Christian studied her clearly skeptical reaction, sighing to himself. “Let’s just get you some food, yeah? We can agree to disagree for now.” Food. Food sounded good. Suddenly, she was all too aware of her empty stomach.
“Do you have pasta?” She blurted out, hoping he’d say yes as her previous craving came back once again to center stage in her mind. In all the excitement, and there was a lot of it in her defense, it had slipped her mind.
“Yes James, people living off the land have pasta.” James rolled her eyes at him, pasta was a basic food staple, she was sure people had tons stored in whatever home the doors led them too. That didn’t count as living off the land either, she hadn’t seen any space for farms. Christian looked around, before settling his eyes on a guy sitting on one of the beds.
“Do you mind if Jean Paul lifts you into a cot? I didn’t want to move you before, but now that you’re awake there are better places to be than on the ground.” In response James tried to get up, third time’s the charm and all that. Besides, she was a strong, independent- she was on the ground.
“Fine,” she pouted. For maybe the first time in her life. If the counting started now. But would anyone even count life before the System integration? So, really, she was right. Watching her in amusement and some well-concealed concern, Christian gestured for Jean Paul to help her up. Instead of carrying her, though, he supported her as she semi limped her way to a clean bed. In all honesty, he was probably carrying 90% of her weight, but who was counting?
Settling down in exhaustion, that simple walk had taken way too much of her energy, she heard the door open and shut again. Looking up, she saw Arthur approaching, now wearing different clothes, and looking decidedly wet. Now in a clearer frame of mind, and him looking at least halfway normal, she didn’t react negatively to him. He was holding two plates of still-steaming steak. James guessed mass-produced steak didn’t get time to rest until it was perfect.
Moving over and sitting down in Christian’s wheeled stool and looking very silly since he was too tall for it, he handed her one of the plates and dug into his own. She guessed he either didn’t get the grand tour or didn’t care enough.
Whatever, it wasn’t her problem. She’d be forced to leave soon enough. Jean Paul and Christian seemed to disappear on her, not even wishing James luck as she got special attention from the head honcho for the third time in one day. The rest of the people in the cots were also in the same frame of mind and were all either asleep or pretending to be.
“James, I don’t know what to do with you.” That was a marvelous start, really helping her to calm down. Case in point, she couldn’t even force herself to touch her meal, for all she was sure it would be her last in the clearing. Even when she knew, logically, that she was hungry. She just had too many butterflies in her stomach to add any food to the mix.
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“You come in, days late might I add, and change everything. There’s a reason we all thought you were fake when you were spotted. Nobody else in this Tutorial is so weak. All your physical stats are less than 8?” He didn’t even wait for her to nod, but she interjected. She had some pride. Besides, he was being exceedingly rude, if not outright mean, enough that even she, with her limited social understanding, could tell.
“My agility is an 8!” she pipsqueaked. She really should consider taking a breath before she spoke. Or begging to stay.
“Huh. Good job, that’s better than I expected. Nonetheless, you made my point. Your agility is an outlier, yes? The average for physical stats here is a 9.” He let that point settle in.
“You were a liability, somebody we could tuck away with Christian and hope doesn’t die.” He took a deep breath. “And then, within two hours of you getting here, you’ve become the single most important person in this clearing.”
James froze. Her tired brain forced itself into back again into overdrive. No. She wasn’t important. She was background. The one that came pre-installed and was subsequently changed. She was the student the professor had to make sure they were recording the lecture for. So maybe even worse than background, a background responsibility you didn’t want.
If she counted vitality as a physical stat, her physical stat average was just an abysmal 5.25. She wasn’t special. If anything, she was especially weak. Wait, wasn’t she trying to convince him to keep her? Her mouth opened before she registered the thought.
“It’s what Christian was talking about, isn’t it? You somehow think I can predict the monster attacks?” James gave a derisive laugh. “That’s a coincidence. I told you I have severe social anxiety. It’s just another panic attack. You went to school, right? Correlation vs. causation and all that pass over your head?” She was being rude, and she was so overwhelmed she couldn’t stop herself. Arthur sighed.
“Maybe, maybe not. You are right that we only have one real data point to base it on. And you do know yourself best. But as an outside observer, who isn’t biased by past cases, it looks awfully suspicious. So, for now, I’m going to treat you as if you can predict monster attacks.”
“But that’ll get me attention.” She really wasn’t computing. She gets a panic attack from her social anxiety and his solution is to tell her that she’s important? And that he was going to stick some people around her? Psychology should clearly be a GE in college, heck, maybe high school, both he and Christian had missed a course somewhere. He was in the same boat as Christian, shaken in the head, disturbed. At least as much as she was. Seeing that he wasn’t going to get to her, and finished with his meal, Arthur got up.
“It is what it is, James. I’m assigning Jean Paul and Louis to you for now. If anything changes, we’ll reevaluate.” Glancing down at her untouched plate, he let a smirk tint his face. “Eat, James, I hear it’s healthy for you.” She watched him walk away in shock. Mechanically, James started eating her meal.