Chapter 97 - Ninety-Seven: Valta

Chapter 97: Chapter Ninety-Seven: Valta

The prompt flickered. Static. The classification field cycled:

[Target Classification: ...]

[Species: Franken (Constructed)]

[Body: Common (deceased biological material)]

[Heart: Rare (monster girl core, origin unidentified)]

[Animation: N/A (lightning bioalchemy, non-biological)]

[CLASSIFICATION CONFLICT]

[Unable to resolve. Target does not fit tier framework.]

[SP Cost: UNDEFINED]

The system couldn’t price her. She wasn’t the first anomaly. But considering who all the other anomalies were, it makes her extremely unique.

The body was dead material. The heart was a Rare-tier monster girl organ. The lightning was neither biological nor magical in any category the system recognized.

She was a sort of category error rather than too strong to classify.

I couldn’t SMASH her. No matter how I tried. The system wouldn’t generate that option nor its possible cost.

"I want to come with you," Valta said.

"You don’t know me."

"You are the first person who asked my name." She looked at the cavern. At the broken restraints. At the tunnel where the bioalchemist was hiding. "This place is empty. I don’t want to be in empty places."

"My apartment is very small."

"I will make it work." She paused. Then adjusted her volume. "I will make it work. I am practicing the volume control."

She followed me out of the mines. The bioalchemist stayed behind. He wasn’t going back to Brannock. Seven warrants across three jurisdictions. Pixia had asked him.

I considered giving him up to the Thornguards... But fuck those women. I don’t really care about whether he lived or died, so I just left him.

"What are warrants?" Valta asked as we climbed toward the surface.

"Legal orders for your arrest."

"The creator is being ARRESTED?"

"The creator is hiding. If the Thornguard finds him, he’ll be arrested."

"For making me?"

"For making seven unauthorized Frankens before you. And for operating an unlicensed bioalchemy laboratory inside a restricted mining complex. And for smuggling alchemical reagents through the Rampart foundation."

Valta processed this. "So the creator is a criminal."

"Very much so."

"And I was made by a criminal. In a criminal laboratory. Using criminal materials." She stopped walking. The tunnel ceiling was too low for her to stand fully upright. She was hunched, which made her look like a very large, very thoughtful gargoyle. "Does that make me criminal?"

"No."

"Are you certain? I am the product of crime. My existence is evidence. The heart in my chest was obtained illegally. The bodies that compose my structure were taken from..." She paused. Considered. "I don’t know where the bodies came from. The creator’s notes didn’t specify. Should I be concerned about the provenance of my components?"

"Probably not right now."

"I will file the concern for later." She resumed walking. Her head scraped the ceiling. Stone dust fell on her shoulders. "I have many filed concerns. Most of them are about volume control. Some are about the nature of consciousness. One is about whether my left arm belongs to the same person as my right arm, because the skin tones are slightly different and I would like to know if my arms have separate histories."

"...We’ll figure it out."

We reached the surface. Daylight hit Valta’s face for the first time since she’d been animated. She stopped in the mine entrance. The sun was setting. Golden light flooded through the gate.

She stared.

"...What is THAT?"

"The sun."

"The SUN." She walked into the light. Her stitching sparked. The lightning in her body reacted to the solar radiation, arcing along her seams in patterns that traced her entire form. She looked like a constellation that had decided to stand up and take a walk.

She held her arms out. Tilted her head back. Closed her eyes.

"I did not know there was a SUN." Her voice was quiet. Rather than being projected, it was a small whisper. "Nobody told me there was a sun."

She stood in the sunlight for two full minutes. I waited. Fenra waited. Pixia waited.

When Valta opened her eyes, they were brighter than before. The blue-white glow had deepened.

"I would like to see the sun again tomorrow," she said. "And every day after that. Is this possible?"

"Yeah. It comes up every morning."

"EVERY MORNING." She lowered her arms. Looked at me. Her expression was new... Was it gratitude? at least it seemed like something similar.

"The creator’s notes said I would be ’a functional construct for labor and defense applications.’ He listed my expected capabilities: strength, durability, lightning discharge, obedience to verbal commands." She held up her hands. Looked at them. "He did not list ’experiencing the sun.’ He did not list ’choosing a name.’ He did not list ’feeling something warm on my face and wanting it to happen again.’"

She turned to me. "Is this what being alive is? Wanting things to happen again?"

"... Part of it. I guess?"

"What are the other parts?"

"You’ll find out."

She grinned. Lightning between her teeth. "This world is GENEROUS."

I filed the system anomaly. First glitch. The SMASH system had limits. It couldn’t classify everything. Valta existed outside its framework. She was the first thing I’d encountered that the system didn’t know how to price.

Pixia was quiet about it. Too quiet. When I asked her about the glitch, she said: "The system has categories. Living. Dead. Biological. Magical. Valta is living AND dead. Biological AND artificial. The system is simply not customized for her... yet." She paused. "That’s significant. I’ll tell you why later."

She didn’t tell me why later.

◇◇◇

Walking through the Rampart district with a seven-foot Franken woman trailing behind me. She posed every time we passed a reflective surface. She delivered observations about the architecture at maximum enthusiasm and immediately corrected her volume.

"THIS WALL IS VERY LARGE."

"Little too loud Val." Pixia smiled.

"Oh! This wall is very large. I am working on it."

Fenra eyed Valta with the cautious assessment of a predator evaluating something too big to eat. Valta eyed Fenra with fascination.

"You have a TAIL. I do not have a tail. Is it detachable? Mine would be if I had one. I am constructed. Everything about me is potentially detachable."

Fenra’s tail tucked. She was not accustomed to having her appendages discussed by strangers twice her height.

◇◇◇

There was a small issue on the way.

The streets of the Rampart district were not prepared for Valta.

A guard at a checkpoint looked up from her post. Looked up further. Looked up further. Her mouth opened. Her report fell from her fingers.

"Is... that a Franken?"

"She’s with me."

"This thing is like what... seven feet tall?"

"She’s aware."

"I AM AWARE OF MY DIMENSIONS," Valta confirmed. "They are CONSIDERABLE."

We passed nearby rose’s bakery. Valta stopped to examine the window display. Bread. Rolls. Pastries. Her face pressed against the glass. Lightning from her body left static marks on the surface.

"THOSE ARE FOOD." She turned to me. "ARE THOSE FOOD?"

"Yes."

"CAN I HAVE FOOD?"

"We’ll get bread at home."

"But those are food NOW. Here. Present tense food." She pressed harder against the glass. I couldn’t help but hold a chuckle as rose inside saw a seven-foot stitched woman with glowing eyes pressed against her window and dropped a tray of rolls.

"Valta. You’re scaring the baker."

"I am ADMIRING the baker’s CRAFT." She pulled away from the glass. Static marks remained. Rose stared at the marks. Then at Valta. Then at me.

"Hi rose," I said. "I got a new companion. She’s friendly."

"She left SCORCH MARKS on my WINDOW."

"She’s a little enthusiastic about bread."

A woman on the street crossed to the other side when Valta walked past. Then crossed back because the +50% title was drawing her toward me and the conflicting impulses of "run from the Franken" and "approach the attractive male" created a visible navigation confusion that ended with her standing in the middle of the road, uncertain which direction her body wanted to go.

◇◇◇

We arrived at the apartment.

Valta ducked through the door. Her head brushed the ceiling. She looked around. A small water stain on the roof. Single window. A bed. A table. A chair.

"This is small."

"Welcome home."

She grinned. Lightning arced between her teeth.

"HOME."

◇◇◇

The weeks between Vesper and the mines had been profitable but not enough.

SP allocation was consuming resources faster than encounters generated them. Every point into MANA was a point not available for emergencies. Every point into END was a point not available for acquisitions. The stat system was a hungry machine that ate SP the way Fenra ate bread... enthusiastically, completely, and with requests for more.

Gold situation was becoming a problem separately from the SP economy. Valta’s food consumption. Academy equipment replacement. The cloudy crystal had cracked during a practical exercise and needed replacing. Apartment rent was due. Net shortfall: 3 gold.

I had to find a solution soon...

Maybe I can check the guild? I don’t feel like going for more quests but there might be something not combat related...