| [Integrity] |
1503 / 1577 |
| [Toll] |
602 / 3677 |
| Strength |
1265 |
Speed |
1204 |
| Endurance |
1395 |
Dexterity |
1199 |
| Stamina |
1373 |
Resilience |
1199 |
| Perception |
1317 |
Charisma |
1197 |
| Adaptability |
1318 |
Luck |
1211 |
| Circulation |
3598 |
Presence |
1627 |
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
This time, the effect lasted long enough for her to appreciate just how different the world felt. She couldn't quite wrap her finger around the fine details, but, for one, her <Body> attributes felt as though they exerted a noticeable pressure outwards, all the while keeping something out. Her early worries of accidentally breaking something while lessening the penalty paled in comparison to this, as she found herself forming a vague idea in her head of just how Strength and Endurance might work from the perspective of the knowledge [System Eye] provided her.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Something to explore to more depth later, no doubt. But for now, she had to make the most of these seconds. Mana flowed like water through as stream as {Foresight} slammed into [Unpacifiable] unbidden, the [Toll] of that inconsequential compared to the cost of activating the Skill. Clearly, today wouldn't be the day where she figured out just how much overflow she was allowed, as nothing stopped her.
No alarm bells went off as she examined both the item and her plans. Her Perception seemed to scour reality itself for any inkling that her Skill might be missing something, and found nothing before fading into the background as [Enforced Longevity].
That'd still only been a faction of what she should have had in terms of attributes. Malwine bit her lip. She really needed to work on her plans for shaking down a fell to fix this. It'd be in the distant future, but she couldn't give up on the idea.
At least she'd gotten the assurances she wanted. It'd probably been overkill, since she didn't intend to reveal anything about herself, but while the aftereffects were bittersweet, Malwine was glad she'd done this.
Even if it'd left her more than a bit irked about all she was missing out on.
All Malwine meant to do was play the part of a worried niece. It helped that she genuinely cared. She might never have met Benedikt and felt next to no emotional attachment to him individually, but she was very much invested in the concept of Benedikt as a family member. Her youngest uncle—the youngest boy, anyway, now that Gertraud had been born—and someone who was apparently sick. Someone defenseless.
The widow had always been mindful of lost potential, and lives taken too soon. Back in her Earth, when it came to older generations, few early deaths had been truly unavoidable. Poor working conditions that led to accidents, or a lack of access to efficient treatment for illnesses, be it due to the time period or due to a lack of resources.
A part of the widow had always looked at that, at her cousins, aunts, uncles, and ambiguously related individuals—all of who might have lived if they had simply been born under different circumstances or in a better era—and told herself 'I wouldn't have let that happen'.
It was likely to at least be a slight type of savior complex, in that she didn't think it'd been fair for them to not get to live full lives and also had enough of an ego to think she could have somehow made a difference. The widow had been like that.
But Malwine had power the widow wouldn't have dreamt of. She had a literal bullshitting Skill—one specifically family-oriented, at that!
She couldn't rule out the possibility that she might be able to do something if she didn't even try, and before she could take even a step, she needed more information.
Now, to play the part of a concerned niece. For real now. It wouldn't be hard. She was very worried about the possibility of her family tree facing a loss this early on, and that had to count for something.
"Do you need me to hide and watch?" Adelheid asked as she dropped Malwine off at her uncle's door. The adult members of the family might have been concerned by such an appearance, but Adelheid as a mode of transportation was perfectly normal to her by now.
And the offer was quite touching. "If you want."
Her little sister faded from view. She wasn't particularly eager about the girl listening to what had the potential to become a sad conversation, but she wouldn't deny herself the additional security.
That said security took the form of an actual seven-year-old was a detail she wouldn't address.
Malwine knocked on the door. She didn't even have to feign nervousness. The widow had been no stranger to the art of showing up on people's doorsteps when she needed something, and she'd wandered Beuzaheim's public buildings as her double in this life, but she was still on edge.
Perhaps it was because of the locket. He'd given her an opportunity she might not have gotten even if she ran a trial for Beryl—the chance to see what her mother looked like. Not just whichever version her Skill could have conjured up, but her mother as Beryl's own brother remembered her.
She wasn't sure if she'd ever forgive him for trying to 'borrow' that locket back—and Malwine was nothing if not selectively petty—but the sweet, if fleeting, moment had a part of her wishing she could at least establish some amicable relations here. She needed a more solid family connection than ghosts from the past—Adelheid was trying her best, but she was young.
The response was far from immediate, and Malwine found herself constantly looking to both sides of the hall. She wasn't forbidden from wandering like this, but encountering any of the staff might have led to questions—likely harmless questions, but still.
I'm not even doing anything wrong. Her preference for hiding her dealings was such that maybe—just maybe—it bordered on the dangerous territory of blatant paranoia. She simply didn't want anyone else to know what she was up to, even if it was ultimately inconsequential. Talking to relatives was very much what normal children in large families did.
The door creaked open a bit too slowly, and she could make out her uncle suspiciously eyeing the outside, growing increasingly confused by the second until he looked down. His grip on the door loosened slightly as he finished opening it then, though he spent more seconds blinking in silence than what Malwine would have deemed reasonable.
Hey. I'm perfectly tall for a seven-year-old. Get your eyes checked. She squashed the nascent offense before it could take root—if someone knocked on her door, she probably wouldn't expect it to be a child nibling, either.
Speaking of her uncle, though, he once again looked as if he'd just recently washed his hair. She'd seen him like that enough times to be curious, so she decided to take the lead on starting this conversation. "Hi, Uncle Anselm. Are you okay? Did you fall into a bucket of water?"
"Hello," her uncle said. It was clearly out of instinct, considering all the phases his expression went through as he must have caught up with just what she'd said. "…No, nothing of the sort. I was performing some alchemical experiments and for the sake of safety, I prefer to swiftly bathe once I'm done," he paused, making an assumption. "Oh. Had you even heard that term before? Well, alchemy is a discipline that's about creating elixirs, tonics, and the like. Those, you probably have encountered, as they're pretty quintessential. For example…"
Little did he know the reason for her stare had not been a desire to inquire on the meaning of the word 'alchemy', so much as she'd been trying her best to wait out his explanation before pressing on. Malwine wasn't particularly thrilled about having to listen to a lecture—no matter how brief—on top of that, so she made an attempt to cut it short. "So. What's the point of alchemists if harvestables exist?"
Anselm visibly flinched at that, making his niece ever so slightly regret choosing that phrasing. She hadn't meant to downplay whatever work he did.
"The results of harvestables are random, while we can tailor concoctions based on what is necessary. Flexibility and specificity are what sets us apart. Think of it as the difference between buying a dress that's already been sewn and having a seamstress make it for you from scratch."
Thank fuck I'm not an actual child or I would be so confused right now. She was starting to gain some new appreciation for Adelheid's capacity to somewhat keep up with conversations. None of their family members made any efforts beyond the minimum to keep their vocabulary at an elemental level, not now and not when she'd been much younger. Even Anselm's own attempt her had been so misplaced that she struggled not to laugh.
"Okay," was the only response she could muster. "Uncle, I want to talk."
"…About?"
"Stuff," Malwine said. She took a step forward and started to peek into the inside of his chambers. Each of Beryl's siblings had what amounted to small apartments within the estate, so she expected a lobby of sorts to be the first thing she saw, but instead, what greeted her from this angle was a sofa full of other objects that had been stacked upon it. It reminded her, distantly, of how restaurants on the widow's Earth stacked chairs on the tables when preparing to close for the day.
Her uncle didn't stop her, moving aside to let her walk in. Eyeing the sofa, she didn't comment on it, instead climbing up to one of the armrests and dramatically crossing her legs. "Uncle, I need to ask something, and I need you to answer honestly."
Anselm seemed wary in equal parts about shutting the door and about answering, but he did both anyway. "What do you want to ask?"
"I've been thinking about what my sister said. Adelheid," Malwine looked down, trying to give off her best impression of vaguely watery eyes. "Benedikt… Mother's littlest brother. Is something going to happen to him?"
"I confess I'm unware of the details. My… my father and Bernadette have been tightlipped about him for a long time, and now, I can see why. What Adelheid said was news to all of us, and as it stands, I know no more about it than all who were present there."
"But he's sick?"
"It appears so."
"Sick with what? Can't you find out?" And preferably tell me about it immediately?
"I could," Anselm admitted, but did not elaborate. He seemed surprisingly confident of that statement, considering Kristian and Bernadette had somehow managed to keep this all under wraps for years now.
Then again, he had that going on. While the specifics of just what was going on with him and the young god, Malwine couldn't exactly rule out he might have been hiding some capacities.
Curious, she snuck in a glance.
She wasn't sure as to just why her gaze lingered on him after seeing that. Anselm was still Level 145, the same level Adelheid had told her he was a while back. That lack of progress seemed odd, doubly so considering, well, the god thing. Math continued to be her enemy, but it didn't take much effort to consider someone on the Mortal Esse—without the additional otherworlder slots—could get up to 120 levels from Skills. That alone should have been enough to…
Huh. At the first stage of the Mortal Esse, her base level was 11. Veit had told her the stage went as far as to 25, when she'd asked. Oh. Holy shit.
He was still Level 145 because that was literally the highest level he could be, at least at this stage. That was probably a stranger kind of bottleneck than what she'd faced. Lacking Affinities or the methods through which people like Kristian broke through to hollow core, he was likely stuck there. Again, no idea how the god thing fits in…
"Will you find out?" Malwine insisted, pushing her distraction away. Just how much she should push was probably a fine line to toe, but she needed to make sure.
"Fine," Anselm nodded, as if he'd already been debating that internally. "Though I confess I find it troubling that… that we are in such a state that the children are the ones to worry the most about this. I will investigate, yes."
She didn't mention how that implied he was excluding himself there.
"And you'll tell me," Malwine added. "Adelheid is worried, and that makes me worried…"
Also, I'm nosy.
He didn't immediately refute her, so her thoughts went on to review their interaction. Things hadn't gone as she'd expected—for one, she hadn't ended up being anywhere near as dramatic as she'd planned to, and that made her worry there'd been some flaw there. However, she hadn't exactly failed, either.
Malwine hesitated to leave, then. She wasn't sure how it might pan out, but she had come this far. While she had already probably achieved her desired outcome—maybe he wouldn't actually get back to her, but, god thing nor not, she doubted he could hide much from Adelheid—she saw no harm in poking her uncle again.
"Uncle Anselm… No one ever talks about my mother," Malwine sighed. "You gave me her… image. So I was wondering…"
She made an effort to put up some serious puppy eyes before continuing. "Can you tell me more about my mother?"
NOVEL NEXT