Zeke breathed heavily as he looked back at his savior, a thankful but exasperated look on his face.

“N-Next time, warn me before you go and attack, alright?” Zeke stuttered, the idea of his head almost sliced in half still rattling his mind.

“I-I’m really sorry! I-I-I just thought that if I did, the knight would’ve noticed! And I figured I could take it from behind!”

Mikella seemed really flustered, running over to Zeke and helping him up. He felt a little guilty, making her think that she made a mistake. Now that his body relaxed from the intense adrenaline coursing through his veins, she really did make a good move.

It just so happened to have a kink in there, such as his head being in the way.

“Right… right, that makes sense,” Zeke said, shaking his head. His mind still saw those floaty white lights from twisting his head so much in the fight. “Sorry. That was a good plan… but, uhh, still, watch out for my head, alright?”

“Got it,” Mikella nodded quickly, agreeing more than anyone. “But what was that thing? Is it alive? Or not?”

“I’m not sure,” Zeke turned over to the now unmoving knight. He approached it, keeping himself a foot away just in case and peered into the empty armor inside.

Like he expected, it was truly empty; No human body in sight.

“It really is empty…” Zeke said in astonishment. “How did it move on its own?”

“Ghost…”

Zeke quickly turned to the other side of the room. He was wondering why Mikella was on her own, but realized that Clara was at the completely other side, hiding behind the leg of a table. She showed up, her smallish round face filled with fright as her entire body trembled.

“I-It’s a ghost…” She said, her voice small and shaking.

“Clara!” Mikella said aloud. “There’s no such thing as ghosts! There isn’t… right?”

She slowly receded, turning to Zeke with an expectant look as though to agree. However, no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't really disagree with Clara’s claim.

I mean, there’s literally nothing inside there. If it isn’t a ghost, then what the fuck was it?

He can probably think up dozens of reasons why it could move on its own. Maybe it’s some prank the kidnappers put on them. Maybe it was something like electronics moving it. No matter how he spun it, almost dying to this thing didn’t help much with his rising panic.

But just as he was trying to reason with another idea, something popped up in his vision. It just came up out of nowhere, making a trilling noise like it was a notification from his phone. He yelped, retreating back a step to see what just appeared in front.

“Hyaa!”

Mikella also screamed, louder than his own and clearly more terrified. Zeke turned to see her, but she saw that she was just staring at a distance, almost as if becoming unfocused.

He didn’t see anything showing up in front of her, because when he tried, that strange thing in his vision followed his vision.

It was a block, a rectangular blue screen, with black-lined white letters emboldened to show some sort of message.

> You have defeated Arthurian Knight, Level ***

>

> You have gained experience points.

>

> For receiving experience points for the first time, the system has recognized your actions.

>

> System Initializing…

He creased his brows at this simple message. He turned to Mikella. “Did you also have something pop up in front of you?”

“Y-Yeah!” Mikella stuttered, shaking her head, but it looked like it didn’t work as her brows creased at that. “I can’t put it away. It says: ‘System Initializing’... What does that mean?”

Zeke could only answer in silence, unable to figure it out himself. Soon, the block changed, this time showing another sentence.

> System organized. Commencing Startup.

“What?”

Pain wracked his entire body. It was so intense, he couldn't even scream. His body locked up in ways that he couldn’t explain, including his throat that stopped him from making noise. The only senses that worked so far were his ears and eyes as he noticed Mikella making a pained expression, unlike anything he has ever seen.

His ears picked up Clara’s screams of concern as everything in his vision faded to black from the corners. Soon, darkness fell onto him.

The pain increased, as though hands gripped into his insides. They reached deeper and deeper, digging straight into his heart–or his soul.

His limbs were numb but also felt like they could explode into a bloody mess. His insides were trying to crush him from within.

He felt something else. Something intangible. But that was impossible.

His soul was being crushed. He never felt his soul before, but the pain helped finding out how. His instincts were telling him now that his soul was being attacked. Being overrun by… something.

Then, just as it came, it disappeared.

The pain, the agony, the suffering. It all just… disappeared.

His eyes fluttered open, his vision blurring for a few seconds before it reorganized itself. He saw Clara desperately nudging Mikella who was on the ground, her eyes closed and unmoving.

He tried to get up, but a loud groan escaped from his lips. It was that soreness again, only it was ten times worse than before. Still, it didn’t lock up his joints, so he forced himself up even as pain riddled his body again.

Clara yelped at his sudden groan, pushing herself away from him and behind Mikella. She kept nudging her, her eyes tearing up as she sobbed while calling out her name.

Zeke did feel a little bad for scaring the little girl. He would be scared too in her position, so he crawled over to their side, lifting his hand.

“L-Let me help…” Zeke said, catching Clara’s attention. She peered over at him, looking up and down. Realizing that he wasn’t a threat, Clara nodded slowly and backed away.

His body was slowly returning to normal. The soreness was still worse than usual, way worse than any exercise he has ever done in his lifetime.

But it was clear something unnatural happened, so he needed to grit and bear it.

He closed up to the downed Mikella, and a groan escaped from her side as well. He backed away, seeing that Mikella was slowly waking up, but another groan, this time louder and seemingly in deeper pain, exploded from her.

“I-It hurts…” Mikella said. “I never felt this much pain even in training…”

As he expected, Mikella seemed more fit than he did, and considering her words, she must have practiced some form of art or sport. So if she’s the one in that much pain, no wonder Zeke felt like he was dying.

She opened her eyes to find Zeke above her. Her eyes widened as she looked behind him. “Clara…? Where’s Clara?!”

Zeke quickly pointed behind her back, and before Mikella couldn even turn, Clara hugged her tightly.

“Sissy!” She screamed. “Sissy!”

“Clara!” Mikella hissed, wincing at the sudden hug. “Easy now, I got you. Now let me go, you’re hurting Sissy…”

Clara quickly let go, her eyes still brimming as tears streamed down her face. Mikella smiled gently despite the pain, rubbing Clara’s face with a gentle hand.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“I’m fine now. Don’t worry,” Mikella cooed, brushing Clara’s neck-lengthed hair as she turned to Zeke. “How about you?”

“Same,” Zeke shook his head. “It hurt a whole lot. After that ‘Startup’ happened, all of a sudden…”

Once again, his eyes popped wide open. Another message showed up, another trilling noise like a notification echoing in his ears. It was another message, but no pain came this time.

> System fully integrated. You are now connected to the Tarial System Interface. Open your status screen for more information.

Zeke gaped at the sight, and surely Mikella did the same as she turned to Zeke

“Are you seeing this?” Mikella asked. Zeke figured that she also can’t see his own screen, but can see her own just fine. He nodded his head.

“Status…?” He asked the screen.

Then another screen showed up, this time the block was longer. It was vertical, and a stream of information showed up from top to bottom.

> Name: Zeke Parlow

> Race: Human

> Novice: Level 1

> STR: 5

> DEX: 7

> INT: 9

> SPI: 10

> VIT: 5

> END: 6

> Free Points: 2

“What…?” Zeke said, stupefied at the numbers before him. It quantified the entirety of his life in a single little box.

Before, he was just thinking that this all reminded him of some video game. He didn’t think it actually was a video game. When he spotted Mikella, her eyes showed the same gaped expression he had, staring in the distance.

“Are these numbers… mine?” She muttered aloud. “This feels so much like a video game… Is this some program or some kind of virtual world? You think someone kidnapped us and somehow… transported us into some virtual video game? Some beta or something?”

Zeke now assumed the worst to come. What if their bodies were eradicated somehow, and their minds were the only things that existed? That would explain why everything felt so painful.

“No… wait,” Mikella interrupted Zeke’s dark thoughts, still staring at the window in her vision. “That wouldn’t make sense. They would try to pick up better players than us. Unless you’re some pro gamer?”

“I barely play anymore. I just only play casual games,” Zeke shrugged.

He was a little ashamed of it, if he was honest. He used to play so many games, it almost became an addiction. Role playing games were his favorite. But lately he found himself unable to play many games at all since he had to work so much lately. His job was always draining him of his motivation to play and even the energy to move, so he just found himself sleeping most of the time.

“Me too,” Mikella nodded. “I only play simple games on my phone. I’m pretty sure no company would want to go as far as kidnapping people to some virtual game unless they were experts in the field. Plus, who on earth would take a little girl like Clara seriously when making a product? They want to have as many good opinions as possible, right?”

“Yeah, but then all of this wouldn’t make sense,” Zeke hated to say, but he had to. Mikella had no choice but to nod at that.

Clara, who was clinging hard onto her sister’s leg, cried out. “Hey, let’s leave… please… I don’t want ghosts to find us.”

Mikella instantly consoled her little sister, brushing her black hair. Zeke only realized now that the two had different hair colors; Clara being almost entirely black haired while Mikella had mostly brownish hair.

He put that to the back burner as that was the most useless thought he had all day.

Well, second after the whole ‘abandoning the girls to save himself’. That thought alone made him feel guilty just thinking about it. Even if he had a good reason due to him, well, fighting for his actual life. How could he blame himself for being afraid to die?

That’s why he found himself amazed that Mikella went as far as to attack the knight from behind. She had every option to leave it all to him, so he couldn’t help but appreciate her support. In the end, this was all new to him–this fighting to the death.

He started getting annoyed at the status screen taking up half his vision, so with a force of will, he tried to put it away, like closing the ‘X’ button on the top corner. Just like that, the stat screen went away, clearing up his vision once more.

Mikella faced him, seemingly having done the same on her end. “What do we do now?”

Bringing himself back to the real world, he grimaced. “We have to keep going. Find a way out of here. Clara’s right–we need to get out before any of those… uuh, ghosts, come after us.”

“A-Are they really ghosts?” Mikella’s voice contained a hint of fear. “I’ve seen scary movies, so I know ghosts can do a little more than this…”

Zeke now understood why Mikella scolded Clara for saying the word ‘ghosts’. She’s not talking about the average round-shaped ghosts you find plastered all over Halloween. She’s talking about the truly terrifying ones from horror movies that to this day would scare the shit out of Zeke and not let him sleep for the next few days.

He shook himself off. This was no time to think about that.

“If the only thing they can do is take over these suits of armor, then we can handle it.” Zeke hefted his heavy axe up. “We can use these weapons to protect ourselves. This time, I’ll handle the front, and if you can, attack from the back… but, uhh, make sure Clara is totally out of the way.”

Mikella nodded. She seemed more acquitable this time. Unlike almost freezing in terror as Zeke went ahead to fight the knight, she seemed more comfortable given a job to partake in the fighting as well.

“Alright, I’ll try. I’ll make sure not to hurt you this time too.”

“I appreciate it,” Zeke smiled. “But I’ll keep a look out too to make it easier for you. But we also need to make sure that you don’t become a target either.”

Mikella nodded as Zeke went ahead to take a look at the suit of armor again. Tugging it at the hem of the top of the suit, he tried to pull but to no avail.

It was extremely heavy. If it was enough to hurt his toe after he kicked it, it surely would be too heavy to carry by hand.

“What are you doing?” Mikella tilted her head. Clara also did the same, looking adorable as she was copying her sister practically by instinct.

“I’m trying… to see if I can wear this!” Zeke panted before giving up. He let out a big breath before turning to the older sister. “I figured it’d be easier to fight with if I had this thing on me.”

“Y-You want to wear the thing that the ghost possessed?” Mikella asked incredulously.

“Hey, it’s better than getting stabbed by a ghost.”

Mikella had no way to counter that, so she stayed quiet as Zeke went to work. However, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t lift the armor to save his life; literally in this case.

But he then flinched when another box appeared. He was sure that the status screen went away, but this was a new one entirely as a new sentence formed.

> Would you like to loot the corpse of Arthurian Knight?

This is becoming like a game more and more…

Shaking his head, he decided to wing it. He accepted the prompt, figuring that he can just think of clicking ‘yes’ like he did with the ‘X’ for closing the window.

Then the suit of armor just disappeared into motes of lights. The entire suit of armor disappeared, leaving behind what looked like the metal gauntlets the knight wore on the ground in its place.

“H-How did you do that?!” Mikella’s mouth gaped wide open after seeing the same thing herself. It looked like the obvious suit of armor disappeared in her sight too, and seeing Clara’s reaction, it was obvious that it was seen by everybody.

“I-I don’t know…” Zeke shook his head almost despondently. He picked up the gauntlet while explaining what happened in his own vision.

“So, we can literally just… loot the bodies?” Mikella said in shock. “It really is like a video game then…”

“Everything else is real though, including this,” Zeke said with an off-comment, lifting the gauntlet up.

He was a bit upset that the only thing he received were just the gauntlets. He really wanted to wear that suit of armor, but considering how heavy it was, it didn’t seem likely.

So he instead decided to wear the gauntlets. As always, it was better that he stayed in the front, and he would very much love the idea of not letting his fingers hurt again.

After wearing the gauntlets, he nodded in approval. They were heavy, but they helped him lift the axe better than before, somehow. He tried to see if he can check the stats like he can in video games, but it didn’t work.

“Damn… kinda hoping I can see what it can do, like raise my Strength or something…” Zeke commented, realizing that he said it aloud since Mikella answered.

“It doesn’t show it?” Mikella answered. “What about if you say it out loud, like saying ‘status’?”

Zeke tilted his head in recognition and did just that. “Umm… Examine? Identify? Uhh…”

“Observe!” Clara shouted, surprising Zeke and Mikella. But he did just that as well.

“Observe!”

Nothing. Nothing happened. He wilted as he shook his head. That got Clara to wilt as well, leaving Mikella to brush her hair to console her.

“...You know any other synonyms?” Zeke asked, hopefully, but Mikella shook her head.

“Well, at least you got something to wear,” Mikella said, then turned to the other things in the room. “Should we try to take anything else from here?”

Zeke pondered on that and took a closer look around. After seeing how everything works here, he decided to just pretend that this was a game. If he was a gamer, then he needed to find other items to help him trek through this castle.

Then he spotted something nifty. Hanging on the walls near the lamps, almost near the racks where they picked up the axe and sword were tons of little packs.

They looked like travel packs. Onyx-colored and square-shaped, they had two front pockets and what looked like a latch to open the large cover at the top. He went over there and picked up one of the packs, opening the cover up.

Frowning, he found nothing inside. Actually, he really did find nothing–just a dark void that didn’t look like it had a bottom from where he saw, even from under the lighted lamp.

“Nothing there, huh?” Mikella said, grimacing. It looked like she had the idea of looting the room too.

Then, he had a thought. It was a weird thought, and as though commanded by his curiosity he picked up the axe and tried to… jam the axe head into the opening of the pack.

“Uhh… Zeke?” Mikella asked, raising a single brow as though questioning his sanity. “What are you–”

The axehead suddenly disappeared into some void that opened up right before the opening of the pack. Zeke, Mikella, and Clara were stunned by this as Zeke continued to push the axe into the pack further and further.

After putting his hand through the void-like portal, it just passed through, but the shaft of the axe disappeared as well. The entire axe just disappeared into the tiny pack, which realistically shouldn’t ever happen.

“Whoa!” Clara exclaimed in wonder, her eyes now glittering. Zeke just laughed maniacally.

“We got a storage bag!” Zeke said in triumph, lifting the bag up for the girls to see in awe and admiration.