Isabella was beaming excitedly while all I could do is sit and stare at her. (Not that I’m complaining of course. She’s cute enough I think I’d enjoy starting at her anytime.) After a few moments of silence, I finally coughed to try and clear my thoughts.

“Congratulations! A class huh. I was thinking that those might’ve been titles of some sort.” I tried not to sound disappointed or jealous.

“Titles,” she asked?

“Yeah. I’ve got one which is called ‘The Witness’. It’s to the right of Name and left of Age,” I informed her.

“All I’ve got is a blank area there. What’s it do for you?”

I paused for a moment and then finally shrugged. “To be honest, I’m not entirely certain what all it can do. It gave me a couple of skills, but instead of a description beside them all I get is a set of question marks.” I decided for now that I wouldn’t mention that I could come back from death, and I thought it was because of that title. I don’t think she’d believe me anyway, and I’ll be darned if I was going to prove it to anyone. If I never die again, it’ll be too soon for my liking!

“But enough about me for now.” I decided it was time to change the subject since I really wasn’t comfortable with my title. “Is there anything else different about your stats now, that you can see?”

“Definitely!” She didn’t even hesitate before replying. “My strength has went down to a 2, and my S-P-R is now a -4! I lost two points in strength and ten points in S-P-R. “

Well that was news to me; I didn’t even know it was possible that stats could go into the negatives!

“My SYI is now a 14, and my mysticism is now a 20,” she continued on. “I think they improved by two and six respectively. My HP is the same at 17, but my MP took a huge jump. It went from a 34 all the way up to 100!”

“Holy crap!” I felt my jaw almost hit the floor! If I could find a class that made my health jump like that, I.. Well, I wouldn’t be anywhere near as likely to die anymore!

“That’s impressive,” I honestly told her. “My MP is only a 72 right now, and I’m eight levels higher than you. It seems like you’re definitely a mage or something now.”

She just nodded and then whispered faintly “It really does seem as if reality has become more like a game, doesn’t it?”

“It does. And if we’re going to survive, we have to learn how to play this game and level and skill ourselves up as much as possible.”

Once again she just nodded at me and seemed to be lost in her own thoughts once more. Finally, when she spoke again she said, “You know, if reality is a game, there might be safe zones in the game.”

“Safe zones,” I asked?

“Yeah. Like in some games, you can’t be attacked while in a city or town. In other games you can’t be attacked in a tavern or inn. It’s places where the party can go and heal and rest up safely until they continue their adventure.”

I nodded at her to show that I understood the concept of what she was saying. I’ve played enough RPG games to know what she was talking about.

She continued on, seeing me nod. “I think this room might be something similar to that. Let’s look at it logically: from an outside perspective, we come in here, disappear for a bit, and then we reappear. Think of how the screen goes blank for a few moments between when the party rents a room from an innkeeper in a game, to when the game suddenly says, ‘I hope you enjoyed your stay, please come again soon.’

“From an outside perspective, that’s basically what we’re doing here. And, we can’t really interact with anything outside as long as we’re in here. We can’t see out; except for the windows, but they don’t count since we can’t go out them or anything; we can’t hear out; and we can’t interact with anything outside. Basically, from an outside perspective, we come in, the screen blinks out for an indeterminate amount of time, and then we come back out later.

“I really think we’re inside a ‘tavern’ or something similar right now.”

I got to admit, all I could do is stare at her for a bit and mull over the concept. I never would’ve thought of such a thing. Maybe that’s an insight gained from having a higher knowledge than mine.

“You might be right,” I admitted, “but what good does It do us in the long run? We can’t stay in here forever. There’s only so much food and such that we have, and then we’ll have to go back out once again.”

“You’re right,” she nodded. “But, if I’m right that this is a safe zone, then there might be more inside the school somewhere. It really increases the chances of there being more survivors! And, “ she continued a lot quieter as if not to speak her hopes too loudly, “if I’m right, there might be larger safe zones where towns or cities could be built.”

I thought about what she was saying, and as I did, a smile crossed my face. “I don’t see why there couldn’t be places like that,” I told her. “Just about every game has some sort of ‘safe spot’ where players can go. This new world seems to have taken on a lot of the aspects of a game, so there’s no reason why there can’t be places like that now also. A place where the monsters go *donk* *donk* and bounce into some sort of invisible wall when they try and go in.

“And, if there isn’t one, there’s no reason why we couldn’t build one somehow later. Before, I was just worried about surviving and nothing much else, but if what you’re saying is at all possible, it gives us something even more important to hold on to: Hope.

“We’ve just got to take advantage of our time in this room to get stronger while we can!”

“And how do we do that,” she asked.

“Simple. We grind.” I gave a pause so the words would sink in. “I’ll go back to trying to take my skills up with harvesting as much as possible, and we’ll use as much of the rat meat as we can before we have to go hunting again. We’ll save what’s left of the food in the vending machine for an emergency set of rations. While I’m doing that, you see what this other book is.” I pointed down to the smaller book that had fallen to the floor when the oversized one disappeared in the flash of light. “And we’ll take advantage of all the time we can to try and train up anything that we can. If you do something enough times, you can either get a skill in it or else improve a skill in it. We’re going to improve as many skills, as many times as we possibly can while in here. And stats too, since they seem super important, if we can. I haven’t had one go up on me yet from training, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t.“

A spark of light lit in her eyes. “Let’s do it!” She made a fist, pumped her hand high above her head several times in a sign of determination, and I couldn’t help but smile and blush as … *cough* *cough* other parts followed unabashedly in the same directions. Even Little Bud started to stand up to get a better look, and embarrassed I quickly got up and went back over to the sink to start harvesting those rats again.

I thought she would’ve picked up and book and started studying it, but instead she bounced on over to kitchen area where I was and started digging around in the cabinets. “What are you doing now,” I asked?

“Oh. I figured that we couldn’t work or study well on an empty stomach, and since you’ve already sliced up a good bit of meat from those rats, I thought I’d go ahead and cook something.”

I had to admit, the idea of hot food sounded really appealing to me. I hadn’t eaten anything at all since I’d awoke this morning, and my stomach was running on empty. I suppose it was only my high CON which let me tune it out so easily, but thinking about it made it grumble loudly in anticipation – which made Isabella giggle.

“How do you want yours? Fried? Fried? Or Fried?” She giggled again. She really was quite a resilient and lighthearted girl it seemed.

“I take it you’re not a very good cook?”

“Not at all,” she replied cheerfully. “But, if you’re right, there’s no reason why I couldn’t pick up and skill and start improving it. Right?”

“Umm… Right.” I was getting nervous now. I know how many complete failures I had when I first got the Harvesting (Animal) skill and it was at level one. My taste buds were already starting to cringe just thinking about what a level zero cooking talent might do in this new world. It’s not like mine was any better, but somehow that wasn’t too comforting. My skills as a brain surgeon aren’t very high either, but if I needed to go to one and he was as talented as me, I’d just leave….

Trying not to think about it, and trying not to watch her as she bounced around beside me, I tried to harvest and skill up on the rats as much as possible. In the end, I didn’t get a lot of usable materials from them. In fact, all I ended up with was a lot of little nicks and cuts on my fingers.

And Isabella? Isabella simply bounced along and whistled merrily – even when I could smell the meat starting to burn.

In the end, I’d like to say that the food turned out better than I’d expected. I’d like to say that, but then I’d be lying. It was burnt on the outside, raw on the inside, and tasted like chewing on scorched rubber. Honestly, even as disgusting as it was, I think I would’ve preferred the rat raw. But, I couldn’t tell her anything like that as I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I just gave her a thumb’s up while nibbling down the bites she gave me (we eat while standing at the counter, as she cooked it).

I didn’t learn until later, but she was giving me the ones that came up as ‘failure’ for her, and eating all the ‘successes’ herself. (To be honest, I just thought she was being kind and giving me extra as I was a guy!)

Thinking about the stats we didn't know for certain, I had to wonder if SYI was SYstem Information or something similar. Isabella had a higher SYI, and in general the system gave her more information about things that were going on. I never got a notification for success or failure when harvesting from the rats. I just got notifications when my skill went up a point. If I was right, and it wasn't something else that did it, SYI really does seem like it’s a very useful thing to have. Still though, I’m still going to stick to CON. Having lots of life so I don’t need to die again seems a lot more important to me than having a popup appear that tells me ‘success’ or ‘failure’.

After the meal was done, (Thank goodness the meal was done!) I managed to start harvesting the rats better once again, while she went to reading the book in the floor. By the time the sun had set, I realized something else about this room – the emergency lights in here really didn’t give enough light to do a lot by. My harvesting skill still wasn’t high enough that I wanted to try it in the dim lighting, so I decided to go back to working on trying to improve myself in other ways instead. I did push ups, jumping jacks, sit-ups. I ran in place, and then I ran laps around the couch. And, to give Isabella credit, she simply moved over to sit in the floor directly under the light as much as possible and she kept reading. If it would’ve been her doing the exercises I was doing, I couldn’t’ve read. I would’ve been too busy earning a skill improvement in CreeperBoy…

After several hours, I’d tired myself out and went over to one of the leather couches and plopped down for the night. Isabella was still sitting and staring intently at her book as I drifted off to a nice peaceful slumber. It was nice to have Hope once again. And having an exotic beauty like her to stare at while drifting off to sleep wasn't a bad thing either...