BANG BANG BANG

Alice smashed her ax against her shield, immediately drawing the attention of the three monkeys on her.

"KAKEKAKAKEKIIIIIIIII!!!" all three of them let out their strange call.

Alice let the rage wash over her, acknowledging it, making it her own. She waited. As much as she wanted to kill them, she knew, if she didn't come, they would come instead.

As soon as they all looked at her, a black form streaked by behind the monsters. One of them suddenly halted, breaking of their call as it dropped to the ground with a metal spike lodged in its head.

The remaining two paused when they heard the body hit the ground, turning around. "KAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!" their calls turned into a screech.

Unable to find Ava, who was already hiding again, they turned back to Alice. In a single, giant jump, the remaining two creatures covered the entire five meters between them and her, striking at her with claws and wooden clubs.

BANG

Alice took a step back, catching the force of their strikes with her shield, before whipping out her ax at the one in front.

For a panicked moment, Alice thought she had missed as the edge of her weapon slipped over the creature's head, only to be rewarded with a crunch, as the heavy chunk of metal that was the ax's head caved in the monster's Skull. Still, as the monster dropped dead, the unexpected impact to her weapon forced it out of Alice's grip, rendering her weaponless as the other monkey lashed out at her again.

Before the monster could attack a third time, Alice pushed forward. Tackling the monster with the flat side of her heater shield, she managed to throw it to the ground before ramming the sharp bottom corner of her shield into the monster again and again until she was sure it was dead.

"I'm fine. There aren't any more in the Area," she finally called out to her girlfriend, prompting the redhead to come out of her hiding spot.

Alice folded up her visor, wiping away the blood that had made its way through, only to see her hand shaking now that the adrenalin had worn off. She suppressed it with a vengeance.

You are strong, she told herself. This is just a little blood. If you hadn't killed it, it would have killed you, Ava, your mother, or other innocent people.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, slowly calming herself down.

"You made quite the mess out of this thing. You sure you're not a berserker?"

Alice smiled weakly at the girl's forced cheer and humor. They both had their own ways of coping with it.

"Yes, I'm pretty sure of that," she answered.

And we have each other, Alice thought, blushing a little as she remembered their nightly cuddle sessions and how they were growing increasingly naughty.

"And, got another level up?"

"I did indeed. Now, let's see what I'm gonna do with it..." Alice answered as she looked at the progress she had made in just about half a day.

The armor had made a gigantic difference, at least once she had learned to trust it. Not only was it protecting her from injury directly, but by willingly taking hits and going for the counter she could finish her fights quicker, thus reducing the risk of making mistakes.

It was quite astounding how much it had accelerated their leveling speed. In just half a day, she had gone up by four levels already. The first of the three had gone into further increasing her Muscle-density, which she had come to realize actually made them denser. Which meant she had become heavier and her body harder. It made her wonder if, one day, her muscles would be so dense and heavy that chairs wouldn't be able to support her anymore. Would she become some kind of human tank with muscles that are harder than steel, capable of catching bullets? She sure hoped that wouldn't happen. She liked being soft. Maybe she could get a Skill for that?

Another level went into her Stamina. Sure, she could replenish it using the souls of her fallen enemies, which she did, and for which she also put the third level into her Soul absorption Skill, but she also had to think of the times when she couldn't get more soul energy.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Name: Alice Liddell

Level: 15 (16)

Class-primary: Necromancer 75,2%

Class-secondary: Warrior 80,1%

Resources:

Stamina: 16/20

Mana: 13/15

Soul energy: 20/20

Primary Stats:

Muscle-density: 30

Stamina: 20

Mana: 15

Magic power: 15

Secondary Stats:

Soul energy: 20

Bodyreformation (T) 3/100

Mana regeneration (T) 14/100

Skills:

Soul collection Lv 1

Soul sense Lv 3

Undead constitution Lv 1

Flesh grafting Lv 1

Soul absorption Lv 3

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Happily, she noted that her Class affinity was also going up now. It was slow, but it was happening without her having to invest Level-ups in it.

Now, however, it was once again time to play the lottery.

"Let's see what Skill I'm gonna get this time. I really hope it's something for attacking. As effective as my ax is, I wouldn't be averse to alternatives. Especially not those of the magical kind."

"I wouldn't have a problem if you became even more tanky."

"You do realize that the tank is the most dangerous role of all? And we don't even have a healer or buffer."

"Then... How about a stealth Skill?"

"We will see."

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Reward: Skill

Soul-binding Lv 1

Costs Mana.

Bind 1 soul permanently to yourself.

Bind 2 souls temporarily to yourself.

Breaking the bond destroys a soul permanently.

Binding a soul to yourself gives you some of the abilities from when it was alive.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

"Oof! Okay, I'm gonna have to make some guidelines on how I treat souls."

"Easy. If it's intelligent enough to know what a soul is, then you have to ask first. Why, what did you get?"

"Basically, buffs. But I get them by binding souls to myself," Alice answered the question.

"Okay. Wow! Just to make it clear, you can use mine if you need to. Now, get to it, you haven't used the souls of these guys yet, right?"

"Okay. Whew," Alice wasn't sure why, but for some reason, the Skill made her incredibly nervous. More so than any other she had gotten so far.

Getting close enough to the first soul to collect it, she activated her new Skill. She had a feeling that it wouldn't work with soul energy since it didn't appear to contain individual souls anymore.

Immediately, Alice could feel a whole 10 Mana drain out of her.

"Okay, I'm not sure whether that looks really cool or super sketchy," her girlfriend commented.

"What doe... Okay... Ehhmmm," Alice wasn't sure what she should say as she watched her new Skill at work.

Through her soul sense, she could see the monkey's soul change slightly, getting bound to her own through some kind of tether. However, the soul wasn't just visible to Alice anymore. With her naked eye, she could see a dark wisp floating in circles around her body, looking like some kind of evil spirit. A very weak evil spirit, but an evil spirit nonetheless.

Trying to distract herself, she took another look at her Stats.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Name: Alice Liddell

Level: 16 (16)

Class-primary: Necromancer 75,2%

Class-secondary: Warrior 80,1%

Resources:

Stamina: 16/20

Mana: 3/15

Soul energy: 20/20

Primary Stats:

Muscle-density: 30

Stamina: 20

Mana: 15

Magic power: 15+2

Secondary Stats:

Soul energy: 20

Bodyreformation (T) 3/100

Mana regeneration (T) 14/100

Leg strength (B) 10+5/100

Skills:

Soul collection Lv 1

Soul sense Lv 3

Undead constitution Lv 1

Flesh grafting Lv 1

Soul absorption Lv 3

Soul-binding Lv 1

Taunt (B) Lv 0+1

Buffs:

Monkey soul:

Magic power +2

Leg strength +5

Taunt +1

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

"Okay, give me a minute to work through all of this. It's honestly quite a lot of stuff at once," Alice held up her partner. She could clearly see the excitement in her face, even without feeling her soul.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

(B)

This Stat/Skill is generated by a buff and thus Non-permanent.

It can not be increased and will disappear with the related buff.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Leg strength (B) 10+5/100

Increase the effect of Muscle-density on your legs.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Taunt Lv 0+1

Costs 3 Mana and 2 Stamina. Vocal activation.

Draw the attention and anger of one being within a fifteen-meter distance.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

"Okay, that Skill is HUGE. Just one level in the Skill, and you get seven Statpoints and an additional Skill?" Ava exclaimed after Alice explained her findings.

"Yeah, but as long as I don't get them myself, I can't increase the level of the Skills or Stats. But, yeah."

"But don't forget, you can't increase the level of the Skills, but you can get Skills that would otherwise be outside your Class. Or maybe even Skills that wouldn't appear in any Classes at all. Right, you can buff yourself with two more souls temporarily, right? I wanna know if the Buffs stack or if there are diminishing returns."

"Sure, I will try," Alice agreed, walking over to the remaining two souls.

She quickly replenished her Mana through Soul absorption, its higher level already pulling its weight as she saved a lot of soul energy.

Quickly, Alice found out that binding the second monkey soul only cost nine Mana to bind, followed by the third, which cost only eight. And indeed, the buffs stacked. With the effect of three souls buffing the Leg strength Stat, it resulted in her legs getting an additional two and a half times stronger, multiplying off of the three times from her Muscle-density.

It resulted in a situation where she suddenly became capable of easily jumping on first-floor balconies. From standstill. Being that high up in the air under her own power was about as terrifying as it sounded, but it did give her a taste of what she might be capable of in the future. After the first try, however, she quickly restricted herself to running around at incredible speeds. Until she ran into a tree, being unable to stop since she simply wasn't used to it.

While she was still nursing her bleeding nose, unwilling to waste soul energy on something that minor, two minutes passed, and the souls slipped from their bindings, breaking in pieces and diffusing into the surroundings.

"How long was that? About two minutes?"

"Yep," Ava confirmed, as she looked up from her smartphone’s stopwatch, "You fine?"

"Yeah. Also, superhuman strength is cool, but only if you can control it."

"I can see that. Also, while you were playing Superman, I have been thinking. Do you think souls of stronger monsters give better buffs?" Ava asked a question.

However, Alice was relatively sure that she knew the answer already, "I'm pretty sure they do. But, there are two problems. For one, we don't actually know how that works for monsters. Does a monkey count as level three and a Goliath as level twenty? Or can they both be level ten, but the Goliath just has a natural advantage?

More importantly, the Skill doesn't have a fixed Mana cost for the binding. I bet with you that better souls cost more Mana to bind."

"Couldn't you recharge your Mana while you activate the Skill? If your soul energy and Mana are full, don't you basically have, like, seventy-five total Mana?"

"I mean, I would have to try, but I'm reasonably sure that I can't do that," Alice answered before noticing that her girlfriend was incredibly distracted.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Shhh... I'm making math."

"You know that I'm the one who studied programming?"

"It's creative math... Yeah, I'm pretty sure this works out. You said every Monkey soul became cheaper to bind, right?" Ava finally asked.

"Yeah?"

"Let's assume binding a Monkey soul has a cost of one hundred-and-fifty."

"Sure."

"That's the same as ten Mana times fifteen Magic power."

"I see."

"After binding the first, you paid nine Mana times seventeen Magic power, which is one-hundred-and-fifty-three."

"And for the third, it was eight Mana with nineteen Magic power, which is one-hundred-and-fifty-two. I see what you want to say. It's not just Mana but also Magic power that is important."

"Nah, I was trying to figure out how to maximize your ability to bind a potentially more powerful soul. Turns out, temporarily binding a bunch of Monkey souls to increase your Magic power is only effective when you indeed can't count your soul energy as part of your practical Mana pool. You would need to have even more souls nearby to recharge."

"I... see. You just forgot a little something. We still have to defeat the owner of said soul first."

"Fine, fine. But we do have to get you that Dragon soul, even if it's just for bragging rights. Or we should get you a Troll soul so you can get their regeneration! No, wait, we never confirmed that, did we?"

"Nope, we didn't. We called them Trolls because they looked the part," Alice confirmed.

"See, that's why I told you that we shouldn't do that!" the redhead complained.

"Before you make any more plans and theories, I think I'm going to keep the Monkey soul. Maybe even bind a second one permanently if a higher level in the Skill allows for it. I may not have much need for the Magic power right now, but the Leg strength is gonna be useful to make me more mobile, and the Taunt is already worth it all on its own for being a crowd-control ability."

"Okay, yeah, your right, that's actually pretty awesome. You know what? We should probably test how strong the Taunt actually is."

"Are you sure? You are not going to suddenly attack me?"

"Don't worry, I love you too much to ever hurt you."

"Awww. Come over here, you cute, little ginger dwarf. OUCH? Why did you hit me? Miss I-love-you-too-much-to-ever-hurt-you?"

"If you call me that again, I won't love you for much longer, you big... giant... boobs," Ava answered, struggling to find an appropriate insult.

"Awww, thanks for the compliment."

"I was sexually objectifying you!"

"It's still a compliment, if it comes from you. Anyway."

"What?"

"I think what the Skill does is give me a feeling on how I can make you angry and then amplify the effect when I do."

"Sniff. I will forgive you this once," Ava conceded haughtily before continuing, "You know, that probably means that this Skill is a lot stronger when used by a human on a human. I mean, sure, those Monkeys can screech at us aggravatingly, but it takes a human to make another truly angry. Or bureaucracy. Or a slow internet connection.

Anyway, what I want to say is, we're gonna need to check how well it actually works on monsters…

You know, did you notice that that soul is pretty focused on your... upper body?"

"Are you jealous of a dead Monkey?"

"No?"

"Why does that sound like a question?"

"Okay, maybe?"

"Still a question."

"Can't you, I don't know, hide that thing?"

"Nope."

"That sucks."

"Yeah, at least it's not flying around in my face."

"Don't jinx it. We got off track."

"You mean, you got distracted. By my big... giant..."

"Very funny."

"Buffs."

"Har, har, har. Okay, seriously, I don't think Taunt is gonna be too effective on monsters if you don't speak Monkey-screech," Ava finally got to say what she wanted.

"Come on, we can just test it out."

"Yeah, nope. You are going to run and jump around for a bit longer. I don't want you running into another tree."

"Yeah, I don't think we have the time for that," Alice commented as she paid attention to her soul sense, "We have a big one incoming."

"How do you know it's big? You couldn't tell with the Goliath."

"I don't know. Just felt like the right thing to say," Alice answered.

"Yeah, okay, don't do that. That could lead to dangerous misunderstandings."

"No. I mean, it feels big. I don't think it is big. But its presence just... I don't know how to describe it."

"Strong? Powerful?"

"That's the point. It doesn't feel strong, necessarily. Just... huge!"

"Okay, where is it coming from?"

"Over there," Alice pointed towards the hedge at the end of the property.

"I can't... Okay, I can. And I don't like it! Let's get the fuck out of here."

"That's probably the sensible thing to do," Alice agreed. One last time, the girls looked at each other before they turned around and ran, not stopping for another five minutes.

"What the hell was that?" Ava asked when they finally came to a stop.

"Don't ask me. You are the one who should go in all sneaky-like and check out the situation!"

"Yeah, nope. Not gonna fuck with that shit. Besides, with how large it felt, we should have been able to see it. Maybe it was another of those spiders? Just humongous?" Ava asked with a shudder.

"No, I could tell at least that much. Besides, I doubt something that can turn invisible would develop that kind of presence. Even with magic, it just doesn't make sense from an evolutionary standpoint."

"Then what was it?"

"Let's hope we never need to find out."

"Okay, what now?"

"Over there," Alice pointed in the direction of the city, "I think we should deal with that."

"What do you... Is that a signal flare?"

"Yes, I think it is. We should probably call it in, shouldn't we?"

"Yeah," Ava agreed, taking out her radio, "Centurion Rogers? You there?"

"Kid, I'm not yet that old," the voice of an old lady came out of the speaker, "I'm standing in for my grandson since he is busy at the moment. Why are you calling?"

"Ehhmm..."

Alice had to suppress a chuckle at Ava's awkward silence.

"Girl, if you don't say something soon, you might actually be right the next time."

"Ehem. We just saw that someone in the city set off a signal flare and wanted to call it in."

"A signal flare? I will note it down and inform him. Was that all?"

"Yes, that's all."

"Then good luck out there."

"Thanks," Ava finished and put the radio back.