and


    exactly very


    Are they putting some sort of wine into the crab legs, though?


    I feel… drunk.


    [I have no idea.]


    Tch. How useful you are.


    something


    … Overindulgence much? Kids shouldn’t be drinking. I think… I think I’m gonna trip and fall over myself.


    [Children in the Plagueplain Front are known to intoxicate themselves on far more potent drugs and toxic substances on a daily basis.]


    So, you tell that to every kid that gets the Altered Swarmsteel System? It’s okay to knock themselves out silly?


    [It has been a year and a month since they got to have any fun. Let them be.]


    I''m kidding. Mama used to let me drink too—said it’s good practice for helping me keep my balance even when I’m not feeling up to it.


    [Into the forest, towards the basin at the bottom of the waterfall.]


    You remember?


    [I only see what you see, and you were indeed paying attention, albeit unconsciously.]


    Go, me.


    try,


    …


    [Line the cracked edges of the helmet with the fairy-shrimp-mix-boreal-sap extract and apply gentle heat as you stick both halves together. If you blow warm air on the extract, it would begin to harden, and–]


    I got, I got it.


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    unsurprisingly


    really


    Does he hate me, still?


    I shouldn’t have broken it in the first half.


    It was something his sister gave to him, and–


    It’s soft, but it’s definitely not made of normal fabric.


    It’s made out of… really, really thin crab shells?


    What is–


    <div>


    Striding Glaives


    Ripple SensorsHydrofuge Spines


    <div>


    [You have obtained your first Swarmsteel,] [To reiterate, Swarmsteel are magical equipment made out of insect parts, and when they come in contact with human skin, they typically offer a few attribute levels with the tradeoff being putting a permanent limiter on your Hexichor Pool. Currently, your scarf is offering you one level in speed while removing seventy-six levels from your Hexichor Pool. In my opinion, however, the additional level in speed is quite worth the reduce in mana.]


    Uh… okay. Wait. It says one out of two next to speed, and zero out of one next to… toughness? What’s up with that?


    [It means, at this D-rank Swarmsteel’s maximum potential, it can offer you two levels in speed and one level in toughness,] [However, Swarmsteel is something you typically have to acclimate to. You cannot simply pick up a S-rank… a high-rank Swarmsteel and immediately gain a hundred levels in strength. The longer you equip and get used to a particular Swarmsteel, the more of its potential you can draw out.]


    So if I just keep wearing this scarf, I’ll get two levels in speed and one level in toughness?


    [Correct.]


    But the minus Hexichor Pool also means as long as I’m wearing it, I’ll have less mana to use my other mutations?


    [You can counteract it by simply putting more points into increasing your Hexichor Pool,] [You have been eating crabs consistently for the past month, anyways. Not nearly as much as the first three days you have been on this island, mind you—I fear you are, colloquially speaking, ''growing sick'' of eating crabs over and over—but you have still have enough points to easily counteract the seventy-six reduction in Hexichor Pool.]


    It''ll be worth it?


    [Certainly. For a Swarmsteel that offers one whole speed level on top of your original speed level? And that is not even mentioning—the scarf appears to have a special ability.]


    Reflexive camouflage?


    [I believe it is a minor property of ghost crab chitin,] [Ghost crabs derive their name from their usually pale colouration, but it is also derived from the fact that their chitin can change colours in order to match their surroundings. They do so by adjusting the concentration and dispersal of pigments within their chromatophores, which are cells that produce colour via pigmentation. It is not exactly metachrosis, but my database shows they can even match the specific colour of sand grains around them–]


    –okay, stop, I guess I am a little too drunk for this–


    [–try willing the scarf to change colour,] [Imagine it turning pale white under the moonlight.]


    Whoa, What if I had an entire cloak made out of this? I’d be able to turn invisible, right? Maybe I should ask Kuku–


    [It is likely he made this with everything he had,] [A ghost crab scarf is good enough. You have traded those fairy shrimp parts for a Swarmsteel far greater than anything you could have made with them.]


    …


    second


    …


    … Archive?


    [Yes?]


    The second time I did the War Jump, when I was spinning so fast it was like the world around me turned into a void, did you also see…


    …


    … Nevermind.


    [... Your journey is far from over, Marisol.]


    [Now begins the real challenge.]