Gacha Harem System

Now that all three of them were standing in the Scorched Forest, Lukas had to admit that the place somehow looked different.

He and Melody had spent enough time in this place that it had stopped feeling hostile and started feeling familiar.

But with Akira standing between them in her gold-trimmed armor, the forest seemed to have lost much of its allure.

Maybe it was because the beasts weren’t attacking them.

His eyes caught one of the beasts in the distance, leaving the moment it caught sight of them.

Shapes that would normally have begun circling the moment he and Melody entered their territory were now moving away instead.

They were retreating without any traces of hesitation, putting distance between themselves and what they could sense was an S-rank presence.

"Are all the beasts here this cowardly?" Akira asked, watching a pair of Zipper Bears disappear between the trees without so much as a backward glance.

"They’re hungry, not stupid," Lukas said with a smile. "Even hunger has its limits. They know the only thing they’ll get from facing S-rank is death."

As for Melody, she’d been quiet for approximately as long as she was capable of being quiet on this particular subject.

"Can I see it?" she finally asked in excitement, turning to Akira. "Please."

Akira smiled, already knowing what she was talking about. She reached into her spatial ring without ceremony and brought out [Temptation], holding it out flat across both palms.

Melody took it with both hands, and for a moment simply held it reverently, looking at the sword.

The bluish metal caught the light of the sun and reflected it back warmer than it had arrived, the leaf-shaped blade sitting perfectly balanced despite its size.

She swung it once, slowly.

The sword moved through the air with a smoothness that didn’t match its dimensions, making the motion feel effortless.

"It’s incredibly sharp," she said, almost to herself.

She turned to one of the nearby burnt tree husks, a wide trunk that still stood solidly despite the years of decay, and swung.

The blade passed through it without slowing down or catching. There was not even a hint of the resistance one would expect from a blade cutting into wood that was this dense.

Melody stumbled slightly, staring at the sword in shock. She’d expected resistance.

She looked up just in time to see the top half of the trunk shifting, then falling, before landing with a muffled thud on the soot covered ground.

Melody’s eyes returned to the sword. She stared as if she was seeing it for the first time, then her jaw suddenly dropped.

She turned to Akira in shock. "It can give illusions too?!"

"What do you mean?" Lukas asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

Akira crossed her arms. "When the blade draws blood, the sword retains it. And once I have someone’s blood on the blade, I can craft an illusion around them within a limited time. Once that time elapses, the blood... expires."

"But it doesn’t need to be a perfect illusion, or to fool every sense completely. It only needs to be disorienting enough to obscure their awareness while I kill them."

Lukas looked at the sword, then he waited.

After several seconds, nothing appeared. There was no information panel, or item description.

"Why can’t I see its information?" he asked, confused. "Last night I could."

Akira looked at him with mild surprise. "You don’t know why?"

Melody turned from the sword. "It’s simple, actually. When a Climber covers their [Item] with their aura, the item’s information becomes invisible to others."

"It becomes instinctive after enough practice, and most Climbers do it without thinking." She paused, then pointed at his chest. "Like you’re doing right now with your cuirass."

Lukas looked down.

A thin, almost transparent layer of his aura sat against the surface of the [Dread Cuirass], so tiny it was barely visible even when he was looking directly at it.

He hadn’t noticed nor consciously done it. It had simply happened at some point between receiving the cuirass and this moment, his body learning something his mind hadn’t been informed about.

"I had no idea," he said, still surprised.

"Most people don’t, the first time someone points it out," Melody said.

Akira had been scanning the tree line, her attention drifting away from their conversation.

"These beasts are useless to me," she said. "Is there somewhere around here that has things actually willing to put up a fight?"

"The Green Forest," Melody said immediately. "Connected to the far end of this one. The beasts inside are stronger, and they won’t run from an S-rank the way these ones do. At least not immediately."

Akira’s expression morphed into interest. She stared in the direction Melody was indicating, before turning to them both.

"Lead the way," she said, grinning.

And so they began walking until the soot covered ground gave way gradually, the blackened earth softening underfoot as the burnt trees thinned around them.

Then the first healthy tree appeared, and then another, and within a few dozen steps the Green Forest had claimed them entirely.

Tall trees rose on every side, their branches meeting overhead to form a dense canopy that turned the afternoon light into something softer and more diffuse, filtering down in shifting patches across the mossy ground.

The air changed too, becoming cooler and carrying the smell of damp earth that was quite refreshing after the dry ash of the Scorched Forest.

"The deeper we go, the stronger the beasts," Lukas explained. "We should find something worth Akira’s time fairly quickly."

Akira said nothing, her eyes already moving between the trees. Lukas could tell she wasn’t even aware of what she was doing.

It was clear she’d spent years in an environment where one had to always be on guard for any threats.

They walked for a few minutes before the trees opened into a wide clearing.

And laying at the center of the clearing was a Nemean Lioness, her golden fur catching the light.

Her head came up the moment they stepped into the open, eyes fixing on them with immediate attention.

None of them moved.

Then, from the far edge of the clearing, another beast emerged.

It was a larger, Nemean Lion, walking confidently to join its partner. Its mane was full and dark, his eyes also fixed on them.

And it was S-rank.

The two lions stared at them from the opposite side of the clearing.

Akira’s grin spread slowly across her face.

"Now," she whispered, "that’s what I’m talking about."