Chương 5: Gentle Night

Never did I expect myself to end up like the freaks that were the 'System Fundamentalists', but here I was, hunting fellow man down for a measly scrap of the so-called 'Experience' or XP if you didn't feel like pronouncing a simple word… The existence of those madmen came back to my mind since I was trying to figure out the best way to go about collecting experience. Alas, they were not called mad fools for no reason.

The pursuit of power through the system, acquiring strength and power by simply killing, was attractive, simplistic, and even an idiot could do it with ease. But things were not so simple. Many had tried, even entire nations, if my memory served correctly. It was just stupid, the system had nothing of substance to offer, you would be better off just letting it do its work in the background whilst you pursued another way of power.

I looked down at my bloodied hands of steel, coated in gore, strands of hair sticking to my fingers. I have become a madwoman, just like the system fundamentalists. Only that it was the correct way for me. In the past, I never bothered with all of those ways of power. I was content living my life as the heir of some wealthy merchants. Not everyone needed to have their names engraved in history or to accomplish meritorious deeds.

Some simply needed to live their lives, and even if I knew that I was always capable of the best, I didn't mind not having statues erected in my honour. Mmh… I was starting to enjoy this new body of mine. The common folks, even the large, stout men, were as easy to tear apart as wet paper with my newfound strength. They were like fragile dolls when within my grasp. I felt so euphoric about it at times that instead of cleanly snapping necks, I ended up ripping heads, covering myself in blood and filth…

I could allow myself to be so messy. I was able to do it all in silence so far, but if the guards brought one of their bloodhounds, which could either be an actual dog or a canine beastfolk with a sharp nose, they might just be able to follow my trail back home. And considering how I massacred these people, they would probably send some actually competent guards to come fetch me.

I wasn't too keen on getting blasted by a fireball and sliced into two by some shining sword, so I did my best to rid myself of the smell of blood that now clung to me. There was no worries to be added about water having an adverse effect on my steel body, I had worked with the automatons in the past, the material they were made from was exceptionally resistant to corrosion and rust, and also, I lacked all of the copper, silver or golden wires that regular automatons were normally filled to the brim with.

I lacked all the devices an automaton was supposed to be equipped with. I was neither powered by an energy crystal nor did I require lightning to travel through wires for me to speak or move about. In essence, I was just a haunted object in that regard. Miss Nebulo, might I share an insight with you? Go ahead.

I did not want to interrupt you whilst you were busy, but you should be able to acquire more XP from individual victims by acting more in line with your current innate abilities Oh, wait, that actually sounds important. Keep going. Using your raw strength and limbs to kill falls in line with 'Living Metal', but to do the same with 'Tormentor', you should refrain from killing your targets so quickly and let them experience more fear. By directly tormenting them, for example Is simply using the ability not enough?

I had been making sure to learn how to do what my abilities allowed, even though I didn't have a clue what absorbing negative emotions and the souls of those I killed did or meant, I still made sure to do it. This helps, but it would be preferable to actively attempt to squeeze your victims of all the negative emotions they can offer you before dealing the final blow and absorbing their souls. The more tortured a person is, the better their soul is for you And what do their souls do for me anyway?

Or their negative emotions, for that matter? Sorry, I cannot yet answer this question. I must refrain from mentioning the possible future Huh… I see. I get what you are saying, though. I guess it makes sense that acting according to my innate abilities is best, but I can't allow myself to linger on for too long or allow my victims to make noise. This city is hostile to me, and I am not exactly inconspicuous. Before thinking about all of this stuff, I need to get out of here.

The house I broke into is in chaos right now. There is a disembodied head lying on the kitchen counter, someone sprawled on their stomach on the dinner table, whilst their empty eyes stared at the ceiling, not even mentioning the one I accidentally got stuck in between the guardrail. It was all a proper mess, but I was partly to blame, having gotten a bit too excited about my enormous strength… Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Nah, actually, it was their fault for not having a more durable door. We live in dangerous times! Any lunatic could come barging in at any moment, and what? They used wooden doors that were made from mundane trees, at that? Utter madness, they deserved everything that came their way for that idiocy! Shaking my head at the drop in intelligence in just twenty years, I stepped back out into the streets. The night was not yet over, but I didn't wish to grow too greedy and headed back home for now.

The only problem I had right now was the blood on my clothes, as it turns out, any blood, gore and the like that ended up on my body ended up disappearing, devoured by the steel. The system wasn't messing around. I can indeed devour things despite lacking a stomach and digestive system. My journey back to my old home was without events. No spawnlings popped out of nowhere to get in my way, which was a bit of a shame.

They were probably the only sort of people that I could scare out of their wits, and absolutely no one would believe a word of what they said. That's just how it is, everybody knows that the little ones are inept of mind and that their words are to be heavily doubted. When they mention random monsters showing up in seemingly impossible places, the natural conclusion would be that their feeble brains were just imagining something that did not exist.

The cities might be awful and squalid, but they were relatively safe from such creatures, after all. I made it back and figured out that the old well in the backyard still worked fine, so I soaked my clothes in water, not wasting any time lest it all got permanently tainted. The backyard itself was completely overgrown. How the neighbours did not complain about invasive plants making their way into their own gardens was a mystery, but nothing seemed to have been done about it in years.

But on the bright side, despite my lovely plants having all keeled over and withered, the overgrowth provided much cover. I could totally go out here during the day without being spotted by anyone. That was good to know, even if I literally could not get a breath of fresh air anymore, stepping outside in the sun every once in a while could not hurt. The night was quiet. It was dark. It was as peaceful as I remembered, truly.

If a person did not need their dose of sunlight every once in a while, I would have much preferred to only live and do things at night. The sensation of freedom it brought was indescribable. Aah… Hold on, I don't feel a single bit tired, do I not need to sleep? Only now was I realising that it had nearly been an entire day since I had risen, and since the beginning, I felt the exact same.

Not only was I free of the annoying quirks of having a human body, but it seemed as though, despite my mind remaining the same, I remained just as sharp despite the passing of time. Your body does not know exhaustion, and as a Vengeful Spirit, you do not require sleep That's weird, am I not basically an undead despite being alive? I hope that this won't get me in trouble with those walking corpses…

Although the system then went on to tell me that I could enter a state of dormancy if I didn't wish to experience the passing of time in full, I instead preferred to try and experiment a bit. First of all, whilst trying to clean my clothes, I realised that the water was not being coloured red even as the blood peeled off, even in that state, my metallic hands were drinking the sanguine substance greedily, basically leaving no proof whatsoever.

It made me wonder if I could not just run my hands over my coat and simply absorb the blood directly. I tried with some stains that were refusing to disappear, and it worked! Heheh… Maybe I should consider a line of work as a 'cleaner', surely the criminals wouldn't be the ones to care about what I look like, right? But did I really want to associate myself with such lowlives? I was far above them in all aspects, but desperate times called for desperate measures, so it was to be considered…

Next, I tried a few things with my innate abilities. It was rather obvious that the system either couldn't or was unwilling to reveal too much information. When I asked why, it would just go on about not being allowed to mention the 'possible future' like it already did earlier. From my point of view, the system just didn't want to spoon-feed me everything. Instead, wanting me to experiment and find out things on my own, which was welcome, it wasn't like I needed help from some disembodied voice.

I had a mind of my own.

'Living Metal' sounded rather simple, merely being an ability that had to do with my body. I was made of steel, I grew flesh, and I could eat both steel and flesh to regenerate faster than I normally could- But how come blood also counted as flesh? It seemed like anything that came from an organic being counted as 'flesh' in this context, so did 'metal' not only refer to things like iron, copper or whatever, but could also refer to other automatons in general? I did not know enough about how things were nowadays.

After twenty years, the automatons might have fallen out of favour, or may have become a common sight. I had no idea. Though apart from some ideas, I got nothing from trying things out with this ability, as hard as I might try, I couldn't control my body beyond the mundane stuff. Next was 'Tormentor', a much less direct ability, but somehow, just like with the first one, I was unable to find any usage beyond what the system had initially told me about.

I could absorb negative emotions directed toward me, and also absorb the souls of those I killed, but there was seemingly no point in doing that. I didn't feel any different after gaining either of those two things, and it didn't seem like they could be used either. My first thought was that this was a way to cast spells, after all, negative energy was a thing I had heard about… Negative emotions… Negative energy… It sounded like it would fit together, but no.

I seemed just as inept at energy manipulation as I always was. Same with the souls, there was soul energy, which was popular stuff with mages. Every so often, one would come out of the woodwork and claim that it was the secret to eternal life or some other nonsense. But no, I was unable to do anything at all. It was a bit lame, but I figured that this might all come in handy after I evolved. Maybe the method to use what I stocked was just not available right now. I cheered myself up in whatever way I could.

It was a bit depressing to have these impressive-sounding abilities that were seemingly neutered. I guess… I'll just have to wait for tomorrow night, and wait for when I have accumulated enough experience… … Even after dying and being revived, life was still boring…