“What happened to your door, though?”

  “Ah, don’t remind me! I found out that someone had smashed it open when I woke up! I knew I should have forged a lock for it myself…”

  “That’s not a good sign… I hope they didn’t steal too much”

  “That’s the weird part, I don’t think they stole anything”

  The discussion quickly shifted to the door that I broke, which did not interest me very much at all. It wasn’t like I didn’t know every detail of this little event, but the adventurers seemed to be lovers of speculation.

  A short woman who hadn’t said a thing until now went over to the door after glancing around awkwardly. If I had to guess, she hadn’t noticed anything weird with the door before someone else mentioned it.

  “Oh… They must have been pretty strong, the handle looks like it was squeezed…”

  “That’s pretty concerning. This might be intimidation, you know? Like they are saying: ‘We can open your door, be more careful from now on!’, you don’t have any feud with another blacksmith or something, right? If you want to post a quest for some help, we’ll take it without hesitation!”

  How noble… Saying that he’ll help but only if a reward is attached to it first…

  The blacksmith smiled but shook his head.

  “No need to worry, lads. I’ll just get a better lock put in place. I know someone who can install them, and I’ll make sure to forge tougher parts–In any case, enough talking about me! What do you need today?”

  As the topic shifted to haggling for prices and picking weapons whilst the adventurers threw playful jabs at each other, I quietly crawled away from where I was and instead went up to the only window present in the attic.

  It was so small, I couldn’t even fit my head through it, and the glass it was made from was clearly very old, having taken on a yellow tint and having basically fused with dust. Still, I could see through it well enough to observe people coming and going through the busy streets.

  My brother–May he burn in hell–Used to say that I was like an old lady because I hung out at the window of my room and just observed people. And indeed, old crones who had nothing better to do tended to have this as a hobby, just looking out of their window for hours at a time, seeking to see or hear things that they would then be able to gossip about with the other old crones…

  I personally did not engage in the gossiping part. Not because I barely had any friends or anything like that, but mostly because I just enjoyed watching people, as well as anything of interest, really. When I was doing that, it would feel like I was but a mere spectator, that I was invisible and that the world was going on without acknowledging me.

  It was very relaxing, and it remained so even when I was doing so from this attic. There was less peace and quiet than when I would do it from my bedroom window, but there was definitely more to see.

  Commoners were an odd bunch, especially since they were like a stew made from leftovers, a whole bunch of things that you would usually never associate, were melding together seemingly without problem.

  Here, in Rootriska, many different sapient species had converged. Presumably because the first rulers of this land had all been half-breeds, and even to this day, the royal family liked to claim that they had a strong bloodline with whatever powerful being you can imagine being a part of it.

  But that was probably all nonsense, I wasn’t born yesterday, I knew very well that half-breeds were much like mules. In the sense that when they didn’t kick the bucket early on, they would end up sterile.

  At least in most cases, there were a few exceptions, but all they did was confirm the rule.

  So I found it amusing to see young, mismatched couples going around. I was not laughing at the inevitable end of their relationship when they realised that procreating was all but impossible. I was just pleased that these people would be unable to produce children.

  Speaking of those foul creatures, children were running around all over the place, moving about like cockroaches over spilt food. This was giving me bad memories of my time at Harvey’s Diner…

  Mmh… Watching people is fine and all, but my stream of negative emotions will eventually dry up… It isn’t a problem per se, as it's not like I need negative emotions to live, after all, I just stock them when I acquire some, same with the souls, but it just feels better to be constantly stashing some of those.

  ‘Tormentor’ does not seem to have any limit on how much it can store of anything, or if it does, it clearly isn’t anywhere near its limit. But what matters is that all of this stock will probably come in handy once I evolve and acquire more innate abilities, and also, I have not forgotten that making good use of my abilities ended up yielding more experience overall.

  Every once in a while, when I would be sipping on some fear, or munching on some bones, I would feel a burst of experience as something happened with the innate skill associated with the activity.

  For normal systems skill, I knew that this meant that they had reached the threshold, which was either that the level of said skill had passed one quarter of a hundred, or that the skill had gone past a hundred and essentially been promoted before being sent back to level one.

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  In practice, the usual person wouldn’t see much gain from improving system skills, and it seemed like it was the same with my innate skills, the only difference being that experience could help evolve faster.

  I guessed that, behind the scenes, my innate skills had the same levels and tiers I had heard about. The logistics didn’t matter much, but I couldn’t help but try to guess while I had nothing better to do.

  I wonder what is in all of those crates?

  The attic was rather dusty, so it did not seem like the blacksmith was using it much at all. This called into question what might be stocked in here. If there were weapons and materials, I would certainly hope that a commoner wouldn’t just completely forget about them. It would be a huge loss of money, but who knew? Maybe this had been here even before the man and his family settled here. Perhaps no one had even bothered to check the attic for some reason.

  Being as quiet as I could be, I opened the closest box to me, and found… Nothing but a cobweb and a shrivelled up spider.

  Who left this arguably perfectly fine to eat food here? I picked the spider up, and before I could even throw it into my maw, it was consumed and absorbed through my fingers.

  As it turns out, most of the boxes were utterly empty, some of them had some miscellaneous items that were of no value whatsoever, but I still kept on looking whilst listening to the conversations going on below, sometimes stopping to listen more closely if the topic sounded interesting enough.

  That’s how I learned that during my time in the backroom, we actually had a change of king, which was unexpected. Crowned heads tend to stick around for a long time, gorging on items that extend their lifespan like candy, but apparently, the last guy had met his end in some way.

  And had been replaced by one of his sons. The common population wasn’t privy to the details, but the new king had taken his role five years ago and was actually quite young, not being the one who would have been the crown prince at the time.

  Apparently, this ‘Algo Irmandelt Rootriska’ was the reason why people were so favourable toward the crown now. I did not get to hear what exactly he had done to earn this trust. I only heard of the latest good thing he did, which was to secure a border that once allowed feral orcs to just waltz in and pillage people.

  Mmh, what’s this? Whilst I was debating whether a goodhearted king could actually exist or if this fellow was secretly a devil cultist who bathed in virgin blood–My gaze landed on something different tucked away in a corner underneath a portion of the attic where the ceiling was far lower, there was something wrapped in what looked like a blanket or curtain that had grown discoloured over the years.

  Now, this looks a bit interesting.

  I slowly crawled over to it, reaching out… And I momentarily froze as I felt something.

  How… bizarre, I could feel my hunger rising.

  Quickly grasping the fabric, I pulled the item closer and began to unwrap it like a birthday present.

  Lo and behold, it was a small totem of sorts, made out of wood.

  At a glance, this should be something that was of absolutely no interest to me. I was a drinker of bad emotions and eater of flesh and steel. This thing fitted in neither category, at least, unless trees counted as flesh as well, but I was doubtful of that.

  Hey system-

  Wood doesn’t usually count. This one doesn’t count

  Thanks, system… I always knew you were reading my mind all the time.

  Still feeling an undeniable pull toward this seemingly innocuous totem, I went and picked it up. It feels small within my large hand, but the pull is stronger. There is an almost instinctual desire arising within me.

  My guts tell me this is good. What do you say, system?

  There is no danger, but consumption will likely result in uncontrolled spasms, twitching, and a high amount of pain that has a high chance of being greater than when picking a new upgrade

  So, you know exactly what it is, but you aren’t going to tell me before I consume it?

  My apologies, but I must not intervene too much. Especially with someone like you, Miss Nebulo

  Alright, let’s cut down on the cryptic speeches.

  I sit down against the wall in case the mentioned spasms could make me fall over, and following my instincts, rather than crushing the totem with my jaw, I squash it into splinters using the force of my grip.

  For a second, nothing happens.

  And then, I blacked out.

  And then I was back! But the agony hit me across my entire body. Unlike usual, however, my fingers began to twitch and tremble.

  This abnormal situation spread to my whole body, but thankfully, it was not nearly as bad as it sounded. The situation was still under my control.

  The only downside was that it lasted for nearly ten minutes before everything ended, and a cool sensation spread throughout my body, momentarily washing away the constant pain I was in.

  Oh… That felt good… Ah…

  I remained still for a few more minutes, until the pain that plagued my existence came back in the same intensity as usual.

  I feel a little bit different, but not much… I think I got some experience from this? My body feels… Simultaneously lighter and heavier, as in, I feel like I could move faster than before, but also that I could probably crush someone's skull under my foot with more ease.

  This totem contained a minor curse, devouring it enhanced your nature as a Steel-Bound Curse. The increase in power is barely worth mentioning, but improving your nature, regardless of the level of the improvement, is very valuable

  Before I could even think, the system began speaking in length, as though it had just been bottling up and waiting for an occasion to spew its information down my throat.

  Your nature as both a Steel-Bound Curse and Vengeful Spirit is essential in ensuring that you can use your powers to the best possible degree

  It also plays a large role when evolving, as the more advanced you are as either of the two, the greater your evolution options will be

  As you can guess, devouring anything that bears a strong link with either the concept of curses or the concept of lingering spirits will allow you to improve on the spot

  It may also bring other benefits, but we shall see what they are when these boons manifest

  Huh… That’s pretty neat…

  I need to maximise this stuff before I evolve!

  The horror it would be to evolve without being my best self!

  Where the hell does one find those sorts of items?