Peter chewed on the slightly stale bread in his mouth slowly and methodically, as if testing for poison – his caution about the people who had given him this food remained high.
“It’s good right?” The leader of the adventurer party that had accosted him only a few days ago, whose name Peter recalled as being Leonard, asked in a remarkably soft tone.
Peter hesitantly nodded as he swallowed down the admittedly rather delicious-tasting brown bread – though it probably only tasted so nice as he was on the edge of starving.
He was about to go in for a second bite, but before he could, the androgynous teen, who’d told him their name was Frank, slapped the bread out of his hand and onto the cold wooden floor.
Peter looked at the far stronger teen with a look of both confusion and anger, but Frank simply ignored his glare and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “It’s obvious that you’ve not eaten in a while, kid, so eating too quickly now will only result in you harming yourself more, and we’ve already expended far too much time and money on keeping you alive for you to go ahead and kick the bucket due to eating too much too fast.”
Peter’s anger died down slightly as he realised that the teen was probably right, even though he hated to admit that his rational faculties had been slightly clouded by his overwhelming hunger.
The party’s leader then spoke, effectively shifting Peter’s attention away from this Samuel person and to himself.
“Kid, are you sure you are alright? Being afflicted by my passive defensive skill’s poison effect cannot have been painless.” The older teen said, guilt clearly present in his otherwise proud and deep voice.
Peter simply nodded his head once again in response, even though he still found the question rather odd. After all, he had been the one to try and punch the boy, so he didn’t get why Leonard felt guilty about his skill working as intended. If Peter had been in his shoes, he certainly wouldn’t have felt guilty.
“See, Len, the kid’s fine, which means we can finally get around to sorting out our living arrangements as it were.” A nasal voice chimed in, bringing Peter out of his thoughts and back into the somewhat cramped former living room that they were sitting in.
Leonard sighed, before nodding his head, and looking Peter straight in the eyes and saying, “So kid, we’d prefer it if you would stay in this spot with u…”
The boy’s words were suddenly interrupted by that same nasally and squeaky voice from earlier interrupting him, “I think you’ll find Len, that is only that you’d prefer it if the kid stayed, don’t act as though we all want this random street rat hanging around where we live. You don’t, and we don’t.”
The other teen stared daggers at the boy who had interrupted him and said, “I am the one doing the talking here as I am the duly elected leader of this group. Isn’t that right, Max?”
The other boy rolled his eyes but didn’t speak any further or argue back with the older teen which seemed enough to indicate his submission.
“As I was saying,” Leonard continued after turning back to face Peter, “We’d like it if you were to stay with us, all we ask is that you don’t get in the way of what we’re doing, and in return we won’t get in the way of what you’re doing.”
Peter contemplated his current situation and though he couldn’t quite shake his scepticism about the group’s intentions, the fact was that they had seemingly helped him not die from the poison status effect that had been inflicted by their leader’s defensive skill. Plus, they even seemed willing to supply him with food – an invaluable thing for him if he wanted to live past the next few weeks.
So, after a few long minutes of consideration, he reluctantly concluded that the arrangement that Leonard proposed was not altogether too objectionable. However, he would not let down his guard for even a second around these new people, and he hoped he would be strong enough to resist if the time eventually came when they decided they’d had enough of stringing him along.
“Fine,” Peter said uncertainly, much to the delight of the party’s leader, and once a few more minute details of the arrangement had been settled, Peter returned to his now unlocked room and laid down on his rather makeshift bed of tough cloth and blankets.
And so began his time sharing his squatting spot with the group of adventurers.
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The next day saw Peter leaving his squatting spot in search of his violent employer many hours before the sun would rise, though he doubted his punctuality would save him from the beating he would no doubt receive for having taken so much time off.
However, to his great surprise, when he arrived at the dungeon where the man, Sadi, was waiting for him – he received no beating. Instead, the man simply shouted at him for a few minutes, before they both entered the dungeon and the day’s work began. Further surprising Peter, Sadi seemed no longer interested in prolonging Peter’s work – instead, he enforced such a rapturous pace that Peter could hardly hope to keep up with the man’s orders.
Yet, other than being totally physically and mentally exhausted, Peter was otherwise totally fine upon exiting the dungeon – loot bag dragging behind him.
The bag was taken from him, as usual, and he was once again left completely alone outside the dungeon – slightly flabbergasted at the complete lack of violent abuse he’d suffered today.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
This change in behaviour was definitely too much too quickly to be a genuine development in the man’s furious temperament. However, Peter had no idea what would compel the man to be so much less brutal than he usually was, and thus his suspicion that something else was being planned for him began to fester in his heart.
Being a violent, brutish, drunkard who enjoyed beating the ever-living shit out of those weaker than themselves was a personality type that Peter had encountered before and thus understood to some degree. But never, not even once, had he seen such people suddenly become nice to someone unless there was some malicious scheme at play. Though, what that scheme was – Peter had no idea, but he’d have to try and sniff it out and find out if he wanted to have any chance at surviving it.
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Over the ensuing 3 weeks, Peter more closely observed the man’s behaviours and tried to memorise and decipher each of the man’s hate-filled rants for clues about what he was planning. However, no matter what he did he just couldn’t seem to draw out any semblance of a plot from the limited number of interactions they’d had recently. The brutish simplicity of the man’s typical persona was an incredible veil that masked any inner treacherous thoughts very well. Furthermore, other than no longer beating him half to death, the man acted pretty much the same as he had previously.
Peter was being driven insane by his own paranoia, and as he lay on his tattered bed in his room, he realised he needed to take a break from thinking about what potentially horrendous fate Sadi had in store for him, and instead focused his mind on sifting through his system prompts – something he hadn’t done very often over the last few weeks.
Your assigned bot has completed its task!
Stat: [Luck]’s grade is now [F+]!
Your assigned bot has completed its task!
Stat: [Endurance]’s grade is now [F+]!
Your assigned bot has completed its task!
Skill: [Detect Objects]’s level is now 3!
Your assigned bot has completed its task!
Skill: [Detect Objects]’s level is now 4!
Updated Description: When activated, objects within a 2.5m x 2.5m x 2.5m area are made known to you directly.
Peter smiled at his prompts and then decided to bring up his status page so that he could bask in his own progression.
STATUS
Name: Peter Wilver
Titles: [NONE]
Age: 10
Class: Mage
Rank: [Copper]
Level: 0 – Progress: 0/1,000 EXP
HP: 25/25(+1%) – Max HP regen: 0.01
MP: 45/45(+1%) – Max MP regen: 0.075
AFFINITIES:
* [Common]: Air – Grade: [F]
* [Uncommon]: Metal – Grade: [F+]
* [Rare]: Time – Grade: [D], Psychic – Grade: [F]
* [Epic]: Space – Grade: [F]
TRAITS (5/10):
* [F+] Survivor - +1% Max HP
* [F+] Determined - +1% Max MP
* [F+] Pain Tolerant – Pain is 1% less physically and mentally debilitating.
* [F+] Dungeoneer - +1% Boost to EXP gain whilst in a dungeon.
* [E] Resistant Mind - +5% chance to completely ignore [Mind]-targeting status effects
STATS:
* Physical:
* Strength: [F+]
* Constitution: [F]
* Endurance: [F+]
* Mental:
* Willpower: [E+]
* Wisdom: [E]
* Intelligence: [E]
* Social:
* Charisma: [E]
* Empathy: [F+]
* Learning: [F]
* System:
* Luck: [F+]
* Skill: [F]
* System Compatibility: [D]
PERKS:
* Enhanced Senses | Type: Physical | Rank: [F] | Progress to Next Rank: 0/1 | Description: Your senses are inherently better attuned to the nature of reality than others.
* Genius | Type: Mental | Rank: [F] | Progress to Next Rank: 0/1 | Description: Far from simple-minded, you possess a mind capable of comprehending even the most obscure, inaccessible aspects of reality.
* Shy | Type: Social | Rank: [F] | Progress to Next Rank: 0/1 | Description: [Inferior] grade scanning skills shall not yield up your status to others.
* Idle Progression | Type: System | Rank: [F+] | Progress to Next Rank: 0/2 | Description: It is only by you assigning your bot(s) and waiting the designated amount of time for each improvement that you can improve most system-related stats/phenomena. – Current Bots Available: 1/1
SKILLS:
* General:
* [Inferior] Detect Objects (Lvl:4)
* Class: [NONE]
Peter couldn’t help but feel satisfied as he looked upon his own status page. It had only been around a month since he had gotten his system, and yet already he had increased two of his stats by a single grade, a perk by a single grade, and he had a skill almost halfway to the next skill rank.
To put it mildly, his level of progress was quite incredible. And experiencing a stat increase first hand had felt unbelievably incredible, and Peter could only now daydream of all the stat increases he would experience in the future thanks to his idle progression system.
Yet, a glaring deficiency significantly dulled his otherwise magnificent status screen – his incredibly low level. He had hesitated up and till now to assign his bot to increase his level, not really knowing what he had to gain from level-ups as he didn’t need stat points to increase his stats, but now that he looked at his status page, he felt that it was almost obligatory for him to risk it and find out.
So, he assigned his bot to upgrade his level to level one, and he received a system prompt.
You have assigned 1 system bot to increase Class: [Mage]’s Level to 1!
Time remaining until assignment completion: 23 hours, 45 minutes, 36 seconds
Peter almost squealed with joy upon reading just how quickly his upgrade would be complete. However, he quickly calmed himself as he reminded himself that he was only now getting around to reaching level 1 – a level that most kids would reach within the first two weeks of receiving their system. Therefore, he really shouldn’t be too surprised that it didn’t take that long for him to upgrade to it, and that it would almost inevitably take double the time per each new level up.
Yet even knowing this harsh reality, Peter could not suppress his childish giddiness completely. The ball had begun rolling the day he had received his system, and though Peter couldn’t know of the challenges that lay ahead of him, he could now dream, in relative peace and safety, of one day – perhaps many years from now - attaining true and unlimited power and lifting himself out of his miserable impoverished existence.