When I came to, there was an incredibly loud, roaring noise somewhere beside me. Like an incredibly loud white noise. Even though my eyes were so dry that my eyelids felt like sandpaper and my body had zero energy, I still flailed my head around trying to find the source of that sound.

My face felt cool, and there was a soft and cool, humid breeze flowing in from somewhere to my right.

A few drops of water splattered on my face and when I finally summoned the energy to turn my head to the right, I saw a small waterfall roaring down a ledge. Incredible. Light flowed in from a hole in the wall above the ledge and cast a rainbow over the misty waterfall.

The events of the past few hours flashed through my mind and my mouth sagged in a frown.

I looked around.

Stalagmites and stalactites dotted the floor and ceiling around me, and there was a circle of stones around the remains of a bonfire. On the other side of the bonfire was a bed of grass— the same one I was lying on now. There were two other beds of grass on either side of the fire, although they looked more scattered.

I tried to get up but I stumbled and fell off my bed of grass— slamming onto the cold hard stone floor.

Something wasn’t right with my body. The balance. It was as if one side of my body was lighter than the other.

“Ahhh fuck.” My right elbow flared with pain and I tried cradling it.

Yes. Tried.

Because even though I felt the movement of my arm, I couldn’t see it. What met me instead of my left arm was a heavily bandaged stump.

A chill ran down my spine as I stared at the stump. Not because I realised how narrowly I escaped, or because I was now completely at the mercy of someone else because I was at peak exhaustion.

But because I didn’t scream. Nor did I react. Nor was I fazed. A part of me had already expected this to happen when I got my arm crushed by that thing’s teeth. But more than anything, what scared me the most was my extreme calmness.

I gently caressed the bandaged stump and struggled to get up.

I shambled around the cave— exhaustion burning my muscles— and stumbled across a clothes line stretched between two stalagmites. Unknowingly my hand reached out for the line and almost immediately—

A slight pressure bore down on my neck and felt liquid drip down it. I felt someone pressing into me from behind, but it wasn’t uncomfortable in the slightest.

Even with a knife to my throat I was still calm. No, my heart beat faster, but not because of fear, but…

Of excitement. The thrill of the unknown. The very real possibility that if I chose the wrong string of words, that knife would slit my throat and that would be the end of it even after getting a System.

In situations like this, I recalled that stating your actions and slowly performing them would reduce the unpredictability of your attacker, so I did exactly that.

“I’m raising my hands up in front of me.” I said, calmly.

Slowly, my arm rose up and stretched in front of me. This position was inherently disadvantageous to me. To attack her I would either have to swing my arm behind me instead of making a simple and short movement.

Hopefully I’d shown that I was compliant enough.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Who are you?” I asked. But the person was silent.

Can she not talk?

Oh yes dear readers, I forgot to mention that the person pressing up behind me was a ‘she’, which is why I had no qualms about her pressing into my back… Even if there was a knife at my throat.

“Are you not going to answer?” I asked, again, to no reply.

“Very well.”

Considering the situational cues, it was obvious that I was saved by someone. The question now was,

Was the person threatening me the same person who saved me?

Let’s see… Think, think think.

There were four beds of grass around the bonfire. But of the four, only two of them looked to be in sleeping condition. The grass was plentiful and soft, while the other two were dry and scattered.

Almost like only two beds of grass were ‘in use’. It looked like there were other people in the past. But evidently, that wasn’t the case anymore.

So there was only one other person in this camp— the one who saved me, and the one who now held the knife to my neck.

But why?

In hindsight the answer seemed obvious. Her bed was placed the furthest away from me, no doubt it was because she was wary of the person she saved.

A reasonable suspicion. Not everyone in this world was good after all, and it was wise to be cautious in case you’d saved a psycho.

“Listen. I understand that you’re wary of me. What can I do to prove otherwise?”

Again, there was no reply.

I sighed.

Should I just use the System and disarm her? I had no idea what skill could possibly disarm someone without raising a finger.

Wait a minute.

Why did I have to raise a finger at all?

I brought up my skill menu and I saw the cheap flying skill that had replaced the climber skill:

[Skill: Minor Levitation

Description: You can levitate 2 metres above the ground, but you cannot move]

Truly the definition of a shitty skill. What would I even do with it? So I immediately deleted it, and all my other skills. In place of an empty skill slot, I thought of a skill that could disarm someone and immediately, a skill appeared in the first slot.

[Skill: Grappling disarmament

Description: You can disarm someone by grabbing their arms. Success rate: 70%.]

What the fuck? I could do that without a skill! And the success rate was so shit too!

Immediately I deleted the shitty skill and made my design more specific. This time, I wanted a skill that could disarm someone with a thought.

[Skill: Disarmament Inducement

Description: You can induce the thought of disarming an opponent. It is up to them if they choose to disarm themselves or not]

What the hell… The System has got to be trolling me.

The pressure on my neck increased. What did I even do for it to increase??

“Hey… You might kill me at this rate.”

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you.” A smooth voice murmured into my ear and for a moment, I wondered if I really should resist.

But I wasn’t that kind of a person. I thought of another skill but it wasn’t what I wanted. Then I tried another with a few restrictions, but yet again it wasn’t what I wanted. I tried again and again and eventually—

I pushed my neck in deeper into the knife, enough to turn a few drops into a trickle—

And like clockwork, the knife fell. I rushed forward and turned around.

A woman stood there staring daggers into me— she lunged at the knife on the floor and I merely watched her do so.

Satisfaction bloomed on my face. It was quite funny actually, watching her hands simply stop above the knife no matter how much times she brought them down. I brought up the skill and admired my handiwork. By this time, I’d figured out the vague pattern behind skill creation.

[Skill: Disarmament of Knives placed on the neck

Description: When an enemy holds a knife to your neck, plunge deep enough into the knife to draw blood. Doing so will make your enemy immediately drop the knife and be unable to hold it again for 10 seconds.]

I kicked away the knife and sent it flying into the river that flowed from the waterfall.

Then I turned to the woman— her face turning pale— and smiled.

My hand extended out towards the beds of grass.

“Come, have a seat. Let’s talk like civilized people.”