5.8

The minutes past him by in relative silence, and neither of the Voithos made any move to approach him, which was probably a good thing. The distance gave me time to beat down everything he’d been feeling and pack it away once more. His mana continued its upward trend as it slowly regenerated, and when he hit the quarter-point again, he immediately used it on another [Analysis].

A rune that has been etched into the soil with mana.

[Split I] Unlocked.

“Split,” August murmured, reading the description from the menu.

A rune designed to split the transfer of energy into two streams.

August frowned at the entry—none of these was immediately useful, or if they were, he didn’t have the required knowledge to actually put them to use. He spent a moment wondering if any of the Voithos still stuck within Limbo might have that kind of knowledge—something to ask the others about.

He turned his attention back to collecting the clay, and eventually, after what had to be an hour or more, he was forced to give up. His arms were faltering under the sustained effort of digging up the material. August held off on spending any more mana, as the timer for the [Summon] spell had definitely come and gone.

He struggled back to his feet and placed his [Wooden Shovel] back into his inventory. He carefully dug his feet into the loose soil of the wall and caught hold of the lip with his fingers. It took most of his remaining effort to scramble back up over the edge to solid ground, and then he just lay there beside the pit, trying to catch his breath.

August managed to roll onto his side and searched the camp for a moment. Efkini sat a few meters away from the pit, watching Neptune as he moved back and forth along the shoreline. Rittan and Kalter were still working on the second [A-Frame Hut]. They’d made good progress in the time he’d isolated himself in the pit. The two of them seemed to work well together as they tied down branches, slowly filling out the walls of the structure.

Although the easy cooperation might be purely to Rittan’s credit, the man seemed to go out of his way to be mindful. August’s own experience with him had shown that. Kalter seemed much more at ease with just the two of them there, August’s mere existence a beacon of pressure that most likely made it hard to ignore when he was present.

Rather than join them and disrupt the atmosphere they’d managed to craft, August turned his mind to something else. Both Ladybug and he had gained a level after they’d been ambushed in the forest. He was pretty well aware of what those did for him—awarded him a single skill point to use within the [Survival] or [Leadership] roles.

August was still unsure why those two Roles were different from the others as neither [Evader] nor [Gatherer] seemed to have a skill tree associated with it, but the question that was emerging in his mind was what did those level-ups do for Ladybug? Unlike him, the monster didn’t have access to a skill tree from either of the aforementioned roles, and he was entirely unable to gift [Survival] or [Leaderhip] to her.

As far as he was aware, there were three ways where he could interact with her through the system. The first was [Analysis], which cost mana to use, while the other two were free—[Delegate] to give a basic task to the monster, and [Assign Role], which would gift one of his own [Roles] to the target.

“Ladybug, come here for a minute, would you?” August said, patting the ground beside him.

Ladybug complied, quickly hopping up and planting herself beside him with a trill. August murmured the [Delegate] command. She was still set to [Bodyguard] with him as the target. He had a look through the options again, but there was nothing that seemed to indicate that her level had changed anything there.

“Nothing,” August frowned. “[Assign Role].”

[Select Target]

[Select Role]

He selected Ladybug as the target, and it updated to show her currently unlocked roles—only they weren’t the same as they had been, and there were new roles that were currently greyed out.

Defender

Striker

Evader

Guardian

Hunter

Marksman

August remembered gifting all three of the starting roles to Rittan, but he was sure that he hadn’t gifted [Striker] and [Evader] to Ladybug. Which meant that she had somehow managed to unlock them in the meantime. [Guardian], [Hunter] and [Marksman], on the other hand, was entirely new. He selected the drop-down and picked the first of the greyed out roles before applying it.

Ladybug has unlocked the Striker Role

Ladybug has learned Bash

August realised what was happening. Ladybug had unlocked those roles by herself—likely through meeting some unknown condition, but she was unable to activate them without him assigning them first. August went through and assigned each of the new roles, activating them one by one.

Ladybug has unlocked the Evader Role

Ladybug has learned Burst

Ladybug has unlocked Guardian Role

Ladybug has learned Kinetic Bubble

Ladybug has unlocked the Hunter Role

Ladybug has learned Hunt

Ladybug has unlocked the Marksman Role

Ladybug has learned Range Guidance

“That’s a lot,” August said, shaking his head. “Ladybug, what the hell did you do?”

Ladybug had no real answer for him, and August was left to try and figure it out himself. [Gatherer] had unlocked for him while he was picking stuff up, so if there was some kind of unseen condition for these roles, what would they be?

[Evader] was probably tied to avoiding hits, and [Striker], as the second of the three starting roles, most likely mirrored it, except by striking things? [Defender] if it followed the pattern would be defending against something.

August glanced over at where the two Voithos were still working—if he could recruit Kalter and get her to help him, he would be able to test it. Having her do some kind of mock fight with Rittan might be enough to meet whatever the conditions were.

August regretted gifting the man all of the starter roles because their initial fight against Kalter might have been enough to figure out the conditions for each. He’d witnessed Kalter striking Rittan several dozens of times, and although the man didn’t seem to have much combat experience, he had managed to guard against some of those hits.

[Marksman], with a skill called [Range Guidance], seemed like it might have a bit in common with the three starter [Roles]. Attacking with a ranged weapon seemed likely. Rittan hadn’t seemed to unlock anything by using the [Greatbow], but there was a chance that he simply hadn’t reached the invisible threshold, or maybe it mirrored Ladybug’s problem, and he couldn’t see the inactive roles?

“Or maybe he needs to shoot at an actual enemy?” August wondered, sitting up.

That was far less safe than the alternatives, but they could probably rope a few more of the smaller [Mitikos] up for target practice. The [Guardian] role, judging by its name, might have been unlocked because Ladybug had been guarding him since yesterday. Could it have been because Ladybug had saved him from Kalter? Or even the other [Efkini] that had attacked him in the forest. Neptune was currently guarding the camp, so he could check if any new roles appeared by casting [Assign Role] on the monster at regular intervals.

[Hunter], as a concept, was someone who tracked down and killed some kind of creature. Ladybug had definitely killed that [Efkini] in the forest, but there hadn’t really been any tracking involved. If it was simply killing a monster, then Rittan would have unlocked it already since he’d been ‘hunting’ the smaller [Mitikos] to feed them all. For all he knew, Rittan may have unlocked it and just hadn’t bothered to check.

“Ugh,” August grunted, pushing himself to his feet. “Time to be social.”