Chapter 249 – Three Years Ago
“Whew…” With my VISS Driver repaired, I wiped my brow as I stood up from the high-tech chair. “What a complicated conversation that we just finished right on this very second, huh?”
“And that is a very natural thing to say.” She rolled her eyes.
What does she want from me? I’m just trying to keep the conversation going. Can I get some kind of topic to talk about?
[New Bond Skill Obtained]
[Bond – Vampiric Thirst. Your attacks restore HP equal to a percentage of damage dealt.]
Bond skills! I forgot I had to grill her for that! “Hey, why did you make the bond tree take up a slot in the EX version? I get it that you realized your mistake, but that was just…”
Wait. Wrong reaction.
New Bond Skill?! What?!
I can’t believe it happened again while I wasn’t looking? Who was it this time? Did someone turn into a Vampire? I hope it’s Hecate… If it’s not, she’s gonna be so jealous!
[New Skill Available]
[Violence – Violence Thirst (Cost: 50 Skill Points)]
[Restores a large amount of HP, MP, and Stamina each time a Violence stack is obtained.]
“Oh…” Another skill? And it’s a Violence skill, so we know it’s a big deal.
Did it unlock because of the bond skill? I mean, they both seem like regeneration skills. I just didn’t think I’d get access to a new Violence skill through a bond skill…
Well… Purchased!
[Requirements not met]
Huh?
You literally showed it to me for purchase! What do you mean ‘requirements not met’?! “Velvet…?” Try again. Failed failed failed. Why? If a skill shows up as available, it’s because the requirements are met! “I think the VISS Driver’s still broken.”
“And I think you’re being dumb.” Velvet scoffed with her arms crossed. “I know the state of that thing better than you. What’s the issue?”
“Well… There’s this Violence skill that just showed up as available, but I can’t get it for some reason.”
A hint of displeasure showed on her face. “Why are you messing around with Violence skills in the first place?”
“I wasn’t trying to, okay? It just turned out that way after I got into a fight with a thousand monsters. Why? Are they bad?”
“They’re not bad…” She paused. “But they are dangerous. If you go too deep into the Violence Tree, you might lose your mind like the Violence Witch.” Oh… “They’re skills that I told the VISS Driver to filter.”
“No you didn’t.” I can still see them.
“On THE VISS Driver. Not the abandoned project you stole.”
“I’ll stick with the abandoned project then. Violence Impulse has served me very well so far!” I don’t like hearing her talk badly about my precious skills…
But I get why she’s worried. If Violence skills are going to turn me into a crazy slaughterer, maybe I should be careful…
“I could lecture you some more, but I’ll let you off the hook for now.” Velvet sighed. “What does it say? Why can’t you get the skill?”
“It says ‘requirements not met’. But if it’s showing up, that shouldn’t be the case, right?”
She didn’t immediately say anything.
“And it’s a Violence skill? What’s the name?”
That matters? “Violence Thirst…”
“Hmm…” She paced around the room with a small smirk. “Iroha, how much do you know about the Violence Witch?”
“A little more than what you’d expect someone from a different world to know. Why?”
“The reason you can’t get that skill might be related to her. There’s been a lot of speculation and research over the years about the Violence Witch’s skills. It’s never easy to know what skills someone else has if they never tell you, especially from a monster like her who lived more than a thousand years ago.”
“The current theory says that the Violence Witch possessed two skills that led to her ridiculous abilities. Two skills that turned a normal girl whose hometown got caught in the war into a machine that fought tirelessly and got stronger through kills. And while we don’t know what the exact skills are called, we can hypothesize what their effects are.”
“It’s like her power was split into two, then?”
“Exactly. We’re pretty sure that she had one skill that granted her a burst of strength after every kill and one that granted a burst of vitality after every kill.”
“Well… If what the VISS Driver says is true, you may have just solved that century-old question…” But… “Why does that make it so I can’t get it?”
“Because the skill wasn’t made for you.” She said. “Until you came around, there was not a single record of anyone obtaining a Violence skill other than the Violence Witch. There are some skills in the world that are exclusive to certain beings, and the skills in the Violence Tree belong to that group. Some skills, like the Hero’s exclusive skills, require a status to be obtainable. If the Violence skills work similarly, that means your status is not similar enough to the Violence Witch’s just yet.”
“Hmm… What about Violence Impulse? Was I more like her back then?”
Velvet shook her head. “It might not work like that. One skill core to the Violence Witch doesn’t make you the Violence Witch. Both would. And if you flip that, it means you can get one without being a perfect replica, but you need to be the Violence Witch to get both.”
“That’s complicated… What exactly am I missing?”
She gave me a look like I was dumb. “You’re not crazy.”
“Th- that’s it?” Really? Can I become the Violence Witch if I just ask Katja for advice?
“I wouldn’t recommend going crazy right now. It’s a bad time to become the Violence Witch with Galene around.”
“Galene? Why? Could she defeat the Violence Witch right now?”
“You really don’t get it, do you? The Hero’s exclusive skill, Mailucene, is extra effective against beings considered pure evil. The madness that made the Violence Witch who she was is a force that falls into that category. It’s not a normal kind of madness. The only reason the previous Hero was able to defeat her was because Mailucene was the Witch’s natural nemesis. Because it saw her madness as pure evil.”
“Hmm…” Mailucene is the cutscene skill in the game. It’s the finishing move that happens at crucial moments in the story. I could easily see it automatically triggering at the end of a fight with the Violence Witch when we get her HP down to 1. If such a fight existed. Yeah… It’d definitely work…
“Ok, ok… I think I get it. I can’t get the skill because I’m not crazy like the Violence Witch, but if I was, Galene has the perfect counter to strike me down. Instead I should be a good girl who sticks to normal skills and stops playing around with fire.”
“Yeah…” Velvet shrugged. “Pretty much.”
And that more or less concluded my trip to the Demon Territory. My VISS Driver’s as good as new, and we’ve gotten a new ally who’s also trying to prevent our world from merging. All thanks to Miyuki, my beloved girlfriend!
“By the way, Velvet…”
We stepped outside the lab room with the chair and left the Engineering Department, lingering just outside on the school grounds.
“You’ve grown a lot since I last saw you. When I got the VISS Driver.” She’s bouncy and huge now! I hope she doesn’t get offended… “How did you get so big in… how long was it, six months? You were so tiny back then.”
“Oh…” She looked me in the eyes. “You haven’t realized.”
Hmmm… Landmine? “Realized what?”
“It hasn’t been six months. It’s actually been over three years.”
Three years would justify the growth spurt. Wouldn’t even be a spurt at that point. “Wait, three years? That’s not possible.”
Velvet didn’t react.
“Time is the same here and in our world.” I said. “I would know if more than three years had passed. I mean, look at me. Do I look three years older?”
“You’re the same.” She paused. “But that’s because time stopped for three years in your world.”
“Ti- time… stopped…?” That’s a huge leap… “You gotta be joking.”
“I’m being serious. Your world got frozen in time for three years.”
“B- but why? And how? Was it because of a skill? Was it a monster?”
Velvet shook her head. “Skills rely on the power of the Pillars and the ability to stop time on a scale that big over that long of a period of time is beyond them. Whatever stopped time is not from our world.”
Something greater than the Pillars who is not from Balterra… Is it the Separator? Is controlling time the Separator’s true power?
“Let me get this straight… You’re telling me that my world got frozen for three years at some point between the day I grabbed the VISS Driver and today?”
“That’s right.” She nodded. “From the perspective of your people, the biggest sign would be the number of portals appearing suddenly jumping up. The boundary kept degrading while you were frozen after all.”
“Weren’t the girls from the House talking about spikes in monster activity not long after I joined them? If that’s the case, it means it happened almost right after I took the VISS Driver!”
“Yeah… I can’t really help with that. And I don’t really know what it means either. But what I told you is true. There’s something in your world capable of stopping time. Another reason why the invasion my father’s hoping for might not go as planned.”
“I don’t know what to say…” I stood there in a daze trying to wrap my head around it. “You’re a smart girl, right Velvet? It’s a good thing we’ve decided to work together. Let me tell you what I know.”
The separator, theories, random things we’ve learned. We didn’t have all the time in the world, but it was worth filling her in. Might come in handy in the future.