find out about. When she finished assimilating the south sector she found a hidden cache with some books about Alexanders.
Among them was one explaining that he was manipulating mana to generate electricity manually and his experiments to try and create a [Core] to help with this. The madman dimension was in the earlier stages of creating mana, and he was already rushing for the creation of skills.
He had got information about [Soulscape] from her Mother and wanted to make one for himself, but he didn't succeed though. But he managed to create a weapon of some kind, the reports ended there and so she filed it away as something interesting to know.
But it was relevant because...That meant that the soulscape wasn't from Alexanders, it wasn't from Chloe since she was a powered, and they didn't have access to a [Soulscape], or not like a [Magical Girl] had.
She couldn't imagine Chloe having one like this either, so that meant that...This was previous Elizabeth's Soulscape?
It wasn't the Cathedral/Library, but this? A ruined city?
Granted she was (Allegebly) the reincarnation of Alexanders, and he did destroy his world (Allegebly) but even so...Was this the reason she could take control of the place like this?
Hard to know...
Now she was standing at the boundary between the west sector and the north sector, the last sector she needed to control to hold all the sectors under her reign... And the first sector she started with.
"With this, I will be able to wake up...Finally..." Elizabeth said to herself, she had rushed the last part, to be honest.
As the flood of mana from Rossie started to crumble faster and faster she was getting bad feelings, the last batch had tasted like blood...Mana shouldn't taste like blood.
So she raised her hands to the sky "[Assimilate]" and intoned as such, calling on the mana she had seeded in all the sectors to rush forward and flood the power grid, she had found that this was possible during her attempts at taking shortcuts with the west sector.
She could call a rush of mana from a previous sector to flood into a new one, finding the spots the mana cut out and walking towards the nearest power node to power it manually, and so she managed to cut time!
Now it was barely over four months since she woke up here!
God knows how much time she spent unconscious before that, she had an inkling that it should be between one to two months between aggregated time after waking up and before waking up.
And then she felt herself be yanked, she was ready this time so she closed her eyes and allowed herself to fly across the space of [Her Soulscape].
When she opened her eyes she was once more in the basement of the central building, within the crystal pod that the previous Elizabeth had been. The pod was open so she just walked out of it, examining the laboratory in detail.
It was still mostly destroyed, with chairs on the floor and papers all around, half of them burned with some having barely legible letters on them, but at one of the stations was a PC with the monitor turned on.
"Return? Y/N" Read Elizabeth from the monitor.
That...Was the dumbest question she ever seen, of course, she wanted to return. Why in the nine planes of hell and seven heavenly planes would she want to stick in her [Soulscape]?
"Yes." She wrote into the computer.
"[Elizabeth Starbright, know that the world changed. You are free of burdens now, but you also changed with the world.]" A voice spoke from the speakers.
It sounded mechanical.
"Doesn't matter, Rossie needs me so I will return," Elizabeth answered with determination.
"[So be it, you are no longer the Inheritor as someone else fulfilled your role. You may keep whatever your parents left for you.]" The speakers said and then a blue screen showed in front of her.
One that she had been trying to summon all this time to no avail.
| Notice: |
| System initialization...Error, the user has a [System] installed.
Uninstalling system....
Resetting stats...
Deleting user configuration...
Removing [Authority]...
Cleaning cache...
-------------------------------
Welcome new user to [The World's System]!
May you become a better and more you!
You have [1] unread message.
You have [■■] unread notifications.
Warning, not accepting notifications can mean you can't get the experience to level up.
You are currently level [1] after the system initialization.
Your [Skill] and [Magic] have been turned into new [Skills] for ease of use. You may still summon magical effects manually if you wish so, but the [System] will not help in the casting nor in mitigating mana backlash from failed cast of [Skills]. Also, no [Proficiency] will be earned that way.
May the [World] bless your travels. |
But that wasn't important, she felt herself grow weary, her body no longer responded like before, she felt weak, her eyelids were heavy, she struggled to breathe, and she felt dizzy. And her nose itched like something was stuck on it.
She tried to swallow something that was stuck at the back of her throat but nothing happened, and while her eyelids felt heavy she still opened.
"Eli-Eli, I'm back !" And just in time, just as her pink-haired friend walked into her room with a big strained smile on her face. She didn't look her way, since she was busy setting some bags near her bed.
"I managed to get everything on the list you gave me !" Said Rossie while placing some medicine boxes on her dressing table. "I even managed to get that new flavor you liked!"
Seeing her like this made her smile "....ie....." She tried to say, but couldn't even pronounce the words right, her mouth didn't seem to want to speak, it was dry.
"And here is your dinner how you like it !" Rossie said after donning a pair of gloves while holding a big syringe that seemed to hold around 40 cm of some weird liquid.
It was at this point that Rossie finally looked at her, she could see that time hadn't been good with her, while her face looked normal and bright as usual, her eyes had dark circles under them, and her hair wasn't as well cared as she remembered.
And she seemed to be losing weight too.
*crash*
And she also seemed to be having some trouble with her hands, as she had dropped the syringe and she seemed to want to cry "A...E...A...Eli-Eli?" Rossie asked with a trembling voice.
"..." She wanted to answer of course, but she doubted she would be able to, so instead she nodded, the motion made her grimace as something tugged at her face.
Looking down she noticed a tube coming from her face, and how it was tied to a railing on her bed, actually this wasn't her bed, was it?
"Am I dreaming?" Rossie asked while walking towards her bed. Tears forming in her eyes.
She didn't seem sure about how to act nor what to do, as if touching her would break some kind of spell she was under. Of course, Elizabeth didn't have that problem.
She focused inwards trying to feel her mana pool, it was there, at the bottom of her consciousness, she could feel her [Soulscape], and her mana pool was miserable, barely anything to work with at all.
"[Shadows...Heed my call...]" She didn't speak, no sound came out of her mouth, and yet...She had spoken and the shadows answered.
The curtains closed, the door closed, and was locked. "I'm so sorry Eli-Eli...No...Elizabeth...I'm sorry..." Rossie was crying in full now.
This wouldn't do at all.
She tried to raise her hand but her body couldn't answer her commands, so she manipulated a shadow tendril to move her hand for her, she was burning mana quite fast.
At the same time, she motioned the shadows behind Rossie to move her forward, so she would sit on her bed. Rossie had enough mana to brush her off, more than enough to break all the feeble attempts she made to isolate them from the outside world.
But she did nothing, she accepted all with tears in her eyes and an attitude that pissed her, this wasn't her Rossie at all, this wasn't the girl she had been living with all this time.
This would hurt her, she already knew it, and the backlash would be no joke, she hadn't even built her mana pool, so it would be bad, but it needed to be done.
So while pooling the remaining mana she had she spoke "[I'm back Rossie]" once more, the only way she had to communicate right now.
And using the shadows puppetering her body she grabbed Rossie's face and pushed it towards her so that her lips would find purchase on the pink-haired girl. Her lips felt parched against the lips of Rossie, she could feel herself losing track of time. It was but a mere tender brush, she didn't have the required strength for more, not yet anyway.
Even as her hands lost strength as her mana flunked away, dropping to her sides she still clung to Rossie's lips, the pink-haired girl seemed to wake up from her stupor as her hands hit the hospital mattress, her eyes confused, she had managed to jolt away her tears.
As their lips parted, a breath hung in the air, pregnant with unspoken words. Rossie seemed to have managed to get control of herself, but even so, she didn't know what to say.
So she would be the one to do it this time so that she would reciprocate even a smidgen of the care the other girl had done to her, she wouldn't be like her previous ignorant self who didn't notice Rossie's advances.
Instead, she would kiss the girl and try not to think about anything else...
And forcing herself she breathed deep and started vocalizing each word, this time not using mana nor that weird [Idea] language that she seemed to have mastered after her trip into her [Soulscape]
Instead Elizabeth "L.....o......v.......e........y........o.........u......" she said one letter at a time, enjoying every second of Rossie's stunned face.
All while it lasted as she was feeling her consciousness slipping, 'Oh right the backlash' was the last conscious thought she had.
Before blacking out.
Oh right, she forgot to slap Rossie...
Well, she would do that next time she woke up. With some luck this time, it wouldn't take her 5-6 months. Oh, and she would need to introduce her to Mother and Father...That would be fun.
