It had been hell.

Seeing my sister in agony as I was hugging her and torturing her was a thing Benedict would have been proud of. If the man could feel emotions, which I still wasn’t certain of.

Still, it had to be done. And for my sister I did it.

I myself wasn’t without wounds, as I saw that some of my clothes had been shredded too viciously for me to have gotten out of the fall unscathed, but after helping my sister everything that had happened to me was already healed, so I would never know for certain.

Gaëlle was sleeping, and we stayed around the fire of the backpack. It wasn’t eating through the backpack anymore; it had been gone for some time. The flames didn’t propagate, they simply bore down in the ground, where the humidity slowly weakened them. I found some wood to keep it alive, and that’s where we made camp. Where I made camp as I observed everything around so I could keep my sister safe.

She was fine, I repeated ceaselessly.

She was fine.

My gaze fell on her multiple times, but she seemed to sleep soundlessly, peacefully.

I was tired, but not that much. I did not know how effective post levelling sleep was, but it hadn’t been completely useless. I knew that levelling up had been the reason for our loss of consciousness. If it was because of the amount of stat points allocated in one go or if it was a normal occurrence, I could only hazard a guess.

“Bonnie? How long until we’re able to create a temporary door back to the station?”

“Seventy-five hours, twenty minutes.” Echoed the computer inside my neck.

“Is there anything we can do to speed it up?”

“Building a new Dyson sphere would improve the energy production by a 100% factor”

“…No shit. Anything you can do to help us?”

“…Command not understood.”

“Great.”

“Notice: assessment of Doctor Benedict has been revised.”

“Wha…?” Did she tell me that because of the help request? “Which assessment?”

“Partial system effects seem to be directly operating on subject body. Those effects are estimated to persist in every world with a 1% error margin.”

“Really!?” Gaëlle would be ecstatic. Those were great news. We had become superhuman on our world standard!

Then I realized that twice as strong wasn’t probably such a big deal. There were people who could lift weights ten times as heavy as I originally could. Still, it was a nice and welcome boost.

A cracking of branches made me refocus on my surroundings, and I saw a flash of fur.

I was sure that there was something around us. I had felt it a few times, it wasn’t very big, maybe the size of a large fox, but I had seen the cat-like reflection of eyes around us. In any case, it wasn’t coming closer. Whatever it was, the fire kept it at bay. Still, I couldn’t afford to get distracted.

My sister woke up at dawn, and at that time, I was truly exhausted. Whatever had circled around us had left hours ago, seemingly losing interest, but that didn’t mean I stopped my watch.

“Daniel.”

“Hey sis.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe it. We got saved by a bigger dragon. Giant bird? I don’t know it was too dark. Swoop down and took out the fire lizard in one go, almost crashed the cliff on our faces.”

“My legs…” My sister rose to a sit, using her free hand to grab her legs. Her pants were still bloody, but I knew that her legs were fine. I had checked them regularly. It had been weird to look at the perfect legs with such cold detachment, the only emotion being worry, but then again, those were now Gaëlle’s.

She sighed with relief. “I’m thirsty.”

“Here, finish it, you’ll need it.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

She took the gourd I was handing her over and drank it all. “Can I have some of the other?” She asked.

“No, sorry, that one is gone, it was in your backpack and well…” I pointed at the pile of ashes on the ground.

She looked at me, shocked. “Did I just drink all our water!? Nielle! You can’t…What if…?”

“I saw a river up ahead, five, ten miles over there? No way to miss it, there was a waterrise.”

“A what now?”

“Didn’t you see? Oh, no, it’s probably my perception increase. When we were on the cliff running for our lives, I saw a river flowing upwards and a village.”

“A village!? Nielle, that’s great news! We could hold on there for a while!”

“That’s the plan. I hope they’ll be nice folks; I haven’t been enchanted by the native residents for the moment. Anyway, as long as we go opposite of the cliff, we should find the river, it was like halfway between here and the village.”

“Ok. Why didn’t they set up their village next to the river?”

“I have no idea.” I answered honestly.

“And what’s a Waterrise?” She questioned again.

“Waterfall, waterrise, see? Logical”

“Huh, sure, new word accepted.”

“Thank you, I was definitely asking for permission.” I rolled my eyes. “You can walk?”

She stood up.

“Hey, careful!” I warned her.

“I feel perfectly fine. The feeling of the blood in my pants is horrible though. Can you give me something to make a skirt, so I don’t have to wear it?”

“I have an extra sweater, so sure.”

“Perfect.”

After a quick change, we were on our way. It was a bit rough for me, I was drowsy, but it seemed preferable to move now. At this time, we could look around us and enjoy the new scenery. The woods looked much more peaceful during the day, and after being on edge for two miles, we realized it probably wasn’t just a feeling. Gaëlle was complaining about the high grass tickling her butt in her makeshift skirt, but despite that, the walk to the river went without hiccups. All the trees had inverted leaves, the plants looked weird, and there were a lot of birds around, of all colors and sizes. To be honest, I wouldn’t have known if the animals were like on earth or not, I had close to no knowledge in ornithology. None came close to the size of the one that had saved us unwittingly, of course. They were just…birds.

I saw plenty of tracks on the ground, some little some worryingly big, but we heard and saw nothing.

“Most animals on earth are nocturnal, maybe it’s the same here.” My sister guessed.

After an hour of walking, I saw something through the top of the flower-trees.

“Look.” I told my sister.

“What?” She stared at what I was showing her, puzzled. “What’s that?”

“Water. Rising.”

“Holy crap that’s cool.”

I had to agree with her.

A few minutes later, we arrived at the river. It seemed perfectly normal, water flowing on a bed of rocks and dirt, until it suddenly decided to say “fuck physics” and rose. Contrary to a waterfall, this new natural wonder didn’t make any noise other than flowing water. It didn’t crash on the ground, for obvious reasons. I watched the stream rise and rise.

“Where the hell does it end…” Me and my sister followed the waterrise up and up and up. And then we stopped.

“Wait a second.” My sister gasped.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“What’s up with the sky?” She asked.

“It’s…It’s…”

“Is that water?”

Over our heads, very high up, the blue sky wasn’t sky. The blue sky was water. There was an ocean gravitating around us.

“I…It’s an ocean.” I explained to my sister.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, pretty much certain, I can…I’m pretty sure the white specs are waves.”

We stood there, speechless.

“Where is the light coming from? Why is it even day?”

“I don’t know I…” I quickly spotted them now that she had raised that astute observation. “Crystals. I can see something like giant lightbulbs coming out of the water. There are a few of them, just like…” I didn’t want to finish that thought.

“LED lights?” L guessed.

“…Yeah.”

That soured the mood quickly.

“Well, I’m thirsty.” I was too tired to think about how it all worked, I let go of her hand and walked towards the river. We had discovered in our stroll through the woods that as long as she could see me, my sister wouldn’t tremble.

“Oh sure. I could use a drink, but after a bit, I want to look at the sky some more. I’m honestly starting to get a bit jealous of your mental stats, it’s way better than I thought. I want to see the waves too.”

“Mhh.” I crouched down and took a few gulps. The water was fresh and cool.

“Nielle! Wait, don’t drink it raw like that.” My sister argued.

“Raw? And how exactly do you drink water not raw?”

“I mean, boil it first.”

“Oh, yeah, good point. Could have told me before I drank some.”

“Oh, don’t be such a downer, it looks super clear, no fish or…”

“What?” I asked as her face suddenly showed concern.

“There is a general skill called [Purify]. It’s the most basic of spells, it’s given out for free, basically everyone can use it.”

“So? That’s great, there is no need for fire just try out the new spell.”

“Yeah. Yeah of course, it’s just…”

“Ploplo.” I responded. Wait, what did I just say?

She took the gourd and filled it with water. “[Purify]” A blue halo exited her hand and touched the gourd. Then, nothing.

“I suppose that it’s done? I felt something leave me, I’m not out of breath but…” I thought that my sister would have been overjoyed at using magic for the first time, but her expression was still full of worry. “It’s just that.” She continued. “Why would the system that governs this world just give out a purifying spell? Isn’t that weird?”

“Uh. Walala.” That was a peculiar sentence, and why was there an octopus flying in front of my eyes?

“Nielle? Are you okay?”

“Ouilili.”

“Daniel?” Her voice now sounded distressed.

Oy, gravity shouldn’t go down, it should go left!

I fell to the ground, annoyed at this ridiculous notion of physics.

“Daniel!?” My sister rushed to me. “I…shit. What can I…oh yeah. Show me my bro…sister’s status.”

An artistic representation of the Chinese political party appeared in front of my eyes. Or maybe communist Russian?

You have been poisoned.

Received status effect: [Stroke]

“Oh fuck. OH FUCK.” My sister swore.

That sounded like something bad was happening.

I felt strange, my eyes suddenly very hard to keep open.