The rest of the school day flew by, because of course it did. I’ve had plenty on my mind, after all.

  Olive, who is apparently my System Assistant now, just sat on my lap and generated heat.

  But now that class is over, I’ll have to move her. She complains audibly but doesn’t resist. Without gathering my mostly still packed materials I walk to the front of the room to where the instructor is still shuffling papers.

  “Instructor Harris?” I ask.

  “Yes, Sidra?” he answers disinterestedly. “What is it?”

  “Do you know more stuff about ascendants? Can I ask you stuff?”

  He sighs back. “Not much. I’ve avoided it, considering the amount of time I spent in my youth trying to find a willing spirit. And you? You had one practically fall into your lap, didn’t you?”

  “Um. More like I fell over her.”

  “Ha. Very funny.”

  …

  “Okay. I’m gonna go home then. Bye!”

  “Yes, goodbye,” Instructor Harris says with a dismissive wave, not even raising his eyes from his paperwork.

  ***

  Running home took far less time than I’m used to, only twenty minutes where it used to take at least thirty! Is this another benefit of being an ascendant? It has to be!

  “Wuf,” Olive confirms.

  “Aha, I thought so!”

  I feel a strange ping resonate somewhere in my body but it doesn’t slow me down at all as with a loud “I’m home!” I kick the front door open like I usually do, causing it to bounce off the wall… much harder than usual, dust shaking loose from the porch awning to fall on me.

  And my mother, with a wand drawn, immediately gestures me in and pull me to a wall. “Sadie! Get in here!” she hisses. “There’s a monster somewhere nearby, I can sense it. Stay hidden, I’m going to try to find it.”

  I blink. “I don’t sense anything… should I sense anything?”

  “No, sweetie, you’re not a mage, you’re not even an…”

  She trails off, then glances at me strangely before quietly asking herself, “Why does she feel like a monster?”

  Quietly enough that I probably wasn’t supposed to hear her. But I did, of course. Having stats is weird.

  And then the color of her eyes flicks to a strange gray for a moment.

  “Oh. Oh no. Honey?”

  She rushes toward me and drops to her knees, looking on in worry. “What happened? Tell me. Tell me everything.”

  At least a little startled, I tell her.

  “Well, I was running to school and this little fox ran in front of me so I tripped over it, and then I saw these words about her wanting to form a contract? And I wasn’t really all that sure what it meant but I thought why not, right? And now I’m an ascendant apparently. Oh, and my Status says a bunch of weird stuff, I was going to ask you. Why is my name wrong? What’s a ‘gorgon’?”

  Mother blinks at me a moment before letting me go and taking half a step back.

  “Gorgon… A gorgon, you said?”

  “Yeah,” I reply, “it’s in my Status. I’m a ‘gorgon’ apparently?”

  She flicks her wand and I feel that ping again, causing me to shiver. “Wait, that was you?”

  “It’s true. You’re… Sadie, you’re a monster.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  ***

  “’Gorgon: a humanoid monster displaying some external characteristics of other snakelike monsters, though not to the extent of a Lamia. They can be identified apart from similar monsters by a mass of snakes in place of hair, patches of scales, vertically slit eyes, and sharp teeth. Due to commonly possessing a Skill or Skills that affect paralysis or petrification they are considered extremely dangerous, warranting caution and careful preparation to defeat. Lower-leveled Gorgons possessing the aforementioned Skills often have difficulty deactivating them, and as a result have been known to unexpectedly defeat entire parties of unprepared adventurers.’ Huh. That doesn’t sound particularly good, does it?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “Yip!” Olive contributes.

  Mom and I had gone up to the attic and after digging through four different trunks and coughing and sputtering through sixteen years of dust, finally found back some of her old study materials. Apparently she’d gone to some weird school that was supposed to be for training heroes or something, but she’d never made it to that point. She never told me why she’d quit, but she didn’t need to.

  Anyway, one of the old tomes happened to be a simplified bestiary… and gorgons were in it.

  Sentient monsters.

  I’m a sentient monster.

  What really didn’t make sense though was the life cycle. Supposedly all gorgons are women, and they give birth to more woman gorgons? But mom isn’t a gorgon.

  She did suggest something called ‘atavism’, like someone in the family tree was a gorgon a long, long time ago? And the genes coincidentally lined up just right to make me one too.

  But my name…

  We still have no idea why my Status says I’m someone called ‘Ravona’.

  Who knows. It’s not like it really matters… although I guess a lot of adventurers or other ascendants might react badly to me now, since I can be detected…

  “So, what are we gonna do about my eyes?”

  “That… is a very good question, sweetheart. I don’t feel any kind of status effects from you, but I’m also fairly high level.”

  “Wait, what level… huh.”

  I feel like there’s something somewhere inside me, pulling, just underneath the surface of my… of my I don’t know what. But either way, my curiosity gets the better of me and I give it a pull… gently.

  [Mage – Carmina Vossen – Level ???]

  [Skill: Identify has been used for the first time!]

  [Adding Identify (0) to Skills!]

  “Woah!”

  My mother bristles. “What? What happened?”

  I blink at her…

  …and can’t help but notice that she’d reached to her hip. For her wand, the small one she keeps around and always told me ever since I was very small not to touch, that it’s dangerous.

  She… she thought…

  “Should… I leave? Do you not want me here anymore?” I ask, surprised at how my voice suddenly cracks. Wait, I’m crying? Why am I crying?

  I’m so confused.

  “No,” she suddenly says, and after a moment of visible conflict slowly pulls me into a hug. “No, sweetie. I don’t want you to leave. I’m sorry.”

  A sob escapes me. “I… I don’t want to be a monster, mom. I don’t!”

  We say nothing more and just hold each other for a while. I’m not even sure how much time has passed, but after a while we separate.

  “We’ll figure something out. Alright? We will, somehow. It’s going to be alright.”

  “Okay,” I sniffle.

  ***

  “How about these?”

  “Hmmm, I’m not sure,” I answer.

  We’d gone out to the shopping center to try to find some kind of glasses, tinted or mirrored or anti-magic or anti-Skill… the last two are really expensive, but mom said that was fine, that she has plenty of savings from before.

  That’s probably why she doesn’t work now.

  Oh, and she’s level 46 apparently. I think that’s pretty high, probably.

  [Mage – Carmina Vossen – Level ???]

  …

  Yeah, still no Skill level up.

  Mom said I should keep using Identify on her in the hopes it would reach the next level, since it isn’t actually specific to what you’re identifying and only that you keep using it… and that it’s apparently faster if you’re identifying things with levels.

  I’m sure it’ll happen at some point.

  (Will,) Olive confirms.

  Good.

  After a stop at the food court for some empty yet delicious calories, we make our way home…

  And since it’s already reached evening and we’d spoiled any possibility of having an appetite for dinner, mom and I spend the next couple of hours between reading up on ascendants, fox-type spirits, and what kind of role I’d want to play in a party – assuming I decide to be an adventurer to begin with.

  Which is one hells of a question in itself.

  On the one hand, it’s a particularly dangerous lifestyle as dungeon diving and even simple quests to, I don’t know, kill giant rats? They’re all potentially deadly. All it takes is one mistake, one misplaced footfall, one overlooked side passage, and you’re dead. Done. Even if your Akashic Self remains, your Ego gets purged, and that’s it. You as you were, gone forever.

  But on the other… this is an amazing opportunity, and I can’t help but feel like it’d be an incredible waste to just let it slip by. How many others would kill for this opportunity, even just from the people I know personally? Probably a lot more than I know.

  And here I am, with that opportunity.

  I… can’t really turn that down, can I? Plus it doesn’t hurt that I feel something inside me urging me to take a chance, that it’s all worth it, excitement, growth, learning… the heights I could reach…

  …Which is strange. I’ve never been ambitious. Why am I ambitious now?

  Is it related to that weird trait?

  [Gods-touched]

  Yeah. Weird.

  Mom suggested maybe all of this was the result of divine intervention of some kind, but to be honest?

  I’m not even sure the gods exist.

  (Do.)

  I… see.

  Well.

  (Become.)

  What, me?

  (Yes.)

  I sigh. I’m not even sure what I’d do with… any of that. Or if I even want to.

  But one thing is crystal clear… I need to do something.

  I’m not going to waste this opportunity.

  So I take a deep breath to muster up my courage and say, “I’m going to do it.”

  “Do what, Sadie?”

  “I’m going to be an adventurer. Which means I need to level, right? And that means being an adventurer, taking quests, diving dungeons… Will you help me?”

  Mom looks at me for a long moment, clearly mulling something over.

  And then she simply says, “Okay, sweetheart. If that’s what you really want to do.”