"System guide me towards strength?" Vol repeated. He heard the name Oliver Patrick, and it was like cold water on his steaming mind. It froze his veins, and brought calmness with it. A voice in his head, announcing his desire to kill the golden-eyed general. That had been his dream for the longest time. If it be madness, then it was a familiar madness, for that was his oldest desire.
"SYSTEM EXPLANATION: EXPLANATION EXCEEDED, QUESTION ILL-DEFINED, NO RESPONSES AVAILABLE. IDEA PROPOSED: SHOW, NOT TELL. READING STATS ALOUD
STRENGTH: 30
AGILITY: 10
STAMINA: 10
CHARISMA: 5
WEAPONS SKILL: 5
STRATEGIC SKILL: 1
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: 1
SPECIAL SKILLS: YARMDON THRILL – PHYSICAL PAIN IS REDUCED BY 75%. SENSES ARE HEIGHTENED.
STATS, ACKNOWLEDGED, DECIDING LEVEL… LEVEL GIVEN. VOL, LEVEL 5. OLIVER PATRICK: LEVEL 500. USER: WEAK. ACKNOWLEDGED. QUEST ISSUED: RETRIEVE AXE, PERFORM 5 SWINGS
All of a sudden, the information assailed him. As the System spoke, an area on the lens in front of him was highlighted. What had seemed like merely lines and scribbles before now revealed itself to be a table. He read it to himself, as she spoke it to him, as it evaluated his statistics.
Even without seeing such a method of description before, Vol almost found himself nodding in agreement at the ratios. His strength stood out above all else. It always had, ever since he was a child. His older brother Jok had called it a gift from the Gods. He'd said it would allow him to match the famous Gorm, should he have a mind to.
But even as he agreed with the System, he could not rid himself of the discomforting feeling that came with confronting something new. Vol was not an intellectual man. He did not think of things in terms of numbers, or words on a board, or strategies. He was animalistic in his approach, simplistic. He swung an axe, he expected strength. He'd never evaluated himself in terms of percentages before.
The discomforting part, along with his newfound ability to read that which was in front of him was the ability to understand the stats that the system presented as well. It had listed Oliver Patrick as being one hundred times his superior in strength, and he found himself understanding that, and almost agreeing with it, despite having never done true mathematics in his life, never dabbling in any sort of intellectual multiplication, beyond the most basic of basics.
!! SYSTEM ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: EMOTION, INTRIGUE. RESPONSE: YES. VESSEL WAS FOUND LACKING. BASIC ABILITIES DELIVERED: LITERACY AND NUMERACY, BASIC LEVEL. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: VESSEL IS UNEDUCATED.
SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT: IRRITATION.
SYSTEM REMINDER: DEMONSTRATION QUEST. RETRIEVE AXE AND PERFORM FIVE SWINGS.
Vol frowned. What he needed was a moment to relax. He needed a mountain peak to sit on, to collect his thoughts, as he tried to find out what had just happened. Had he indeed died? Where were the wounds on his body? A million such questions strolled through his head, but the voice that called itself the System was relentless.
!! SYSTEM REMINDER: DEMONSTRATION QUEST
It said again. Vol wasn't sure if he'd imagined the irritation in its voice, either way, he was beginning to feel much of the same emotion. That vaguely transparent square black lens that sat in front of him, with half the details of his stats on one side, and the other side still ambiguous, like a blur, of squirrels hard to define, it stood directly in the way of the task that the system had set him.
!! SYSTEM ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: IMPLICIT QUESTION. HOW TO REMOVE 'INTERFACE' FROM VIEW? IMPLIED CORRECTION: IT IS AN INTERFACE, NOT A 'LENS'. INSTRUCTION: TO REMOVE INTERFACE, DIRECT FOCUS TO THE REAL WORLD, AND ITS OBJECTS. TO SEE THE INTERFACE AGAIN, PAY ATTENTION TO THE INTERFACE THAT HANGS ON THE EDGE OF YOUR VISION.
Vol frowned again, and grunted. This time, without thinking, he merely did what it said. Through the interface – being half transparent, as it was – he could still make out the real world beyond it, in all the horrific detail. But he couldn't make it out as clearly as he would have liked, not with the System in the way.
He focused beyond the interface, and with hardly any resistance, as smoothly as a well-oiled door, the interface slid back to the periphery of his vision, like a vaguely annoying bug that hung there.
Vol sucked in a deep breath, as the world returned to normal. He hadn't expected it to be such a relief. He'd willingly gone straight into a battle that might have meant his death, but madness, that loss of control, that strange murky water slide of losing oneself, that frightened him more than death.
But whether or not it was madness still remained to be seen. The interface may have disappeared from view, but the voice was relentless.
!!SYSTEM REMINDER: DEMONSTRATION QUE—
"Yeah, I know."
!! SYSTEM ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: AMUSEMENT
Vol did what he was told to do, in the same vaguely irritated way that he did everything that he was told to do. He was still young enough that when he was given a task to do – especially if it involved pay – then he would have to do it, whilst keeping his complaints as quiet as possible. It irked him to do that, but the calluses he'd built up towards that emotion assisted him here.
He reached to grab the bloodied axe, only to catch a flash of steel at the edge of his vision.
"Ah! There she is," he grinned to himself. Despite the death that surrounded him, to see his axe again brought him tremendous relief. It had taken him months of work to buy such fine steel. Even if others might call it a simple weapon, a basic one, it was his, and there were no others he would rather have with that in front of him.