I leapt on top of Saskia, sending the both of us crashing to the ground. I felt the shadowborn's presence in my mind for a brief moment as it indiscreetly tried to threaten me. Kaelen and Elias must have felt that mental pressure, too, because they quickly ran towards us, no doubt to pry me off of the girl.

"Why did you die?" I grumbled, shaking her by her collar. She didn't fight back, her smile - the one that was getting on my nerves - wide on her face. I yelled, "I wouldn't have died even if you didn't help!"

I knew that it was untrue. The level of poweress that creature displayed in its match against Saskia was unimaginable for me, but I was driven on a mixture of rage and - as much as I hated to admit it, desperation, so logic did not really have a spot in my mind at the moment. Ever since the System integrated into Earth, logic had taken a backseat most of the time while my emotions and instincts battled it out.

"You know that's a lie," it was that soft yet confident voice again. She held my gaze with just the same amount of conviction and certainty.

Was she accusing me of being weak? That part of me flared up again. The same part that had led me to almost die from one of Hydra's fireballs, so... Not a good sign, but I didn't care.

As a result, I grew angrier, and as Elias began to push me away, my shoving became more intense. Saskia's smile never faded, even as her eyes turned purple-black for a moment, the final warning from her shadowborn patron before it acted against me. I was flung backwards by a powerful force by Elias, with Kaelen catching me with a well-timed overturned force field, just before I could do more damage and bring the wrath of an ancient alien over us.

Then, Saskia stood, patting off some dust as if nothing had happened, and it was just a friendly brawl. Her shadow loomed over me, and I could see the wolf's figure swirling inside, a mental image that sent my mind into a weird frenzy of madness. I jolted, jumping up and righting myself before the others could see my little trip-up. I didn't know what that emotion just now was, and if I just ignored it, then it never happened.

It was easier on my tired mind.

By now, the tree house had been built. I turned towards my companions to lead them into the wooden house, and sensed tension in the expressions of Elias and Kaelen as they carefully shielded Saskia without arousing too much attention to the fact that they were trying to protect Saskia from me. I shrugged, keeping the annoyance off my face. Elias was convinced by my mask of indifference, as he relaxed and came over.

"Terra, don't do that again," he frowned, "Her shadowborn... patron is always watching. I definitely felt it getting angry back there."

"I won't," I smirked, keeping my voice carefree, "It was just a welcome back present for her."

"Are you sure?" Kaelen jogged over too, Saskia following after her. She was still not convinced, and it was shown crystal clear on her face, "It didn't seem like a present to me."

"That's because it was supposed to be a warning, so that she would be more careful of her surroundings," my tone shifted to a more serious hue, "If she dies again, that shadowborn might not revive her again. A small present for her own safety."

Kaelen threw a force field ball at me, and I had to dodge. She then lightly kicked my leg while tossing another ball of golden light towards me. When that was all done, I had a couple scratches on my leg, but otherwise, I was fine. Other than a little bit of confusion and anger, of course. More than a little.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"What are you doing?" I grunted, and Elias was just as befuddled as I felt. Saskia leaned against the tree our tree house was based on, watching us with a minimally interested expression.

"Giving you a feel of what you just did to Saskia," Kaelen replied, her tone more satisfied now that she had fired off the attacks, "As well as a very minor taste of what it would feel like if we send the shadowborn into a frenzy, just like how you almost did a few minutes ago. He would absolutely destroy us if we attack Saskia again."

"He probably would," Saskia confirmed with a nod, "I'm his last hope for a vessel. He would be more than mad if I'm damaged in any way."

As we began walking up the stairs leading up to the wooden tree house, Saskia began explaining her pact with the shadowborn in more detail unprompted, "My Class was a bunch of ERROR messages, which was confusing to me and my System Workers, but with some luck involved, I was contacted by a shadowborn, the one that you met just now. It saw the stream featuring me, and it was interested. The shadowborn was very old, and its body back in its world could no longer be used, as it had broken down. The shadowborn would be dead now if I hadn't agreed to give it my body to inhibit in exchange for its power."

It was a plausible story, but my instincts informed me that there was something she was hiding from us, that she was lying in the story she told us, but why would she lie to us when she could have just said nothing at all? It didn't make any sense, yet my gut had never failed me throughout the period after the System's integration, except for the time Saskia was killed.

That was a really big mistake, but...

My thoughts trailed off as we reached the door of our tree house. I inspected the door, which had a stone lock on it. There was a small line of words hovering over it, and when I concentrated on the words, a blue screen popped up in front of me.

Inject your Mana to open.

I was not certain what it meant, but I had an idea. I pressed my hand against the rough material, and brought to mind an image of my mana reserves. Then, I pictured a tube, which was attached to the stone lock, as well as the mana pool. Once I had that image firmly in my mind's eye, I instructed the tube to suck some of that mana up and towards the stone lock. I felt someone patting my shoulder, but tuned all outside stimuli out as I focused on opening the door.

With a soft click, the door swung open, and I returned to the real world as well. I'll have to teach the rest how to open this door later, if their mana were compatible with this lock.

I turned to see who had interrupted my attempt earlier. I found Elias, whose hand was still on my shoulder, watching on with shock as he realized that my plan had worked. He retracted his hand, an embarrassed frown twisting his face. I nodded at him, assuring him that it was fine although my insides were churning because of his lack of trust in my abilities.

I entered the tree house before anything else could happen.

It was a lot bigger than how it looked from the outside, but I supposed that it was just another magical feature. There was a decent-sized 'living room', which had a small fireplace, a rectangular table with four chairs surrounding it and two doors leading out of the main living room. Inside the two rooms, we found two minimal bed-like structures in each room. Each 'bed' was more like a wooden rectangular low table with a wool-like material laid out over it. I patted the wool, my palm sinking in as the warm softness enveloped me. That was out of my expectations. I thought that it would feel rough, just like how I had imagined unprocessed wool to feel like.

Maybe I was wrong... Or maybe it was just magic at work yet again.

Once we were done with the tour of the wooden house, Elias voiced the question that had been lingering at the back of my mind for a while since Saskia 'came back' from the dead, "After this, are we going to train or find monsters?"

Before I could answer, Saskia smiled, "We'll talk about that later, but first, we'll have food! With the fireplace, we might have real cooked meat this time."

"You can make us some sticks, right?" Elias turned towards me, clearly eager to implement Saskia's suggestion. Holding back a glare, I sighed.