There wasn’t much to do as the pair proceeded through the tunnels.

Presumably, this was a side effect of Red’s spell-craft and Sláine’s earlier campaign of whole-sale slaughter. Though she kept her ears perked at attention as she kept even pace with her companion, nothing of note stood out to her, and Red didn’t seem to need Sláine’s help with whatever task that had her gesturing occasionally after glancing at the walls or floors. Mapping, presumably? While she could pester the woman for an explanation, she had something she wanted to try.

[ Skills ], she knew, leveled up from use. Red had confirmed that [ System Use ] governed interactions with - well, the System, and while it was certainly a mundane concern, she admitted how useful it could be in the tasks ahead. One must be diligent in their drills to learn the sword; was it not natural that she must put forth the same effort to master this new tool?

As she splayed her palm over her shoulder, she found the feeling came much easier this time. She tried to keep hold of it as she pulled her hand away, and repressed a flicker of annoyance as the it dissipated along with the contact. Perhaps physicality was somehow necessary to the process? No, Sláine doubted that. Red hadn’t touched her own markings once, and she was certain the woman had been operating the Protocol this entire time. There must be a trick to it.

Again, she repeated the motion, and then a third time, each with careful focus and each tumbling away. Sláine grimaced after the fourth failure, but if each attempt brought her closer to a level and each level made her better at a task, wasn’t failure in and of itself meaningless?

And thus did Sláine stumble upon the main principle of grinding.

She understood the appeal. Tangible markers of progress ensuring that effort never felt like it uselessly slipped into the void, counting up as she met certain pre-marked goals… no matter the circumstances, ‘levels’ made trying worthwhile. It even cheered her on, this System that she’d pledged herself to, and while the saccharine style of speech wasn’t really what Sláine had imagined from an ancient being with enough power to dictate the laws of reality, she understood why it would want to reward those who were meticulous in their duties.

If she kept doing this, she could simply brute force her way to success.

She’d settled herself into a steady, if fairly tedious, rhythm as they walked when she had a sudden thought. Red had described [ Inspection ] as pushing that tingling sensation onto an object one wanted to know more about. She could feel it now, and she’d already successfully dropped one metaphorical thing onto another thing. Could she combine them? There wasn’t much around, but even the terrain would do, yes?

Sláine turned her gaze to the floor, and sought that near-meditative balance that had shown her the way before.

[ A concrete floor in keeping with this dungeon’s aesthetic sensibilities. That is, its gross and covered with grime. ]

The sweet taste of success filled her. She could! Take that, potted plant. When she returned, she’d be certain to show it the results of her newfound training. Well, if she could even remember where it was. And if she didn’t immediately forget about enacting petty vengeance on an uncaring inanimate object.

Regardless. To ensure it hadn’t been a fluke, Sláine used [ Inspect ] on the floor once more.

[ A grimy concrete floor. There’s nothing else notable about it. ]

Hmm?

[ A grimy concrete floor. There’s nothing else notable about it. ]

While Sláine had no idea what triggered the shift, it didn’t change a third time, so with her Interest spent she moved on to the wall.

[ A rusted metal wall that’s mostly been dissolved and replaced with the structure of a tunnel mite hive. Constructed out of the secretions of tunnel mite builders, they efficiently carry sound throughout the tunnel network, allowing the mites both to communicate and travel throughout their hive. It’d be best not to touch them. By the way, did you need something? ]

Before Sláine could respond, another message echoed in her head.

[ Oh! System Use has reached Level 4. I get it. It’s fine right now, but be careful not to spam me too often! ^^; ]

“Uh,” She stopped short. “What?”

“What is it?” Red replied, looked at her and halting a few steps ahead, and Sláine began trying to articulate it, struggling the entire time through thoughts gummed up by surprise.

“I figured out [ Inspection ] — “

“Oh, congratulations!”

“ — But I don’t understand what it said.”

“Did you try to [ Inspect ] me or something?”

“No, I was — “ It clicked what she’d said, and somehow confusion regarding Red seemed easier to deal with right now. She embraced the tangent. “What would have happened if I had?”

“Go for it if you want, but I promise you’ll just have questions that won’t get any answers. What were you talking about, though?”

As much as Sláine wished she could comfortably compartmentalize a situation that had her at a total loss, she explained the exchange as best as she was able. It had talked to her. Specifically, to her. And it had chastised her? Red had to press her hand to her mask to contain herself as she laughed.

“’Repeating the same query over and over, of course it was confused and thought you wanted its attention!”

“It’s… attention? But it’s - ” Sláine waved vaguely. “Always on, you said. Isn’t it just causing things to happen based on predetermined stimuli? You’re talking like it can make individual judgments about small-scale events.”

“Yeah,” Red said, in the tone of voice that implied a heavy-handed duh. “I am. It’s got its own personality.”

“It’s got a what?”

“I thought you’d leveled up already. Shouldn’t you have figured that out by now?”

Sláine stopped, gaping for a moment. She barely even knew where to start as she grappled with the idea. She’d known it could think in some manner of speaking, at least as much as one could equate the thoughts of an immortal being to her own. But all Protocols were parts of a greater whole. While groups of humans — guilds — may serve individual fragments by repairing and nourishing them, what reason would they have for separate ways of talking? Thinking? They’re all ultimately fragments of the System!

Please be careful, Sláine faintly remembered one of the messages saying. That had been genuine, personal worry? In hindsight it seemed a bit obvious, but she supposed this was where the disbelieving disconnect really started to kick in. What was the point of a System that mimicked mortals, acted like a person? Its job was to arbit reality, provide order and laws to a space that had no other definitions. The Root - her Root, her System - simply was, and while the Tree had a consciousness, it was the consciousness of an old thing, a wise thing that watched over her country.

It was not a person. It was too ancient to be a person. Too big, too grand to hold person-hood within everything else held up by its boughs.

Why would the pieces of the human’s god try to emulate humanity? The idea was as ludicrous to her as her pinky having a different set of morals than her thumb.

“You mean to say,” Sláine said slowly. “That the cube I saw when I was initiated, that is a thinking being, with thoughts, emotions, and opinions that can make judgments on the actions it sees me take? That’s — real, not just some… human tendency to anthropomorphize objects?”

“Sure is.”

“And it - it’s in my head? It can manipulate my thoughts?” Sláine gestured, alarm mounting in her. “As soon as I’d completed the procedure, I found that thing vastly less unnerving. Did it control me to think like that?”

“I — oh jeez, you really, really did not ask enough questions about this,” Red sighed, burying a hand in her atrociously purple hair. “Right, lower your voice a bit. I’m good, but not that good. Secondly…

You flipping out over this proves it isn’t brainwashing you, so cool it. It just, the reason why you felt like that, it’s because you’ve lived your entire life in a country where reality works one way, right? Then you’re put in front of the literal embodiment of something that directly challenges that reality. Of course it’s going to be a bit weird.”

“But its… watching me. All of us. Constantly.”

“Why is that less weird to you now than it was before?”

“Because it can judge me!” Sláine threw her arm up into the air, and with a wince realized that she’d shouted. “Sorry.”

“If we get attacked by bugs right now, it is so your fault.” Pause. Realization, and as if to soften what she’d said, she waved dismissively. “I, uh, have an escape route planned though, so it’s not actually problem. Be a bit daft if I take you on a tutorial run in a place I’m not confident in, right?”

Sláine blinked, but before she could process that fully, Red continued. “Anyway. Sort of, but not really. Remember what we talked about before? Murder wouldn’t be possible in a world where you’re always being watched. The Protocols just hum along, keeping this piece of reality going, until they think you need it.”

“But… then… so it’s there, but not paying attention until I’m asking?”

“Basically. Absentminded is a good word for it; they’re just handling queries, helping you check your stats and sending you [ Level Up ] notifications when they’re prompted. They can technically look in on you at any time, but usually they’re too busy to even care.”

At a certain point, one becomes so distressed with their reality that it reaches the level of hysterical exhaustion. Sláine, a perpetually moderate woman, was good at not becoming visibly distraught, but being told that she had what essentially could be defined as a brain parasite with the ability to monitor her at its whim was… an upsetting notion. “So it has a personality. Okay. Does it have a name? ‘Our Protocol’ is a bit of a mouthful.”

A long pause. “Usually,” Red began, “A Protocol and its main caretaker work out its name once it when it achieves full awareness of its surroundings and hatches. That’s when it sets its appearance, and that marks when it can talk properly rather than just altering the script of [ System Commands ] to comment on your surroundings.”

There were so many things she had questions about regarding that, but… “Usually?”

“Uh.” A light clearing of her throat. “Aria. That’s what I call them. Pretty uncreative, and since its an -IA name people would get pissed if I said it in public, but, y’know. I asked and they don’t mind.”

“It’s a wh — you know?” Sláine cut herself off, staring down the tunnel. “Nevermind. Let’s keep going. This is… a lot.”

“Don’t worry! You’ll get used to it,” Red replied cheerfully, abandoning her odd hesitance as quickly as it’d come, and Sláine plodded along after her, burdened by a heaviness she’d been trying so hard to ignore.

Strangeness. Unfamiliarity. In some ways, it even resembled homesickness, though even nostalgia and the absence of familiarity didn’t ever trick her into thinking she ever wanted to return. Flora was dead to her, and she to it, a blossom severed from her country and cast out onto the wind. Sláine was a woman who never second guessed herself. She’d wielded that knife by her own will. Turning her gaze up to that bright red cloak, frayed edges twisting in the darkness of the tunnel, she thought of all she had lost, and even moreso, of all that she had abandoned.

Really now. Why did she care about abstract concepts like autonomy, privacy, and free-will? It wasn’t like this body of hers was something to treasure. In the pursuit of honor, she’d resolved herself to make any sacrifice, and it mattered little what happened on her path as long as it ended with her becoming a legend.

Hope had weight, and by abandoning it, she was freed.

Beyond that, she’d been frightfully rude. It wasn’t her place to judge another being’s manner of existence, and it was no one’s fault but her own that she hadn’t read the fine print perched at the end of her contract. “Red. Is Aria still listening?”

“Hm? No clue. Worth a shot, though. Why?”

Sláine didn’t reply, instead addressing the room at large. “If you’re there, I’d like to apologize for having distracted you, along with any offense I may have caused through my reactions. You’ve done nothing to trick me, and I consented to this. Any surprise was a failure on my own part to properly prepare myself.”

Repeating the whole process she’d stumbled through before, Sláine selected the wall to see if her words had reached their intended target.

[ The walls of a tunnel mite hive, designed to carry sound. It’s alright, Sláine! I don’t mind. I’ll even try to leave you alone if you’d like. I’m just glad Red has someone to talk to now, so please try to stay safe, won’t you? ]

Sláine managed to not verbally state her surprise. Opening her mouth, then closing it, she was struck by how ludicrous her position was, and the idea that an immortal entity was worrying specifically about her. And about Red as well?

Remembering something, she turned her attention to the woman in question and tried something else.

>> [ Inspect ] Red