Space Core

It took a while for Lethe to wake up, and so I spent some time thinking about what other questions I wanted to ask her. The most prominent of those being my affinity, I found it strange that I couldn't find any mention of affinities in my system. Why would the system not show it to me?

Another question of mine was about the reputation of the space affinity, who knew if it was extremely common and simply seen as useless? Though it could also be super rare and something others would be envious of...

Before I could ponder things any longer, I heard Lethe groan in obvious discomfort and then start talking, "hmm... where am I... oh right."

I let her wake up a little bit more before talking to her, I knew to never speak to someone that clearly needed a cup of coffee unless they spoke to me first.

Of course, I ignored my preservation instinct. "So, did you sleep well?"

Lethe glared at me with the range of a thousand men and the evil of a chihuahua... "I just woke up, would you mind waiting a little bit?!"

I directed my vision to a corner of the room and did my best impression of someone who never did anything wrong and wouldn't have even considered the possibility.

It took... a while for Lethe to be normal again. My best guess was around an entire day. I had tried to talk to her before, but the glare she had... it was terrifying.

Right now, she was sitting in front of my core waiting for the first of my questions.

"So..." I began, "I couldn't help but notice that the system doesn't show anything about my affinity, why is that?"

Lethe looked surprised, "You know about affinities already? Well, whatever, the reason for why the system doesn't show your affinity is because it's something that only appears at around level five, though most dungeons already have a good idea of what affinity they have by that point."

Huh, so the fact that I know about affinities already is surprising... well, she brushed it off, better to not delve into that topic right now.

And then I asked my second question, "Hey, uhm, do you know how the space affinity is seen by others?"

Lethe eyes widen by a considerable amount, so much so that I'm pretty sure it would hurt any actual humans. "Oh no... you have the space affinity don't you." It wasn't a question, it was a fact.

She continued talking with obvious despair this time. "No, no, no... they're gonna come and then you'll die and then... oh no..."

It was clear that she was having a panic attack of some sort, I would know since I had my fair share of those, and so I tried my best to comfort her. "Look, breath in and out, slowly alright? In... and out, in... and out." Thankfully, it seemed she was calming down. Whether it was from my help or not, I wouldn't know.

"Okay, how about you tell me what you're so scared about, well go over it together okay?" I was also scared from whatever was going on, but I didn't want it to show. Who knows how worse it could make her panic attack. And as much as I hate to admit it since we had only know each other for about a day now, I really cared about Lethe, though my isolation in the void and her being the first 'living' being that I encountered in years was probably a factor in it.

Lethe was still trembling, but she seemed better now. "T- The Church... they w- worship the g-god of c-creation, Terse." Her stutter was pretty bad, but it seemed to be getting a bit better as she talked.

"They- They see d-dungeons as an illness to be e-eradicated... but they usually don't really d-do much. Though, i-if anything, or a-anyone has a space affinity... they see it a-as a d-direct insult to their god, s-saying that sp-space magic is to destroy the w-work of their god."

Now I understood a bit better... a church worshiping a god representing pretty much everything, as soon as space magic was found out, they probably thought it was divine magic or something and decided that no one but their god should hold the right to it. And of course Lethe would be scared... back on earth, churches used to have big influences on diplomacy and governmental affairs in the past, I can only think of how much power they would have in a world where magic exists.

This was going to become a problem, but right now my job was to comfort and reassure Lethe that everything would be alright. She probably already had some sort of trauma from having her own core destroyed, and knowing that I had an affinity that was basically prime real estate for a church full of maniacs... it probably opened that wound wider than it already was.

I mentally narrowed my eyes, I had already died once, and I didn't intend to do so a second time. If they want to kill me, then they'll have to go through the idea's of someone who's been on the internet for years and survived it's madness. I'll give the title of Outer-Worlder a legacy of death and destruction to all those that oppose them if I have to...