“Mom!” Vice shouted. He threw all caution to the wind and ran straight toward the woman sprawled out on the floor. Her hair had long lost its youthful luster, being grayed and withered at this point, and small wrinkles were showing up all over her once beautiful face. Angeline had weathered the storm which was aging with grace up until this point.

Vice shook his mother a couple of times, trying to wake her up, but to no avail. He then checked her breathing and pulse, and to his relief she was still alive, if only barely.

“Shit,” Vice said, as the bitter smell continued to pervade his nostrils. As he looked towards the location where the smell came from, he saw the culprit, a burning stovetop. He frantically took out a cloth from his spatial pouch and threw it onto the burning stove.

Vice picked up his mother and sprinted away with urgency to her bedroom. Once inside her spacious living quarters, he rummaged through her cabinet until he found what he was searching for: A small bottle filled with a thick red liquid, which he knew to be overly sweet tasting. He uncorked the bottle and squeezed some of the liquid into a Pasteur pipette, before putting it into his mother’s mouth.

‘Her breathing and heartbeat is more stable already,’ Vice thought as he held his ear to her chest and placed his fingers on her neck. He breathed out a sigh of relief and stayed by her bedside checking up on her until the warm rays of the sun entered through the window of her room, illuminating the once dark crevices of the space.

“Vice, is that you?” Angeline groaned as she shifted up from her bed. She rubbed her head and groaned as she propped herself up from the bed, and looked toward the tall, slender boy. Vice was sprawled out sobbing on his mother’s lap and jumped up upon hearing her speak.

“Mom, you need to rest. I’ll go get you some food right now,” Vice urged. Only a few minutes later did he come back with a steaming bowl of porridge. “Here, eat up, you need some more energy Mom,” he said as he handed her the bowl. He had also brought with him a clear glass of water which he placed on her bedside drawer.

Angeline thanked Vice and wolfed down the porridge as if she hadn’t eaten in days. As Vice stared at his mother with a worried expression she laughed and said, “Oh don’t worry about your mother so much, you’ll get more wrinkles than me if you keep frowning like that.” She took her free hand and ruffled through the boy’s short hair with a smile on her face.

“Vice, the potions aren’t working as well as they did before, and my memory… I’m not sure how much longer I can keep up with this. I can feel my strength waning day in and day out,” Angeline said in a soft voice as her eyes teared up slightly. She looked out at the window, smiling at the rays of the sun. “I’ve lived a long enough life. I might not have much to show it, but I have you. You’re everything a mother could have asked for.”

Vice looked at his frail old mother, and the words he wanted to say wouldn’t come out. He wanted to tell her it would be fine, that everything was going to be okay, but he knew it wasn’t. He knew that she didn’t have much time left, and the potions and medicine he went through so much pain and effort to buy weren’t effective anymore. Vice was unsure whether she’d make it through another few years.

“Don’t say that,” Vice squeaked out. His black eyes teared up as he examined the woman who’d showered him with love regardless of how much pain she was in. “I’ll keep working hard and find something that will help you out. I’m sure that there is something in the elven lands that can reignite your youth.”

“Vice, you don’t need to go through the trouble. Just let me confess to you about your father, before it is too late. He was not human, as I’m sure you can guess,” Angeline said before gently touching Vice’s horns. “He comes from a land far far away from here. I didn’t want to tell you this before because you were too young and immature, and I was sure... No, I was scared that you would try to search for him. But seeing you now, seeing you as the strong man you are, I can finally reveal everything to you.” She looked into the eyes of her son with a firmness in her expression and then continued, “Your father’s name is Xipil, and he’s from a land unlike ours. He never told me what it was called, so I cannot tell you. But just know, he didn’t leave me and you because he wanted to, that choice was ripped away from him.”

“Xipil? Why are you telling me this all, Mom? It won’t change anything. He’s gone, and I’m going to stay here to take care of you!” Vice burst out. He clenched his fists tightly at the thought of the man who had abandoned him and his mother. “Even if I were to meet him someday, I will not treat him as a father. He doesn’t deserve that,” Vice spat. “No matter what you say, he just left us to the wolves and didn’t look back even once.”

“I can feel my life draining away slowly. I just wanted you to know this: you don’t need to hate your father. He didn’t choose to abandon you,” Angeline said weakly. “Take this, it’s a memento we’ve kept in my family for a long time. I wanted you to have this before I forget about it. I once gave it to your father, but he insisted that you should get this in his stead.”

Angeline handed a small black bracelet to her son. It was nothing special to look at, but the material seemed to be very high quality. The cold leather-like material wrapped around Vice’s wrists effortlessly, as if it had been crafted especially for him. A surge of electricity ran up Vice’s forearm all the way to his head until finally entering his brain. An uncomfortable sensation lit up in Vice’s brain as if it were being poked all over with a toothpick. Vice clenched his fists tightly as he tried to cope with the pain.

[DING! Conditions for host transferal has been met. Initializing transfer… Transfer complete.]

‘Huh?’ Vice jumped up as the robotic voice suddenly buzzed into his mind. He stared at the bracelet in confusion, and then at his mother to try and see if she’d heard the voice as well. ‘She didn’t hear that? How weird, I must be hallucinating right now, I mean I haven’t slept in ages,’ he thought.

“What’s wrong, sweety? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Angeline said before pinching Vice’s cheeks, something she’d always done to calm his nerves. “Here, have some porridge,” she insisted before feeding Vice a spoonful of the sweet mixture.

“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just really tired, Mom. Uh, I’ll go to sleep now, I’ll see you later, Mom. And take it easy. Just call for me if you need anything,” Vice said before promptly leaving the room and going to his own.

Vice paced through the hallway. The paintings and art pieces were much more beautiful under the sunlight which shone down through the glass ceiling. With a quick twist of his door handle, Vice opened the door and entered his room. His room was much less extravagant compared to his mother’s. His room only had some mirrors, a bed, and all of the essentials he would need. There were no paintings or colorful artifacts in the room. The only thing which was relatively expensive in his room was the mini-fridge he kept by his bedside. Vice walked up to the fridge and took out a glass bottle. He drained the green liquid in the bottle before moaning in pleasure at the taste of the sweet and sour kiwi beverage.

‘Haha, Vice, talk to your artificial intelligence system. I can’t believe it, so the gods really reincarnated me a second time just to become a passenger of another A.I. user,’ Favian said with a hearty laugh. ‘What are the chances?’

‘Huh? You know what this is? What is an artificial intelligence system? And how do I use it?’ Vice questioned.

[DING! This system is capable of many things, such as analyzing items and objects, as well as helping the host to learn spells. These functions are all dependent on the host’s power level. Do you wish to receive your stats in the heads up display?]

‘Heads up display? Wha-’

Suddenly a bright blue screen enveloped Vice’s vision, startling him enough to make him punch at the screen. His hands, however, swung at empty air. “What the…” Vice gasped. The blue screen showed Vice’s body, and detailed his fat and muscle percentages, as well as his bone density. Above that, all of his stats were shown.

[DING! Health Points: 1000, Mana Points: 5000, Intelligence: 2, Strength: 2.5, Agility: 3, Constitution: 5.]

‘Oh, interesting. So the system isn’t the same one I had, nor does it show the same things,’ Favian mumbled in Vice’s mind. The voice continued to speak but Vice’s attention was solely on the new system he’d gained, drowning out Favian completely.

It took a couple moments for Vice to process what was happening, as this information influx was too abrupt, however, after a while, he was able to gather his composure. He looked at the blue screen with curiosity, and asked, “So what do all of my stats mean?”

‘Hey, there’s no need to talk out loud. Just think about it and your system will heed your call,’ Favian lectured. ‘What kind of a stupid brat did I have to get pushed into?’

[DING! Your Health Points or HP are your lifeline, if that value goes to zero, then you will be knocked unconscious.

Your Mana Points or MP are used up when you cast spells, if it reaches a value of zero, you can’t cast any more spells and will become fatigued.

Intelligence determines your maximum MP you have and how fast it regenerates.

Strength determines how capable you are physically.

Agility determines how fast and nimble you are.

And finally, Constitution determines your maximum HP and how fast it regenerates.

There are more stats however these aren’t available for you to analyze yet.]

‘What? So this artificial intelligence thing that is on my wrist can show me all these things? That’s amazing! I would need at least 500 gold to buy something like this from the Mages Guild,’ Vice thought to himself with his mouth wide agape.

‘Hmph, it’s much more useful than anything you could buy from some lowly Mages Guild, trust me on that,’ Favian retorted. ‘But what I’m wondering is how on Earth did your mother come to possess this? And why did she never put it on for herself? Or has she, and the system simply didn’t turn on for her?’

‘Those are… True, I wonder why as well. This is really a weird situation,’ Vice thought.

‘Weirder than having a voice in your mind that claims to be from a completely different planet?’ Favian replied.

‘Touche.’

Vice spent the rest of the day playing with this new gadget of his, trying to figure out what to do and how to use it. He would ask Favian questions whenever he was confused because the voice in his mind seemed to know almost everything about this system, yet there were still questions Favian couldn’t answer. He simply stated, ‘Your system is different than mine,’ when he couldn’t answer the questions.

[DING! Quest received, ‘Defeat 5 Zombies’ has been added to the list of active quests. Time limit of 8 hours has been given to the host, unknown reward available.]