Andrew woke up with a horrible headache and a fuzzy mind. It took him a long time until he was able to orient himself and realize that he was awake.

He looked at the dimly lit ceiling and noticed that he had to be in one of the caves. His memory of what had happened was unclear at best.

He sat up with a groan, and his body felt stiff. But it was bearable, so he was able to do it. He looked around in the silent cave and saw a row of leaves around him, with Melissa lying in one of them. He was in the nursery.

He leaned over, while all his joints were cracking from not moving for a long time, and gently touched Melissa's shoulder.

She immediately jumped awake and looked at him with a fearful expression for a moment. Soon after, though, she seemed to calm down and laid a hand on her heart.

"By the Creator, Andrew. You scared the shit out of me." She looked at him with a discerning eye, and a little smile appeared on her face. "But it's good to see you awake. How do you feel?"

"I feel... ok." Andrew answered her in a coarse voice and had to cough right afterwards. His throat felt utterly dried out.

Melissa gave him some water to drink, and he accepted it with gratitude. After wetting his throat, he was able to speak again. "What happened? How long have I been out of it?"

Melissa looked at him with a complicated expression, and she nervously started fumbling around with her blonde hair. "There was an... accident. Something happened to you. And when I wanted to heal you..." she paused for a moment while a look of horror crossed her face. "I pulled something out of you. I cannot describe it other than to say it was the essence of fear and despair. I activated my emotion suppression skill in time, but... Derek and Till weren't so lucky."

Andrew felt a sinking feeling in his chest when guilt started to overcome him. His memories started to come back. How he tried to break through to level ten with the help of the higher magic density in their off-limits cave. And how it horribly went wrong.

Andrew sighed heavily and rested his face in his hands. "What happened to them?"

"They went mad." Melissa answered in a quiet voice. "It's like they lost their conscious mind and are only acting on instinct. They are not dangerous, just... more like animals than humans."

When Andrew didn't say anything about this, Melissa continued explaining. "We have isolated them in one of the caves, far away from the others. It's too difficult to let them live with us. I try every day to somehow heal them, but without success."

The guilt that had been building up inside of him reached new heights. Two of his people had lost their sanity because of his greed.

"What will happen to me now?" Andrew asked, ready to accept any verdict.

"Nothing," Melissa replied.

"What do you mean, nothing?" Andrew exploded and sprang to his feet. "I more or less erased the minds of two of our people! How can nothing happen to me?"

"Because this group needs you." Melissa told him in a calm voice, but her hands were shivering slightly because of his outburst. "I told the people that you three went into the off-limits cave to investigate. And that your minds got hurt by it, just like the animals close to the oddity."

Andrew deflated upon her explanation and sank onto the bed of leaves again. "That is not right. You shouldn't have done this for me." Andrew told her with an empty voice.

"Not right?" Now it was Melissa's turn to explode, and her hands were shaking even more. "I have cleaned up this mess! Not for you, but for all of us! What do you think would happen to this group if they knew that you had the power to cripple minds? What would happen to us without a leader to hold us together?"

Andrew could only stare at the otherwise calm and gentle person while she was screaming at him.

"And yes, you shouldn't have done what you did. But how is this any more your fault than mine? I was the one to rip out these emotions! I was the one who released it! So don't come with your self-pity. Deal with it and do your best." At the end of her outburst, her voice calmed down again, and she lost the temper from before. It seemed like she also carried guilt with her.

"I'm sorry." Andrew answered with a downcast face, and Melissa nodded slightly. He pressed his hands on his eyes and took a deep breath to steady his mind. "Alright, let's do this," he mumbled, looking at Melissa again.

"I will come with you to Derek and Till to take a look at them. But first, I'll have to check my status screen. The system sent me illegible messages when I suffered from the overload."

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He furrowed his brows while thinking about it. He was weirdly afraid, that his system was broken now for some reason. So it took some moments before he had the courage to open his status screen.

Details:

Level: 10

Name: Andrew Gruber

Class: None

Race: Human

Status: Soul injury (Effects currently unknown)

HP: 130/130 SP: 5/55 MP: 50/145

Achievements:

* Medicine can be poison: You are able to overload emotions easier

* Closer to death is not possible: Your Resistance is increased by 33% in dire situations.

Affinities:

Soul (High) Body (Low)

Specializations:

Soul (2/3)

Equilibrium

Domination

Body (1/1)

Adaptation

Basic Stats:

Strength: 17

Dexterity: 11

Endurance: 11

Resistance: 19

Intelligence: 21

Force: 21

Special Stats:

Magic Power: 10

Soul Power: 13

Life Force: 5

Active Skills:

Emotion manipulation (Equilibrium): For moderate magic power consumption, you are able to influence another person’s emotions to a certain degree. Warning: Suppressed emotions collect over time in your soul and can break out if they reach a certain threshold.

Emotion overdrive (Domination): You are able to overdrive certain emotions in another being. This might permanently cripple their mind

Passive Skills:

Equilibrium (Equilibrium): You are unable to feel extreme emotions and are always in a state of equilibrium. In a certain area of yourself, people will be slightly influenced by this skill. Warning: Suppressed emotions collect over time in your soul and can break out if they reach a certain threshold.

Poison resistance (Adaptation): You are slightly resistant to various poisons. Higher effectiveness if the substance is in your digestive system.

Fast recovery (Adaptation): You need less sleep and rest to recover from mental and physical fatigue. Regeneration is also slightly increased while sleeping.

Struggle (Conditional passive)

The good news was that his system wasn't broken. And he even managed to cross the barrier to level ten and gain an achievement. Even though the name was pretty weird, it at least gave him a good effect.

The bad news was his soul injury and the updated descriptions of his abilities. He wondered if they changed because of the incident or if the system just hadn't known about it before. And it was even more disconcerting, that not even the system knew the repercussions of his injury.

All in all, he had a serious problem. Not only he himself relied heavily on his skills, but also all the people in the caves. He wouldn't be able to offer unlimited help like he had up until now.

Melissa seemed to have noticed his distress and laid a hand calmingly over his own. "What is it? Is everything okay?"

After some hesitation, he decided to tell her about his predicament. Contrary to his expectations, she showed him a crooked smile.

"The people are stronger than you think, Andrew. And what is even more important is that they won't be able to handle difficult feelings if you always take them away. It was fine for the chaotic beginning, but I think this might actually be for the best."

A heavy weight that had laid on Andrew's heart was lifted a little with these words. He didn't realize it until now, but he had subconsciously assumed, that without him and his abilities, everything would break apart. Those were some pretty silly thoughts in hindsight.

"Thanks Melissa." He said it with a small smile on his face. "This was more important for me to hear than you know."

"Oh Andrew." Melissa said with a laugh. "Believe me. I knew that before you."

Andrew looked at her with a frown, which made her laugh even more.

"You are so dense. But that's maybe for the better," she told him between her laughs.

He honestly felt a little hurt, but he couldn't hold back his own laughter. He had to admit that she was right. Maybe.

She wiped away a small tear from her blue eyes while letting out the last chuckle. Then she took a deep breath and got serious again. "I guess we should get it over with. Can you stand?"

Andrew shrugged his shoulders and stood up slowly. He felt very stiff and weak, but he could manage. Seeing his struggles, Melissa took his left arm and laid it over her shoulders.

Suddenly, feeling the warmth and softness of her body caused heat to rise up in his body and his mouth to dry out a little.

"Everything okay?" Asked him Melissa.

"I'm fine, just a bit dizzy." He answered while waiting for his passive ability to kick in and calm him down. But it didn't happen.

"Melissa, let go of me," he told her in a frightened voice when he felt even more feelings well up in him. He also tried to separate from her, but she instinctively held his arm tight in her grip, thinking that he was falling down.

Andrew didn't manage to free himself before he felt something break out from deep inside him. He felt a sharp pain in his chest and sank with a groan.

Melissa also fell, her knees giving out. She had an intense blush on her face and was breathing heavily. She looked at him with quivering lips, and he didn't know if he should run away or stay right where he was.

She leaned closer to him with a deep hunger in her eyes. And then she slapped herself.

"Damn it, Andrew!" she shouted, still breathing heavily. "Don't you know how to... help yourself? How much have you suppressed up until now?"

He looked to the ground, deeply ashamed of this outburst and her words. And even more about his subconscious decision to not back away. He felt completely helpless; his feelings and skills were out of control.

"It's fine, Andrew. Those are natural feelings," she said in a calmer voice, pulling him to his feet again. "But we shouldn't touch like that anymore."

"Agreed." He said hastily, happy about her forgiving him, and let go of her hand as fast as possible.

"We should probably call over a guy to help you walk. Unless you also...?"

"I'll be fine." Andrew answered her while feeling the strange need inside of him to assure her that he was interested in women. He slowly realized, what that meant. He liked her. And he really was dense.

While thinking about this new revelation, Melissa brought over one of the guys, and he helped him stand up. Andrew was still dazed and didn’t dare to look at Melissa, when she stepped in front of him.

She cleared her throat and crooked her neck until she could look him in the eyes.

"Are you ready to go meet Derek and Till?"

All other thoughts left his mind when he thought about the two poor guys, whose minds had been destroyed because of him.

He nodded, and they slowly started walking.