Whether or not Charles was lying was of little matter. The notification said that his stat had only temporarily been sapped, and if the guy had planned on killing him, he missed his chance when they were shaking hands. What did matter, was what power Charles had used.
The more powers Gray knew about, the closer he would become to piecing together how the system functioned. Sure, it wouldn't answer the more immediate questions, like what the trials and reckoning were about, but it would help in the long run. Plus, solving puzzles was sort of his thing.
Charles pointed towards a spot in the air right in front of him, before signing something to his attendant. However, his attendant only side-eyed Gray, before signing something back to Charles.
~Well this is a pain in the ass. Why won't she just say what he wants?~ Gray thought to himself.
Charles stared at Gray for a moment, before signing at his attendant once again. The attendant signed back and—
Right that instant, Charles smashed his fist into the obsidian table and a loud crack pierced the air. For a moment Gray could smell something like bleach seep out of the table.
Gray's attendant rushed forward. But right as she was about to tug at her necklace, Gray grabbed her wrist.
"As you wish, dominus," she said, before taking a step back.
~What is that?~ he thought to himself, as he stared at the blue glow shimmering out of the cracks. A moment later, the table began piecing itself together, the smell of bleach disappearing as it was made whole.
~Wait, does everything in this place regenerate? What was that blue glow?~ he thought to himself, more and more questions kept popping up. But just then, he remembered his guest.
Charles was hugging himself, shaking his head, and rocking back and forth. With his massive frame, it was enough to shake the entire table. His attendant was trying to sign something to him, but he ignored her.
Metallic orbs hovered around the table, scanning the fallen food with a blue light. An instant later, the food floated into the air, a golden hue surrounding them, before hovering away with the orbs.
"Charles?" Gray said, realizing that the other man was not going to say anything.
If he had to be honest, he really wanted to leave. Despite coming off as a happy guy, Charles was clearly… erratic. Which would've been fine with Gray, if the guy wasn't a literal grizzly bear on steroids.
Sure Gray had never tried punching the obsidian furniture, but merely touching it was enough to discern how incredibly hard it was.
Charles stopped for a moment, looking at Gray with a grieved expression, before signing something to his attendant.
"I broke something, again. It's okay if you don't want to be friends anymore," the attendant said.
~What is this? Pre-school? Is Charles perhaps… not all there?~ Gray thought to himself, before smiling.
"It's okay, things break sometimes. And look, it fixed itself," he replied, gesturing at the table.
Charles looked at it, and nodded, before signing something else.
"You think I'm a brute, don't you?"
Gray thought about it for a second. He really didn't want to play therapist, whatever problems this guy had were beyond the psycho-analytical powers of a 17-year-old.
"What's wrong with being a brute? I think it's cool that you can smash hard tables," Gray replied. "Plus, I got to see something cool because of it," he added.
It was all true enough, brutes were his favorite type of characters in fantasy. Being able to smash whatever pissed you off was one of the greatest powers there was. He just wished that the system had chosen someone a little more… mentally present to gift it to.
But anyway, he was going to get out of here as soon as the chance arose. As interesting as Charles's powers were, they clearly weren't what he was looking for. And he was afraid that if he stayed around, he might end up an 'accidental' blotch of blood on the floor.
"You are kind," the attendant said, pulling Gray out of his thoughts.
He was unsure whether that came from the attendant herself, or from Charles.
Charles signed something, and the attendant sighed, before looking at Gray.
"She said you were trying to take advantage of me, but I knew you weren't," she said, right as Charles started signing even more stuff.
"I'm sorry for stealing from you. If you still want, I can tell you what happened," she continued.
Gray studied the attendant for a moment, before nodding at Charles.
"While I was playing with the others, these words covered my vision. It said I was special, chosen to do something. I don't remember what it was I had to do… it wasn't important," the attendant said, right as Charles signed it.
"It said I had an A-rank talent... Vigorous Conduit. It's just like in the movies. I'm a hero now," she continued. Charles nodded excitedly as she said that bit.
"I'm sorry again," she added.
And for a moment, there was silence.
~A rank talent? Well, I assumed that a skill this good was going to be unique rank like mine. Does that mean that unique rank isn't as good as I thought?~ he thought to himself.
Also, vigorous conduit was a strange name for something that only sapped stats. Conduit implied that it went both ways, or perhaps he was thinking too deeply into it.
Whatever the case, the only thing he was able to ascertain is that everyone probably started at different ranks. Meaning that soon enough, people would begin to start grouping according to that.
It would be in his interest to get on Charles's good side. He wasn't just an A rank, he was an A rank who could sap people's stats. And a tank of a man on top of that, albeit crazy.
He would look for the Arcana Class Champion as more people came into the cafeteria. For now, he would have to get closer to his new 'friend'. Hopefully, he was careful enough not to get squashed.
"Well, that explains what happened. It seems it was just a misunderstanding," Gray said.
Charles nodded profusely.
"Anyway, whatever did happen to the music?" Gray asked, trying to find a way out of the awkward silence.
Charles turned to his attendant, and she sighed once again, before tapping her silver necklace.
Right then, the music began playing, and Charles hummed along.
~Mom, if only you could see me now. I'm finally playing with the weird neighborhood kid,~ he thought to himself, before trying to hum along as well.