I discovered a way of increasing my potential. Or should I say that I’d rediscovered it? There was a recent outbreak in killer-groundhogs and horned-rabbits, in the region that we were in. The knowledge I’d gleaned from the Tale of the Soldier told me that it was probably due to recent wars between the Cornichon, the kingdom Clancy currently lived in, and their neighbors to the West, the Chou Kingdom.

The armies had slain most of the middle-level predators during their marches to slay each other, which caused an interruption in the local food chain. A season later, the death of most of the regions’ lesser predators turned into an explosion in the population of the prey species...I.e., the vermin that most people didn’t bother to hunt, except for the purpose of keeping the population down.

Now the Marrow clan had a small swarm of killer-groundhogs trying to nest in their backyard. Normally, this would be a problem for the hunter’s guild, or one of the local sects or mercenary companies. However, all those options were expensive, and using staff you already had on hand was free. Thus on the Masters’ orders, Old Achilles, had me, and five other guys who worked in the Marrow Clan’s outdoor area join him on a pest hunt.

“Alright, lads...Masks on, goggles on. Spears out, chins up...Don’t take ‘em too lightly, or you’re likely to get gutted,” said Old Achilles.

All of us took the old man seriously. Our world, the Shattered World, had no “animals”, there were only beasts, and deranged-spirits. The shattering that replaced the old world with the 21 “Pearls”, had turned all our flora and fauna into monsters that were generally extremely antagonistic to humanity when found in the wild. Even the trees and grass couldn’t be trusted.

There was a reason these rodents weren’t called “cuddly-”gophers. They looked more like tiny bears. The Killer-gophers were all muscular as all get up, they all had razor-sharp claws, long sharp, and they were all just large enough that two, or three, could easily carry an adult screaming into the underground, never to be seen again.

“Okay, Nikolai, Gayle, release the powder,” said Old Achilles ordering the two landscapers like an officer on a battlefield.

The man and woman did as they were told and threw out a set of ten bundles. The bundles hit the ground and exploded filling the air with a sinister-looking red powder that instantly made me glad that we were all wearing goggles and masks. According to the old man, the bundles were a mixture of beast-warding powder, pepper-soup mix from the kitchens, and few finely ground herbs, and minerals, that the old man termed a secret recipe from “back in the day”.

Less than a minute after the powder-bombs had been tossed out, the ground erupted as more than twenty killer-groundhogs burst up from the soil. We immediately set to work, and I got to see first hand why spears and pole-arms quickly reasserted their dominance in the world of war, when the great shattering made the firearms of old defunct. “Jab the pointy end into the thing” was something even my former self would have been able to figure out with a little practice and training. Now I was sort of wishing our town had set up some sort of militia, rather than just relying on those damned hunters and mercs who’d all run away at the first sign of real trouble.

I was probably being unfair though. Even if a lot of the hunters did run, they took people from the town with them when they ran. And there were other hunters who were people, born and raised, from our town, and a lot of those ones fought and died with us. I was just selfishly blaming those who held no fault, because the alternative was blaming myself for being too young and too weak, and there was no satisfaction in that. Only pain.

Anyway, the [Tale of the Soldier] made it easy to keep my nerves as me and the other five fellows fought the twenty killer-gophers. It helped that the powder-bombs had all but rendered the creatures blind. More than a few of the gophers even died on their own, asphyxiating when some of the powder got into their lungs.

The pest extermination was over quickly. After all that build-up, there was only a little less than thirty minutes' worth of fighting.

“Alright...That’s good. Good job, lads and lassies. Horace, you go to Ms.Griselda and get her to patch you up, before that gets infected,” said Old Achilles. Mysteriously looking like he’d barely broken a sweat despite his age.

“Y-, yes, sir…” said one of the guys who’d apparently fumbled a stab, let a gopher get too close, and gotten some nasty slash wounds and scratches as a result.

The rest of us were in fairly good condition. We were winded and sweaty and tired, but none of the blood that splattered our clothing was ours, and in the shattered world that meant the day was a good day and the fight a good fight.

“Alright, lad...Clean-up is all yours. Remember to take the bodies to the kitchens. The boss might not want anything to do with these varmints but for the rest of us, that'll be some good eatin’,” said the old man.

“Y-, yes, sir…” I said. Feeling a little shaken because this was my first ever time taking a life with my own hand. I’d been a bakers’ son, not a farmer’s son, or a butcher’s son. So I hadn’t even had to kill my own livestock before now. Looking inwardly, I was more disturbed by how natural it felt. My sleep was troubled with countless memories of countless wars I’d witnessed from countless first-person perspectives. I’d killed and died countless times thanks to the [Tale of a Soldier] and it seemed without even realizing I’d gotten desensitized to death.

On the one hand, it was nice to know I was one of the lucky few who wouldn’t suffer from the soldier's disease that sometimes claimed the lives of those who came back from wars. On the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling there was something deeply wrong with the numb, flat, feeling inside me right now. It felt like it ran too deep. I looked at the glazed eyes of the dead killer-gophers and all I saw was meat, blood, sinew, fur, and bone. A former whole that was now just waiting to be rendered into parts.

I tried to soothe myself with the thought that I’d probably react more if these were people instead of monsters. I tried to tell myself it’d be different if I had to kill sapients, but the [Tale of the Empty Archivist’s Heir] chose then to pipe up, and let me know I was just lying to myself. There was more than one reason why the Empty-Archivist was “Empty”. To look over the archive one needed to be able to know its contents by heart, to safely know the contents of the archive one needed to be detached. To be detached certain “mortal frailties”, mortal privileges, had to be let go of.

I clutched at my chest and felt a sense of nausea. It felt as if I was in one of those horror stories the hunters and mercs used to tell. It felt like I’d woken up somewhere only to realize I had a brand new set of surgery scars and suddenly something integral to who I was missing. That was the moment when I realized that there was more than one story altering the way I thought, and felt, and viewed the world. That was the moment when I realized that the [Tale of the Empty-Archivist’s Heir] was more than just a glorified user’s manual.

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Oddly enough, my bit of existential terror came and went like another passing summer breeze. Part of it was that I’d already made peace with the reality that this much power had to have “some” kind of price to it. My system really “was” unfair, others had to go dark places, or experience times, to have their figurative, and or literal, heart’s devils show up. Mine was always a part of me, and was built into how my powers worked.

Another part of why I calmed down so soon, was because I’d already long ago decided that I wasn’t going to let the system eat me alive. I was a big believe in the “two wolves” theory. Even if I was going to eventually turn into some kind of eldritch entity that was beyond the concepts of good and evil, I could still make sure that I didn’t straight-up lose my soul and become a huge dick.

The final ingredient in why I got over things so quickly, was because I just wasn’t that great at being an edgelord. Heightened-intelligence could affect how quickly you thought, how well you learned, and your memory, but it didn’t necessarily change the way you thought. intelligence was NOT smarts.

If you take old Ms. Daisy out of the lemon and put her behind a sports’ car, and Ms. Daisy still can’t drive worth a damn, she’ll just end up in that ditch a lot faster. Similarly, I still "basically" felt like myself even after all the changes I’d experienced over the past few years, and “I” generally wasn’t the kind of person who could brood about the things he only had the vaguest sense of control over, for longer than a few minutes. I was far too simple-minded.

So after wondering whether I was going crazy, or becoming evil or whatever, and ultimately, deciding that I was at very least not at the point where I might be a danger to myself and others, I got back to work. Putting the killer-gopher corpses in a wheelbarrow that I’d brought to the extermination site ahead of time, so it’d be easier to clean the area up. Suddenly I sensed something lunging at me with violent intentions, so I picked up the nearest spear, pivoted and thrust the spear forward.

There was a cry of surprise, followed by a cry of pain. I realized to my shock that I’d stumbled into a “mantis stalks cicada, while oriole stalks mantis”- sort of situation. Beast populations were notoriously hard to keep down for long. So I shouldn’t have been surprised that the population of iron-scaled vipers, one of the aforementioned lesser predators, was recovering and following the food to where it had spread to. This would probably be a big headache for society at large, but that issue was way above the paygrade of a junior groundskeeper like myself.

That was the point where I realized how I could actively increase my potential. The system asked me if I wanted to consume and assimilate the “data” of my felled foe. Suddenly the memory hit me like a ton of bricks. The [Tale of Empty-Archivist’s Heir] had already taught me that I could increase my potential by slaying foes, finding treasures, and absorbing their data. However, 8 to 9-year-old children were firmly in the category of prey for most of the world’s monsters.

I was too young back then, too weak, and too scared to make either act an option. Thus it was no surprise that the knowledge that I could eventually grow stronger faster would get thrown to the background of my mind. It now occurred to me for the first time that this was no longer the case. I was stronger now, more capable, more educated. I could now actually do something with this knowledge.

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“Woah…” said a light voice.

I looked up and saw a familiar pair of pale-gray cat-like eyes looking at me. This time from the rooftop of one of the buildings on the estate. It was Ms. Jacqueline.

“Good afternoon, Miss,” I said. Keeping my tone and expression even, despite being a bit nervous in regards to what she’d just seen.

“What was that?” said Jacqueline.

“My core-treasure,” I said. Deciding to tell the truth.

“Cool beans. What kind of core-treasure is it?” asked Jacqueline.

“A consumption-type elemental spirit,” I said. Using the half-lie that the [Tale of the Empty-Archivist’s Heir] had helped me think of, a not so long, time ago.

“Neat! That’s kind of like my father’s spirit,” said Jacqueline. Her genuine compliment took me aback and made me feel a little bad about lying.

“Er...Thanks, miss,” I said. Awkwardly thanking her and quickly making myself scarce.