Frome dropped me off at base and bade me farewell. It was the dead of night, but I could hear activity going on inside. I entered and saw a few dozen people sat together, chatting about various topics. This was one of the nightly meetings that Loftus told me about.
There were also people awake who weren’t taking part in the meeting. Mainly those who wanted to make themselves some snacks before bed.
I approached the table full of people and saw Loftus sat down among the group. I purposely chose to sit on an empty seat as far away from his as possible. Not a minute after I sat, Loftus got up and began walking over to me.
“Hey, bud. Joining the meeting again?” He sat next to me. “We’ve already discussed the most important topics so we’re just chatting and exploring our Systems.”
“Thanks for the summary,” I said. I looked above his head and saw that he had reached level 20. “Congrats on mindlessly killing enough to level up some more.”
“Thanks,” Loftus replied earnestly to my sarcasm.
“What kind of topics do you guys normally discuss at these meetings?” I asked.
“A diverse range of subjects. Today we were talking about one of the people that left on day one. You know that guy with long hair who never returned after he left?”
“No.”
“Ok, well, Wallasey over there saw them recently.” Loftus pointed at a girl with light-brown fur all over her body.
Wallasey spoke in a high-pitched voice. “Yeah, I saw him when I was doing a mission for the guild. He was wearing a black cloak and dual-wielding swords. Among us transmigrators, he’s probably the highest level. It’s only our sixth day in this world and he’s already achieved level 30. Isn’t that amazing?”
“I guess,” I replied. “By the way, why are you covered in fur?”
Wallasey bashfully cupped her cheek. “I took the Deer title and now I’m half-deer.”
“Woah that’s cool. I was offered the Llama title by the System, but I didn’t want to become a half-llama, so I declined it.” I wondered if picking that title came with special perks. “What made you choose to become a half-deer?”
“Erm, well.” Wallasey looked downwards and hesitated to answer.
“She chose it because she’s a furry,” someone else mentioned. The table started laughing at the remark, but I had no idea what the joke was.
“Yeah, I guess she is quite furry.” I looked around and saw that she was the only one to have an extreme transformation to her body. Either the others wanted to stay human, or they hadn’t been offered the opportunity to change.
A lot of the people at the table had their Systems open, like kids on their iPhones during dinner. They scrolled through various menus, deliberated between reward options, and read through their quests. Following their lead, I opened up my own System.
I had three rewards to choose from.
[Soul Needle: Conjure a Soul Needle. This spirit needle can be used to perform acupuncture directly on a creature’s soul. Costs 50 MP. (Soul)]
[Stats: +2 to all Stats.]
[Ahoge: Sprout an ahoge.]
What the heck was the last one? I had never heard of that word before. The System classified it as a cosmetic, so it didn’t seem all too useful. Was it supposed to change something about my appearance?
The first one was also quite the mystery. What would it even entail, being able to perform acupuncture on a person’s soul? If normal acupuncture can cause changes to a person's body, did that mean I could cause changes in a person’s soul? If so, that opened up a new question. What changes could occur? I couldn’t even fathom one. The concept of a soul was so vague that it was impossible to imagine changing it.
Maybe I could alter someone’s personality? Or perhaps I could induce certain emotions?
I didn’t want to pick a choice purely off of speculation, so my best bet was the second one. An increase to all my stats was certainly welcome. Especially since my Body was at -1. Getting out of the negatives would be nice.
“So, Yarm, what have you been getting up to?” Loftus nudged me and broke my train of thought.
I glared at him and loudly exclaimed, “Oh, nothing. I’ve just been thinking about how to end child marriage, slavery, and the planned genocide of monsters. Got any ideas?”
The table went quiet. Everything I mentioned was something that each of them had been participating in to varying degrees. I was the only one to call them out on it, and they were definitely unappreciative of me doing so.
Blyth, the smarty-pants who came up with formulas, said, “You know, Yarm, sometimes I think you care more about monsters than you do humans. You have sympathy for slaves, but you spare none for their masters. And you go one about protecting kids, then turn a blind eye to adults.”
The others at the table outspokenly agreed with her.
I couldn’t even begin to tell Blyth how wrong she was. Seriously, I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to put into words my complete disapproval of her statement. It was difficult to debate with a person whose morals were so different from my own. “I care about humans too, but I don’t want innocent monsters to be killed.”
“Pshh,” Blyth uttered. “Then why don’t you tell the monsters to stop killing innocent humans?”
“Because they can’t understand me.”
“So, they can kill us, but we can’t lift a finger to stop them?” Blyth reasoned.
“Self-defence is ok, but what’s happening right now is a cycle of violence. Humans kill monsters because monsters kill humans. Monsters kill humans because humans kill monsters. It’s a never-ending vicious cycle of murder.”
“Source?” Blyth said.
“What?”
“Where’s your source? The way I see things, monsters are bloodthirsty killers. If humans had never harmed monsters in any way, they would still attack us.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And you don’t know if your ‘cycle of violence’ theory is correct. It’s just your word against mine.”
I didn’t have any argument against her. I couldn’t prove my idea. I had to have evidence for her to believe me.
The others steered the conversation in a new direction. I sighed and went back to choosing my quest reward. I was veering towards the stats, but I still was curious about the last option.
“Anyone know what an ahoge is?” I asked the table.
They all turned their attention towards me. “Why do you ask?” said Loftus.
“I can currently choose a cosmetic reward to give me an ahoge, but I don’t know what it is,” I stated truthfully.
“Oh my God, you’re so lucky!” someone said.
Another sighed, “I wish I could have an ahoge. It would totally suit me.”
“I would pay so much money for one.”
What’s this, I thought? It seemed an ahoge was actually something amazing. I patted myself on the back for not choosing stats so hastily. The System had rewarded me with an incredible option, and I was about to disregard it simply because I didn’t understand. How foolish of me. I hovered my hand over the ahoge choice, ready to lock it in. Then, good sense took a hold of me. “So, what exactly is an ahoge?”
Loftus answered, “It’s like a cowlick. A tuft of hair that shoots out of the top of your head.”
I blinked rapidly while trying to compute that response. “What exactly does this tuft of hair do?”
Loftus didn’t seem to understand the grammar of my question. “It doesn’t do anything. It’s just a pretty cosmetic.”
“Then why would I pick it?” I asked.
“Aura,” several members of the table answered simultaneously.
“What?”
“Cosmetics are purely for aura purposes, you know? They look really cool,” said Loftus.
It was just to look cool? I struggled to believe that anyone would waste precious finite quest-rewards on cosmetics. And plus, there was nothing cool about a cowlick. If I really wanted one, I could just put some gel in my hair. “Does anyone pick these cosmetic options?”
“Yeah, loads of people.” Loftus nudged the guy next to him. “Tell Yarm about your trail.”
The guy looked at me an explained, “I have a cosmetic that leaves a trail of afterimages behind me, when I run above 30mph.”
I squinted my eyes at the guy. He would be a world record runner if he could sprint that fast. “What’s your top speed?”
“20 miles per hour.”
“Then you can’t create the trail!” I shouted. “What’s even the point of having the cosmetic if you can’t use it?”
“Future proofing,” the guy said.
“That’s not what that means.”
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