Chương 46: 9.2 Skill Tree?

"Uhh... Not that I'm questioning the Gods but, where's the other glove?"

And wasn't that another thing that didn't really make sense... "It's only one piece, unfortunately."

Still, flexing my fingers through the fur-covered glove, the overall feel of it was quite comfy. Far from what I'd expect from a glove made directly with wolf skin. It... kind of clashed with my current clothes, however.

"Well, it still looks cool," Shizu beamed. "Does it do anything else?"

"I don't think so," I replied. "I think it just gives me more protection from enemy attacks."

Or at least, I thought it did. For some reason, I couldn't find any sort of defense stats for it... or for any of my other clothes for that matter. More bugs, Guidance?

"It's still a trophy!" she proudly declared with a pout. "Oh, I'm kind of jealous now! I should've gotten something cool for my efforts too!"

I blinked at the princess's childish behavior. It was kind of surreal to think that this was supposed to be an Imperial Princess, but I guess that was Guidance's design for her. Can't diss the artist's vision for their characters and all that.

"Say, can we do it again?"

I almost froze on the spot. Did I just hear her correctly?

"Can we, Stranger?" Shizu repeated, confirming my moderate fears as she beamed at me with hopeful excitement. "Maybe I can get a cool glove of my own!"

My brows furrowed instantly as my thoughts ran wild. Could we even repeat that fight? Did the game even work that way?

"I think we should ask Guidance for some specifics first before we try it," I reasoned out. "We wouldn't want to go back there and find nothing, right?"

"But Wolf Kings always come back!" she countered, a hint of nervous desperation leaking through her lips. "I wanna fight it again! I think I can even do it on my own!"

Oh dear.... "We almost died earlier. You know that, right?"

She pouted out, "But we know how it moves now. We can dodge its attacks very easily!" She then clenched her fists in apparent excitement, "I really want to try out more of these new [Moves] my mind is giving me."

Easy for you to say! "We have to err on the side of caution, Shizu. Do you wanna die out there?"

"Of course not," the princess casually responded, a semblance of what little grace she should have oozing out for a second there. "Why would I even die to it?"

I couldn't help but stare dumbfounded at her bullheadedness. At this point, I had to commend her mindset for being this stubborn and confident with her own abilities.

"You know what? Fine," I relented. "But we should still ask Guidance first for-"

"Yay! I get to punch stuff again!"

My heart almost skipped a beat as Shizu pounced on me again before I could prepare myself. Our gazes locked for a split second, the manic glee in her eyes shone with a relentless zeal as she panted right into my neck. My hairs stood on their ends, a chill running down my spine as a strange feeling washed over me.

What in the world did I just unleash into this world? Also, "What do you mean, [Moves]?"

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"I don't know what they are either, but calling it that just felt right."

I blinked at Shizu's haphazard explanation of what she now termed as [Moves]. As we made our way back into the heart of the forest, I took the opportunity to grill her for whatever scraps of information I could use. And based from a technical standpoint, what she said to me honestly just sounded like another term for a skill system. I mean, it was natural to have some kind of it in the game, but Guidance hadn't told me anything about it yet. Then again, Shizu was level 80, so she might just have her own move list that would unlock for me at higher levels.

"So that [Heat Action] of yours earlier was one of your moves?" I questioned.

"Yes? It just popped into my head earlier while we were fighting," Shizu pondered, a finger landing on her chin as she explained herself. "It just felt natural, you know?"

"Right..."

Well, that was to be expected from someone native to this world. For someone like me, however, I needed an actual tutorial to even access the damn thing.

"Guidance hadn't told me anything about it," I hummed as our surroundings slowly became that of the wicked forest once again. "If I knew about it, I would've used a few [Moves] myself."

Because of course, I would! If it meant doing a bit more damage or maybe even some sort of utility, I wanted to see if I could use it. Wait... but wouldn't having a custom [Manifest] mean that the skills wouldn't be fine-tuned?

"Stranger?"

"Just thinking about something," I mumbled out. "I have a lot of things to ask Guidance later..."

"Oh! She'll be back?"

I scoffed, "She'll be back whether she likes it or not."

Hearing Shizu chuckle at the joke, I shook my head as we finally reached the clearing again. Stepping foot inside, nothing seemed to be out of place beyond the fact that, well, nothing was happening as opposed to last time. Still, a part of me was still screaming at me to run away from the burrow located dead center of the entire place.

"We're here," I called out, to which Shizu then- wait! What was she doing?! "Come back here!"

I couldn't even stop her as the gung-ho princess made a beeline straight towards the big angry wolf's house. With her fists already up, I could barely hear her talking as she seemingly taunted at the supposed wolf inside.

"I want a matching glove, wolf!" Shizu yelled out, a wide grin stretched across her face as she bounced on her feet. "Come out here so I can get it!"

I wasn't gonna lie. I actually flinched as soon as my excitable partner lightly kicked the side of the burrow, having zero care in the world as she did her best to get us both killed. "S-Shizu!"

"What?! Come out and play, wolf!" the princess taunted out some more, a bit of annoyance seeping into her tone. "Don't make me come in there and drag you out!"

Why?!