"Lol!" Mario burst out laughing upon hearing them argue, bringing a little healthy online slang to IRL conversations. He, however, unlike the other two, had never had any real experience with it done genuinely first hand. His ex-girlfriend had had him playing an MMORPG for some time and, before some fateful cheating ended the relationship, even a not-so-competitive MOBA.

So while he wasn't a formal expert on the subject, he could willingly speak their language. "But are we in Champion Select? You're making me nostalgic for my old late nights," he then said, opening his mouth in a slightly exaggerated laugh as he tapped his thigh with his left hand.

"Well, you have a point there..." Said Roberto, taking the other's words with a certain seriousness, answering him without exaggeration of any kind and, indeed, lowering his head for a moment reflecting inspired by those words. After all, perhaps the initial impression he had had about this 'System' might not have been entirely correct.

"Champion Select, huh? Actually, that might be true." He then continued, addressing both Mario and Alex, ignoring dear Camilla who was doing her best to keep up with their talk. An effort that achieved very little success and that, among other things, reached an insuperable obstacle when Roberto resumed speaking.

"Seeing the levels and statistics my first thought was to connect all this nonsense to an MMORPG. Then, considering the imagination with which they developed the whole thing, it seemed the most appropriate hypothesis," the most interesting part of the explanation was actually the enormous seriousness that could be easily seen from his rigid expression, frozen in a facade that put the others around him even a certain dread.

"However, considering that everyone has obtained different Abilities I would say that it is no longer the case to think that way. No, I think those types of mechanics are more of a MOBA. Although, if we look at it from that point of view, we'd be the Champions... Eh... It's going to be a pretty big pain in the ass." He finished then, letting out towards the end a flurry of melancholy born of the legitimate fact that probably at the end of the day, team composition would definitely be key in the future.

"A MOBA?" Alex muttered to himself after listening with far more attention than he would ever confess, mulling over those words with religious seriousness. From his point of view, in fact, those two genres of video games were not too different from each other, so a parallel on their current situation and their mechanics... No, not even after racking his brains for some time did he come to understand the logic put on the plate by Roberto.

Instead, to his surprise, Mario pounded his fist as a light bulb lit up in his head. "Now I get it!" he burst into speech, unashamedly snatching the spotlight from the previous speaker. "You mean there are no predefined common paths but builds that evolve independently? That would make sense considering everything..."

"Oh?" Exclaimed the other surprised, not expecting such inventiveness from the likely gymnast or athlete he had just met. On the contrary, it was safe to say that with that single outing his value to Roberto had increased by leaps and bounds, making him a major asset and an unpredictable companion. "Is this all your own work?" He then asked without getting lost in conversation.

"Ah, no, no, no... My ex-girlfriend often talked about MOBAs in those terms," Mario replied, striving to maintain his apparent good humor while moving his hand left and right like he was chasing flies. Not having much talent in that art, however, everyone in the room realized that mentioning his ex would not be a good idea in the future. As if it was ever a good idea to pull those skeletons out of the closet.

In any case, given a little time, the big guy managed to recover from the burn and, again playful in the face, came back to say: "I remember that the reason why she preferred MOBAs to MMORPGs, in addition to the factor of the time you have to invest in them, was the fact that the various characters could be considered as 'classes' in their own right. The possibilities were limited in comparison, but you could change the style of play by simply switching characters. A kind of choice that you could never have in an MMORPG where in order to bring a single character to the maximum level you could spend months on it."

Culture moment aside, Alex finally understood the concept that had been swirling around in the air for the past few minutes. To confirm his hypothesis, he also used the Terminal to reappear both the team members' stats and all available Skills. Studying that data, moving between windows with great speed and skill among other things, he eventually felt confident enough to open his mouth as well.

"So you're saying we're some kind of 'class'? I guess that makes sense, but aren't you coming to conclusions too quickly? It hasn't even been a day, if we start coming up with answers now and find out in the future that we were wrong, it's going to be hard to change the way we see things. Am I wrong?"

Unexpectedly, the person Roberto expected the least from embarked on a logical and well thought out critique of the current hypothesis. Speaking with confidence, maintaining eye contact and, very importantly, not even minding the mistress. What a nice kid.

Oh... Maybe these are better than expected. Might not be overly a pain in the ass. He marveled at the now not so moody guy, opening his eyes in surprise and genuinely complimenting Alex, telling him, "I thought you were a dumbass, but you get it. See how you can figure it out when you want to? But, if that's the case, how is it possible that things with your morose are still so unappetizing? Do something about it now, I don't want to have to deal with love shit in the future because of you. We're not in a teenage girl comic book."

Oh well, of course it seemed obligatory for him to add some nonsense on the side to his encouraging speech, meanwhile pointing his finger at poor Camilla whose gaze now seemed more than lost. However, after being pulled into the discussion and, above all, after the unfounded accusations of a relationship between her and Alex, the girl finally exploded, standing up and screaming everything that was going through her head.

"What the fuck are you guys talking about! What the hell are you guys talking about? Do you guys realize that we don't know where we are? Do you realize that something serious has happened? Can you realize that!?" Oh, finally someone normal in this crazy hole. The accumulated stress from the moment of his awakening fueled his emotional rush with the same violence and impetus with which a turbulent night could revive a corpse. The high point of the show came when the poor star, already red in the face and disturbed by a widespread trembling, felt her strength suddenly lacking and fell with her knees to the ground.

There, locked in what the boys would have called a nervous breakdown, her movements slowed rapidly and then even stopped. Exhausted and weakened, she lowered her head without being able to avoid it in any way. Alex, in his kindness, did his best to try to approach with silent and careful steps, worried for his life, but when he saw her face streaked with four or five thin streams of tears, he lost the courage to advance.

Still a couple of steps away, he could do nothing but stand still and wait. In his heart, he genuinely wished he could have stayed close to her and reassured her as much as he could, but that remained too daunting a task for him, even after mulling it over for a good ten or fifteen seconds.

"Ah... I was hoping that could be avoided. We already had Sabrina burst into tears, I wanted to avoid someone else wasting our time like this. Whatever, we were trying to lighten the mood, did we really need to make such a scene?" Complained Roberto with a disgruntled snort, laying his back against the rubble behind him to make himself comfy. It was probably going to take several minutes to sort this out anyway.

"Hey! Now you're-!" For once in his life, Alex made the great effort to get his balls out and attempted to retort by even getting up off the ground. However, before he could even finish, the girl whose name he still didn't know and who hadn't spoken a word until that moment stood up in turn and walked swiftly towards Camilla, completely screwing up his momentum. He, immobilized by the stranger's guts, followed her movements with his eyes while his whole body categorically refused to follow her orders.

And, when the girl reached Camilla, instead of the usual violent and fucking targeted cardboard that she was used to shoot at point blank in those situations, the stranger found no resistance and, indeed, it was even easy to encircle her with her arms and allow her to rest her forehead on his chest.

"Oh... Good thing she was there..." Mario commented, retreating a few inches, following his male instinct. For men, in fact, often the task of reassuring a woman could be terribly difficult. He in particular, speaking from personal experience, would have preferred to settle a fight than try to calm his ex. It could not even be considered a matter of courage but, more trivially, asking for miracles from diplomats with their hands tied was an obvious partisan foolishness.

Speaking of other things, however, Alex did his best to leave the two girls out of his field of vision, returning his focus to Roberto. "Ah, right. Wasn't there a Skill missing? The one from..." He then asked him with both the voice and eyes of a puppy dog that had just escaped from city traffic. "Sabrina's. Or at least that's what it says here." The other replied, reopening the window in the process with the last remaining Skill.

[Personal Skill: Warm Hug (+0). The Skill has only one effect: The user has the ability to temporarily improve the physical characteristics of another Player. The time limit for the Skill is 30 minutes. Important note: once this Skill is activated, user is forced to lose consciousness. This Skill belongs to the Support Skill type. Cost in Mana: 10. Cost in Energy: None].

"I was actually ignoring it for the moment." He then said without remaining silent for more than a handful of seconds. "This is the only Skill in our possession that costs 10 points of Mana. Logically, and I hope this isn't complete crap, it should be incredibly strong. At the same time, though, it's pretty much a single-target Buff, so I'd say the only one worth using it for in the future will be Mario. Plus the girl doesn't have enough Mana to use it."

The big guy, feeling called upon, took a look at the description as well and was particularly pleased with it. Ideally, and always putting faith in the developers, that Skill could have made one of them a super human for half an hour. Even without knowing how much the enhancement amounted to, the mere knowledge of such a trump card was enough to make him breathe a sigh of relief.

As much as they could ignore reality and try to throw everything into the mix to avoid panicking, the anxiety of not knowing what might happen from there on out or where they ended up was eating away at both Alex and Mario from the inside. As men, however, the two instinctively followed Roberto's example, thus behaving as if their IQ had suddenly plummeted, so that they could avoid letting go of their emotions.

At the end of the day, sexism aside, if everyone had let themselves go it would have been impossible to make even a single step forward. All their hopes of survival would have thinned to nothing and it would have been their own fault. Even if dying or suffering wasn't part of their summer plans at all, they were still the only men present and the responsibility rested on their shoulders.

"Ah... One was already in tears when I found her and the other one explodes on me like this? Lady, I had more hope on you than your husband, you know that? Shit, if that one is able to put on a good face I'd say you don't have much of an excuse on your plate. Or am I wrong maybe?"

However, while Alex and Mario were having a moment of inner reflection, of analysis of the most ancient and primordial part of their nature, Roberto said what was on his mind, shooting without even the smallest trace of tact. An amazing ability of not giving a shit about one's personal feelings and consequences that Alex couldn't help but admire because of the ardor that emanated from all pores.

"Huh! What the fuck do you want from me!!! You expect me to believe that we've ended up in a fucking video game!!!? You expect shit like that?" Camilla answered him with a rapid barrage of annoyingly high-pitched words, a way of showing aggression that one would have expected from a chihuahua, for example. Ah, just to say because it doesn't cost anything, Mario found that verbal attack almost sweet and that said a lot about his previous relationship.

"Well, I guess not." Said Roberto, straightening his back and sitting back down properly. He then shifted his gaze to the side and pointed with his index finger at a pile of bricks. "Everything we've said so far is just an assumption. Oh god, we've all seen a crate appear out of nowhere and we have tattoos that can create electronic devices, but the rest is all supposition. However, we can prove it now," when he got to that point, he picked a specific brick on top of a pile and said, "You're the only one with an Offensive Skill for now. Try to destroy that brick, if something happens it means we're in deep shit. If nothing happens it means that, maybe, we're a little less in the shit."

Camilla, having a rather competitive nature, used the anger that was building up inside her to suppress the rest of her emotions and, with a gentle caress, freed herself from Sabrina's grip. Her eyes met those of the asshole who had just offended and then challenged her but, deep inside, she was almost grateful. While the method was one of the worst she could pull out of his ass, at the very least it had allowed her to regain control of herself.

I mean, if even Alex had been able to stand on his own two feet without panicking, could she give in under the same circumstances? Lose to him in such a humiliating way? Never. There wasn't even a thought to be had about it.

"That brick there, right?" She said, getting into position without even trying to wipe her face. The entire gang's attention was now focused on her and her actions. One way or another, the next few seconds would give them plenty of answers. Even she was now struggling to think straight. The world had really gone to hell with an embarrassing speed, a change too rapid for it to be truly accepted by the minds of twenty-first century youth.

However, urged on by the strange boy whose mind seemed to work differently than that of normal people, she stretched out her hand in the direction of the target and straightened her index finger so that she could aim accurately. Firearms were no stranger to her, but even she did not know why she had decided to use her hand in that way, imagining that her finger was nothing more than the barrel of a gun.

Of course, her arm didn't turn into a sci-fi weapon or anything like that. She, of course, was not the Ultimate Weapon. In truth, for several seconds, absolutely nothing happened. Only her state of mind changed, making her feel like an idiot for letting herself be talked into trying such a stupid thing.

Although she would never have said it out loud, when she stopped to think about what she was doing, a nostalgic feeling began to fill her heart and dry her tears. And, lost in that gentle feeling, she found herself turning her head in search of Alex, as in her mind's eye she replayed a collection of now-faded scenes in which the two of them as kids enjoyed imitating the most popular Dragon Ball attack.

That powerful move relied on a sudden release of energy in a specific direction, an attack incredibly similar to what she was actually attempting. Of course, she certainly hadn't been the only kid to have fun like that in her generation, so it had to be a coincidence. Although, if Roberto had been able to read her mind at that exact moment, perhaps a lot of trouble could have been avoided in the future.

Speaking of him, just when he was about to throw in the towel about the practical test, disappointed and annoyed by the total failure, a white glow, as bright as a led lamp, covered the girl's index finger without any warning. That vision immediately erased the discomfort he held deep in his soul, forcing him to widen his eyes so as not to miss the slightest detail.

A moment later, that light, completely alien to the concept of ballistics, left the girl's finger and flew in a straight line in the direction of the target. That detail, however, would have yet to be fully defined, considering the great speed with which it continued its march, making it basically a bullet.

Needless to say, the poor innocent brick took a violent enough hit on its own side to jump on the spot as it was separated by an invisible force into several large and small pieces, while a small cloud of dust accompanied its unsolicited journey.