“That’s…a lot to take in.” Gwinn said.
I know. Lia said. But…I just thought you guys should know everything. I mean…I haven’t talked with most of you in ages, and…well, I don’t know.
“Are we going to have to fight?” Maria asked hesitantly.
No. Lia said firmly. I brought you here because I didn’t want you guys to get endangered because of me. In fact, I’m not even going to let you three fight except under very controlled circumstances. Not until you’re older.
“What?!” Olivia exclaimed. “But then what’s the point of being a princess knight?!”
You’re still going to be allowed to do some fighting, so you can level up, so you can get use out of it then. When you turn eighteen, I’ll let you fight for reals if you want, but nothing other than training until then.
“But that’s nine whole years from now!” Olivia complained. “All the exciting stuff is gonna be over by then!”
“I highly doubt that.” Rose said, walking into the building with her arms full of stuff. “For a war of this scale, I expect entering the phase with “nothing exciting” going on is going to take at least a decade.”
She’s right. Lia said. Most campaigns against the Lord of Monsters take at least that long, and…well, I think this war is going to end up looking a lot like that. Anyway, everyone, this is my girlfriend, Rose.
“Nice to meet you, I’m her father…well, mother now, Gwinn.” Gwinn said. “You’re Rose, right? Thank you for taking care of my daughter for all this time.”
“Oh, um, nice to meet you as well.” Rose said, shifting so she had a better grasp on the pile of things. “I’d shake your hand, but I’m afraid I’ve got my hands full at the moment.”
“Is it true that you were the Ruby Emperor?” Robin asked.
Questions later. Lia chided. Let her put her things down first.
“Oh, right, Lia, have you talked to Amelia yet?”
Very briefly, she helped with fixing these guys up. Why?
“She’s making a portal in the camp, to wherever she was going to drop us off before. She said it’d talk an hour or two, and after that she was going to come here for conversion. I just wanted to let you know so you were prepared.”
Thank you, Rose. Lia said. How are things looking over there?
“Lily and I got everything into neat bundles and are working on bringing it over now.” Rose said. “We’ll be putting it into one of the rooms here on the bottom floor for now, and we’ll move it somewhere better later.”
Good, thank you, Rose. Pick a room at the end of the hall for now, please.
“Will do. Are you guys going to be picking your rooms now?”
I think so. Everyone, let’s go take a look at the rooms here, and we’ll pick one for each of you, alright?
“Lia, it’s time.” Amelia said, excitement glinting in her eyes. “I know you can’t talk back the best right now, but that won’t be a problem soon. Convert me into whatever is best for you, I even brought along a rat cocoon in my pocket so you can get access to my magic once I’ve converted.”
Lia paused, then nodded. She took a step forward, then used earth magic to dump modeling wax onto Amelia. Amelia smiled a huge smile as the wax covered her, leaving only a person-sized cocoon in her wake.
Lia stepped forward and began to look through her options…only to find that there were none. The window didn’t even pop up. She frowned internally and tried to undo the cocoon, but that too failed.
Lia began to panic, but was interrupted by a lurching sensation in the pit of her stomach, and then both she and the cocoon were…someplace else. It was an…odd place, to say the least; it was vast, with tiled floors and rows and rows of shelving. She was in an area in front of the shelving, near a sleek gray counter with an odd black stripe running down the center of it. At the end of the stripe was a glass pane, followed by an area with a series of bags of some material Lia wasn’t familiar with.
Behind the counter was a tall human woman with short brown hair, wearing a collared blue shirt with “DoD” stenciled onto the front. “Hi, my name is Connie, welcome to the Dimension of Discounts!” She said, flashing Lia a dazzling smile. “I see you’ve been having some issues with your friend, and we’re here to help!”
“What?” Lia asked, the word coming out almost automatically. It was only then that she realized that she was back in her foxkin form, and was actually capable of speech.
“I’m here to help with Amelia.” Connie said. “Or, rather, here to explain the situation.” She stepped out from behind the counter and gave a small bow. “You see, while you’ve known me as Connie this entire time, my real identity,” she said, twirling in place and snapping her fingers. “Is Connor, God of Commerce!”
There was a moment of silence, then Connie cleared her throat. “Sorry about that, I appear to have goofed up when removing my disguise. Let me try that again.” She twirled in place and snapped her fingers again, and, once again, nothing happened.
A brief expression of panic flashed across her face, but she just as quickly schooled it back to that confident smile. “Alright, maybe the theatrics are pushing it, we’ll just…no? Okay, seriously, why...um…a little help here?”
“I…uh, don’t know what I can do to help.” Lia said. “Sorry.”
“No, not you.” Connie sighed. “Um…please? I’m really confused.”
All of a sudden, a blond-haired man with red eyes and pointy ears materialized next to Connie. “I was afraid this might happen.” He said. “I’m sorry to say it, but the reason your transformation back to base form isn’t working is because this is your base form now.”
“W-what?!” Connie exclaimed, taking a step back. “That shouldn’t be possible, I’m a Hi – I mean, a god!”
“I told you to be careful with that Blood Money.” The man sighed. “I think you used too much, too quickly, and this is you now. We’ll have to use a temporary transformation when you make your public appearances, and slowly get people to recognize your new appearance. That is, unless you’re willing to cough up the power needed to change your base form back.”
Connie thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. “No, that’s fine. It’s not a big deal, I guess.”
“Um…am I intruding?” Lia asked. “This seems kind of…important, and I can go somewhere else if you two need to talk.”
“That won’t be necessary.” The man said, turning to face Lia. “The name’s Jeryl, but everyone calls me Jerry.” He said. “I’m the Administrator in these parts, the boss of this universe, so to speak.”
Lia paled. “Sorry for any disrespect.” She said nervously. “I…don’t really know how to talk to important people.”
“That’s fine.” Jerry said. “Standing on ceremony gets in the way of things.” He waved his hand and a chair manifested behind himself, and another behind Lia. “Please, sit.” He said. “We have much to discuss.”
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Lia sat down nervously. “So, um…what do you want to talk about?”
“Connie, go grab us some drinks, please.” Jerry said, sitting down.
“Yes, sir!” Connie said, then scampered off into the shelving.
“As Connie was saying before things went awry, we’re here to talk about Amelia. And please, don’t worry about any of this potentially being your fault. I was pretty sure something like this was going to happen, so I was prepared to talk with you myself, anyway.
“Not having any options to convert Amelia or undo her cocoon was my doing. We are going to be taking her with us for…probably a long time, most likely years. There are quite a few things wrong with her, and we will be fixing them before returning her to you.” He paused, studying Lia’s face. “I see that you have a question. Please, feel free to interrupt me at any time and ask.”
“Um,” Lia began, “can you tell me what exactly is wrong with her?”
“It’s a bit complicated, but I have no problem with telling you that.” Jerry said. “This is, actually, my fault. You see, when I was designing the system for this world, I made an…oversight. It was simple, really; I forgot to cap the upper power limit for a Job. Normally, people won’t get Jobs anywhere close to strong enough to make that an issue, but it’s a little…different with Heroes.
“When the system was assigning Amelia her Job, it tried to assign her more power than it actually had available. It had to take that power from somewhere, so it reached into the only place it could; the reserves that keep it running properly. The whole thing nearly crashed, but I was able to get some emergency power from elsewhere to keep it running.
“However, this left Amelia in a very strange place. The extra power the system gave her wasn’t the normal, sanitized, power that is given to people for their Jobs. Instead, it was raw bits and pieces of the system. This is why Amelia is able to do so many things that are otherwise impossible, such as creating dungeons, teleporting into and out of them, giving soulless beings souls, and even messing with the system to making new monsters and abilities.”
Lia frowned. “Wait…but I can give soulless creatures souls. What…what does that mean?”
Jerry smiled. “Good catch. You see, Amelia isn’t properly equipped to use her power. She doesn’t even consciously know that what she has is special, nor has she gone through the proper channels to use the non-sanitized power she has. Because of this, when she finally revived you and accepted you as the real you, she accidentally transferred some of her abilities to you.
“As far as I can tell, this is limited to giving souls and creating new monsters and abilities, but there is a good chance you have more. Amelia’s work is extremely messy, and I have a rather difficult time making sense of it.”
“Does that mean I need fixing too?” Lia asked.
“Fortunately, no.” Jerry said. “Or, at least, you definitely don’t for now. You’re not at quite the same level as Amelia, where the power is so entwined with your being that it’s become dangerous; you’re simply someone with supernatural abilities that exceed the norm. If you do need fixing, it won’t be for quite some time, and I’ll be able to know for sure long before that becomes an issue.”
Connie returned with three cans, and handed one to both Lia and Jerry, while keeping one for herself. “This is soda.” She said. “Just use the tab on the top like this,” she pulled the tab up and was met with a hissing from the can, “and you’ll be able to drink it. If you want more, you’ll have to pay Blood Money, but for now just consider this a free sample.”
“You truly are something else, Connie.” Jerry said, chuckling slightly. “Still willing to truck on with that, even after what just happened.”
“Of course!” Connie said, puffing out her chest proudly. “I am the God…ess of Commerce, after all! I’m not about to let a business opportunity slip me by! Besides, it really doesn’t matter to me what my base form is, aside from the fact that it will be a pain to rejigger things. But that’s less of a pain than spending the Wo-power needed to change it back.”
While they talked, Lia hesitantly pulled the tab on her soda, winced at the hiss, then sipped the liquid. It was…fizzy, and tasted unlike anything she had tasted in the past, but it was…nice.
“To get back on topic, I did put some limitations on you that will prevent you from overusing your abilities and hurting yourself.” Jerry said, taking a sip of his own soda. “You may have felt it when you made that Title that lets you keep race-specific abilities when you evolve. I made it so there is a rather lengthy cooldown on creating new abilities, and also so any souls given have to go through approval from the gods first.”
“Then…you knowingly sent Rose to me. Why?”
“Because she deserves it.” Jerry said, giving her a sad smile. “And that rather conveniently ties back in to Amelia. You see, as Heroes are so much more powerful than everyone else, I gave them some built-in restrictions, ones they cannot talk about to anyone who doesn’t already know of them.
“Amelia calls it the Urge; it forces them to focus on defeating the Lord of Monsters, and prevents them from taking actions that would harm other people, save for in self-defense or if a sacrifice is necessary for the greater good. As an unintended side-effect, it distorts their emotions; usually this distortion manifests in rather dull emotions, like Rose mentioned to you a while ago.
“That led to her leading a rather…pitiful life, forced into doing things she really didn’t want to do. Even so, she really went above and beyond and did so much for your world that we decided to give her a second chance, free of that Urge, to live more closely to how she wanted.”
Jerry took another sip of his soda. “But…well, that’s the usual case. Amelia is a different case entirely. Her distortion was…well, distorted by those aforementioned raw pieces of the system, resulting in her hyperfixations and other odd behavior. Simply put…it drove her mad, but in a way that still allowed her to function for the purposes of defeating the Lord of Monsters.
“That is what I’ll be trying to fix, and that’s not an easy task. Her conversion is a rather convenient time for me to do this, since it already changes her makeup, and thus makes the process easier. It will likely result in her losing much of her power, but what remains should be safe for her to use, and she should be a well-adjusted person without the Urge messing with her head.”
Lia frowned. “But what about the Lord of Monsters? How are we going to deal with it without a Hero?”
“There are ways.” Jerry said. “Should you convert most of the monsters in the world before it appears, you would likely be able to handle it without much issue. Failing that, the people will likely attempt to summon a Hero from another world. But…I advise you to not let that happen; you would be just as much that Hero’s target as the Lord of Monsters should they learn of you.”
“What if…what if they do that anyway, even if I deal with the Lord of Monsters? If they do that to deal with me?”
Jerry smiled. “Then you will simply have to deal with the Hero yourself. As daunting a task as it may seem, you have the tools necessary to defeat the Hero if you are clever. Now…any last questions before you go?”
“A few. First…why bring mom back, too? And bring her back when you did, instead of earlier?”
“As a gift. And I brought her back when I did because that is when she wanted to be brought back. She wanted to be a race that would be strong enough to protect you and the rest of her family, and the one she got certainly fit the bill. Next question?”
“Why are you letting me try to take over the world? I mean, I got a bit of a noncommittal answer when I asked before, but…I figured I’d ask again, now that you’re revealing so much to me.”
“Because there is potential in your strength.” Jerry said. “Potential to lift your world up greatly in terms of power, and potential in you, specifically.”
“In me?”
“Yes. Partially from the powers Amelia gave to you, but mostly from your Blood Money. It is a rather…unique resource, one that is desirable even to the gods.” He said, nodding at Connie. “It is something that we are rather keen on exploring in more detail, though we will have to be more cautious about it in the future.”
“And…finally, why are you telling me all of this? Shouldn’t this be more…secretive?”
Jerry laughed. “Yes. In fact, I’ll be putting a bit of a compulsion on you that will prevent you from talking about it with people who haven’t met me. Which…essentially means you’ll only be able to talk to Rose about it for a very long time. But, beyond that, should you succeed in taking over the world…well, things are going to change, and you’re going to become central to some of our plans, so having you in on a few secrets now is no big deal. You can’t leak the information, and if you fail…well, you’ll be dead, and it won’t be an issue.”
Jerry stood up and gave Lia another smile. “But hopefully it won’t come to that. That being said, our time is up. Good luck out there.” He waved a hand, and then Lia was gone, returned back to the dungeon.