Alexanders tries to write
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Chapter 91: Lily, where did you got that folder?
🕑 Added 2025-02-07 14:00:08 +0000 UTC"I don't care about them," Elizabeth said before Evangeline could go more into detail about names and identities, "I just got an infodump about [The Nine Stars], twice in a row. I don't need or care about what they do, are or plan to do. I only want to know why they decided to be my enemy, and if they are dangerous."
Really, was that too much to ask? Elizabeth was feeling as if more and more data and lore about the world was being thrown around, why was that? Why was so much information being thrown around as if it was cheap. Wasn't this supposed to be explained across great lengths of time?
"...Such brutish methods," Selen said shaking her head, "To know if someone is dangerous, you need to understand them, or is that too hard for you to understand Starbright?"
Was that true? Yes, perhaps it was. Having information about something had helped Elizabeth in some instances; information was king in all warfare, but was that entirely correct?
No, it was not. There was something that mattered more than information.
"That is not quite correct, why are you allowing me in here near your boss then?" Elizabeth said, smirking at Selen and pointing at Evangeline, "You know not what I do, have some suspicions about how my powers work, yes, but you don't really know what I can do, do you?"
"That may be so," Magnus was the one to answer, "But we have mitigated all the possible problems, the mana within this place is sealed unless you have one of these."
Magnus said bringing a necklace from within his clothes, "This allows you to use Mana even while it is being disperced, no natural mana is allowed to be manipulated within my [Workshop] unless you have one of these."
So that was how they were doing it?
Elizabeth couldn't help but scoff at it.
"That is one way of doing it yes, but riddle me this Magnus Embersteel." Elizabeth said while summoning her status screen, "Can you block the [System] from interacting here?"
Elizabeth said as she summoned her status screen, it was quite empty at the moment since she had deleted most of the skills that had been there, following the example of what Lily had advised them at, really, only two skills survived, one because Elizabeth didn't want to risk losing Shift and not being able to use it again, even if it was almost akin to a second breathing.
That skill was too important to risk, and the second...Well, a girl needed her...things...SHE WAS NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN WHY SHE WAS KEEPING SHADOW PUPPETEER OKAY!
"Of course not," Magnus scoffed at Elizabeth, "There is no way someone could prevent [The System] from acting its divine right upon the world. What we can stop is you manipulating any degree of mana to interact with the world, so may as well."
That was a very stupid and limited way to see how their world worked, was it Elizabeth the only one that could see the problem with how their SYstem worked? Or was it because she knew how it had been made?
"Well, then you are wrong about how you see your [World]," Elizabeth said summoning her skill list, and the skills she had available and those that she had seen so long ago, at that moment she hadn't seen any reason to pick any of these, she had no need for this, it was a path she hadn't needed to walk through nor wanted to.
Why?
It was the path that Alexanders had gone throught, it felt...wrong. To take something she herself knew had discarded, only because it was convenient. Especially since the man was an asshole.
Besides, she had gotten plenty of things from him, from this chance to live, to help stabilize her soul...to some degree, it was thanks to him that she was alive, and even if the man had been impossible to deal with, she respected him to some degree.
"You tread dangerously close to heresy, Starbright," Selen said as her body was covered in the orange light of her Shift; gone was her human form, and now she was on her [Shift]; she was now closer to what Elizabeth imagined would be an archangel, or perhaps a cherub?
She was not quite good on her angeologic studies.
"Heh, so you say..." Elizabeth said, finding the skills she needed and picking them one by one. "[System Debugger], [System Override], [Code Injector]...Let's see...How about this [No shift will be available for this meeting's duration] and...[Execute]."
The change was almost inmediate, the first skill opened a new window that she had never seen, it had a keyboard included, the knowledge from the skill came flooding down into her mind, as if it had always been there. It wasn't quite how when she used other skills.
No, some people described the feeling as if they suddenly knew how to use a new arm or leg, some people went as far as to say that it was closer to suddenly learning how to use a bicycle for the first time.
To Elizabeth?
It was...not like that; it was closer to as if she suddenly remembered something she had always known how to do. It was as if she suddenly remembered that she could use something in a certain way, and yet, she was aware that this was by far what Alexanders could do at his peak, no. This was closer to being someone that learned a few tricks by standing by a master of their craft.
Elizabeth wasn't even close to debugging or understanding how [The System] worked.
But what she could do was prevent some things, mess with things, and maybe even stop them from working entirely, not for long, of course. She could percieve the pressence of the true [Administrators] of this [System].
Her Mother who was running at the back, her Papa who was shouldering the mainframe of the System, and of course...Crystal, the purple-haired girl who sometimes visited Rena.
Not like she would do much with this skill.
"What-?" After all, Selen was staring incredulously at Elizabeth, Magnus's clothes flashed for a few seconds, and his suit turned simpler, not as ornate as before. Asher...didn't change much, nor did Lily, to be honest.
As for Evangeline? She was still the same.
What did change, was that both Asher and Lily's demeanour shifted as they moved closer to Evangeline.
"That is quite the interesting trick you did Elizabeth," Evangeline said as Selen seemed to struggle attempting to call upon her [Shift], to no avail.
"Heh, serves you right." Elizabeth heard the voice of Rossie filled with malice at the back, so they could send messages to her after all?
It was good to know.
"We theorized it could be possible for some people with certain types of jobs to acquire this type of skills, but we didn't expect for someone to get them this fast..or this easily." Evangeline said turning to Elizabeth, her eyes shining in purple light as the feeling of an [Appraisal] type skill flashed towards her.
The blue screen that Elizabeth had used before registered Evangeline's skill activation and even prompted her if she wanted to block it, Elizabeth decided to not move anything quite yet.
"Hmm...not enough [Authority] to be able and read the data...But I know you now have five skills instead of two," Evangeline said, "Was this why you purged your job skills?"
"It had something to do; I did get quite the eye-opening teacher, even if she wasn't the one that was supposed to teach me." Elizabeth answered with a shrug, "Not that I'll need these, my next job will probably be different too."
"Moving away from the [Magical Girl] trope? That will be impossible for you, unless you mean moving more towards the [Shadow Villainess] trope?" Evangeline said with some mirth in her voice.
What did she mean by impossible?
"Why would it be impossible, unless the [System] stops giving me jobs? It shouldn't be that hard; it has been granting me all kinds of options in most job types, from mere [High School Girl] to [Empress]." Elizabeth said confused, "Why would it stop doing that?"
"Oh but you are mistaken, there was never a question, all [Heroes] and [Heroines] take different starting paths, but their end is the same." Evangeline said, summoning some blue screens, all with the same variation of jobs.
-Hero
-Heroine
-Hero King
-Hero Queen
-Magical Girl
-Villainess
All had something to do with those types of jobs, the type her Mother had mocked and ridiculed, even if she herself was a Magical Girl.
"You WILL be doing [The World]'s mission, it is your [Fate]." Evangeline said.
"And those that stand in my way?" Elizabeth said turning to stare at Selen who was glaring at her.
"Will be purged, be them my aides or family." Evangeline said nonchalantly, but none of the other student council members said anything about that particular point.
"Well, then it's your time to finally answer my question don't you think so?" Elizabeth said, "I have revealed quite the interesting thing to you after all."
Not that it was something relevant to Elizabeth, it was a neat trick perhaps. But Elizabeth didn't think for a second it could work against everyone.
The reason it had worked this well against Selen and Magnus was that they both were tapping into the same network from the mana dampeners, and Elizabeth got the impression that both Asher and Lily could probably break her seal.
Evangeline of course also could. Of that one, Elizabeth had no doubt.
Besides, if Selen took a few seconds to think, she would notice that Elizabeth had only stopped her from using [Shift], not from using any of her other normal spells or skills. So really, this seal wasn't that good to begin with.
"[The Galaxidae], the most obvious answer is that they didn't recognize your servant as someone working for [Akasha]," Evangeline said for starters.
"I knew that, they said as much." Elizabeth deadpanned back.
"Well, they are quite...proud. The most likely answer is that they planned to search for the summoner using the minion they sent to you. Awaiting for you to show some promise, something stopped them from doing so and or are waiting for you to go to them, since your minion returned..." Evangeline said turning to stare at the shadow from where Reginald had returned to the Shadow Haven, "They will probably come on their own, or maybe attempt to go for you when you are at a weak point in life, as a [Hero] chosen by the world that is bound to happen sooner or later, if it hasn't happened yet."
"If it hasn't happened yet?" Elizabeth asked back, that tone implied that it had happened.
"I mean, you have had your weak moments, right?" Evangeline said, turning to Lily. "She has, hasn't she Lily?"
"Yes," Lily answered, "After the [Advent], she was in a Mana-induced coma; she was nearly abused (There is no evidence of abuse) by personnel of the clinic."
CRACK
"....No evidence as I was saying," Lily carried on as if she hadn't heard the mana cracking under the pressure coming from Elizabeth, "She was also at a weak spot during the finals of the second grade when she was nearly assaulted by Suzuki Akira, [The Warden of Justice]."
CRASH
A lightning strike burst open one of the office's walls, wonder how that happened?
"You are getting awfully confident for someone who only managed to momentarily disrupt two of four bodyguards." Asher said as his thunder flew towards the broken pieces of rubble, these shone in the light of Asher's thunder and levitated back to their spot, how had he done that?
The bimbo part of her brain said that it was merely some trick using magnetism. The not dumb part of her mind said that magnetism didn't work like that.
Either way, Elizabeth would not think about that, she had a bigger fish to fry.
"After that event, she remained at a previously abandoned empty lot that turned out to have a house. The registry all pointed it to be in the name of Elizabeth Starbright," Lily continued as if nothing had happened, "She remained there for some time then disappeared from the premises, leaving [World-class wards] to protect her home."
"As in world-class wards? Hah, so that's why you got so cocky?" Selen laughed, "As if mere world-class defenses are enough."
"[World-class], not World-class," Lily corrected Selen, "This meant that those wards are designed to protect a [World]; anything less than an attack meant to destroy a [World] would be meaningless."
"Hah?" Selen turned to Lily, "How does that make sense?"
"Mother is very good at what she does," Elizabeth said with a smirk, "You should take that into consideration next time."
Not that Elizabeth could move or manipulate those wards, besides turning them On and whitelistening someone into the ward defenses. But even then, that was enough most of the time, Elizabeth had a few ideas of how to mess with people using that.
Not that those people would survive long after she whitelisted and suddenly removed them from the whitelist. The wards would probably kill them the second they got removed from the list.
But then again, that was one easy way to deal with people.
"Right, then you moved to Germany, where you disappeared yet again after causing a mana terrorism incident." Lily carried on as if nothing, again. "You disappeared from [Zaanam] and showed up on the streets of Germania as if nothing happened, twice."
"...That wasn't me." Elizabeth said in a low voice.
"Right...they never introduced themselves til they interacted with a couple [Magical Girls] sent to give some relief, they introduced themselves as [Elemental Weaver] aka Elzbeth and [Shadow Empress]. Your [Shifts]." Lily nodded to Elizabeth, "Leaving aside your... amnesia problem, you somehow managed to create a [Doppelganger] and give it some degree of independence, which one was you by the way?"
"..." Elizabeth decided to not answer that question, she wasn't quite sure if someone could even do what Lily had implied Elizabeth did. She sure as hell didn't do that. Even if she could indeed give [Doppelganger] some independence, it was closer to...a fake reincarnation than anything.
Not something she was willing to do often, she didn't regret doing that to Mordred, even if she had done it in a moment of weakness as a petty move against [The Shadow Tide].
"Either way, after some encounters, you, your Doppelganger, and the two [Magical Girls] disappeared on the outside of the city you got found. Only to reaper and confront [The Shadow Tide]." Lily carried on with her explanation. "At that moment you almost got defeated, again. Only to somehow wrestle the win using some special type of Lightning."
"And your point is?" Elizabeth asked annoyed.
"You have been in weakened states plenty times, and they haven't moved against you. Have you thought about that?" Lily said throwing a folder to Elizabeth, she caught it and read it. It had all the data that Lily had said before. "Maybe they aren't your enemies."
"They moved against me and promised to do it again. So I want to nip that in the bud if possible, so will you give me some data, or am I losing my time?" Elizabeth asked again.
Evangeline merely smiled and raised her hand, getting the attention of her four bodyguards, "Leave us." And said as much.
So it was finally time for some goddamned answers, would the [Student Council] be her enemy or not?
