Sophia looked at the choices presented to her with the utmost attention, rereading them several times over after reading the Warning.

  Purely in terms of gain, Healing Touch was the clear winner. It was an evolutive boon allowing her to save people from an all but certain death. But she would have to look over her shoulder each time she would be using it, which kind of defeated its purpose.

  Divine Aura was somewhat good, especially for her, but it would directly expose her and paint a target on her back. Surely most gods would be strongly opposed to have a human with budding divine power roaming freely. Some might even go out of their way to nip her in the bud and eat her.

  Vestigial Wings, similarly to Divine Aura, would immediately expose her but the benefit sounded far too begnin to be the subject of envy or to paint a target on her back. She would just have a pair of useless Wings whose sole purpose was vanity. And maybe one day, getting the ability to fly.

  As for Eternal Youth, it was practically even less useful than Vestigial Wings. Sure, not aging was good but what was the point when you might die a brutal death within the next two months? If anything, it had only one virtue: it was an invisible boon. It would be as if she refused the gods, except if she survived the tutorial. From thereafter, she would have to be on the move every ten years or so, so no one would realize she was not aging. Which she already had the perfect cover for as an itinerant witch/bard going wherever her patron demanded.

  However, Vestigial Wings was the first boon she scratched: too few benefits for too many inconveniences. Plus, she already knew of other ways to get the ability to fly, if she ever wanted it. Next was Divine Aura, because she did not feel like fighting evil as her sole purpose in life. Eternal Youth and Healing Touch were a tie, however.

  She really wanted Healing Touch for obvious reasons. But she did not want to end up as someone prisoner, only kept alive to heal whoever her captor wished. And she could perfectly imagine even her peers locking her away in a golden cage 'for her own good' arguing she was too valuable for humanity and needed the protection.

  As for Eternal Youth, she wanted it only as an impulse to spite the gods. She was not optimistic enough to think she would ever truly benefit from it. She was eighteen and would probably not see any difference before she turned forty or fifty. Back on earth, with the health care system and the relative safety of her daily life? Sure, it would have been the clear winner. But here? She did not fancy her chances of fighting monsters for twenty to thirty years before truly feeling the benefits.

  But in the end, she only had recently acquired Healing Song and was not even using that boon to its full potential. So Healing Touch? Trying to make the most out of it would expose her. Yet keeping with her life as if nothing happened would be a waste of such an incredible boon. She could not morally take that boon and not use it. So the only twisted way around that pitfall that would undoubtedly ruin her life was NOT to take it.

  In the end, it was the same lopsided logic that she used, picking Rogue over Fighter.

  'I choose Eternal Youth.' She decided, trying to channel all her spitefulness and unwillingness to become the gods' pawn, not to second-guess her choice at the last moment.

  She would pass.

  Afterall, if she really intended to become a hero of humanity, she would have picked Healing Touch, come up with a Joan of Arc persona, and come up with a false mechanism to her boon to justify she could not be caged. Something around the line: "My boon is only working when I sing and dance out in the open where the light of the divine can shine upon me."

  It might even have worked for a time. But what if someone she truly cared about got injured in circumstances that did not fit the narrative? She wasn't sure she would have the self-discipline to keep up with her own charade.

  Plus, she did not really want to become a Joan of Arc. She already had her fair share of potential witch burning as a true witch. And she was honestly not that selfless. It was easy to die for the greater good. But terribly more difficult to live for it. She would leave that for someone who did not stumble upon the Aasimar ancestry by accident.

  Afterall, she only truly cared about her team. Saving everyone else had just been a nice bonus for giving up one life.

  Anyway, time to get back to her life and pretend it never happened.

  ★☆★

  Sophia woke up in the respawn pod and went straight to the bathroom to finally throw up. Dying had restored her body to peak condition. But it did not affect her memories. And dying, or more precisely agonizing, was a terrible feeling to remember upon waking up. That plus her stressful confrontation by proxy with the divines resulted in her overwhelming feeling of sickness. Though it was her feelings she was actually trying to get out of her system.

  When she was done, she looked at herself in the bathroom minor and thankfully saw little changes to her appearance.

  She had silver freckles on her natural honey, but now positively radiant skin. Her curly brown hair suspiciously shined silver in bright light. And her brown eyes were a shade darker and more intense than they used to be.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  All in all, she appeared more healthy and girls would probably pester her to know her secret beauty tips but that was about it. She thankfully did not look that much different than she had been this very morning, except for the really minor vanity upgrade, from plain to cute. With the right clothes and makeup, she might even start to give cherub vibes.

  Not that she ever planned to do that.

  Shrugging off that momentarily narcissistic moment, she went to retrieve her equipment, gear herself up, and prepare herself for her journey across the floor. The resting area was exactly as she left it off and so was the outside.

  And so, there were few resources to scavenge and resupply. But she would have to make do with whatever she got for the next couple of days: a light metal flask, one metal cup, a blanket, a backpack, and whatever scraps of perishable food they had left behind.

  That was something she had to take into account on the next floor thereafter: always leaving some spares behind for 'emergency.' If not for her, then for Paolo, or whoever they might end up teaming up with.

  And so, after her rushed preparation, she was back to square one, among the rotten corpses of the raptors she had killed on her first run. And the overwhelming feeling of guilt she expected never came. She was cured! Sure, she was not exactly proud of her work here. But it had been a fight to the death and she happened to win. And she was so very glad to be alive instead of them.

  Ambient magic toxicity? Checked and scratched.

  She would now have to be overly prudent so it would not happen again.

  Leaving that scene of carnage behind her, she started singing for protection and made her way down the hills. She found Paolo's tree and the dead raptors. Then she proceeded along the way to the now deserted camp, in which she settled for the night.

  In spite of the rushed evacuation, she found very little left of value in the ghost camp: some dried meat, and a discarded dagger that had seen better days. Yet, she found one incredible jewel among the dirt: a magical tome with new spells she could not learn yet, left behind with love letters, on what looked like a memorial or an altar.

  And so she packed up her dubious and lucky loot before taking a nap.

  ★☆★

  She woke up being kicked in the guts.

  "Who are you and where the fuck everyone else has gone?" The chief of a team of five shouted to her startled groggy face.

  She guessed she should have foreseen it happening, people dying right before the evacuation order or in the midst of it, regrouping and then getting back to this very place. And it seems like she just met with an unfortunate group that died right before her encounter with the chief.

  "Gone to the next floor." She said, before trying to make a convincing story for herself: "The chief made an alliance with that goody-two-shoes of a Cleric and suddenly they had a solution to bypass the earth Elemental. Would you believe that? Anyway, I died to a fucking lizard on my way up the hill. So welcome to the club. Can I get back to sleep now?"

  "I don't believe you," the brutish man said.

  "And I wouldn't either" She admitted, shrugging. "Except it's the truth. I saw it happening. And I would be up there with them if it weren't for sheer bad luck. Now, can you leave my sorry ass in peace and find some other unlucky guy to bother with your questions?"

  That did the trick of silencing the rude guy and after a few minutes of faking going back to sleep, they left her alone for good. And so she started stealth-singing while preparing to get away from here as soon as she could.

  ★☆★

  And finally, two hours past dawn, she had made it to the top of the hills, past the giant, and through the metal gates.

  She had not thought of the people she would left stranded behind. But she did not have an unlimited supply of lives. Nor was it her responsibility to save them all. So they would have to find their own way up or die trying. Exactly what they were doing before she interfered with their lives.

  So she walked to the circle, feeling slightly burdened but determined as ever.

  And for once, she welcomed the embrace of the empty void.

  Once again Sophia was faced with the same familiar screen. But unlike the other times she was starting to feel that the system's constant reminders of the rules was a bit too redundant.

  'Unless there is new information, can you remove the header and the unnecessary wordy redundant part of the footnote? I know the rules already.'

  Well. She still wanted them all. It just so happened that some options ended up higher on her priority list.

  As for today's selection, she already knew she was going to skip the Rogue options.

  But she also had a new option for her Weavesinger Archetype that was about as good as the Magus Arcana boon she had in mind. Luring Song, that new option was crazy. It might allow her to do a repeat of what she did with the Earth Elemental without dying. With that boon, she could have walked past it while still singing, saving one precious life and two precious days. But no point crying over spilled milk. It was all too late and that new option was simply all too good.

  With Luring Song, she could convince any hostile to let her go. And that was the least creative option she could think of at the top of her mind. Needless to say, its versatile utility was only matched by the offensive utility of Magus Arcana.

  And in the end, Luring Song won over Magus Arcana once again, solely because she had none of the gold required to learn any of the spells currently at her disposal. Why does magic require gold anyway? But she guessed it was similar to Paolo Prismatic Orb which required gold and a diamond.

  Anyway, Luring Song won for the sole reason it was immediately applicable without any component restrictions. She guessed she just had to sing until she lost her voice with how she had become so song-oriented.

  And so, the system confirmed her choice before sending her off to the next floor respawn room.