Chương 273: (268) 4.47. It’s What’s On The Inside That Counts

After pointing out the spherical nest Tiffany was staying within, Kark left them to their own devices, reminding them one last time he'd be back before nightfall to help them down from Pendet if they needed assistance. But rather than just barge in like Vin had been expecting, Alka merely stood before the closed door, suddenly hesitant despite all the big talk she'd been spouting on her way over here.

"You okay?" Vin asked, surprised by the Slayer's uncertainty. If there was one thing he knew about her after all the time they'd been together, is that Alka wasn't much of an overthinker. She tended to throw herself directly into whatever plan she'd concocted without pause, and often left the wondering and guessing to other, lesser warriors.

"Yeah…" she said, her disembodied voice wavering ever so slightly as she stared at the closed door before her.

"It's just that I've spent these last few weeks training with Tiffany from dawn till dusk. Helping her forge herself into not just a weapon, but a shield capable of protecting people from monsters. At this point, I know her the same way a warrior knows their sword. All the nicks and notches that come with years of battle, the unique way it's balanced, even how much stress it can take before snapping. But who's to say the Tiffany within that room is the same one I've come to know?

This isn't some rebinding of a soul like you did with me, her soul was merged with another's, even if it was just a largely mindless spider. There's no telling what effects that will have."

"All the more reason to head in there and check on her, don't you think?" he said gently, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sure regardless of how much she's changed, she'll still be happy to see you came all this way to check on her."

"I was the one who put this idea in her head in the first place," Alka said quietly, making no movement to indicate that she felt his hand.

"I told Tiffany there was a chance Shia might come up with a tier 5 spell one day that could restore her legs, or that Frank might prestige again and figure something out. But the girl was always so stubborn about getting what she wanted right then and there. Did you know I tried to fail her out of my training program the very first day, and she refused to leave? She told me she'd just follow us around and do whatever I had the other trainees doing anyway if I did, and that she'd earn the Slayer class on her own.

I can count on my fingers how many people have stood up to me in recent history. Other than you guys."

"Stop talking about her like she's dead and gone," Vin frowned, stepping in front of her and staring into her glowing eyes.

"And if it helps, when I last spoke with the Goddess, she told me that the other-dimensional monster left wounds that would never heal. My arm…" he said, raising his prosthetic and waving it in front of her.

"... can never be regenerated according to the Goddess. This merger was the only way Tiffany was ever going to get her mobility back. The only way she'd be able to continue being the Slayer you forged her to be."

"That does make me feel a bit better about suggesting this in the first place," Alka admitted, her eyes flaring slightly in her version of a small smile.

"Thanks, Vin. I appreciate the pep talk. Want to come in with me?"

"If you'd like," he said, catching Alka's nod. After a few more seconds of silent deliberation and mental preparation, Alka stepped forward. After all that talk, Vin expected her to tentatively knock on the door. Which made it all the more surprising when she kicked it open with a bang, stomping into the room.

"What's all this crap I hear about you not coming back to Terra to be a Slayer?!" Alka demanded, her hesitation and worries nowhere to be found as she pointed her gleaming sword directly in the face of a startled merider.

"I didn't waste weeks of my life training you just for you to sit back and do nothing with your life!" Shaking his head at her performance, Vin followed her into the nest, curiously taking in Tiffany's new form. Before the merger, Tiffany had been a fairly short girl with bright brown eyes and a cute face. He hadn't really spoken to her before, but he'd seen her sweating and struggling right alongside all of Alka's other trainees plenty of times. The merger had changed all that.

Where the barely five-foot-tall girl had once been, there now stood a merider with many of Tiffany's features, still wearing the black-dyed leather shirt that Alka's Slayers wore in an attempt to mirror her own darthsteel armor. Her brown eyes had been taken away, replaced with six large, solid black orbs that jerked in Alka's direction as she stomped in. Her legs were completely gone, switched out for the body of a monstrous spider covered in small brown fur with blond streaks.

She had small fangs jutting out the side of her mouth just like all the other meriders, but more importantly, she had something Vin had rarely seen before across all the dozens of other merdiers living in Pendet. A small, startled frown across her face.

"Alka!" Tiffany gasped, trying to shy back into the horde of blankets the meriders' used in place of beds. It seemed the once-small girl didn't realize that she now stood close to seven-feet-tall with her new lower body, and her many new legs nearly tripped over one another as she scrambled back.

"What are you doing here?!"

"What the hell do you think I'm doing?" Alka snapped, not lowering her sword in the slightest.

"Vin here told me that the warriors waiting down below sent word to the council that you might not be coming back to Terra. That you might be throwing away your dreams of fighting monsters and saving lives. That you were giving up, just because you look a little different now."

"Alka, look at me," Tiffany protested, gesturing at her body with both her human arms and her front two spider legs, her unique limbs working in unison as if it were second nature to her.

"I don't regret the merger in the slightest, seeing as I'm finally able to walk again. Not to mention all the power I can feel coursing through my new body… But I can't go back to town like this. I look like one of the very monsters we trained so hard to defeat! It would cause a panic!"

"Terra has a literal half-demon, a possessed golem, and a woman functionally without any skin living within its walls," Alka drawled, not impressed in the slightest by Tiffany's argument.

"They'll get over it. Once you remind them of what you stand for, what you swore to do in order to protect people, you won't be some abomination in their eyes. You'll be a hero. You're a Slayer, Tiffany, through and through."

"But I'm not!" the merider shouted, causing Vin to take a step back from the sheer anguish in her voice.

"I knew what was going to happen going into this merger thanks to you, but actually losing the class I worked so hard for… I'm not a Slayer anymore, Alka, I'm not even a part of the System. No more levels, no more attributes, nothing. How can I go back and pretend like I'm still something I'm not?" Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"You've got to be kidding me. Is that what this is all about?" Alka roared, causing Tiffany to recoil in surprise at the anger in her voice.

"Have you forgotten one small, ever so tiny detail I told you all about that first day you came to me for training? I warned you the training might not even work in the first place because I'm not technically a Slayer either!" Alka took another step toward Tiffany, forcing the merider to press herself back against the wall as the tip of Dream Eater came dangerously close to her face.

"The System doesn't define what we are. We do. You think just because some magic, floating words don't label you as something anymore means that you're not? Answer me this one question, Tiffany, and if it's what you truly want, I'll leave you to live out the rest of your new life peacefully within Pendet where you may never have to see another monster ever again." Taking one final step toward the merider, her sword a hair's breadth away from piercing into the trembling merider's face, Alka spoke.

"What do Slayers do, Tiffany? Why do we exist in the first place?" Up until this point, Tiffany had been shaking and doing her best to push herself as far back from Alka and her deadly sword as possible. But the moment Alka asked her question, it was as though she'd woken up from some horrible nightmare. Tiffany's trembling stopped in an instant, and she actually stood up straight, ignoring the tip of Alka's sword as it pressed slightly into her cheek, drawing a thin line of blood.

Her many eyes no longer had pupils or anything within their dark orbs, but Vin knew without a shadow of a doubt her attention was squarely on the Slayer standing before her.

"We kill monsters," Tiffany said, taking one last shuddering breath before finishing their motto.

"And we never stop."

"You're damn right we don't," Alka said, nodding as she finally pulled her sword back and returned it to its sheath.

"Unfortunately for you, I'm a living counter to your entire internal struggle that's been keeping you locked up here. If you view me as a Slayer, someone without access to the System and without the actual class, then you have to view yourself as one too. Annoying, isn't it?"

"A little." Tiffany chuckled, wiping away the bead of blood trailing down her face.

"Thank you, Alka, that really helped. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still nervous as hell about returning to Terra like this, but you're right. I never cared what other people thought before this, why should I start now?"

"Now that is a good mindset to have," Alka said, turning to look at him. Vin had spent the entire conversation shying back by the doorway, but now, Alka motioned toward the reinvigorated merider.

"Vin, you mind fixing her face? Scars aren't really all that much of a concern for a Slayer, but seeing as she just got a literally brand-new body and all, I feel a bit bad about marring it up myself."

"Yeah, I can do that," he said, finally entering the room and motioning for Tiffany to bend down. Despite all her new bravado and decision, she still shied back slightly as he approached. Vin assumed that meant she was still a bit hesitant about other Earthers seeing her like this, but Alka apparently knew otherwise.

"The Roamer isn't gonna hurt you, Tif, you guys have got to get over your fear of him sooner or later."

"You're the one who made us fight him six-on-one," Tiffany snapped, frowning at Alka as the golem shrugged.

"Not to mention I can actually sense the dense magic within his core now. It's hard to explain, but this new body has all sorts of oddities to it I'm still trying to figure out."

"Really? You don't just inherently know what it is to be a merider?" Vin asked, casting Renewal and healing up the cut on her face.

"I did think it was a bit strange that I haven't seen you smile a single time since we got here."

"Did I look like I had all that many reasons to be happy?" Tiffany drawled, redirecting her frown toward him.

"Trying to decide whether or not I'm planning to go back to Terra has been eating me up inside. I don't think I've smiled in days!"

"Wait, actually?" he asked, his eyes widening. Seeing her nod of confirmation, Vin took a step back, peering more curiously at the merider. He still didn't quite understand how his new Beyond the Veil ability worked, but from what he'd gathered so far, it somehow worked in tandem with his innate magical senses and his intent to see things that weren't meant to be seen. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to focus on looking not just at Tiffany, but beyond her physical form.

At that strange idea of a soul he briefly felt when casting Sense Soul and Detect Truth. To his shock, he realized Tiffany wasn't a true merider. Something had gone wrong, or perhaps right, during the merger. Lesser Arcane Discovery! 5, 000 exp gained.

"Your merger is flawed," he said suddenly, earning startled looks from both Tiffany and Alka as he continued to stare forward, unblinking.

"I'm not sure what happened, but I can tell that your soul is still largely you. It seems as if most of the physical aspects of the merger went through, obviously, based on your appearance, but your soul is still you. Rather than having merged with the spider's, it would be more appropriate to say it looks like portions of the spider's soul have been superficially grafted onto your own," he tried to explain, his eyes watering as the flickering light of her soul bore itself to his gaze.

"Enough of it was placed on top of your soul to do things like strip you of access to the System and who knows what else, but it didn't actually combine with your own. I know it sounds silly to say, but basically, on the inside, you're still you."

"Her Survivor title," Alka said, snapping her fingers and letting out a boisterous laugh at the realization.

"Even if it doesn't exist anymore, I'd bet my own soul it helped her 'survive' the merger while it was still active. You hear that, Tif? Looks like you haven't changed all that much after all!"

"I'm still me?" she repeated quietly, staring down at both her human hands and her front two spider legs held in front of her face.

"... Forgive me for saying I find that a bit hard to believe."

"Believe whatever you want, but Vin doesn't go around lying about this kind of crap," Alka said, clapping him on the shoulder and making for the door.

"Anyway, we need to head back to the infernals and make sure the town didn't burn down in our absence. Take another day or two to get used to your new body, then come find me. Me and the other Slayers are all helping out in the adjacent fragment, the one with the massive trees. You can come back to town with us, and if anyone has anything to say, they'll suddenly find they have seven Slayers threatening to beat their ass."

"Thanks, Alka, that sounds like a good plan," Tiffany said quietly, turning to look at him as well, hesitating for only a moment before nodding.

"And thank you, Vin. Hearing I'm still me under all this really helps."

"Sorry, Tif, based on his current girlfriend this guy's definitely weird enough to be into the whole half-spider thing, but he's currently taken," Alka said, causing Vin to roll his eyes and Tiffany to begin sputtering as they walked out of the nest.

"See you in a few days!"

"Was that really necessary?" Vin asked as Alka laughed to herself and closed the door.

"Eh, probably not," she admitted, her eyes flaring in mirth.

"But it sure was funny!"