Evil Avalon - Volume 2 - Chapter 25

Chapter 25: A Midnight Rendezvous - Part 2

In the dark, quiet park, Risa released her Aura without a magic field present.

“The look on your face tells me you knew about this already,” said Risa, chuckling.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Everything that works in the game, I’ve tested in this world.”

Ordinarily, skills and physical enhancements only activated if you were inside the dungeon or within the magic field that encapsulated a 150-meter radius around the dungeon portal. Some magical tools could create artificial magic fields anywhere you wanted. But we were unlikely to get our hands on one because of strict government restrictions on possessing and using these tools.

Releasing Aura was an exception to this rule. You could use Manual Activation to release your Aura even outside a magic field, and a continuous release of it would saturate the air with mana particles. This reaction generated a pseudo-magic field and enabled physical enhancements and skills for a short time, an exploit that most players in DEC knew about.

“Okay... But did you know you can do this?” Risa slowly shut her eyes and suddenly blended in with her surroundings, disappearing... Or so it seemed. She was definitely still there, but I had to concentrate hard to be able to notice her. There were a few skills that had similar effects. One was the Hide skill that would make you less noticeable; Risa was using the Invisible skill that would almost erase your existence from other people’s perception. She didn’t appear to be using a scroll or any magic items, meaning she could only activate a skill from an advanced job if it was one of her game character’s skills.

“My character didn’t have this skill,” said Risa.

“Then how did you learn it?” I asked.

If it hadn’t come from her character, she would’ve needed to learn the skill in this world. You could only acquire an advanced job if you were level 20 or above.

“I realized that, unlike in the game, you can control how much Aura you release. If you match your body’s Aura output to the same amount as your surroundings—” Once again, Risa faded from my perception. “—then Invisible activates.” As in the game, the spell broke when she moved or spoke.

Risa explained the different ways that one could use Aura. You could unleash a large burst of Aura at a target to intimidate them, match its output to the background level of mana particles to activate Invisible, or reduce your Aura output to zero to activate Hide. In essence, it was a new way to manually activate skills.

“That’s so simple that other adventurers must have tried it,” I argued. “Oh, wait, I see. This is another case where you must be aware of the skill to use it.”

“I think so,” admitted Risa. “If you don’t know about Invisible, then the skill won’t activate no matter how you tune your Aura output, and you won’t be able to acquire the skill either.”

Risa believed performing the skill motions and channeling mana were not enough. For example, there was no difference between the motion of the Samurai skill Iai and an ordinary sideways swipe attack. But the swipe wouldn’t benefit from large increases to attack power and slicing damage unless the skill was activated. Therefore, other adventurers couldn’t activate Invisible by tuning their Aura output.

She recommended that I only use Invisible while in a safe location or after adding it to my skill slots so it activates automatically. It required a lot of concentration to get it to work otherwise and would be dangerous to use in battle.

Even so, Risa’s discovery was big news. We could now activate any Aura-based skill with this method, allowing us to add it to our skill slots.

I tried it out; manually activating the Aura skill required drawing a magic circle in the air rather than performing a motion. I traced a pattern with my hands, channeled a small amount of mana through, and slowly drew the rest of the circle. Aura began emanating from my body. If I let my Aura continue to release, I’d generate a temporary magic field around us. Although, there’d be no point because mana particles from Risa’s Aura still saturated the air.

Next, I tried to adjust the amount of Aura I was releasing. I needed to perfectly match my Aura output with the mana density in the air. But I had trouble adjusting that a tiny bit.

“Do you have any tips?” I asked.

“Fine-tuning your Aura is really tough,” said Risa. “You need a lot of practice.”

I realized I would not figure out how to freely manipulate my Aura output immediately. On the other hand, I would risk running out of mana if I practiced for too long.

“You might find it easier to practice Meditation first,” suggested Risa.

“That could make things easier, I guess...”

Meditation was a handy skill that restored your mana and HP while the skill was active. It wasn’t valuable enough for high-level players to keep in their skill slots but had become godsend for low-level players who were more likely to use up their limited mana reserves. I was glad to hear that I could unlock it now because you could only acquire it when you’d maxed out the job level of Caster.

Just then, Risa clarified I could activate Meditation by shutting my eyes and swirling my Aura around my belly button... Of course she made it sound simple. I was amazed that she’d mastered the ability to perfectly control her Aura in such a short time frame despite having no prior experience with it. Maybe she had a natural talent that I did not.

She heaved a long sigh and released a self-deprecating chuckle, then said, “There’s a reason I practiced so hard to master the Aura-based skills. I wonder if you’ve got the same problem.”

“What problem is that?”

“I got saddled with an inconvenient starter skill.”

Ah. So she’s got one too. “Do you mind if I use an appraisal item on you?” I asked.

“Go ahead,” she replied. “I don’t mind anymore.”

I’d brought along an appraisal item in case Risa had an unusual skill like my Glutton and looked at her listed skills.

“So you have Basic Appraisal...and ‘Libido’...” I remarked. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Just as I was stuck with Glutton, Risa had to deal with Libido, which I suspected was a handicap for players. In my case, my skill’s debuffs were a loss of physical ability due to large reductions in my strength and agility stats, including a continuous increase in my appetite. I read through the details of Risa’s skill.

“You receive larger increases to mana and agility stats when you level up,” I read aloud. “Your sexual desire increases and your HP reduces by thirty percent. Vitality is reduced by fifty percent. You can upgrade to the Lust skill... Sounds rough!”

The increases to mana and agility were fine, but HP and vitality were stats that I really wouldn’t want to see reductions in, and there was the increase to sexual desire to boot... I wasn’t sure how much it would increase her libido. Even if it were half as powerful as my desire for food, then Risa would be in an extremely difficult situation.

“And when it says my sexual desire goes up, it means all day long!” exclaimed Risa, sighing. “It was like I was in heat twenty-four hours a day! I could barely function. I don’t know how I got through the first weeks of school.” She smiled and said, “I don’t mind bringing it up because it’s mostly better now.”

I could understand her predicament and would go crazy if I had to constantly deal with those effects. And Risa was a woman, which meant an unrestrainable sexual desire could put her in dangerous situations. Her skill was like mine in that it remained active outside of the magic field, so she couldn’t just run away from it.

Risa explained the steps she’d taken. She’d wanted to free herself as soon as possible, and her first plan had been to change jobs and overwrite Libido with another skill. Unfortunately, her mental state was in a precarious position to spend weeks slowly leveling up in the dungeon, and she’d felt no hope of improving.

“And then,” she said, “sometimes, when I had time, I’d go to the dungeon and meditate to clear my mind.”

Apparently, she’d meditate whenever she worried or had something on her mind. It was a habit she’d kept up from her life in our world. One day, while meditating, she started playing with her Aura, feeling odd when she concentrated it near her stomach. That had been when she’d inadvertently acquired the Meditation skill. Realizing she could acquire other skills that also used Aura, she started experimenting.

“And the three skills that taught me were Invisible, Hide, and Meditation.”

She’d practiced trying to learn other Aura-based skills, but most didn’t work. For example, she failed to acquire Dragon Aura, Sacred Aura, and Magical Warfare. It wasn’t sufficient to simply alter the flow and volume of your Aura for these skills, and she had yet to confirm what extra conditions were needed to unlock them.

“Couldn’t you use a skill you learned to overwrite your starter skill?” I asked.

“Nope,” she replied. “It can’t be overwritten. Yours too, I’d guess.”

I had a feeling that would be the case. These starter skills carried huge debuffs, were only given to former players, and transcended our knowledge of the game. I expected plenty more secrets to how they worked.

“Thankfully, I managed to learn Flexible Aura, which was the one I really needed.”

Flexible Aura was an anti-debuff skill that reduced the effects of status impairments and decreased your probability of being inflicted with a status impairment. With a heavy sigh, Risa pointed out that Flexible Aura watered down Libido’s effects, letting her finally lead a normal life again. Still, Libido was a surprisingly powerful skill. While she needed to recast Flexible Aura several times a day, it was helping. Perhaps it could help with my Glutton skill.

Another thing that I was curious about was the possibility of upgrading to a more advanced version of the skill.

“We can upgrade our starter skills if we defeat a ‘qualifier,’” I said. “What are your thoughts on that?”

“Yeah, I saw that when I appraised Libido,” responded Risa. “I don’t know what a qualifier is, but I worry that upgrading the skill will make the effects worse.”

The appraisal wand hadn’t shown me what effects the upgraded skill would have. Although effects were enough of a challenge as they were, they’d be unmanageable if they got worse. The smart move was to hold off on upgrading the skill until I could examine it with a more advanced appraisal spell or obtain equipment that severely reduced debuffs.

Also, on the topic of the qualifier...

“Apparently, I’ve satisfied the conditions to upgrade mine,” I informed her.

“What?” she said, gasping. “When did you beat a qualifier?”

“I think I know when,” I replied. “It’s him. I’m sure of it.”

It had to be Volgemurt, the unique boss who exuded a pitch-black Aura and a menacing desire to see me dead. I could still clearly remember every second of my hard-won fight against him.

“Sounds like he was a tough opponent,” expressed Risa. “I’d figured the qualifier would be another player like us, but I guess not.”

“About that...” I said. “When I think back now to the fight—”

Volgemurt had displayed emotions, something out of character for undead monsters. He’d had an expert grasp on the effects of skills and the best distance to keep between us, used a wide range of tactics to create feints, and suspiciously tricked me into attacking in certain ways to counter. It had been like fighting a PKK from DEC with copious battle experience or maybe a top Arena fighter. When I thought about the fight rationally, it was bizarre to come across such a cunning monster.

“He must’ve been tough to warrant you of all people to say that,” commented Risa. “But a monster like that...”

“The way he fought, it was like he was a DEC player,” I said.

Was Volgemurt a player?

I didn’t have the evidence, but my instincts told me he was. The terrifying implication was that players weren’t guaranteed to become students of Adventurers’ High. They could become monsters too.

Was it any harder to believe than the fact that we were living inside the game that had become a reality? I wondered what would’ve happened if I’d lived as an undead monster. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stay sane.

“I don’t like the thought that I might run into a monster like that in the dungeon and get into a fight,” said Risa. “My life would be in danger even if I used my character’s skills.”

“Be extra careful if you encounter any monsters you don’t remember from the game,” I advised. “Your first thought should be that they’re qualifiers rather than new monsters.”

Volgemurt had been slightly sluggish at times and hadn’t used any player skills, possibly because he’d only just awoken. Even so, his experience in fighting against adventurers was evident. I would’ve been in deep trouble if he’d taken the fight in an unexpected direction.

“I just hope us players don’t start fighting each other to upgrade our starter skills,” I said.

“It’s worrying, isn’t it?” inquired Risa. “We’ll have to watch out.”

It would be fine if the qualifiers referred to certain monsters. But if the former players were the qualifiers, that would give us a reason to hunt and kill other players to upgrade our skills. I wanted to come up with a countermeasure to prevent this.

One option was to use contract magic to forbid us from fighting each other. Another was for Risa and I to level up so much that we could become deterrents against infighting. Or perhaps we could devise a rule so players would have to observe one another for any signs of conflict. Each option would take time to achieve, and they were pointless at the moment because we didn’t know the identities of the other players or their strengths.

“I wonder how many other players made it here,” I said. “Maybe it’s more than I thought.”

“The event where they screened for testers was insanely difficult,” stated Risa. “I don’t think that many players could have made it through. But...” Risa raised her index finger to her lips and put on a mischievous smile. “I do know one more.”