As she finished speaking, she felt something prod at her thoughts. It was a rejection of some kind and followed up by an unsatisfied feeling. Did the weapon not like what she said?

“Is it invisible?”

Mash sounded completely genuine with his question, and that made the situation far more embarrassing. Jill’s face heats up a little, as she shook her head.

“No, it wasn’t satisfied with the words. Got any ideas?”

From the side, Jill heard Red start to laugh. The sound seemed to lighten the heavy air that had been building. It was a little surprising to hear her laugh like that, but it was also something that they needed to hear. After getting her laughs out, Red’s expression became more natural, and it seemed like a lot of her tension had bled away. Jill could still feel the guilt surrounding her, but it seemed like she was doing better. Mash’s voice brought her attention around again.

“I don’t know, try something grandiose.”

Jill took the suggestion in hand and spoke up with a sarcastic tone. One obviously meant in a mocking way.

“Oh, grand god slaying needle, I call upon you great power. Manifest before me and display your resplendence.”

She couldn’t even say the words without grinning but felt the mana drain from her. It drained a decent amount, and she felt it all forced into the space in front of her hand. It seemed to coalesce from the space itself. The place in front of her hand warped like it did when she used her spatial manipulation. The blade formed, a long thin needle of pure white. It almost seemed to be made of bone. It had a small ring at one end as if it were a sewing needle. Although it was a lot longer than one, easily surpassing even a longsword. It was closer to a quarterstaff if she considered the length.

At the ringed end, she saw that a thread was looped through it. It was red string and she noticed that it was connected to her. It felt like it was connected to her, and she felt like she could change her future by using the item. She had this instinctual knowledge of how the item worked. The weapon's thoughts and emotions became clearer now that they had manifested. She understood that it hadn’t liked her summoning but didn’t want her to embarrass herself further. The information she had gained, told her that she wouldn’t need to say anything so grand to someone with the weapon. The keyword that she needed to use was “manifest.”

The fact that it was so long made it a little cumbersome to use, but she guessed that some practice would make it a lot better. In fact, she realized that part of the knowledge she had gained included an idea of how to utilize a weapon like this. It seemed to almost rely on the user being able to teleport as she could. More out of curiosity than anything else, she tried to bend her own fat and see what would happen. Unsurprisingly nothing noticeable happened, though the weapon gave off a feeling of contentment. Since the weapon looked like something meant to weave with, she tried doing exactly that.

“Mash, I’m going to try something. Try not to do anything crazy.”

Mash was an interesting case, as after getting his mark his fate was unreadable. To her eye it looked like all of the strings that would normally connect him to other things were just wrapped around him tightly, like a ball of yarn. Seeing it that way, she tried to weave one of those threads with her own, curious to see what would happen. Mash looked nervous, but did as asked and remained perfectly still. After feeling the weave settle in place, she turned toward him.

“Do you feel any different?”

Mash shook his head and took a step forward. Then, almost inexplicably, he slipped, tripping over nothing and falling towards Jill. For the first time in a long time, Jill felt like she was unable to move out of the way, and her attempt to do so caused her to stumble as well. Mash crashed into her, and they both fell to the ground. The side of Mash’s head landed on her thighs as she also fell onto her ass. She quickly pushed him off, feeling surprisingly embarrassed at what had just happened to her.

“What just happened?”

After she pushed him away the weave she had made fell apart, and their fates were no longer connected like that. Red looked on in interest, and Jill began explaining what she did. She talked quickly and a little stiffly. Hiding her embarrassment was hard, and she hoped that the weapon would be enough of a distraction. She continued to mess with it for a little bit but avoided doing something like that again.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Mash P.O.V

Mash looked at Jill who looked slightly different. The missing eye was one thing, but he was more surprised by the faint glow her skin gave off. It was almost unnoticeable, but the hug earlier had let him see it. Her explanation of what had happened, and her trial were alarming to say the least. He was angry, and despite her attempts to distract him, the anger didn’t fade. He could feel it, softly stirring within his mind. He also came to realize a few other things.

His trial was almost easy when compared to what Jill had to do. Also, he should’ve checked his status to see if there was any information in there. It seemed like a person’s performance in their trial affected how many options they would receive. It probably meant that he could’ve done more during his own trial. If he had completed more battles and fought for longer, he probably would’ve been offered more classes like Jill had. She had told them about how many different classes she had needed to sort through. It made him regret his decisions a little, but he was happy with his class. Although he guessed that one of the other ones, he had been offered would have given him more. Jill had gained a lot of stats from her selection, and that made him wonder if he had really made the best choice.

They had decided to rest in the relative safety of his world for the moment. Jill wanted some sleep, and Red was just as eager. Mash wasn’t really tired. After they had all shared their experiences, Mash had grown increasingly worried for Luke. He couldn’t convince himself to sleep just yet. He believed that Luke would succeed, but he wished that they had spaced out their trials. It would’ve been the smarter move, that way they could’ve passed information to one another. It might have given him the knowledge he needed to get a class as good as Jills.

He dismissed the thought, knowing that there was no point in regretting his decision now. He had plenty of other things to regret. How many beastmen had he killed? How many were injured? He wanted to go back and apologize, but he knew it would be empty. Not because they didn’t deserve it, but because he knew that he would have done the same regardless of knowing the background. At that moment all he really cared about was saving Red and venting his anger. Even if he knew that Red was there to assassinate Ellis, he still would’ve reacted the same way.

He was still coming to terms with that as well. Her family was comprised of well-trained assassins, criminals who were literally meant to kill people. Even if she did it with the backing of the king, it wasn’t something he could fully understand. It was one thing to say that he forgave her, and another to truly accept it. However, she was his friend, and he would be able to forgive her based on her future decisions rather than on something she regretted. He was distracting himself from his own actions. Though he knew that was wrong. He couldn’t push the blame on anyone else. Hesitating a little he checked his status, trying to get an idea of how many people had died.

Name: Mash Stellumbra Class: Chimeric Vagabond

Level: 100 → 102

Health: 3000 / 3000

Energy: 3560 / 3560

Fortitude: 300

Endurance: 186

Strength: 250

Agility: 252

Intelligence: 221

Wisdom: 110

Charisma: 100

Free Stats: 0 → 20

Checking his status, Mash knew that he had probably killed more than just a handful of people. Especially, if all the people he had killed were lower than his level. He had only done a single attack, but it had done a lot of damage. The impact alone had killed someone, and the rest of his attack had been indiscriminate. The power of combining those forms was incredible, and he knew that he could have gone even further. What would’ve happened if he mixed all of his forms together? How would that even look? It was something he would need to test, although this wasn’t the right moment for that.

“You, ok?”

Jill appeared beside him, and Mash was surprised to realize that he had followed her movements the whole time. He knew when she woke up too. His new domain somehow let him understand when and where she was teleporting to. With his senses, it just seemed like extremely fast movement. Jill sat there beside him, and he tried to maintain his expression. Her eye was a little different. Rather, her gaze had shifted and gained a coldness that she hadn’t had before. When she arrived, she accidently opened both her eyes and quickly shut the one that was missing.

“I guess, how about you?”

She shrugged her shoulders, the flow of her skin seeming to linger after her movement. She glanced at her own aura but responded quickly.

“Eye still hurts a little. Luke just had to be the last one to finish.”

Jill tried to joke about it, but Mash picked up on the slight hesitation in her voice. She was probably worried about Luke, and he would be lying if he said he felt any different. The trials seemed like they could be anything, and Luke might have gotten something particularly bad. Within his domain, he could tell that Red was awake, though she only moved now. She turned towards them, rising to a seated position. They weren’t far away from one another as it was just smarter to remain within his domain. With Priscilla and the domain, he could watch their surroundings even if they were all sleeping.

“We should probably go to the dungeon. We can wait for Luke.”

Mash nodded along, agreeing with her. She had spoken with her usual tone, but she looked like she didn’t have a restful sleep. The fact that she had gotten any sleep was good. He couldn’t even manage that much at the moment.

“I can teleport us there, just need to figure out how to give you all marks. How did you get it, Mash?”

Jill’s question got Mash to think about the moment, and he scratched the back of his head as he tried to explain.

“It was like I got asked if I wanted it or not. It felt like it was your mana, so I just accepted it.”

He knew that what he had done probably wouldn’t be considered very smart. Red’s response only seemed to prove that.

“Yeah, I got something like that too, but I didn’t accept the unknown power that had just appeared. I’m guessing Luke did the same. How did you send it to us anyway?”

Jill shook her head left to right.

“No idea, it just kind of happened when I got the class, and Mash, have you seriously not learned your lesson. Didn’t you just tell me how you almost got tricked by a demon?”

Mash didn’t have a response for Jill and just looked away. His gaze drifted up towards the enormous tree. He opened his storage space and pulled out his bottle of ever-filling juice. He took a long sip in order to avoid any kind of answer. He remembered why he had accepted; it was mostly because he figured he could just remove it if he wanted to. Or rather that he would just be able to resist it if it was bad. A Touch of Nothingness sounded like it would prevent something like that. Although, he could admit that he was probably being too arrogant and for no good reason at that.