Chương 359: Allyship

"Mmh… Upgrading the 'Music Box' so that it can play more songs than just the one it already has available? Sounds pretty doable. I've worked on quite a few retired entertainment automatons, and those guys nearly always had a music box, or at least their voice box had an option to play music" Being that I would like to acquire new forms as quickly as possible to diversify my murder-method portfolio, I decided that I might as well try whatever seemed like it might work.

The 'Accordion Jack-Out-Of-The-Box' was only a recent arrival to the list, but the way to unlock it seemed clear and straightforward compared to a lot of others. The 'Mascot Form', I feel like, could be attainable if the mascot I must be is the one I think it is, but I'll need some time to build a replica of the old suit before testing my theory.

The 'Pure Spirit Form' and 'Pure Curse Form' also seemed straightforward in some capacity, but they had been hanging around in that list for a while, but even after consuming large amounts of both spirits and curses, I hadn't seen progress toward unlocking them, which meant that there was probably at least one other condition to fulfil that I simply couldn't get a grasp of.

For the latter, I would presume that I needed to actually go somewhere with my own curse slinging activities, but my cooking just wasn't yielding the results I wanted, and my usage of curses, well… It left to be desired. I did use curses in my strikes at times, but whenever I did, the result was so underwhelming that it didn't even feel like it was worth mentioning.

I guess the issue is that I have been mostly dealing against enemies that are too strong to even notice the curses, or enemies too weak for the effects of the curses to even matter. I had used some of my curses against the ever-regenerating, lanky bastard, but it had felt like letting a few drops of water fall into a lake. It simply wasn't consequential enough for it to matter. The curses themselves were pretty good right now, in my opinion.

I just hadn't had the opportunity to test them against a good opponent, and it might be what I was lacking to unlock the 'Pure Curse Form'. I might simply not have enough experience wielding curses. As for the 'Pure Spirit Form'... I really didn't have any good idea what was holding me back from this one. My best, but dangerous, guess was that I needed to genuinely be completely destroyed for it to manifest.

After all, getting rid of all of my physical aspects should normally only leave the non-corporeal sides of me, which I had on account of being a Vengeful Spirit and Living Curse hybrid, but it would definitely be a risky move to try to unlock this form in this manner, especially when the idea was based on nothing but an educated guess. What else, what else… Ah yes. The 'Rusted Plague Form'.

This one probably wants me to just rust over completely, which is more doable than total annihilation, as I won't die from being rusty, but I'll be severely limited. Rust counts as damage for me, so if I let myself turn into an automaton left to the junk, I won't be able to change form, or even move much at all without crumbling. This is definitely something I should try whilst things are relatively calm. Next on the list is the 'Biobot Form'.

A transformation which might bear some similarities to my newly acquired 'Revenant Jack-Out-Of-The-Box'. It was certainly fleshy in some shape or form, as Nara had told me that 'Bio' certainly meant 'Biological'. Making this form's name imply that it would turn me into a robot made of flesh… I have no clue whatsoever what is needed of me to unlock this one.

'Ghost In The Machine', I can already imagine something, but I feel like I need the 'Pure Spirit Form' to do it in the first place. In the first place, a ghostly form that isn't a 'Pure' variant sounds like a sub-form, so it wouldn't be strange if a requirement for this one was to have the 'main' form of the ghostly variety. Anyway, my idea is that I should possess a computer or something similar. It did first unlock itself when I interacted with a computer, after all, so it only makes sense.

I also have a good guess for the 'Giant Form'. I remember having the option to pick an upgrade called 'Larger Limb', and I assume that getting a full set of those, alongside maybe the unusually named 'Let's Check The Weather Up Here, Shall We?', which promised an overall increase to height and physical strength. The problem was that this was most certainly the kind of upgrade that Mari couldn't make into reality.

Even simple upgrades sometimes resist being added to my body, so something that changes so much would definitely be impossible, meaning that I would need to wait for a choice of upgrade to show up. … Speaking of which, drinking a whole ocean worth of blood and slaughtering its denizens–Some of which had been ancient creatures–Definitely brought in a sizable amount of experience.

As such, on top of the previous upgrade choice I had left pending, I now had five upgrades I could choose, but looking through them, none really attracted my eye. I wasn't getting lucky with the options offered. It was mostly stuff that Mari could manage with relative ease, and she would pout if she noticed that I had wasted a free and immediate upgrade pick on something she could do herself. Anyway…

The only form I had left was the other Jack-Out-Of-The-Box one, but I had no clue for this one either, so I'll just focus on the stuff that seems the most plausible. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. For now, I just sat at a table with my chest open as Mari worked on the 'Music Box'. The very first upgrade I had ever acquired.

The song it played was a soothing lullaby to my ears, but most of the victims who had heard it had probably found it anything but that. Lullabies were charming works of music, but when pulled out of the context they usually appeared in, it was easy to understand why they could feel frightening or ominous. As such, the 'Music Box' was a splendid tool to spread fear through 'Embodiment Of Negativity'. In any case, Mari was quite the sight when she was focused on a task like this.

Introducing her to mechanistry had truly been a great idea. She was thriving in this domain. She might genuinely be the best mechanist alive after Leton himself.

"Huh… This is quite different from the music boxes I've worked with in the past… It is… Well, I guess the right word would be that it is unusually made. If I want to upgrade its musical repertoire, I might have to upgrade it completely first" Mari mumbled to herself. She already knew that when it came to upgrades already present within my body, they couldn't easily be pulled out and replaced by a better version. To add to them or otherwise bring modifications, the work needed to be done on the upgrade itself.

Otherwise, the 'Music Box' conundrum would easily be solved by her placing a pre-made music box of high quality. The difficulty of the task seemed to please Mari…

Ririlt had been working on the task he had received from Leou for a few months now. He had reached out to Argantis and accepted the deal formerly offered to his late snakefolk friend whom Mara had crushed into paste. The foxfolk regretted the sequence of events that had led him to such a path quite deeply. Interacting with Argantis himself was oddly quite easy. Despite his areas of expertise predisposing him to being hard to approach, he was rather a talkative fellow.

Of course, Argantis wasn't the only issue Ririlt had been expecting. The main problem was the job he had to accomplish with his own men to continue his business with the curse-slinger. Argantis wanted them to disrupt the work of the Deep Dream, right near their base of operation–The Cave of Somn… To say it was a dangerous job would be severely understating things. The clerics of the Deep Dream appeared harmless, but the second one started messing with them, they turned into absolute nightmares.

They have all sorts of species amongst them, but most are bizarre beastfolks or monsterfolks. Those with an affinity for dreams or other related subjects seemed to be naturally drawn to the Cave of Somn. Most of it didn't matter to Ririlt, however. He was just doing his best to avoid getting himself or his men killed. This was a task he had already failed, as several of his loyal followers had fallen into slumber they couldn't wake from. Thankfully, no one had been caught.

The sleeping people were all carried away before clerics could show up to retrieve them. Despite the accidents, the foxfolk's men were still in high spirits. They truly believed that once they were done and had Argantis's assistance, they would be able to topple the rule of the Felinis bloodline over Heldinot. … As per usual, Ririlt ended the day by observing the Cave of Somn from far away.

They were constantly on the move to avoid detection, but the clerics of the Deep Dream were frankly not too serious about looking for them. They seemed more interested in returning to their business as quickly as possible. The foxfolk didn't really understand the point of all of this. They were barely disrupting the lunchtime of those guys, but Argantis seemed satisfied with nearly all ventures… The man in question soon walked up to Ririlt, watching the entrance of the cave as well.

"Sir, I must admit that I am quite confused about the purpose of our presence and work here. Are you truly satisfied with what we have accomplished?"

"I am very much satisfied. You and your people provide the perfect distraction whilst I disrupt some of their experiments–The Deep Dream doesn't believe in any specific divinity, not as a whole, anyway… They believe in the power of dreams and nightmares directly, so they try their best to harness and manifest it""Ever since the Nightmare Plague took place, they've been boiling, trying to understand what made this 'plague' so special. They've tried to replicate it to no effect, so what else is next after that?

Trying to find information about the wielder of the plague, obviously""I don't want them to find that out, so I am messing with their experiments, and so far, it seems like they haven't been succeeding in the slightest. While we are here, others are trying to contact the one behind the Nightmare Plague as well. It is basically a race, and my purpose is to impede the opposing side""Is that so…?" Argantis rubbed his chin for a few short moments.

"You know, you seem more preoccupied with something else rather than what is at hand""D-Do I?"

"Yes, you remind me of a junior disciple of mine a long time ago–You look like a man who fell in love with a woman he knows he shouldn't have""That… That is frighteningly accurate…"

"Tell me, who is this woman?"

"Well…" Ririlt hesitated.

"She's a monster…" Argantis clapped his hands.

"It's always the monster women, isn't it? They are quite magnetising, aren't they? I myself go entangled with a Widower-Taking Arachne, and I could just stop going to that damned cave, but I just keep showing back up. She's got my heart in her web, and that junior disciple I mentioned? Oh…"

"... He was infatuated with a rather unique one. I think people just call her 'Arm-Breaker' nowadays… She's a pretty big lizard. Literally just looks like a lizard, but I guess she's got quite the charisma, or my junior was kind of a freak, probably both to be honest–What kind of monster is this woman of yours?" Ririlt had to think about it. He frankly didn't know much about her. He had just caught wind of her name and seen a bit of stretchy nature, but that was it.

It felt quite embarrassing to talk about love when the one encounter they had was her throwing a silly joke his way and then immediately running away as if she had dropped a bomb.

"I guess she's like a… A mime?"

"Damn, did you catch feelings for an anomalous monster? You must like challenges" Argantis crossed his arms.

"Listen closely, I'll give you some advice…"