Perfect Avatar

After a few drinks, the atmosphere became jovial between Dora and Gloria. They were chatting amicably and laughing, a different image from what their meeting foreshadowed.

"That's so funny, so technically she's your servant? Have you tried making her do the chores?"

"No, but now it's definitely on the menu, it will be her reward for keeping so many secrets. Oh, can I use your name to threaten her?"

He bit into a cupcake, the Queen smiled at him in agreement.

Everything was perfect in that moment and everything seemed to portend a fruitful alliance between them.

"By the way, what kind of power do you have? I heard you can use any weapon and magic, is this related to your blessings or is it just training?"

"Hm? Blessings? Isn't that normal for people like us?"

The Queen shook her head.

"No, not at all, we are all different in the affinities of our powers and their use. For example, I... Hm, taking this little girl instead, Sloth, the dean of your academy."

Dora, with a shocked expression, dropped his cupcake.

"What? Sloth? Who??"

"Yes, the dean... Hm? You didn't know that? How come? Aren't you two acquaintances?"

"N-No! We've never been!... Well, I know her but... like a student would know the director! Is she an Avatar too?!"

Gloria lifted a raisin to her mouth and blew on a cup of warm milk.

"No wonder you don't know, that's what I wanted to talk about. Her case for example is special, in a deceptive way. She may be a Sin like us, but she never evolved. Among all of us, she is the weakest."

"... Seriously? I... That's a lot to process."

"Not much, I met her about a century ago... Or more? At first, I was very happy, another sin in my world, how gracious... But despite having trained her for years, giving her more soul stones than needed to fill a pool, she never got any stronger than that. I lost hope when after checking her stats I realized that she was already awakened... It was obvious though, she stopped aging at a certain point, it was a sign that she was at her peak; I just didn't want to accept that."

She stirred the contents of her cup of milk, annoyed. Dora looked at the woman's face and understood the meaning of her words.

"Stopped aging... A century ago... Wait, are you both immortals?"

"... Of course, we're all immortal, this snake didn't tell you anything?"

"We?... WE?! I am immortal too?"

"Yes... Don't be so... Ah, my bad, you've been an Avatar since recently, of course, you would be surprised. Once we are fully awakened, we become immortal... Or more like, frozen in time. Our body stops aging and we get immune to any disease or infection."

Dora, troubled beyond belief, looked at the palms of his hands.

Never in his life had he seen himself with this kind of ability, nor had he dreamed of it. He had heard of legends of elves having very long lives, but that was all, he didn't consider it a big thing, but rather a problem, because the downside of a very long life was seeing loved ones perish, one after another.

He was in shock after this news, but the queen, oblivious, continued her speech without a care.

"If you ask me, the best age to become immortal is around twenty, having the body of a child isn't practical to be impressive, and at least at that age, you're pretty young for being cute and old enough to bear children, not that it's a necessity but we might as well use the whole extent of our body, don't you think? In her case, Sloth awoke around fifteen, so she's frozen forever at that age. How cruel, now not only will everyone make fun of her, but if she loves someone she will be too young for them at some point. I should feel guilty since I trained her, but considering her uselessness, I call it fair and square."

She drank a few sips of milk while watching the last rays of the sun.

"However... She has a purpose. We have studied the full extent of her power and realized the true nature of Sloth's blessings: she can create synthetic Rifts."

"... Uh?"

"Yes, you heard right. She calls them 'dungeons', basically, it's like a Rift, but man-made, and she can choose the level of the monsters inside, and you still get soul stones if you kill them."

Dora placed his hands on the table and let his jaw relax.

"UH?"

"Plus, completing these dungeons gives a huge amount of experience points, even for normal people. Basically, she's a leveling machine."

"WHAT?!"

He stood up abruptly, knocking over his chair. The Queen seemed a little surprised but raised her hand in front of her face, calling for the young man to calm down.

"I know what you're thinking, that sounds pretty useful, right? Seems like the best power out of many... BUT, as I said, Sloth never levels up, so no matter how many Rifts she makes, she will never benefit from her own abilities. To put it simply, Sloth's blessings are only useful to others, not herself."

Dora was surprised. He straightened his chair and sat down again.

"How... How is this possible?"

"This is only possible because of our abnormal powers. The blessing of sins can be cruel, someone like you, with barely any training, gains enough power to use any weapon and she who has been trained for a century could be defeated by any S-rank. She's strong as an emissary, but as an Avatar she's a disgrace."

She took an apple and held it towards the setting sun, looking melancholy. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝙚𝒘𝙚𝒃𝙣𝓸𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝓶

"What a disappointment... Imagine how disappointed I was when, after that stupid meeting with Rhea, I found out that the only Avatar I could ally with was a failure... I was already completely awakened, so I couldn't even use her as a power source."

She bit the fruit and placed it on an empty plate.

"But since I'm a nice lady, I accepted her only request to be helpful: she wanted to raise future generations of emissaries, with her power we would have a strong country and no one would fear the Rifts anymore. She was so desperate to be useful... But in my world, we do things my way, I allowed her to use her power, but only on the knights I would choose, I called them Holy Knights. She has done this task ever since and she was so appreciated among the people that they made her director of my knight academy. I permitted her, on the condition of keeping my rules alive among them."

Her gaze darkened, Dora felt drops of sweat on his forehead and tried to hide by eating a macaroon.

"It's... It sounds so sad. Oh, but did you say Rhea?"

She turned her gaze towards him, Dora quickly understood that he had stepped on a landmine.

"I don't want to talk about her, I hate her guts, she's an arrogant and selfish brat, I wish her all the pain in the world."

"... Ah? How troublesome..."

"Yes, I just wanted to meet another... Another Avatar... but she's a paranoid idiot. She must have criticized me a lot when Sloth proved useless... But with you, I'll take my revenge."

She wore a cynical smile. Dora, anxious, finishes his drink.

"With me?"

"Yes, with you, you're an Avatar who can fight and I can see you have so many interesting skills. You'll be a better asset than Candace."

She placed a hand on her cheek and her left iris turned orange.

"So many skills... Now I'm starting to understand how your greed works... Oh? You even have stars power? Aren't you quite the hard worker?"

"I have what?"

He stood up and brought up his system screen. He looked at each of his skills at high speed and stopped when he saw one of them.

"... Nebula? How?! How do I have it???"

He discovered around Nebula the names of other skills, until then, foreign to him.

His surprise was matched only by his anxiety of the moment, so much so that he did not realize that the Queen had been able to read his techniques.

"Calm down, if it's not you, that must be the thing. It can take control from time to time and you don't realize it."

"But how?... When? I didn't lose..."

He replayed the day over and over again and remembered this moment, after having being hit by Virgo when his memories became blurred.

"... That was it?... But how? Is there something... Controlling me?"

"There's no point thinking about it now, but don't worry, I have a solution."

He raised his head, meeting the Queen's gaze.

"I won't say everything now, because the thing is sentient and might try to stop us, but for now, we're going to give it exactly what it wants."

She got up and walked near the fountain.

"I will send an announcement to the academy, from now on, you are an honorary citizen and official property of the Queen, you will be personally trained by Candace, until you fully awaken."

Dora looked at her with astonishment, he was torn between the horror of the monster consuming him and the joy of being treated with so much attention by the Queen.

He got up and approached her.

"Really?... You mean from now on I can really do whatever I want? And my training will be taken care of?"

"Sure, just remember who you owe all this to once you awaken."

"I-I will! I will never betray you, my Queen, all hail you!"

He curtsied so gracefully that the Queen laughed.

"Ah... I've waited so long. I expect great things from you, whatever you ask will be granted, of course always respecting the Code."

"I'm going to learn this book! Just for you! And I'll even remember the contents!"

He jumped for joy and let out a wave of his aura. The Queen smiled in response and watched as two birds flew out of a nearby tree.

"Good, come to think of it, if Candace does a great job, you will be awaken at this age and therefore you will physically be the second youngest Sin, before Candace, so you will both be around the same age... Hmm , that could be interesting, we could mate you, I'm curious to see what the offspring of two avatars would look like."

"Haha, thanks but I'll pass, this girl is weird and I like my freedom too much."

He laughed happily and snapped his fingers, making an apple appear in his hand.

He bit the fruit, eager to discover these synthetic Rifts.

"Hmm... But I left the academy... Oh, but since I'm honorary, do I still need..."

He turned to Gloria and froze as the Queen looked at him with incomprehension.

"... You're actually serious?"