A skeletal abomination of steel. A mechanical nightmare. Flesh and shrivelled organs grew from its body like horrific fruits, dirt fell as its jaw budged, and joints moved, illuminated by the manifested lights of both Gallilah and Jorice. Its full frame of terror was in full view.

  The city lord instinctively took several steps away from the monster until his back was up against the wall. Meanwhile, Gallilah took a single step forward, stancing herself for a fight as the creature turned its head toward her in particular.

  “You–ou wa–wanna fight, Big Girl?”

  Jorice was genuinely terrified, hardly capable of comprehending how this vile being could even talk at all.

  “Blondie, get a grip. The ambient energies are going to poison you at this rate”

  The monsterfolk reminded the young noble to do his due diligence, especially as it seemed like the negative energy in the air had gotten especially erratic following the arrival of the monster…

  “Anyway… Yes, I want to fight”

  The monster tilted its head, slightly letting its lower jaw open to form what reassembled a primitive impression of a smile, and then it also took a combat stance.

  “Seems like he was right…”

  Gallilah muttered to herself. This was definitely not going to be easy.

  ___

  What the hell, man? I just woke up! Why are there people down in my tunnels? And why are they specifically in the one room I decided to bury myself in? Sometimes, it seriously feels like something is intentionally messing with me!

  Not to mention, the big girl actually looks quite fierce… It looks like she is a sort of beastfolk or monsterfolk? She’s the same height as me and has some impressively thick limbs, which would be impressive on a human. Still, considering that her non-human traits are so prominent, it is safe to assume that she also inherits some strength from whatever creature she is supposed to look like.

  There is also a blond guy, but he seems about as ready to fight as a turtle is ready to fly.

  Nara! What hell changed after my evolution?!

  My physical body seems to look exactly the same as before. I can feel that it is stronger, more durable than before, but I strongly doubt that evolution would only amount to this, but I don’t exactly have time to comb through the system myself to find out what I gained, especially since my opponent is a feisty one!

  She lunges forward at me without a shred of hesitation. Her blood is boiling, quite literally, I think. I see her veins brighten up beneath her skin, as though genuine flames are coursing through her body.

  I find this to be quite worrying, but thankfully, my parents’s obsession with making me some sort of genius had not stopped at just trying to teach me magic and the like. They had also attempted to make me into a knightess at some point.

  Of course, I am not exactly a good stickler to knightly rules, so that hadn’t done much, but when it came to brawling, I had experience.

  The blow came fast, but right now, it did not seem as swift as it truly was in my eyes.

  Rather than blocking or deflecting the punch like it was expected, I simply seized her forearm, trying to twist and bend the limb. My fingers struggled to dig into the flesh, but a pained expression surfaced upon the monsterfolk’s face.

  Simultaneously, I opened my maw wide to try to take a bite out of her face. But in one fell swoop, she managed to twist herself out of my grasp, leaving only a torn bit of her sleeve in my grasp, evading my bite and landing a left hook right in my jaw as retaliation.

  My confidence in my durability waned a little bit as the punch ignited with flames on impact, the sheer force able to sweep me off my feet and throw me up against the ceiling of the room, upon which I bounced before ending my course into a wall instead.

  An indent was left following the strike, and smoke was rising from the point of contact.

  Ouch…

  Mara, your evolution has unlocked four new innate abilities. Including ‘Embodiment Of Negativity’

  Embodiment Of Negativity: Imbue negative emotion into an action, spreading that very emotion to others

  I am unable to tell you directly, but an ‘action’ in the way the description entails, offers a large selection for flexibility. This innate ability is the only one that you can immediately get the hang of to gain the upper hand

  Beat her up, Mara!

  Thanks for the cheers, Nara…

  I quickly rise back to my feet, my eyes flaring up with ‘Forward Shine’, which succeeds in making the monsterfolk stop for a moment.

  Ah! Just a little bit of light is enough to freak that bitch out…

  I wonder about what Nara just told me, an action in the terms of the ability’s description, huh? This little snippet of information was enough for me to know that not all literal actions would count as enough to satisfy the conditions of this ability… ‘Embodiment Of Negativity’...

  With my jaw grinding, I stomp forward, only to immediately go left instead, rushing down the blond guy instead.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Unlike the woman, he was clearly just a human, and judging by his scared expression, it was clear that he was not used to being in danger, making him a much easier target and a potential hostage!

  I certainly wasn’t thinking about getting a hostage because the punch I just received was enough for me to completely abandon winning a fistfight with her… It was purely because it was a superior strategy that my superior mind was telling me to engage with first and foremost.

  That strategy quickly ended as the frightened blondie outstretched his arm in my direction and cast a spell at me.

  Seriously? Now you decide to actually do something-

  I am launched backwards even harder than before, slamming into the wall with enough force to cause it to crumble alongside nearby tunnels, dust and dirt fall all over me, but there is good news. They must not be able to see me either, as neither of the intruders seems willing to step forward to hit me while I’m down, definitely too worried that they’ll expose themselves to a surprise attack if they attempt to move through the natural smokescreen that me getting cannonballed across the room had created.

  The room shook, and cracks began to spread across the ceiling.

  “That was way too strong a spell! Did you forget we were underground?!”

  “I panicked! There was a goddamn steel… Thing! And it was running at me very fast!”

  A rock fell from the ceiling and hit me right on the head.

  I am starting to think that one of the big guys upstairs dislikes me, or something… Must be a real vile and ugly one to hate a beautiful creature such as myself!

  Picking up the rock, I rise and launch straight through the air, using the thread of negative emotions to aim at the blond through the dust. I am not quite used to my newfound strength, so my attempt at using full force is far more powerful than expected. I nearly manage to topple myself from the sheer inertia.

  In spite of the disgraceful display, my rock throw is intercepted by the monsterfolk, who kick the innocent piece of stone to pieces with worrying ease.

  Action… Action…

  “We won’t be able to stay here for much longer. This place is on the verge of completely collapsing already”

  I heard her speak.

  Mmh… I could just use the ‘Trickster’s XP Tank’ to make them go away or drop their guard, but I feel a strong urge to try something right this instant.

  In my mind, I go through every upgrade I have picked until now. I visualise the room and my two opponents. One human mage, one somethingfolk woman who apparently controls some sort of fiery power.

  One is prone to panic and hasty decisions. The other is oddly calm-headed and physically gifted, capable of going against my superior steel body in close-quarters…

  If I can’t kill them, I’ll at least make sure that they never forget what happened today.

  ___

  From the dust, like a rabid hellspawn, the steel monstrosity came rushing out, eyes casting wide cones of purple light as it began emitting a loud, old-fashioned song.

  If it were just that, it wouldn’t have been a cause for surprise, but Gallilah and Jorice both felt it. The instant they began hearing the music, something sinister began to creep within them. It was like when ambient negative energy seeped into them, but also different, more raw, and yet somehow more sophisticated at the same time.

  Purging oneself of what was making its way within them like parasites wasn’t nearly as simple as getting rid of foreign energy, and the thing that was plaguing them was fear.

  Or rather, it was something more specific. It was terror.

  Terror was unnaturally blooming with them, freezing up their movements, rendering them into a false state of prolonged shock. The goal was obvious: Making them into helpless prey.

  Jorice, who was already struggling to maintain focus to begin with, was instantly overwhelmed. Terror seeped all the way down to his bones. If the monster were to rush him down right now, he wouldn’t be able to even reflexively cast a spell in defence.

  Gallilah was in a better place. However, she had not allowed her fear to cloud her judgement to begin with, and thus, with her rationality operational, she could recognise that the terror she was experiencing was not natural, that it was a fabrication.

  Nonetheless, it was still difficult to fight it back with the regular means. It could only allow her to make a swift decision as the monster was sprinting straight at her. In a few mere moments, if no choice was made, her throat would be torn open.

  As a monsterfolk who took after a type of monstrous, mindless dragon, she had been born with high power. Although unrefined, the dragon species she took after was feral, and when only reliant on bestial cunning, power mattered a lot.

  Although there were countless energies and different ways of power–Enough for it to be genuinely mind-bogglingly infuriating if you tried to learn about even a quarter of them–Despite this, everyone knew of the innate way of power shared by creatures and beings of draconic lineage.

  Namely, ‘Dragon Breath’.

  Gallilah channelled everything she had before the monster could get to her, unleashing it all into a single, compressed spray of pure dragon fire.

  Her flame might not be anything more than a regular flame in appearance and practice, but as all should know, anything with the word ‘dragon’ in it was not to be trifled with.

  The sheer force of the flames killed the steel abomination’s momentum in an instant, slamming into its body like a physical object before pushing back to where it had come from.

  The entire room was illuminated, and the sheer sound of the flames drowned out the music, which caused the build-up of terror to stop altogether.

  For five seconds, Gallilah maintained the breath. This was the longest she could do so at such power. The room was beginning to collapse… Dirt, gravel, and stone began to pile up where the monster had been launched.

  The monster folk held still for a moment, but lining up perfectly with a particularly large boulder falling, she felt the stream of experience flow into her body, signalling the death of the vile steel creature.

  “Let’s… Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  ___

  Mara? Are you alright?

  What an idiotic question, I am perfectly fine! Can’t you see? I am not dead in the least.

  You came close to it…

  I sure did, but I guess this singular upgrade in flame resistance was worth it, in the end!

  I am afraid that it did not play much of a role at all. You survived because you were thrown so hard into the wall that dirt and debris fell in between you and the flames. The large rocks in particular took the brunt of the damage in your stead

  Come on, let’s not talk down on ‘Flame Resistance’, I am planning on investing in those resistance upgrades, after all… They might just come in handy, sometimes…

  Anyway… How the hell am I going to get out of here now?

  The earth had quite literally collapsed on top of me, and although I may have managed to evade a lot of damage by sheer force… Well, force in this case. I had still gotten damaged, and despite originally thinking that flames would lack efficiency against my steel body, I had been proven wrong.

  I had been melted.

  …Well, let’s check out those other innate abilities, since I have some free time now.