1038. The Conditions of the Play

Two unspoken Conditions came to light an hour into the Audition.

The first was that they were all inflicted by a personalized Condition. Frost for instance became incapable of violence.

Even her thoughts were marginally suppressed by a sense of what she could only describe as impartialness. When they encountered another batch of Devotions Frost found herself struggling to form hostile thoughts, like they were being suppressed by a foreign force.

Then, there was the second Condition.

Skills could not be used.

But Frost’s arsenal had extended beyond Skills.

She raised a bloody hand into the cold air, and she silently pondered when only droplets of blood splashed beneath her. The blood should have turned into a spear, or a blade at the very least.

The fact that it had no shape concerned her.

“Arts are disabled too.” She spoke with knitted brows. “No [Progenitor Arts]. I doubt Cer can use her [Galvanized Arts] either. It’s problematic. I was hoping to use blood manipulation as a loophole. Could’ve used it as a vessel for Absolution too.”

Both Skills and Arts were prohibited for an inexplicable reason. As usual, one could only point fingers at a Corrupted or similar when an abnormality arose.

Frost pondered on the reason as she stared back into pair of golden eyes. Beneath them was a lolling tongue belonging to what one would believe to belong to a dog. But if they stepped back, they would find that it belonged to a human woman.

And to Frost’s dismay, it was in the image of her own body.

“Mother, you seem to be staring at me again.” An imaginary tail wagged behind Acedia. Frost could also imagine dog ears on her.

It took a tremendous amount of will to keep herself from instinctively reaching out to pat her head.

“Only because you won’t stop staring at me.” Frost sighed. “Begin from the start. The fire. How did you use it if we can’t use Skills?”

Acedia responded with an inhuman blink, as though incapable of understanding why Frost didn’t believe her when she first explained herself.

It was odd that neither Frost, Raoul, nor anyone else who Nav was able to contact could use their Skills. Acedia could be described as a wolf among a herd of sheep, and Frost was suspicious as to whether she was trying to put on sheep’s clothing to hide this fact from her.

Frost was unnaturally on edge.

Though, it was an appropriate reaction to being body snatched.

“Honest. Pinky swear. No fingers crossed. Cross my heart hope to suffer. However humans prove the truth of their words.” Acedia replied boisterously, a far cry from her apathetic self.

She made sounds that Frost had never made before, and grunts of desperate exertion. So desperate was Acedia to appease Frost that her hands curled into trembling fists as she combated the urge to prostrate.

The only reason she didn’t was because she would be sullying the very body of her Mother.

Acedia continued after managing to calm herself.

“A swarm of crossed twigs swept through. Rather than honoring this body, they chose to degrade it by existing.”

But that calm was a precursor to a storm.

A flame appeared in Acedia’s palm.

The ember was no larger than the pupil of a human eye, and yet, its flame instantly caused shrubs to spontaneously combust within a twenty-meter radius.

“I don’t have an Ability that lets me create flames.” Frost noticed that it had only formed when Acedia’s expression changed to one of hatred. “Conflagrator governs it. Looks like it might be tied to wrath. Lemme check if this works.”

A small, metallic click sounded as she retrieved the Traumatic Clock from where her breast pocket would be. But when she brought it close to Acedia’s chest, she noticed that the second, minute and hour hands of the clock were spinning wildly.

“Raoul. C’mere for a second.”

“Same effect?” Raoul questioned, and Frost nodded. “Atelier-grade Items may not work in this place. A third Condition.”

Frost’s lips formed into a straight line.

“The problem is… this is closer to a Beholder-Grade item.”

There was no such thing as a Beholder-Grade item. What Frost was referring to was simply the fact that her Traumatic Clock had been handcrafted by Jury and thus was a direct representation of her Beholder abilities.

The fact that it did not work introduced a myriad of questions on top of questions. Answering one would only lead to another two, like cutting the head of the fabled Hydra.

Then again, all products of the Ateliers were Beholder-Grade. It depended on how powerful their reality-altering effects were.

“… Probably not an Ability.” Raoul slowly spoke, albeit reluctantly. “But physiological. Both are the same anyway. Act X likes to give people roles. The Playwrights might not know a rat’s ass about your Professions. Nevermind Skills.”

She plucked out a new cigarette, only to watch it fizzle into dust due to the extreme heat. The fact that their clothes did not combust irritated Raoul, and she gave Acedia a scathing look.

Acedia’s seemed to respond with: “You dare smoke in Mother’s presence?”

A long puff of mist left Raoul’s mouth.

“But that’d mean Act X by extension can’t tell apart an Ability from a Skill.” She continued. “Not unexpected. The Broken Thorn didn’t go a day without complaining they couldn’t track your accumulated Light.”

“We’re being depicted as roles they think fits us the best? Based on what?” Frost turned to him, causing Acedia to wear a look of distress and mutter: “I’m here, Mother. Over here.”

“That’s my guess.” Raoul shrugged. “And hell if I know. Act X knows. A Herald will tell you to ask a Missionary. A Missionary will point to a Script. The Script is absolute. It doesn’t matter what came before or after. If they want you to be a bird, then it’s engraved in stone.”

Frost wasn’t convinced. Acedia received a role she coveted, whereas Frost felt like she was in an entirely different body. Raoul was Raoul. Their given namesakes for their roles didn’t help with the confusion either.

Confessor, Everyman and Five Wits.

I can’t call it a play when it feels more like a survival-horror story.

“If the survival-horror part is a theme of the play, then it is still part of the play regardless of how you feel. Acedia has gained a role she had always desired. Perhaps it is tied to a wish? Or one’s purpose?”

You might be onto something. It was her wish, but that doesn’t explain Raoul and I.

Did Raoul secretly wish to be a woman? Frost didn’t think so. Raoul’s shoulders slumped as she released a small sigh, and responded with a quiet: “No,” as though reading Frost’s mind.

Additionally, Frost didn’t desire to be a child. It was unideal and only neutered her if anything.

Could it be because of the Fragment? Or Joy maybe? That talk about having kids might’ve manifested on me. But how does that make sense?

Frost gathered the slack of her apparel into her arms, and she no sooner cut it until it could only reach her calves. The rest was thrown into the [Dimensional Storage].

The beauty of the Coat of Sanguine Prejudice was that it could self-repair using blood, so there was no need to concern herself about needing to find Kissaria or Enoch to repair it later.

“We’ll have to see what the others are like first to get an idea of what this is.” Frost surrendered. “Acedia. You’re about as fast as me right now. Carry Raoul. And here, attach this to your waist.”

“Mother’s string! It’s just like–!”

A flash of superheated steam erupted from Acedia’s finger when she attempted to pluck a strand. Raoul had thrown herself back in time to avoid the explosion, whilst Frost was left consumed by it.

“Raoul, you alright!?” Frost fanned the steam away.

“Oi.” Raoul patted a smoking patch of fur along her tail. “Anyone teach you common courtesy in Oboros Infinitas? I’m suppressed enough.”

“Humorous that the suicidal wolf would leap from an opportune moment to die.”

A scathing voice came from within the remaining steam. Blood gushed forth from a small wound along a hand which had reached out to Frost. The other hand clasped at its wrist, as if presenting a sacred relic.

“B-But… Ha… Aaaaah… I can understand why you’d be afraid.” Acedia limped forward. “This… is called a sensation. The throbbing… Would be pain…”

The introduction of emotions and a body capable of sensation brought her back to the same moment when Joy first experienced pain. Frost’s instincts kicked in, and she cradled that hand close.

Wrinkles of pain expressed along Acedia’s face instantly vanished, for she could not make such a face in front of her Mother.

“Yes, it’s pain. Have you never felt it before?” Frost asked.

“I’ve felt similar sensations. Milder. Numb. The tingling in my throat. But, compared to this, it must have come from the humans I swallowed whole. I see. Their struggles, each kick… those weren’t sensations after all.”

Acedia was on the verge of collapsing from a wound that produced blood no larger than a grain of rice. Frost’s mouth opened, but her voice betrayed her. She was about to comment about how [Painkiller] should have prevented this, but in truth, [Painkiller] was a Passive Skill rather than an Ability.

“Gaaah… Mother… What should I do? This blood… Oh no, it’s dribbling…”

“Leave it. Don’t worry about it. One drop is nothing. Keep it together, alright? Raoul. Sorry, but can you lead the way? The path ahead is safe. I have scouts moving around us.”

Frost did not blame, nor humiliate Acedia for grieving over such an insignificant injury. Were Acedia to complain about this in public, then she would be disgraced on the spot, and there would be a massacre.

Instead, she coddled Acedia. It was strange because she had her body, but in her heart, this did not matter, because Frost saw people beyond mere appearances.

Back on Earth – in her ‘previous’ life – nurses would react worse to a mere needle prick, so this wasn’t as shocking to her.

“Try to use long-range Skills. It shouldn’t be possible to get hurt with your DEF stats. But…” Frost paused for a moment, and she slowly began pulling Acedia behind her. “… It still hurts, ok?”

The reason she paused was not exactly known to her.

She wanted to put it into words, but she suppressed it, like how the outside force was suppressing her violence.

“I can see why they liked you.” Raoul didn’t elaborate further. Despite this, Frost knew exactly who she was referring to.

“You’d be surprised by how much of an impression you can leave by being a little empathic. But, with those three, I think it had more to do with sticking by their side.” Frost smiled, feeling the taught string slacken.

Raoul had stopped momentarily beyond the fog. The string soon became taught again as footsteps played from ahead.

“Nonsense. Those three… especially that Cer, would have been better off alone.”