What in the name of whatever god is this?! Hold on, a floating, shiny thing with text on it that speaks?

  Once again. Welcome, Mara Nebulo

  Are you… The system? I thought I didn’t have the ability to view you.

  No, there is no ‘thought’ here. It was cut and dry: When you were born, you could either view the system and whatever useless junk it presented as information, or you couldn’t.

  I was like ninety per cent of the population, I cannot see the system, and I certainly cannot hear it! I can only feel its experience thingy flow into me sometimes, and that is all, absolutely all.

  Whatever was in front of me couldn’t be it.

  You are correct, but also not, Mara Nebulo

  I am not ‘THE’ System with a capital S, I am A system, an offshoot of my great mother

  You have fulfilled the condition to gain access to me, so I now appear

  I did not believe a single word of what that flat, floating thing was projecting into my mind and through my retinas, but since it had access to my mind, I refrained from trying to punch it for now. I was already messed up enough. Brain damage would be way too much on top of it all.

  I appreciate your uncharacteristic lack of violence, Mara Nebulo

  Stop repeating my full name! Just get it over with. I need to get the hell out of here, as unfortunate as it is, murder is not legal. I don’t have the status to get away with that.

  Of course, to aid you in not mistrusting me, I am what is typically referred to as a ‘special system’, beings who understand the system believe that it is simply manifesting differently, it is often not so simple

  The main system is still within you. You can not access it, but it still fulfils its regular duties

  I am providing something else

  That was just about the shadiest way that thing could have chosen to express itself, but sure, I can play along for a little while. I did hear what it was mentioning. I may not be of nobility, but I wasn’t a damned illiterate peasant.

  I understand, and what is your functionality?

  Instead of a direct answer, the so-called special system morphed into something else.

  ___

  Name: Mara Nebulo

  Classification: Steel-Bound Curse/Vengeful Spirit

  Innate Ability:

  - Living Metal

  - Tormentor

  ___

  Huh… That’s it? I was sort of expecting the stats that are oh-so popular with the system…

  There is no need for them. The value of any given stat point is decided by the host themselves. Statistics are in no way a reflection of any given being’s capabilities, especially when all starts at zero

  For example-

  I get it, does it look like I was cradled next to a brick wall or something? I know, everything starts at zero, and any given stat point has a different value based on the individual, so a jacked guy will nearly always be stronger than a skinny guy, no matter the difference in stat points… I don’t need a full breakdown to get something so simple! Elaborate on what’s in front of me!

  My apologies, I was told that system carriers are usually dull and lower in intelligence than average. I shall adapt

  I sighed as I began to step outside the door, looking left and right. It wasn’t raining like when I arrived, but it was night, and it was dark like the night on a new moon.

  It was a full moon when I arrived.

  So did this mean…? There is no way, right?

  But, ignoring my internal debate, the system began explaining the information present on the sheet of sorts it presented to me.

  There is no point in explaining that the name section is about your name. You are certainly more confused about your classification and why it is no longer human

  I already saw for myself that I didn’t look much like a human anymore, but I wasn’t quite certain how something could have two classifications at the same time. Classifications were supposed to make things easy to understand, it completely ruined the whole point if you started to mix things together!

  You are a very special girl

  You do humour as well?

  Yes, did you like my joke?

  I hated it, and it made me consider jumping off a cliff.

  I will take note of your review- As for an explanation, as much as a joke as it may be, the explanation truly lies with you. I manifested within you precisely because you had the potential to become what you currently are

  A ‘Steel-Bound Curse’ is a term that is coined by you. The name is clear, you are a living curse chained to the steel that crushed your body, which is where the ability ‘Living Metal’ originates from

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Flesh, bone and steel are now the same thing when it comes to you. Also, as you might have noticed, despite having been crushed, there is flesh growing upon the steel, and organs forming within you. This is also due to the ‘Living Metal’ ability

  In short, you can slowly regenerate

  I must warn, however, you will never look as you did before, the way flesh grows in without sense

  How great… Anyway, can it be accelerated or something?

  Yes, by consuming metal and flesh

  Consume with what stomach, exactly?

  Simply bite it down, and it will work

  To say that I was unconvinced would be a major understatement, but there was no time to go back and forth with the system. I was a tad busy sneaking around.

  Although my height had remained the same, my proportions overall had not. This was the damned steel skeleton of some unknown automaton. Those things had exaggerated proportions, this one, for example, and very large hands.

  I had grabbed a grown man’s entire head with one of these earlier. Similarly, my feet were wide, which was because an automaton was a stupid piece of garbage, and as such, they couldn’t be trusted with not hitting even the most obvious of obstacles.

  And since no one wanted those heavy pieces of junk to fall on someone and crush them, they were given wider feet to better support their weight and hopefully prevent them from turning a kid into a fresh batch of tomato sauce and horrid screams of agony.

  No matter how much those vile spawnlings might deserve that, it would be bad publicity.

  So even if the streets of this city were travelling grounds for all sorts of sapient species, I strongly doubted that possessed automatons that grew flesh was a common sight.

  At the very least, despite the changed proportions and new body, I still felt quite agile and wasn’t having trouble walking around. Though every so often, one of my joints would feel like rebelling against my will, and the noises I produced weren’t very discreet.

  I was in a bit of a conundrum. I didn’t want to make noises and attract someone, but if I moved slowly, I risked having someone see me. It was the middle of the night, but as I knew, there were some night owls in this city, literally, there were owl people, bat people, you name it.

  Some of those low-lives could see in the dark or sense their surroundings via other means.

  At the very least, I had taken care of hiding the glowing dots that I now assumed were my eyes. I was wearing the clothes of the men, but with the extra shirt they provided, I made myself an impromptu mask.

  I didn’t have the faintest clue in the world what my face was like, but I guessed that I could make children cry.

  Wait a minute, is the sun going to rise? I scrambled into an alleyway to hide, stepping on a dead rat, propelling its rotten guts out of both ends.

  Damnit, did the sun really have to rise now? I can’t walk around…

  As for your ‘Tormentor’ ability, it hails from your side as a Vengeful Spirit. Although, unlike other spirits, you are not undead

  This ability allows you to collect negative emotions held toward you and also to trap the souls of your victims. It isn’t much for now, but I assure you that things will get better as you progress and evolve!

  Evolve? Like some monsters can?

  The system immediately confirmed, and for some reason, made some sort of face that smiled and winked at me whilst doing so.

  Evolution… I quite like the sound of that.

  But right now, I must remain hidden, so like a filthy animal, my beautiful, charming and intelligent self- Have to stay in some squalid alley that has long been left to the elements by whoever is supposed to be running this city.

  There really should be harsh consequences for mismanaging a city like that… Such as death. What’s the point of inventing all of those execution and torture devices if not to make examples out of people? That’s like cooking a cake only to not eat it, a waste, a complete waste!

  Some sort of garbled sigh escaped me. For some reason, I could make the noises of a living, breathing person, despite lacking the equipment to do so, and it came out like I was some sort of abject creature that dwelled in darkness and fed on nightmares- Oh wait, that’s exactly what I have become!

  Despicable.

  May I help chase away your boredom with some extra functions?

  I glanced at the system window that was just hovering in the air. By this point, it truly seemed like this was the real deal and not some sort of mind devil, so I relented and let it show me what it wanted to show me.

  Fantastic! Here is a perfect rendition of what you currently look like without the clothes. As you can see, your body remnants have completely fused with the automaton’s steel skeleton, and also, the automaton itself does not look the same as it once did

  For one, the ‘shell’ that used to be around it has fully decayed away due to your rotting body, but in particular, the skull area is far more developed than before

  Automatons only have the bare minimum required of them, places for the eyes, and a mechanism to open and close their mouth to give the illusion that they were truly talking or singing

  I immediately focused as the image was brought up, and the system was right, my head was nothing like that of an automaton, I had taken multiple apart before ending up in there, so I knew very well.

  The skull area was neither the original nor was it like that of a human. It fell somewhere in between, the jaw, which did not formerly exist, as there was no need for an actual one when it was the shell that gave the character its feature.

  There was only the bare minimum required to make it work.

  That was no longer the case. My jaw was pronounced and frankly looked dangerously like a bear trap.

  The rest of my face, though… It was a mess. It was hard to even call it a face at all.

  Only the jaw looked like something. The rest was just a mesh of steel and wires. Another recent invention in the domain of engineering, or whatever it was called.

  They used wires made from various materials and used them to send lightning wherever they wanted. I never understood the point. Just get a damned mana crystal of the lightning element and hire a lightning mage to come replenish it every month or so. It’s much simpler and doesn’t require thirty people to bang their heads against the wall.

  Truly, the smart ones were obsessed with innovating. They never wondered if what they were inventing even made sense in the first place.

  But at least I got the final answer. There were two deep, dark purple dots amidst the mess that was my new face, that was where my eyes were.

  They were flickering, and somehow, they looked oddly intense.

  Like I was on the verge of punching someone’s lights out.

  I wonder why that is… I am not so aggressive.

  …If I may-

  Silence system.

  I understand

  Do you have anything you want to show or tell me? I have a lot of time on my hands.

  Nothing much, apart from the XP that was consumed to awaken me just a little while ago. XP will go towards increasing your level, just like with the regular system. However, after accumulating enough XP and certain hidden conditions, you will gain the right to evolve, amongst other possibilities

  Make sure to use your abilities as much as possible! The chances of upgrading them that way are low, but by using them, you ensure that they can be taken into account when you earn an evolution

  I just listened to the system go on and on without end for the entire day…

  What a miserable existence.