Chương 9: Monkey Patch

Ch 9: Monkey Patch It was late in the evening, and two negotiations over my system had already come and gone, both disappointing in their own way. The first to show up had been the Granar, the scaled people. Their leader sent two representatives, but they had expressed no interest in building bridges or training defensive spells together. In less than two minutes, they paid the 250 credits, took their sphere, and left without even telling me their names. A few hours later, the elves arrived. Well, one elf did.

Zira had come to negotiate on behalf of the others, who apparently had reputations as model students to maintain and couldn't skip class. Freaking nerds. Unlike the Granar, Zira spent nearly half an hour talking, but again, it was the exact opposite of cooperation. She questioned the system's durability. She questioned my skill with runes. She tried to lowball me, arguing I couldn't charge 250 credits if I wasn't even including the blueprints so they could replicate it themselves.

Finally, when I refused to budge, she left without a deal, saying I would regret this and that I thought far too highly of myself for someone so weak and so outnumbered. Now I sat alone in my room, waiting for either the furballs or Sahirah to show up, the latter being the only celebrity who seemed genuinely bothered that I was selling a tool capable of revealing her surname.

Well, it was hard to justify getting angry over a surname when everyone else risked being killed by body-snatching monsters, but I'd see what I could do for her when she inevitably showed up to complain. Knock. Knock. I got up from my chair and walked to the door, half expecting Sahirah and half fearing it might be Principal Dickhead. It was neither. A Zufi stood outside. Judging by his broader build beneath the brown fur, he was male.

His hazel eyes were flecked with pink, and a single patch of white fur covered the bridge of his short muzzle, standing out sharply against the rest of his coat.

"Your room smells of dead skin, human. You should probably clean it better." That was his opening line, leaving me speechless for a moment. I'd cleaned the room only a few days ago. A little ironic it was it the furry people commenting on it, wasn't it? I couldn't imagine his own room wasn't covered in loose fur. Still, he was a customer, and customers were always right.

"I'm sorry about that, but come on in. I'm ready to show you the system, and if you buy one, I'm willing to give you and your people a full month of warranty to show how much I trust my own product." He gave me a look I couldn't quite decipher before stepping inside. I didn't bother closing the door. Instead, I decided it was time to make a good first impression. Without hesitation, I took the inactive sphere from my pocket and placed it on my writing desk.

A light touch at the correct spot let it draw a small amount of mana from my body. Before it could finish activating and display my own status, I stepped aside, conveniently making the furball the closest living being. [SYSTEM STATUS] Name: Niko ATTRIBUTES ‣ Strength: 12 ‣ Agility: 41 ‣ Constitution: 14 ‣ Mana: 8 The moment I saw his status, I remembered. He was the leader of the Zufi. The one who had threatened to snap the elves' necks faster than they could cast a spell during my very first public demonstration.

And yes, he wasn't a Mimic. Feeling a little more at ease, I hurried over to the floating sphere and touched the exact spot that deactivated it. Just as the illusion began switching to my own status, the sphere shut down. I turned back to Niko, pretending I hadn't deliberately hidden my status and that this had simply been part of a standard demonstration.

"The price is pretty reasonable for everything you get," I said.

"A training tool to track your people's progress, and a reliable way to make sure none of your friends have been hijacked by Mimics." To my surprise, Niko kept staring at the now-inactive sphere. When he finally looked at me, he asked something completely unrelated to the price.

"How do I know your sorcery does just what you say it does and won't do anything harmful to the pack if I bring it into our territory?" Now that was a question every programmer who had ever worked in a security-conscious environment had heard after writing a script that needed to run on every machine. Besides... what exactly did he mean by sorcery? Was that connected to what Sahirah had told me about the Zufi distrusting magic? I didn't have time to think about it.

"Well, you don't," I admitted.

"In the end, it comes down to who you trust more to keep you safe from the Mimics: me or the Grey." I smiled.

"But I give you my word that my system doesn't do anything you don't know about. And if you ever find out I'm lying, unlike the Grey, you know where I live. You and your pack are welcome to come beat me up. Which won't happen, because I'm not lying." To my surprise, Niko burst into laughter. He doubled over, clutching his stomach with broad, paw-like hands as his tail swished wildly behind him. Every laugh bared rows of sharp carnivore teeth, yet there wasn't a hint of hostility in it, only genuine amusement.

"You act a lot like an alpha," he said between chuckles, "despite not having a pack." He pointed a claw at the sphere.

"I'll buy your system, human." One thing that didn't escape me was the way he said, I'll buy, which was completely different from the others. They had always spoken as representatives of a group.

"So, quick question," I said.

"Are you the leader of the Zufi, or are you buying the system as an individual?" He stopped laughing and gently picked up the sphere from the table as though it already belonged to him.

"I'm their alpha, and I'm a good one. I collect thirty percent of everyone's credits, just like I used to take my share of the hunt back home. But just like before, I invest it all back into the safety of the pack, unlike the bad alphas who spend everything on gifts for the females." So... authoritarian good. Not ideal, but I could do business with authoritarian good. He raised his left arm, revealing the credit crystal he wore as a wristband. Only then did I realize why.

Since the Zufi didn't need clothes because of their thick fur, they also didn't have pockets. I pulled my own crystal from my pocket. As the two crystals came close, they glowed brightly. I watched him select an amount through one of the crystal's facets, and during the brief moment he struggled with the interface, a new idea popped into my head. One day, I could integrate money transfers directly into the system. The Grey definitely wouldn't like that, so I'd better become a lot more powerful before attempting it.

Still, it was an idea worth filing away for later. When my crystal confirmed the transfer of 250 credits, my attention returned to the present. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Oh, by the way," I said, "I got a book with a few combat spells you won't find in the library. Would you and your people be interested in learning them and helping me test them in the training field?"

"What exactly are you proposing, human?"

"Think of it as an extra evening class where you can learn things the Grey won't teach you. It won't start today, but I'm planning to organize it soon." Niko thought it over, his gaze drifting as one of his claws scratched the side of his neck.

"I'll tell the pack about your offer. I won't promise anything, but if any of them want to go, I'll allow it." That was actually the most encouraging answer I'd gotten from any of the three species today. Smiling, I offered him my hand.

"Thank you for doing business with me. I hope we can build a mutually beneficial friendship going forward." He stared at my outstretched hand, clearly unsure what he was supposed to do. I smiled awkwardly.

"Uh... shaking hands after a successful business deal is a custom among my people. But you don't have to if you'd rather not." Niko smiled and let out an amused huff.

"Strange species." Despite his words, he clasped my hand and gave it a firm shake before leaving my room with the sphere tucked under one arm.

It was already dark, and my body was on the verge of giving in to sleep when Sahirah showed up. I was lying in bed, thinking about my newly acquired five hundred credits, when the doorknob clicked. The door was unlocked because I was expecting clients today. Looking over, I found her standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, staring at me with those mismatched eyes.

"Are you still angry about the surname thing?" A deeper frown appeared on her forehead, but she remained silent, simply staring at me.

"I can fix it, you know. It'll only take five minutes and some mana-conductive ink. But it'd help if you at least explained why that secret is so important to you." Only then did she relent, uncrossing her arms and relaxing her posture. She closed the door behind her, stepped into the room, and took a seat on the edge of my bed.

"You said it yourself. We don't have any privacy in this school, so there are certain things I don't want to tell you... or anyone." A secret surname that demanded that much secrecy? Definitely suspicious. What exactly was the Mana Bomb Girl hiding? Now that I thought about it, she had also been suspiciously good at destroying evidence... I sighed, knowing it would probably take me a long time to implement my own translation system.

"All right. I'll see what I can do." Setting tiredness aside, I jumped out of bed and pulled my chair closer to the writing desk. A smile spread across my face as I noticed the four full bottles of mana-conductive ink. They weren't the highest quality, but I still felt rich. I uncorked one of the bottles, picked up my quill, and got to work. First, I drew a large circle. Then a smaller one, connecting the two with a single line. Next, I opened Magica Principia and the documentation for the Illusion spell.

I still didn't know every rune by heart, but by now I'd practically mastered the rules of placement and resonance.

"What exactly are you doing?" she asked.

"You'll see." Focusing completely, I began filling the circles with runes. Naturally, I was making the whole thing Sahirah-proof. At this point, that was practically my design philosophy. Several minutes passed in complete concentration before I finally leaned back with a satisfied breath.

"Come here." She immediately stepped closer and nudged me with her elbow. Apparently, that was her way of asking me to make room on the chair. I scooted over, and before I realized it, we were sharing the tiny chair while she studied my work with her mismatched eyes.

"What is this, exactly?"

"You'll love it." Without explaining further, I took the last remaining copy of my system, the only sphere that hadn't sold, and placed it on the desk, activating it with my mana. Ignoring the floating status window, I folded the freshly inscribed paper into a compact square that could fit inside a pocket. I handed it to her.

"Just keep this in your pocket from now on. With the amount of mana you have, it'll stay active permanently without you having to do anything." She looked at me as though I had completely lost my mind. Even so, she did as I asked. She took the glowing folded paper, then awkwardly reached for her pocket while we both tried to fit on the same chair. When she finished, she looked back at me.

"... What now?"

"Check your status." The moment she looked up, her eyes widened. As intended, the window was different now. [SYSTEM STATUS] Name: Sahirah ATTRIBUTES ‣ Strength: 4 ‣ Agility: 6 ‣ Constitution: 19 ‣ Mana: 203"What have you done this time, human?" she asked, genuine surprise present in her voice.

"How can a piece of paper in my pocket hide my surname?" Being something of a connoisseur of surprising people, I let her curiosity torment her for a few more seconds before answering.

"It's just a second Illusion spell. All it does is place a rectangle the same color as the status window over the second half of the name field." I was fully aware I was applying the magical equivalent of a band-aid fix, a monkey patch. It was probably just as terrible a practice as it was in software development back on Earth. But it worked. Quick and dirty, but functional.

Sahirah leaned from side to side, trying to look at the status window from different angles as though she might catch a glimpse of the hidden name. She wouldn't, I knew that. Both illusions existed only in our minds, so viewing angle didn't matter in the slightest.

"You know you're not normal for coming up with something like this so quickly, right?" Not normal? Creating the illusion of a little retagle over the floating window was several times easier than the system spells.

"And you're not normal for blowing things up with mana, so what's your point?" She tried to stay annoyed, but a smile won out instead.

"One thing I still don't understand," she said, amused now, "is how you can make things resistant to my mana so easily when the Grey can't." I answered honestly.

"They probably can. They just never had to. They've never encountered a species with this much mana and so little control over it. You're an edge case, which means every design they have would need to be redesigned to handle someone like you." I smiled, barely holding back a full laugh.

"And since I doubt they're going to redesign their entire civilization because of one girl... I guess you'll have to rely on me to make everything Sahirah-proof from now on."

"A bold offer from someone who's been avoiding a conversation," she shot back. Right. The incident during meditation class. To be honest, I wasn't exactly afraid of talking about it. I just had a feeling that rushing things would be a mistake, and the last thing I wanted was to ruin whatever was developing between us by being impulsive. But now she'd cornered me. There weren't many excuses left when we were alone, sitting shoulder to shoulder on the same chair. I sighed.

"Look... about our little public incident. I do have an opinion on what happened, and we can talk about it right now if you want."

"You first," she said without hesitation.

"After avoiding this conversation for so long, you owe me that." Forcing myself to meet her eyes, I suddenly became aware of my own heartbeat. For one absurd moment, I even wondered if she could hear how fast it was beating from how close we were.

"What we did during meditation class," I said, forcing my voice to stay neutral, "is something the Grey consider improper, even between members of the same species in many situations. They see sharing mana as something deeply intimate, and... honestly, I can understand why. There's all the sweating, and the pleasant feeling it causes." I studied her expression before adding, "At least, that's how it felt to me." Her lips parted as if she were about to respond, but I kept going. I'd already said the hardest part.

I wasn't about to lose my nerve now.

"I'm going to assume we stumbled into something that either doesn't exist or isn't taboo on our own worlds, so hear me out." I took a deep breath.

"To hell with what the Grey think," I said, my words coming faster now that I'd found my rhythm.

"They don't provide us with a safe environment, and unlike everyone else, we're the only members of our species here. We don't have a clique to protect us. That means we can't afford to pass up any chance to become stronger, no matter what anyone thinks." Looking straight into her eyes, I finally said, "So my proposal is simple. We keep doing what we did during meditation class whenever we get the chance... and to hell with everyone else's opinion." It felt as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

The relief didn't last long. Seconds passed without a reply. She simply held my gaze in silence, and perhaps as payback for making her suffer through my own dramatic pauses earlier, she let me wait while my heart hammered against my ribs. Eventually, she spoke.

"I agree with everything you said," she replied.

"But it really bothers me how logical you are about everything, Eric." Wait... what? My logic bothered her? What had she expected instead? Complete insanity? Even so, I found myself smiling, not the least bit interested in arguing with her about logic. Without another word, I reached behind the desk, pulled out the Fire Moon book, and opened it to Chapter Eight. The title, Dual Cultivation, was printed in enormous letters across the page for Sahirah to see. I turned one page.

A full two-page illustration showed two Greys sitting cross-legged, facing each other with their hands clasped exactly as ours had been during meditation class. A great blue moon loomed behind them.

"I managed to get my hands on this book," I said.

"This is the real thing. The proper... or rather, improper technique." I had already informed her about my deal with the archmage, and I was ready to answer her additional questions about the book. Instead, she gently took the item from my hands, seemingly fascinated by the illustration as she leaned in to examine it more closely. That was when my door burst open. Before either of us could react, Zira, the elf whose actual species name I still hadn't bothered to learn, came to an abrupt stop right behind our chair.

One glance was all it took to freeze her in place. The illustration in the book. The two of us sharing the same chair. Sahirah in my room this late at night... And she was not the only one surprised. The corner of Sahirah's mouth started twitching. Every trace of amusement vanished as she snapped the book shut and slowly turned toward the intruder. I kid you not, her lips curled back just enough to reveal her sharp teeth, as if she was about to hiss line an angry caracal. I'd never seen her truly angry before.

The look on her face was so raw, so freaking feral, that it took me a second to process it.

"What kind of soft-willed, pointy-eared, leaf-licking, brain-dead trash walks into someone else's room without knocking in the middle of the night?" Sahirah herself had walked into my room without knocking, but even I had enough common sense not to point that out. For a moment, it seemed Zira hadn't even processed the string of insults Sahirah had hurled at her. Then her expression shifted from confusion to panic. She ignored Sahirah completely and addressed me instead.

"We've changed our minds about your system." She hurriedly pulled out a credit crystal from her pocket and added, "Principal Zorik found Niany dead in the bathroom, and now our group is under suspicion of being the hosts of a Mimic."