Two people talking could be heard below. As of her current position, Kurushimi couldn’t make out the contents of their discussion so she opened her eyes and looked in the general direction of the sound. It seemed that Atelier and Voice-san had a conversation whilst she had been sleeping.

“Hm?” Kurushimi mumbled, noticing something strange. She was unsure if it was just because her vision was still blurry from waking up or not, but Voice-san looked… different somehow. Mainly that she looked more ‘real’. As in her skin was slightly less see-through than usual. From where Kurushimi was looking, she almost looked naked, which made her blush slightly before quickly shaking her head.

“Oh, you’re awake?” Atelier suddenly asked, turning away from Voice-san to look up at Kurushimi. It looked like her mumbling and noisy movements had alerted Atelier and Voice-san of her awakening. Before the still half-awake Kurushimi could respond, Atelier called her down, “Come down, we have something to show you.”

“Un, what is it?” She said, jumping down from the tree and walking up to the two. Now that her vision had cleared up a bit, she could confirm that there was indeed something different about Voice-san like she had expected.

“Mm, it seems like you’ve already noticed~” Atelier smiled, commenting on Kurushimi’s keen gaze. After a brief pause, she glanced at Voice-san for a moment before saying, “I’ll let Voice-san explain it to you.”

“I seem to have evolved overnight.” Voice-san stated with an unconcerned look.

Atelier looked a little disappointed by the straightforward answer she had given, “That was awfully blunt wasn’t it? If I were you, I’d give a few teasers first before dropping the bag like that. It’s more fun that way.”

Voice-san: “Well I’m not you.”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘you evolved’?!” Kurushimi interrupted the two gods, displaying her confusion with the situation. Although she didn’t agree with Atelier’s intention, she did wish Voice-san would at least clarify a bit more before making such a statement.

“I’ve evolved, it’s that simple.” Atelier said as if it really was simple. Kurushimi didn’t know if it really was just her who was failing to understand this.

Watching Kurushimi struggle, Atelier couldn’t help but sigh. “It’s been just the two of you until I joined, right? How did you manage alone like this… Anyway, I’ll explain what happened. Basically, like you and I have a level, so does Voice-san. And, her level is equal to yours.”

“Eh, really?” Kurushimi was shocked to hear that. She had never heard anything about it from Voice-san. Looking at her, she asked, “How come you never mentioned that?”

Voice-san shrugged and replied, “Never needed to. I didn’t gain anything from it, so I didn’t see it necessary to bring it up.”

Kurushimi facepalmed and replied, “Ha, of course. I guess that makes sense but you should still bring up this kind of stuff just in case…” This kind of reasoning fit her, but also was an incredibly irritating part of her. Although, there was still something going untalked about, “But– what does this have to do with the evolution?”

“Upon hitting Lvl. 50, Voice-san was able to evolve.” Atelier explained.

Kurushimi was instantly envious, “Why does she get such an easy requirement?! Meanwhile, even after meeting an old god with all sorts of knowledge, we still have no leads on how I can evolve!”

Atelier retaliated, “Hey, it’s a little rude to call me old.”

Kurushimi: “Why is a god getting self-conscious about their age? How old are you anyway?”

Atelier: “5073.”

Kurushimi: “By all definitions, that is quite old-!”

Atelier responded with an obviously fake pouty look, “Ahh, how mean~! I’m still young by the standards of gods, y’know?” Unlike Voice-san’s convincing acts, Atelier was a lot less skillful in her ability to play the role. Kurushimi felt this was quite a contradiction considering her avid use of trickery like illusion magic.

“So Voice-san, what did this evolution do–besides make you slightly less see-through?” Now that she was feeling a little less salty over the difference in difficulty over their evolution factors, Kurushimi was curious about the contents of her evolution. What exactly would the next state for Voice-san be?

“Well–first, I am no longer Voice-san.” ‘Voice-san’ replied.

“Eh?” Kurushimi was confused by the answer she was given.

Luckily, Atelier elaborated, “What she means is, she was given the prompt to name herself.”

“Oh~? Really?” After Atelier had gone into further detail, Kurushimi’s interest was piqued. ‘Voice-san’ was a name given on the spot and even then, mostly a joke. It quite literally meant ‘Miss Voice’. She had been okay with it when Voice-san was just a bodiless voice; but after she had attained a body, Kurushimi felt it had become a little awkward.

Kurushimi asked excitedly, “Then, have you thought of a name already?”

Unexpectedly, Atelier cut in, “Indeed she has. I present to you…” She suddenly took on an overly-dramatic tone as if she were a host presenting something big, “Drum roll please!” The sound of drums reverberated around the imminent area. Presumably as a result of her illusion magic.

From the look on Voice-san’s face, this didn’t seem to be something they had planned to do prior to this moment. After an awkward amount of continuous drum rolling, Voice-san gave in and declared, “Kurono. That is what I decided to call myself.”

“So you’re Kumoko now?” Kurushimi asked, intrigued about her choice of name. “Why would you name yourself after spiders?”

“It’s Kurono, not Kumoko!” It seemed that Voice-san–or Kurono as of now–had picked a name that follows the japanese alphabet, which made Kurushimi happy. Curious on the specifics of why this name, she asked, “What made you choose ‘Kurono’?”

“It is a mix of a few words. It mainly takes from the English word ‘Chrono’, meaning ‘relating to time’. I transliterated ‘Chrono’ into ‘Kurono’, using ‘Kuro’ since my hair is black and not red.” Kurono explained the nuances of her name. She had talked about her knowledge of other languages from earth before, but it was interesting to see her make use of that in such a way.

“Hmm, is that really all there is to it?” Atelier cut in with a smug look on her face. “The names Kurono and Kurushimi are quite similar, in that they both start with ‘Kur’. Was that intentional~?”

“Purely a coincidence.” Kurono responded instantly.

“So what else is there to the evolution, Voi- Kurono-san?” Kurushimi returned to the original topic.

“You can drop the ‘san’.” But rather than answering the question, Kurono picked up on the honorific she used.

“Ah, but…” Kurushimi struggled more than she thought she would with the sudden name change. It was especially hard because of the japanese-sounding name.

Kurono was strangely adamant, “You’ve never used ‘san’ for Atelier.”

In the end, Kurushimi admitted defeat, “Okay, K-Kurono. What else is there to the evolution?”

“Well, like you’ve already noticed, my body has attained a more solid structure. But, now I can also…” Kurono trailed off at the end of her sentence, slowly approaching Kurushimi. Noticing her getting incredibly close, Kurushimi couldn’t help but grow a little nervous. Kurono gently took hold of Kurushimi’s hand and lifted it up. “...I can interact with the physical world now. Although unlike Atelier, I am actually doing it.”

“So now you can feel stuff? Can you eat stuff as well? If so, there’s a lot you and I need to try! Like the uh… the aberration goop! It’s really good, trust me-!” Kurushimi asked a question or two before strangely diverting the topic to food.

“Ugh, I’d rather not.” Atelier rejected the offer immediately.

“But how does this work? Even if you evolved, why can you interact with the physical world while Atelier can’t? Aren’t you both supposed to be spirits?” Kurushimi was still confused on one aspect: How was it that she could do this now while Atelier couldn't? What exactly had Kurono become?

With the specific, nitty-gritty questions coming out, Atelier the party’s de-facto expert on this world’s mysteries stood in, “A ‘spirit form’ is more of a vague term than anything specific. She may have a spirit form like me, but for a completely different reason. Put in simpler terms, I may as well be dead and she… may as well be a baby. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Y-Yeah, I get ya…” Kurushimi did not understand. Therefore, she quickly moved on, “So what is Kurono now?”

Atelier gave a simple reply, “Appraise her and see for yourself.”

Kurushimi tapped her fist against her palm, “Oh yeah, I can do that! Why did I not think of doing that before…”

Kurono: “Probably because it wasn’t possible to even see me until recently?”

Kurushimi: “Oh yeah, that’s right. Also, Atelier! When are you going to let me appraise you?”

Atelier: “Eh, you really want me to expose myself like that~? But I’m going to have to refuse, all women have their secrets you know?”

With Atelier’s hard refusal, Kurushimi sighed and looked back over at Kurono. A spark of mana glinted in Kurushimi’s eye as a panel of text appeared in front of her. It displayed varying features of Kurono’s stats, similar to how it would when appraising a monster. Name, race, stats and skills; these were all that could be seen for now.

“Eh? Could I see skills before?” Kurushimi asked, inspecting that particular bit of the panel. As she did so, another smaller panel appeared next to the already open one. [Skill, ‘Appraisal’ has reached Lvl. 4!] “Oh, a level-up for appraisal? Not what I was after, but still nice to get. Anyway, her race is…”

Kurono’s stats were all labeled as ‘N/A’, meaning that despite being able to physically interact with the world, she had no actual applicable means like strength, agility or stamina. Although, the lack of HP also presumably meant that she couldn’t die. But that was mostly theoretical. What ‘Not-applicable’ meant here was unclarified.

Other than that, it stated her name as ‘Kurono’, sex as ‘female’ and race as “Kindred god.” Her level was also the same as Kurushimi’s, Lvl. 54. Beyond that, under the previously mentioned skills, she actually did have some skills. Kurushimi found this surprising since her stats weren’t there, but she was able to have skills. “There is ‘Divine Blessing‘, which is probably the kami state and… ‘System host: Assistant’.”

As Kurushimi spoke of the unknown skill, Kurono cut in, “[System host: Assistant]. That is the last thing I gained. The description states that it gives me ‘system privileges that can be delegated onto others’.”

“Ahh, is that so…?” Kurushimi smiled and nodded. “What exactly does that mean?”

“I’m as stumped as you are.” Kurono replied, shrugging her shoulders. She and Kurushimi both paused for a moment before looking at Atelier in unison. As always, when they were stumped with this sort of thing, the 5073 year old god was the one for the job.

“Well, system privileges is quite a broad topic…” Atelier looked a little troubled as she searched for an explanation. “When I made that contract with you, that was a system privilege. It basically means you can take more liberties in how you manipulate mana without going through the system. For example, you can more easily create skills and mana constructs.”

“So, I essentially become a pseudo-system?” Kurono asked in response.

“Yes, you catch on as fast as expected.” Atelier looked happy Kurono was able to catch on fast, since the explanation had been made easier. Meanwhile, Kurushimi felt gloomy as she couldn’t even figure out how Kurono had gotten to that conclusion, let alone reaching it with just Atelier’s explanation.

“I missed a lot of that, but I understand creating skills and somewhat get making custom mana constructs… That should be useful! I think-!” Kurushimi exclaimed. She had experience with creating skills, leading to gaining one of her most powerful battle skills (That she couldn’t use right now).

Other than that, she had experience with creating mana constructs and manipulating mana independent of the system i.e. her weapons and her sword aura–of which were key components of her kit that she would have definitely struggled without. More implements like them were bound to be useful for the future.

Kurushimi sighed, “Since last night to now, there’s been a lot of thinking and theory…. I really want to head out soon.” She had gained so much, and although that was a good thing, she had also been given a lot to think about. Even though she had just woken up, she already felt very tired. Right now, what she wanted the most was to go into battle so she could actually put them to use.

As Kurushimi prepared herself to finally start the new day, she was suddenly stopped by Atelier. “I think it would be better to put hunting aside for today.” Hearing these atrocious words, Kurushimi’s heart nearly stopped for a moment. But before she could complain, Atelier continued, “There’s a lot that you need to work on. I’ve seen your skill levels and they need to increase. Also, you have a lot of unspent skill points. I recommend training today instead…”

Her previous gloom taking a sudden 180, Kurushimi interrupted Atelier, “Eh? Is it a training arc?!”

“A what now?” Kurono furrowed her brows. Just when she thought Kurushimi had stopped saying these strange things, she went and said something completely nonsensical again.