Sinner System

"<Huh, I see. Sounds like things are going well in our world, glad I didn’t die in vain>," Mused Rex, as we finished catching him up on everything that had happened after he died.

A couple of hours had passed since Invidia and Avaritia brought Ciel and Cleo to the Pocket Dimension.

After they shared what they went through before regrouping with us in here, I decided to send the two Apostles out to track Jaden down.

This city’s pretty massive, and Avaritia wasn’t able to pick up Jaden’s scent earlier. She was only able to find Cleo by scent after exploring one section of the city, and on their way back, found Ciel by following the sound of explosions.

The Apostles had also picked up a handful of the Spirit Link Ritual Scrolls and a couple of maps, one of the city and one of the continent.

They didn’t come across any clothing stores in the areas they explored, but they did manage to get an idea of the currency and corresponding value.

The nation uses coins as their currency, the currency is called Lye. As for the value, gold coins are the most valuable, followed by silver, then copper, and finally, bronze.

According to Ai, bronze coins are approximately about as valuable as 100 Credits, copper around 500 Credits, silver 1000 Credits and finally, gold at around 5000 Credits.

"Hope Jaden’s okay. If we ended up in random spots, there’s a chance he found himself in a bad area," Pointed out Cleo.

"He should be fine. I was concerned about those Enslavement Collars, but based on what Ciel said, the Personalis Arma are capable of destroying them.

We didn’t have ours equipped, so our Systems took care of it instead. But Jaden had his Personalis Arma equipped, so there shouldn’t be any cause for concern," I recalled thoughtfully.

"Yeah, you’ve got a point there. Oh, and he probably got a type of Elemental Magic like I did. Huh, wonder how many Spirits he’s capable of summoning? I was initially disappointed that I was only capable of summoning one, but now, I don’t care anymore. I don’t need any other Spirits," Grinned Ciel, sitting on Rex’s lap.

"It’s too bad we can’t summon any Spirits, but at least we can use Spirit Fusion with the Apostles. Speaking of which, I kinda wanna try it out," Remarked Aria with a wry smile.

"Yeah, I’d be lying if I said I don’t," I nodded sheepishly.

"Oh, I almost forgot...for some reason, I couldn’t stack Monstrification on top of Spirit Fusion," Cleo informed us.

<Based on my analysis, it looks like you and Ariella won’t be able to use Descent in unison with Spirit Fusion>

<But you should still be able to use Enrage with it, and Ariella should be able to use Blaze Ignition>

"Seems we can’t stack Descent on Spirit Fusion, but our other power boosts will still be in play," I said to Aria.

"Fair enough, it would kinda be overkill. Since Spirit Fusion apparently stacks the Spirit’s stats onto ours, using it with the two former Sentinels in particular would give us pretty massive boosts," She replied, before adding as she glanced at Cleo, "By the way, you said you can link with upto three Spirits total, right? Why don’t you summon the remaining two? Also, I wanna see your Vampire Spirit, if that’s okay. Vampires weren’t a thing among the Monsters we fought, so I’m curious to see what one looks like."

"To answer the first part, I can’t...not in here. This Pocket Dimension, it looks like I can’t access the Spirit Realm while I’m in here. And sure, I don’t mind bringing out my Vampire," Cleo responded with a smile.

"In that case, let’s try out Spirit Fusion with the Apostles too. Should be a good way to kill some time until Invidia and Avaritia find Jaden," I suggested thoughtfully.

I am a bit concerned at how long they’re taking. But if something went wrong, one of them would’ve returned, so-...

"Yeah, that’s-...wait, hold on. You remembered to turn off the time dilation after they headed out, didn’t you? Because if you didn’t, that’d mean only a few seconds have passed on the outside after they left," Aria reminded me.

"Oh. Ohh, shit, I totally forgot. Crap, my bad."

———————————————————————————

Point-of-View: Jaden Xeno

———————————————————————————

"Ow...that hurt," I muttered as I sat up, adding as I glanced around, "So, uh...mind pointing those weapons away from me? I’m sorry about your roof, but this seems like a bit of an overreaction."

"Who are you?! How did you find us?!"

"He doesn’t look like one of those damned Knights. But that Enslavement Collar, he might be one of their slaves."

I’m sorry, Enslavement what? Oh, shit, there’s something around my neck.

"His clothes are so strange, I’ve never seen an outfit like that before."

Now that they mention it, their clothes are pretty weird, they look super outdated. The hell is going on here?

One moment I was in Sanctuary Alpha with the others, and the next thing I know, I’m falling through the air. I then crashed through a roof that seemingly came out of nowhere, and now I’m surrounded by a bunch of people.

There’s a lot weird about this situation. Setting aside the obvious stuff, there’s also the fact that none of them seem to have Auras. Also, I feel a bit off, something about the flow of my Mana is different.

"I’m totally lost here. But, uh, seriously, I’m not going to hurt any of you, so maybe ease off with the weapons?" I suggested, as I reached up for the collar.

I felt along it to try and find a latch or lock or something, but I didn’t feel anything like that...alright, then, let’s try to force it off with my Magic, I’ll-...

W-Woah! Shit, that hurts!

"What are you doing? You can’t take a Enslavement Collar off by force."

"Maybe he was recently enslaved?"

"Could be, maybe he was running away from his captors and stumbled in here."

"But then, how did he fall through the roof?"

D-Damn it, I can’t get it off, this hurts like crazy, what is this thing?!

Hm?

I stared in perplexity as my whips floated up, zipping in with a powerful snap towards the collar and striking either side of it. A sharp creak rang out, before the collar suddenly shattered and fell off, the pain fading as I let out a sigh of relief...