You have earned a new title!


    [HumanITIZER]


    Successfully convince a group of Humans that you are also a Human in order to avoid death. Only counts if you are not actually a Human.


    -Effects-


    > Significantly increased effectiveness and decreased cost of abilities used for making you seem Human.


    That was—actually really good for what Zoe needed right now. It also had an incredibly stupid name. In all honesty, she had a hard time deciding which was better—the effect of the title, or that getting it implied she had successfully convinced this group not to kill her. The correct answer was probably ‘both.’


    The three around her were still looking silently uncomfortable, and the other two were still furiously whispering about something that probably had to do with Zoe. It was tempting to go ahead and dump all seventy-five of her unspent stat points into perception. The confidence that they weren’t simply discussing how to kill her did a lot for the nerves.


    It was also nice she could at least cover herself with a blanket now.


    “So, Miss Zoe,” said the pretty dark-haired ice mage, “what exactly was a young woman like you doing in the middle of a frozen, monster-infested necrotic wasteland?”


    That was, unfortunately, a great question. Also, necrotic? Zoe was already far too familiar with the ‘frozen’ and ‘monster-infested’ parts, but the addition of ‘necrotic wasteland’ was new to her. There was also the slight problem of the truthful answer to that question. Zoe didn’t think it would be wise to just go and say Oh yeah, I’m actually from a completely different world and just woke up here after losing my mind to rabies virus and presumably dying.


    Instinctively, her go-to alternative would take the form of something along the lines of, well I could ask you the same thing. However, something told her that it wouldn’t fit the persona she’d created so far.


    “Just say you got kidnapped and it was the cultists who brought you here.” That sounded like a suspiciously reasonable suggestion when it was Lilith who said it. “Also you’re more right than you know about not telling anyone how you ended up here. Between the two, it’s not very hard to say that being a blighted Outsider is far, far worse than just being a regular Demon.


    That tidbit of information was both completely unexpected and positively fascinating, but now wasn’t the time to have a proper conversation about it—much to Zoe’s building frustration. She had more pressing business to attend to.


    Acting!


    Once again, the skill helped Zoe to expertly navigate the delicate conversational terrain. It wasn’t long before she was the one subtly steering it. And yet, however helpful it had proven to be, Zoe couldn’t help but find something about the whole thing deeply strange. There was no way the skill was actually mind-reading the others, right? Even having encyclopedic knowledge about every little detail of the situation seemed too far—even if Zoe couldn’t directly access it.


    But how else would it work? Sure, the concept of improving her skill as a liar and manipulator was simple enough in theory, but it completely broke down if you even started to think about how it could be implemented. But then how…?


    Regardless, it looked like their little chat would be coming to an end anyway. The two higher level guys were now coming over to join them, having clearly come to some sort of decision on—whatever it was they were talking about.


    The other three turned around. The alchemist and paladin-guy shared a look. The former jerked his head, signaling he wanted the acolyte to speak first. “Change of plans. We’re returning to the docks.”


    “Wait, what?” Everyone looked at Lily. That was the name of the ice mage—Elemental Summoner. She also turned out to be an actual noble, of course—which was pretty weird, because apparently the stoic Rank C alchemist wasn’t. Oh, and it looked like it was now his turn to speak. “First light tomorrow. We’ve clearly stumbled our way into something quite serious.”


    The reaction to that was—mixed. From left to right—Millie, the bow-toting enchanter, looked a bit disappointed, the archmage Arthur was visibly relieved, and Lily seemed merely surprised.


    Arthur gave Millie a sharp elbow in her side before she could say anything. Then she went and said it anyway. “Wait, really? Don’t think Lord Darius’s gonna be too happy we went and tucked tail on his big mission.”


    Wow, he’s actually really pissed. Zoe could tell that the archmage wasn’t particularly happy, because the force of his glare could have pinned down a lesser spirit as easily as a metric ton of steel. Millie just stuck her tongue out.


    “Firstly.” Andric held up a single finger, as if his coolly assured tone didn’t convey his meaning clearly enough. “I’ll remind each of you that this is a training exercise, not a mission. Secondly.” Another finger. “Should that not be reason enough to abort, I should hardly need to explain why we have a duty to report what we’ve discovered as quickly as possible. Rest tonight. We’ll be moving with haste tomorrow.”


    Huh. That was mildly interesting. Zoe had the group pegged as a variety pack of intrepid young delinquents—uh, I mean ‘adventurers.’ Such grave talk of nothing less than duty was a bit surprising. Which was more than a bit silly, because these were actual people with complicated places in a complicated world, not spunky character archetypes.


    The big hunk of armor clapped his hands together with such violent loudness that Zoe really did jump this time. “Good. Does anyone have any questions?”


    Well now that you ask… Zoe raised a timid hand. “Uhm, how did you make a clapping sound with those metal gauntlets? And—am I still going to get a bath?”


    _____


    It was now morning, which meant it was now the beginning of the second day of Zoe’s grand adventure. The sun hadn’t quite risen yet, but Zoe was already wide awake. This was because she never went to sleep in the first place. The worst part about being a Demon? No, it wasn’t the stupid antennae, the hideous claws, or even the bloodshot red eyes.


    Yes, she had red eyes—she’d checked earlier, when she’d briefly dropped her disguise while no one was watching. And worse, they weren’t even the cool and edgy sort of red. No, they were far more ‘realistic,’ the closest resemblance being that of an albino rabbit back on Earth.


    It gave her less of an evil look and more of a ‘this person is horrifically diseased.’


    But no—even that wasn’t the worst part of being a Demon. The worst part was that she was physiologically incapable of sleep. Fainting from strain and exhaustion counted as something different, apparently.


    All in all, Zoe would have been a lot more happy about getting an entire third of her lifetime back, had she actually had something to do. Lilith, like the petty bitch she was, had refused to talk about virtually anything, insisting instead that Zoe still needed time to rest and meditate.


    So boring. But at least Zoe got a new skill for it.


    [MEDITATION]


    Level 4 | Rank F


    > Active, Channeling


    > Body, Mind, Spirit


    > Perception, Vitality


    It had leveled fairly quickly, if that’s how you considered four levels over the course of twice as many hours. Zoe did, now that she knew skills only went up to level five. After hearing that one little thing Lilith was willing to tell her, Zoe felt a lot better about the multiple skills she had at level two.


    But getting to the fifth one proved unexpectedly difficult. Once Zoe started getting frustrated, she gave up, called it good, and put it off for another time. In her defense, frustration wasn’t a conducive mindset for the whole meditation thing. Kind of the opposite really.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The other major win was getting clean skin and clean clothes. The answer to whether she would get a bath turned out to be ‘yes’—if your idea of a bath was rolling around in the snow for a bit and then getting an elemental summoner with an ice affinity to peel it off. The last bit sort of felt like how Zoe imagined it would feel to get freeze-dried.


    Sean—the big acolyte of faith guy who wasn’t a paladin yet—had been less willing to explain how he managed the clapping-with-gauntlets thing. A small loss, but Zoe intended to wrangle it out of him eventually. As for the clothes…


    Zoe was actually pretty happy with how that had turned out. Even though there weren’t actually spare clothing sets in the cabin, or ‘supply cache’ as the others called it, there was plenty of cloth and ropes. Plenty of variety too, and that’s how Zoe wound up looking like a badass ninja mummy.


    As for shoes? That was the best part. There weren’t any spare shoes either, so the solution was tightly wrapping her feet and legs in duct-tape up to the mid-calves. That one was Millie’s idea, and so far it worked unreasonably well. She couldn’t bend her ankles, but that was fine. Regular boots worked the same way, and Lily had at least remembered to put something between the tape and her skin.


    Honestly, Zoe had been more than a little surprised when Lily pulled the crate of tape from one of the uniform brown crates. It wasn’t really duct-tape, and that’s not what they called it, but it looked vaguely similar. Good enough for Zoe. And now everyone is awake. Wonderful.


    “Was that supposed to be sarcastic?”


    Ah, it seemed that Lilith had appeared as well. The hallucinatory Demon was right on time, though Zoe would have been happier had her reintroduction not been a uselessly snarky quip. The truth was—Zoe didn’t know. She was conflicted about how quickly the rest of the crew were getting themselves put together, because breaking the lonely tedium came at the cost of having to maintain a delicate charade. Manipulating people really is a whole lot less fun when your life is on the line.


    Wise thoughts from Zoe to kick off an auspicious new day. Thinking about that wasn’t tempting fate, because it was simply inconceivable that the second day of Zoe’s life in whatever-this-world was called could be worse.


    Again, not tempting fate. It was just true, unless she somehow died. Honestly not unlikely, but at least I wouldn’t have to deal with any bullshit anymore. Naturally, Lilith had to disabuse her of that foolish notion.


    “Those are some bold words coming from someone who literally got here by dying.” And Zoe really wished the apparition didn’t have such a good point, because she wasn’t in an existential crisis mood. It would have been going a little bit far to wonder if this was actually the start of her afterlife in hell, except for the little detail that Zoe was literally a Demon. Fuck.


    Well, it didn’t really matter because Zoe’s plans stayed the same. In summary—don’t die.


    While everyone else finished packing and getting ready, Zoe had Lilith finally explain the stats thing to her. It wasn’t very complicated. You could gain permanent increases to individual stats by pushing and training them. Simple in theory, but Lilith was careful to explain how it was typically overshadowed by just leveling up.


    In order to gain even a single extra point, you had to train very deliberately for a very long time, or you had to push yourself exceedingly hard. Then, even if you were successful, you didn’t even get to choose how to distribute them. Sure, the training method made that less of an unknown, given that you’d be targeting a specific stat anyway—but you still wouldn’t know when it would happen—if ever—or how much.


    In total, Zoe had gained a full level’s worth of stats—fifteen exactly. That was, apparently, above average, and it took pushing her well beyond anything close to healthy limits, after a full day of life-or-death struggles. As Lilith put it, you might as well just keep leveling at that point. Sure it was a nice bonus, but why try to force it? Zoe was inclined to agree.


    _____


    The group stood around what remained of the old fence, waiting for the healer they rescued to come back out of the hidden basement. She’d been the first one up, Andric said, and mostly sat around waiting for everyone else. Arthur thought it was a little creepy, the way her eyes kept focusing on empty air, as if she was reacting to things that didn’t exist. She’d even nod to herself, or sit still like she was listening for something.


    Was she just acting weird due to recent trauma, or had she been sick before then? Arthur didn’t know which would be better. Obviously he should say it was the former, but he’d almost rather put up with a madwoman than have to make an effort to comfort someone.


    “Between you and me, I don’t think she’s actually Human.”


    Millie seemed to have crept up behind him, but it was what she said that made the archmage raise a sharp eyebrow. The gesture was well practiced by now, as his mother had always told him he’d had good eyebrows. Arthur didn’t like smiling or chit-chatting, so he mostly focused on developing strong ‘non-verbal’ cues.


    “And why, pray tell, are you laying your suspicions on me of all people?” Arthur didn’t  have to explain what he meant. Literally anyone else in their party would have been better equipped to deal with this. Well, except maybe Lily. The heiress would probably go ask the girl about it face-to-face, or something equally destructive. Unfortunately, this meant that Millie explicitly didn’t want him to go tell anyone else. Which meant—something not at all good, probably.


    “Because it would make Sean or Andric way more suspicious, which might make something bad happen.” Millie nodded, absolutely sure of herself. Not that she was wrong. “Oh, and if I told Lily then something would definitely go wrong.”


    Yes, Arthur had already intuited that. He didn’t say anything else, but his next look communicated a pretty clear ‘you do realize that does nothing to explain things.’


    Millie sighed. “It’s just a feeling, and I don’t think she means any harm to us. The other guys don’t think so either, so I don’t wanna ruin it and make ‘em more wary.”


    “Ah.” Surprisingly, that did sort of explain things. A few months ago, Arthur would have dismissed it as some kind of uneducated backwoods superstition. He’d learned to have more trust since then, though, which ended up making this far more frustrating. He wasn’t going to go behind her back and pass it on to the others—no matter how much he’d certainly like to.


    “Do you have any ideas about why?”


    A shrug was all the enchanter had to offer, at least until she frowned in thought. “You’ve noticed how she acts a little weird, yeah? Mostly when most of us aren’t really looking.” Arthur nodded. He had noticed that. “And also, did you notice how vague she was about where she’s from? Real touchy too. I bet she couldn’t tell you the name of a single Human city if anyone had actually asked.”


    That was—Arthur paused. It was true. He hadn’t picked up on it at the time, but in retrospect it did seem like the girl was evading talking about her origins. No, not evading. She had been subtly steering the questions away from that. “Damn me. You might be onto something here.” But then again. “She’s obviously Native though. Maybe she’s from an area we’ve barely settled. Andric is proof enough they’re perfectly Human.”


    For the good and the bad, Arthur didn’t add. He also didn’t add his own opinions on how it was true despite what some colonial governors might have to say.


    “No.” Another raised eyebrow. Arthur was going to have to start switching up his facial reactions if this continued. “I’m from one of those ‘barely settled’ areas, which you certainly can’t seem to forget. But you’re right in that it’s probably why that was the kind of appearance she mimicked.”


    Now, it was truly past the time for raised eyebrows. A dropped jaw, maybe, were it not so uncouth. “Excuse me, mimicked?”


    “Yeah. Mimicked. Plenty of stories about things like that roaming around deeper out in the West.”


    _____


    Zoe couldn’t believe she almost lost the storage ring. She’d only remembered to look for it right as the whole group was about to leave. The coast was apparently nearby, and there were some sort of docks built there along with a device they could use to call for help. Zoe was pretty hazy on the details, but she would see it for herself soon enough.


    The ring had to be in the hidden supply room somewhere, because she knew she’d still had it upon regaining consciousness after screwing up with mana channeling. She was still going to figure out mana manipulation at some point. Lilith confirmed the skill existed and was also highly-desired, so the cost was worth it. Soul damage might sound scary, but it had hardly caused major issues so far. How bad could it really be?


    Zoe found the ring in less than ten seconds, because it was exactly where she expected it to be. It had rolled into a dark corner—the one she’d initially hid in—clearly having slipped away when she fainted and rolled a few feet away.


    It was small and the room was now dark, but Zoe’s perception wasn’t a stat that was lagging behind.


    That would be acuity. Zoe’s acuity had fallen massively behind everything else at some point, and she’d never bothered to fix it. She should probably get around to that soon. It was still sitting at a pitiful twenty-six.


    -Stats and Bindings-


    Power 80


    Perception 67


    Acuity 26


    Durability 80


    Vitality 82


    You know—it wouldn’t hurt to shore up perception too, come to think of it. She did have seventy-five points to spend, after all. While Zoe still intended to figure out her strategy based on her main abilities, bringing the stragglers up to around eighty could hardly hurt.


    Perception increased to 80!


    Acuity increased to 80!


    That left Zoe with eight points in reserve. It was unfairly tempting to distribute the rest evenly into everything except vitality, because it would leave them all matching at exactly eighty-two. At least Zoe had enough self-control to avoid something as silly as that.


    The only thing left now was the ring. Zoe hadn’t been able to use it earlier because it couldn’t grow wide enough to fit over her claws. Lesser disguise should have been able to help with that, since it seemed more like a weird false shell than just a simple illusion. Then she’d gotten distracted, passed out, lied her way out of a possible execution, and then almost forgotten all about it.


    There was nothing stopping her now—nothing between a pretty little Demon and her loot. Zoe slipped on the ring.


    “Well?”


    Lilith could certainly see the contents too, but Zoe could barely think about that. She was more than a little surprised. “I thought this guy was trying to become a Demon, not single handedly arm and equip an entire goddamn revolution.”