Chapter 946 - The belly of the beast?

After staring at the notifications for a while, Sofia dismissed them once again, instead of derailing the conversation too much, she continued the discussion about the sanctuary. Everyone but her got to test out their new skill, while she kept such testing for later, knowing that it would take her a while to fully grasp.

When the group dispersed, with everyone returning to Ser’Extra, Sofia was left alone in her room with Bookie

“You’re not going?” Sofia asked.

“But I want to stay with you…”

Sofia smiled. “Sure. Come here, I’m going to go through the system rewards I just got.”

“Yay!”

Bookie happily sat on Sofia’s lap, watching her navigate her system menu.

“Right… I wanted to save up points to get the catalyst they made for you from the shop but it looks like they took all my points… Sorry, Bookie.”

Kicking his feet sitting on Sofia’s lap, Bookie seemed not to mind at all. “I can wait! I just have to kill tons of Phageid myself so you can buy it for me!”

“Well, well? Our cute Bookie is growing ambitious? Well we are definitely going to have to fight them, so you will for sure get the opportunity. But for now, let’s see what this ‘surprise box’ has in store for us.”

[You have opened: ‘Sofia Special Surprise Choice Box’, please select a reward]

Three illusory cards with a few lines of text each appeared in front of Sofia and Bookie.

“It says box but it’s really a card choice like the blessings?” Sofia chuckled at the system's strange word choice, and read through her options.

[Gambling addict’s box: randomly returns between 50% and 550% of the amount of points spent on the special surprise choice box.]

[Creditor’s favor box: instantly annuls your remaining system debt and receive a special training session in slowed time at the start of your next trial.]

[Penniless debtor's box: gain the ability to reroll available prefixes or suffixes during skill creation at the price of one stone per roll, up to three times per skill creation.]

“How much debt is there left, Sofia?” Bookie asked, looking up at her.

“About seven months…”

“Gah! That much?!”

“It only counts down when my mana is full and within system range so…”

“Then you have to take the second box!” Bookie confidently declared.

“...” Sofia gazed longingly at the two other boxes that were honestly both quite tempting. But with a sigh, she reluctantly picked the debt annulment before she could think too much about it. Bookie was right, there was barely over a year until the Phageid attacked in earnest and just under five years for her to complete Orator’s quest to slaughter scripture. She could not afford to waste so much time anymore.

“We have to hope that the special training will be something good.”

[Congratulations, you have entirely repaid your debt, you may now proceed to the next trial once you reach the appropriate level. You have regained ‘Identify’ privileges.]

“There’s that done… And now the other one…”

Sofia looked up at the notification still brightly blinking at the very top of the list.

[Class Quest reward: ‘any 1 item from Anna’s vault’ will be issued shortly by DATABASE for your contribution in restoring corrupted data]

“Any time now, I guess? Let’s get properly dressed while we wait… I think I had a bamboo hat somewhere. Do you still have that weird blessing?”

“It’s still there!” Bookie proudly affirmed, “Ah, but I don’t care about that! I want to see your robe!”

“My… Oh, the identify of it, you mean? It’s just my glove that got extended, you know? Well, let’s see… I should still be able to out-of-body a simple system [Identify]...”

[Aphenoreths’ philosophy]:

Is this the freedom to always be properly dressed?

Although its form can be changed from a glove to a full robe with a thought, only the original glove and the stone’s surroundings are immune to damage, while the rest can self-repair but offers no real protection.

Perhaps other powers may awaken later?

Contains: [The philosopher’s stone]

Self-bound.

So it can be reverted back? Ah I should probably wear something else before trying that.

Well, it’s still nice. Soul-bound changed to Self-bound… Other powers later, hmm…

I’ll add that to my infinite list of errands to look into.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I can’t believe I focused so much on it lately and barely made a dent.

[Rewards are ready to be issued. You will be teleported shortly, please prepare accordingly and do not forget you keys.]

After the sudden message appeared, a five minute timer appeared.

Oh Lords, five minutes?!

“Wah! I need to dress up!” Bookie jumped up in panic.

“You still smell like salt, get in the shower!”

Sofia quickly washed herself and Bookie and the two got ready in record time.

Pareth, I’m going with Bookie to get something from the vault. I know you knew but I still wanted to tell you. We’ll be right back.

Her hair still humid, Sofia watched the counter hit zero while holding Bookie’s hand, and their surroundings changed to an empty room.

It’s just like that time Creation teleported us inside of the Cerberus beta.

Except that this time, there was nobody around. Soft blue light coursed through channels in the metallic walls,

Sofia’s first reflex was to check her link with Pareth and her position in the [Quantic transposition] star map.

Still on Veliadren… But that’s really far from Ser’Extra. That teleportation must have been more mana than I have…

“Is this inside the system?” Bookie asked.

“Inside? Bookie, I do not think the system works like that… But this is for sure one of their buildings. Judging from the walls, maybe the inside of a tower?”

“There’s no door… It’s like a prison.”

“Security measures, probably.”

[You will be teleported shortly, please remain still]

“Oh, see? We’re going for a small trip like getting into Richard’s secret base, it seems.”

“The system secret base!” Bookie exclaimed, stars in his eyes.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying the trip.”

As expected, Sofia and Bookie went through several teleportations, until she could barely feel her link to Pareth anymore. For the starmap, it seemed she was still on or around Veliadren somewhere, but it was impossible to know more than that.

In a room that looked exactly like the one they had first been teleported to, they were prompted to wait.

Nex appeared a few seconds later, wearing casual clothes, one of the enclosed room’ walls opening to let him through.

“Greetings,” he said with a smile, “Good to see you both in good health.”

“It has been a while. You look… tired,” Sofia noted.

“Ahah… There is much to be done and very little time. Don’t you agree?”

“... Right, you should know about my quest and its recent changes, no?” Sofia asked.

“Indeed. Not that this or anything else will matter unless we resolve the more pressing tentacular situation at hand.”

“I would offer my help, but…”

Nex shook his head. “You should contribute at your level as you have done. It is more than enough.”

“Will do.”

“You seem to want to say something?” Nex noted.

“I don’t want to be insensitive.”

“Oh. Curious about Anna?” Nex guessed, “No need to spare my feelings. Sadly there is very little progress on that front. Research continues. But never mind all that. Database has taken the liberty to let you access the vault, so let us deal with that, follow me.”

“Where are we?” Sofia asked as she followed Nex out of the room into a similar looking corridor.

“The Database core bunker. It goes without saying but information about this place should never escape your lips. The censor will make sure of that.”

“Of course,” Sofia agreed right away.

“Anna used to treat this place like her personal testing grounds. Now it’s mostly silent automation, incomprehensible amounts of data treatment, and the vault.”

“What’s inside the vault?” Bookie asked curiously.

“I could not tell you in detail. Not a soul has been allowed to enter the vault since Anna’s disappearance. One needs both an Admin and Database’ permission to enter, which it never gave me.”

“Could there be a clue to freeing her inside?” Sofia wondered.

“I dare to harbor hope that there might be, but it is quite unlikely. Database is actively helping in trying to bring Anna back, after all. Most likely what you will find inside is… A lot of oddities she picked up over the years, experimental creations, and a host of rare materials. There may be a few of my scales, even.”

After a long walk through the blank corridor, Nex stopped and turned to face a side wall that Sofia could not perceive anything strange with. It opened to reveal a closed door.

Sofia and Bookie watched silently as Nex unlocked one door after another seemingly without doing anything. And once they were ten one-meter thick doors deep, they made it to a last door, the surroundings of which were so saturated with mana that Sofia could not even see what the walls were made of.

“And here we are,” Nex casually said, “Sadly you will have to enter alone, Sofia. My apologies, little one, but you have to wait here with me.”

“Oh… I understand…” Bookie answered, deflated.

“I probably won’t take long,” Sofia reassured him with a head pat, “Anything I should know going inside?”

Nex briefly nodded, “I trust that you know how to handle yourself. There are not many rules, try not to touch things too much, do not damage anything. You may only pick one item. Whatever you see in there aside from what you pick, you may only discuss with me and me alone. And lastly, the use of [Identify], or any magic, really, is prohibited inside of the deeper section of the vault. Database will be watching, so it is in your best interest to follow the guidelines.”

“That goes without saying,” Sofia agreed with a nod, “Oh, I had a few other things to discuss with you, Bookie can you deal with that while I’m in the vault.”

“Yes!”

Nex raised an eyebrow, “More work for me, is that it? Well I brought this onto myself, haven’t I. I will open the door, so get in there… Oh, and bring out the key first. Spatial storage will not work inside, for obvious reasons.”

“It’s already right there,” Sofia said, casually stabbing her hand into her own chest, before pulling the dagger out from within the light-spewing wound.

Nex blinked a few times, then decided to pretend that there was nothing wrong with what he had just witnessed.

A strange look on his face, he placed both hands on the vault's door, and slowly phased it open, making it partially fade into another plane of existence.

“You may enter. Database will open the door on your way out.”

“Thank you.”

Sofia entered the vault, and the door wholly returned to the physical plane.

Nex casually summoned a small table, two chairs, some cups and some cake in the small space between the two doors. He beckoned for Bookie to take a seat. “Anything you want to drink?”