"As soon as we arrived at the park, I heard low voices again, coming from the ice cream shop further back. There we found them, cornered and scared, but fine. Not only that, they had evolved thanks to the mana and having eaten some cores left on the ground—you know how they are with that."
True, I saw Nawa gnawing/eating a can of Coca-Cola once when I went for a walk with her (don't even want to know what Mari did and said to me when she found out).
"As if that weren't enough, they defeated some smaller creatures, including some lone goblins. Sure, they were alone and injured, but considering they were, it was quite impressive. Although I still don't know how they did it."
Least of all, I.
"Nawa became a [shadow hound], I think either she somehow defeated a shadow wolf, which I doubt, or she always had that potential. An animal version of what happened to us, and we became... this."
"And Lumi became a [shining hound], in which case I'm sure it was because of potential since we didn't see any similar creature along the way."
Hmmmm, I have a lot of complaints about this.
First, how could Nawa have defeated any creature her size or even larger? She's a total coward. At most, she'd catch a few rats, pigeons (a bad habit she picked up after seeing the Chief chasing a pigeon with an injured wing), and especially moths.
Second, Luigi becoming something that resembles the light in the name is a joke. He'd be the canine equivalent of a spoiled brat, always teasing when someone new arrives. He just didn't do that to Nawa the puppy because she had triple protection from my sister, the Chief, and our father.
But if it were any visiting dog, he'd be constantly trying to assert his dominance.
"When we were coming back, we saw some people walking in groups. They seemed to be going somewhere, but we decided not to approach them. Imagine what they would think of us the way we were now."
Really.
"But after seeing that group, made up mostly of several different families, Mom started wondering how the rest of our family was doing. The first person she thought of was our older sister, and Dad was his aunt. They tried to reach them on their cell phones, but surprisingly, the signal was dead."
No wonder; this was also common practice in many apocalypse stories. Especially after three days.
"So in the end, we got back together after finding them, and... 'relocating' whatever was still left at the ice cream shop and some open houses, after I... convinced Dad and Mom. We arrived, rested, and decided on a course of action."
Remembering that while they did this, I was still passed out and basically alone.
"We decided that I would stay on guard duty at the house to make sure nothing happened to you or the house. While Mom and Dad would try to find Juliet and your aunt on the way with the car."
"Wait—"
Before I could raise my question, she raised her hand, interrupting me.
"Remember? Dad is a Giant Dwarf, meaning he has great craftsmanship and brute strength. He managed to fix the car, at least partially. The job he chose [Craftsman] helped a lot."
'How?' I thought at once, but she immediately replied.
"It seems this job allows him access to a technical blueprint that lets him create, repair, or improve almost anything as long as he has the materials. He doesn't even need to know how, almost like in Minecraft or all those survival games you love."
"She definitely has some mind-reading ability and is somehow hiding it from her status. I'm not the only one that predictable... am I?"
Anyway, in an apocalypse, a skill like that is certainly quite useful, probably even more so than direct combat.
"Which finally brings us to the current moment, where you finally woke up and we took... 30 minutes to talk about everything. Oh, and in case you're wondering, we've been awake for about 10 hours."
Geez, that long?!
I looked outside to try to guess what time it was by the sun, but with everything cloudy, I have no idea.
"It's about 6 p.m. now."
"How are you so sure?"
"The power grid is dead, but the batteries still work, partially, and the clock in my room was intact. It showed it was a little after 8 after we dealt with the goblins, and it was almost 11 when we got back after finding my babies."
I have no more questions about that.
"And what were you doing the rest of the time?"
"What else could you do? I was making rounds around the block with Luigi and Nawa, while Snitch and the turtles looked after you. They looked after you, I looked after the house, and checked on you after a walk. I rested, helped my babies understand things, and tried to organize what we had and what we had achieved. I also took the opportunity to see if there was anything left to eat in some houses."
Hmmmm~, look who was being proactive. Usually she just stayed in her room, either sleeping, or on that damned Tik Tok, or sometimes playing Nintendo.
"Well, that's what I intended. But as soon as I got to my room after the first round, I fell asleep and only woke up to the warning scream my [green magic] gave inside my head. Tehe 😜"
She said as she tapped her head with her tongue sticking out, like an anime character who messes up.
.....
....I take back any compliment I had given or was about to give.
And what's with this 'Tehe'? We're not in an anime!!! We're in the ***@#$& ##@##&& of an apocalypse!!!! There's no worse time to 'Tehe' 😜!!!
"Hey, to be fair, it wasn't entirely my fault. Most of it was my unique ability [Drowsiness]. It makes me more susceptible to status ailments like sleep, fatigue, and confusion, but in return, when I sleep, I can passively gain experience."
She explained as quickly as she could.
Speaking of which, I haven't even seen what my unique ability does yet, or what I can do with dark or blood magic. Calling up the status table, I did a quick check.
[Unique Ability: Resistance]
• Increases the user's ability to resist abnormal status ailments induced by a third party.
• Increases the ability to acquire resistances of any kind.
• 3% experience is added to the user's level and overall skills for resisting abnormal status ailments.
• 5% experience is added to the user's level and overall skills for each level of resistance acquired.
• 20% experience is added when a weakness is overcome.
Wow, it's a good skill, and it seems to have no drawbacks. The only drawback would be that I have to constantly test myself. Especially when trying to overcome weaknesses and vulnerabilities, which can make me weaker overall.
"Still a good skill, well, I still prefer mine."
My sister said, peeking over my shoulder. "And it's obvious you like your skill, it gives you experience for sleeping. Isn't that supposed to be something exclusive to dragons or something?!"
There are several things I'd like to talk about, but for now, I'll focus on what's necessary.
"You said your [green magic] warned you, right? How?"
Before we get back to the main point about our parents, I want to understand a little about how this [green magic] works." With that, she dropped her anime character act and focused on the conversation again.
"Oh yeah! That's actually pretty important. From what I understand, magical abilities are composed of several spells, ranging from offensive, defensive, control, and recovery."
"We have no way of verifying, but it seems that species more inclined to mana, like me, a Pixie, and my mother, an angel, have access to more spells and greater control over how to use them, than other species in general."
It's not too far-fetched when you think about RPGs in general.
"In our case, my mother and I had access to six spells, but my father, even though he had [fire magic], only had two. I can use the spells [green voice], [sleepy pollen], [destructive seed], [accelerated blossoming], [flower blast], and [photosynthesis], and that's been true from the beginning. But as my skill increased, more spells were unlocked."
Obviously.
"The [green voice] warned me about the attack of a large group of goblins and the approach of a new monster, the Bargests. It gives me a mental connection with the plants within a 500-meter radius around me, including all plants, and they warn me of impending danger."
"Hennn, that's pretty useful."
"Well, even now I'm still connected to the plants. It's a skill that suits me well. It only requires 5 MP per hour, and I recover 5 MP every 20 minutes, so you can understand."
"Is that because of the [Mana's Beloved] skill?"
"Bingo, she gives me accelerated mana recovery, and mana-based attacks have less effect on me."
She said it proudly, but it's understandable; a skill like that sounds more like a unique skill than drowsiness. Wait, if it's not a unique skill, then can I get it too?
"Probably not."
"Does anyone still doubt that this girl is reading my mind? 😑"
"No, you're the one who's pretty obvious when you meet her."
I chose to remain silent in response.
"Then why couldn't I get that skill?"
"I think because it's a racial skill, you can probably get it after increasing your magic and mana. But it will certainly be much more expensive than for someone who already has it naturally, like me."
"For example, your [night vision] skill also appeared for our father and cost 6 AP, while for mother it was 15 AP and for me 4 AP. And it's a simple and straightforward skill. Imagine the price of something like [Man's Beloved]."
It makes sense; it would certainly be very expensive and wouldn't be worth saving AP if I could get similar skills for cheaper. Like [meditation] which increases mana recovery and gradually increases mana capacity the more you practice.