100 Misty Trickster

"Day 248. Still no signs of any intelligent life... I'm starting to lose hope. Tell my children... I love them..."

'We haven't even been here for three days yet. Shut up and keep scouting!'

Sub-me was currently facing the harsh, icy winds of Kurat in order to try and find the nearest city or village. Still using the cabin as my base, these few days had been spent mainly trying to find food and learn how my new body worked.

The problem with food hadn't been all that hard to solve, as there was plenty of wildlife around and, as a hunter, it wasn't all too hard to hunt a few cute bunnies every day.

An unexpected boon from my hunts was that I could now also transform into one myself, as I had somehow gained an understanding of them from skinning and butchering them.

Although it was pretty fun to bounce around the cabin, it felt like a pretty useless creature to have in my toolbox, but who knows? Maybe it will come in handy one day.

Aside from hunting, I had spent a lot of time trying to get a feel for how much mana I now had, which had an explosive increase after becoming an apostle. Also, I had to figure out how many Skills I could use before I just fell over and died.

From all my experiments, the strangest thing had been the fact that transforming into a snake, wolf, raven, or bunny only consumed a bit of mana during the transformation, but transforming into another human drained a tiny amount of mana every second.

The same thing applied when I changed my own body, making me unable to even grow a single centimeter before my mana started to slowly disappear. Thankfully, although I couldn't make myself taller, my little rebirth had already made me grow to just under 180 cm.

Also, for some reason, my dark brown eyes had changed to an almost glowing sky-blue color.

"Haaa... It's too confusing..."

It made no sense. How could I turn both of my arms into snakes, change my legs into the hindlegs of a wolf, and at the same time conjure my big wings with only an upfront cost in mana, but just turning my hair gray would continuously consume it every second?

"Still, it's an invaluable skill for me... If I'm going to infiltrate Kuul and interact with the demons and the king, it will be insanely useful."

Kuul, the capital of Kurat, was the only name of a city that I could remember from reading about the country online. That was where the king lived, a king who had somehow united at least a part of the snowy lands, a unity that he had created with absolute force.

Sadly, there was a lot that I had to do before I could I just walk to the capital and try to influence the intrigues that were going on behind the scenes. After all, I didn't even know what I should do yet.

Even more, I didn't even fully understand my own status yet.

'Status'

===Status===

Name: James Jackson

Rank: C

Strength: F+

Agility: D

Stamina: ?

Intelligence: C

Mana Capacity: B-

--> Main Manual:

[Misty Trickster - Ungraded] - Major Understanding.

-Core Skill: [Double Trouble]

-1st Skill: [Swap]

-2nd Skill: [Materialize]

-3rd Skill: [Detonation]

--> Elemental Affinity: Mist

->Elemental Skills (Affected by [Misty Trickster] Manual): [Dome of Mist], [Orb of mist], [Misty Vessel]

==========

A lot of things had stayed the same, like the Skills that the [Trickster] Manual was inherently carrying, however, it seemed like both of my earlier Manuals had fused when Loki rebuilt my body.

Instead of having both the [Trickster]and the [Conjurer] Manual, I now only had one, called [Misty Trickster]. The nature of it felt pretty obvious, that all of my trickeries were now carrying an intrinsic bond with my element.

However, what it meant in practice was still something for me to discover. Maybe it hadn't actually changed anything, and the combo of my Manuals previously had carried the same potential as [Misty Trickster], with Loki only making it more obvious in my eyes.

Or, there could be huge differences that I still did not understand. I needed a lot more time in order to find an answer to this.

'My stats keeps on getting more and more unbalanced...'

It was hard to accept the fact that even though I had somewhat tried to train my body somewhat evenly, with strength being the lowest priority, my Intelligence and Mana Capacity were now well above the others by a large margin.

They had become strengthened to the point of even my overall rank jumping from [D]-rank to [C]-rank, now putting me in what could be called to be the upper echelon of hunters in Mensch.

Most hunters didn't reach [C]-rank before they died, with [D]-rank being the average of active hunters. That didn't mean that [C]-rankers were incredibly rare, just that they were a little bit higher on the bell curve.

Though it had to be said, the biggest gift, as well as the biggest curse, that I had received was the elemental Skill [Misty Vessel].

[Misty Vessel]

Description: Not unlike the gods of this world, the possessor of this Skill will not die because of physical wounds. Instead, the user's life will be dependent on the amount of mana inside the vessel. Also affects the Stamina of the user. Allows the user to store inanimate objects in his mist, if the threads of fate can determine the user's ownership.

My Stamina stat had gotten replaced with a '?', to symbolize the fact that I was not completely bound by mortal restrictions anymore, as my life was now bound to my mana instead.

There had been one time when I used a bit too much mana, and the effect was a lot more prominent than I would have wanted. Weakness had quickly invaded my body, as fatigue and nausea washed over me in an attempt to warn me to stop if I didn't want to die.

On the other hand, sub-me was able to fly for a lot longer as long as I didn't use the mana occupying that body, almost bordering on seeming endless. At some point, the physical fatigue actually started to drain the mana, as if it was used as emergency fuel to keep sub-me moving.

Then, something dragged me out of my thoughts, as my vision through sub-me finally landed on something other than just white snow, trees, or rocks.

'I found it!'

About 10km away from the cabin, there was a bustling village, filled with stone cabins all releasing a stream of smoke out into the sky. I could finally begin my quest!

****

[Arthur's Pov]

Watching the clowns on the tv in the freshmen lounge continue their talk about what had happened at the square, I felt my mind growing more and more confused with every day that passed by.

"-The royal house has now finally released an official statement about the Jackson incident. From their investigation, they have concluded that the individual known as James Jackson has some sort of ties with the demons. The execution was something planned by the demons, functioning as some sort of strange ritual to awaken the injected demonic blood in the criminal. More information will be given after the weather report."

'There's no way he carries demonic blood... I would have felt it...'

It had been insane to realize that James was the one who had saved me from the octopus demon known as Ursula. The being I had thought of as an angel hadn't been sent from Theia, it had been my own classmate coming to my rescue.

The majestic black wings and the white mask; There was no doubt that it had been him.

"James... Do you believe them? Do you think James got turned into a demon?"

The beautiful pink-haired woman at my side hadn't been the same for almost two weeks now. Replacing her confident and strong will, she had become a meek shell of her former self. Even after her legs had been healed, she could no longer stand tall.

I no longer had to look up to the woman I loved, now it was her who looked up to me for support.

"I don't know. I don't think anyone knows at this point. There is still too much missing information."

Sadly, I couldn't give her the answer she wanted. Not before I was sure myself. It pained me to have to see her force herself to smile, even when her eyes weren't. It pained me, even more, to realize that she had just lost the one person she could fully relax around.

There was no doubt about the fact that she also had romantic feelings toward me, but I wasn't James. It was only around James that the bad-tempered, silly Sophie emerged. A friend that she had assumed would be a part of her life for a long time, someone she unconsciously relied on.

"Are you saying that my father lied?"

An icy cold princess that didn't bear the ice element had arrived, her thoroughly washed golden hair still carrying the aura of being bloodied. It wasn't just Sophie who had changed because of all that happened.

When Sarah returned to Ainu, she wasn't the same innocent girl who tried her best to fit her role as a princess anymore. Instead, the ambiance around her was a lot colder, giving out an almost raw kind of feeling.

Although her gorgeous face was smiling, there was not a hint of happiness in her tone.

"James died last week. He died in order to summon that demon from hell. That's all there is to it."