My mother grabbed me by the hand and walked me down the stairs as if I was a convict being escorted to my cell. The entire time her eyes were focused on me while exuding a glare that howelled with the screams of men and women long dead.
I was about a head taller than her, but I couldn't dare look down on her. All I could do was silently look at the back of her head while trying to make myself look as small as physically possible. Even Aether was too intimidated to make any sort of remark.
'How did she not see the sword?' I thought to myself.
'Because normal people can't see items generated by the system.' Aether replied.
After what felt like eons of walking, we finally arrived at the table. "Heyy champ! How was school?" Dad was never good at reading the room, but thankfully, I was.
I looked at him with an expression filled with pure fear and nodded before sitting down beside him.
Instead of sitting at her usual spot beside Liz, who was on my other side, mom grabbed dad's chair and moved it to the side. She then got a chair from the other side of the table, and placed it in the vacant spot left by dad's chair.
Of course dad still being seated during all of this left him pretty dazed.
Tap tap
Dad started tapping the table, which was actually morse code for "Is this a code red?".
Tap tap tap
"Worse, much much worse." I tapped back quietly, so as to not be noticed by the reaper looking straight into my soul as I was chewing.
My dad's expression instantly turned grim, beads of sweat galloping down his cheeks. During all of this, Liz was trying all she could to hold back laughter, let alone a smile.
Tap tap
"Haha" She tapped in a ridiculing manner.
'What the hell are you three doing?' Aether remarked, finally reappearing.
'The three of us learned morse code for situations like these. Obviously, mom has no clue about this.' I replied telepathically.
'That's strange. How did you know we could communicate through your thoughts?' She inquired.
'Just a hunch.'
"Hey sweety? You seem upset upset." Dad said, trying to ease the situation.
She turned to look at him, still maintaining that soul incompassing stare, which made him jump in his seat. "Well Luther." She replied in the most chilling yet calm tone that you could possibly imagine. Making all of us, even Liz, freeze in place.
"Yes, I am a little upset." She paused.
Dad had just started opening his mouth to speak when she continued. "Upset at what you ask? At the ignorance and disrespect my son has shown towards me."
"I see..." Dad replied after taking a deep breath to prepare himself for what's to come.
"But I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it."
He didn't even bother asking her how I had disrespected her, since it would just lead us to a stand still where she would keep going on about what I did, without leaving any room for negotiation or second opinions.
"Well yeah but that not the point-"
"And plus! If you keep acting all gloomy we won't be able to tell the kids the good news!" Dad interrupted quickly, before she had a chance to make a rebuttal.
'News?' I thought.
"So please calm down Mary." He held her hand softly, making Liz cringe.
"I guess you have a point." She conceded, her face finally going back to normal, givng all of us a breather and returning our appetites. Up until now I was just stress eating, so I genuinely hadn't noticed how hungry I was.
'Your Dad is pretty amazing huh?' Aether commented.
'I guess.' I replied.
Before digging in though, there was something I had to address, but Liz beat me to it.
"So what's this incredible news you were talking about?" She asked, her interest piqued.
"Well, my company is going on a business trip to Spain!" Dad exclaimed, preforming a bad pair of jazz hands. He clearly wanted us to be just as if not even more excited than he was.
And usually I would be pretty joyous, but with the whole system thing, I was going to sit this one out.
<[Innate Skill]: (Instict of the all seeing sage lvl.1) has been activated.>
'Well that's convenient... a little bit too convenient don't you think, Aether?' I thought, putting my hand to my chin.
'Yeah, you're right. This probably isn't a coincidence.' Aether confirmed my suspicions. 'It's the system's doing.'
'Well, it's not like it's a bad thing, so I don't really care if it's the system's doing or just a coincidence.' I telepathically shrugged.
I raised my hand apologetically."Sorry Dad I'm gonna have to sit this one out. Exams are only a month away and I want to focus on my studies"
My Dad instantly looked heartbroken, but he couldn't object due to my good excuse. I felt bad but there's no way I could pass up this golden opportunity. Instead he shifted his attention towards Liz who replied with a simple head shake, he looked at mom with "manly tears" welling up in his eyes.
"Of course I'll come along dear." She said in a caring tone completely contrasting her previous behaviour. "But where will the kids stay?" She mentioned.
"I'll just stay here." I quickly replied.
"Me too." Liz added.
"Absolutely not young lady. You will stay at aunt Bella's house." Mom snapped.
"What!? How come!? You let Will stay here!" She complained.
"That's because he can use his time responsibly, while you young lady..."
Mom and Liz went back and forth for a while, and, even after Liz's continous complaining and pleas, she complied to mom's demands.
During all this, I was having a telepathic conversation with Aether. She taught me how to operate the system, which turned out to be just as easy as it was in the novels.
She told me about dungeons, items, quests and missions. The more I learned, the more this seemed more and more like your traditional rpg.
My parents told us that they would be leaving in a few hours. It was pretty sudden but I didn't mind, after all it would let me go to one of those dungeons I heard about from Aether.
'Hey Aether?' I asked.
'Sup?' She replied the second I finished speaking, which I still wasn't used to.
'You don't happen to have a convenient feature that tells the time do you? I don't have my phone on me and I don't feel going all the way to the kitchen to check the microwave.'
'It's five past seven.' She answered. 'And just so you know, I'm not just a conventional pocket watch or encyclopedia. Don't forget that I'm a person as well.'
I gave her a small nodd, and decided that it was about time to head out. It was still seven, so I wouldn't arise any suspicion.
I went up to my room, finally took off my uniform and put on the most breathable pair of pants I could find, and the black shirt I was wearing this morning. "I'm guessing you also know the temperature?" I said aloud to aether. Using telepathy may sound easy but it was actually pretty mentally straining.
"It's chilly." She replied, clearly pouting.
"Righteo." I said, reaching for a light brown jacket which matched the colour of my hair. I walked down stairs and told mom I was going out for a bit. She replied by simply nodding.
I walked out of the house and closed the door behind me. "Before I do anything, I should probably invest my stat points."
"Profile." Following my words the panel from before reappeared in front of me, showing me my stats and skills.
"Any tips, miss assistant?"
"You should probably get your strength and durability to fifteen first then invest the rest into vitality."
"Got it."
I invested my stat points as I was walking on the sidewalk. It was pretty crouded since we were still early into the night which made it kind of awkward to browse through the panels, I can't say that I didn't get a few weird looks and stares, after all to anyone that couldn't see the panels I was just looking down while poking the air.
The system was pretty convenient, it had tons of different features and would've honestly made for a great smart phone. Other than telling the time and temperature, there was a map that acted kind of like a GPS. It had little red indicators spread out everywhere.
'Hey Aether..' I spoke up after a few minutes of silence and wandering. 'Yeah?' She answered in an annoyed manner.
'Sorry to bother you but we've been wandering around aimlessly for five minutes now.' I said while fighting the urge to cuss her out.
'Oh yeah, I forgot about that.' She replied, uninterested.
'You should look for a big blue triangle on the map, that should represent a dungeon." She directed, finally saying something that didn't make me want to punch her.
'What about the red indicators? What do they represent?'
'Those are catacombs.' She answered, barely giving me any context.
'And what is the difference between dungeons and catacombs?'
'You'll find out later. All you need to know is that dungeons usually give out better rewards.' She answered. 'That's why you should hurry up and find one.'
I disliked the tone of her last remark but complied none the less.
"Map." I said aloud now that I had gone into a relatively quiet street.
Following my words a panel containing the same map from before popped up. I looked for a blue triangle, but couldn't find anything.
"Is there anyway to move around? I can't find anything nearby." I asked.
'You can scroll with your finger.' Aether replied.
I touched the holographic panel with my finger and started to drag it across the panel.
It was a strange sensation, with every drag I would feel this weird numbness in my finger. I got so lost in the feeling that I forgot what I was doing.
'What the hell are you doing?' Aether commented, snapping me back into reality.
"Don't worry about it." I replied,slightly embarrassed. "Anyway, I found a dungeon but it's almost four miles away."
"Okay? And?"
"What do you mean and, that's in the middle of nowhere."
"It's not like I told you to go there on foot though? Just take the bus."
...
" I... I didn't think of that." I said, slightly ashamed.
-Five minutes later-
I got on the bus and sat down. The bus' atmosphere contrasted that of the street, it was empty and quiet which made sense, since I was going to a pretty urban area that not many people visited.
I sat at the back of the bus and started thinking about what had transpired today when I came to realization.
<[Innate skill]: (Instinct of the All Seeing Sage lv.1) has been activated>
"Can this system really be trusted?" I mumbled, swiping away the panel that had appeared in front of me.
"Did you say something?" Aether asked.
"Say Aether, am I currently the only person in the world that has access to the system?" I chose to dodge her question with a question of my own.
"No, not at all." She answered strongly.
"I see... Could give me a rough estimate of how many people other than me are users?"
"You're about to find out, when we get to our location that is." She replied.
I can't say her answered completely satisfied my curiosity, but it was good enough for now.
We still had a lot of time on our hands, so I decided to test something out.
I took my sword out of my bag and unsheathed it. Just as I did that, a panel popped up, confirming my theory.
<[Skill] (Advanced swordsman ship lv.1) has been activated>
To solidify it, I started deeply pondering about several things, and again a panel appeared right on cue.
<[Innate skill]: (Instinct of the All Seeing Sage lv.1) has been activated>
'Its eerily quiet isn't it?' I realised.
With that I confirmed that skills automatically activate when you meet a certain requirement. What that requirement was differed from one skill to another.
"Aether, is there anyway to check the descriptions of my skills?" I asked.
"Currently, no. In the future, maybe." She replied.
"Maybe?"
"It depends on wether or not you have a certain skill."
"So I need a skill to find out what my other skills do. Did I get that right?"
"Yeah, you did."
"That sounds redundant as all hell." I complained.
"It's not like I make the rules." She replied, telepathically shrugging.
The bus came to a sudden stop. "This our last stop kiddo." The driver pointed out.
We were already very close to our destination, so I got off.
"Let's see..." I opened the map. We were a few hundred meters away. It was vague, but I could see the outline of a tavern in the distance.
"I'm guessing that's where I'm supposed to go?"
"Bingo." Aether replied.
I put my blade on my hip and headed towards the tavern. The trip from the city to here took almost 2 hours. It wasn't late but it was still pitch black and eerily quiet. If I was killed or kidnapped here no one would find me.
I walked in, my hand resting on my blade and scanned my surroundings.
<[Innate skill]: (Instinct of the All Seeing Sage lv.1) has been activated>
<[Skill] :(Situational Stability Lv.2) has been activated>
Everyone turned their heads to look at me.
Their attention quickly shifted from me to my sword.
Ther were about 16 people, and every single one of them was looking at my sword.
...
There was no doubt about it.
'Everyone here is a user.'
(End of chapter)