In the dark hall of the uninhabited building, the fire lights dancing in front of Dave were suddenly cast aside, only to reappear far stronger and grow, voraciously devouring the air, until they reached the ceiling. The immediate burst blazed far and tall, casting David aside and consuming the books that had been used to fuel it in a few short seconds.

The hall immediately grew dark as they disappeared, and David beat his head against the wall. His orange uniform got slightly on fire, but he was quickly able to extinguish it.

“Bloody hell…”

Still, a few burns here and there were nothing compared to the proclamation of the Source.

The Source

Congratulations, Deviant Son, you are now a Mage!

Mind + 3;

Resilience + 3.

The Mage bestows two Passive Skills, a Mind Passive Skill and Resilience Passive Skill.

Choose your Mind Passive Ability among the following:

Abacus: You can perform calculations at high speed and of complex nature with your mind.

Eidetic Memory: Recall feelings, images, sensations, smells, tastes, or memories in general, forever and call for them as you see fit.

Multitasking: You can effectively split your focus and perform more than one task simultaneously.

David gawked as he massaged his head, “No way this isn’t cheating.”

“I guess that choosing Multitasking will solve my life’s problems. They say women are better at it than men…well, let’s see about that.”

Recalling how his mother had always been unfit at cooking with more than one frying pan at a time, David chose Multitasking; faring better than his mum wasn’t really a hard thing to do, but with this ability, he could likely become a pilot if he wanted to.

“Wait—my criminal records would not allow me to; oh well, nobody can say I haven’t tried.”

The Source

You received Multitasking - Mind Passive Skill.

Multitasking reaches level 1. split your focus in two with 1% increased efficiency.

As he gazed at the messages hovering in mid-air, David was surprised by the Fay’s immediate return, she looked rather surprised and even a tad little annoyed by the fire’s disappearance.

“I didn’t do it on purpose; I’m not that dumb," David said, trying to fake ignorance. "Damn, it’s freezing here, innit?”

“Devi-ant…. ….?” The Fay asked.

Although he didn't understand what he was asked, that name irked him like no other. “No, wait. Let’s not—let’s not start with the wrong foot here. My name is Dave—Dave. Repeat after me, D...a...v...e. Come on, I know you can do it.”

The Fay almost started repeating his name back with him, but making a face of someone who just understood that they were acting like a fool, she shook her head.

“De-vi…… cold?” She asked.

“... better than nothing. Anyway…Yeah,” David nodded, “It may not look like it, but this thing is pretty damn light. It’s like dressing in chiffon or something.”

“Chief-on?”

“Yeah—something like that, chief. Anyhow, have you got anything for me to cover with? Or maybe a way to start the fire anew? Did I already say I’m sorry about it?”

Speaking a lot was his best option not to recall the blood of the creature on his hand.

He had indeed just killed a thinking being; he was not extraneous to violence given his past life experiences, but killing someone was something new for David.

The Fay shook her head, but she drew closer, then removed her hood and placed it on David by way of a blanket.

What showed under the hood was a frail-looking body, thin—almost emaciated. She was dressed in a burgundy, whole-body leather suit. She was still feminine-looking enough, but her body was as slim as that of a model but much more petite. Although the Fay really couldn’t be defined as tall, she was pretty enough to work as an actress—if they were back on Earth—and if she managed to escape government scientists bisecting her in search of answers to alien’s life.

Still, looking at her didn’t really stir anything in David; the lack of eyebrows was rather…off-putting. But Dave asked himself if he really was in the condition to think about anything of the likes. He knew that his mind kept wandering away in other directions because he didn’t want to face his new reality.

Anyway, being the gentleman that he was, he was not okay with her actions, “No, what are you doing? You are going to freeze to death!” David said, getting up, but doing so, he was hit by dizziness. Indeed, his Health was deficient, or maybe he had to increase his Resilience even further? But before that—why was he already thinking in stupid game terms?

However, the Source was still urging him to have its attention, but he had to check on his Status first. If that Health did indeed represent his physical conditions, then he had better start worrying about it.

Status

Name: Deviant (David Anderson) Son

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

Title: Trespasser (Unique): Locked

Level: 0

Mage, Class level: 0

Class Perks: N.A.

Attributes

Health: 41%

Stamina: 66%

Well: 100%

Alacrity: 5

Constitution: 5

Perception: 4

Strength: 5

Mind: 8

Resilience: 4

Charisma: 4

Attribute points: 0

“I wonder if Resilience at four is normal…” he said to himself, dropping down again, accepting the hood.

The Fay, that was babbling something the like of, “No… …..cold….”, heard him.

Her eyes slowly widened; she seemed to be rather taken aback by what Dave had said.

“Zone, ...need... twenty Resilience. …or ...death,” she said, taking his face in her hands, planting her big eyes on his, and looking as surprised as she possibly could.

In Dave’s opinion, her big eyes could communicate discomfort too easily; it wasn’t fair.

“This doesn’t sound as remotely ominous as it should…But let me see if I understood that correctly—” Dave took a big breath, not to let out the panic—keeping it well caged within his chest seemed to work, most of the times. “Did you just mean, and correct me if I’m wrong, that in this zone if I don’t have twenty points of Resilience, I’m practically a dead man walking?”

She nodded back, gravely.

“Well, bloody—” Dave breathed out slowly, that was not the best possible outcome...

Weren't protagonists always sent where it was easy to survive at first? Why was he sent condemned to death at the start of his new life? “Yeah, maybe I'm not the protagonist after all... Story of my life!"

The Fay bent her head to the right again; it was indeed hard to understand someone as weird as David; they did come from two different worlds.

“So, is there a way to fix this situation? I mean, all considering, I do enjoy living.”

The Fay opened and closed her mouth in confusion, but then she proposed something.

“... Level …?”

“Level? Like level up? Or my level? For my level is zero, but something in the Status screen did say that I get Resilience for each…” Dave checked his Status—still hovering in front of his vision, “for each time I level up. It’s not really that helpful.”

The Fay was still gawking.

“... …really zero!?”

“Oh, hey! I understood that number, how’s that! Anyway, yeah, zero.” Dave nodded.

“No…muffler? Really zero?” Asked the shocked fay.

A.S.U.T. is now Level 7. Universal Translation 7%

“We’re making progress! Nice! I’m still dying, though…”

“How… old... …?”

“I? My age? Twenty-nine. Yeah, I don’t look like it, don’t mind it, it’s the smoking. If I stop, it should fix itself…although I haven’t touched one cig in five months and have yet to see any progress…” He realized that maybe his skin wouldn’t actually get younger if he stopped smoking. “Or maybe it’s the beer? Can’t say…”

The Fay kept gawking, then she shook herself back to consciousness, “Come… ...fast!” Said the Fay.

She got closer, taking him by the hand, then lifted him up much more easily than he would have thought possible.

“So, you are a race of weight-lifters or something? You’re not even that buff, how did—” Dave never managed to finish his question, for the Fay started pulling him along with her.

They quickly left the dilapidated building and started a mad rush through the deserted road.

All around them, newspapers dance around, caught by the wind. Waste covered the road, and really no other life form seemed to be there except for them.

The empty roads and buildings they passed through were still beautiful, and so peculiar given that they showed vegetation growing right through the asphalt, and tall trees embracing the buildings. Yet everything was ominously silent, or, at least, that was so, until something started coalescing in mid-air in a nearby alley.

An azure-ish gaseous, plasma-looking energy manifested in the dark alley in front of them; it kept accumulating in a spherical semblance, looking almost like a ball of lightning. Yet, the ball of lightning sprouted legs, then thin arms, then a weird head with long ears, and finally a torso.

The monster, for it could be defined only as such, opened its vicious eyes the moment all of its parts were completely formed, and it started sniffing about.

The Source defined it as—

Night Impit

Level: 17

The creature was of a dark cobalt blue, its arms and legs were thin, but it had long fingers, a massive nose that seemed to be a one-set piece with its mouth, and eyes glowing in blue.

“Don’t… stare…” Said the Fay, turning a sharp right at another alley, avoiding the monster entirely.

“This is fine…” David said to himself as he took a big breath. “I’m okay.” After all, he had just seen a creature appear from weird lightning; how wrong could that be? Wasn’t he in another world?

Yet, he turned his attention to Erin for confirmation, “So—is that like…normal?”

They Fay, Erinnya, shrugged, “Weak…but dangerous… you.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s what I asked exactly. I mean, is that normal that creatures…coalesce in mid-air? It’s not like your world has just been blessed with the coming of the Apocalypse? Because if I’ve been transported to another world that’s undergoing an Apocalypse, while I’m slowly being poisoned by the bloody Mana then, I’m really going to get mad at Human Resources.”

“Apo-ca- lips?” She asked.

"No Apoca lips then, nice...Better than nothing, I guess."

It was partially clear at that point that for the girl, whatever had happened was indeed normal. Maybe a feature of the world in which he had been dragged.

However, David started thinking that maybe, and just maybe, escaping through another world wasn’t actually the best thing that had happened to him, the gaol might actually have been better.

“I mean, I could have ended up in a world with big-tittied aliens; it would have balanced things up a bunch,” but, since David was a fool, he hadn’t thought that but actually said it out loud.

Maybe it was for that reason that the Fay jerked to a halt, turned around, and raised her, lacking, eyebrows at him.

“Davi.... pervert … ?” She shook her head, disgusted.

“No, no, wait! I didn’t mean that! I wasn’t comparing or anything, really. I just tend to speak my mind at the dumbest time, especially when monsters appear in mid-air, while back in my world, the only thing that could appear in mid-air is…well, the flu? Please don’t kill me...”

“... why… Deviant Son… ...no… kill… you’re weird…” Erinnya said.

“I don’t know about the first part, but we can agree on the second one. However, if you call me Dave, I might call you Erin, and why does this bloody Skill work better in reverse? Shouldn’t I be able to understand you?” He asked.

Erinnya shrugged, “My… A.S.U.T... like…….don’t…. Skill….Dave.... ok?”

“Yeah, me Dave, you Erin, me likes that.”

She nodded, looking at him weirdly, but he managed to make her chuckle, that must be worth something. They went back to running.

***

Five minutes later, a weird, lush vegetation started taking over the asphalted city-scape.

Dave kept checking on his Health every once in a while; it was declining dangerously fast.

Attributes

Health: 21%

Stamina: 53%

Well: 100%

And was now even more dangerously low; he started feeling the effects of it.

Not only was his skin covered in violet veins but he felt rather weak; indeed, at some point, running, or more rightly stumbling, on the grass, he partially fainted.

His knees gave out, and he dropped down to the floor, tugging on Erinnya’s arm.

Erinnya immediately turned toward him, “Davi?”

“I'm trying not to think too much about it...but I think I’m a little bit out of shape. I hope it was just the beer I had half an hour ago…alcohol is really bad for your body…”

The Fay didn’t even let him finish. She got down, took his face in hers, and kissed his mouth.

Widening his eyes for the surprise, Dave could literally feel some form of energy rushing back into his body, relief washed all over him, and the prickling sensations on his skin and the back of his eyes diminished, still, he felt… a little more tired than before.

When they detached, he noticed that violet veins had appeared all over the Fay’s face, but they quickly disappeared.

“Well…that was weird and unexpected, and not that bad, I guess?” Still, she kept her hands on his face.

“... alright? … … Health?” She asked.

“What? Oh, yeah…”

Attributes

Health: 39%

Stamina: 50%

Well: 100%

“Thirty-nine. Much better than before,” he nodded. “No, wait, thirty-eight….”

She made a clicking sound. As it seemed, some things were indeed shared among the two wildly different cultures.

“So, is this a...common trait to your kind? Like you kiss and are so…open to anybody or are you just being very, close? I guess that’s city-life for you, guys.” He said, getting up.

She smiled, “Fey… … contact… anybody…. … … trait. … … shame.. ...not… ...”

“Oh, I think I got that. I guess I’m not special then. What a shame.”

She chuckled, then took him by the hand again and started leading him to wherever she was originally taking him.

David was still quite weirded-out, but there seemed to be a lot to walk still, for the Fay wasn’t slowing down. So he decided to continue from where The Source had left off.

The messages from the Source once again coalesced in mid-air. Although different from the way in which the monster had appeared, the messages reminded him about it. Maybe there was some sort of connection among them.

Choose your Resilience Passive Ability among the following:

Curse Resistance: Better resist effects of a Curse. At higher levels, curses can be completely nullified.

Thermal Resistance: Better resist effects related to burning or freezing. At higher levels, they can be completely resisted.

Toxins Resistance: Better resist effects of toxins (Source Poisoning is not affected by Toxins Resistance). At higher levels, they can be completely nullified.

“Woah. That’s a lot. Do I have to choose, or can I just take them all?” Even though he was running, David couldn’t help but speak his mind.

“... choosing?” Said Erinnya.

“What? Oh, yeah,” David answered, wheezing for the effort.

“Class?” She asked. The Fay was not showing the minimum amount of fatigue from their trip.

“Mage…” answered Dave, whose breath was starting to become a little bit too short for more complex answers.

“Choosing.. … Mind Skill?”

“No… Resilience.”

She stopped running, and turned toward him “Curse Resistance … … good… evolve. Thermal….... if …… Pyromancer, Cryomancer....” most words tied directly to the Source seemed to be much clearer than the rest, “Toxins… …. danger… … Biomancy.”

“Yeah—I didn’t get most of that. But I think I follow—” Answered David.

They got back to running.

If anything, he had understood that those Resilience Skill weren’t just useful by themselves; they had to be intelligently tied to his Class of choice or maybe Magic of choice.

He knew that he had still a Token that was tied to an Arcane type of Magic.

“What about Arcane?” He asked.

She turned toward him, unrelenting on their run, then shrugged, “No difference.”

"Mmm, your bland answer was at least useful on a couple of levels,” he admitted to himself more than to the weird girl.

The Fay shook her head, chuckling.

Still, it meant that he had to choose without a direction.

But what was the scariest among those ailments? He neither did nor could have a clear idea on it, but if Disney movies told him anything, it was that curses were not really a pleasant thing to fight off.

“Oh, what the hell. Let’s go with Curse Resistance.”

Curse Resistance reaches level 1. resist low-level curses with a 1% increased efficiency.

“Now that I choose it, does it mean I can’t get the others anymore?”

The Fay nodded.

“Is that like a nod for a “Yes, you still can, greedy tosser,” or a “No, you get that and nothing more”?” Dave asked.

The Fay laughed out loud. Shook her head, then asked, “What’s a tosser?”

“Oh, I understood that—extremely long sentence—completely. Anyway, don’t think about tossers...they are a nasty bunch. But if you really want to know, it’s like someone going up and down on a set of stairs, uselessly. For he has nothing better to do.”

The Fay shook her head. “You… weirdest…ever met.”

“Oh, I know. The judge said it too. But it saved me half the sentence.”

“Judge?” Erin asked.

Dave realized that not having judges was indeed something very weird. “Like...council. Do you have that here?” He tried asking.

She nodded. “Do you... what is a Trespasser, ….? Where ….. …?”

The Source kept indulging him with the opening of his Arcane Magic Token, but he ignored it.

“No idea what a Trespasser should be, but how do you know?”

“.. …. Skill …” answered the Fay.

“Sure… anyway, I’m from Earth. UK, Catford? Ever been there? You better have your eyes peeled as you drive if you don’t want to scrub foxes’ remains from your tires every few meters.”

“Ear-th? Hiu-key? Cat-food?”

It was now Dave’s turn to chuckle.

“Yeah, something like that.”

They had just finished sharing a laugh when Erin stopped, and a wide clearing opened in the dark forest.

Until then, the trees around them were not in flower, regular trees, receding for the Winter, but what paved in front of Dave’s eyes was something else.

A clearing with a big mirror of water, a small lake, in its center opened up in front of him.

All around the lake, the trees were in flower; flowers of all types of colors, but mainly violet, adorned the branches.

Hovering on the lake waters, things looking like lotuses moved gently by the wind. Little patches of mossy land also hovered around it, but what looked out of contest were the many bigger than normal fireflies that flew around it. They were very big and really weird—nothing like back on Earth.

“Why did we even come here?” Dave asked, still caught up in the scenery.

“... Baptism, for the Blessing.”

“Baptism? My baptism? What the—I’ve got one already, not that I care. But, would it...like, even work? I’m just spewing rubbish, am I?”

Erin shook her head. “Arthan Baptism, … … level. Or … die… Source.”

“I think I got most of that. I don’t understand why the Baptism, but it doesn’t change much. Let’s get on with it. I’m still feeling very much about to die, so—”

“Clothes…” Erinnya said.

“Clothes? Like my clothes? Like I have to remove them?”

She nodded, her head bending to the right, “... … problem?”

“Well, we’ve just got to know each other...I mean, it’s not a problem to me, but— “Dave stopped whatever he was about to say, for he realized it, “What am I even talking about? You kiss strangers for sport.” He shook his head, then started undressing.

Soon, the Fay did the same. He hadn’t noticed before because she was covered in her tight leather clothes, but her body was very different from his own.

She had neither nipples nor a belly button. She also had no body hair apart from her thick hair. Her arms and legs were also longer, and her torso smaller than those of a regular human. He was confused enough that he hadn’t noticed before, but she also had no nails whatsoever. Finally, the last of her distinguishing traits was the presence of two sets of small outgrowths on her back.

After he had undressed and she preceded him to that fairytale-born lake, without even thinking, he reached with his hand on one of the weird outgrowths behind her back.

The Fay was taken aback, her back arched, and she whimpered for the scare. But then she turned around, almost raging, her expression one of anger.

David knew that for the second time in less than an hour, he might be about to get killed, but he started talking as it had quickly become his distinguishing trait for the Fay in front of him, “Wait! I’m sorry! I didn't do it on purpose; I just had no idea what they were! Is it some sort of social taboo of yours? If it’s like that, then I did not know. Please forgive me...” He said it all in one breath.

The Fay opened her mouth, then closed it again, but in the end, she shook her head, “No touching my wings!”

“Understood! I actually understood it all, by the way. How weird is that?” He said, trying to shift the topic but then falling into his own trap. “But those are not really wings, are they? Do they enlarge, like, animes or something?” He lowered his voice in a whisper, “Are they sex appendages?”

The Fay gawked but didn’t answer. She started mumbling something not loud enough for him to hear to herself, then pointed to the water, and Dave proceeded.

He had received no answer, but it was clear that maybe it wasn’t the proper moment to ask.

As he entered the lake, the water reflected his image. David Anderson was a mixed-blood. His mother was a black woman, and his late father a caucasian. He came out as an olive-skinned individual, with green eyes and tight curly hair cut as short as he possibly could, for he never managed to rule them.

The water was, weirdly, lukewarm. At that time of the year? In that weather condition? David could only think about some kind of geothermal pool; those were usually warm, though the one in which he was currently immersing his feet at the moment was too hot for it to be just a regular lake.

“Is this temperature normal?”

“Cleansing Water, …. …. normal… ... Don’t worry,” said Erin with a soothing smile.

“If you say so…”

When they reached up to Erin’s shoulders-deep water level, she placed her hands on his shoulders and started saying something. Somehow the Skill was failing to translate the speech entirely; however, it increased by a level as soon as she started speaking.

A.S.U.T. is now level 8. Universal Translation 8%

“Weird, I can’t—” his speech was interrupted by a message from the Source, which he didn’t manage to ignore.

The Source

You are being Baptized as a Son of Arthan. Do you wish to accept the Baptism?

Warning: Accepting the Baptism of Arthan can be offered only once. Accepting the Baptism of Arthan will set your Homeworld to Arthan.

Homeworld will be set to Arthan? For some unknown reason—surely because of the Source actively trying to kill him—Dave had a slight moment of hesitation. He could somehow feel what would happen if he chose to accept that Baptism, he could feel what it would entail, and he didn’t like that.

He would forever lose his ties with the Earth. Why was that? He didn’t know. But he didn’t want to find out.

Images of his life back on Earth flashed in his mind, making him think about all his mistakes, about all his wrong choices, all his good ones—very few—and to all those that still waited for him there—again, very few.

It was just a moment of hesitation, but he…he refused.

The pool of water shone, and the Source gave him the message.

“Shite! I refused,” he said out loud, yet the Source disagreed with him.

The Source

You cannot receive the Baptism of Arthan for you are Blessed by the Source.

When the Fay, shocked, removed her hands from his shoulders, she uttered words that he understood completely.

“Why. ...? You’ll die now...”

It took a couple of seconds for Dave to answer, but he didn’t have much to say; he just sighed, “I shouldn’t have taken that beer…”