Chapter 179: A Messy Morning
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"Ugh… What hour is it?"
I drowsily woke up, feeling completely beaten to a pulp. I found myself lying on the couch, my head resting on the wooden floor. Around us, there were all kinds of open packages of salty and sweet snacks. Several energy drink cans were empty, and a pile of old DVDs, Video Game Cartridges, and… the rest of my friends.
Baihe was hanging from the ceiling, she had frozen her legs and got stuck there… She looked hilarious as her drool fell onto the floor, slowly freezing and leaving an icicle. My brother is going to kill me if he sees all of this.
Ah, and Annabelle is… a giant spider, just sleeping over two crushed couches and the second TV. She was surrounded by piles of half-eaten pizzas, burgers, and empty cans of energy drinks.
"Holy shit."
Those were the only words I could think about. And… Oh, Sara was also here. I do remember that she invited herself to our house late at night and joined us. She was much older than us, so she drank a lot of alcohol. A dozen cans were lying right below her. Only her body from the waist up could be seen resting on the wooden floor.
The other half was most likely on a phantasmal stage, lying on the floor below us. I was surprised nobody was complaining. Maybe her phantasmal form can't be easily seen by non-awakened. We're lucky they had not noticed yet.
["You're finally awake…"] Gram's grumpy voice echoed inside my mind. ["Get me out of here!"]
I looked behind me to see him stuck in the wall, he was constantly screaming at me to get him out of there. His other half was most likely hanging out in the open. Another push and he would fall from ten floors above. He will take no damage, sure, but he could kill someone if he falls over them.
"Alright…" I yawned, getting up and sheathing him back. "I'm sorry. We went a bit hard last night… I would feel a hangover if I had drunk any alcohol, but I feel mostly okay- Ugh, though my breath stinks."
["I can tell! Get me off your face! Now clean this place, quickly! Your brother didn't return, most likely because he went off with that angel girl somewhere… but I'm sure he's returning soon! It's already past morning!"]
"Shit… Okay, let's get this done… Everyone, wake up! Rise and shine!"
As I called out for everyone, I sent little, harmless threads of lightning into their bodies. Some were so unconscious they needed to get woken up a bit harshly.
"Uwaah! What the- AARGH! Why am I stuck in the ceiling?! Huh?! I froze my damn legs! Fuck! S-Someone help me!" Baihe panicked. "I am not good with heights!"
"You're not good with heights despite having fought in the sky a few days ago?" I asked her while raising an eyebrow. "Sigh… Alright, alright. Come here, girl."
I quickly took her out of there by cutting the ice and catching her like a princess…
"My hero!" She kissed my cheek. "Burp…" And then burped right in front of me.
"Yeah nope." I dropped her onto the floor, startling Sara awake.
"Wha- Shit my body's half phantasmal… Ugh." Sara groaned, slowly pulling herself back up.
And as the two woke up, Annabelle slowly opened her eyes. Her many eyes. She looked around, confused. And then noticed her large and long legs. Her many legs. She started to slowly panic.
"Uwaaah! Why am I in my bug form?! W-What happened, Anna?!" She cried with a guttural and monstrous voice.
"I think eating too much food might have triggered your body to transform or something… We'll need to work on that later. It might be essential for your transformations." I smiled.
"Uuuggh!" Annabelle started groaning, and then her giant jaws opened, vomiting a pile of… everything she ate last night. "Guuaaggh… Uuugghh…"
And as if it were a miracle, her entire body slowly shrank, turning into a palm-sized black spider. We were all left speechless. She can turn into a tiny spider?! It seems her transformation ability is much more than just a big monster.
"Woahh… I'm tiny." She looked around, dizzily walking around. "I-I didn't know I could shrink like this!"
"Well, we discover a new thing every day, dear friend." I crossed my arms. "Anyways, let's quickly clean this before my brother gets here and he kills me- no, kill us all."
"Yikes, yeah… We need to get this done ASAP." Baihe nodded.
"I'll help as much as I can! Ugh… But I got such a hard hangover. I drank so much…" Sara cried. "Just when I thought I had finally left alcohol I went back to it."
"Well, I had no idea you could even get drunk in your current state…" I laughed.
We spent the next thirty minutes cleaning the entire place frantically. I quickly used my crafting skills to repair the couch and the TV back. Something I didn't know I could do until I tried. However, it didn't work as well with magic items. Non-magic and simple items can be easily reconstructed like this by simply using the pieces left from them as "materials", and a lot of Mana.
I stored all the trash inside my inventory and then we used magic to leave the entire place as clean as we could… we decided to leave the pile of DVDs and game cartridges behind anyway. Those were of my brother. He was an avid gamer before the Apocalypse began, and seemingly still played old games whenever he had time.
"I'm back."
Just after that, my brother opened the door, accompanied by a sleepy-looking and tired Henrietta. Her hair was a mess yet was smiling like they had a good night. Hmm, they had a wild night, alright.
"Oh, there you are!" I said, pretending to be completely right. My friends were all sitting on the couch, pretending to watch whatever TV channel was on. "I was about to make pancakes. We woke up a bit late today…"
"Anna! Everyone! Good morning." Henrietta waved her hand at everyone. "Hm? Sara? You're here too?"
"E-Eh? Ahh… Well, Anna invited me last night." Sara said shyly.
"Yeah, yeah." I nodded, letting her be. "Anyways, how was your date? Looks like you ended up taking the whole night on that date."
"T-That's… Well, yeah." My brother blushed a bit. He was clearly embarrassed when recalling what happened. "Well? Not like it is your problem, Anna…"
"Heheh, I know~ I'm just happy my brother is all grown up now for real." I smiled. "I really thought you would stay single all your life. Seeing how you're always just thinking about dungeons, monsters, and killing constellations."
"You…" My brother facepalmed a bit. "D-Don't have to say it like that! A-Anyways, let me help you with that breakfast. I want eggs with bacon too. Honey, what do you want?"
Honey?! He called Henrietta honey! Holy shit they really love each other.
"Anything would be good dear." Henrietta smiled cutely. "I would love eating anything you make."
"Alright then." Jack nodded. "I'll make you the best eggs with bacon… Also waffles too. We can't eat pancakes every day, Anna."
"Huh? But you love these! Don't say you don't like them now… Are you trying to pretend you're all cool and stuff?" I giggled. "That's honestly cute!"
"N-No! I didn't mean it like that!" My brother kept getting embarrassed. He was so easy to tease with these things.
We spent the next hour and a half just talking, cooking, and eating as a big family. I considered my friends my family, and my brother didn't really mind them either. He already recognized them as companions after many battles.
Once we were done, Annabelle quickly decided to go back home, where Scarlet was living. Henrietta also went off with Sara, both needed to get back to their guilds. Henrietta also had a brother she wanted to spend time with, so she couldn't be with my brother the entire day. And so, it was just the three of us, my brother, Baihe, and me.
"I'll be going to train downstairs, Anna. I have a lot of new Skills and Abilities I need to train. I know we're taking a break, but I consider this part of my break." He said. "Let's go mutt."
"Who are you calling mutt?!" Fenrir barked back angrily.
"I think I'll be taking a nap now, Anna. I'm so tired…" Baihe yawned, after having taken a warm bath, she looked very sleepy. "Can we train tomorrow or past tomorrow though? I need to learn how to better use my abilities…"
"Sure! Go rest. I'll wake you up for dinner. I don't know if we'll even have lunch, it's already quite late for that." I laughed.
"Alright, what are you going to do in the meantime?" She asked.
"I think I'll assess my skills and probably all my gains. Did you get anything out of the Demon King Hunt?" I asked her.
"Y-Yeah, I got a couple of weird ticket things that fuse skills." She said. "Oh, and a cool red orb with demon spells inside."
"Wait, seriously?! That sounds awesome!" I was amazed. "You have to definitely show it to me later!"
"Heheh, sure. See ya." She walked to her room and went directly to her bed.
I'm glad she looked much more stable and calmer now. We all just needed a long break to recover. And it was just starting. And while I'll also probably take a nap later. I need to first assess everything I've gained so far. From Titles to Skills to the many Items I could use to get a bit stronger.
So once, I stepped inside of my room and sat over my comfy bed while listening to some chill lofy music, I started browsing through my System, windows appearing and disappearing.
["So you're finally looking at everything you've gained? You'll be there looking for at least three days with all the things you acquired…"]
"Oooh? Is she checking her gains? Not even I have acquired so many Titles like those! And let's not even mention those Traits! To think you stole the Traits from someone as strong as Uroboros…" Sepa was drooling as she saw my Status.
"Can the two of you shut up for a second?" I sighed. "I'm trying to concentrate… Okay, let's first see the new Titles."
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[Constellation Slayer]
A Title bestowed to a Mortal that has slain a Constellation. You've achieved the impossible and acquired a Title that will only bring more trouble to you than anything else.
You're recognized as the Constellation's enemy, and most of them will be very wary of you, but a few, might even feel attracted to you more than ever before.
Be careful, although this Title would be considered an honor, it might also be considered a curse.
Effects: +1.000 Skill Points and Stat Points. Grants access to the {Constellation's Enemy} and {Star Eater} Abilities.
{Constellation's Enemy}: Constellations naturally fear you and are wary of your existence. You naturally deal +100% more Damage to Constellations and their Incarnations and can ignore -25% of their Total Defenses. If you manage to intimidate a Constellation or their Incarnation enough, all their Stats will drop by -20% for 5 Minutes.
{Star Eater}: When killing Constellations, the rate of Assimilation of their Cosmic Energy, Cosmic Soul, and Traits increases by +200%. Bonus Stats when absorbing their power doubles.
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What the hell? This Title is insanely broken. Why did they even make something like this? I bet my brother got something similar, right?
Well, whoever made this System really hates Constellations. If I can somehow get to kill another Constellation, I can get even more power out of absorbing their powers.
But that's not going to be easy at all, Uroboros pretty much served himself on a silver platter because of how inexperienced and clueless he was about my abilities and gear.
I doubt we'll ever meet another Constellation that foolish… I have to be careful from now on and not let my feats raise my ego and end up getting myself killed.
I can more or less offset part of my horrendous Luck thanks to my gear increasing it, but even then, I don't have to get cocky.
Anyways, next is…
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[Demon King Slayer]
A Title bestowed to a Mortal that has slain a Demon King. Not many worlds have been saved from their Demon Kings, the mere thought of one being slain is oftentimes thought to be ridiculous by most Constellations.
However, across the Cosmos, there are some Worlds, Apex Worlds, where incredibly strong lifeforms exist. Despite being mortals, these lifeforms can rise to the top and become strong enough to battle any challenge.
As a member of such Apex Worlds, you've been bestowed with this powerful Title after helping slay the Demon King of your world.
Effects: +500 Stat Points and Skill Points. Grants access to the {Demon Killer} and {Apex} Abilities.
{Demon Killer}: You've slain the Demon King, the pinnacle of all Non-Constellation Demons. Your very Aura exudes a powerful killing intent against most Demons. You deal +200% more damage against all Demons and can ignore 30% of their Total Defenses. When fighting them, you will naturally inflict [Fear] and [Weakness] on them and decrease all their Stats by -30% for 5 Minutes.
{Apex}: You're a member of an Apex World, and after helping on slaying a Demon King, can be considered an Apex yourself. Unlock the hidden stat [Dominion (DOM)] and grant +1000 Dominion.
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[Dominion]
A Stat that determines how much you can dominate the will of weaker beings than yourself. Its effects can be combined through your Aura or any other Mind-related Ability. Affects the ability to tame and summon monsters, and their loyalty, and also can decrease the stats of foes intimidated by you based on half of your Dominion Stat. Foes three times as weaker than you are always affected by this debuff.
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A fitting reward for someone who has slain a Demon King. And I'm fairly sure not all Constellations have done the same either. So even among them, this Title is incredibly rare. But it's a bit bad too? I don't want to intimidate my demon friends if I ever meet them again.
["These Titles are broken… Girl, you're really a monster."]
"I want them too! Ugh, this is unfair! I wish I could have done the same things you did as a Mortal! Once you become a Constellation, it is so hard to gain power!" Sepa cried.
Anyways, time to look at the new Trait I unlocked.
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Can't wait to see what's next? You can join my Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/pancakeswitch
and gain access to all these Advanced Chapters:
55 Advanced Chapters of
The Protagonist's Sister Is Actually The Strongest
37 Advanced Chapters of
The Heavenly Martial Empress Returns
17 Advanced Chapters of
Fantasy Story Online: The Crippled Vampire Prince Walks The Heavenly Demon Path