"Duncan, you do it. The faster, the better."
Seeing Bell get emotionally blackmailed, Alfia turned to Duncan instead.
"Got it."
Duncan nodded and left the room.
Zeus's bargain-basement tricks could fool only someone as young, innocent, and pure-hearted as Bell. Put anyone with even a little worldly experience in front of him and they'd never fall for it. And unfortunately, Bell happened to be exactly the kind of sheltered country boy who had no experience at all when it came to reading people.
As Bell's main teachers, Zeus and Alfia were strangely united in one goal: they both wanted to raise him into a child as pure and spotless as possible. Their teaching styles differed in the details, but neither of them had ever deliberately shown him the darker side of human nature. Which was why Bell, hearing those words from his "grandfather," had fallen for such an old trick so easily.
The black cloth was brought in quickly. After Alfia inspected it and confirmed it was fine, she personally tied it around Zeus's eyes.
"Ow, ow, ow! Hey, Alfia! Are you trying to kill me?!"
"If you'd stop trying to pry your eyes open, it wouldn't hurt. Behave yourself, unless you want Hera to beat you half to death."
Alfia tightened the knot expressionlessly, then, once she was done, looked over at Bell.
"Bell, you— ...forget it. Duncan, hold his hands. If he tries to grope anything, break them."
Apparently realizing Bell had no real power to restrain Zeus, Alfia shifted the job over to Duncan instead.
"This is torture, isn't it?!"
"Old man, you'd better just listen to Sister Alfia. She really would do it."
Duncan tried to persuade him with weary patience.
"Then we'll go stand guard outside. Let us know when you're done."
Charldo, utterly uninterested, led the worried-looking Bell out of the room and shut the door behind them.
"Let's begin."
Alfia took a deep breath, using the calmest voice she could manage to hide her tension. Then she turned, sat down on the bed, and lifted the back of her hospital gown, exposing the smooth, jade-white skin of her back to Duncan.
Though only three people remained in the room—and one of them was a god, another a child—it was still the first time Alfia had ever主动 exposed her skin like this. Her face flushed red, and she didn't dare turn around to look at either of them.
Following Zeus's instructions, Duncan first dripped the unlocking medicine and the update medicine onto Alfia's back. Then he guided Zeus's finger until it touched the exact place on her skin where the Falna was.
Perhaps the threat had truly worked. Zeus made no unnecessary little moves. He finished the update with remarkable speed.
The moment Zeus peeled the paper from Alfia's back and declared it complete, Alfia immediately dropped her gown back into place. Letting out a quiet breath of relief, she quickly took the paper Duncan handed her.
AlfiaLevel 4
Strength: 191Endurance: 171Dexterity: G247Agility: G213Magic: S912
Mage: CAbnormal Resistance: EMagic Defense: ESpirit Healing: EDominion Light: II
Magic:
Demon King Valion
Garden of Silence
Absolute Extinction: Prayer of Adjudication
Skills:
Talent Sublimation(The user's abilities may remain in a permanently limit-broken state. When activated, it sacrifices stamina and mental energy in exchange for power far beyond the user's normal limits. Strength and Endurance greatly increase; Magic increases enormously.)
Twin-Forked Fate
Melody of Radiance
Neither the level nor the stat values caught Alfia's attention.
The instant she got the paper, her eyes, her focus, and her entire mind all went straight to the skill section.
Talent Sublimation.
A skill that should never have appeared on her sheet had taken the place of the skill she had always loathed—Talent's Calamity Compensation—and now stood there in a form she had never even heard of before.
Normally, update medicine should not reveal skills or magic at all. And no one had ever heard of one skill being replaced outright by another.
Yet this thin little sheet of paper had just shattered two accepted truths in a row, as though openly proclaiming the rebirth of Silence itself.
"You look way too shocked. Sure, your level and stats got reduced, but with your and Charldo's ability, you'll climb back up in just a few years, won't you? Level 4... besides Magic, those stats really are kind of miserable, but there's nothing— ...hiss!"
After removing the blindfold, Zeus saw Alfia standing there frozen, clutching her "report card." At first he casually leaned in, ready to offer a few perfunctory words of comfort about her rather pitiful numbers—
Then his eyes landed on the skill section, and he sucked in a sharp breath, staring at Alfia as though she were some kind of monster.
It wasn't the strength of the skill that shocked him.
It was the skill itself.
As the head of the strongest Familia the Lower World had ever known, Zeus had seen every absurd, broken, overpowered skill imaginable.
But for a skill to appear through update medicine, and to brazenly replace a preexisting skill on top of that—even Zeus had never seen anything like it before.
And once again, he found himself doubting the rank and nature of that magic.
"Have you ever seen a skill get replaced before?"
Alfia asked the question the moment Zeus stepped closer.
"No. Never. I've only ever heard of skills being added, not overwritten."
Zeus shook his head repeatedly.
At that moment, Charldo and Bell, having heard the commotion, came back into the room.
Compared with the shock and amazement of the others, Duncan and Bell were simply overjoyed at Alfia's recovery.
As Alfia herself had once said, her illness existed in the skill栏 itself—as a skill, as an incurable iron law.
Now not only had her body recovered, but the hidden landmine of that cursed skill had been replaced.
In every meaningful sense, Alfia had been reborn. All the problems that had plagued her before were now gone.
For someone who had reached Level 7 at seventeen, things like lost levels and temporary stat reductions were hardly worth worrying about. As Hera Familia's greatest treasure, Alfia's talent was enough to look down on every adventurer in existence.
"Ah, there you are! I knew it—I could feel your aura just now. It really was Uncle Charldo!"
Just as everyone was still celebrating, several familiar figures poked their heads in through the still-open door. After confirming they had the right room, they all filed in one after another.
Leading them, of course, was the utterly fearless Alise.
"Alise? What are you doing here?"
"What kind of question is that? Campbell's best healer is here. We came with the Artemis Familia, so where else would we be?"
Alise shot Duncan a look like he had just said something stupid, then turned and cheerfully started greeting everyone else as if she owned the place.
"Ohh~ Uncle Charldo, you look this happy, so I'm guessing you're all better? Honestly, I always felt there was something weird about your condition before."
"Haha! That's exactly right."
In unusually high spirits, Charldo answered her with a broad grin.
"Charldo... who are they?"
Alfia frowned slightly.
She had never met them before, but for some reason, just seeing that bright, sun-drenched smile of Alise's stirred a strange irritation in her chest. Never good with words, she turned to Charldo and asked him directly.
"Me? I'm the pure, upright, and beautiful Level 4, Alise Lovell, captain of the Astraea Familia~! A pleasure to make your acquaintance!"
Hearing Alfia's question, Alise immediately snatched away the right to answer and introduced herself enthusiastically—only to have Ryuu seize her from behind and yank her back.
"What's wrong, Ryuu? You look like a mouse that just spotted a cat."
Seeing her usually righteous and composed friend showing such obvious fear, Alise asked in confusion.
"That is Alfia. Alfia of the former Hera Familia. The strongest mage in the Lower World. Level 7."
Ryuu answered in a low voice.
....
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