Skill Assimilation.
Fire Immunity.
Control Threads.
Perfect Aim.
Lightweight Body.
Steel Reinforcement.
Reiko whispered softly to herself, as if reciting an internal list.
She was confused—her mind plagued by a single question.
How is it possible for one person to have more than one Skill?
And it wasn't just that.
That girl has six.
But what terrified the black-haired girl the most was the name of one particular Skill
Skill Assimilation.
"Who … is she … ?" Reiko murmured quietly, sinking into her thoughts as the name of that Skill echoed relentlessly in her mind.
Reiko didn't want to believe that something like this could exist.
She simply couldn't accept it.
But she had run out of excuses to deny what she had just witnessed.
Just remembering standing in front of that woman, feeling the weight of her orange gaze piercing straight into her, was so overwhelming that she had nearly suffered a panic attack right there, in the middle of the inn's silent hallway.
Her thoughts were an uncontrollable jumble of anxiety, terror, confusion, disbelief. But no matter how hard she tried to calm herself, to take deep breaths, it was all useless.
She tried not to think about it, to return to some state close to normal, but her traitorous mind kept going back, again and again, to the information window her skill "Meticulous Scan" had projected directly onto her retina moments earlier.
Fire Immunity
Tier: S
Owners: Alice, Mara
Grants the user complete immunity to burns, magic, spells, or pyromancies of the fire element.
Perfect Aim
Tier: A
Owners: Emi, Mara
Any magic, spell, or thrown object used by the user will always hit its target.
Lightweight Body
Tier: A
Owners: Rae, Mara
Causes all equipment or weapons used by the user to have their weight reduced to 0.
Control Threads
Tier: B
Owners: Cecilia, Mara
Summons magical threads that incapacitate the enemy's physical movements while they remain within the user's line of sight.
Steel Reinforcement
Tier: B
Owners: Mordred, Mara
The user can imbue their body or medium-sized objects with a liquid reinforcement as hard as steel.
The more she reviewed them in her mind, the less sense any of it made.
She hadn't stolen them.
She had copied them.
And apparently, not even S-rank skills like Alice's were exempt from being replicated.
But what truly made her blood run cold, what genuinely made her tremble, wasn't the list itself, but the skill that appeared at the very end, marked as belonging solely to Mara:
Skill Assimilation
Tier: SSS
Owner: Mara
The user can assimilate the skills of all those with ///////////////. There are no restrictions on skill copying beyond the condition mentioned above.
An SSS-rank skill.
It was the first time she had ever seen anything beyond the S category. In all her years of life, having met all kinds of people with skills, she had never imagined something like this was even possible.
To begin with, there were no records of anything beyond SS-rank.
This wasn't just extraordinary… it defied every established law, as well as all logic of the world they lived in.
And then there was the most disturbing detail of all… not even her own ability, "Meticulous Scan," an A-rank skill specialized in gathering information, could show her the condition required to activate the assimilation.
A crucial part of the description appeared censored, erased, as if something—or someone—had intervened to hide it from her.
This had never happened to her before.
And that, more than the SSS rank, more than the list of copied skills, was what truly terrified her.
"I never believed in gods, or deities, or higher designs, but now… now I'm not so sure," Reiko murmured softly, the words slipping out like a sigh heavy with resignation and fear.
She reflected on how all of this—Mara, her ability, that incomprehensible censorship—felt less like a coincidence of fate and more like the whimsical work of a bored god.
A god who, in a moment of infinite leisure, had decided to create… this.
"…I think it'd be better if I go to sleep, or I really will end up having a panic attack," the black-haired, sad-eyed girl said to herself.
Reiko simply let herself fall onto the bed, feeling the mattress give beneath her weight.
Fear coursed through her body, and her head ached just from thinking about all of it, but exhaustion was stronger.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to drive away the glowing letters of that SSS, the censorship symbols, and Mara's gaze that felt as if it had pierced straight through her soul.
I'll think of something tomorrow, she promised herself in a final spark of clarity, before surrendering completely to sleep