Newly Summoned Demoness 2 - Chapter 16 - Plans (Patreon)

They moved to the kitchen and worked at the food prep like a well-oiled machine. Elania chopped the vegetables and prepared the seasonings while Yolani handled the eggs and fried some ham.

The sizzle and pop of the pan mingled with the rhythmic chop of the knife against the cutting board. It was a musical play of domesticity that grounded both of them after the events of the day.

Yolani pulled out the rest of the morning milk from the chiller, and they sat down for their meal. Yolani finished hers quickly and ended up getting back to work on her project.

Elania watched the other girl for a moment before her mind turned inward in introspection.

When she was finally done, she took everything and began to clean the kitchen and the tools they’d used to cook.

When she began to rinse the knife, her hands froze. Water poured on it as she stared at the blade.

[Martial Bladesmanship] made it easy for her to chop vegetables. Before she’d come to Eladu, she’d have been hard pressed to chop anything into equal-sized pieces at all.

She needed to improve her skills. There was no denying that Eladu was a violent and dangerous world, especially because of who she was. What she was.

The months had given her time to rest and relax, get to know Yolani, and begin to put herself back together from the whirlwind that had occurred after her summoning. To the point that she had become listless—lost.

Well, regardless of what she wanted to do long term, she needed to level up her skills and make sure she was capable of keeping herself, and whatever she cared about, safe. Even if she only had a fuzzy idea about what she wanted, those things were absolute.

The epiphany lit a fire inside of her.

Elania turned off the water and hurried out into the workspace. “Yolani!” Elania began hurriedly.

The other girl peeked out from behind a project, worry appearing in her expression. “Elania?”

“I need to work on my skills!” Elania replied.

Yolani blinked for a few seconds. “Okay?”

Elania shook her head. “I’ve been wasting time. I really need to work on getting the right skills and leveling them up.”

The other girl scratched her cheek with a gloved finger. “But you already have a ton of S+ rank skills. More than… well, probably anyone other than the Magisters.”

Elania nodded. “I know, but a lot of them aren’t very helpful or I’m useless at them. Especially the personality ones.”

Yolani giggled. “Well, you have to put a bit more effort into things than just trying to yell [Negotiate] at the person…”

“I only did that once,” Elania muttered. “The point is, I’m pretty much set to be a combatant. Even if I enjoyed making things as much as you, [Artifice] makes my head hurt and no matter how much you repeat things, it hasn’t gone up a single rank.”

“Because ranks generally come from understanding and aptitude. The fact you can gain levels from absorbing animals, monsters and… people… well, it’s an artifact of you being weird,” Yolani said, her expression replaced with seriousness.

“We can’t really know what creatures will level up different skills, because there isn’t any open knowledge on it,” Yolani continued. “There are places more friendly to demons in the far east, and maybe there would be more information near the scar, but it’s hard to find things like that here.”

“I think something changed when my potency stat morphed,” Elania stated. “I haven’t been able to gain skills like I used to.”

Yolani turned thoughtful before nodding. “I’ve never heard of ‘ascendant’ before, but it probably had an effect. Although the difficulty of getting new skills might just be because of how many you already have.”

“Getting blocked out of important skills I need is not a good thought,” Elania said.

“Normally when people get too many specific skills and don’t need one, they evolve them into a more general skill that covers more things. Like, if you don’t need the [Swordsmanship] skill, you could evolve it into something that is more general, like [Martial Weapons] or something like that,” Yolani explained. “And it can work backwards, too. It’s pretty free-form… otherwise people would get stuck.”

Elania let out a breath. That made her feel a lot better. She hadn’t realized that you could work through a skill backward. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“It never came up?” Yolani said with a frown.

Elania shook her head. She shouldn’t get frustrated at Yolani. “Sorry. Thank you for putting up with me.”

Yolani reached out and took Elania’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s not a problem. I don’t mind at all, and it’s part of our deal to help each other, remember?”

“Th—thanks.” It was impossible to stop the blush that appeared on her cheeks, but Elania quickly tried to shove the first thoughts that ran through her head aside. Yolani was her friend. She was nice. She was smart. She was pretty, and funny, and—

Elania straightened and moved to one of the muskets. “Like, you made a special one of these for me, but I don’t even have a shooting skill. I don’t think [Archery] counts. I’d need to practice a lot before becoming an expert.”

Yolani didn’t move to follow, and a frown crossed her lips. “I don’t think practicing at the firing range is a good idea anymore, but it’s the only one in the city… firearms aren’t exactly legal unless you are in the City Watch.”

Elania turned and raised an eyebrow. “We aren’t in the City Watch, and we have an entire arsenal.”

Yolani crossed her arms. “You know what I mean. We’re the ones working on them, so of course we have access. I meant for walking around the city and the like. How many people have been carrying around muskets?”

That was a good point. The only people with the firearms she had seen so far were guardsmen. She had a pretty good idea what they’d do to someone carrying one around illegally, too…

“And going out into the caverns to practice would be a pain in the ass, even if it would be far more likely for it to be acceptable to take the musket out into the Depths,” Yolani continued.

“Maybe you can modify one not to shoot full power? We had guns like that on Earth. Paintball, Airsoft, things like that,” Elania said.

“I have no idea what those are. I could lower the power, yes. To avoid the sound and practice without scaring all the neighbors? But that doesn’t solve the fact that you can’t practice here in the shop.”

Yolani found a seat by the workbench and leaned back, adjusting her goggles. “There are too many fragile things to smash up, and we can’t let that happen again.”

Elania almost agreed without thinking, then froze, looking into the back workshop where the shower’s water pipes ran into the small crawlspace where they connected to the sewer. “What…what if we built a basement under the shop? You’re always complaining about not having space.”

Yolani stared at her for half a minute before finally blurting out a “What?”

Undeterred, Elania’s eyes sparkled with the idea. “Why not build one? Expand the shop downward?”

“Expand the shop?” Yolani echoed, the concept clearly a novel one to her.

Elania nodded enthusiastically. She could almost see the gears in Yolani’s head begin to turn like they usually did when the girl faced a complex [Artifice] problem. It was almost like she was being transported into a whole new world while considering the project.

Yolani finally let out a deep breath. “Expanding buildings isn’t commonly done in Neftasu, not without good reason. I’d need to investigate what’s under the shop. If there isn’t any major pipage or sewer work running underneath, then… maybe.”

The girl’s verdant green eyes flickered to Elania. “Then there is getting permission from the City Works, who are notorious for turning down any and every expansion request unless it was their idea in the first place. I don’t even know where to start with getting a permit…”

Elania grinned widely at her. “Good thing we have a meeting coming up with Magister Keswick then, isn’t it?”

The thought seemed to strike a chord with the other girl, who turned thoughtful.

“I’ll start looking into it,” she conceded. “But even if we make a large basement, it may not be the best for practicing shooting. I doubt we could extend it much into the street, and it’s going to take a while and probably cost a lot…”

Elania’s smile didn’t falter. “Probably won’t be great for distance shooting. But what if you build some mechanisms that can move the targets around randomly? I can practice close-quarters accuracy, swapping magazines, archery… throwing. Plenty of stuff.”

Yolani’s eyes lit up like she’d just been thrown a bone.

“Moving targets in a controlled environment? That react to the user’s score and performance to provide variable challenge? I could… design some [Artifice] constructs for that purpose,” she said with a growing excitement.

Elania watched as Yolani’s gaze shifted to the corner of the room where a pile of gears and tools lay. It was clear the other girl was already envisioning the project.

“I should take Sergeant Harlock up on his offer for combat training as well,” she said, almost to herself.

That broke Yolani out of her [Artifice] inspired bubble. “You think you really want to do all that? It’s not like we can’t afford the training from Ironfist, but I doubt they would go easy on you.”

Elania shook her head. “I don’t plan to join… just learn and do some actual practice with weapons. I’ve always just improvised…which makes sense because that’s my main combat skill, but I think some more formal instruction might be a good idea.”

Yolani nodded. “I think it would be good as well. Less likely you just let them stab you in the future…”

“Hey! It’s usually a good idea since it locks down their weapon and then I can hit them back,” Elania countered.

Yolani frowned. “That’s what I’m worried about. Eventually, someone will have something nasty to stab you with…”

Elania winced. The truth was, Yolani was right.

And someone had already stabbed her with something nasty—the [Vorpal Dagger] that she used had lost its poisonous effect, but at the time it had nearly melted her insides until she had purged it with a blast of [Power] that had chunked her internals.

[Regeneration] was amazing, but relying on it so much… probably would not be good for longevity. One thing she had learned was there were always more nasty things to learn about in Eladu.

Breaking free of her contemplation, she realized that Yolani was staring at her.

“What’s gotten into you all the sudden?” she asked, a teasing edge to her voice.

Elania returned a small smile. “I just… I feel like I have been stuck for a while. Being pulled along… being proactive… might be a change of pace that I’d like. Instead of reacting all the time.”

Yolani’s expression softened. “You probably just needed some mental rest. Time to adjust to all the changes. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“That probably goes for both of us…” Elania mumbled.

“Yeah.” Yolani nodded. “Well, we have mostly finished repairs on the shop. It’s really just [Artifice] equipment needing rebuilt, anyway. I don’t need you in the shop all day long, so you should have plenty of time to work on training. We can afford the tuition. It’s a good investment.”

Elania smiled. “Thanks, Yolani. That means a lot.”

The sound of a knock at the door interrupted. Yolani moved to answer it, but Elania still couldn’t hide the slight flash of tension that ran through her whenever anyone knocked.

A man greeted the other girl and handed her a letter. Yolani closed the door back and then held the paper up and examined it on her way back into the workshop.

Sitting back down, Yolani snapped the seal and opened it without hesitation. She took a moment to read it and then offered it to Elania.

“Seems like our plans are lining up with the needs of the city,” Yolani mused. “We’re asked to arrive at the Magistry tomorrow morning to see Keswick.”