He felt the hole in his clothes, accompanied by a cratered scar over where his heart should be. The scar was circular and ugly, with a dip in the middle that almost made a part of his chest seem caved in. Arthur hadn’t expected to wake up at all, which he was already struggling to come to terms with. What he learned next nearly sent him off the rails completely. When he held his hand over where his heart should be, he didn’t feel a heartbeat. He kept waiting and waiting, but nothing ever came. The only thing coming from that spot was the reverberations he felt running rampant through his body, like a lake with great waves emanating from the spot where his heart was supposed to be.
Arthur felt that he should be panicking again. He was sure he should be dead, after all. He’d felt the cold certainty that his life was over, he’d even made peace with it. At least, as close to peace as he could’ve gotten. He hadn’t wanted to die, but he was happy that his life had been spent for someone better to live. Now that he was here and ostensibly fine, he wasn’t sure how he felt. He looked down at himself, seeing the scar that now decorated his otherwise unmarred skin. He could’ve sworn that he saw motes of green around his chest, but any time he tried to focus on them, they disappeared.
Arthur saw peripherally that the floor he was on wasn’t covered in glass and looked around. It looked like he was in another Secure Sector, a silver orb in the middle of the room was shining its warm and calming light over him. This Secure Sector had a carpet, its soft fabric almost escaping Arthur’s notice through his frayed nerves. The walls were normal this time, and not a crumbling facsimile made of surrounding rubble. This one was also much bigger, with two doors instead of one. Arthur assumed one led outside, while the other led to an adjoining room. There was simple furniture in the room, with two couches near the silver ball of light, and a coffee table between them. There was nothing else in the room.
Arthur belatedly realized that there were alerts from the System in his periphery, pulsing with prominence. He had many questions about his current situation, like how he got here and how he survived. He didn’t think that the System alerts would tell him anything about how he got here, unless there was some kind of function that teleported him or… something. Arthur decided that if he couldn’t learn about how he got here, he should at least learn about how he survived. He was sure that the System had something to do with that, so he focused on the alerts in his periphery and brought them to his center vision.
Congratulations!
You’ve gained the
[Heart of Devotion]
Title!
Arthur wasn’t sure what that meant, but he would check later, or at least try to. He was still new to this and wasn’t sure if it would give him a description of this… title. He moved on.
Level Up
You’ve reached level [2]
Your stats will be allocated appropriately for your class
You have [3] levels until you are allowed to allocate your free points.
You have [0] free points.
He vaguely remembered this, along with the screen afterwards talking about him choosing a class. He remembered that there was only one choice, which concerned him. He’d accepted it without thinking earlier, as he attempted anything he could to cling to life. He hadn’t expected it to work, of course, yet here he was. Was the class the reason he survived? Did it somehow give him something to bring himself back from the brink of death? The simple fact of the matter was that he didn’t know, but he hoped to learn soon. He saw a tab at the top left of his vision, which he focused on.
Identity Screen
Name: Arthur Lindow
Title: [Heart of Devotion]
Class: [Audacity Knight]
Level: 2
Stats
STR: 11 {Trade off available}
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
VIT: 30 {Trade off available}
DEF: 28 {Trade off available}
DEX: 3
INT: 3 {Trade off available}
Accord: N/A
Link Mates: N/A
Feats: 2
Arthur looked at his stats for a long moment. It might’ve just been him, but compared to what it was before, weren’t his stats a bit… bloated? His dexterity and intelligence were about where he felt like they should be, which was rock bottom. His vitality and defense in comparison, though, were… vast. Much more than before. He thought that maybe this was normal for someone’s stats to change so much upon gaining a class. The simple fact was that he simply didn’t know or had a frame of reference.
Arthur felt slightly overwhelmed. There were so many new things for him to go through, but despite it all, he also felt excited. High defensive stats could only mean one thing, and Arthur was all for it.
“For someone who should be dead, you’re sitting a little more upright than I expected.”
Arthur had just been about to dive into his character sheet with the question mark that he saw at the bottom again. When he heard the woman’s voice, however, rocket scientists could’ve studied the propulsion-less lift he demonstrated. After he returned from his impromptu orbital launch, Arthur scampered to his feet and assumed something that might pass as a defensive-neutral stance.
The woman was leaning against the doorframe of the still open door she had seemingly just come from. She had medium length blonde hair, similar to Arthur’s but for the color and care put in. The roots of her hair and her eyebrows were black, suggesting that her blonde hair wasn’t natural. She had a button nose and well defined yet soft edged facial structure. She had no make-up; her eyes were a bright hazelnut and held a cool and calculated gaze despite the mild amusement in them. Her porcelain skin was clear but for a distinct facial feature of having two beauty marks; one above her mouth and to the left just enough to avoid being under her nose, and one under the corner of her left eye.
Arthur, too startled to notice her shocking beauty, shouted the first thing to come to mind.
“W-W-Wuh?! Whoooo-aaaare you?! Who are you??” Arthur was very measured in his response, of course. The amusement in the woman’s eyes grew only the tiniest bit, her chilled demeanor never wavering.
“Considering one of us just came back from the dead, I think I’d have a better reason to be shocked. But my name’s Mira.” She looked at him cooly, studying him intensely. Arthur flinched back at her cold and piercing gaze. “And your name is Arthur… isn’t it?”
Gordeau nearly swept everything off of his desk in frustration when he saw the human die. He’d already been practically red in the face with the human running around doing absolutely nothing when he should’ve been progressing in the dungeon. Sifting through trash and peeking into rooms worthlessly. When the human’s chest was impaled, he practically exploded in outrage. Falling back into his chair, he lamented his lost riches and rewards. There were other humans in the dungeon, but none had been as deep in as that one. None that were still alive, at least. Now that he was dead too, Gordeau was sure that he was out of the running for the first dungeon completed. His Undersea Redoubt dungeon was in an area not anticipated to have high volumes of activity. The future couldn’t be known, of course, but for all Gordeau knew these could be the only people in his dungeon for the next 50 years.
Gordeau looked at the screen of the human reaching up at a blurred out screen above him. People can only see their own identity screens, which has been a rule since the first universe of the Macrocosm. Gordeau absently wondered through his lamentation if he’d gained a title or feat from this debacle, but also understood that it likely didn’t matter. Another human had jumped in and attacked the abomination, but it was far too late. The human’s arm fell, and he went limp. Gordeau grabbed his stamina draught with defeat. He thought about what the new universe would soon go through as he did, his lamentation only growing deeper. As he chugged the energy enhancing goodness in an attempt to drown his sorrows, Halla continued gathering data on the situation shown on the screen.
A long moment passed, the only sounds in the office coming from the other human’s battle with the abomination. Gordeau rubbed his forehead as the other human finished the abomination off. He considered maybe they could do it, but he was hesitant to get his hopes up again. He forgot humans were specifically slow to adapt to the System. When it conquers a universe with a planet of humans, they often take a long time to understand that they’re not at the top of the food chain after all. Though there would be death in abundance no matter what, such a mentality leads to many more deaths, and other things like sifting through garbage. Another human didn’t stoke his hopes much, after the sobering experience of watching the other one peeking around corners and tiptoeing around like a dancer.
“He’s still alive.”
The words didn’t register for Gordeau immediately, but it wasn’t long before he looked up. “What?” he asked, his eyes bleary from wiping at them so much in vexation. On the screen, he could see the other human checking the fallen one for a pulse. She seemed to not find one, but was startled as the fallen human’s wounds began healing rapidly. The hole in his chest was enveloped in green, pulsing out like a combination of a strobe light and a ripple outward like a pond. The viridian luster filled the room, forcing the other human to shield their eyes. After the light show petered out, the human’s wounds were healed, but he was still unconscious.
“Halla… what was that?” Gordeau found his voice after another long moment of silence.
“There are several possibilities, but I believe one is the most likely.” Halla posited. “Conclusions drawn from the subjects’ actions and personality traits gleaned so far indicate a strong possibility that the subject has acquired the [Heart of Devotion] title.”
Gordeau’s mind raced. “How many levels of synchronization do you think he has?” The room went quiet again as the other human studied the resuscitated one.
“I believe he’s attained maximum optimization.” Halla’s robotic voice rang through the office as the only noise, giving it an even greater gravitas than it already held. Gordeau looked at the screen again with awe.
“You mean… a T.H.O.D.? Here? …Already…?” Gordeau watched as the other human carried the supposed T.H.O.D. on her back and down a hallway. She was undoubtedly heading to a Secure Sector, but Gordeau could barely think about that. He knew what the planet was in for, and the early appearance of a T.H.O.D. could save many lives, or more. Gordeau’s hopes rose as he considered the new factors and new possibilities. If he really was a T.H.O.D., escaped the dungeon, and teamed up with this other human…
Gordeau’s enormous smile threatened to blind the sun itself as he reached for his contact device.