In that world of pain, The Source’s soothing voice was the only thing that kept David—even if partially—sane; really, smartphones famous assistants couldn’t even compare; yet the message that said—

The Source

You have (1) Birth Box.

—kept blinking.

The Source continued speaking as David slowly descended into oblivion.

David didn't even have time to ask himself what was going on.

The Source

Your Health is declining fast. New lifeform’s adaptation protocol recommends using the Birth Box in under one minute for the lifeform to survive.

He didn’t speak, the lack of oxygen was killing him, but he thought about “how” he could use the Birth Box.

The Source answered him.

The Source

Opening Birth Box.

It wasn’t exactly an answer, but it was something; Dave would take it.

The Source

You have been bestowed with: (1) One-time-only Survival Diamond Crystal, (1) Survivalist Skill, (1) Automatic Systemic Universal Translation Skill, (1) Crystallized Resilience Point.

Resilience + 1.

Although he still couldn’t breathe properly, the pain he felt all over his body receded a little; it was a far cry to say he was saved, but it was better than nothing. His eyes didn’t hurt anymore, or at least not as much, but he still felt weird, and that wasn’t only for the lack of the necessary fuel to his body.

The following second the Source spoke to him again.

The Source

You have received the Survivalist - Healing Skill.

You have received the A.S.U.T. Skill - Communication Skill.

Survivalist reaches level 1. Adapt to external forces + 1%.

Nothing changed. David still felt as if he was dying. David was indeed still dying.

Survivalist reaches level 2. Adapt to external forces + 2%.

David felt he was dying a little less—but it was clear that he was indeed not gonna survive.

Still, his lungs ached, his sight was disappearing, his ears felt they were about to burst, his skin felt as if he was being punctured by hundreds upon hundreds of tiny pins.

If that wasn’t enough, after a couple more seconds passed, a giant hooded figure—that even consider its alien face—was mad as a bull, neared Dave; the creature stumbled, it looked weakened, yet it towered over him, then it bent over, took him from the scruff of his neck, and brought Dave up to its face.

He said things that made no sense to David. None.

A.S.U.T. is now level 1. Universal Translation 1%

But when he spoke again—questioningly—Dave managed to understand a couple of words.

“Did … … … you!?”

Yeah, it was indeed mad. And seeing how David did not answer, the creature literally threw him away.

David flew through the dark alley, his back slamming against the wall; he knew he heard a crack then—hoping it wasn’t one of his bones—yet his head beat on the wall too.

He had no idea how to answer the situation; it was just a little funny for him. Yet it was clearly the beating he was taking and the lack of oxygen that made him feel that way. Still, the creature got closer to him once more, picking him up from the ground. The only thing that came to David’s mind at that point was that he had one more card to play. The Source had informed him that he had a One-time-only Survival Diamond Crystal, whatever the bloody hell that was.

The Source

Are you sure you want to use the One-time-only Survival Diamond Crystal?

If David could answer it, he would have said that it was unlikely he would have another chance at using whatever the bloody fuck a Survival Crystal was, so why didn’t the voice help him out of that situation and then went to (redacted) itself?

Siri would have asked that she didn’t know how to respond to that, but the Source answered differently.

For it took it as a positive answer, and David started producing a massive amount of azure light. The following few seconds were...chaotic, to say the least.

Survivalist reaches level 3. Adapt to external forces + 3%

Survivalist reaches level 4. Adapt to external forces + 4%

Survivalist reaches level 5. Adapt to external forces + 5%

Something changed in David’s lungs; they felt free, useful again.

He took in a stinging gasping breath.

Although the creature in front of him looked surprised, it didn’t let go of him. No, he kept pushing him in the wall; the pressure from his power was strong, but not even remotely as pressing as it was before. David could only think it was tied to the azure light emanating from his whole body.

Once more, the creature spoke to him, another question.

A.S.U.T. is now level 2. Universal Translation 2%

A.S.U.T. is now level 3. Universal Translation 3%

A.S.U.T. is now level 4. Universal Translation 4%

A.S.U.T. is now level 5. Universal Translation 5%

David had no idea what to answer him, but he felt full of energy; he felt as he had never felt before.

Wanting to free himself from the terrible grip, he pushed the creature away. Yet the push did not do his work—it did much more than that, too much.

David had pushed, intending to shove the creature away, yet even though his left arm had moved forward, the creature hadn’t been pushed. But it now looked weird, surprised, and terrified at the same time.

Then it staggered back; Dave’s arm came free, but it hurt; he had likely broken something. But doing what? He couldn’t say.

Only as the creature touched its chest and brought its hand in front of its face, David understood what had just happened.

Although with a broken wrist, Dave’s hand was covered in blood. It was covered in the creature’s red blood. The gigantic alien said something else as it fell on its knees, then picked something from his pocket; it looked like a phone and put it to its ear. Yet before he could speak, the creature let go of the phone-looking device. The thin metal object, still emanating light, fell on the floor, and the creature collapsed on the ground, immobile.

Dave had no idea what had just happened, or maybe he did, but couldn’t quite parse it.

His wrist hurt, his lungs worked, so he was breathing again. He did still hurt all over his body, but the worst had gone. Then came the voice again.

The Source

You killed a Trespasser. You gain the Title of Trespasser (Unique).

You received (1) Source Box.

David ignored it as he realized what had happened by making a few fast leaps of understanding.

He was receiving loot boxes from likely killing or defeating something; stats and messages from what looked like a game system kept being delivered to him…

It was clear that there were only a few options to consider: option number one, he had likely beat his head so hard that he was in a coma from which he would never wake up given the severity of his dreaming; option number two, he had died and had been reincarnated like in one of those Korean, or Japanese novels—or were they Chinese? Bloody hell why was he asking himself such useless questions? Anyway, novels he had been obsessed about in his teen years, but he had still his body, all of his body, so it wasn’t really an option to take into consideration; option number three, he woke up from an inverted The Matrix-like dreaming; option number four, he had been plugged into a virtual reality game, which technology did not allow at the moment…there wasn’t even the most remote possibility of such a complex thing sprouting on the Earth he knew, which left him with only one real option—he was in another world.

He was in another world, he had just, unwillingly killed somebody, and that somebody had alerted someone else, with his luck, the creature had likely called the police—thinking all those things, David neared the creature, stumbling on his steps because of the uncontrollable strength coming from that burst of fading power, but he stomped on the device, destroying it.

As he fell on his knees, legs trembling, the last vestiges of the power that allowed him to move, left his body, leaving him spent.

“Bloody hell…” Dave said to himself confused, then again— "Bloody hell...you should have said sooner that you could speak, mate. Not that I would have understood you, but...”

David’s head was weirdly empty.

It was pretty clear that he had just killed something, or probably someone, a thinking creature, surely an alien at this point. But it didn’t stop there, not at all. There was still the last message of this weird Source-thing. It wasn’t even a brilliant name or anything for a—

“Are you an A.I. or something?” he asked the sky.

No answer came back.

“So, am I supposed to say something? Maybe, “Hey, Source?” Isn’t that copyrighted?”

Nothing came back.

“I guess copyright doesn’t cover other planets…” David coughed. Whatever he had been breathing—or trying to—was now efficiently powering up his body, just like Oxygen. Yet, from the reaction taking place on his skin, it was clear that not everything had been fixed.

He brought his arm to his face, the cold perking up his body hair, “I don’t think that’s goosebump… it looks more like— veinsbump?”

His veins were bulging up, all of them, and they were showing a nastier than normal violet color. It looked roughly like the clouds above. But it was night, so he couldn’t distinguish them in all details. They could even be red for what mattered, but it was clear they were not white, which was weird by itself.

“Why aren’t you giving me a hand, mate? And don’t tell me you did by giving me that one-way-power thingy.”

No answer. So he started trying a few more things.

“Who are you?”

“Where is this place?”

“Where am I?”

“Info?”

At that last try, The Source answered by triggering something in front of his eyes.

Letters appeared on his vision. They overlapped with the dead creature in front of him.

Fiend - Corpse

Level: N.A.

“What the…Fiend? Is that like, archaic for demon or something?” Dave’s head bent a few degrees to the right, “It does look like one…Did I—did I just kill Nightcrawler? Not enough body hair, I guess...”

He slowly bent over, removing the hood from the creature’s head with his working hand, a violet-skinned being revealed behind the hood. It had two horns bending backward, a good amount of thick hair, reminding him of horsehair, big vertically slitted pupils, and two sets of big canines protruded from its muzzle.

The beast wasn’t even ugly; it was actually quite fascinating to look at; its head was also big, roughly like Dave’s own. Indeed, he had killed another sapient being.

“I just killed an alien, a tonk-demon-looking alien. Bloody hell—" Dave stumbled backward, ending with his ass on the paved road.

He was in an alley; it looked a lot like the alley in which he had found himself following the creature but it was a lot larger, and the buildings around him were really tall, abandoned, but very tall, definitely not Catford.

“Did I just end-up in a silent-hill version of Dubai or something?”

No sounds could be heard around him; only the wind made itself apparent.

He chose to refocus on what he wanted from The Source. “If Info works then—Status?”

Status

Name: Unnamed

Blessing: Blessing of The Source (Unique) – Resilience + 1 every Level

Title: Trespasser (Unique): Locked

Level: 0

Class level: N.A.

Class Perks: N.A.

Attributes

Health: 72%

Stamina: 69%

Well: 100%

Alacrity: 5

Constitution: 5

Perception: 4

Strength: 5

Mind: 5

Resilience: 1

Charisma: 2

Attribute points: 0

You have (1) Source Box.

His eyes widened when the Source, or whatever that was, materialized a series of information in front of him.

The Source

To trigger Status, simply say Status.

“Now you say it?” David scoffed but focused on his Status.

“Alacrity? Is that like speed or something?”

The Source

Your Alacrity represents the natural speed of your neurons and your nerves. Increasing Alacrity you can think quicker, act swiftly, move faster.

“Woah…you are answering now, aren’t you?” Not a single sign that the Source had understood him.

David had an idea of what was going on; he had lost a lot of time—like, a lot—playing video games. He wasn’t overly familiar with all of them, but he understood that what he was looking at was indeed that sort of Status screen.

“What should Well even be? Where’s my Mana? Am I not entitled to receive Mana, is that like a race thing? Are you racist, Source?”

The Source

Your Well represents the amount of Source that your body can handle before saturation. It does not go above the poisoning threshold. (Your Well is critically full.)

“Pois—hold up…Poisoning? What is this about!?”

Not—an—answer.

“You want to put it that way? Fine! Resilience!”

The Source

Your Resilience is your natural ability to resist the Source’s density. The higher your Resilience, the more Ambient and non-ambient Source you will be able to resist. (Your Resilience is critically low.)

Just as he read and heard, or both, given that the information seemed to be unloading directly into his head, he saw his Health tick down to 71%.

He didn’t feel particularly bad, but he didn’t feel really good either.

“Am I being poisoned? Like, the air is actually poisoning me? But! Didn’t we solve that issue a few minutes ago! You were going to kill me back then, son of—” he never managed to finish the phrase, for something shrieked at his right.

He heard the sound of something fall then break. The shrieking person, for whatever was crapping their pants was indeed a person, brought their hands to their face, muffling their own shrieking.

It was a weird, very weird girl. Not Human, not at all, still, she looked more like a Human than the Fiend Dave had killed. On her head, the Source showed as—

Fay

Level: 67

That was all the Source could say about the rosy, pale-skinned creature standing in front of the kneeling man.

David, who had managed to get up from his ass, fell on it once more. It was clear what the whitish, eyebrowless girl with dark pink hair had seen him on the murder scene. He was highly and thoroughly...fucked. Or that was what David thought, yet the Fay seemed to relax after taking a look at the corpse’s face. Then she turned her head back to him and said something David understood. “Info.”

Her voice was suave, gentle, yet decisive. He had no idea how he understood “info” since those were not the words her lilac lips were saying, but she had said that. Indeed her gaze went directly above his head, at the same place in which he could look at the girl’s information.

It was clear that he was not the only one that could use this Source.

It was the weirdest thing ever. But as she saw whatever had appeared on top of his head, she shrieked once more. Then looked at him differently.

“...danger…?” She said.

But David didn't really understand much else; there seemed to be much else in the middle of the jargon.

“What … Human… ….?”

That word positively surprised David.

“Are .... Trespasser…?”

Although it was clear that they were tied to this Source-thingy that spoke to him, he could easily understand those few words.

“Please tell me you don’t speak only jargon… I had enough Ace Ventura for a lifetime.”

David played it dumb, but in himself, he was hoping that the girl-female-whatever in front of him wasn’t going to call the space-cops. What other option did he have left? He was certainly not gonna become a space murderer because somebody had seen him protect his own life from aggression. He wasn't deranged like many of those protagonists of the novels he used to read.

The girl got closer, scaring him; David raised his hands in defense, his broken wrist lamented.

Yet she spoke, “No… … Fey don’t …. … violence.”

Dave was confused, “Just who are you?”

“...? Erinnya.”

“Erinnya?” He repeated.

She nodded.

"Is Erinnya your name?"

The Fay nodded, again.

“Why ...... unnamed?” She asked.

“Oh, don’t ask me…”

“What... … name?”

“Mine? My name? David—David Anderson.”

***

Reconstructing the day’s event had really been helpful, but at least it had helped him to calm down.

Now, Dave focused on his surroundings. He was in an empty building, sitting near the fire; his Health kept ticking down, the Fay was nowhere to be seen, but he still had a blinking spot on his Status Screen.

“Let’s call it that, since—bloody hell, it is a damn Status Screen.”

He intently looked at the message, then whispered, “Open Source Box?”

The Source

Opening Source Box

You have been bestowed with: (1) Class Choice-Token, (1) Arcane Magic Mastery Token, (1) Random Skill Choice-Token.

“Someone needs to explain to me what is going on here,” Dave said to himself. Yet the Source didn’t answer; instead, it started with giving to him whatever had come out from the ethereal box.

The Source

Class choice initiated; please, choose a Main Class.

Fighter: As a Fighter, your Constitution and Strength will increase by 1 point at every level, and you will receive 1 free Attribute point to assign. Your body and actions can be imbued with Source to temporarily or permanently increase your Attributes.

Mage: As a Mage, your Mind and Resilience will increase by 1 point at every level, and you will receive 1 free Attribute point to assign. Your words and thoughts can be imbued with Source to temporarily or permanently increase your Attributes.

Rogue: As a Rogue, your Alacrity and Perception will increase by 1 point at every level, and you will receive 1 free Attribute point to assign. You will learn physical and/or Magical Skills that directly make use of the Source. Your senses and actions can be imbued with Source to temporarily or permanently increase your Attributes.

“Damn…”

David was confused but not enough to miss his only way out from that extreme situation.

“If Resilience is the problem, David fixes the Resilience problem…” he said to himself.

“I choose Mage, obviously.”