An Unbound Soul

"Hey, can you hear me?" asked Jason gently, the wolf that used to be Benjamin splayed out on the floor.

He raised his head, obviously struggling, before it flopped back down again.

"It's okay. Take your time," he said, as I inspected the final results of Maximilian's handiwork. From appearance alone, there was nothing to indicate he used to be human. His fur was a light grey, unlike the darker, more wiry bristles of the dire wolves of Dawnhold. I assumed he was a lower levelled monster, but with the System now refusing to display the bulk of his status, there was no way to confirm what species it considered him.

Emma was starting to stir, and I wasn't looking forward to the reaction she'd have on discovering her new skin tone. Still, at least she was humanoid. Even Benjamin still had limbs. Noah had no such luck, and while he'd drawn himself up into a more traditional blob shape, he gave no indication of having any awareness of his surroundings.

Never mind limbs; the other two had eyes and ears. Slimes didn't. I couldn't begin to imagine what he must be feeling, robbed of his senses. Just because he had no face to display the terror on, nor eyes to shed tears, didn't mean the terror wasn't there. He was almost certainly the one of the three in most need of urgent help.

"Hey," I called out to not-Blobby. "Maximilian just attacked a village, infecting them with something that turned all the humans into monsters."

"What? You can't turn people into monsters! That's not a thing! And why would anyone even want to do that?"

"I doubt he had a reason that could be comprehended by anyone rational. And for the most part, you're right; most of the village is dead. But there are three survivors. One of them is a slime. Is there any way you can help him see or speak?"

"That makes no sense! Slimes don't have brains! Or does he have a dungeon core, like mine?"

Actually, that was a good point. He didn't have a dungeon core, but neither did he have a monster core. Yet his soul was hovering in the middle, compressed into a sphere, just like not-Blobby's. Did a monster core fulfil the tasks of a soul?

"No core of any sort, dungeon or monster."

"Then sorry, but he's dead."

"He's moving around. He's currently bumping into a wall."

"That's not possible!"

"Quit complaining that it's not possible and tell me if there's anything you can do to help!"

"How do you expect me to fix him without even understanding how he's alive?!"

"Fair... I just don't want to leave him like that. He must be terrified."

"Peter?" asked Serlv, snapping me out of my conversation.

"Sorry, I was asking not-Blobby if she can help Noah."

"Can she?" asked Jason, who was gently stroking Benjamin's head as the poor wolf struggled to learn to control his body.

"She doesn't even understand how he's alive without a core."

"Urggg," came a raspy groan from Emma.

"Emma!" shouted Mia, shoving Lucas away from where he was still trying to stop her from watching. "Are you okay!?"

"Ik," she answered, trying to speak but stabbing her tongue on her newly pointed teeth on the very first syllable.

She floundered around in growing horror as she failed to stand upright, or make any intelligible noises. Benjamin gave a little whine in sympathy, having at least been awake and understood what had happened, causing Emma to turn around and look at him.

And then, realising she was in a room with a monster, she screamed. She had no trouble getting that noise out, but her attempts at backing away failed rather miserably as she ineffectually scraped her spindly limbs against the floor, trying to push herself backwards.

"It's okay! You're safe!" shouted Mia, breaking away from Lucas and running to her friend, wrapping her in a big hug.

Emma looked around in confusion, still not having realised her own condition.

I stepped back, trying to put aside the horror of the situation to think about practicalities. All three victims had lost the chains of Law. Besides the evidence of [Soul Perception], Benjamin had attacked Jason. And they weren't just hanging loose; they'd faded away completely, implying the Law no longer considered them valid targets. That meant that just like they were now capable of violence, others were capable of violence against them.

Given their appearance as low-levelled monsters, with two of the three lacking vocal cords, they were in great danger meeting anyone who didn't know them. They could be killed by anyone who didn't know they were people, although I'd hope that most people would question why a monster was casually lounging around in a village before attacking.

There was also the food question. Monsters didn't require physical food, subsisting off mana in the same way as demons, but none of the three had monster cores. Would that impact their ability to absorb mana? Using [Mana Sight] to internally scan them revealed Emma and Benjamin had a digestive tract, but there was no way I could tell if it was functional, or if eating would achieve anything. Even dungeon monsters could eat, if food delivered itself to them, but it served them no purpose.

For the people question, perhaps we could get Benjamin a collar. Something obviously man-made, that would indicate he wasn't wild. Emma was already wearing clothes, although they'd need refitting. Noah's best bet would be to take a page from not-Blobby's book and learn to rearrange himself into a humanoid shape.

Noah had continued his rolling around the room, bumping against walls and furniture. He stopped each time, flowing around table legs in a way that suggested he was feeling them out. Despite his lack of other senses, he must still possess touch. Then the best I could do was let him know there were still people here. I held out a hand in front of him, fingers splayed apart in an attempt to make it obvious that it was a hand, and he bumped into it, engulfing me up to the wrist before pulling back.

... From the way my hand was stinging, that may not have been a great plan. But at least he knew there were people here now, perhaps helping him not to panic.

"I have no idea what our next action should be," admitted Serlv.

"Helping these three. I can't think of anything better to be doing."

It wasn't like all our problems had gone away, but there was nothing that needed immediate action. Maximilian was dead. If he reincarnated here, hopefully it would be without memories, or else the Law would take him before he was able to do anything. If it was elsewhere, the System would hopefully keep him out, and there was nothing we could do about it anyway. I could hardly search Earth for him, let alone whatever other worlds may exist.

We were still corrupting Earth's children, but now had the ability to turn it off, which we should do sooner rather than later, but that was their problem, not ours. Earth could no longer contact us, and we weren't about to contact them.

Harry's new portal generator would be online soon, but not within the next few days, so it wasn't something I needed to worry about immediately. And even when it was ready, we could just... not use it. We no longer needed his aid to block incoming portals, so his research had been rendered largely irrelevant.

And speaking of Harry, we now had an easy way to protect his group from the Law, but Serlv wouldn't cooperate. Maybe she'd change her mind now, since returning to Earth had been removed as an option. But again, that wasn't an immediate issue; he had plenty of time before the Law started interfering with his actions. And again, it wasn't my problem; it was his, and it wasn't something that threatened me or this world. He was welcome to try to convince Serlv on his own. A selfish way of looking at it, perhaps, but I had enough issues of my own to deal with.

Sometimes, I missed the quiet desk job of my old life. Although ten seconds with Cluma was enough to remind me the trade had been worth it. Once there were no imminent emergencies and I had a few hours to myself, I was going to need a serious hug recharge. And maybe a spot of tail brushing, if I wasn't too embarrassed to mention the subject.

"And how do you propose we do so?" she asked, reminding me that hugs were still firmly confined to the future.

"Ask the System?" I suggested. It had become something of a cheat code. Could we just walk in and say 'System, make these three human again'? Preferably prefixed with the question 'what will you do if we ask you to make these three human again?' I'd spent enough time wrangling computers recently to notice some of the obvious traps their 'do as you tell us to, not what you want us to' mentality could cause. Asking the System to make them human again could result in it killing and reincarnating them, for example.

"Very well. All this travel is becoming vexing, but I have no better suggestions, and it is indeed a truly powerful tool."

Leaving the kids in the care of Jason and the village's beastkin, we once again crossed the continent, asking the System what it could do.

Alas, it could do nothing.

"You changed Cluma's race," I muttered under my breath, which was perhaps not quite true. It was only her sub-race that had changed. All the System had done was tweak her status and give her a repaint.

It didn't even seem sure what they were. I could still look them up in the database, and they had the density of information I'd expect for their ages, but the wall of information made even less sense than usual. Normally, it was as if someone had taken a thousand pages of text and overlaid them; I could tell there was comprehensible information in there, but I couldn't work out how the words matched up. Now there were no words. It was a thousand pages of foreign languages written in alien alphabets.

"This is useless," opined Serlv. "We should take the children to the Synklisi orphanage, where the workers can take their time teaching them new forms of communication."

I wasn't so sure; there must be something we could do with our complete control over the System. It would just need a little thinking outside the box. Perhaps not-Blobby would have an idea.

... Wait. Sheesh, was it really that obvious?

"System, are there telepathy skills?"

Serlv raised a ridged eyebrow, but assented to my question.

Information: Yes.

"Can one be granted to Noah and Benjamin?"

Information: No.

Not an unexpected answer. With their connection to the System so confused, adding skills was likely unsafe.

"Can one be granted to Mia and Lucas?"

Information: Yes.

As tempting as it was to ask for one myself, I couldn't be everywhere and do everything. As Serlv had alluded to, those kids would need long-term care. I couldn't be there to translate for them forever.

"Well?" I asked the dragons. "Do you have any better ideas?"

"I do not," confirmed Krana.

"Nor I. Giving them an easy means of communication will do much to improve the quality of their lives," said Serlv, reminding me that I still wasn't sure how long those lives would be. They could be starving to death right now, and we wouldn't know it. The System couldn't offer any hints.

"System, grant a telepathy skill to Mia and Lucas," I requested.

Serlv sighed and declined the request.

"And I thought you were doing better in your communication this time," said Krana, with a slight rumbling undertone that I vaguely suspected was a snigger.

What were they complaining about now? They'd just agreed that this was the best option... Ah, right. Of course.

"System, list available telepathy skills," I requested.

Bloody computers.