Chương 272: Maid To Deceive

A shame that I wasn't able to splatter her brain, but it should nonetheless teach them not to mess around with me… I thought they were here exclusively from Xlown, but it turns out that Miss Halfling is directly investigating what took place at Harvey's Diner all those years ago. She certainly views this investigation as the greatest hurdle of her career, but I am afraid that she will never resolve it. She won't be able to unless she experiences a great shift in perspective. Regardless…

This little event served as a great playground for me to test a few things. Most of all was my just recently acquired form. The delay between each acquisition of a new upgrade, thanks to Mari, can vary, so it has taken a little while to get it done, but I gained the 'Gynoid Form' not so long ago. It was an interesting one.

Gynoid Form - Acquired from unlocking 'Flowing Metal', 'Impersonator', an original aesthetic-based upgrade, and several other upgrades Turns out that it had definitely appeared amidst the rest of the forms that were on their way to be unlocked just after my evolution, as 'Flowing Metal' and 'Impersonator', two of my new innate abilities, had been part of the unlock requirements.

Though it definitely seemed like satisfying a requirement did not always guarantee that the form would appear amongst the list, as it also required an aesthetic-based upgrade, and the only one that suited this description was 'Alternate Shine', which I had acquired a while before the rest, without ever sensing any of those familiar tingles.

Regardless, the rest of the requirements were simply summarised, which wasn't too surprising, when were the system-provided descriptions ever actually detailed or even fully accurate to reality? Those things were clearly intentionally shortened and simplified. In any case, it was probably talking about two of the new upgrades that I had gained thanks to Mari's efforts. Faraday Battery - Your body forms a battery capable of storing lightning This one was simple.

It was just something allowing for more lightning in reserve at any given time… Since shocking people didn't actually consume much lightning unless I really decided to make their organs blow up, it was mostly useful when using 'Overcharge' or 'Overvoltage', as more lightning meant a greater boost to my strength. Machine Brain - Your body forms a mechanical structure inside your skull, allowing you to store your memories in a state that permits greater analysis and hindsight This one was a bit odd at a glance.

It basically allowed me to access all of my memories, but do so in a state in which I basically had enhanced brainpower, and from my tests, I could even visualise things from different angles in a three-dimensional environment, even if said environment wasn't exactly perfect most of the time. This particular upgrade deserved some time to be fully understood, but at the moment, I was using it to aid in my Mindscape-related experiments, and it had allowed me to make quite a bit of progress.

It felt a lot like asking a smarter version of myself for some pointers. … Of course, one should not forget about the form's own innate abilities. Thousand-Times Fool: Your mechanical nature is nigh undetectable Faceless: The appearance of this form is greatly customisable, although bound to a humanoid shape Operational Drawback: This form requires lightning to function and must have its memories sent away every once in a while.

Additionally, the longer you remain in this form, the greater the drawbacks will become, requiring times of pause to return to better functionality, or for the form to be undone entirely.

This form can become unavailable depending on how long it remains active Retainment: This form has access to all of the upgrades and innate abilities of the 'Base Form' Charm: In this form, you seem more charismatic and alluring, no matter what At a glance, it might not seem like much, but as was shown previously, this form was very good. It only had five innate abilities, one of which was basically just listing its weaknesses…

'Thousand-Times Fool' was the bread and butter of this form, in my opinion. It allowed me to fully pass off as a human in front of my prey, and even though many of them should have possessed greater senses than the norm, they hadn't noticed a thing about me. Just how great this ability was would have to be tested, but judging by the wording used to describe it, the odds of someone being able to see right through my facade seemed to be pretty much null as long as I didn't mess up and give myself away.

'Faceless' could be likened to the knightly form's 'Minor Cosmetics', but pushed to a much greater degree. It had far fewer limitations than its fellow aesthetic-altering ability and went hand-in-hand with 'Thousand-Times Fool'. Thanks to it, I could make myself tall or short, alter my hair colour, change the shape of my face, and change my eye colour completely. As the name stipulated, I was simply faceless.

I could be anyone and everyone, as it wouldn't stop me from mimicking a real person if I so desired, but it would be up to me to put together something that resembled my target. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. The only drawback was that I was confined to a female form, so I couldn't disguise myself as a male for extra covertness.

After all, if everyone knew that I was Mara Nebulo, they surely wouldn't expect what they believed to be a man to be the steel nightmare. Alas, the form had the word 'Gynoid' in its name for a reason. Once again, though, the description failed to mention a very obvious limitation, only mentioning the fact that it was limited to a humanoid form, and even then, that wasn't exactly accurate. From my tests, what it counted as 'humanoid' was rather stretchy.

Basically, as long as the shape I wanted to go for was at least partly humanoid, I wouldn't be stopped from going through with it. As such, I could be a centaur if I wanted to, because there was essentially half a human there. Though big bodies like those of a centaur are more lightning-hungry. This brought me to 'Operational Drawback'. This 'ability' was really just the explanations for the form's limitations.

Basically, I operated on a lightning battery that would need to be replenished every once in a while, which required a source of lightning. However, that alone wouldn't be enough to maintain this form forever. The longer I stayed in this form, the more the consumption of lightning would rise, and I was fairly certain that the increase was only gradual at first, and would eventually become exponential instead.

Although I hadn't been able to check it for myself, it would very clearly eventually become unsustainable, and the form would just enter a constant state of dormancy, thus forcing me to cancel it, but as the description also told, so as to prevent my big mind from figuring out the simple way of circumventing this issue, there was also a cooldown associated with the form itself.

Said cooldown would be longer the longer I had remained in the form, so I couldn't just 'refresh' the level of lightning consumption constantly, but since it said that it was about how long I was in the form, I tried to check if I could just switch back and forth as quickly as possible. The result was just that the description once again didn't specify everything.

Not only was switching between forms not very effective, as it slowed down if I did it too much, but the 'Gynoid Form' in particular would experience its own cooldown if I did this as well. In short, there were no exploitable loopholes to get rid of the battery drawback, which was the main drawback of the form. The other downside was the memory. Every once in a while, I would need to enter a state of dormancy to sort of unload all that my machine brain had taken in. Otherwise, I would start to malfunction.

It wasn't that big of a deal, though. I could hold a lot of memory, and clearing my mechanical brain was a quick process that I could do in front of people without arousing suspicions, as I could just stand still while in dormancy.

All of the drawbacks together might seem a bit much, and I had thought as much at first, but it was quite clear now that without them, there wouldn't be much incentive for me to use most of my other forms, as this one could allow me to mingle amongst other people without suspicion, and that was without mentioning the rest of the innate abilities that came with it…

Retainment: This form has access to all of the upgrades and innate abilities of the 'Base Form' In my opinion, this was the main reason why this form had been made with such great drawbacks. It was basically a variant of the 'Base Form'. With the other forms, pretty much all upgrades became unavailable, and the innate abilities in particular were always inaccessible. … But the 'Gynoid Form' didn't have this issue at all. Although most of them were accessible in a reduced state, it was nonetheless a big deal.

It had allowed me to curse Jupo and Binibelle 'Forever Bonded Together' when I attacked them. I had actually placed the 'Curse Of Fragility' as well, but I hadn't had the occasion to hit them again afterwards. In any case, 'Retainment' was definitely a great boon.

This form already packed a good punch, but with all of the upgrades and innate abilities available as well, it made it a very good form for battle, though it still lost in terms of sheer strength and effectiveness as the knightly form when it came to normal humanoid forms. Lastly, there was 'Charm', just a nifty little bonus to my charisma and beautiful looks. It worked nicely along with 'Faceless' and 'Thousand-Times Fool'.

Today had been the first real use of this form on the terrain, and it had performed admirably. The only regrets I have are due to my own performance rather than the form's–Just a little bit more to the left, and I would have destroyed Jupo's spine and killed him on the spot, but he got lucky. He moved in a very weird way while turning around, which was enough for me to miss the lethal blow.

Well, he will probably be struggling to go to the bathroom for several months, with how I rampaged through his intestines, he'll have something to remember me by. As for Binibelle, it really was just the archmage's intervention that was to blame. Without him, she would be dead without the shadow of a doubt. Speaking of delivering the final blow to Binibelle… I had tried to do it using something else I had gained thanks to Mari, another original upgrade. That I had manifested thanks to 'Flowing Metal'.

This innate ability was great, but I needed certain upgrades to use it, so I had put Mari to it. Sickle Arm (R) - Your right arm transforms into a sickle reminiscent of that of a past foe Indeed, the sickle was pretty much exactly the same as SHLAD-01 had possessed, and it was currently the only upgrade I could use through 'Flowing Metal'. Had it landed, it definitely would have sliced right through the mage's fragile body.

In any case, this should teach these idiots a lesson not to mess around with me, or to at least take the time to actually think of a better plan, but unfortunately for them, I'm not going to be accessible, and the security here will be rapidly improving due to what happened. The only way they might have a chance to actually do something about me would be during the soon-to-come field expeditions I would take the three Unwanted Presences on, but I wouldn't be alone.

They were too precious and would have the best possible security, and their security would also be my security. Also, my dear students were finally starting to show what the abilities they had been granted were…