Lore huffed, taking a deep breath to calm themselves. “Well… I’m not sure how to answer that. Until I started working for Greed, I’d always worked for her. She spawned me, as with the other demons in the seventh Hell.”
Despite the bombshell that was for Roge, Hops just nodded and continued on with his questioning, asking what Lore was responsible for. The wolf had apparently worked in the processing unit, making sure souls went to the proper places after people had died. That required some explanation for Roge, as they hadn’t really gotten into the subject before.
There were, apparently, seven Heavens and Hells, each set off in their own ‘dimension’ with a god to rule over each. Each had a conceptual domain they would inhabit, like Entitlement would get the souls that either worshiped her, or displayed mostly entitlement throughout their lives. Like if there was a person who thought they deserved everything they got, or deserved more than they were given, they wouldn’t necessarily go to that hell. It would have to have been a significant portion of their personality, and if they followed another god, then it wouldn’t even matter.
“So… you guys know what happens after you die?” Roge asked quietly, much to the confusion of Lore.
“Pretty much. Lore, if you could continue? What made you leave the processing office?” Roge nearly laughed at that name, finding it too similar to jobs he’d worked at before.
“Well… I always thought some were getting more than they deserved. Like, some would get mansions just because they thought that waitresses should always serve them. It didn’t seem fair! So I tried to come up with a new way of sorting people. One where entitlement was rewarded if it was earned. And well… she didn’t like that very much…” Lore huffed at that, a hurt expression coming across their face. “She thought I’d do better under another hell, so she started transferring me around. Once I got to Greed’s hell, though, they didn’t know where to put me, so they threw me into prison until they could find a position for me.”
“That’s…” Roge grumbled, looking to Hops who seemed to be writing everything down at a fast pace. The dragon kobold wasn’t sure how much of the story was the truth, but he couldn’t find a reason for the wolf to lie about any of it. ‘Innocent until proven guilty.’ Popped into his head, Roge letting himself relax as Lore continued with their story.
“Well… my paperwork must have been lost or something, because I stopped getting updates. And well… I worked to try and free myself.” One of Lore’s claws slashed through the air at that, Roge feeling a buildup of magic as a crack appeared in the air. “Once I got out, I used [Dimensional Breaker] to get to the surface. I thought they wouldn’t care at first, but when one of Greed’s demons tried to follow me…”
“How’d you escape?” Hops asked after Lore had gone quiet, the fushia wolf fidgeting with their claws.
“He couldn’t get through. Apparently he was over level ten, and the portal was only letting level five and under creatures through because I couldn’t put that much energy into it. I tried to close it but… the skill doesn’t exactly allow that.”
Roge frowned at that tidbit, remembering that his ice drake had come through the portal no problem. “Can portals power up over time?” he asked Hops.
“If someone is powering them from the other side? Absolutely.” Hops frowned at that, tapping his wand against his chin. “Doesn’t that mean that, if you stick around us, the demon is going to try and track us down?” Lore blushed at that, their fur literally changing to more of a red color in their embarrassment. “Thought so. Even if Roge is still fine with taking away your class, I’m not sure if you should follow along with us.”
“But I’ll have nowhere else to go…” Lore whined, their claws tinkling as their anxiety seemed to get worse.
“I mean… even if we don’t have the permanent bond, they can still stay in my hoard. Would that fool the demon’s tracking?” Roge asked, not wanting to just dump Lore on the side of the road.
“It *might* work,” Hops conceded, scribbling a few more things in his book. “But Lore will have to stay in your hoard the whole time, and not come out until the demon gives up. I’m not sure if that’s a good solution or not.”
“He might not even know where I am…”
“Even so, your look is pretty distinctive. A pink wolf is hard to-“
“Oh! I didn’t look like this before,” Lore interjected, their form shifting into that of a more aquatic looking creature, the fin on their head almost looking like a mohawk. “This is my original form, but my species naturally comes with shapeshifting.”
“Even so, if anyone in the city remembers you, we’re going to have to have you change forms,” Hops said, Roge giving him a dirty look at the directness of the statement. “The demon is bound to know how Lore got out of the prison, which makes displaying the class very dangerous for them.”
“Aw! But I like my doggy form!” the now wolf whined, pulling their fluffy tail around to cuddle it.
“Even so. We’re going to have to see how taking the class away effects people. Roge?” The dragon kobold nodded at Hops’ look, turning back to the screens laid out in front of him and taking a deep breath.
~~~
Roge decided to do the procedure in chunks, taking out the skill and ability ranks five at a time. Every time, you’d think Roge just stabbed Lore in the arm with how he reacted, Roge not liking the process one bit. At the very least, whenever he needed a heal, Lore gulped down one of the potions, ending up needing five by the time Roge got to the last portion. Each skill and ability only had one rank, Roge ripping out the whole class in one go to make it clean. Two ability coins, two skill gems, and one class amber dropped to the ground at that, Lore whining loudly before chugging two more of the potions. “Are we a-a-almost done?” They stuttered out, giving Roge a miserable, yet resolute expression.
“We’re done actually,” Roge mumbled, each of the screens he had access to fizzling out. “Is the class gone from your [Status]?”
Lore pulled up their [Status] at that, their eye flickering through the screen before a smile bloomed on their face. “It’s gone…” they whispered, looking to Roge and letting out an excited squeal. “It’s gone! Oh my gods, thank you!”
Roge huffed as the wolf picked him up rather effortlessly, swinging the dragon kobold around in joy. “You… you’re welcome,” he responded, the wolf suddenly crushing him against their chest.
“Oh, I can finally interact with people! And they won’t go around trying to please me. I can’t tell you how much this…” Lore trailed off as they looked to the entrance of the city, several people milling out to the nearby caravan plot. “Uh…”
“Oh hi! Didn’t see you there,” one of the people called out, a giant hobgoblin-looking man in full metal armor coming over and giving them a smile. “New to the city?” he asked, looking at Lore for a moment before turning back to Hops.
“Yeah. Just arrived today,” Hops muttered, studying the guard’s reaction. “Though we’ve been here before. You don’t recognize us?”
“Nope. Only been a guard for a few years, so I must have missed you,” the man chuckled, scratching at the back of his neck. “Glad the weather cleared up at least. Need any inn recommendations?”
“No, we’re good,” Roge said, keeping an eye on Lore as their excitement practically exploded out of them. “Thanks anyway.”
“It seems no one remembers me!” Lore squealed, both Roge and Hops shushing them as the guard walked away. “That’s great for you right? Means I can hang around without causing suspicion.”
Hops sighs, giving Roge a hard look that the dragon kobold avoids looking at. “Fine. We’ll see how this goes. But only long enough to see if you fit in the group.” Hops then claps his hands. “Now. We need to get the others out and discuss what our next move is. We still have a couple of quests we’d taken out that we need to complete.
~~~
After bringing Sean and Marge up to speed, everyone split off, Roge heading with Lore to the animal corral to pick up the animals Proton had procured. The five of them surprisingly cost Roge twenty silver in total, the dragon kobold wincing as it ate into his funds. He’d gotten a nice windfall back in Centerville, but he frowned as he looked at his money total, seeing that he dropped below three gold. “Need to earn some more money…” he muttered, realizing that the quests they’s looked at only offered a couple silver to complete.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“Why not sell potions then?” Lore asked, Proton giving the wolf a side-eye as they walked towards the right pen.
“It’s not that easy. I don’t have contacts in this city, and selling them to the guild gets me half the amount I could get from adventurers.” Roge then grinned as they reached the right cage, looking over the five white furred hyenas with a strange, hungry feeling as his [Farm Hoard] skill seemed to make him want them even more.
Roge was deep in thought over what his skills were saying, feeling a bit uncomfortable with the urge to grab every animal there, regardless of usefulness. Thankfully he was pulled out of the thoughts by Lore, the wolf giving him a raised eyebrow. “Why don’t you just open your own stall? It shouldn’t be that hard, right?”
Roge paused as he processed Lore’s words, first having to jump his mind back to the conversation they were having. “That’s… not actually that bad of an idea. Proton?”
“I haven’t looked into it. We’d have to see what the regulations are in the city,” the butler replied, also looking a bit intrigued. “First, though, we have to add the hyenas. Their [Ice Magic] should give you a big advantage.”
“Right,” Roge muttered, opening up the cage and walking inside. The inside of the cage was pretty big and luxurious, the canines laughing nervously before one of them allowed the dragon kobold to touch them. Once he did, though, it wasn’t hard to convince them to join his hoard, though he struggled for a second to decide where to put them.
“That seems… busted…” Roge murmured, jumping as he realized Proton and Lore had followed him in and were looking at the screens.
“It’s why I recommended it, Master,” Proton huffed, giving Roge a judgmental look. “The more you gain treasures like this, the more you can lean into your strengths and gain more power overall. I would recommend we add [Ice Magic] to all of your creatures, so that you gain greater buffs for all of them.”
“But… wouldn’t that cause issues with the max ability rank?” Roge asked, looking over everything and frowning. “I know I can hold creatures with any skill rank, since the drake’s abilities didn’t reset, but my [Screen Hoard] ability might mess with the numbers if I try and add it in. The more abilities they have, the lower the max rank can be, and the lower the ranks the supplies will be.” Roge took a deep breath to calm the irritation inside of him, knowing the actual reason why he didn’t want to do it was a bit… petty.
“Master. Do you really need [Musicality] and [Visual Flair] higher than nine? Items wouldn’t even be able to handle ten ranks of each, since they’re tier zero abilities.” Proton looked frustrated as well as he spoke, only prickling Roge’s irritation further.
“Wait… what’s the issue here?” Lore asked, giving both of them a confused head tilt.
Roge sighed as he once again tried to calm down. “I can also add abilities and skills to creatures using the same skill I used to take your class. The problem is that there is a cap, currently at nineteen, where I can’t go any higher than that total. So if there are two abilities, I can only add nine to one of them before it stops me from adding more. So the more abilities my animals have, the lower the rank of the ability. And when the abilities reach certain thresholds, it makes the products I can get from the animals go up in rank. Like my flowers. Because their abilities are at rank nine, I can get petals that have five ranks, quintupling my output.”
“Huh…” Lore muttered, looking over Roge’s harvesting list that he’d made for the animals.
“I mean… if you’re worried about losing out on product ranks, even if you might not use the product for anything other than just selling it, I can see why you’d be hesitant to add in more abilities. Have you tried copying an *affinity*, though? Like… from their species information? Seems like it wouldn’t mess with the abilities, and can just be applied to everything to increase your buff from it.”
Roge and Proton froze at that, both of them thinking on it before Roge summoned his screen for [Screen Hoard]. “No dice. It specifically says abilities, skills, or attributes.”
“But… I don’t see why it’d stop at that. It’s a *screen* hoard, not an ability, skill, or attribute hoard.” Roge once again couldn’t fight the logic of Lore’s statement, looking through everything before pulling up his own species information and looking at a particular part.
Knowing that his fairies had [Nature Magic], he knew that his increased affinity for it didn’t effect the buffs and effects. But his sapphire scales? If he could copy over the increased affinity to his creatures, he could upgrade them all in one fell swoop. ‘Or… one at a time,’ he corrected himself, knowing not to overload himself too much with the buffs. “Okay. Let’s try this, then,” he grumbled, reaching out for the screen and focusing on his intent.