“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Camila shouted.

Christopher scoffed, an indignant look coming to his face. The others deferred to him for guidance, like a group of preschool students waiting for their teacher. It almost fit for Allen and Amelia, if one ignored the fact that they were both mentally in their mid-twenties.

“Exactly what he said,” Christopher began, “If we die then we die for good; there’s no more respawns. Though, he did mention that there was an afterlife, so I suppose we would go there.”

Amelia looked hesitant. “Um, but what about the document? It didn’t say anything about dying.”

Christopher’s eyes widened briefly before he looked down at his feet again. Personally, Allen hadn’t read the document enough to be sure of anything. To him, it didn’t really matter what happened. The afterlife sounded good enough.

In retrospect, it was probably better than this purgatory of a world. It was only through high stability and unhealthy emotional detachment that Allen had been able to endure for so long. Others, like Ty and Camila, were probably both far crazier than they seemed, then Christopher and Amelia had probably lived as hermits. That was his best guess.

“Damn, I should have read that thing,” Ty chuckled wistfully. “I guess we’ll just end up as Andy’s servants forever if we die here.”

“It’s bullshit!” barked Camila. “We’re not going to die for good, that’s ridiculous. Why would he do that? It would go against fucking Andy’s whole plan!”

Christopher took a deep breath and rested his chin on his hand with a smirk. “Do you want to do us all a favor and test it yourself?”

Camila gritted her teeth and hissed at the professor.

“Are you sure you’re not originally from this world, girl?” Christopher asked, his face stern and unmoving. “Your act is getting rather irritating.”

The older woman pursed her lips. It was clear she wanted to say something, yet nothing was coming to her immediately. After a short staring contest, Camila sighed to herself before turning around to face the town in the valley below.

“Sometimes I feel that way,” she said quietly.

Silence descended on Allen and the group of five, none of them really recognizing it. “I get how she feels,” Allen thought.

Ty cleared his throat abruptly, throwing everyone out of their thoughts. He wetted a finger in his mouth and held it up in the air. “A’ight, we got some ogres to kill. My perception is around twenty, so I think I’d smell ‘em if they were upwind. So, we should start looking downwind,” he finished, pointing in a direction roughly opposite to the town.

Allen shrugged and started walking. The others looked around for a few moments before they Followed Ty as well. Christopher was having trouble rolling himself over the grass, but Amelia quickly stepped in behind his chair to push.

The face the professor made when he turned around indicated he never would have expected someone to help him. His eyes almost went glassy for a moment before he promptly turned around and sat still. Amelia only smiled back warmly.

About ten minutes passed as the group silently walked through the fields. They were heading South East, based on the position of the sun. Not much changed in terms of scenery though. They were still out in the middle of a somewhat dry plains with hills and grass too rough to lay down on.

“So…” Christopher started, his tone a bit uncharacteristically awkward. “We should probably get to know each other’s classes, for efficiency.”

The others grunted in response.

“I’ll go first then. I chose Arcane Sorcerer in the Mage class. My first skill point went into Mana Sense. I assume you all know what it does?” asked the professor.

Allen nodded along with the others. “Not the first skill somebody would normally choose, but he is going full support,” Allen figured, “The ability to sense ambient mana will help us track spells and enemies within a considerable range.” The professor might even be able to sense the ogres before Ty could smell them.

“I’ll get it out of the way early,” Camila said. “Warrior class, Berserker job, and Rage. Pretty basic.”

“I thought you would make a good berserker,” Ty commented. Camila snorted to herself but didn’t reply. “Anyway, I picked shield bearer from the Defender Class and took the Toughness skill, which increases my body’s density and my skin’s hardness a little.”

“What are your resistance and stability at?” asked Christopher as he was pushed along the grass.

“Fourteen and seventeen,” Ty answered.

“That’s alright for now I suppose,” replied the professor. “I’m sure you already know that stability reduces pain, so you should put your points into endurance for now.”

“Yeah, it reduces pain,” Allen said to himself, “But not by a whole lot at this level.”

Ty nodded before looking over at Amelia as she pushed the old man along with a relaxed expression. “Oh, uh…” she jumped a little when she noticed the others watching her. “I picked the Arcane Healer. Alchemical Healer is more versatile but it’s too witchy for me, and Soul Healer is just… weird.”

“Oh? What’s so weird about healing via… bodily contact?” Camila warbled as she crept up behind the girl, her hand tracing its way down Amelia’s side.

The younger girl jumped away defensively, her cheeks turning red as a shiver visibly ran down her spine. Camila only laughed derisively before walking past the girl.

“Bitch move… but it was kind of funny though,” Allen felt. “So, what about your skill Amelia?” he asked.

The girl seemed to snap out of her shock after hearing Allen’s question. Quickly, she grabbed Christopher’s chair and started pushing again. “I’m… not sure if I should pick Recovery or Heal. Recovery is an aura, but it only increases the targets effective HP and SP regeneration. Heal directly refills HP proportional to the MP I spend. They’re both good skills but I still can’t decide.”

Allen thought hard on which one seemed better. Recovery would regenerate health and stamina, but it would probably be slower than Heal and dependent on the person’s stats. “It wouldn’t matter a whole lot if picking a skill didn’t change the ones that were left available. Man… That gets so frustrating.”

“Does the MP cost for Recovery scale with range?” Christopher asked. When Amelia nodded in response, he shook his head in return. “Choose Heal then. Auras just aren’t efficient.”

Amelia nodded again before everyone turned, finally, to Allen.

“Rogue Assassin, and I picked Assassinate. So, double damage if I can get a sneak attack in,” Allen said. Looking over his stats. He had already spent his five stat points on evening things out a little. It was too early in the game for min-maxing, that could wait until all his stats were at least over fifty.

Status:

Jeremiah Allen Durand

Human – Rogue – Level 1

XP: 0/512 (256)

Stat Points: 0, Skill Points: 0, Job Points: 0

Jobs:

Assassin

Basic – Tier 1

Stats:

HP: 50/50

Regen: 6/min

SP: 60/60

Regen: 5/min

MP: 35/35

Regen: 10/min

Primary:

STR: 6

INT: 7

VIT: 4 (5)

WIS: 5 (5)

END: 8 (10)

FCS: 10

Secondary:

DEX: 14 (12)

PER: 3

RES: 11

STB: 14

SPD: 6 (6)

LCK: 2

---

The five points had at least done a bit to even out his stats. He knew the secondary ones were somehow derived from the primary stats, but Allen had never invested the effort into figuring out exactly how. Still, he had a general idea, and thus knew that his stability would decrease if he increased his wisdom. It couldn’t be helped.

“At least the modifiers from my class are applied afterwards,” Allen thought. That was something he had figured out.

Skill: Assassinate

Deal more damage when your enemies are unaware.

Category: Martial Arts – Type: Meta – Tier 1

Effects: 2x base damage when attacking while unnoticed by the target.

Cost: None

The assassinate skill was pretty underwhelming at first, but Allen knew what it did up to tier seven. That was enough to justify taking it as opposed to one of the more interesting skills like Silent Step or Vital Strike… or Dead Calm, which wasn’t available yet unfortunately.

“Okay, what about weapons?” Ty asked the group. Suddenly everyone stopped walking.

“Um, well… We each got cosmetic item and a weapon from the tutorial, right?” asked Christopher, his tone didn’t inspire confidence though.

Camila laughed dryly. “If you say so. Which one is the weapon then, the beanie hat, or the shoelace?” she asked, pulling both said items out of her inventory and into each of her outstretched hands.

“You could use the shoelace to strangle someone,” Allen replied quickly. He only got four blank stares in response.

“I have a hairpin and an aluminum trashcan lid,” Amelia commented, seemingly serious about the contents of her inventory, as if it weren’t a bad joke.

“I’ll take the lid,” Ty said, “Improvised shield?”

“Riiight.” Camila rolled her eyes.

“I have a pair of boots and a walking stick,” Christopher proclaimed. “And no, the cruel humor is not lost on me.”

Ty groaned after he received the flimsy trashcan lid. He shook it around a bit in his left hand, the handle rattling audibly. Then his lips curled into a cynical grin as he pulled a pair of aviator sunglasses out of his inventory, the things appearing in his hand as if sucked into view. “I got sick shades and a baseball bat.”

“I guess that counts as a weapon,” Camila said reluctantly. Ty handed her the bat without argument; it would be better in the hands of the group’s warrior after all.

“What about you, Allen?” prompted Amelia. Her face looked hopeful, but her eyes told a different story.

Allen hesitated for dramatic effect, making a few shifty glances from under his unkempt hair. “I’ve got a brick.”