‘’Heal ….., Regenerate ……., Expellimarmurus ……., Wingadum Levitingosa’’

‘’What are you babbling on about?’’, I queried.

Dave poked his fingers into the air like he was tapping on a screen, not that I could see it of course. He was most likely trying to come to terms with his interface.

‘’I’m trying to get a hang of my interface.’’

See. Like I said….

‘’Any luck, Ratfinkle?’’

‘’Stop calling me names. I get that you’re angry at me, but this won’t work with your poor attitude.’’ He grumbled while turning at me to give me an angry side eye.

I shrugged and scooted across the floor to get a better idea of what he was doing.

‘’I’ve figured out the basics of the interface. There are 5 key sections, 7 if you include the ones that are blocked out by question marks. I probably need to unlock them. The visible ones seem straightforward enough. There’s one for stats, and as expected, it shows my agility, strength, intelligence, health, etc. You get the idea. I’m currently at level 1 so all the stats are level 1 too. Oh, almost forgot. This section also includes skills, abilities, and equipped items’’

‘’The intelligence stat makes a lot of sense,’’ I smirked.

‘’Shut it!’’

‘’I was just saying.’’

‘’The next section seems to contain maps. They’re all grayed out bar this area we’re currently in. I’ve explored a little so the areas I’ve been to are visible and marked.’’

That could prove to be useful, I admitted to myself. As much as I disliked the guy, Dave seemed like a very useful tool at this point.

‘’I heard that!’’

‘’Can you stay out of my head.’’ You twerp.

‘’No can do buddy, we’re bonded.’’ He said with a sickly smile and a flutter of his eyelashes.

‘’Gross.’’ I whispered.

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‘’The third section is an inventory. It says here that I can store approx. 10 Kilos of mass, However, certain equipped items can increase that amount.’’

‘’Wow, you are such a useful tool. Like a Swiss army knife, but in rat form. I mean mouse form.’’ Might as well say what I was thinking. He could read my mind after all.

‘’Watch it, I’m starting to feel like you need me more than I need you in this world.’’

‘’As if.’’, I pouted.

I couldn’t tell him directly, although I think he already knew, I did need him. I had nothing in this world. And if others had an overpowered system helping them, just like Dave, then I had no chance of surviving by myself. And I had no intention of dying twice in 24 hours.

I sat cross-legged behind him and asked what else his system contained.

‘’Well, the last two are the strangest. The fourth Section is labeled ‘Familiar’. When I open it up, it seems to show something very odd. There’s a silhouette of a man, but no details. It has a battle control system like you’d see in a video game, but for now, I don’t think I can access anything.’’

That one caught me by surprise. Something didn’t feel right about hearing that. No point pondering it until we know more, I guessed. Most likely, Dave knew as much about it as I did.

‘’And the last one I asked.’’ Hovering over Dave’s shoulder.

‘’do you mind, I can smell your necrotic breath a mile away.’’

‘’watch it,’’ I said as I flicked one of his ears.

‘’That hurt. You know you could be a little nice seeing that I’m the one with all the powweeeerrrrr.’’ He yelled in a menacing deep tone while still massaging his ear with one of his rat paws.’’

I just rolled my eyes and ignored his attempt to look like an evil bad guy.

‘’And the last one……’’. I demanded growing a little bored.

‘’The last one is the weirdest of all, it doesn’t give much information. It’s just called internal resonance.’’

Just then my stomach rumbled. I’m guessing Dave’s did too as he looked up at me and asked, ‘’What should we do about dinner?’’

‘’I don’t know about you Dave, But I’m going to head down over to that town and get me something really nice to eat. Sorry, as you know, most places have a no-rat policy.’’

‘’Interesting that you would say that. You look like a bum yourself. Do you think they’ll let you in? I bet your own mum would turn you away looking at you as you are now. You look and smell like your last shower was the day you were born. I bet the hospital had to call in an exorcist to remove the stink demon from your ass. Wait, why with your smell, you could kill a skeleton, and that’s saying something as they have no nose. Maybe you did have a system too, but your smell caused it to malfunction or quit on the spot’’

I really didn’t need to say anything. As the little turd continued to ramble his barrage of insults, I just stood up and did the grown-up thing. I pulled my leg back and kicked Dave as hard as I could. He flew straight into the door. The timing was perfect too. His last remark ended with a crescendo as a punchline.

As he squeaked down the door like a marker on a whiteboard, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the sturdiness of the door. I had been certain that it would have fallen off its last remaining hinge by now. That was some good carpentry right there.

‘’Expellimarmurus yourself out of that one, Crap for brains!’’ I said. And with that, I pulled the door open and was on my merry way.