Speedrun 35

(A/N: A short chapter today, my main SSD died during the weekend... -.-)

(Aletia POV)

Space warped and contorted as we appeared in a concrete jungle, a grand city on a scale I'd never seen before. I've been provided with memories and knowledge about these kind of places, but it was quite a shock seeing one in person.

Yet I couldn't enjoy the view, the weather was grotesque, with heaving winds and rainfall, however, I couldn't care about any of it right now. I was angry, so I huffed and crossed my arms, unwilling to make eye contact with the devil beside me.

"Stop sulking; I already told you I'm sorry," the devil replied with a sigh.

"You're not sorry at all," I countered, knowing all too well that he wasn't, while the devil's pet continued to enjoy its reward – a fine set of wings covered in sharp spiky feathers, created by the Devil himself.

"Fluffy, use [Camouflage], we don't want people to see you," he said to the monster, which simply vanished. The devil then looked back at me, raising an eyebrow, and asked, "Could you stop calling me 'The Devil'?"

"Could you stop reading my mind?" I huffed in annoyance, making him sigh in resignation. He waved his hand, clearing the overcast and drying up the city.

"Eh, I could, but where's the fun in that," he said with a grin, prompting me to raise the book he made me and hit him square in the head. "Ow, that hurt."

I snorted, rolling my eyes. "Yeah, like you even felt that."

"Well, I can pretend it hurts to placate your feelings," he flashed a devilish smile. "Stop calling me a devil."

"If you're not the Devil, why do I have a title calling me 'The Devil's Secretary'?" I exclaimed in annoyance.

"You also have the 'Fairy Godfathers Little Helper' one," he pointed it out making me roll my eyes, "but it might be because of the classes you've chosen," he pointed out with a thoughtful look.

"Chosen is a strong word... You forced me to take Scribe, Manager, Secretary, and Accountant. The only class I was allowed to choose was Mage!" I exclaimed in annoyance, though deep down, I was quite satisfied with the abilities those classes provided.

"Force is such a strong word," he said with a slight pout. "I offered them up to you without the ability to choose anything else." He smiled while walking towards a nearby bridge.

"How is that anything but forcing me to pick them?" I asked, following him in his steps.

"So, how do you like the system?"

"Don't change the subject!" I exclaimed, squinting my eyes at him, then sighed and simply answered, "I... I don't know how to describe it... It's fantastic? One thing is for sure; it's way above the one from my world." I wasn't lying. With the modularity and the abilities of the modules themselves, the system was, in one word, overpowered. "Although, what surprised me were my stats," I added with a pout forming on my face.

My attributes were all over the place, with my vitality, intelligence, and wisdom hovering around five hundred points. Meanwhile, my second-strongest attribute, dexterity, stood at a hundred and fifty, and everything else below fifty. My strength was abysmal, at a meager 18 points, while my luck was even worse, sitting at 8, which did explain my unfortunate luck in life. However, my resistances were even worse than these two attributes, resting comfortably at zero.

"To be honest, they're extremely high compared to what I started with," he said with a shrug as we arrived on the other side.

"But they are nowhere near your current stats," I deadpanned, and my high heels sank into the mud, making me grimace in annoyance.

"Yeah, I don't think you'll catch up to me anytime soon," he snorted, and his devilish smile made me squint my eyes, while my heart skipped a beat. 'What the hell is wrong with you, Aletia?' I shook my head, dismissing those thoughts, unwilling to let him accidentally stumble upon my feelings, which even I wasn't sure about.

"So where are we, and where did you get that sword from?" I asked, noticing the sleek sword, a katana, if I remembered correctly, neatly gripped in his hand. "I'm one hundred percent sure that wasn't there a moment ago."

"Oh, this old thing?" he said, raising the sword, pretending he just noticed it. "It is the reason we came here," he stated, as the sword dissolved into motes of light. "Also, while we're here, we'll kill two people," he said, locking his eyes on a fair-skinned woman with wavy brown hair, walking toward us with a spiky orange-haired child.

"Umm... Andy... I'm not touching the kid. While I have nothing against killing bad guys, I'd rather do it when they are older," I said, a complicated gaze as I watched what seemed like a happy family.

"Huh?" He muttered in confusion, then his eyes widened in realization, and he laughed aloud. "No, no. It's actually the opposite of what you thought," he said, tilting his head toward them. "Would you do the honors?"

I turned my attention back to the family, just in time to catch sight of the child letting go of the woman's hand to run down the side of the river, right toward...

I tilted my head in confusion, my eyes seeing something, but my mind comprehending something else, and the world blurred.

"You'll need something that can hurt souls," Andy's voice echoed from behind, and I barely noticed it. That's when I realized I was already standing between the child, his mother, and a towering monster with the body of a puppet, a little girl, hanging from its head.

The creature had a white mask, a greenish-brown fur coat, and a hole in its chest. Its maw was filled with human-like teeth, spread in a ferocious grin.

It opened its maw, releasing a roar that shook my soul. My hand trembled as lightning arched between my fingers, and an overwhelming sense of disgust surged deep within me, something primal, something I wasn't even aware of.

"Now, my dear Aletia, that is a creature known as a Hollow," Andy explained, now standing right beside me. "A corrupted human soul that feeds on the souls of both the living and the deceased." He turned around, addressing the woman defensively hugging her child, "Ah, Mrs. Kurosaki, nice to meet you. I'm a huge fan of your work," he said with a smile. Meanwhile, the Hollow attempted to interrupt him, its clawed hands raised above its head, ready to deliver a soul-rending slash.

My spell, potent enough to fell even the mightiest of creatures or, at the very least, render them incapacitated, passed through the Hollow without causing any harm, leaving me utterly flabbergasted, while its claws continued its path.

The world around me began to slow down to a crawl as my mind raced at a thousand miles per hour. Then, a system chime resonated within my head, and suddenly, everything came to a standstill.

[Skill: [Thought Acceleration] unlocked.]

I found myself unable to move, not even a fraction of an inch, yet my mind continued to operate flawlessly. However, the strain on it began to mount, as my slowed-down regeneration fought against this new skill, which felt as if it were cooking my brain.

I didn't have much time.

Drawing from my memories of Spirit Magic from my own world, the spell matrix materialized before me in an instant, and with a swift release, time resumed its normal pace.

The world bathed in a brilliant, purifying light, and the air itself seemed to shimmer and groan, stifling the creature's wretched cries before settling into an eerie silence.

As my spell deactivated, a smoking crevice remained in its wake, stretching the width of the river, and then water reclaimed its rightful place, concealing the destruction I had wrought.

"That was quite the overkill," Andy remarked from behind, causing me to stiffen before I slowly turned around. My eyes narrowed at him, but I knew I couldn't blame him. "Yes, you can't," he added with a chuckle, once again reading my thoughts. "You rushed in without hearing me out," he said, sporting a knowing smile.

I couldn't argue with him.

With a sigh, I turned to the child and its mother and asked, "Are you alright?"

"Yes, thank you," she replied, her stance still defensive. "Who are you people?"

"Oh!" Andy exclaimed happily, pointing to the woman, and making me look at him with a questioning glance. "What?!" he asked, annoyed. "Can't I be happy I wasn't asked 'Who and what I was?'"

"Why what are you?" asked the woman, pushing her child behind herself and taking a step back.

"... and she had to ruin it," he sighed, dropping his head.