The white noise of the waterfall was the only noise between us.

She stared daggers into me, while I mulled over the experiences over the last few hours, fiddling with a twig. I rolled it over my hands, mulling over the conclusion I’d come to.

The mysterious man on the train.

The weird token.

The mission to survive the neighborhood monster.

The gigantic hall and the equally gigantic statue.

The System…

It was all so obvious. I was in another world. And the bronze token I’d received was proof of my invitation to it. So that was it then… Magic was real. The System was real. All those things I’d read in webnovels and webtoons were real…

Surprisingly, the conclusion didn’t faze me as much.

I dropped the twig, and then looked up at the girl, mulling over the right combination of words. Eventually I just gave up and said what was on my mind.

“Listen… You saved me. And then you tried to kill me. What’s going on?”

The girl looked away, her brown bangs falling over her face as she did.

“I… sorry. I was scared.” She said with a meek voice.

Honestly, I could understand her reasons for trying to kill me. If I found a strange man in my house, I would do the same.

“And? Why’d you save me? There’s nobody else here so it’s obviously you who did.” I raised my bandaged stump of an arm.

The girl’s face was flushed, whether in embarrassment or something else, I didn’t know. She looked away and murmured something.

“What? I couldn’t hear you.”

“You… to…” She murmured.

“Huh? What’re you saying?”

“You were going to die so I…”

The white noise of the water drowned out the rest of her sentence, but the rest of it wasn’t necessary. I stared at the girl in quiet contemplation, and eventually looked away.

After breaking past my limit and overcoming insurmountable odds like some hero in a webnovel. After meeting a God-like being that had given me a System that I could customize completely…

After being given all that…

I was saved by an ordinary girl.

Laughter echoed through the cave and I shook my head at the irony. I found it so funny that I covered my face and continued to giggle at the insane absurdity.

Gods…

The lingering smile took a long time to fade away, and I looked at the girl with new eyes. Yes, she tried to kill me. But she had saved me. Without her, my story would have ended the day it begun.

“I’m Enzo. Enzo Amaris. You?”

“Claira.”

“Claira…” I nodded, acknowledging that I heard her. It was always good to confirm my theories, so I asked her a question.

“Claira are we in another world?”

“Huh? Uh… Yes?” She asked, taken aback.

I merely nodded in acknowledgement and turned my attention to my System, and the rest of its components. I’d been ignoring it for too long.

[Name: Enzo Amaris ]

[1/3 Components designed ]

[Skill Creator] [+] [+]

My lips curled up into a smile that would’ve probably looked devious. I glanced up from the translucent blue panel in front of me and threw a reassuring glance at Claira.

“I’m going to be doing my own thing, so I hope you don’t disturb me.”

She did not look reassured. She still seemed scared, but that was only because I was a complete stranger. Once she got to know me, she’d realize I wasn’t a bad person.

Alright, finally! Time to design the next component. My fingers rose up to touch the plus button and

…

Wait a minute.

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

I looked up at Claira.

“Hey. How do you know English?”

“Huh? I uhh…” She shrunk, “I learnt it in school… Back in France.”

So she wasn’t a native of this world… Was she invited as well? I looked at my System panel, and then glanced at her. I looked around and we weren’t in danger, so I might as well ask her and scratch my itching curiosity.

“Were you invited?” I asked to confirm my hypothesis.

“Yes? Weren’t we all?” She asked, the meekness in her voice slowly disappearing.

“Yes. We were.”

Hmmm… But how did she get here? Like me, did she come through the fog gate as well? That would mean that if the fog gate always led to the gigantic hall, then the fact that she had escaped would mean she had a System as well. Unless the portal was somewhere on the floor that is.

But I could exclude that option. The whole fog gate transportation mechanism was obviously intelligently designed. And as such it had to have a purpose. If the purpose was to grant a System to a well-suited challenger, a portal on the floor would completely defeat the purpose.

So she definitely had to have a System.

Of course, I could theorize all I wanted, but in the end, it was much easier to just ask.

“How’d you get here?” I asked.

This time, her meekness was simply replaced by confusion. She looked bewildered as her brows furrowed.

“I’m sorry but, aren’t these questions obvious? Why are you asking me this?”

I sighed.

“Answer my question and I’ll tell you.”

“I came the same way you did—” She said, confirming my suspicions, “Through the mission board.”

“Huh?”

Alright, you gotta admit you’re wrong when you’re wrong. And apparently, I was wrong and she ended up here through a completely different way.

Thankfully, because of reading webnovels, I wasn’t clueless as to what a mission board was.

“Why are you surprised? Did you not come through the mission poster?” She asked, suddenly shifting in her seat.

“No I didn’t… I came through the fog gate.”

Her face blanched. It was incredibly amusing to see how visibly pale someone could become. It was as if she’d seen a ghost in the flesh… (something about that phrase is very odd)

“I… What… They told us nobody survives it.” She murmured.

I simply shrugged,

“Well they lied. Either that, or they don’t know what happens to people like me.”

Strange. What did happen to people who’d gone through the fog gate? Why had nobody come back from beyond the gate to show that it wasn’t definite death? Why was it there in the first place?

So many questions, but the answers were beyond me, and I simply sat in silence with my own thoughts.

After a period of silence, her voice rose up against the soft white noise, “How did you survive?”

I looked at the water— parts of it sparkling in the light from the hole above.

“I did what I had to.” A smile bloomed on my face, “But I would’ve died if not for you. So for that… Thank you.”

I waved a hand, “You are forgiven for your attempt to murder.” To which she giggled.

With my mind clear, I turned back to the translucent blue panel. I clicked on one of the empty components and wasted no time pondering because I already knew what I wanted for my second component.

And when I’d specified all the details of use, the new component shined before me. It deleted itself right in front of my eyes, and reappeared below my name.

[Name: Enzo Amaris

Level: 1

2/3 Components designed

[Skill Creator] [+] ]

Just to make sure that it would work the way I intended, I hovered my finger over the level tag and clicked on it. The information menu that I’d made sure to include popped up in front of me and I was pleased. But as I read through it, I felt my face contort into a slight frown.

[Level: 1

Stats:

Strength: 9

Dexterity: 8

Constitution: 8

Intelligence: 17

Charisma: 13 ]

Goddamnit, my strength and dexterity were so low. I didn’t know what the others meant so I clicked on the description of the stats tag.

[ Stats:

Strength: The amount of physical force you can exert.

Dexterity: The level of agility you display, including evasiveness, nimbleness and speed.

Constitution: Your endurance, stamina and the resilience of your body and mind.

Intelligence: Your cognitive ability, including memory and recall, calculation ability and creative thinking (not an exhaustive list)

Charisma: Your ability to influence, persuade and deceive sentient entities ]

With an array of stats before me, I couldn’t help but daydream of how powerful I would be when I’d maxed out all my stats.

But, that would come later. I suppressed a smile and was about to expand the description of a ‘Level’, when I was interrupted.

“Uhm… Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Claira asked. Frankly I wanted to shoo her off and tell her that now wasn’t the time, but I was grateful to her for saving me.

“Ask away.”

“You came from beyond the fog gate, so you didn’t go to the training center right?”

Training center? What the hell was she talking about…

“No…” I said, my brows slowly furrowing with my response. A sudden unease gripped my heart, and I was perplexed as to where it came from. I could only wait for her words in silent anticipation.

“So you don’t know anything about this mission?”

“No.”

Tears filled the girl’s eyes and she looked to be on the brink of bursting into tears.

“Claira. Tell me what this mission is, I’ll help us get out of here.”

“You can’t.” She slowly shook her head.

A few months ago I heard an audio clip of a parent reacting to the news of their child’s death. Just hearing those distant cries through the internet haunted me.

And now, hearing those cries of despair in the flesh stabbed through me, making a hole that would never leave.

She yelled, choking between her despair-ridden sobbing, “Nobody can save us!”

Her tear-wracked cries rang out through the cave, ringing in my ears like a haunting death knell.

“Because everyone who completes this mission will die!”