Odd could feel himself going mad, his mind replaying the word over and over again.
Videogame, what does it mean?
The word was so familiar, it was just out reach mocking him.
Videogame, Videogame, Videogame
Feelings were tied to this word, time was spent with it. He could feel images clawing at the back of his mind, images like pale blue screens, sleepless nights, and a tip-tapping sound again and again.
Videogame
“Can you hear me, Hero?”
Suddenly the world was back in focus, and Odd realized that everyone was watching him and he was on the floor, muttering to himself.
“Can you hear me, Hero?”
Odd realized the voice was coming from in front of him, the familiar figure of the one that killed him. Odd toyed with the thought of trying to eat her again but decided against it after remembering his death. He shuddered, wishing he was stronger, wishing his body was stronger. Absently he rubbed his tongue across his teeth and made a shocking discovery.
“My teeth are flat!”
The room became very quiet, and Odd discovered a new sensation, sweating.
“Great, out of all the Heroes we could get, we get the loons. ”
The voice came from a different human this time, they were large, fit, and easily twice Odd’s size. He had large scars all over his body with gray hair and the look he gave Odd was of pure disgust.
“Julius, be polite, for all we know the spell to summon Heroes could,’negatively affect them’.”
This voice came from a tall man wearing red and purple clothes and had the same vibrant red hair that the one who killed him had.
“King Belor with all due respect his first reaction was to scream, fall to the floor, mutter nonsense, and exclaim ‘My teeth are flat’.”
There was murmur of agreement among the crowd. They were looking at him with a mixture of pity, disgust, and fear. Things were not going well for Odd.
“Surely we can’t judge him, he could be a hero of immense strength after all.”
The skinny one was looking at him with pleading eyes trying to signal someting. Odd, completely oblivious to humans and their ways, chose to do something entirely different.
“No, I’m really weak”
The skinny one was looking at him nervously.
“You don’t know that”
“Of course I do, the voice in my head told me so.”
That was the wrong thing to say, as once again all eyes in the room looked at him. There was hushed whispering, along with some brief gestures that Odd couldn’t understand. Even Odd could tell they were talking about him and it was not good.
“Why don’t we test him, we can have Albert conjure a monster for him.”
It came from the skinny one again, who at his point Odd thought was out to get him. There was some more whispering, followed by some more gestures until finally there was silence. It remained that way until the tall human broke the silence.
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“We have decided to follow your course of action Sandra.”
“Thank you Father.”
“Sandra” was looking at Odd with eyes that to anyone else would seem like compassion and a little bit of fear. But to him, it just seemed like she was condemning him to death.
……….……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Odd and Sandra the human were walking down one of the castle corridors to the laboratory when Sandra slowed them down and pulled Odd aside.
“What were you thinking, you could have got yourself sent to the dungeon!”
She paused cooling down and suddenly looked at him with concern.
“Are you really ok?”
Odd wasn’t sure how to answer the question. It had been no less than an hour since he was born and he had no idea what he was doing. So he asked the question that had been bothering him this entire time.
“How strong is this monster going to be?”
“I could see how you would be concerned, they don’t have monsters where you’re from don’t they”
Odd wasn’t sure where the Hero came from, or what a Hero did, all he knew was that he was supposed to eat them, and he had already done that.
“Yessss…”
Sandra sighed and looked around and leaned in.
“Listen it’s a Lesser Monster, regular humans can beat them, and you're a Hero I believe in you.”
“I’m not quite sure about that, I’m pretty sure I’m weak?”
“You should be able to check your ‘stats’ as he called them. He said it was like a blue screen or something.”
Odd remembered the blue thing that appeared before him earlier and pulled it up. He looked at it but it wasn’t helping.
____________________________________________________________________________
NAME: Yusaku Hiro
RACE: Human[INFECTED]
CLASS: N/A
VIT: 4
STR: 4
DEX: 3
INT: 1
WIZ: 2
SKILLS
* [CHRONO_REBIRTH]
* [SYSTEM]
____________________________________________________________________________
“This doesn’t tell me anything”
Sandra gave Odd a confused look.
“Doesn’t it tell you your attributes?”
“Nope there are some funny words in there like, STR, VIT, and DEX”
“Those are your attributes STR stands for strength and so on”
Odd didn't understand at all, but he still nodded his head.
“I see, I see. How do you know all this stuff”
There was an uncomfortable pause before Sandra started speaking again
“There was a Hero before you, but that doesn’t matter so out with it what are your attributes”
It was Odd’s turn to start the uncomfortable silence, after a while he finally gathered the courage to speak.
“My strength is four, that’s good right?”
Sandra’s eyes widened to a comical degree.
“FOUR.”
Odd gave her a sheepish nod, and Sandra started muttering to herself.
“That’s really low, abnormally low in fact, most Humans have a score of at least twenty in every stat and your a Hero”
“And this monster has more than four strength right?”
Another uncomfortable pause, Odd decided it was a good time to run, and promptly started to leave.
“Wait, don't go.”
Sandra’s hands flashed out and grabbed Odd’s hands.
“Listen to me, the person who told me about the screen, they are not a Hero, not even close to one, and I’d much rather go with a Hero who is supposedly weak, then a murderer. ”
Sandra was not letting go and Odd couldn’t think of anything to say, so he did the only thing he could think of, lie.
“I promise to help you.”
Sandra let go of her grip on him, visibly relaxing.
“Thank you.”
Sandra walked side by side with Odd, promising to help him in any way she could, giving him reaffirming words and positive affirmations but by the time they were nearing the end of the corridor Odd felt like a criminal about to be executed.