The Apprentice of Ouroboros [Monster Evo LitRPG Adventure]

Of all the challenging things she had done in her life, Neska found the hardest task was to do nothing.

No, wait, was this her second life, or a third? Just how many damn lives had she lived? She was still stuck trying to understand Veelah’s last words.

More importantly, she'd been a Varadur who died with free will. She’d actively tried to help Neska defy the Radiant King.

Why?

Was it to spite him? Or to build a future for herself, or for her children to have a choice in their lives?

Or did she truly believe Neska could be the one to end them? That dreaded prophecy was only being given more proof every time they encountered the Varadur.

End them how, by defeating them all? Kill them? Free them from the Radiant King?

End the world, maybe?

Neska shook her head as the chain of thought threatened to derail her focus. She had no intention of ending the world. She didn't even know how Ouroboros allegedly ended the world last time, if there were any facts embedded in the myth.

Plus, ending the world would ruin her snug time with friends, witchcraft, and reading. It was rather worrying that Veelah's last words spoke of a strange song emanating from Neska, and she possessed a divine soul. This was really not helping her dismiss the theory she was, indeed, Ouroboros herself. Worse, she didn't remember what had happened in her past life. Or that she was ever human.

She placed her hand over her sternum. That second core was in there somewhere. Was it a divine core? Did cores come in more than one type? Why was its presence notable now, and not before?

Selkie had checked in with her briefly on her relat, asking if she had experienced any unusual symptoms. She was happy to report none. Or at least, not noteworthy...

No. Juni's right. I can't keep coiling around these problems nonstop. What was it Risha once said? The tighter the coil, the more mice slip between them?

The metaphor needed work. Too tight a snug was good for nobody. Maybe time away from this mystery would give her a fresh outlook, later.

She shoved those thoughts aside and coiled tighter on the branch she’d slid up into in one of the massive oak trees near her dorm building, her notebook in hand. After their sleepover and the promise of no class activities, she’d decided to do one thing she hadn’t done in a long time: Reading purely for pleasure. A few leaves had turned a crisp and striking red, a sign of the shifting seasons.

An errant breeze rustled the crisp pages of her leather-bound book. She gripped her serpentine body tightly against the massive trunk, holding on with ease. The sun filtered through the swaying leaves, giving her just enough light to read her current book regarding witch fables.

It surprised her that the Witch was one of the first classes to be discovered, or unlocked, and its teachings were written in some of the most ancient languages of the world. Old Merarian, Salvanian, even the Tolkersan all carried records of witches. Images of knights on horseback with shiny armor got all the attention, alongside clerics offering prayers of healing to the sick and injured.

She paid closer attention to the pacts that witches had allegedly made, allowing them to talk to the Divines themselves, through the Old Magic. The stories seemed more myth than fiction: how they staved off cataclysms and brought ages of prosperity, or received the knowledge of Namimura herself, the great Kitsune Divine, to forecast such events, or even mundane efforts such as weather and drought cycles.

Old Magic? What was that? She flipped through the pages to the index, looking for the term. She'd seen it only once, when her Awakening was underway, to describe the Path of the Witch. One passage was written down, in cryptic words.

...once was a time before the great Interface, and the magicks ran wyld from the Seven Great Beasts. The Old Magick, the force of the world itself, ran through them, a map to the world's soul laid baire Though the Paths are forgotten, they still remain, routes to thread the power of Galwein herself.

This was... interesting. And she had no idea where she'd even start to explore this strange, Old Magic. If the Interface was new, when did it originate? Who made it?

Was it to make access to the Old Magic uniform and controlled? Or to hide it? Her questions were multiplying rather than shrinking. In a way, this was a good thing.

“Neska, I hear you working! Where’d you slither off to?” Carrying in the breeze was Juni’s voice. Neska peered through the leaves and saw the mouse walking with Brent, Syra, and Trevor, presumably headed to the dining hall, Juni throwing up her hands animatedly. “I’m telling you, she doesn’t know how not to work!”

"Maybe she's just a student at heart. Well, a better one than me," Brent responded, sounding amused. As it were, their projected path took them past her hiding tree. Neska wore an amused smile as she lowered her body silently, just as Juni walked below, and held her position with her tail, now hanging and swinging upside down.

“I’m relaxing. Shoo, mouse.”

Juni shrieked and leaped into Brent's arms. He wore an amused smirk as Juni realized she’d been pranked, and she hopped down, fuming at both of them. “You’re a terror, you know that, Neska?”

“You disturbed my rest,” she said, still hanging upside down, book in hand. “I was just…hanging out here.”

Juni slapped her forehead, groaning. “You and your puns. I’m getting a jar. You pitch in a copper coin for every time you make a funny quip. I’ll be rich by the end of the semester.”

“I smelled her coming. How did you not?” Brent said, sounding smug.

Juni splayed out her hands, annoyed. “Am I supposed to treat every tree as a hiding spot for a snakey witch?”

Neska booped her nose with one finger, though she was getting a bit dizzy from hanging upside down too long. “I am practicing my art of stealth. Apparently it works.”

A rustle of leaves preceded the squawking call of Syrona, who jumped off her perch in the tree and toward Brent, cuddling him on the shoulders. Neska's snout creased at this unexpected development. “Hey, traitor! Why do you sit by your lonesome when mommy is here, but the wolf gets free snugs?” she protested half-heartedly.

“I must have that magnetic animal charm,” Brent said with a toothy smirk, rubbing Syrona’s head. “We’re headed to lunch; want to go?”

“Yes, if only to keep her from working as hard as she does,” Syra mused, wearing a casual dress and leggings for the day. Neska had asked how she could keep her clothes while using her hydro form. She answered she had an evolution that adapted whatever fabric she was wearing to flow like water. Anything with significant metal wouldn’t work, but it did open up several opportunities for Trevor to add enchantments to fabric armors for her in the long run.

Neska coiled and hopped down, brushing herself off and putting her book into her bag. “I could use a bite, sure.”

Lunch was uneventful, since it was the weekend and students weren’t on any particular schedule. Neska piled on eggs and fish, and she also took a sampling of river crawfish, which were plentiful in the rocky bottom of the shallow rivers and the nearby lake due north.

Syra joked that she’d have her trained on nothing but aquatic foods in no time, while Brent proposed a juicy bison steak. Juni, of course, stuck to her fruits, berries, and grain meals, though she was a big fan of cheese.

But all of this, the casual attitude, the rest and recovery? They were temporary at best. Neska knew the Radiant King would come after her in full force. There was no scenario that he wouldn’t. She wondered if it was because of his hatred of Risha, her own actions, or possibly the second core hidden in her soul.

That was on her list of targeted reading for the day: the nature of soul cores still eluded her, and she needed to be far more rehearsed in the subject matter. If anything, it all tied together–maybe her soul influence, the attribute stated within her title, was supposed to be a massive hint at what she needed to focus on.

Could there be a different class of cores with different powers altogether? She still owed Selkie a follow-up visit.

Juni waved a paw in front of her face, and she blinked out of reflex. “The snake is spacing out. You go as still as a rock when you do that; you don’t even blink, Neska. Sometimes I think you’re in a trance.”

“I am not in a trance. This is my resting snake face,” she answered matter-of-factly. “What about you, how are you relaxing today?”

“Swimming with Syra at the campus pond. She has mermaid friends.”

“And a kelpie, but you know…that whole stigma of drowning people gets a bad rap,” Syra sighed, digging into a wrap of lakeweed and stuffed prawns. “You should come with us. My goal, and everyone else, is to keep you from pulling us into another damn chaotic mission before the weekend is up. Keeping you occupied with fun things helps us achieve that.”

She shrugged in response. “To do what? Socialize? Mingle?”

“A contest. I heard snakes are fast in water,” Syra laughed, leaning in. “Brent here can only doggy paddle, so I can’t have much of a fair race with him.”

“Oh, is that a challenge?” His ears perked up, intrigued by her idea. “I’m in. Are mice any good in water?”

Juni glared at him. “I have rocks as part of my material composition, wolf-boy. What do you think? I can’t do any worse than you.”

“My swimming is more like controlled drowning, so I might have you beat there,” Trevor conceded, looking anxious. “I personally wouldn’t mind going back to my dorm room to continue working on using all those dead bugs to make wasp armor.”

“How do you not cringe in horror at what we went through?” Syra asked, mouth agape.

He shrugged. “You see one horrifying thing, you get used to it. Plus, knowing the stakes, knowing my friends are fighting beside me? It takes the edge off of the fear.”

“I too have pet projects,” Neska added. Of those, training was involved in at least two of them, and the rest were research projects to understand her own power and the Varadur. If her friends weren’t trying to keep her occupied doing fun things, she might be doing any one of those other tasks instead.

She paused when she thought of that. Having a pastime might not be a bad thing. Or several of them.

Moments later, after a brief trip to the dorm, they’d gathered at the campus pond. Reeds lined several areas of the water, and several trees had branches draped over the surface. The pond ran a few thousand feet long, and a few hundred feet wide. A small stream branched off and exited into a storm drain on the far end, recessed a little way into a sloped hill.

The dock itself was a large platform with several open sections. A few rowing boats were tied off. Several Awakened swam nearby or relaxed in the shallows.

Neska had never seen a mermaid before, though it was exactly like she thought they might be: a fishlike lower body, and a humanoid upper body, just like herself. The female mermaid had a humanoid head, elven-like ears, and fish scales covering most of her body, with small fins along her flank, a dorsal fin, and a large rudder-like tail. She also wore a uniform well suited to the aqueous environment, and unlike regular mermaids, she was at home in fresh or salt water, and could grow legs for land.

Neska pondered that. If mermaids could grow legs at will, could she?

You’re thinking about it. I mean, eh, what do you gain from it?

The ability to dance? Neska proposed to Vivi. That is quite hard to do when you are a snake.

I’m sure you could improvise that part. Wait, why would you dance? Who would you dance with?

I don’t know, anyone? It’s a thought exercise. Plus, having more vestiges of humanity might help me keep my humanlike mind, don’t you agree?

Not sure if I agree with that, but I can see the logic. Now, go beat Syra in a race to the end of the campus pond!

With Juni electing to stay dry, or in the shallows, it was down to four of them racing. They all lined up on the desk, with Neska arching her body just a little bit further out.

“Hey hey, no cheating with extra body length!” Syra teased, letting her lower body turn into a fishlike shape, and Brent dug his claws on his legs into the wooden dock, the material creaking and cracking under his grip. Trevor had put on a simple tight-fitting shirt and shorts, and wore a more determined expression, despite his relatively thin legs and arms.

Juni flashed them a smile, raising her hand. “You four ready? On your marks, get set, GO!”

She thrust her hand downward, and everyone dove into the water. Neska surged forward, undulating her body side to side, and thrusting through the pond with little effort. She thought she would have this as an effortless victory, given her prior snakeonautics in the water–

She gazed at Syra paddling backwards with zero effort and grinning proudly as she easily passed Neska. Brent let out a howl of protest and swam faster than the elementa had teased him at. He used his massive paws to thrust himself forward with frog-like strokes.

Though Neska had to wonder if all that floof was proving to be an immense drag on his swimming. Trevor made a good effort to keep up, but without magic, he never stood a chance. Juni still cheered him on, despite this obvious fact.

There was no way she was losing to this elementa. She undulated faster. She managed to just about catch up with Syra by the time they hit the end of the pond, then turned around for the second leg of the journey.

“You know, I hate saying this, but Syra might have us beat,” Brent panted. Even Trevor had caught up to him, and now everyone was much closer to being caught up.

Neska dove underwater, pulling her arms to her side to minimize drag. She used her entire body like an airfoil, undulating in synch, and knew a concerted effort was the only way she was going to win this one.

She pushed her body as hard as she could, water flowing around her with little resistance on her scales. She felt a welling sense of pride; she must have surely passed Syra by now.

She burst out of the water to tap the side of the dock, only to see Syra leaning down, grinning from ear to ear. “Well, well. Snakes can swim after all. I actually had to put in some effort this time!”

Syrona let out a trill of contentment as she came in last, having put in the effort to race everyone else, and Juni gave her a playful wave as the familiar hopped up onto the dock, fanning her wings and shaking the water off of them. “Oh look, someone’s inspired.”

Neska let out a laughing hiss. “Well, I can’t really beat someone partially made of water. Though did we say anything about Abilities?”

“Nah, physical strength only.” Syra helped Neska lift herself onto the dock, and Juni looked on in dismay.

“I think you were toying with them. How fast could you really go from the front of the pond to the back?” Juni demanded.

“Hey, that little minnow didn’t lap you? Wow, she was playing with you then!” the mermaid sang, now sunning herself on some boulders jutting above the surface of the pond. “You sure swam pretty good, all the same!”

Brent and Trevor finished last, both of them panting. Trevor had caught up, but was no match for the wolfling’s sheer strength. He gasped as he held onto the dock with both arms, chest heaving and coughing like he’d swallowed water.

“Well, I’m thoroughly beat,” Brent grumbled. “Okay, new rule. Syra has to wear anchors the next time she challenges us to a race. It’s the only way to make it fair.”

Sometime later, they were all wading in the shallows, talking to the mermaids sitting on the rocks. The one they’d talked to, Alexi, was one of the few specialized aquatic Awakened on campus at present. The Varadur never had too many aquatic species; thus, the amount of young they could use for the Awakening process was exceedingly limited.

In fact, Alexi and one of the other mermaids were biologically sisters, the one with bright red fish scales and blue eyes. Alexi waved to her as she giggled while talking to the group. “So, Mari and I are technically sisters? But kinda, sorta not? Being an Awakened gets confusing sometimes when you think about biological ties.”

The two hugged gently, with Brent looking amused, and Trevor averted his eyes. Neska didn’t see why, exactly. They didn’t look exactly humanoid. They seemed more like fish with arms, in her mind. Did humanoids think about this all the time?

She had no idea what others thought of her in this aspect. She’d seen a few boys stare at her from time to time, seemingly enamored by her appearance. Or maybe human girls couldn't give snugs as effectively as hers?

Yep, that must be it.

“So anyway, we don’t get to go on many missions,” Alexi explained as Neska turned into the conversation a few seconds later. “Our resident crocodilian is far better suited for amphibious efforts. Along with Professor Gurigea, we end up going together on missions quite frequently.”

“Do the Varadur plan on many water-borne attacks?” Neska asked, curious.

Mari waved her hand, which had semi-transparent webs between her fingers. “Not really, no. They have some monster species in the ocean, but they’re only used to harass shipping vessels from other continents. Developing an amphibious assault task force is just too much effort for them, and there are limited monster evolutions suited to the task. We aren’t as good on land as we are on water.”

“Girl, please, we’re like, useless on land,” Alexi chided. “It’s okay though. If they want us to patrol the coast or the waterways, we’re the go-to team. We can usually go through the ocean undetected and scout out islands the Varadur have occupied that the Valos military would have difficulty approaching with any level of stealth.”

Neska nodded, taking this information in. Other continents were not facing the same level of threat as Valos and Juiksen, and the eastern continent had barely suffered any Varadur attacks, save for the occasional ship sinking. Not every seaborne disaster could be attributed to the monsters, however; sailors could run aground on reefs or sink during the tropical cyclone season from late summer to early fall.

Neska had a question out of curiosity. “I saw a storm drain down by the other end of the pond. Where does that go?”

Alexi shrugged, waving one hand. “Dunno. We’ve never had to go down there. I mean I would never want to swim in a cistern, you know? That would be kind of gross.”

“So, can anyone get in there?” She’d been forming theories on the assassin and how he was getting in and out around campus, along with the accessways Kasfew and Brent had mentioned. The assassin was a problem they needed to deal with before they could focus on the Varadur, and dealing with both problems simultaneously might prove too difficult.

Alexi sighed, then rolled her shoulders. “Nah. It’s locked. You can check for yourself, but it's all rusted. I don’t know if there’s even anything accessible in there,” she added before waving to Trevor. “Hey, you look like a sailor.”

Brent grinned and put an interposing arm between the starstruck teen and the mermaid. “Hey, easy there. He hasn’t gotten his sea legs. He is, however, great at killing giant mutated bugs, and can craft up armor!”

Neska, however, was less enamored that a single grate could be their search point. If she was going to catch this assassin, and now a slowly growing conspiracy of students, she needed to learn every in and out of this academy. Delve deep. There were other, easier ways to get on the campus.

Hopefully, she’d catch this snake in his hole, somewhere deep beneath the plateau.

“Yo, she’s got the look,” Syra groaned, waving her hand in front of Neska’s face. “Our lamia is thinking. This never bodes well when you get like this!”

“Sure it does. Camaraderie, adventure, and claw on claw. The stuff of legends, right, Syrona?” Neska said with a lilting smile. The coatyl let out a chirp and posed with her wings spread, head tilted toward the sky.

Juni let out a resigned sigh. “So, what’s this plan that’s forming in your head?”

“We need to talk to a bird about a tour of the underground. I also need to pick some evolutions to deal with that snaky bastard hitting us at home, so we don’t have to keep watching our backs.”

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