My Parasite Skill System

My human adventurers had been useful enough by myself. We went out together. And I learned some more practicalities about what they–the adventurers–did.

Did I learn much today, too, just like the first day I went out with them?

I won't say no … but I won't say yes either. I've learned quite a few things today, too. Although, was that actually necessary? Not really.

My hand amply waved 'bye-bye' to them all.

Then again, though, I'm proud to say they haven't outlived their usefulness to me, you know. It still was fun, after all.

People like action. I like that, too. But having fun is just having fun. And while I just said I still wouldn't discard it away, well, a little bit of restraint wouldn't do me wrong either.

And so, the fun stuff came to a stop!

Or maybe it didn't.

What I was about to take care of, now, promised to be fun, too. So, well.

Ahem, anyway: I was facing those doors.

After I'd jumped all the three little steps that lied before the front door of that which couldn't be called an 'office'–I was facing them.

And I simply stood there. Without doing much of anything. My feet were as if thoroughly planted in the ground, unable to go either forth or back.

I stood there with my mind. And I observed it as it went on thinking, and thinking, and thinking.

And surprisingly, it'd already been over five minutes that I was there, watching my fists as they nervously were clenched every twenty or thirty seconds. Feeling my eyebrows pressed down upon my eyes, following on the tendency of the fists.

Tendency which had somehow, at some point, managed to spread across all my little nervous face. It was tensed up and stifled.

But I stopped that. No longer willing to keep up with that silent and overthinking state of things, one of my hands was laid onto the right door as I slid it to the side.

The door being opened, I could see inside.

Anything hadn't been touched nor moved. I found everything I found on the day before this one, as if I'd hopped in the past, seeing it all again, before myself.

The same instructor guy was mindfully resting around the middle of this little gymnasium.

Sitting as formally as he sat yesterday, looking in the same direction, in front of himself, with eyes that paid nothing attention.

That same wooden sword was laid beside him. And that same ominously appealing very long black sword rested on its wooden rack, up against the left wall, closer to the entrance.

Today was just as if yesterday. And this was so up till details actually indicated to me otherwise.

First off, the coins that I led there, on the ground, before I left, being all pissed off and whatnot the day before, were still lying down at the same place.

They hadn't been touched by the instructor? It seemed so.

Didn't they need money to do their job? I didn't know.

They were untouched. I knew my hands were the ones who had dropped them down at this their place. I knew today wasn't yesterday.

What also changed, then, was: "Oh, heyyo," that instructor turned to me, greeting myself.

"Oh," I groaned before I frowned. "Hey, or yo?" did I then mumble to myself.

I didn't think I was to be heard, I just mumbled that without any thoughts whatsoever.

But he picked it up: "Hey, plus yo. Both of them. Heyyo."

"Hm. All right, then. Hey, plus yo," I repeated. "Heyyo."

His knees, still properly sitting formally as they were, didn't point in my way, when he turned towards me. Only the tip of his thin nose pointed to me as he looked me up.

I didn't pay attention to his eyes and avoided to eye-contact himself. I didn't like it.

I first looked down, like people would naturally do–but thinking I didn't quite like it either, for some obvious reason to me, I rather decided to let my eyes go up, staring at the grand roof.

Only then did I step towards him, allowing myself in.

"He– heyyo," I awkwardly repeated, making sure I'd got it all right.

And the swordsman silently chuckled to that, shaking his head a little.

I didn't pay attention to that and went on thinking to myself. Thinking about stuff. My kind of stuff.

The Guide. My System. My skills. A parasite. The Game.

But mostly–my skills.

I'm a hosting parasite. A unique kind of my insectoid … how to qualify it … patrimony–of my insectoid patrimony.

Still feels weird, by the way, to think I'm just 'that'…

But that isn't important.

That kind of unique me has the ability to basically steals about people's proprieties; people's abilities; people's skills. That's what 'it' does.

I know that, though. And it isn't important either.

My System, now, gives me about the same ability. So, is it inherent to that unique kind of 'me' to steals away abilities and functions, or is it inherent to the System, hm?

I suppose it is to me.

So that system (or whatever Old Sipping had referred to it as, talking about sets of runes that were very much mystical, ancient, and complicated, et cetera…) is about me, basically.

Going back with the terms I just used, then–My Parasite Skill System. That's what it should be … probably … am still unsure.

Again and again, though, these are just about the technicalities of it.

That system is about me. This system has an interface. A way of use. This is the interface.

And what is important is just that–the interface.

If I recall correctly, the System called it 'Skill Interface.'

Of course there was some way of use for this stuff. It goes without saying.

And, remember, the first moment I got to get a glimpse of itself; it was right after I had finished the first quest ever.

My 'Character's Creation.' The quest allowing me to get the oh-so-useful humanoid form–that I wear right now–in other words.

At the time, I had seen it. The Skill Interface. At the time, too, though, I was busy. Very much busy. I had to take care of some stuff. Naturally, then, I simply didn't give a damn about it, heh. I discarded it, without even knowing how to summon it back.

Sorry. I should have paid attention. But anyways:

There I am, today, having thought about it all for quite a long time before even school started for me; having then decided about how I would take care of all this.

By taking care of it, we obviously meant, getting it back, sort of.

Well, yes, all of this is vague. Still very much vague. Even I don't really about what I'm doing, to be honest. There were seriously too many things to pay attention to, at the moment.

Everything still is vague. And for it to be foggy, somehow, I know I can expect to be surprised for what's to come.

But, with lots and lots of my brain cells (that shouldn't even exist, given the fact I'm 'that') working altogether, I simply figured the following: why not just get a new skill, then?–obviously, this and that being intrinsically correlated, something would happen!

Which brought me here, roaming about the guilds, for the first time a few weeks ago.

Time and preparation are between then, at that point in time in the past, and right now, today.

–I was ready.

Stepping inside the tiny empty gymnasium, I got near the instructor:

"So?"

"That skill you used to block me off … every single blow … yesterday…"

"What of it?"

"Teach it to me. … Pleas–ahem, I have money."

"Heh~"