Born a Monster

Type: Social, System

It was two days and one attack before Bei Lala upended a leather pouch before me, dumping out an albino spider with a red circle on its back.

“This,” she said, “is called the Heartbreaker Spider. Eat it.”

I asked it.

it sent back.

“This spider is Awakened, Aware. It is as sentient as either of us.”

“I fail to see your point.” she said.

“One ought not to eat any creature capable of asking you not to eat it.” I said.

.....

With a loud slam, her hand came down upon the spider. “What about now?” she asked. She moved aside, revealing its ruined body. “We have a room downstairs where we kill our own soldiers. Do you think I’m going to be deterred by the rights of something that isn’t even human?”

“That. Was monstrous.” I said.

“Either eat the spider or not. Will it have died for nothing?”

I ate the spider. Among the evolutions was:

[Heartbreaker Venom. Rhabdomyolytic Enzyme. Acidic Poison, rating 5. Cost to begin evolution: 300 biomass. Cost to manifest: 60 biomass. Cost per dose: 30 biomass. Focus here to purchase.]

“Well?” she asked.

“It will take another day to begin the evolution. I estimate six days to finish, another day to manifest. At most, I’ll be able to make four doses of this poison a day. And... it will require mild acids to make that.”

“How mild?” she asked.

“About half as concentrated as stomach acid.” I said.

“Would an equal mix of stomach acid and water suffice?” she asked.

“In theory.” I said. “A cup of that mixture per day should suffice.”

“And will it burn your throat?”

I chuckled. “I’ve gotten abilities that help to protect me from acid, yes.”

For example:

[Inherent Reistance to Heartbreaker Venom: 5. Cost to begin evolution: 750 biomass...]

I flagged this for my next evolution. Just in case. It wouldn’t do to evolve a poison and then die because someone kicked me hard enough to burst my venom sacs.

So, roughly.. six days, a week? No, I wasn’t factoring biomass for the cost of the poison doses. Oh crap!

[Hollow Fangs], [Venom Sacs], and [Venom Tracts]! I’d need more than just the venom. And THAT meant... more biomass than I could store at one time. I’d have to evolve the abilities concurrently, manifest them at the same time, and...

Cursed Gods! Could my System handle change on that scale and speed? I mean, nothing was above rating five, and it was only four evolutions so... maybe?

Ugh! Five evolutions, I needed [Acid Metabolism] at rating two in order to process the acids properly. This was becoming increasingly annoying. By cost, I was taking in two thirds of what made the Heartbreaker Spider unique. I mean...

It wasn’t that much more costly to unlock all the remaining parts of the Heartbreaker Spider. If I unlocked the transformation, would I become a normal sized or me sized spider?

I spent long enough wondering about that Bei Lala woke me by striking me with her fan.

“Ah! What?” I asked.

“You be careful.” she said. “Remain mindful of with whom you are speaking. Vanish into your System later. You are certain of this timeline, of what you need?”

“A source of sulphur, such as egg yolks, would also be helpful, but not required.”

“Will it help you make a fourth daily dose?”

“I would need to upgrade my System to make more. You’re talking about nine hundred sixty nutrition. In normal times, not a problem. In our current circumstances, not so likely.”

“So. A small feast, a full meal for an entire squad? Half rations for twenty?”

I blinked. Damn it, the truth could harm so many people.

“With proper recipes and food infusion, a professional Chef can make do with fewer raw ingredients.” I said, “But yes, I see nothing wrong with your math.”

“I see. But let’s see whether you can produce the venom first, whether it works. Get me that venom, and then afterward, I should be able to work that small miracle. What else?”

“That is it. Biomass, nutrition, sulphur, time.” I said.

“And you can perform your normal duties as well?” she asked.

Damn it!

“I thought so.” she said. “Finish whatever you need to with your System, and then report for your normal duties. Oh, and don’t forget to report to the basement every morning. Elder Shu has need of your services as well.”

I sighed. “I am close to the limit of what I can maintain.” I said.

“Good.” she said, “then that means you are within that limit.”

I closed my eyes, breathed deeply and slowly. How did this keep happening? What was I doing wrong, that I always ended up enslaved to others? I wanted...

Well, I wanted to get home to Achea, now the lands of the Red Tide Empire, and... work like a slave for Rakkal, a monstrous minotaur who was also the Axe Hero.

And it wasn’t as if my current work was valueless to those fighting on behalf of the guards. So... my hard work now enabled my hard work later. The hard work that I actually wanted to do.

So... math. One hundred twenty or so biomass a day, over six days, was 720 biomass before that all got converted into venom. Minus the cost of the required evolutions... I wouldn’t have the biomass for the immunity. Not by about two hundred or so points.

Attacks were coming an average of twice a week. Most of the time, they were just trying to kill the soldiers on the walls. But sometimes, like the day I’d first come to the main gate, they came with ladders and took the extra casualties that trying to gain the walls entailed.

Yet in spite of the casualties inflicted, they never seemed to lack the troops to sacrifice in the effort. If the entire inmate populace didn’t support them, where did they get those people from?

A question for another time, I decided.

Right now, I had roughly four hundred biomass of evolutions to consider.

And... just how badly did I want to become a spider?

Yes, yes. Enjoy your laughter. The death of Eihtfuhr, and of the Spider Queen, either or both of them should have convinced me that such a transformation solved none of my problems. But still... spiders had advantages over humans.

And so did any number of other animals.

But no, focus. Focus. Spiders and venom. And... could I get two hundred or so biomass from anywhere else? From anything else? It wasn’t as if...

[Wood Enzymes. Gain one extra nutrition from Wood Fiber. Inherent Only. 600 biomass to unlock.]

Well, yes, termites had that. And, in theory, it would gain me eighty biomass per day. So... a little over a week to pay back... but I’d need to find a way to take two meals. It wasn’t as if...

It was exactly if. As if I could take two midnight meals. I’d be without sleep for two nights, but ... no, I’d need manifestation biomass as well. So three nights.

Three nights, and I’d never have to worry about biomass for the rest of this miserable siege. How had I not thought of this before? For that matter, why hadn’t I ever developed the other bonus digestion methods I had access to?

Okay, so ... I’d wrangled eighty bonus biomass that I hadn’t known about when I gave Incinerator Bei my best estimates...

Nine days until I could start developing immunity to the poisons I’d be making, maybe twelve or so until the whole process was done.

IF and only if nothing went wrong. Ha! As if that was ever going to happen. I’d been alive three years at that point, and the only constant was that the universe always worked against me.

So... what, two weeks? That seemed too good to be true, which meant it probably was.

How long had I been ignoring what my Omnivore method could do for me? Just... the wasted time, the wasted potential!

Hey, and when had I gotten my Well Fed trait back working? Because if I hit Incinerator Bei with a Might rating of five...

I’d regained Well Fed at least half a day before I’d actually gotten the biomass from eating wood. How had THAT worked? It just didn’t make sense.

Unless...

Was my System using part of what it stole, and placing it into reserves for when I needed it? How would that work, and why would my System hide that from me?

So much I didn’t know about my System. It alternately seemed to be flexible, but with rigid and outdated parts. It was like it was cobbled together from pieces of multiple other Systems or...

Or maybe it was missing a piece?

No, maybe it was missing more than one piece.

Manajuwejet had rebuilt it, back when it had crumbled under the most recent strains. I’d need to remember to ask about what he’d done, whether he’d noticed anything unusual.

No, I’d need to ask him WHAT was unusual that he’d noticed. Pongo had seen something, something that he... coveted? Desired?

What was there that a god could want?