"So... Next spell?"
"R-Right! Right right right. Stupid me. Umm, it's been awhile, so maybe this can be the last one. Don't want to bore you to death, Malcador, hahaha!" She forced a laugh. It honestly hurt my ears a little. How. "Okay, um, ummm... Blind! That's a classic. Blind. It makes a black miasma and blinds people."
"Forever...?"
"No! Nononono. No." (I got the feeling another Cursed spell did, and she was hoping I didn't press for details.) "This is actually more, um, more of a sense-negator. You put it on their head and they can't see, hear, taste, smell, or feel anything. If it's really weak, it's just a dark cloud, though. Watch. Sharmodoki." A dark cloud appeared above her hand, then disappeared. "I-I'm not going to use it on you, don't worry. Hahahaha. Hahahaha."
Okay, I have to describe the forced laughter. It was like a malformed toad wanted to laugh, but due to being born without vocal cords capable of human laughter, it was forced to kind of gurgle and choke out a facsimile of true laughter, a mixture of sharp high-pitched HA-s and pained, bubbly ha-s. I did not have any idea how a human throat could possibly produce those noises, and could only imagine an entire childhood of her being yelled at whenever she laughed, such that she was constantly torn between letting the laughter out (sharp, high-pitched HA-s) and containing it (pained gurling). I thought she was dying every time she laughed. Maybe she was. I didn't have a savior complex—really!—but I wanted to save this girl from this laughter in particular. I could envision an entire character arc about nothing but fixing this laughter, and the final scene would be her giving a quiet, normal laugh, and everyone watching would weep tears of joy and clap until their hands went numb out of sheer enthusiasm for what grand development and growth had occured. It would be like all of Shakespeare's characters morphing together into one singular uber-character who experienced uber-growth concentrated exclusively on her laugh. That was how character development worked, I think.
Also, to be clear, despite comparing her laughter to the output of a malformed toad, I want to firmly re-establish that she did not have a toadlike appearance. She had a very pretty face, all things considered; if you have ever yearned in your heart "I wish I had a goth GF", you could guess that her face was much like the face of your ideal goth GF. The messy, coarse black hair and clammy, pale skin didn't exactly do her any favors, but I mean, I wasn't going to judge. And, to be fair, the contrast between her pretty features and disastrous everything else was kind of intriguing. She didn't have any glasses to dramatically remove, but I could foresee quite a transformation. Properly washed hair, skin tanned in the sun, and ma—
"Hahaha!" came a choking gurgle.
Nevermind. Maybe some people were doomed forever. I had hope for humanity deep in my heart, but maybe that could be humanity minus one.
A knock came on the door, and then a man came in. "Hilda, are y-" He stopped.
Hey, this is the Mystic! I know you. You don't know me.
He looked between us, no doubt noticing Hilda's even more disheveled-than-usual hair and massive sweat stains, then ventured to rise an eyebrow. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked, sounding like he really didn't want to ask that. It was easy to forget due to my perhaps abnormal priorities, but a crucial member of the fort had been assassinated in a surprise ambush just fifty-some minutes ago, and people were no doubt still reeling. You don't really want to think about scandalous bed encounters less than an hour after an assassination. It just was't right.
"Yes," I said. "Yamiyo tekionagure. Think fast." I flicked the Darkness Ball at him, intentionally weakly so that it would float towards him slowly.
"Mahotomare," he rapidly chanted on instinct, forming a nondescript blue wall which hit the Darkness Ball and seemingly destroyed it.
There was a pause.
"What?" he asked, any anger he might have felt being overwhelmed by sheer, pure confusion.
"It was a test. You passed, good man." I stood up. "Well, Hilda, thanks for everything. I hope to see you again soon."
"Bwuh, bwuh, bwuh," she stammered, no doubt torn between wanting me to stay (?) and wanting me to leave so she could puke in the corner from stress. Again, flip the gender chessboard. It all makes sense if you flip the gender chessboard.
As I passed the Mystic I patted his shoulder. A silent appeal, a signal of 'good luck' to a fellow brother. I saw him incline his head slightly in a nod. Godspeed, brother. The trick is to be welcoming and non-confrontational. And to compliment the color black.
"Hilda, can you try Soul Spying Rose an—" I heard the Mystic begin as I shut the door behind me.
I walked down the hall, mostly aimlessly, while thinking things over. By my estimation, I had ten minutes at most before I had to bust out the secret strategy which would hopefully save me from the most devastating pain I had ever experienced in my life (Yes, even worse than Hilda's laugh). My priorities were to test out the magic I had potentially learned, then steel my nerves for the upcoming loop. First things first.
"Check Status," I murmured.
General Information
Name: Malcador
Species: Human
Age: 18
Class: Hero (Level 3)
HP: 254/254 (+1.27/sec)
MP: 254/254 (+1.27/sec)
Attributes
STR: 121
DEX: 121
AGI: 127
END: 127
INT: 127
WIS: 127
Skills
Mysticism: Lv. 8
Dodging: Lv. 4
Curse magic: Lv. 3
Athletics: Lv. 5
Throwing Weapons: Lv. 2
(Expand for more...)
Interesting results. It was lucky I hadn't gotten any STR or DEX buffs yet; hopefully you'll believe me if I said I was tactically avoiding swords purely to analyze the level up formula. Thankfully, due to my rational gigabrain, I could deduce from these numbers that leveling up applied a multiplier to my base attributes by 10% for each level up (e.g. 100 going to 110, a 1.1x increase). The key to this puzzle was that the attribute bonuses given by skill milestones were described as base attributes being increased. That was why my INT and such was 6 greater than my STR and DEX, rather than 5 - the base value had gone up by 5, and then got multiplied by all my existing levels.
It didn't take long to figure out this system was busted. A 10% increase for attributes per level meant my attributes would double every 7 to 8 levels, and every skill milestone I got would become more strong with time. Right now, an attribute bonus is only +6 for me. 5 * (1.1^2) = 6.05, rounded down, presumably. But if I were to reach level 30, it would be 5 * (1.1^29) = 79.3, rounded down. That was an impact of 73 more attribute points for the same relative milestone. Not to mention that, technically, each milestone I already got would only get stronger each time I leveled up. My level was like a stat multiplier rather than a one-time increase. Each increase to base attributes would be buffed by every single level I already had, then be buffed further every time I leveled up. The +5 was already +6, in a few levels it would be +11, and then it would just escalate even more expontentially. If I got a +5 later on, at level 30, it would start out at 79.3, boosted by all the levels I already had.
There was only one conclusion I could draw from this. The cards were stacked way, way in my favor. I had exponential growth here. By the time I was level 30, every single level up would be getting me as many attribute points as I had in total right now. Over 100 points for each attribute in a single level. What? Who did this?
I shook my head. That was reading too deep into it. No doubt the enemies would be growing exponentially in strength, too, and this was kind of a moot point, since even being stuck at level 1 permanently would be a worthwhile trade for a friggin' timeloop ability. Well, maybe not in my current situation, which may or may not have spawned me past the point where I could manipulate or guide others into a winning state, but surely in future situations the time loop would be more valuable than anything. Who knew if a high enough END could stop an arrow to the skull from killing me instantly?
Anyway, moving on with my last-minute checks.
"Spellbook."
Elemental Arcana
Mystical Arcana
*Reverse
*Magic Barrier
Cursed Arcana
*Darkness Ball
*Soul Spy
*Blind
Restoration Arcana
*Heal
Natural Arcana
Neato. I even got Soul Spy despite not seeing it, which strongly implied I just needed to hear the chant and my brain... like... just learned what to do. Or maybe I really did just need to soak in its presence. Honestly, if I were to try to metagame, I would guess I needed to be in the spell's presence since otherwise I could just find a book-of-all-spells and master every spell at once, but... That called for more experimentation another day.
The question now was whether I should try exploiting Timothy for Elemental skills in the like last few minutes I had left, but all things considered I wanted to be alone for what came next. That was why I had wandered down the halls, increasingly far away from the entrance and people, until I found an empty room in the back. I walked in, shut the door, and walked to the other side, where I pressed my back against the wall and stared straight forward, pasing the time only by casting my new spells and gauging the result out of the corner of my eyes.
Last time I had been knocked out for some indeterminate amount of time, so I couldn't measure it exactly, but it felt like it had taken about an hour before it happened. I had been trying to be conscious of the time, and I felt like it would be happening soon. Back to the wall, eyes forward, door shot, windows slit, high off the ground. This was probably the optimal place to be wh—
The portal appeared silently, an oval of roaring fire that produced no sound. Out stepped Wannabe-Sauron, in his suit of spiky metal armor and wielding his spiky as fuck trauma-mace.
"It is called Doomed for a reason, young one," came his gravely voice as he lifted his arm and stepped forward in preparation for a downward swing.
"I'm going to be pissed if this undoes my stats, y'know. QUICKLOAD!"
Everything went black.