Author’s Corner: I swear I’m not a bear, I just like to hibernate.

I thought about the offer for a few minutes, nodding my head. “Sure. I need some income, and this works out perfectly.”

The officer flinched a bit when I mentioned money, but I really did need some income, and he had called this a job after all. However, the other voice seemed to understand. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had investigated me and knew about my financial situation. “Deal. But we’ll need you on call whenever a situation arises, until our own officers can handle the problems.”

I nodded, understanding that. Monsters could appear in the middle of the night just as easily as during the day, so I couldn’t exactly ask for specific hours. This also meant I’d be unable to get back in the game very easily, since I could be needed at any time. “Alright. I take it you’ll just be calling me when more slimes, or other difficult monsters appear?”

Again, it was the offscreen voice that spoke. “That’s right. And there’s a few you can take care of now. We managed to corral some slimes at the mall on 6th Street, but we haven’t been able to kill them. Head on over and take care of the situation.”

With that, the connection was cut, leaving me blinking at where the hologram had once been. “Well, he was pretty rude.” Celeste spoke up from my wrist, making me smile wryly.

“Yeah, but it’s a bad situation. You’ve got to remember not to come out around other people. They might want to take you to study, and we wouldn’t want that.” After I said that, her digital face paled a bit and she nodded. “You can talk to me through the Cybernetic eye, and I’ll respond when I can. Now… let’s go play at being a dragon.”

Hearing me say that made Celeste grin broadly as I walked out the front door. Although I didn’t have my adaptive armor with me in the real world, which I didn’t think about until after I shifted. My body hunched over like a wolf, covered in green scales, with large bat-like wings coming out of my back. I could feel as the various spines protruded from my back and along my new tail… and as my clothes were torn to shreds during this process. Well… guess I won’t be changing back until I return.

With a brief flap of my wings, I adjusted to the new flight method and awkwardly took to the skies. It took a few moments before I was able to fly the direction I wanted, but my practice with the lovebird wings paid off. As my mana began recovering, I also added in the aura I had learned from the lesser orthrus to let me breathe elemental magic. For right now, the element I aligned it to was Void, as it would do the least harm to the surroundings.

New Spell Unlocked!Aspect of the Magic Breath - Nature Magic - ★☆

By studying the aura of a creature with a magical breath weapon, you have discovered and replicated the secrets to releasing the power of the elements in your breath.

Mana Cost: 500

I was a bit surprised by the window suddenly appearing, but managed to correct my flight before it caused me to tumble into the ground. With a bit of difficulty, I turned my body and flew off towards the mall, located just a few miles from my house. It only took about five minutes for me to get to the large square building, and I could clearly see the police forming a blockade around the mall. Each of the two entrances were surrounded by concrete barricades that had been quickly erected.

As I swooped down towards the front entrance, a few of the officers looked up at me in alarm and pulled out their weapons. I’m on your side, idiots! I thought to myself as Celeste drew out their trajectories, and I dodged sideways to avoid the hail of bullets while making my way into the mall by crashing through the door. Now that I was inside, I was able to determine that it was more than ‘just a few’ slimes.

Everywhere I looked, the slimes were covering the floor. They might have duplicated after arriving, but this was still a lot to look at. I estimated that there had to be at least a hundred slimes the size of the one that I saw in the jungle planet. Well, that one was almost painfully easy to deal with, so let’s just get this over with.

Taking a deep breath, I poured the magic from the small sphere of void mana in my aura into my mouth, preparing to unleash my new attack. However, what I released was not a breath of magic cancellation like I had expected. Instead, it felt as if there was an intense suction force applied to my breath.

After releasing the magic, all of the slimes in front of me began to shiver, their bodies all sliding towards me faster than they should naturally be able to move. However, the chairs and loose objects did not show any reaction. With my Aura Sight, I could see that only mana was being drawn towards me, so likely only creatures made of mana like monsters would be affected in this way. Still, as I held the breath in place and the first slime was picked up off the ground just a few feet in front of me, I began to worry I might be swallowing acid.

Hoping that I was wrong, and I mean really hoping, I let the slime finish its course and watched as it got sucked into my mouth. I prepared myself for internal burning which never came. Instead, it was like there was a surge of mana inside of me, as slime after slime flew into my mouth. After I was finally done breathing out(in?) with the void mana, I took a look at what had happened. I quickly discovered two effects from this breath weapon. The first one was that it completely refilled my mana pool, but the second was far more interesting.

When I inspected my grove, I saw that it had expanded by a full four meters in radius, bringing it up to 15 meters. Though only a third of it was for the ground, that was still a massive improvement for all at once. Sadly, my affinities didn’t increase from this, but I’ll take what I can get. Turning to another group of Slimes, I released a second void breath weapon. This time, I fully appreciated how it was like my mouth had become a black hole for magic, sucking in slimes of every color. Green and yellow, black and white, even a few red ones. Eventually, they all ended up as fuel for my grove.

This process repeated for a few more times, before I was done with the slimes in the immediate vicinity. Making a quick run of the mall, I found a few stragglers around, and quickly took care of them. The most interesting was a slime that had appeared in the clothing store. Well, I call it a slime… but it was like its body was made of sticky threads. I’ll call it a cloth slime for now. That one didn’t help my grove expand any, but by the time I was done clearing the mall, I had gained another six meters of radius.

While I was in there, I decided to help myself to an outfit. The security camera just ‘happened’ to be on the fritz as a small dragon walked in, grabbed some clothes, and went to the changing room. After I left, I made sure to ‘fix’ it, so kind of me right?

When I emerged from the mall, I let out a light burp, and felt as if I had eaten a full meal. The officers on the other side of the barricade stared at me, some with their weapons aimed in my direction. “Identify yourself!” One called out, and I let out a sigh.

“I’m John Hulett, your chief sent me over to clean up. You can check with him if you want.”

The officer blinked, but got on his radio to verify. After a few moments, he looked up at me. “What about that other monster that just flew in there? Did you take care of that one too?”

Again, another sigh. “That was me. I was in a hurry to get here, so I decided to fly. Check with Officer Faraday, he’s seen me change before. These are clean clothes, so I don’t want to ruin them by doing so right now.”

Once again, they verified the information with their headquarters, and then the officer lowered his weapon, signalling the others to do the same. “Well, thanks for the support, then. I take it you got them all?”

“Well, I couldn’t check the air vents, but I got all of them I could find.” I nodded, though really I did check to see if there was any slime on the vent covers. I just didn’t want to go digging around in them. Also, wasn’t I the one doing all the work here? Since when was that simply support?

Turning to the side, I walked off to head back home. I had considered flying, but I just got these clothes. I didn’t want to ruin another set so quickly. On the way, I noticed a number of people had already been changed by the game over the last day and a half. Although I had expected nobody to choose a non-humanoid race, since it was already public knowledge, I did see a few. For instance, shortly after leaving the mall, I saw a woman slithering down the sidewalk with the lower body of a snake. There were also plenty of elves, especially among the women, and a couple of orcs.

The strangest person I saw on the way home looked like he belonged to the balloon-headed race of the pet shop clerk I had spoken to on Hascion. I could understand people choosing elves because they wanted to look younger, or even a naga because they have an attractive upper body, but why would anyone choose that when knowing that the choice would carry over?

Suddenly, a message appeared in my Cybernetic eye from Celeste. Your world has so many different species, Falenel. It’s like we’re back at X-23..

I chuckled dryly, shaking my head. “Call me John out here. And we were all humans once. This is a new thing that you wouldn’t have seen a couple days ago.”

Wow.. And sure, John. You have a different name here?

“Yeah, I chose the name Falenel on a whim, and then was unable to change it. Here, I’m just John Hulett.” Talking to Celeste wasn’t a problem here, because people were far more interested in looking at the balloon head or snake woman to notice one elf that might be talking into a headset.

Wow.. I never thought I’d be able to see so many races living together, even if they were all once humans. But, you’re seriously going to go around hunting monsters for those people? They didn’t seem to appreciate it much at all.

“They’re the local law enforcement, so they might see me as some kind of mercenary, which wouldn’t really be wrong. And there are some perks to it, aside from just the money.”

There was a line of question marks flooding my Cybernetic eye, making me laugh. “I checked my grove, and it had a massive expansion after I sucked in the mana from those monsters. If I keep at this, it shouldn’t take too long for me to be able to make my grove pretty big”

Ahh...But mostly it’s for the money, right?

“Naturally. I’ve got to be able to pay the bills, after all. And once the cops train themselves up, I can head back to the game and work on getting that spell to transfer you over for good.”

I could feel her excitement as the bracelet buzzed slightly at that. Yay! I hope they don’t take too long.

“Same. But, whenever I have downtime, that gives me the time I need to train my affinities. I should be able to get everything up to 10% within a week, if I’m really lucky.”

By now, I was turning the corner, and able to see my house. I could sense a disturbed flow of mana, rushing into my yard. Running forward, I got there in time to see the mana starting to condense, a pair of cloven hooves touching the ground. This one seemed far bigger and more powerful than the monster that would have spawn before, but I just grimaced, activating the Aspect of the Magic Breath again to send another void breath towards where the mana had been gathering.

Like with the slimes, the hooves(and the mana that had been trying to construct the rest of the monster) began flying into my mouth, disappearing into what must have been an infinite void. “I really, really like that spell.”

I heard a giggle from my bracelet after I said that, and turned to head into the house. Sitting back on the couch, I pulled out an enrichment fruit to eat while getting back to work cultivating my Void Affinity. I was determined to get to 10% in that, so that I could once again sleep in the comfort of my bed.