Samuele struggled to open his eyes. With an effort, he saw something white in a very blurry way. Only after he managed to focus did he recognise that what he was seeing was a white roof.
He also felt the back of his head resting on something soft, as well as the rest of his body. He slowly turned his head to look around for a moment. White walls and small pieces of furniture that suited the room. It wasn't just that, though.
People he recognised as his family were standing there. Apparently, they must not have noticed her awakening, as her parents stood with their heads down, while her little sister....
"Big brother!" She exclaimed as soon as she saw Samuel's eyes open. This cry made the parents raise their heads and they now looked at their son with bright eyes.
"My boy! You have finally woken up!"
"Oh, my son!"
Said the mother and father together, going to embrace Samuele, with the latter having just moved into a sitting position.
"Where am I?" He asked, in a still slightly dejected tone.
"You're in hospital, brother!" Said his little sister, Anna. Like their father, she had brown hair and blue eyes. Her face, despite being only fourteen, was beginning to resemble her mother's.
As soon as she saw Samuele awake, Anna had formed a bright smile, but this seemed to disappear and tears began to form in her eyes.
"You...you scared me! Don't ever do that again... Got it?!" She shouted in a voice broken with tears, hugging Samuel's figure to herself. He unconsciously formed a small smile on his face and returned his sister's embrace.
"I'm sorry, I won't do it again. Enough crying now, come on." She said softly. The little sister nodded and wiped her tear-filled face. Her expression returned to its previous one, which was happy and bright.
The parents, seeing the scene, looked at each other with pained expressions and turned to their eldest son.
"Sam-"
The father was interrupted by the knock on the door. They all turned towards the sound and saw a very young man in a black suit. The door was already open, so the significance of that knock was that he was taking permission to enter.
"Sorry to interrupt you. My name is Alessandro Pacini and I am with the Investigation Department of the IAA. Since Mr. Rua is now awake, I would like to ask him some questions. It won't take long, I promise."
Samuele and his parents immediately understood what this was all about and what kind of questions he would ask. The 'IAA' was nothing more than an acronym for the Italian Adventurers' Association (IAA).
As this boy was part of the Investigation Department, it was not difficult to understand that the questions he would ask would be about the last portal, but also the first ever, faced by Samuel. The parents, however, were reluctant to let him in now.
"Sir, our son just woke up. I don't think it's..."
"It's fine." Said Samuel, interrupting his father. The latter turned to him surprised.
"Are you sure?" He asked slowly again.
"Yes. As he said, it won't take long."
Still a little reluctant, the father and mother stood up.
"Let's go, Anna. Let's leave Samu with the gentleman for a few minutes." Said the mother.
"But I want to stay with big brother..."
"Go with mum and dad, otherwise no hugs for a week." Said Samuel, with a mock serious expression.
"No, there's no need! I'll go now!"
Chuckling internally, Samuel saw his family walk out the door. The Association employee closed the door and walked over to him, sitting in a chair nearby.
"I apologise again for disturbing you and your family, Mr Rua."
"Don't worry, you are just doing your job." The man from the investigation department, Alessandro Pacini, nodded and started asking questions.
"So, do you remember what happened inside the portal?"
"I have gaps, to be honest. I remember that while we were killing goblins, the mission had suddenly changed. We also had to kill orcs, a group of five if I'm not mistaken. All of us in the group thought we had made it, but then another orc had appeared, much stronger than the others." His expression changed to one of affliction.
"As you know... I am the only survivor."
Alessandro Pacini formed a confused frown.
"What do you mean by 'the only survivor'?"
It was Samuele's turn to be confused.
"In what sense? The ogre killed everyone. To tell the truth, I don't even know how I came out in one piece."
"It seems that, like the others, you have a bit of a fuzzy memory."
"The others? What do you mean?"
"The rest of your group is still alive and well, Mr Rua. No one is dead, nor even seriously injured."
"H-how is that possible? I saw it with my own eyes." Samuel was shocked beyond belief. Had he dreamt it?
"I also spoke to the other Adventurers in your group, just before you woke up, and they all told me that the only thing they remembered was that they were fighting goblins, before they lost consciousness. It was the leader of your group, Mr. Terranova, who reported to me that, after waking up, he had seen dead orcs scattered inside the cave."
"Is Mr. Terranova well too?"
"To tell you the truth, he was the one who was best of all. He was the one who called for help outside the portal and got the still unconscious group out of that dimension in time before it closed. If he hadn't been there, no one would have known what had happened there."
Samuele didn't think he could be any more surprised. The members of his group were all still alive, plus it was thanks to the leader that everyone had been able to return home, including him. He didn't even want to imagine what would happen with his family if he never returned. How would his parents have taken it? Even worse, how would his little sister take it?
The brotherly love they felt for each other was beyond imagination. He did not know what he would do if he suddenly lost his sister. He thought she might feel the same. At the mere thought, his heart ached. Seeing her sad, it was worse than anything else. A tear from her was like a sea falling on Samuele's face.
He promised himself that such a thing would never happen. He would not let his little sister Anna suffer because of him, even indirectly. He would protect her from anything, even this suffering.
And if he could make this promise, he owed it exclusively to Marco Terranova. His respect for this person grew incredibly. He also promised himself at that moment that as soon as he met him, he would thank him wholeheartedly. He literally owed him his life and the happiness of his family, especially his little sister.
"Back to the matter at hand..." Alessandro Pacini resumed, drawing Samuele's attention again.
"Knowing that all the other members of the group are still alive, do you still think what you said makes sense?"
Samuel raised an eyebrow. 'Do you doubt me?' he thought, but his expression must have shown his thoughts, as Alessandro Pacini resumed speaking.
"I mean, do you think what you saw was reality?" He corrected himself and after a few seconds added more. "It could have been a nightmare provoked by his subconscious in reaction to his slight memory loss."
At his words, Samuel lowered his head and thought about it. In those minutes he had asked himself several times. Was it a dream or reality? Of one thing he was sure, though....
"All the feelings I felt, the fear, the sight of others dying slowly and painfully without being able to do anything... it may have all been a bad and incredibly real nightmare, but I can't help but think that all of this wasn't just dreamt. Everything I felt and saw was too real to be just a bad dream."
"Could you please show me your status screen, kindly?"
"Ah, yes." Said Samuele quickly, displaying the System and thinking he wanted to show it to the employee.
[WARNING!]
YOUR SCREEN WILL BE VISIBLE TO ALL OTHER AWAKENED ONES IN THE AREA.
The words 'awakened ones' had not been used casually. In fact, even if one wanted to show the screen to other people, only those who had already awakened their System could view the others'.
After a few seconds of silence in which the man scrutinised his status screen, he realised that there was nothing unusual about it and gave a slight sigh, rising from his chair.
"I understand. I have no more questions for you. I wish you a good recovery." He said with a small smile turned to the boy and headed for the door.
"Thank you and goodbye."
Once he left, Samuele did not even have time to be left alone with his thoughts that, immediately, his family returned. He gave a small smile. They did not seem to have moved even a metre away from his room.
"Did everything go well, Samu?" His mother asked with a slightly worried expression, to which the boy replied with a smile and a nod of his head.
"Yes. I told you it wouldn't take long."
"Yeah... look, son..." Samuel, clearly hearing his father's sad voice, frowned.
"Yes, Dad?"
Both parents again gave each other a quick glance. He now realised that his mother also had the same sad expression as his father.
"It's our fault that all this happened. We only risked losing you because of our selfishness. We are sorry, Samu."
"We take back everything we said. You don't have to be an Adventurer. We will find another way to earn more money, you don't have to worry." The mother spoke this time.
"Can you forgive us?" She continued again.
Samuele could not believe his ears. Had they really apologised for something they were not to blame for? Samuel could not really blame them for anything. It had never happened in history since the portals appeared that the Newbies were put in a life-or-death situation at their first portal. Therefore, for every precaution, a leader with more experience than them was put in place in case something went wrong.
If they had known that even one group of Newbies in history had gone through what had happened to Samuele's group, then his parents would never have allowed him to become an Adventurer. They really would have been the first to oppose this.
"I have nothing to forgive you for, because I never blamed you for anything that happened to me in there." Samuele then gave a smile and continued. "At most, the only blame I give you is for not having the gift of foresight, but beyond that I don't blame you for anything."
His parents, first his mother, pounced on him to embrace him.
"Oh, my baby! I am truly sorry for everything you have been through."
"It doesn't matter, mother. As you can see, I'm fine. You don't have to be sorry. Besides..."
Samuel, opened his System screen and looked at his status.
{PROFILE}
NAME: SAMUELE RUA LEVEL: 2
TITLE: NEWBIE
CLASS: NONE
HP: 250
{STATISTICS}
STRENGTH: 2 SENSES: 2
INTELLIGENCE: 2 AGILITY: 2
VITALITY: 2 STAMINA: 2
'I saw right before!'
Just now with the employee of the Association, if he hadn't noticed anything strange, Samuele had.
Just before he passed out, he remembered hearing a voice from the System, telling him that he had broken his upper limit. In fact, his level now no longer contained the word 'max'.
"I will continue to be an Adventurer."
"What?! Why?!" His parents couldn't help but be shocked by his words. For what reason, after surviving his first quest fortuitously, did he still want to continue?
'I can still level up.' That was the reason. He didn't know why or what had happened to break his upper limit, but it would be a shame to waste this opportunity like this.
"I will earn enough so that no one in this family has to make any more sacrifices."
If he had stuck at level 2, then he would have had no reason to continue. Hell, who else had stuck at such a low level? Even for the weakest Adventurers, the upper limit was 10. In general, all upper limits ended with a round figure, so he ended up wondering why he had stopped at level 2. Was his bad luck really that great?
In any case, he now wanted to find out how far he could go. Maybe just to 10? To 20? To 50? Maybe even to 100, the highest level he could reach! He did not know what was the meaning behind breaking his upper limit. He had to find out, otherwise he was sure to regret it one day.
He was a human and, like all humans, his curiosity was enormous.
In the same cavern where the carcasses of the orcs and goblins stood, the body of the orc chief was covered in a pitch-black miasma. His eyes snapped open, showing pupils of a luminous purple.
Looking around, a small malevolent smile spread across his face. He sensed remnants of magic in the area. A magic very familiar to him, which only one possessed. That smile couldn't help but grow wider and wider.
"Is that you?... No, not yet. My preparations are almost finished. I am sure that as soon as you wake up, they will be completed. I look forward to showing them to you in person, King..."
The orc laughed, before his eyes returned to the dark and white tones of normal eyes. The black miasma left his body, descending to the ground and even deeper, and the orc's body fell to the ground like a rag doll.
END OF CHAPTER.
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