[Your body has failed to fight off the demonic pathogen. Your condition worsens. Your stats have been altered to reflect this.]

Desmond Whitechapel

Race: Human

Age: 8

Class: Village Boy - Lv. 5

Generic Skills:

⦓Small Blades Proficiency - Passive⦔ - Lv. 2

⦓Survival - Passive⦔ - Lv. 1

Stats:

Stat Points Available: [0]

Strength: 10 (-5)

Finesse: 9 (-5)

Endurance: 9 (-5)

Insight: 8 (-5)

Self: 9 (-5)

Personal Skills:

⦓Eye For Detail⦔ - Lv. 2

Available Skill Slots: [5]

Afflictions:

Unknown Demonic Pathogen - Inflicts ⦑Demonic Tension⦒ - Lv. 3 and lowers all stats until recovered.

“This is impossible.”

Desmond sat next to the fire in the morning, keeping himself warm. He’d woken up earlier than normal, in a cold sweat and with a headache much worse than the one he felt from overstressing ⦓Eye For Detail⦔. His skin had been so hot, he’d immediately crawled out of bed and stepped outside to get some fresh air.

Following that, he immediately puked into the alley outside. What left him, though, wasn't normal. It was a thick, disgusting purple liquid that bubbled and sputtered wherever it touched. It left an admittedly mortifying taste in Desmond's mouth, which he immediately tried to wash out with water, but to no avail.

Then, he picked up his knife again, his hands shaking, as he tried to catch his reflection in the blade.

As he’d feared, the white in his hair had spread. It effectively covered the entire right half of his head now and felt slightly thinner than his hair normally did. If his mother could see him, she’d be disappointed that he’d somehow ruined the hair he’d gotten from her.

The thought of her made Desmond grit his teeth in anger as he threw the knife away, accidentally pinning it tip first into the floor. What he did next could barely be considered a tantrum and was more of an outrage than anything; Desmond wandered into a random building down the west main road, not really looking for anything in particular.

The young boy stepped inside, looking around at all the rubble and destruction and, for some reason in his head, deemed it appropriate.

What followed was an uncharacteristic outburst of rage, in which Desmond ripped apart whatever he could find in the destroyed building; Slamming his boots through whatever weak material ⦓Eye For Detail⦔ showed him, tearing down already compromised walls with his bare hands, and smashing the remnants of whoever lived there before for seemingly no reason.

After ten minutes he walked back out, his chest heaving from the effort and his limbs shaking. It had done absolutely nothing for him; it gave him no exp, gave him no skills, leveled nothing, and didn’t even make him feel any better.

But it was already done, so there was no reason to continue thinking about it.

Soon after, he returned back to the cafe in a daze. The knife still stood tall, stuck in the floor where he’d thrown it earlier. The fire had grown smaller, but still spread its warmth throughout the room. With no ideas on what to do next, he simply collapsed next to the fire, feeding it with some more cotton so that he could warm himself again.

It didn’t change anything, though. He checked his stats again, just to see if anything had changed, but he already knew the answer. To his surprise, though, it seemed as if the infection had gotten even worse than he’d expected; upgrading his ⦑Demonic Stress⦒ to ⦑Demonic Tension⦒.

“Great. Just...great.” Desmond sighed, shaking his head. “What am I even supposed to do?”

For a long time, two hours that he wasn’t aware of, he sat there motionlessly; only moving to add more tinder to the fire when it looked as if it was going down. At the same time, his thoughts were a whirlwind of activity.

‘What am I gonna do? Is it gonna kill me? How am I supposed to fix this? Am I supposed to just let it happen? What if it turns me into a demon? I don’t wanna be a demon. I don’t wanna die.’

⭑ ⭑ ✦ ✦

Suddenly, he snapped back to attention, picking up his head. He expected to see the same view as always; the regular inside of the cafe. But he wasn’t in the cafe anymore. He wasn’t even in Calcheth anymore.

Instead of sitting on the floor in front of the fire, he was sitting atop a tall, black spire, a similar purple fire blazing in front of him. Instead of the torn down walls of the cafe around him, he was exposed to the elements; no walls in sight and nothing but a pitch black void-like sky above and around him. Far below the spire he sat on, stark white clouds rolled past, obscuring whatever was beneath them.

Desmond jumped to his feet, his heart rate skyrocketing as panic settled in as he spun in a circle, taking in his environment. As much as he was panicking, though, something in him was urging him to be calm. Telling him that he had been here before, and that he had no reason to be afraid. It wasn’t the Voice, he knew that much. The feeling was very different. Whereas the Voice felt powerful and natural, the feeling he had was different. It was small and comforting, almost like it was holding him comfortably and urging him down from his panic.

For whatever reason, he listened to that feeling. His heart rate slowed and he found it easier to breathe after a moment where he simply froze and allowed the panic to leave him. He fell back onto the ground, reclining back on his elbows as he stared up at the void above.

“Wha-what...what is this...?” He muttered, not expecting to receive an answer back. Nothing responded, a fact he was grateful for. Instead, though, he felt a shiver go down his back; as if something was watching him. He snapped his head from side to side, sitting up to look around before he finally found the culprit.

A long, thin pink line, far, far away in the void. At first, it simply looked like an out of place feature; a random pink line, floating within absolutely nothing, that didn’t even look real.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Then it split at the seams, spreading apart in full and revealing a large, pink eyeball with a large, slit black pupil.

Immediately, the comforting feeling Desmond felt drained away into nothingness, replaced by an intense fear of the unnatural. His skin turned clammy, and his lungs began to ache with fear as his panic returned in full force and then some. White noise filled his ears as blood rushed to his head in a hurry and he felt himself grow light-headed.

Try as he might, though, he was unable to move an inch. His body didn’t seem to want to listen to him, leaving him paralyzed in fear as the eye in the distance grew larger; seemingly getting closer.

⭑ ⭑ ✦ ✦

Then, he was back at the cafe, as if he’d never left at all. The sky outside had darkened considerably since he’d last seen it. It was sometime in the afternoon last he checked, but it was very clearly the dead of night now. His fire was, miraculously, still burning, though it was terribly small and in danger of going out, so he fed it more wood shavings and cotton to keep it going.

His skin was damp with sweat, which he was quick to wipe off with his old shirt. Though his breathing and lungs had returned to normal, the panic had settled in his gut and he was still on edge. Calcheth was silent, though; eerily so, and it did nothing to allay his stress.

As he warmed himself by the fire once more, he glanced outside; expecting to see that eye again, floating in the sky. He saw nothing, however, save for the moon and the stars littering the sky. His panic subsided, however slightly, as he glanced toward the backroom, where he knew the demon corpse was.

Though he knew logically that he should eat, he was surprised to find that he wasn’t very hungry at all. Maybe it was due to a lack of him doing anything, or maybe his ‘out of body’ experience had strangely affected him, but eating food was the last thing on his mind at the moment.

So he decided to go without food for the night. Instead, he simply bunched down next to the fire and hugged his legs, staring into the embers absent-mindedly.

‘What the hell even was that...?’ His thoughts were scattered; stuck between dealing with his infection and whatever the hell he’d just experienced. ‘Wh-what am I even supposed to do? First, it’s demons, now it’s...whatever that thing was.’

The thought of the eye made him shiver, huddling closer to the fire and bunching down on himself even further.

‘I...I miss Father. He would protect me. He would know what to do in this situation...’ Desmond sniffled at the thought of his Father. The man was strict, but he knew it was because he wanted Desmond to be successful, despite his illness. The only reason Desmond knew how to read and write at his age was because of his Father, after all, so he greatly respected the man and his intelligence.

With thoughts of his Father in mind, Desmond slowly fell asleep, the events of the day catching up to him and his poor condition.

Unbeknownst to him, the former town of Calcheth glowed pink that night; as the stars went dark and the moon turned in place as a single, slit pupil seemed to stare down at the town—specifically the cafe—with an ambivalent gaze.

►⚉◄

The next morning, Desmond woke up feeling...good. Surprisingly good, in fact.

He half expected to wake up, covered in red fur and in the midst of becoming a demon himself. However the headache he’d woken up with the day before did not show itself. The telltale signs of his sickness were gone, as he could feel his strength and endurance return to their previous states. Even his mind felt clearer and, for whatever reason, he felt more confident, too.

‘Wait...does this mean..?’ In a rush, he sprung up onto his feet and checked his stats.

[Your body has succeeded in fighting off the demonic pathogen! You have fully recovered from the effects of ⦑Demonic Tension⦒ - Lv. 3!]

[For surviving the effects of ⦑Demonic Tension⦒ at its worst, you have gained the Generic Skill: ⦓Resolve - Passive⦔ - Lv. 1!]

[Generic Skill: ⦓Resolve - Passive⦔ has evolved into the Personal Skill: ⦓Otherworldly Resolve - Passive⦔ - Lv. 1!]

[Additional EXP has been awarded for surviving a life threatening illness.]

[You have leveled up! You have gained 5 Stat Points!]

Desmond gaped in surprise at the results, a slow smile spreading across his face.

‘I...I did it? I survived?!’ He couldn’t believe it. He clenched his fists, joy practically spilling from his being in all directions as he ran around the room, dancing happily.

“I did it! I-I’m gonna live! I’m gonna live!” Desmond continued to dance jovially around the cafe, no longer a care in the world now that he was certain the infection would no longer kill him. He’d even leveled up in the process, seemingly free of charge! Everything was working out beautifully.

After he’d danced all his energy out, he found himself collapsed next to his fire, stoking a new fire as he spent his skill points. With the extra five, he was able to round all of his stats up to ten each, which felt pretty good just from an aesthetic standpoint. Once that was done, he thought about his new passive skill, ⦓Otherworldly Resolve⦔, so he could figure out what it did.

[The Personal Skill: ⦓Otherworldly Resolve⦔ gives you unnatural physical and mental resistance; Greatly improving your ability to resist foreign effects and identify foreign effects that fail to affect you.]

[It also provides a slight boost to Endurance, Insight, and Self.]

“That’s really good..!” Desmond chuckled to himself, happily tapping a little tune against his legs. “I can probably go back to eating the demon meat safely if I have this skill protecting me.”

He stood up, moving to the backroom to begin cutting several smaller strips of meat from the demon corpse. The headache from stressing ⦓Eye For Detail⦔ was less painful than before; enough so that he could simply ignore it and continue his work peacefully.

Soon after, he was happily cooking the meat on his makeshift stovetop, humming quietly to himself. Things were finally looking up for him, even if they came with some...tribulations.

Desmond slowed to a halt, thinking about his strange...out of body experience the other day. Even just looking back on it made goosebumps spread across his skin and sweat drip down his neck. He quickly shook the thought away, however, and returned to cooking.

If he thought about it for longer than a moment, it would ruin him. His brush with the infection proved to him that the one thing he really needed to worry about was keeping himself in shape, mentally and physically. So if he let the vision bother him now, he’d never get it out of his head and he’d be all the more weaker for it.

So he pushed it out of his mind and focused on the present—on things that he could actually affect now.

Desmond finished cooking soon after and helped himself, making sure to bring the watering can over so that he could treat himself to a drink as well. He noticed, however, that the meat was missing a certain flavor. He couldn’t necessarily put a finger on what it was, but the lack of it sort of...made the meat taste better? It was strange to even see it that way, but it was the easiest way to explain it.

He decided to chalk it up to ⦓Otherworldly Resolve⦔ protecting him from something in the meat that he couldn’t identify before. With that in mind, he was even happier about having the skill in general. He could eat freely and not worry about getting sick again; or probably ever again, hopefully.

Eventually, Desmond decided to get up and clean up as much as he could for the day. He was running low on water, since his sickness had really dried him out, so he was hoping it would rain sooner rather than later so that he could try and figure out how to take a shower or something like that.

As he stood up, picking up all of his things and feeding the fire a tad more tinder to keep the room warm, he glanced down at his knife, sitting on the floor next to the faux stovetop. He smiled down at himself, happy to be healthy again, before quickly glancing up at himself and watching as his own eyes widened in the reflection.

He quickly dropped whatever he was holding and dove down to seize the knife, almost rushing to the window so that he could get a better view of his reflection. It was growing darker in the day already, despite the fact that Desmond hadn’t been up for long, yet there was just enough light peeking through the window to shine across the blade and show him what he was looking for.

Despite the fact that he’d recovered from ⦑Demonic Tension⦒, it seemed as if he’d recovered a tad too late for the effects to fully revert. He supposed this was the sickness’ chance to have a last laugh of sorts, even though it really made no sense to think of it that way. But it felt like it was a royal kick in the shins, so Desmond decided he’d treat it as such.

Instead of returning to its natural black, his hair had completed its journey in becoming completely stark white. And now, with the infection gone, it hadn’t left him; and it seemed it was going to stay that way permanently.