Thinking back, things must have happened for a reason.

The decisions and actions we take that leads up to this point in time.

Like choosing a path at a crossroad, what we see at the end of the road we take differs from one another.

Oh...

That's not a good analogy.

It sounded as if I could go back in time and retake my decision at turning points of my life.

Turning points, or should I refer it as the time that caused a drastic change in my life?

Hmm...

If I was to think back about the biggest change in my life that led to this point of time...

Then I can only think of one thing.

That time when I got myself a little sister:

Cecilia.

======================================

Hmm... Strange......

I closed my eyes as I took another sip of milk tea from my tea cup.

Slowly putting the cup back on its plate and then to the table.

Now let's face reality.

I looked at the transparent window that suddenly popped out in front of me.

Nope, this window was not like those window made with frame and glass.

In fact, I don't even know why I'd call it a window but somehow it felt like that was how I should call it.

This window was floating in empty space just in front of me... and there were words displayed on it.

If I was to read the title, it reads 'Status Window'.

Status Window, huh...

I reached out for my cup once more, my hand phased through the Status Window just like before.

Nothing strange happened, except my extended arm was blocking some of the words displayed on the window.

One thing I got to mention was the ripple-like effect that occurred when my hand passed through the window.

My tea cup was able to pass through the window as well and, of course, the ripple-like effect occurred once again.

While this whole experience was new to me, however, I don't feel any sort of unfamiliarity from seeing this transparent window.

I took another sip of milk tea.

The amount of milk and sugar was to my liking, totally destroying the original taste of the high quality tea leaves my father possibly spent quite an amount to buy.

That doesn't matter, it's not the most important matter at hand as of now.

The most important thing was to understand this strange but familiar window that suddenly appeared before me.

Since nothing else came along with the Status Window, the only way to get to know about this was to read whatever was displayed on the window.

The texts were arranged in an orderly fashion and the information were separated in categories in the form of tables.

Again, the strange familiarity didn't make it look out of place.

In fact, I was surprised to call the block arrangement of texts as table. Not sure where I got the idea from but the word 'table' felt like the correct term to call it.

It was easy to read, I immediately understood the things displayed on the window.

Zack Blackthorn...

...was written in the 'Name' field.

That was my name and family name.

Well, my name wasn't important.

The more important part seemed to be the 'Title' field with the phrase 'Son of a Count' displayed on it.

That's right, I was born in a noble family.

My father was a count of this country... kingdom...? Whatever, he was a noble nonetheless.

The Blackthorn family was given a seat as the kingdom's nobility and a land that was located near the borders of the kingdom.

Also, as one of the borderland noble families, we were given the task to protect the kingdom from any threats from outisde the kingdom.

At least that was what I was told and can confirm in kingdom's history book.

Impressive, isn't it?

Well, that was not important either.

I was more interested in the Title field after-all.

There was something interesting about the Title field, when I concentrate on it an additional window, albeit smaller, appeared.

The texts in this window were arranged neatly in the space provided. Most of the texts were greyed out whilst the others seemed to be brightened. A quick glance, the list of texts does have the literal sense of a title one would call themselves; like 'Chicken Chaser', 'Liberator' and 'Villain'... well these were some of the greyed out ones.

Intuitively, I concentrated on one of the greyed out title 'Demon King'... nothing happened...

Then I switched my focus to one of the brightened title.

The small window disappeared, leaving just the bigger window I started with.

There was one change with the window, the text in the Title field has been changed to 'Dragon Slayer'.

If my assumption was correct, I have successfully changed my title, and one that sounded even more badass than Son of a Count. Though, it was disappointing that I couldn't change my title to one of those greyed out ones, there were some really badass ones too.

Whatever, more importantly...

Even after I managed to changed my title, I don't feel any change to myself at all.

I looked around my surrounding to spot any difference that could have occurred.

There was the Blackthorn mansion not too far from where I am.

A large, luxury-looking building surrounded by a well maintained garden.

Nothing seemed out of ordinary.

Now that I have given my home an extra look, I could see how much of a good work the butlers and maids have done.

The vines growing on the building were trimmed to make them look as if they were part of the building's decoration, and the window was wiped so clean that they were sparkling. There were still other things to mention but those were not important either.

So what could I say about this?

Good Job!

I praised our butlers and maids in my mind as I nodded a few more times.

Then I downed my cup of milk tea.

Once again, I looked around the beautiful blue sky with white clouds floating around.

Nothing.

There was nothing else besides those white clouds.

There was no sign of dragon crashing down on me and started spewing out whatever breaths they have.

Looking at the back garden where I set up a table for my afternoon tea, there were no sudden encounter where a dragon comes out from beneath me and eat me as a whole.

I looked at my hand that was holding the empty cup.

The cup didn't suddenly turn into a dragon slaying weapon nor was there any change to the taste of the milk tea that was once there.

I left the cup on the table.

I stood up and opened my arms wide.

My casual clothes that screams nothing but 'I'm a noble' also didn't change to shiny armor that could defend me from breaths of a dragon.

Nothing changed at all, except the title in the Status Window.

Choosing to change my title to a Dragon Slayer doesn't conjure a dragon slaying scenario.

I suppose this was just for the purpose of self-satisfaction.

So no matter what I changed my title to in this window, I'm still myself in reality.

Well, fair enough, it's a fact after-all. No use to ponder too long about that.

The next thing that piqued my interest was the box under the title 'Stats'.

There, the texts displayed were 'ATK', 'DEF', 'INT' and so on. While they weren't actual words I know of but they were immediately understandable. For instance, ATK was simply attack, one's offensive power, and following that was some 5-digit number. The Stats seemed to be a way to represent a person's value in terms of numbers.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The DEF really caught my attention. It represents defense, protection power for myself.

Immediately, this led to me thinking about a knight wearing a fully plated armor.

Continuing with that thought in mind, the clothes I'm wearing could also be counted as a type of protection.

I didn't hesistate and took off the outer layer of my top.

There was indeed some change to the number next to the defense text. Even though it was a small change compared to before but it was confirmed the direction of my thought was correct.

I continued removing my top until I dropped the last piece of my top on the grass.

There was about a 3-digit change in the defense value. It was a significant drop compared to just taking off the first piece.

Still, regardless of that, I still have defense value left stated by the Status Window. I believe it to be from the toughness of my skin and pants that I'm still wearing.

I put this to a test.

I picked up a knife I used for cutting my dessert. Before I used it, I wiped off the cream left on it when I used it to cut my dessert.

Pressed the sharp side of the knife against my palm, put some force into it and sliced.

The knife successfully broke my skin and opened a wound in my palm.

There were blood but not the amount to be concerned about.

I wondered if it'd hurt more if I were to lower my defense even further.

So I took off my pants.

Defense value dropped further downwards.

A thought suddenly came up, I pulled my pants back up.

The defense value increased by the same amount it dropped earlier when I took off my pants.

I made a conclusion that these pieces of clothing does indeed have their own fixed number for stats.

Suppose skin also have a fixed amount of defense value if I was to continue with that thought.

I took off my pants once again, the expected drop in amount of defense value was witnessed.

Taking my pants off was a setup for the next experiment.

With the same cake knife, I cut opened a wound on my other palm.

There were blood but it was not the amount I needed to worry about.

I put my palms next to each other and compared the two wounds.

The wounds didn't look much different from each other, except for the angle.

I did try to use the same amount of force so I could get a better comparison.

A conclusion can be made from this experiment.

I sighed as I dropped to my chair.

I'm even more confused about defense...

Out of habit, I crossed my legs, placed my elbow on my thigh and pressed my cheek into my palm.

I began thinking.

What was even the use of having DEF?

I'm still sustaining injuries even if I have this defense value stated by the Status Window.

If I was to look at what I've done from a realistic point of view, no doubt I'd hurt myself if I cut my bare hand with a knife.

The reason why soldiers and adventurers wear armor was to protect themselves from harm as much as possible, at least for the part of their body covered by the armor.

Then, from the point of view of this Status Window, the act of wearing armor would increase the DEF of the person.

But all this defense value goes to the same DEF, making it seem like the protection goes to the whole body.

So if I were to cut myself with a knife then the DEF should have prevented me from getting hurt.

Well, the two tests I did have confirmed DEF does not work in the way I expected.

Or was there something I'm missing?

I crossed my arms and leaned against the chair.

The frustration of not understanding a phenomenon before me has gotten the better of me.

I closed my eyes to forget this matter.

A short moment of silence helped me to move my thought on to another thing that bothered me.

I opened one of my eyes and shot its gaze at the top corner section of the Status Window.

There was a green bar with the title 'Health'.

A small chuck of the green bar was greyed out at the end.

I noticed this happening, twice, when I cut myself with the knife.

Health? Does this represent my current health in terms of number?

It decreased when I hurt myself.

But what if I hurt myself enough times and it becomes empty?

Would I die?

It's understandable that I'd die if I was cut in half or I lose my head.

But I can't imagine myself getting killed by getting stabbed in the hand nor can I imagine myself dying from kicking a signboard and hurting my toe.

Ridiculous.

The more I think about all these things, the more this Status Window loses it's credibility.

It does provide a lot of information, rather detailed too.

But when thinking how they would apply to reality, it felt rather unbelievable.

Maybe, I was overthinking about this whole thing.

In the first place, this Status Window just suddenly appeared in front of me.

This could just be my imagination.

Therefore, I don't really need to think much about this.

Let's just forget about this... was what I thought.

Then, when I had the feeling of dismissing this whole thing, the Status Window disappeared.

It disappeared smoothly without leaving a trace. It's as if there was nothing in front of me to begin with.

So... the whole thing was indeed my imagination all along?

However, I can't explain it well, I got the feeling that I wanted to affirm the phenomenon once more.

So, in my mind, I imagined the Status Window appearing.

The Status Window appeared before me...

... ...

Once again, the thought of dismissing the window made the window disappear.

The window reappears when I imagined it to come out before me.

I see, so this Status Window was not just my imagination.

The Status Window would appear and disappear as I wish.

With the fact presented in front of me, there was no choice but to accept this was the reality.

"Young... Ma... ster..."

Suddenly, a voice called out from behind me.

I looked over my shoulder and saw a maid standing behind me.

For some reason, she has this unbelievable look on her face.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

"Master... is calling... for you..."

The maid was stuttering her words.

Though, this wasn't the first time I knew her, she didn't have such problem before.

Wonder what made her like this.

But since I've been called by my father, there was no time to be pondering about that.

"Ah, I see." I nodded as I stood up. "It's that time, huh."

My father, Count Blackthorn, told me he's adopting a daughter and will introduce her to me when she arrives at the mansion.

From what I heard she's from a rather distant branch family and she seemed to be mistreated by her own family.

I didn't get to hear much details but I believe I would know more about her when we meet.

After-all, from today onwards, she's my little sister.

I walked towards the mansion.

"Oh, Elena." I called out the maid without looking back. "Thanks a lot for informing me."

I waved my hand to show my appreciation.

Surely she will see this since I have called her name out.

I believe in terms of mannerism, me thanking someone in this way was rather rude, but I prefer this cool way of thanking people.

It's my style.

Don't fall for me, okay?

Before I left the scene, I didn't miss the opportunity to try out using Status Window on other people.

I successfully called out the window representing Elena's information.

The window seemed to be invisible to the other people, Elena didn't seemed to react to it when I summoned it.

Well, thanks to this new finding, I could read Elena's stats as a pass time as I walk to my father's office.

"Eh... You..ng Master... What do I do with these...?"

I was rather too focused on my new finding, I didn't hear Elena's words.

There was something in her Status Window that really caught my interest.

Elena's current status is 'Shocked'?!

I pondered at the reason that could make such a cool beauty enter a 'Shocked' state.

***

I knocked on the door.

"Come in."

I entered my father's office after I heard the response.

There were two people inside the office.

One of them was my father who was at his desk at the back of the office.

The little girl on the sofa should be my new little sister.

Even though it was a quick glance, I could see the girl wasn't doing well.

Instead of sitting comfortably, she had her head hanged and she allowed her long black hair to cover face.

Forget about being a noble, it was a bad state for a young girl to not care for her appearance.

I mean I can seemingly see a gloomy aura coming out from behind her.

Ah, she noticed me.

When our eyes met, I could see her nervous expression behind her frontal bangs.

In that instant, her worried look turned into a terrified one.

Poor girl, I can't imagine how much she had to go through to be so afraid of seeing strangers.

"Zack!" My father stepped out of his desk. "Let m...e... intro... duc..."

But for some reason he began stuttering his words when our eyes met.

His expression also changed to a shocking one, one that wouldn't lose to the girl's terrified face.

Strange.

Well, anyway, there's no need for him to tell me in full as I can already grasped the situation.

"So she is my new little sister, huh?" I said as I looked back at the girl.

That made her shoulders jumped a little.

"What's her name?" I asked my father.

"Her name is... Cecilia..." He slowly spoke those words. "But yo-"

"Ah, her name is Cecilia." I walked to the girl. "What a beautiful name."

Going by the flow of the conversation, my father was probably trying to introduce me to her so I just cut him off right there.

To leave a strong impression to my new little sister, I believe I should do the introduction myself.

I looked towards the little girl, she was still terrified.

Well, she may also be nervous because it was the first time she has seen me. I can understand it's not an easy thing for a child as small as her to accept the fact that she was adopted to a new family.

I suppose a warm welcome will ease her a little bit.

"Let me introduce myself." I kneeled down in front of Cecilia so we can see eye to eye.

Cecilia seemed even more terrified and she even tried to back away on the sofa.

"Wait, Zack!" My father exclaimed. "Your clot-"

I don't understand why he would try to stop me from bonding with my new little sister so I ignored him.

I mean, no matter how you look at this, Cecilia was just nervous about me and got a little surprised by my approach.

But as her older brother, if I want to improve our relationship, I will need to be assertive and take the initiative.

Once more, I leaned closer to her.

"I am Zack." I extended my hand to her. "From now on, I will be your big brother."

"... ..."

Cecilia didn't reply.

Instead, her wide eyes slowly rolled down and locked on to my extended hand.

Then she slowly rolled her eyes back and looked at my face.

There were no signs of her expression softening.

I guess there's that final push I gotta do.

"Let's get along, Cecilia!"

I tried to put on my brightest smile as I reached for her hand.

"nnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Cecilia suddenly screamed in a horrorific voice and then fainted on the sofa.

What the... How did this happen...?

I turned around and looked at my father for answer.

My father was face-palming and directed my view to myself.

Oh my, I was wearing nothing except my underwear.

Furthermore, it seemed I somehow left blood marks all over myself. Was all this from the wounds of my palm?

That's horrible.

No wonder Cecilia fainted.

Our first meeting could not get any worse.