An Unborn Hero

"Uhh... No offence, but shouting out what you're about to do before you do it sounds like a terrible idea," pointed out Rose. "Even against dumb monsters, it would kill your reaction time, but giving intelligent demons a heads up on your plans would be suicidal."

The party of magical girls—which for some reason included half a dozen more Leaf Green's than the squad should have contained—were lined up while Mystery tried to give them a lesson on proper magical girl behaviour.

It wasn't going well. Even Rose—the first to obtain a magical girl related occupation, and generally unabashed about the entire thing—insisted on maliciously applying common sense to Mystery's holy teachings.

"... Not... every... time..." clarified Mystery. "... Big... attacks..."

ding

For your efforts to shoehorn alien concepts into the local language, [Translate] advances to level 8.

"At least this is going to be good for levels," thought Mystery. "But the message is right. Especially given the limitations of [Telepathy], I could be here for years without being able to explain properly. Why doesn't [Telepathy] have a sub-skill that just lets me download my knowledge straight into their heads?"

"[Danger Sense] is firing," dryly commented Grace. "Mystery is thinking something stupid again."

"... Not... stupid..."

"I have a sub-skill for [Danger Sense] named [Mystery]," pointed out Grace in the same flat tone. "Nothing else. Just that. [Mystery]. The message I got when obtaining it explicitly stated the gods created it specifically for me, out of pure pity."

Mystery telepathically pouted, but then suddenly brightened up.

"I do have a skill for downloading knowledge into people's heads," she realised. "What's more, it solves the defend-and-protect problem we have when practising with the real [Magical Girl Transformation]."

"... Drop... transformations..." asked Mystery.

Grace's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why?" she asked, while half the elves subtly made their escapes, not wanting to openly display their real appearances and make it known they'd been using the spell.

"... Will... show..."

Rose shrugged and waited for her transformation to expire. She was the first, followed by Rrillandral, who'd ceased her ageing and stopped at the appearance of roughly thirty years old. Kellela and Hayedalf followed suit. Grace maintained an intense suspicion, but given that Mystery was waiting patiently and that her job was kinda important, gave up and let her transformation expire too.

"Oh, so that's what the [Monarch of the Vale] really looks like," thought Mystery, inspecting the elderly elf. He could easily have passed for eighty or ninety, but still stood upright with a lively sparkle in his eyes. The other remaining elves were mostly young-appearing girls already. If any of the others had been male or older-looking, they'd been amongst the group that had slunk off.

"... Need... mana..." Mystery alerted Kellela before concentrating. "Dress as my character. Think like my character. Act like my character. Become my character."

ding

For dealing with a brief burst of high mana consumption, [Increased Attributes] advances to level 11.

For putting it to an unexpected but very useful purpose, [Cosplay] advances to level 6.

"Oh, cool. Two levels at once," beamed Mystery as her assembled pupils returned to their magical girl appearances. Mostly.

"Uhh..." stated Hayedalf, carefully looking down, before being hit by a rather strange sensation that he wasn't a late-twenties male in a skimpy dress, but was a much younger girl, and of course that was what he should be wearing. "Uhh..." he repeated.

"This is strange. A different spell?" asked Rrillandral, who likewise still had her older appearance.

The [Monarch of the Vale] sniggered. The other elves glanced at him, then very quickly looked away. Even Mystery had no interest in that view.

"... Instincts..." explained Mystery.

"Oh, I see," exclaimed Hayedalf. "It's some sort of acting spell that helps us stay in character."

"... Yes..." agreed Mystery.

"Then why was it necessary to release [Magical Girl Transformation] first?" asked Kellela.

"..." answered Mystery, who hadn't even thought about it because the need to drop the original transformation seemed so obvious, but now that someone pointed it out, she couldn't think of any reason.

"Oh, this is kinda cool," exclaimed Rose, folding the silver sword she was holding in half. Despite having the appearance of the rapiers the real Aster Blue could summon, it didn't quite have their structural stability. As might be expected, given that it was forged from foam instead of metal. "I see what you were trying to explain."

She let her foam sword spring back to its natural shape, then pointed it at Grace, her face taking on a more serious expression. "I'll never let you get away with this. For the sake of children's smiles everywhere, I will smite you in the name of justice!"

"Huh?" asked Grace.

"No, that's not a proper response at all," complained Rose.

"I have no clue whatsoever what is happening," Grace admitted. "Yes, that's been true pretty much since the moment I first set foot in Karn's Vigil, but it's doubly true right now."

"You need to try. Think about what an appropriate reaction would be to a given situation, and the answer is kinda instinctually there."

"Except that responding to a fellow magical girl threatening you isn't included," pointed out Kellela. "Mystery, I think you'll need to pick one of us to play the role of the bad guy, so we have something to focus on."

"Did you seriously just say 'bad guy'?" asked Hayedalf.

"Uh... That just seemed the obvious thing to call them."

The [Monarch of the Vale] clapped his hands, resulting in everyone once more turning to look at him. Briefly.

"Would someone please fetch the members of my guard squad that just ran off? Since they don't seem to want our guests to know they like pretending to be little girls, perhaps they'll be happier pretending to be 'bad guys'."

A couple of the remaining elves ran off.

"Sword rain!" shouted Rose, pointing at a patch of grass a few metres in front of her, to no effect whatsoever.

"I believe that, in retrospect, the decision to cancel our transformation was correct," opined Rrillandral, before executing a flawless swirl, sweeping her hand around in a perfect circle, slightly stooping to make it clear she was gesturing at the floor. "Vine whip!"

As with Rose, nothing whatsoever happened.

"What is going on?!" shrilly squeaked Grace. "Seriously, what is happening right now?"

"Oh, come on. Your big white flash thing needs a name, too."

"Found them!" shouted one of the young elves, dragging a middle-aged male back towards to the group by his ear. A couple more sulking guards followed behind, shuffling their feet.

Grace sighed before giving in. She saw the inevitability looming ahead of her, and there didn't seem much point in resisting. Besides, as Rose had explained, once she thought about it, what she needed to do seemed so obvious.

"Your evil days are over," she helpfully informed Rose. "But fear not, for I shall purge your corruption and free you from the hatred that consumes you. Purification wave!"

Everyone turned to stare. Even the three unwilling participants and their captor stopped walking.

Grace, hands held outstretched in a grand but completely ineffectual gesture, the red clouds of embarrassment racing across her cheeks, froze up under their judgemental gazes. Briefly.

"No, you know what? I don't care. Stare at me all you want."

She crossed her arms and huffed, standing strong despite her face turning the same colour as Kellela's hair.

Rose applauded.

"Anyway," chimed in the king. "It appears our willing mock-demons have arrived. Mystery, if you would do the honours?"

"Willing?" asked the one whose ear was still firmly in the grip of his coworker. "What part of this makes me look mmpff!"

"Yeah, don't try talking while Mystery's spells are making new helmets," pointed out Grace. "I made that mistake earlier."

Not that Mystery had made him a helmet, as such. Rather, it was a simple plastic face mask, loops of elastic holding it in place, leaving him with the same blue-grey featureless face as Zyfyl'p. Likewise, the same rigid material covered him in his entirety, but despite the fake exoskeleton, he was nowhere near Zyfyl'p's true height. "I can't see a thing..." he pointed out, as a two metre long foam claymore spun itself into existence in one of his hands.

"Count yourself lucky," answered his captor, who kept accidentally getting glimpses of her king.

The guard knocked on his own stomach with his free hand, eliciting the clank of plastic meeting plastic. Then there came a louder clank, and he was sent sprawling over forwards.

"Sorry," apologised the second of the male guards, who'd merely turned around but hadn't noticed the outstretched wings he had strapped to his back, thus knocking the blinded first guard over. He was dressed up like the first demon Mystery had seen, a spandex bodysuit once again making an appearance in order to change his skin colouring from a healthy pink to the demon's pallid grey. Heavy foam claws attached to his hands rendered his opposable thumbs somewhat occupied, and thus unable to do much about his situation. A pair of short horns were set on a headband.

"... I hate my job," said the third, who was dressed as Lilith, the only other demon Mystery had seen. Or undressed, possibly, given that she hadn't really worn very much. She also hadn't had arms at the point Mystery saw her, so she'd needed to extrapolate a bit.

"Okay, that's enough whining," declared Brylyndril. "We're going to have a mock battle; you three against the hero's party. Just let loose and let Mystery's spell direct your actions, but remember everything, because it's how you're going to need to behave in the forest if you want to survive."

"Whatever went wrong with the world for that to be a true sentence...?" mumbled Grace, taking her position alongside her teammates.

"I suppose it's my turn," sighed Kellela, closing her eyes briefly as she let the magically bestowed instincts take control. "For your crimes against humanity, I will punish you!" she declared.

"Humanity?" asked one of the non-participating elves.

"... Sorry..." replied Mystery, who hadn't seen many magical girl shows that mixed in other fantasy races, thus leaving her image rather human-centric. "... Only... humans..."

"Shh!" complained Brylyndril.

The guard undressed as Lilith burst out laughing, although from the look on his face, it was very definitely spell-induced and not his true feelings. "Pitiful humans," he answered. "As if the likes of you could ever stand up to us. Just surrender, and I'll make your deaths quick and painless."

The guard dressed up as Zyfyl'p punched his fists together with a loud crack. "Don't go making promises I don't intend to keep," he said, his voice muffled by his featureless plastic fake-chitin mask. "Let's just punch them."

He took a step forward, but, still being blind, immediately tripped over one of the vines snaking across the floor, smashing face first into a stone slab. "On the bright side, I can see again," he said from ground-level as the shattered fragments of his plastic mask decomposed back into mana. "Downside, I think I lost a tooth."

"... Sorry..." repeated Mystery.

"Need a heal?" asked Grace.

"Stay in character!" snapped Rose.

"Fine... See how the very world rejects your depravity? You have no hope of victory here. You're the ones who should give up."

"Hah," smirked the final unwilling demon, whose name Mystery didn't even know. "Time to teach you the meaning of pain."

"As if I'd let you!" shouted Hayedalf, miming a throw. "Exploding bullet!"

"Argg!" replied the fake demon, miming a heavily overdramatised death.

"I'm not done yet! Thunder pebble! Frozen shard! Burning sand!"

"Hey, you can't keep throwing things without picking them up first!" complained Rose.

"Whose side are you on?!"

"This must be the worst attempt at LARPing ever..." thought Mystery to herself, watching the travesty taking place in front of her. "Maybe I should go hide in my foetus for a bit..."

"Enough!" shouted the final surviving demonic elf. "I'll have my revenge!"

He made a sort of shushing noise while tiptoeing towards the group of magical girls.

"Uhh... What?" asked Rose.

"I think he's supposed to be invisible?" suggested Kellela.

"Okay, that's enough," sighed Grace. "Purification wave!"

The false Lilith screamed and fell over.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," thought Mystery. "Maybe they'll get better if my [Cosplay] level goes up a bit?"

ding

You have transformed a group of people, gifting them with instincts for how to interact together, upgrading [Cosplay] with [Skit]. Level cap of [Cosplay] increased by 10.

For discovering a new aspect of role-play, [Cosplay] advances to level 7.

"Or if I get some appropriate sub-skills for it..."

"Okay, that was a reasonable start," said Brylyndril, "but if you go into the demonic forest that half-arsed, the demons will wipe the floor with you. Let's start again, from the top."

"We have to do that again?" cried Grace.

Rrillandral sighed, then walked over to her father and slapped him over the back of his head.

"Ow! Stop beating up the elderly! What was that for?"

"Torturing our guests for your entertainment. We can practise in private."

An old and wrinkled elf—dressed in a short, green, leafy dress—pouted.

ding

For witnessing that without so much as a flinch, [Robust] advances to level 23.

For witnessing that without going blind, [Soul's Eye] advances to level 37. Now the sight will be even clearer for you next time.

"... Do not want," thought Mystery, once again wishing for a brain-bleach skill.

Mystery (Human)

Age: -9 months

Occupation: Hero (L)

Skills:

- Soul's Eye (U) (37/100)

>> Sense Vitality (U)

>> Sense Soul (R)

>> Sense Mana (U)

>> Sense Light (C)

>> Sense Sound (C)

>> Pierce Illusions (U)

>> Sense Miasma (R)

>> Multi-focal (R)

>> Sense Spirit (R)

- Astral Projection (U) (23/60)

>> Sure Navigation (U)

>> Uncontainable (U)

>> Tether of Will (L)

- Robust (C) (23/50)

>> Hardened Soul (R)

>> Secured Mana (U)

>> Pain Tolerance (C)

>> Strengthened Will (U)

- Stealth (C) (3/20)

>> Camouflage Vitality (R)

- Magical Girl Transformation (R) (22/30)

>> Age Correction (R)

>> Gender Bending (R)

- Light (C) (12/20)

>> Heterochrome (U)

- Increased Attributes (C) (11/20)

>> Mana Storage (U)

- Investigation (C) (5/10)

- Cosplay (U) (7/20)

>> Skit (U)

- Mana Absorption (U) (4/20)

>> Drain Mana (U)

- Translate (U) (8/20)

>> Two Way (U)

- Telepathy (U) (13/40)

>> Reciprocity (U)

>> Empathy (U)

>> Guarded Mind (U)

- Lightning Bolt (U) (3/10)

- Fireball (U) (4/20)

>> Multishot (U)

- Wall of Light (U) (1/10)

- Energy Resistance (U) (1/10)

Achievements:

- Early Bloomer II (R)

- First Skill (C)

- Journeyman (U)

- Survivor of Zarklaxxos, the Arcane Infernal (R)

- I Broke The System, And All I Got Was This Lousy Achievement (E)

- Astral Explorer I (R)

- First Spell (C)

- I Broke The System Again, And Now The Administrators Hate Me (E)

- Spell Forger (R)

- Demon Slayer III (E)

- Monster Slayer V (E)

- Curiosity (U)

- War Veteran (U)

- Royal Audience (C)

- Diligent Hero (L)

- Studious (C)

- Pioneering Guider (E)

- Royal Pervert (R)

- I Couldn't Stop Breaking The System, And Now I've Been Smited (E)

- Royal Corrupter (E)