Chapter 11 - Conversation

Chapter 11: Conversation

Before getting even more upset about how stupid and unfair this whole thing was, Mercury decided to focus on something else. Going back into spider territory today seemed like a poor idea, so instead he filled his inventory with two rocks and decided to move onto mana training. So, he meditated until he could see his core again and started slowly stirring his mana, having it do tiny motions. By now, these tiny movements were fairly easy to do, making it possible for him to keep them going for a bit until his emotions started to settle down.

Then, he started giving his mana larger tasks. They weren't unimaginable yet, nor were they anything incredible, but they were bigger than those before. Instead of having it create small swirls or having it flow ever-so-slightly to one side he thought it would be fun to have it spin, like a whirlpool. So, he did so. He started off slow, to test his limits, making only a few drops of mana swirl around, slowly circling in his core. Then, he continued to move these as they themselves started to somewhat move the mana around them. When the drops had already made some of it move along them, he added some more energy.

Continuing this trend, he slowly but surely managed to get a fair amount of his mana to spin. This was because he didn't have to initiate a new motion each time, but instead he was able to simply influence a little bit more mana every time and slowly have the spinning spread out. This was still by no means an easy task, and as he was getting closer to the end he started unconsciously panting as his headache started to grow a little more intense. But this time he wouldn't give up yet, because this was really fucking fun.

In the end, he managed to make almost all the mana in his core circle around its edges. It was by no means fast enough to be called a whirlpool, but there was enough movement for the mana to creep ever so slightly closer to the sides of his core. It wasn't enough to show him the bottom of his core, nor was it enough to put pressure on its sides, but it most certainly was enough to give him a feeling of success. He had definitely spun his mana, even if it was only a tiny bit.

Now, currently he was unaware of this, but what he had done then was the second step to using mana. Using mana was actually a common practice for every person who had any renown to their name, even warriors or archers, but in this case it was a little different. Humans usually learn mana control from masters, allowing them to make quick strides of improvement, but also limiting them in the sense that they never need to experiment or figure things out. Comparatively, Mercury's path was like an overgrown road, full of sinkholes and bumps and even thorny vines. Later on someone might even throw down nails and spikes or build a wall, just to fuck him over.

But his road meant far greater freedom if he kept moving forward. He wasn't taking the path of a wizard. He wasn't walking any path. He was exploring uncharted, untouched wilderness, turning it into a playground for him. He would have to weed weeds, break down rocks, cut down thorns and maybe ash walls in, but it was possible. And since it was possible, his growth like this seemed unlimited.

... but then again, considering he was a cat that future was far, far away.

Instead, currently his feeling of success was being suppressed by his pounding headache. It got ten times worse as soon as he stopped focusing on his mana, since he simply had nothing left to give. He was mentally and physically exhausted and now, while he already laid on the floor panting, his head started to feel like it was under a hydraulic press. Yeah, great fucking idea Merc, just sPiN yOuR MaNa iT'Ll bE fInE. Fucking hell, was he stupid or some shit? 

Ah, damn it, he already knew the answer to that. Shut up, head. God damn it, fucking migraines, seriously. Why did he have to overexert himself. No, wait. Why did his head not scream at him to shut the fuck up? Jesus, man, this shit hurt like hell. 

And, while continuously swearing, dear Mercury fell asleep a little early.

The next day he actually woke up before dusk. It was probably more along the lines of mid-afternoon instead of his usual evening, but there was no way he could keep napping, since his head still hurt and he was both thirsty and hungry. So, he got up, thoroughly stretched, and exited his log, where he yawned and then was quickly kicked by Cherry, who was walking in endless circles.

After jumping up, Mercury could hear her startled yelp and decided to hold in the hiss he had been preparing. Instead, he let out a defeated sigh. Right, she hadn't tried to attack him. It wasn't fair to judge her on an accident. She also didn't hurt him that badly, so it should be okay. 

When he focused on what was going on around him instead of his thoughts again, Mercury immediately could hear Cherry, who had sat down in front of him. "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Sorry, please forgive me, I'm so sorry!" she pleaded. Yeah, uh, she seemed like she might be feeling bad, though it was most certainly hard to tell. So, feeling bad for her now as well, Mercury placed his paw on her knee, prompting her to pay attention to him and interrupt her apologies for a moment.

Then, he nodded to her and gave her his best cat smile and her face immediately brightened. "You're not angry?" she asked. "Promise? Pinky promise?" Again, everyone's favourite cat nodded, only to be scooped up and pressed against someone cheek soon after. "Jayyyyyyyyy!" Cherry screamed as she rubbed him against her. "Thank you so, so much Mercury! You're the best!"

Well, of course he was, what did she think? But that was besides the point. Hey. Wasn't it time to let him down? He really didn't like being held up like this. Cherry, please? His thoughts started getting a lot more rapid when she moved him towards her lips. Wait, Cherry, what the fuck are you doing, hey stop that, Cherry no leT ME GO I NEVER AGREED TO THIS!!!

Nonetheless, the thankful girl smooched him on the forehead before placing him back on the ground. She then put both her hands together and smiled happily while tilting her head to the side. "Thank you so much!" she repeated.

Meanwhile, Mercury was busy mulling over his thoughts. He now knew that he hated being treated like a cat and, more importantly, that he would never be picked up again. While still frozen in thought, he dropped to the side like a fucking rock, his legs still outstretched and his eyes unmoving. This was the end of him. He was going to die right there, next to his log in the grass. 

Then, Cherry proceeded to shake him. 

"Mercury? Are- Are you okay? Hey, please get up? Mercury? Please?"

Damn it, if she was that worried he couldn't even die in peace. Wait, if he was dead he couldn't become king. Wait, if he couldn't become king then he wouldn't be a king! That was unacceptable! No, this was something he had to accomplish. 

So, with newfound determination based on Cherry's pleading and the goal he wanted to achieve, Mercury reversed his previous motion. Still unmoving he seemed to defy gravity, as his body slowly started to lift itself up and tilt back into its previous position. After completing this feat that entirely defied logic, life returned into Mercury's eyes and he blinked multiple times.

Immediately upon having his spirit return to his body, Cherry moved her hands towards Mercury again, snatching him up and hugging him.

"Oh thank the gods!" she yelped. "You're back!"

This ended in Mercury using his cat-like deflation ability to somehow slither out of her embrace. He himself had no clue how it happened but a moment later the two were standing opposite from each other again.

For a moment there was an awkward silence between the two, then, Mercury proceeded to sit down on the grass and look curiously towards Cherry. After all the fooling around, wasn't it time for her to reveal why she was visitinf? 

When he turned his head to the side Cherry immediately jolted upright and nodded profusely. "Ah right! Why I'm here, right, yeah. Important stuff yes. Okay." She then took another moment to collect her thoughts and reach into the pocket of her green jacket. 

"I got something else for you," she said. This was most certainly intriguing. When it came to gifts, Cherry was currently unmatched. She had given him an Ability point, Skill points and a skillstone for . This was most certainly going to be good.

Seeing Mercury's eyes glint with interest, Cherry smiled to herself. Then, she presented a small, amber crystal to him. It was cut into a cuboid shape, but its edges were rounded down. Seeing his confusion, Cherry placed the crystal in front of Mercury and smiled.

"It's another skillstone. Go on, try it!" she said cheerily. A skillstone? Well, wasn't this just a treat. Thank you, oh giving angel who you are so gracious. Skills were actually just what he needed.

So, Mercury placed his paw on the cubic gem and saw a pop up.

[Activated skillstone: . Use?]

OH HELL FUCKING YES!!!

[Acquired the Skill from a skillstone. This Skill can be fused with to create . Would you like to fuse them?]

Well if that wasn't another hell yes he didn't know what was. 

[Acquired the Skill through fusing Skills.]

Now, what does this fucker do?

[: This Skill allows you to speak and understand any language. Since most species have their own language, this Skill is very popular among intelligent creatures. It will instantly translate anything you say or hear to your preferred language. The default is what you peak natively. If you accidentally change your settings this will mess up the settings of the entire system for you. In such a case the skill configuration will still accept commands in any language, so simply saying "Reset language" will make it regain the current settings. Its level is representative of how many languages are incorporated. You can currently speak: Common, Elvish, Dwarvish. The language you speak will automatically be translated into the preferred language of the one you are speaking to if they speak any of these languages. In addition you can now both read and write in these languages if you choose to do so.]

"Well, that's pretty nifty," Mercury thought aloud.

Immediately, Cherry's eyes almost jumped out of their sockets. She was expecting him to be able to speak, but not this fluently. What the heck kind of animal was this?! It was already incredible he was even able to use the crystals, not to mention utilize Skills! He was even able to trade with her, but being able to immediately speak after gaining the Skill when he had never said a word before? This was incredible! She couldn't help but stutter when she spoke again.

"Y- you're speaking now," she said, gobsmacked.

"Sure am," Mercury retorted. "Thanks for that by the way. I was already starting to question how I'd go about communicating once I got out of this forest."

"You're speaking. A- a mopaaw is speaking. T- This is just i-incredible!"

"Yeah, I'm speaking. Look, you literally gave me the ability to do so, is it really that amazing?"

"You're really speaking!!" Cherry said and rubbed her eyes before looking at him again. "You really, really are!" Her smile was big and bright enough to have illuminated an entire town.

"Yeah, we've been over that. Can you like… try to calm down now?" Mercury was a little worried when he saw how excited his friend was getting. He really didn't want her to have like, a heart attack or something. For sure it wasn't healthy to be this excited, right? Right? Regardless of that, Cherry couldn't contain her excitement and leaned forward to hug Mercury once more, but by now he was a little tired of it and stepped back, leading to her getting to intimately know the floor.

Cherry quickly laughed it off and sat back upright. "Sorry," she said with a bright smile, "I might have gotten a little excited there. It's actually the first time ever I hear an animal speak, you know?"

"Same here to be honest, but Skills make it possible," Mercy said and gave his best smile back. "I really owe you for this one. I actually couldn't find that Skill in the shop."

After hearing him, Cherry's jaw dropped once more. "YOU CAN USE THE SHOP!?!!?!" she yelled, but after thinking it over for a few seconds she calmed down a little. "Well, I suppose it makes sense if you had some sort of Skill involving speaking."

"I actually didn't," Mercury said honestly. "I could always read things since I appeared here."

This actually left Cherry in even bigger shock. It just made no sense. Not even humans could read any of the system messages without speaking a single language. So, Cherry asked another question, "Are you sure you didn't speak any language when you were able to read the notifications? Commonly it's impossible for anyone who doesn't understand a single language to read anything concerning the system, since it is purely written text."

For a moment Steve thought about it. His Skill also didn't list him as speaking english. Actually, when he had just come to this world wasn't his Intelligence like… 3? Then it made no sense for him to be able to have complicated thoughts, actually, right? So how could he continue with his human thinking and reading as if it was only natural? There were no Skills or Abilities related to this phenomenon, nor did he currently see anything linking to it. This meant that it was either something he didn't have any insight on yet or it was something outside of the system. Given that this might not be good for Cherry's heart currently, he decided to go with an answer that might worry her a little less.

"Actually, I'm unsure. I could read the prompts ever since I came here without issue. Maybe it's some sort of hidden Skill?"

Sadly, it had quite the opposite effect.

"You're saying you might have a unique Skill?!" Cherry yelled out. Her eyes were yet again wide open as she stared at the cat in front of her. Seeing her this shocked, Mercury decided to simply be honest, as any heart condition that might happen probably couldn't be avoided anymore, and he really didn't want to lie to her.

"Yes, I do have a unique Skill, however it has nothing to do with me being able to read the messages. It's a Skill called and it allows me to access another menu where I can buy items using Gold which I get by killing things. The menu, to me, appears in a language called "English". It's the language I spoke before becoming a cat."

"So you were transformed into a cat?" Cherry quietly asked. Seems like this information was a little overwhelming for her, so Mercury simply nodded. "That's quite a powerful spell. Did it also fully reset your stats?" 

"I suppose so. I did start at level 1."

"But you maintained your previous knowledge and personality?"

"Seems like it. Though when I was transformed I didn't have a lot of stats or Skills, so it wasn't that big of a change. The biggest one was going from human to c-... mopahw...?"

"Mopaaw."

"Yes, that. The spell seems to have let me retain my sense of self though, separating it from the stats somewhat, though I don't know if my intelligence will increase once my points in the stat exceed what I had previously."

After this, Cherry took a long moment to think. For her this was completely surprising. She hadn't been befriending a cat, but instead a fully fledged human. This was both incredibly amazing and incredibly embarrassing, since kissing him on the forehead seemed quite a bit weirder now. 

While Cherry's cheeks were busy flooding red, Mercury thought things over. His explanation wasn't very far off the truth at all. He didn't have any Skills or stats where he came from and his ego was, in fact, removed from the stats. The question whether his Intelligence would influence him later on was also interesting and he did indeed still speak english from before, even though it wasn't listed in the explanation of .

Then another realization hit him. If most animals were unable to read and speak or have thoughts that could be easily transcribed into words, did that mean they couldn't use the Skill shop? Wait, didn't that mean they also couldn't allocate Ability points? That actually made quite a bit of sense, it was a good explanation as to why he was able to overpower animals that were probably further evolved than him. It also explained how they didn't grow to higher intelligence usually. 

Combining this with his… extraordinary choice of prey he could definitely find an explanation for his speed of growth. Usually cats wouldn't be able to take down things like deer or something. This was not good news though.

Up until now he had an advantage on animals and shit. But this now meant that when it came to humans he was equally matched with them. He had absolutely no extreme advantage like his actual intelligence being largely removed from the stats. If it didn't grow in the later stages of his magic this might actually prove a disadvantage in the future, since it would mean his growth in that aspect was heavily limited.

Okay, okay. Deep breaths Mercury. Things would never work out that terribly, right? Not with how nice this system was, right? Oh. Oh no. Really? Seriously? He had to depend on the kindness of this system? Oh no. No, no, no. Nonononononono. This seriously couldn't be right. Oh fuck, please, please let him actually be able to grow! Come on, wasn't the Main Quest supposed to fulfill one's personal goal? Right. For sure. This meant he would never ever be unable to grow, right? Wasn't the ability to grow the main point of stat systems like this? Of course he would be able to improve. Right, push those worries away! We're rooting for you Mercy-boy!

After calming both their thoughts for a while, Mercury and Cherry looked at each other again and couldn't help but laugh. Mercury had to laugh at the girl whose head seemed to explode with surprise, admiration and quite a bit of confusion. Cherry simply found the image of a mopaaw being so deeply in thought and worried absolutely hilarious. This luckily proved to be a relief for both of them, as laughing somewhat helped with distracting them from their troubles.

Right. This mopaaw was still the same as before for Cherry. For Mercy, the future might be a little uncertain, but it always was and it would be future Mercury's problem. Anyways, if he couldn't cross a small hurdle like stats, then was he really worthy of the name Mercury Rainfall Starlight? Of course he was gonna do it! He was to become a king after all! Fuck yeah!

Like that, the two of them calmed each other down before they started speaking again.

"So, what are your plans now?" Cherry asked

"Currently I'm working on taking down the Mother of spiders," Mercury said with a smile. "Might seem a little outrageous but I think I can do it. I'm currently working on lowering the size of her army."

Cherry simply smiled at him. "I think you got this," she said. "After all, you already took down the great Stag. I don't think some eight-legged creepy crawly could take you down!" Cherry grinned at Mercury after saying that and she received a happy cat's smile in return.

"Of course I got this!" Mercury said proudly. "If I fail here, how would I face my future?"

"Exactly!" Cherry agreed excitedly before looking at the sky a little. "It's getting late now though. I should probably head home or gramps might get worried. After that bear attack he's watching over me like a hawk, jeez!"

The two of them laughed for another second before Cherry pushed herself up from the ground, gave her goodbyes, and started walking away. When her silhouette disappeared down the hill Mercury started to focus on his task again. 

Right, he might be able to speak now, but this didn't exactly change the fact that he still wanted to take down the spider queen. While this would be helpful in the future, it was nothing more than something that was nice to have currently. He couldn't get any direct use from it, though that was only so at the current moment. In the future it might help him with all manner of diplomacy and shit. Yeah, for sure, this was gonna be amazing, but the future was still the future. His adventure had barely started. He had to take it one step at a time, and at the current moment, the next step had eight legs and a lot of children.

Yeah. Back to taking the antlers back and the Mother down. Let's go, Mercury Rainfall Starlight was about to come in and fucking wreck her day!