Chương 11: Chapter 10 — The Second Attempt

"Open up The Eyes," Adriane instructed, handing the ruined tunic back to her.

"Look at the enhancement again. See if there's any change."

"OK." Chelsea took a breath, then pulled up her enhancements again. The familiar golden glyphs flickered faintly across her vision as she focused, and she gave Adriane a quick nod. She slipped the ruined tunic back over her arm.

"Oh!" Chelsea yelped, startled.

"There was a change. It flashed some words for like a split second. Do it again!" Her eyes darted to Adriane, wide and eager. Adriane leaned forward, focused.

"What did it say?" Chelsea scrunched her brows, trying to recall.

"Effect 2. All. Tier 4. I made out the word 'All,' I think. But it pops up and disappears so fast." She exhaled, frustrated.

"Let me try something," Adriane said, already brimming with an idea.

"Maybe it only triggers when it does the repair. If that's the case, it should pop up every time the enhancement kicks in." Without hesitation, she muttered a quick incantation under her breath. Heat shimmered in the air, and the tunic suddenly burst into flames on Chelsea's arm. Chelsea yelped, jerking her arm up, but the fire didn't burn her. Instead, the fabric rippled between ruin and restoration so fast it seemed to glitch.

"You're a genius," Chelsea gasped. Her eyes darted as glowing script flickered in and out of her sight, rapid-fire.

"It's flickering super fast, but I can kind of read it now!" The words came in broken pieces, fragments slamming together in her mind as fast as she could catch them: Effect 2. All equipment items...... increase 1...... classification per tier...... level of Effect 2. Tier 4. Adriane shot up from her seat so quickly the backs of her knees knocked the chair into the wall with a harsh clang. Her eyes blazed.

"You're making that up. It does not say that." Chelsea flinched at the sudden movement, then raised her hands defensively.

"Ah, let me check the wording again!" She blinked hard, forcing the glyphs to replay in her mind.

"It says: 'All equipment items increase 1 classification per tier level of Effect 2.' And it's tier 4 right now." She tilted her head, brow furrowed.

"Is that... good? What does that even do?" Adriane didn't answer immediately. She was already pacing, slippers striking against the stone floor in sharp rhythm. Her lips moved in quick mutters, almost too fast for Chelsea to catch.

"It all makes sense now. If she increased a broken item three classifications, that would make it common... and that would give her the stats to knock out Dewey... and take a punch from him." Chelsea blinked, tilting her head as she followed Adriane's restless movement.

"It makes sense why it looks like a repair." Adriane spun on her heel, dark braid whipping over her shoulder. Her eyes were alight, fever-bright.

"You aren't repairing them. You're upgrading them." She stopped abruptly, locking her gaze on Chelsea. The demon girl sat wide-eyed in the tub, steam curling lazily around her shoulders, the tunic still smoldering harmlessly against her arm. Adriane's voice dropped to a near whisper, reverent.

"It's incredible. It's beyond incredible." Chelsea blinked, then smiled despite herself, nodding slowly.

"I don't get it... but I'm glad it's so good."

"OK, let me explain this." Adriane kicked off her slippers, hiked her skirt up, and eased one foot into the tub, followed by the other; the steam curled around her calves. She sat on the edge and leaned in close, elbows on her knees, the posture of someone about to deliver a lecture.

"So forget all ideas about equipment. Get rid of every image you have about armor and weapons. Now picture a super shitty sword. Rusty. Dull. You've got it?"

"Dull, rusty sword. Got it," Chelsea answered.

"That sword is classified as a junk sword. Now imagine the sword snaps in half at the blade. It becomes a broken sword.

'Broken' is the lowest classification. That's what your tunic is, for sure." Adriane tapped the water with a fingertip for emphasis, the movement punctuating the concept.

"Back to the sword. Now it's junk again. If you sand the rust off and sharpen the edge, it becomes 'usable.' Usable is its own classification. Eventually, the sword will gain what's called an environmental enchant. It's something that happens naturally." She rapped her knuckles together as if stacking invisible blocks.

"That's the classification you're at. Your gear all has environmental enchants and counts as common. Your enhancement doesn't repair. It increases classifications. It upgrades things." Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"Oh, that's so cool. How many classifications are there?" Chelsea asked, eyes bright. Adriane blinked, then smiled wryly.

"The highest I've ever seen as an S-rank is..." She trailed off, visibly counting on her fingers. It took her a beat longer than Chelsea expected, an actual pause as she worked it out.

"Twenty-one. The classification on my chest armor is Ancient+1. You don't want to know what I had to do to get that." Her eyes went slightly wide at the memory, a hint of private horror.

"If I let you wear it, you'd bump it up by four classifications." Adriane's grin faded as the rules snapped back into place.

"Oh, never mind. You can only use level one gear." Adriane exhaled a little laugh.

"No cheating the system here. We need to find the highest classification a level-one can use. There's got to be some common gear out there you can actually wear. I never thought about level-one constraints like this. This could be... interesting." Her voice held the glint of someone who loved puzzles. Silence settled between them for a moment, the kind that was comfortable but expectant. Chelsea pushed a wet curl behind her ear and asked in a quieter voice, "Hey, topic change, please don't take offense.

Do you see me as an evil demon? I know I look like a demon, but do you see me as a demon or..." Adriane's sigh carried a world of small, complicated judgments.

"It's hard to look past at first," she admitted, glancing down at the water as if searching for the right words.

"When you only spoke Bontune at first, I honestly thought you were a demon pretending to be something else." A brief, tired chuckle slipped out.

"But demons don't cry. They don't fret over something as trivial as a tail. They attack, eat, destroy. Even the highborn ones. They aren't... you." Chelsea smirked and flicked a splash of water at Adriane.

"Okay, fine. Last big question. Why are you wanting to keep things from the king?" Adriane chewed her lip for a moment, thinking. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, like she was testing whether the words were safe to let go. The steam curled between them; the room felt suddenly smaller, as if the air itself were holding its breath.

"What is it?" Chelsea asked, shifting to sit up straighter in the tub and hugging an arm over her chest. Adriane's face smoothed into a careful expression.

"What did Magalesa tell you about the summoning?" she asked, choosing each word with a deliberate calm. Chelsea mouthed the name, searching her memory.

"The god," Adriane clarified.

"Oh!" Chelsea's eyes brightened.

"It was brief. She was confused about why I had an ailment and why I appeared as a demon. She said she'd try to figure it out. That was pretty much it. She came off kind of rude, actually." As Chelsea spoke, Adriane's brow tightened. Something in the simple exchange didn't fit. Adriane shifted on the tub edge and kicked one leg idly, small ripples lacing the surface of the water.

"There were three nations that pooled their resources to summon you," she said slowly.

"It wasn't just this kingdom." She glanced down at the water as if the reflection might give her courage to continue.

"Tomorrow you'll meet the other two kings."

"And that's bad because..." Chelsea prodded, the question hanging in the steam. Adriane inhaled slowly, the next words like a stone dropped into a still pool.

"Chelsea, every summon gets two attempts." She met Chelsea's eyes with steady, wet ones.

"To complete the second attempt, they have to kill you. If the allied kingdoms decide they want to try for a better champion, you will be the one they sacrifice." King Paul, twenty minutes prior"She destroyed all of my decoy peering stones except one in the room, Your Excellency," the scryer said, unable to hide a self-satisfied smile. The king leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled.

"Yes, yes. Good. She's cautious, but not enough. Are they talking yet?"

"Slowly," the scryer murmured, her head cocked as if she were listening to a faint echo in the distance.

"No... nothing yet. Oh!" A quick, delighted laugh escaped her.

"She announced, far too obviously, that she was going to draw the girl a bath." The king chuckled under his breath, a dry, clipped sound. He gestured for her to continue.

"The girl is asking who Adriane really is."

"Good," he said, nodding.

"Tell her everything, Adriane. Build a bond, earn her trust. Make her lean on you." His tone was warm, approving, but his eyes stayed sharp and predatory.

"She explained she's an S-ranker," the scryer reported, her voice smoothing into the rhythm of a practiced recitation.

"They're discussing one of the people she fought... wait. Ah. She has a small crush on one of them." The scryer's eyes suddenly widened.

"Oh!" The king sat forward.

"What?"

"He's Adriane's brother," she said, her voice hushed now, savoring the drama of it. The king blinked, then gave a low hum.

"That brute was Dewey Wixx? Hmph. Strange choice on Grimble's part." He tapped a finger against the armrest, thoughtful.

"Curious. Very curious."

"They're discussing the girl's enhancement," the scryer continued, excitement bleeding back into her voice.

"She says it makes her clothes fit perfectly." She half-turned to the king, as though expecting him to share her amusement. Instead, he fixed her with a bemused look.

"That's it?"

"Wait, no. Adriane thinks there's more. The girl just... repaired her tunic. Instantly." The king's brow furrowed.

"I saw something like that before with a practice sword," he admitted slowly.

"Didn't give it much weight at the time." The scryer tilted her head, her expression sharpening with concentration. Her lips barely moved as she listened. Then suddenly she went very still.

"She can almost read a second effect," she whispered. Her whole body leaned forward, as though she could draw the words directly from the vision.

"Yes... yes! She can read it." The king seemed to hold his breath as she spoke the words aloud: "All equipment items increase one classification per tier level of effect two." The scryer froze, eyes wide, the magnitude of it dawning on her all at once. She turned slowly toward the king. His expression mirrored hers, shocked. His lips parted, then pressed together, and the silence between them grew heavy, thick with possibility.

"You must have misheard," the king said, his voice low and even. The scryer shook her head, wiping a trembling hand down her face.

"Adriane was as shocked as we were. She had the girl reread it. Same words. Same impossible words, except she stated she's already at tier 4. Sir, the power of that..."

"I know." His reply came sharp, clipped, leaving no space for argument. His eyes burned with a hunger that unsettled even her.

"Keep listening." The scryer swallowed and bent back toward the vision.

"She's explaining how item classifications work," she murmured, following the thread of the conversation. Her lips parted suddenly.

"Adriane has... an Ancient+1 item." Her voice thinned into awe and dread. She shook her head.

"That's... terrifying." The king's eyes widened, but where hers were horrified, his gleamed.

"I'd expect nothing less from the Silver Sword," he said, almost reverent.

"They're... talking about her meeting with the god now." The scryer's voice slowed, faltered. She went stark still, eyes narrowing as she leaned closer.

"Adriane... she doesn't want to tell her something. She's holding back." The silence stretched, brittle. Then the scryer stiffened as though the words had stabbed her. Her brows knotted, and she turned toward the king, toward the monster she suddenly realized he was.

"There can be... a second summoning attempt." Her throat bobbed with the effort of saying it.

"But only if the girl is sacrificed?"