To stay or leave

I was having trouble falling asleep. All that happened during that day was too much to process, I felt like my brain was about to explode because of all that happened on my arrival to this new world.

"Show Status" the screen appeared in front of me. I was lying on the bed of the room Kali ordered to set up for me. It was comfortable, although I knew the room had seen better days.

[Name: Marcel]

[Class: Tabula Rasa]

[Race: Human]

[Level: 1]

[HP: 100/100 MP: 100/100]

[STR: 10 DEX: 10 INT: 10 AIM: 10 DEF: 10 RES: 10]

[Professions: None]

[Passives: None]

10 stats across the board. Even my HP and MP were on the 100s each.

When I remembered that I could touch the screen, I went and clicked on the name of my class. It does something.

[Innate Skins]

[Second chances: If you have full HP and any attack would kill you in one hit, you only lose 70% of your HP]

[Potential: Item stats and skills count as double when performing attacks]

[Innate guard: If you use an item during a VS Check, you can add that item's relevant stat to your roll]

That explains the bonus I was getting a bonus and how I was capable of surviving the hits from Balor. That, and the Innate guard skill mentions VS Checks and rolls, so I guess that explains the tie and success when I had lower stats than the captain, even with the bonus. I got lucky.

That did not make it feel better. If anything, it reminded me how close to dying I was.

Knowing this system was in place in this new world was surreal, to put it into words. Was I just accepting this was a reality? That everything I do and manage to achieve will depend on this system that works like an RPG?

I suddenly open my eyes.

I fell asleep at some point. I looked at the ceiling that I did not recognize. I opened the system status once more and it appeared with the same information as last night. It was not a dream.

And then I noticed something on top of me. Two things, in fact. Heavy.

I sat and looked what was onntop of me. It was Reynard and Maple. When did they get in here? And why were they sleeping with me?

My movement disturbed Maple, who slowly woke up, one of her ears was dropped while a bit of saliva was drooling from her mouth. She rubbed her eye.

"Mister Marcel," she said while looking at me. She was almost still asleep.

"When did you two get in here?" I asked.

"We could not sleep... and we followed your scent" She sat on the bed. "D-did we do wrong?"

Vulpins must have good noses then if they managed to find me.

"N-no, you did not. I just did not expect you two"

She then gave me one of the most adorable smiles I have seen in a while. I was not good with children, I mostly didn't know how to deal with them and I constantly felt like I would scare them off or make them cry. But, somehow, these two children seemed to be comfortable around me.

Why? All I could imagine is that I was the one that protected them and now they feel safe around me. In some way, that was calming.

Reynard then slowly woke up. He stretched and yawned, showing his fangs.

"Good morning, mister," he said while smiling at me.

If I said there was nothing heartwarming about both children, I would be lying. I was glad they were alive and together. My mind still wondered how they could smile after what happened to them, but I decided not to ask, not yet.

That is when my stomach grumbled. Both children noticed and I felt embarrassed.

"Let's go get some breakfast"

We left the room. And the moment we left both children came out first and I found myself face to face with Kali.

She was giving me a most judgemental look.

"W-what?"

"Why were both children in your room?" she asked, I could see a vein appear on her forehead.

"They came here when I was sleeping" I answered, then she made her scythe "W-wait! This is a misunderstanding!"

After managing to clear that (meaning I ran from her for a couple of minutes until I took cover behind Dara) we went to the mess hall to find food. Kali kept her weapon out the whole way. The children followed close to me.

When we found Nayleth, who was feeling way better than last night, he looked at them and tilted his head, his ears twitching. Then he looked at me and nodded.

For some reason, he seemed happy with me interacting like that with the race. He did give me thanks last night for helping the evacuation, even when we failed to keep the village.

"You are thinking of leaving, right Marcel?" asked Kali while she was eating a piece of bread.

The dining hall was big. But like the rest of the castle, it was not beautiful or impressive. The tables were made of simple wood. The chairs had no cushions. As with everything else, it seemed to be about to fall at any point.

For being on a castle, the food was quite stale. I did not have dinner last night, so I had no idea about the situation in the kitchen there. It made sense, they lost their last village and they had to ration food.

I was surprised, though. Even while she acts like a spoiled brat the whole time, she seems quite happy to do that instead of demanding to be fed like the queen she always reminded people she was.

Maple and Reynald were playing in a corner of the hall, they finished eating already and started to mess around like nothing bad was happening.

"I am. I don't have anything to do with any of you" I answered while looking to the side.

"Do you, now?" she asked back.

"What are you implying?"

"You seemed quite interested in protecting the village with your life yesterday" pointed out Dara, who was sitting right beside me.

Nayleth nodded. He was sitting on her other side.

They were reading me quite well.

Kali sighs, closing her eyes for a couple of seconds before continuing "Look, I have no intention of forcing you to stay. I already promised you last night you could leave any time you wanted."

"But?" I asked, knowing that there was something she wanted to add.

"But, consider this: you have no idea about the outside world, you are a low level and you are already an enemy with one of the 4 most important factions out there" she mentioned. Balor was part of the Holy Kingdom, as far as I could remember. And knowing there was a way to communicate telepathically, I would be surprised he did not inform.

"What? You are offering me to train me?" I asked "Why do you care enough about me staying? I am just level 1. I did not gain any levels after all of that yesterday."

"We need help," Dara said.

"Barely" Kali added, crossing her arms over under her chest and leaning back on her chair.

"We do, even when you don't want to admit it" Dara answered, to which Kali scoffed and looked to the side. "You saw what happened yesterday. We are weak, Balor is a danger for us and he is still not the biggest threat out there for us. We need as much help as we can. We can help you train, gain levels, and teach you the ways of the System"

"You are talking to the wrong person" I stood up "I am just a human! What can I do?!"

"I don't know" Dara shook her head "But we can-"

"Dara, stop" Kali interjected and stood up "He does not want this. I told you this was a mistake. He is too scared" She walked around the table and approached me "You can leave any time you want. Just don't say we did not warn you" she moved her hand dismissively as she passed by me and walked towards the exit.

I decided to leave the dining hall too. One of the towers of the castle caught my attention as I always wanted to climb one when I was a child. It was more tiring than I expected, having to walk up a stone stairway in circles until I reached the top. I barely had any breath when I got to the top.

I had a view of the forest that we passed through on the last day. I knew further away was the village. If I had seen from this position when it was under attack, I might have seen smoke rising from the fires.

"Why do they want me?" I asked. If things had been different maybe I would have taken the situation from a different approach. Going out on adventures, killing monsters, and gaining experience points might be fun when I think about it. But this was more brutal than I imagined. I was nothing special for them to need me.

I looked at the trees in the woods for a few seconds, thinking on what I should do. Nothing was coming to my mind, I wanted to escape, but I knew they were telling the truth. I was on my own out there. I could be killed by anything that was just a few levels higher than me and I still don't know how the System works.

Then I heard steps behind me. I turned around to see it was Nayleth. He was panting and his eyes seemed worried about something, they were wide and his eyes were against his skull.

"Nayleth? What is it?" I asked, hoping he did not try to convince me too.

Then he only formed one word with his magic.

"Maple"