"What are you talking about Grayson? Why would you want to go adventuring all of a sudden?" asked a young man in a worried tone.
"Yeah, I thought you wanted to have it easy, why give it up to go on a quest as if you were the protagonist of a bad novel?" asked another one, much more relaxed about the situation.
"Are you two completely deaf? You can't convince me that you haven't heard about what was going on, everyone is talking about it, this country is under attack guys! There are the sins and whatnot"
"I am telling you, it is only a matter of time until some demon lord rise up from its sleep or something" spoke Grayson, his grey eyes conveying his seriousness.
"I did hear of some crystal man waging war against some high elves on an island..." mentioned the relaxed one, he was quite skinny and had messy brown hair that kept swaying in front of his green eyes.
"See? We need to step up our game or else, we'll just die and I don't think we'll get to go to another world, it will be darkness and madness, I am telling you that" he said fervently while tapping his finger on a table.
"Alright, I see your point but is chasing against some unknown problems that haven't been solved despite multiple attempts really a good idea?" questioned the worried one, he had long dark hair tied in a ponytail and bright brown eyes.
"Have I ever failed anything? I can predict the future, you can react insanely fast and Aiden can read the full list abilities and stats of just about anything, as long as we don't act like morons, we should manage" retorted Grayson.
"Any other objections Jake?" he then asked.
"I guess I don't" spoke Jake.
"Then it's decided, we'll start right now with the disappearances in the west" he said while striking his fist against the table.
"Pack the essentials" he advised before leaving the room to do exactly that.
"What is happening in the west exactly?" asked Jake, not being up to date about the latest unusual occurences.
"It is exactly what it sounds like, complete disappearances, it is suspected that it had been happening for a while but that it only increased recently or so I hear"
"Honestly, I don't know why he wants to start with that, it is dubious if it is really the work of something or just an increase in disappearances due to the overall increase in dangerous monsters" remarked Aiden, it was a weird choice which he could only attribute to Grayson's ability, he must have seen that the other options were dreadful or that this one was particularily good.
It was hard to guess since Grayson kept the details of his ability to himself, in fact, Aiden was convinced that he was the only one who had truly revealed his ability.
Fast reaction just sounded wrong as an ability bestowed by the system, Aiden couldn't check for himself, he could see the status of any creature in full as well as some about items but he couldn't see anything about fellow otherworlders, that was its limit.
The skinny man stood up, stretching his limbs with a groan before speaking again.
"Come on, let's go prepare, maybe we'll encounter some hot orc girls" he said with a grin.
"I would rather meet cat girls..." responded Jake.
"Fucking normie"
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The sound of a man whistling some sort of song could be heard coming from afar, the sound of his exaggerated and deliberate steps on the creaky floorboards.
It sounded like he was slow dancing but by himself, an action that would cause a bit of surprise and maybe a chuckle in a normal situation.
But being that she was tied up in a dark room and could hear the sound of someone or something breathing not so far in front of her, this only caused her to freak out even further.
She tried to break free but simply couldn't, nothing seemed to budge a milimeter, her right hand was stuck against what seemed to be a wooden table, her hand laying flat on the palm and her fingers spread apart a bit.
Having no choice but to wait for something to happen, she tried to recall what she had been doing before waking up in this dark place.
It didn't bring her much, she had just walked a bit into the forest as usual, she hadn't even went that far and she had been knocked out.
The aching she felt could feel on the back of her head seemed to confirm this, although, it was very subtle, she had the faint memory that the strike had been strong enough to throw her to the ground.
Before she could ponder upon that, the sound of whistling and creaking abruptly stopped and a voice, the same that had been whistling, sounded in the entire room, coming from every single corner at once.
"Hello, hello! Today, you two are going to play a game of revisited blackjack!" announced the voice as a light on the ceiling lit up suddenly, letting her see where she had been.
It was a regular looking room, apart from the filth and dust that was around, it only looked to be a desolated room inside of an abandoned home, not an underground dungeon or anything.
Her hand was indeed on a wooden table and in the same position, however, she quickly noticed that there was something more.
A small guillotine stood above each of her five fingers, the blade seemed beyond sharp and even if the falling distance wasn't much, she felt like it would cut through her flesh and bones with ease.
"Ahaha! Now, what do I mean by revisited? I mean that I simplified the game to make sure anyone could play it!" spoke the voice, the man it belonged to seemed incredibly riled up.
"The goal is still to get as close to twenty one as possible without exceeding it but there are only cards that go from one to ten, the one being the ace, you start with one card and can get as many as you want!"
"You chose when to stop!"
"Easy enough right? Even dirty peasants like you two can count to twenty one right?"
"As you must have guessed, the loser will lose a finger!" the excitement and speed at which he spoke put her on edge even further.
She looked at the person on the other hand of the table, he seemed to be a middle aged man but it was hard to tell with the strange mask on his face.
"As for the winner..."
"They get to keep their fingers! That is more than enough!" the voice then broke into a series of laughter as a strange machine moved on the table, putting a card before her that was almost standing straight, so as to avoid her adversary seeing her card.
It was an ace.