[NR] Chapter 278 - What Happens When Lines Are Broken (Patreon)

Still, this view into the System’s limits has little short-term value besides proving his path has a chance. Not a small thing, but not a certainty. It will take more testing to actually prove one way or another. Though if Jason was to be honest with himself, it wouldn’t be certain right until he tries it for real. After all, who knows how the System will react? All he can do for now is continue testing things out.

Which Jason does for the rest of the morning. In the end, he manages to kill somewhere between 200 and 250 scamps. He had been expecting to start running out of the things after 100, but they kept popping up. Still, it had provided him with more than enough samples.

The first thing is that he doesn’t have to actually enter the scamp for the System to start taking over. While just hanging out right outside of the lizards wouldn’t cause the System to react right away, if he loiters there long enough they will be assimilated.

Next is the fact that breaking the lines is not healthy in the least bit. In an attempt to stop the conversion, he had unraveled the lines at various points. Doing it right at the source kills the scamp, though it is insanely hard to do so. Jason doubted he could have even gotten a start of it if they had been actual monsters. On the other hand, if he broke the lines going to one limb or another, the limb would become disabled. Of course, this meant that attempting it with lines going to things like the heart will kill the lizards as well. Beyond that, it also did nothing against the Systems takeover.

A final bit of info he took away from the line severing experiment was that putting them back together badly was almost worse than not putting them back together at all. When broken, the affected part will just stop as if you had cut a nerve. Putting it back together wrong would cause a lot of nasty side effects, like knees forcing themselves to bend the wrong way. Overall, an unpleasant experience.

Also of note was that “useless” specimens that got systemized seemed to turn into death seekers. Unusual scamps, if released, would return to their normal life. The dime a dozen scamps all turned on Jason and attempted to attack him. Jason’s best guess on this is that the System doesn’t want them and so is prompting the animals on how to remove themselves quickly. That or survive through adversity to become special. The System likely doesn’t care which.

Jason looks out over the boulder and sighs. The only thing he didn’t manage to do was catch the fancy scamps. Though after observing them for a bit he doubts anyone who would bother with this could. They have either been in the boulder field for quite a while or aren’t actually wild. In fact, he is half certain they are actually raised by the farmer as bait for the new adventurers. She can promise a good bit of money for one of them alive and so they all do the task despite it not being worth anything otherwise.

He shakes his head and heads back towards the farmer. She looks up from her farm and asks him how he did then looked suitably impressed at the number before hinting at the fact he could leave. Not the most polite response Jason had seen from someone that wanted free labor, but that’s life sometimes.

With nothing else to do out here, Jason trudges back to the city. It might have taken him some time to finish playing around with the scamps, but at least the gates are still open. And of course with his badge getting back in is easy enough. In fact, the hardest part of returning to the Grey-tail’s home was passing by all the food stalls and restaurants. He had missed lunch completely without even some tough bread to gnaw on.

Once back to their home, though, he is thankful that he held off. Gregor had done another stew, and everyone had decided to wait a little for him to return. After taking care of Rosha and the whole badge thing, they settled down to eat.

Though despite the scrumptious and filling stew in front of them, Gregor seems to more quickly dig into asking Jason what he had been up to. After all, he hadn’t planned to leave the house originally.

Jason shrugs, “I figured out something that needed some testing. Ended up in a big field of boulders, catching scamps to figure it all out. Though I’m sure that since the System is involved, I didn’t figure out quite as much as I think I did.”

Gregor nods, “It is about time that those pests would need to be culled. Personally, I hate the things. I know it’s something purely me, as intellectually I know the little lizards aren’t any different from cats or dogs. Just another common pet people have. I can’t stand them. Anyway, what did you discover?”

Jason laughs, “I think they’re kind of neat. As for what I figured out? Well, you know the lines?”

Gregor rolls his eyes, “You mean the thing you’ve already talked about?”

Jason laughs though this time with a good bit of embarrassment. He had forgotten about it. “Anyway, there are of course creatures without them, right? A normal house plant that hasn’t been specifically raised with a skill or those scamps out there that are animals and not pets or monsters. That and basically every single blade of grass ever?”

Gregor shrugs, “Not much reason for them to have lines. What’s the System going to do with a blade of normal grass? Tell it to grow taller? They do that all on their own.”

Jason smiles, “Well the thing is, they do have lines. Just not System lines. Though once I take a look at it from the inside to confirm the System quickly takes over.”

Gregor frowns, “I guess that is good to know. Does it help you, though? You’ve already got the System throughout your body. It isn’t like you can remove the lines and start over.”

Jason shrugs, “I have a plan. Just knowing it is in fact possible to have them without the System was an important enough discovery for one day.”

Gregor nods, “So what do you plan to do tomorrow? While I don’t plan to just kick you out once the rest of your team heads out. I don’t exactly get the feeling that you plan to stay around much after that.”

Jason scratches the back of his neck, “Technically I could leave right now and be fine. What I need to know has been learned. Sure, being here gives me access to a lot of potential knowledge. On the other hand, the kind of thing I am looking for will probably only get harder to find, if it exists at all.”