By the time I had supplied about twenty monsters with weapons, my Lv had hit almost 25. About 15 of that was from my own victories, if you can call Firhaur's death and King Relgore's death that. And granted, I now realize that a few of those EXP were gained through carving out the runes in people, but that wasn't my main income of EXP.

You see, humans can be mean and rude and cruel, and not gain any EXP so long as they do not actually commit any violence. This is another side effect of their more physical bodies.

Monsters are capable of committing acts of violence without gaining so much EXP as humans, because of how closely related their Souls are to their bodies. If a monster is fighting out of self defense, self preservation, in, say, a war, but really has no desire to harm or kill, then their Lv will not rise so quickly.

That is how Dagiel and Asgore and Gerson all had such low LOVE even after the war. None of them wanted to fight.

But, monster bodies being more closely related to their Soul, the same is true in reverse. It can take much less to raise a monster's Lv, even without violence. Sometimes, emotion and thoughts alone could raise a monster's Lv.

And I was running on pure hatred. The idea, the knowledge, the belief that my work was causing harm, deliberately causing harm, and proceeding with it anyway...

And maybe not enjoying it, but definitely taking immense satisfaction in it, in the bloodshed it would cause, in the death it would wreak, in the fire it would light...

That, my listener, is what caused my Lv to rise.

Now, that's not the only difference between the effects of LOVE on monsters and humans.

When humans have Lv, it's a near constant thing. It effects their every action and thought. There is no on or off.

But with monsters...

I clung to my Lv. I used it as a shield, protecting myself from the destruction, the chaos. I used it to protect myself from the depression, from the loss of HOPE. I relied on its strength to keep me motivated. To keep me moving.

But sometimes...

Sometimes, I would, whether consciously or not, let my grip on it slip, just a little.

Those were bad moments. They were the moments where it got to me, the horror of war, of violence, of what I was doing, and what it was doing to me.

The moments where I realized that Firhaur was dead, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

Those were bad moments.

...

... I remember one of these moments... well. Some of it. Things are sharper than others.

I was in the lab. Dagiel was there, and Asgore too. They checked in on me often. Looking back on it, I think that, despite the way I acted most of the time, they realized something was horribly wrong with me.

We were talking about... something. Like I said, some things are sharp as the spears I made, and some things... not so much.

I remember, though, I was saying something about if they came with me to Burn's for lunch, I wasn't paying for them. And then...

My voice tapered off. I realized that my hands were shaking.

For a moment, I could only stare at my hands as they trembled. I remember feeling shocked. My hands never shook. Never.

I remember that I started Speaking in Hands, hard and fast. I don't remember what I said, really, but I get the sense it was all completely meaningless, just a jumble of words thrown together in random sentences. None of it mattered, though, really. I was just trying to hide that my hands were shaking.

I was trying to deny it, trying to convince myself that my hands were not shaking.

But it didn't work. The more I Spoke, the harder my hands shook. So I tried harder. Spoke faster.

I'm sure it wasn't long before I was roaring loudly, gesturing widely, Speaking furiously.

I was probably on the verge of breaking something. Hurting someone. Hurting myself.

And then Asgore grabbed me from behind, wrapping his arms around me, pinning my arms to my chest.

I just... froze. My body just stopped, every joint locking up, pained expression stuck on my face.

I swear I could hear the beat of my Soul.

Asgore held on to me for a minute, and when I didn't struggle in the slightest, he let his grip loosen on me. When I still didn't hardly move at all, he started gently rubbing a hand across the top of my head.

I started breathing again, hard, panicky breaths that shook my frame, rattled my bones. Near sobs.

And Asgore, kind, gentle bossmonster that he was, tightened his grip on me again. Not restraining this time. Comforting. A hug, trying to ease my stress.

Things get a little foggy after this. I remember that they made me lie down. One of them, probably Dagiel, got water from somewhere (not one of my experiments, I hope) and they tried to get me to drink some. I don't know how successful they were, but I have the faintest memory of frustration winning out over Dagiel's concern, just for the barest instant, and him dumping the water on my head in hopes that the cold would shock me out of whatever mental breakdown I was having.

I don't think that worked.

Eventually, I remember coming to my senses, dragging up my Lv defense back around myself.

I was on my back, on the floor. Asgore had one large paw spread across my chest, soft green flickers of Healing Magic playing across his fingers, a gentle warmth seeping into my Soul.

After taking a few more shuddery breaths to harden my resolve, I sat up. Asgore was reluctant to allow me to do so, but with a few terse "I'm fine"s, he let me.

"What was that?" Asked Dagiel. There was none of the usual snark in his voice, none of the slightly humorous, slightly condescending tone. There was only concern.

"Nothing." I responded shortly.

We all knew, of course, that it wasn't nothing, but I didn't want that to be me, and I think that Asgore and Dagiel knew I was in far too fragile a mental state to address the issue. So they left it along.

But I was not always so lucky to have good people around when these bad moments happened.

In fact, usually when they happened, I was alone in my lab.

These would often end with me wedging myself between the wall and some cabinet or counter, and hiding there until I recovered.

... And...

And the higher my Lv rose...

... I thought I was getting stronger against it...

The higher my Lv rose, the less often these moments occurred.

§

A/N

So I'm dog-sitting for some friends for the week (they're practically paying me to live in their house and eat all their food and use their nice, fast internet while they're gone). This could mean one of two things: either I'll be writing a lot more over the week, or I'll get distracted by fast internet and just watch a ton of cat videos on YouTube. Based off how today has gone, it'll most likely be the latter.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Comments and votes are my Favorite Things, and every notification I get makes my day!