When I woke up, I fond myself lying in a field of tall grass. I sat up and looked around. I couldn’t remember why I was there. Then it all came back. It took a second to realise that I was never going to see Emily again. Even though she could be annoying, it would be strange without her. I cried for another few minutes and felt someone pat my back so I looked up. Above me, I saw Niels. I didn’t know what to say as there were a million things going on inside of my head, but eventually, I calmed down and said the important thing.

“I should have told you,” I said, “If I did, we could have been more prepared knowing what everyone could do and we could have made a plan. Emily is dead because of me.” I descended into another crying session but eventually, I calmed down.

“Alex… It isn’t your fault. It’s mine,” he said, choosing his words carefully. I looked up at him. I could see that he had been crying recently.

“Niels, I know when I did something wrong, and here, I did. Emily could be alive right now if it wasn’t for me.” He’s just trying to make me feel better.

“Alex… I could have killed the knight. I was behind it and it didn’t know I was there. All I had to do was thrust my sword, and we would have won the fight with no casualties. Instead, I let it attack her. I thought that if she got a bit injured, it would be okay, she would learn a lesson and stop being so annoying. I thought she would realise the reality of the situation. But now… I killed her because I didn’t like her.” I looked at him, trying to process the words in my brain. All of a sudden, I had completely forgotten what I had said before, and my sadness turned into pure rage.

“YOU. you… you killed her!” I screamed, my anger catching Niels by surprise. “YOU,” I shoved Niels, ”LET. HER. DIE.” I shoved Niels again. He fell backwards into some mud. I was going to do more but Justin, Sara, and Daniel pulled me away from Niels. I knew that I needed to calm down. I tried to the only way I knew. I started to bottle up my feelings and think of something else. I thought of my friends, my family, everyone I had ever hated, and everyone I had ever loved. I put Emily in the back of my mind to think over later.

“Niels? Are you okay now? Why don’t you come with me?” It was Daniel, trying to separate Niels and me.

“Fine,” I mumbled as I followed him. I unclenched my fists. It took me a second to realise that he was still talking.

“I’ll fill you in on everything that happened after… it. You were unconscious, so we had to find a way to carry you. Luckily for you, we all have really high strength stats, so we swapped carrying you after we got tired and eventually we made it to our end destination, here. Something really funny happened when we got here, Sara, Justin, and Niels…” I stopped listening to him after he started his funny story. I decided to check my notifications while I waited for him to complete his story.

knight of doom killed

150 dollars earned

You have learned a skill!

You have learned the skill Fireball I.

Fireball I(allows the making of a small fireball(Activated))

You have learned a skill!

You have learned the skill Exploding Fireball I.

Exploding Fireball I(allows the making of a small exploding fireball(Activated))

I hadn’t expected to two skills for doing one attack. I assumed that because I made an exploding fireball, and because an exploding fireball is an advanced version of the regular fireball, I got them both. I pulled up my status sheet.

Level 3

Stats

Strength:

4.3 (6.1 is human average)

Speed:

6.2 (7.4 is human average)

Endurance:

9.3 (5.3 is human average)

Magic:

2.4 (0 is human average)

Skills

Melee damage I (passively increases melee damage by 5%)

Telekinesis I(allows the moving of small objects (Activated))

Fireball I(allows the making of a small fireball(Activated))

Exploding Fireball I(allows the making of a small exploding fireball(Activated))

Balance

$200

Viewers

20433 follows (9342 watching now)

Top 3 comments:

This dud made an exploding fireball at level 3! RESPECT! I THOUGHT YOU NEEDED LEVEL 5 FOR FIREBALL! I’m taking bets now, humans still won’t be able to win the game. He is levelling too slowly. And the rest all suck.

I was surprised to see that my magic had gone up by so much, but I had pushed myself to the point of unconsciousness, so I thought I deserved it. It seemed like I was only meant to be able to create fireballs at level 5. Strange

“So are you going to build the house now?” Daniel said.

“Huh?” I looked back at him.

“You are in the area that you bought. In the top left there should be a button that says ‘build house’,” He continued, “We think that the thing at the store sold the land to you, not anyone else because no one can do anything on it. Also by the way, how does it feel to use magic? If there is one thing I like about the system, it’s that. So.. how does it feel?” The change in direction mid sentence caught me off guard, but if I was him, I would be just as interested in magic.

“Yes, I am going to build a house,” I said, “And magic gives me a terrible headache,” I replied. I selected the ‘build house’ button.