"You're here bright and early, where are your friends?" Jezabel asks as I walk into the guild hall.
"I'm not sure. Sakura was pretty upset yesterday and didn't really say anything to me while we were helping Josh home." I reply. My body is in surprisingly good condition all considered. The system truly is a miracle.
"I bet they gave up. One day of training is all they can take." Jezabel scoffs. "They have ten minutes to show up or we'll start without them. Rest here until then, I've got some paperwork to fill out."
I watch her bristly blue hair bob gently back and forth as she leaves.
"How was your first date with the Guild Master?" I turn to see Catherine giggling through her hand. My mind is so blank I can't even think of a response. "Looks like you two had fun, isn't that right Ash?"
"Ahh!" Catherine pokes her side which causes her to drop the paper's she's holding. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Ashley frantically scoops the papers together while crawling around on her hands and knees.
"Ashley, it's okay." Catherine says as she bends down to help pick up the papers.
"Right, I'm sorry. I guess I'm just a little tense."
"Are you sure? What happened?"
"Nothing, I'm fine." Ashley forces a smile as she stands up with all the paper in hand. "I was just late getting home last night and my boyfriend was a little upset and I guess I- I'm- It's nothing, really. I'm fine."
"Okay. If you say so." Catherine replies as the two guild staff members walk away.
Before I can process what just happened, Josh and Sakura walk in the door. They both look just as despondent as I am. Neither of them say a word as they sit down beside me. While the physical damage has been mostly healed over night, the mental stress doesn't fade as easily. We all stare blankly forward for the next few minutes until Jezabel returns from her office.
"Would you look at that, you all actually showed up. I guess you're not completely worthless." Jezabel says while looking us over. She begins walking toward the courtyard and we slowly amble after her.
Over the next week we enter a time paradox where every minute lasts an eternity but the days go by in a flash. Jezabel steadily ramps up the pressure so we always feel like we're falling behind even with our growing stats. On the third day she begins using her magic to 'motivate' us by shoot tiny fireballs at us if we're moving too slow. My arms look like they're covered in cigarette burns. Looking back, I can barely remember half of what we did. I was holding onto consciousness for dear life and it seems my mind dumped a ton of memories as ballast. It makes me think what other events in my life my mind may be shielding me from. What was actually the worst thing my brother has ever done to me? How much of my life has been striped from me? Can I really claim to be myself if I don't even have all my memories? Who am I?
"Nick!"
"Aye, sir!" I shout.
"Not 'aye, sir.' We need to go, the storm is rolling in. Stop zoning out and move." Sakura says as she walks away from the courtyard.
I look around and see a light rain falling on the muddy soil. I'm alone. Most of the grass is gone and several craters cover the ground. The sky is black.
"We really should get going, it's going to get bad soon."
"Right." I jog home and give Nick the controls as we burst through the front door.
"Where were you? I was worried sick!" Carroll says as she wraps us in a towel.
"Sorry, Jezabel said she wanted to get as much training in as possible before the storm." Nick replies.
"That Guild Master. I should go over there and give her a piece of my mind."
"No, it's okay. Really. She's just trying to help."
"I suppose. I just hate to see you all beat up like this." She says as she looks us over. Our body has gone through a substantial change, even if it is currently covered in bruises. What little fat was on the boy's body has now been replaced by lean muscle. His cheeks are gaunt and his hands are covered in calluses.
The whole family sits down to eat a big bowl of Cambuulo as the wind beats against the windows.
"Are you sure those windows aren't going to break?"
"The windows are made of transparent Uru Crystals that are harder than steel so they won't break." Nick explains.
"That's right." Vincent chimes in. "I was just reading about an Uru Crystal mine in the Argon Forest that was abandoned several hundred years ago. Apparently, Uru Crystals are made of Quartz that's been bathed in mana for thousands of years."
"Yeah, and there are different colored Uru crystals like rose and citrine that have different effects!" Nick adds.
"Oh, you read that one too?"
"Yeah!"
Carroll and I roll our eyes as Nick and Vincent prattle on about Uru crystals for the rest of dinner. I'd honestly like to learn more about how things work in this world but they machine gun information at each other so fast that I can't keep up. It's like they're have a knowledge competition.
By the time dinner is over, the wind is howling through the door. The whole room shakes occasionally from the buffeting gust. Unconcerned, Nick walks back up to his room and jumps into bed.
"Yay, reading!"
"Are you sure we're going to be okay? I've never heard of a stone building to shaking before."
"Yup! This house is one of the first Noble homes built in town and it's super strong and has a lot of supporting spells to help hold it together."
"Okay, if you say so."
While the kid spends the evening reading happily before falling sound asleep, I can't help but panic from every gust of wind. The storm howls like an angry beast devouring everything in it's path. I can't even see anything out the windows because the sideways rain is so thick. I can only get a few hours of restless sleep through the night.
Not being one to waste a day, I still spend a few hours exercising the next day despite my sleep deprivation. More than a week passes similarly; Nick and I alternate between working out and reading with only a couple meals a day to interrupt us. Neither of his parents seem concerned about his behavior so I suppose Nick has always spent the storm week in his room. Eventually we work out a system where the kid can read a book I set up in front of us while I focus on the physical activities. All I need to do is keep my head pointed in the right direction. We actually make a pretty good team. As the storm finally breaks, I take a look at our stats.
"Status."
Niccolo Drake lv 1
Patron: God of knowledge
Job: Commoner lv 1
Possible jobs:
Skills:
Titles:
Unassigned points: 0
Health: 64/64 (+10)
Stamina: 129/129 (+28)
Vitality: 19 (+10)
Strength: 42 (+19)
Agility: 26 (+16)
Endurance: 59 (+28)
Resilience: 17 (+12)
Perception: 3 (+2)
Mana Capacity: 0
Mana Bandwidth: 0
Processing power: 0
Even though it's becoming harder to gain stats, our progress is still steady. I can tell our body has gotten stronger than just the stats show because we're able to lift more even when our endurance goes to zero. If I had to guess I'd say at least our strength is about the same as an average adult man and our endurance is even higher! Though one thing still confused me.
"So, how do the health points work? Do I die when we run out?" I was extra curious because I noticed our health points getting dangerously close to zero while training with Jezabel."
"It works similarly to the stamina system from what I read. For instance, the health point system controls how strong the bonds are between the atoms on the top layer of our skin; when at full hp it can't be penetrated."
"Whoa, so we can basically survive a single hit no matter how strong?"
"Far from it. The more damage we take the weaker the bonds get so even with full HP we can still die to a single hit."
I grab the knife from the platter of food Carroll left on our nightstand and press it lightly against my arm while watching my health bar. It doesn't show any damage. I press harder until a single point of health falls away but no blood is drawn. I continue pressing harder until our health drops to seventy five percent and even then I can only just barely pierce my skin.
"Huh, neat. But what if I get hit by a hammer?"
"The health system reinforces the bonds in the bones as well so they can only begin taking visible damage at seventy five percent."
"So that seventy five percent is like a threshold?"
"Exactly, the other thresholds are fifty, twenty five, and zero. The lower the threshold the more non-vital damage you can take."
"Meaning you can only take vital damage once your HP is gone."
"Yes!" Nick replies excitedly.
"Then why did I get burned so easily by Jezabel shooting little fireballs?"
"The health system is really only designed to deal with pierce and blunt damage. You need resistance skills to avoid taking elemental damage or status effects."
"How do we go about getting resistance skills?"
"I think people usually get them from their job class but you can also get them from encountering the phenomena enough times."
"So if I stick my hand in a fire enough I'll get a fire resistance skill?"
"Heat resistance, but yes. But you'd have to be crazy to-"
"Awesome!" I immediately stick my hand over the nearby candle flame until I can smell burning flesh.
"What are you doing?!" Nick shouts.
"I'm trying to get the skill of course." I say as I pull my hand back to inspect the damage.
"Doesn't it hurt?"
"Obviously, but I'd rather trade a little pain now for agony later." My palm is red and a few blisters have already started to form. "This doesn't seem to be a good way to go about this; I'll have to think of something later."
"Yeah, please don't burn our hand like that."
"Right, my bad. Anyway, lets head outside."
I fall back to give Nick the controls and have to watch him deal with the pain in his hand for the next several minutes. I feel bad and this is a stark reminder that the body I inhabit doesn't belong to me.
He eventually wraps a wet cloth around his hand and heads downstairs. Nick scarfs down breakfast before walking to the door.
"Where are you going?" Carroll asks.
"Outside?" Nick says with a lilt of his head. His parents glance at each other before turning back to him with reluctant expressions.
"I don't think you should go out there yet. The storm just ended."
"Oh, is it still dangerous?" Nick asks.
"No, not really." Says Vincent.
"I don't understand."
Vincent shares another glance with his wife and receives a nod. I have a very bad feeling about where this is going.
"Nick," He says as he bends down and puts a hand on his son's shoulder. "The storm was really bad this year and not everyone has houses as strong as ours."
"Oh on, they got rained on?"
"That too, but we've always made sure you stayed inside for a few days after the storm because a few people usually die and we didn't want you to have to see that." Vincent says with a grimace.
"And it may be even worse this year, sweety. I don't remember the last time the storm lasted nine days." Carroll explains.
"I want to see." Nick replies with an unusually serious tone. I was the one who found my Father's body so it won't be the first time I've seen a dead body but I can't say the same for the kid.
His parents back up and we open the door.
The stench hits like a brick wall. Death. It's the only way I could describe it. Like a thousand rotting fish all covered in shit. Nick instantly wretches up his breakfast and plugs his nose with both hands. When he manages to open his eyes again I see the ground littered with bloated corpses. It's a natural disaster.