We walked for the next twenty or so minutes under the orange painted sky. Mrs Aya beside me was quiet the whole way. The grim mood set the tone for our walk. Even the usual communicative Johann was in unusual silence, only speaking when strictly necessary.

As we approached our destination, the nearest buildings were being emptied out. Two guys organized the effort. I recognized them, they were the ones guarding the auditorium entrance when I had returned with Noah. We approached through the left side of the new base, and what welcomed us was an image that would probably make Igor giddy. John barked orders at the group of people working under him. They had been tasked with disassembling the furniture to make it more suitable to form a barrier. We passed by them and Johann exchanged a few quick words with the man.

We neared the entrance to the central building, our future fortress, and I saw Noah. He was coordinating the effort on the right flank with help of two people I wasn’t familiar with. I looked around and finally spotted Chen. The boy was helping someone carry a rather large couch. I suspected that one was going inside our main building. Since we didn’t have the excessive number of chairs from the auditorium anymore, moving the couches was the best solution. I doubted they would be able to move a couch for everyone today, some of us would sleep on the floor tonight.

“Hey. Chen, right?” I approached the teenager.

“Uh. Yeah, it's me. Can I help you?” He said between gritted teeth.

“Yeah, I need your help with something. It’s about the system…”

“The system? Sure, I can help! Just let me finish this!” His eyes sparkled and he seemed to carry the couch with renewed vigor. I decided to help him. I took the place of the other guy. I placed the sledgehammer on the couch, and after fixing my grip on it, me and Chen started moving it.

“So, I leveled up. I need to pick your brain about how to invest my stats points.”

“You leveled up?! That’s amazing! How does it feel? What did the system tell you or do? How hard was it?”

“Calm down, Chen. You are going to lose your grip or footing if you get so excited. I will answer your questions.” I said with a smile. The boy took a deep breath and seemed to calm down. We passed by the growing barricade, careful not to trip on anything.

“It doesn’t feel like anything special, it actually doesn’t feel like anything changed. The system merely notified me with a message that I had leveled up, that was it. I don’t know how to measure difficulty. Remember that John had 49 points? Well, I am sure you must suspect it as well, but I believe each dead goblin gave us 1 point.”

“So you killed 60 of them? Alone? That is ridiculously impressive, Leo! Are you some sort of overpowered person with a hidden skill?”

“Nothing like that, no. And I didn’t really kill quite that many of them. I honestly don’t know how many of the little ones I killed, but I killed a bigger one that was considerably tougher. Ridiculously tougher.” 

We reached the entrance of the building and traffic here was more intense, we had to stop and squeeze through, all while carrying the couch. I couldn’t pay attention to Chen’s face, but I suspected he was beaming with curiosity.

“Bigger one? You mean there is a boss in the waves and you soloed him? OMG, Leo. This is amazing!” Chen's excited tone got a few looks from the people around us.

“Right, but first, where are we taking this? Upper floor or somewhere here?”

“Oh, right. We are taking this to the upper floor.”

We moved to the stairwell and I positioned myself at the lower steps. I was stronger than Chen and he was shorter than me. It was better If I took the brunt of the weight, while his shorter height would help balance the awkward thing. We moved up with careful steps.

“So, you killed the boss! How did you do it, Leo? Do you perhaps have a secret weapon? Does Lady luck visit your bed at night?”

“I will tell you what I did, but it’s nothing amazing like that. I'm not familiar with lady luck, nor has anyone visited me at night.” I laughed. “It’s kinda anticlimactic when I say it, but all I did was subdue the bigger goblin with a strangle lock. I have some training in BJJ.”

“BJJ? Is that some secret martial arts sect?”

“Nothing like that, it’s quite popular in the MMA world. It's called Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it's from my father’s homeland.”

“So, you are Brazilian? Like a professional fighter?”

“Not quite. I grew up in the UK. My mom is British, but my dad is from Brazil. Also, no, I am not a fighter. I joined some Jiu Jitsu competitions when I was your age, but nothing professional.”

Engrossed in our conversation we had already gone up the stairs and were wandering aimlessly on the upper floor.

“You can leave it there.” A woman’s voice called out.

I turned to look and it was Gabriela. She had a large paper sheet on a clipboard and seemed to be using it to organize the room. Several different pieces of furniture were laid out in random positions. We moved to the assigned position under her fleeting glances.

“Is this good enough?” I asked Gabriela. 

She directed us a couple more times before she was finally satisfied. Curious about the floor plan she had, I asked Chen to wait for me a minute while I approached her.

“Gabriela, right? You designed a floor plan for this space?” She turned to face me. Her bright green eyes and lightly tanned skin seemed to glow under the setting sun. She had light brown hair with bangs cascading down a little above brow height.

“Hi! Yeah, I did. It was a bit of a shoddy job, though. I didn’t have much time. Johann says he doesn’t want perfection, but he doesn’t understand that proper planning requires more than a bit of thought.”

“I am sure he would love to give you more time if he had.”

“I guess…” She looked to the clipboard, her voice trailed off as she seemed a little dejected.

“I don’t want to be intrusive, but as a civil engineer I am very curious about what you have decided to do with the place.”

“You are a colleague? That’s great. Please, take a look! I would love to hear your thoughts on it.”

“Are you a civil engineer?” I asked as she handed me the clipboard with her design.

“Not really. I am an architect, but we are all in the same business, right?” Gabriela was very cheerful. I had not met someone as cheerful as her in a long time. I didn’t answer her, but smiled back.

I scanned the clipboard in my hands. I am not sure how, but she had found a way to get proper measurements of the room. The stairs were located at the back of the building and it was the only other thing on this otherwise empty floor. She had structured the space in a male and female dormitory, with an appropriate number of sleeping spaces. A long line of lockers created a semblance of division between the two areas. On the opposite side of the dormitory she had divided spaces for a workshop, infirmary and even an indoor training facility. There was no actual plan on how to implement those things, but the space was there.

“You even thought of a workshop and a gym. This is amazing. Given enough time, we might really be able to pull this off. Furniture is really the only thing we have in abundance.”

“Those were not my ideas. Johann requested the workshop and John the gym. I have no idea how they are going to make it work, though.” Gabriela spoke as she straightened herself, both hands resting on her lumbar. 

“How far are you?” I blurted out.

“Getting close to the seventh month. It’s starting to get hard to move around a lot. The walk here was surprisingly difficult. Are you okay there?” She pointed at my hand gripping at my injured leg. It seems I had been unconsciously massaging my wound.

“This? I injured myself in the last fight. But it’s nothing major, just a bruise.”

“Still, you should have Ciara check you out. It’s better be safe than sorry.”

“Ciara?”

“Oh, you don’t know her. Ciara works in a hospital in Dublin as a nurse. She is our fiery doctor!” Gabriela giggled at her own joke “But don’t call her that. It’s a secret nickname I gave her.” She winked at me. Gabriela’s beauty was surely… distracting. I excused myself and went back to Chen. He sat down on the couch while watching our conversation.

“She is gorgeous, isn’t she? Maybe If I was as strong as you or John I would have a chance.” Chen said as he openly stared at Gabriela.

“Dude, that is more than a little impolite, for multiple reasons.” I said as I stood in front of him with my arms crossed. He was startled and looked down to the floor. I sighed.

“How old are you, Chen?”

“I am going to be fifteen in a few months.”

“Look, I have been your age. I know it's a bit awkward to handle your impulses sometimes, but you need to. Else, you might send people the wrong message. Also, Gabriela is pregnant, more likely than not she already has someone in her life.”

“Does she? I don’t think we are going back, ever.” Chen’s words took me aback a little.

“We can’t be sure of that, Chen. We have only been here for a day and a half. Maybe if we survive long enough they might be satisfied and let us go back. We can’t lose hope.” My words seemed to fall on deaf ears. Chen just kept staring at the floor. I decided to change the subject before it became too awkward. I hadn’t come here to lecture the boy, but to ask for his help.

“About the stats points. Care to pick up where we left off?”

“Right. Sure, sure. You killed the boss and leveled up, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So what are the rewards for leveling up? And also, what did you get for being ranked first?”

“I got two stats points for leveling up and one stat point for being first.”

“You got another stat point for being first? That is seriously unbalanced!” Chen’ eyes grew wide. His reaction surprised me, but I was mostly curious to understand the reason behind it.

“What do you mean?”

“John was second and only got 10 extra contribution points. That’s so bad compared to what you got for being first.”

“How so Chen? I don't follow.”

“Think about it, Leo. If you got two stats points for leveling up and one extra for being first, while John didn’t level up and was awarded meager 10 points, which still made him lower in total than you, don’t you think you progressed immensely more than him?”

“I guess, but he will eventually level up as well. He must be fairly close to doing so.”

“We can’t be sure of that! What if the boss gave a ridiculous amount of experience? Maybe you have twice or triple John’s level progress. Although I do think what you said is more likely. Still! The point is, for this next wave you will have a huge advantage over him with three extra stat points.” Chen seemed to grow more excited as he was now standing and gesturing a lot.

“I am not sure if I follow that last bit, Chen. I’m sure you’ve realized, but people’s starting stats are quite varied. Maybe me and John are very different and even with three extra points I will still be behind him in overall score.”

“It doesn’t matter if his stats were better than yours.”

“How come it doesn’t? Of course they do!”

“They don’t, Leo. I am talking progression here, progression! If you managed to kill that many and the boss with your current stats, can’t I assume you will be able to do much more next time with these three extra points? The distance between you and everyone else, John included, will only grow bigger!” Chen had made a good point. I had to take pause to understand the implications of what he said before replying.

“You are making two big assumptions here, Chen. The first is that the stats have that much of an impact and second you are ignoring the outside factors. Just because I performed well alone in the first weave, it doesn’t mean I will be able to pull it off again, much less outperform last time.”

“You are wrong. I didn’t make assumptions, I already figured those out.” He paused and looked straight at me with a smug smile. He fixed his glasses like some cartoon character while I frowned at him.

“It’s not that hard to infer the weight of the stat points. I just had to ask around to have it figured out. Given, I don’t know their exact influence, but I know they grow exponentially and not linearly.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“It’s simple. I asked an elderly man how much his stats are and then I asked John. John had eight points in strength while the elder had two. While John managed to bench press 280 kilos, do you think the elderly could bench press 70 kilos? He would be hard pressed to do it with the empty bar.” Chen’s words enlightened me.

“Bloody hell, Chen. That was very smart of you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Right…” His smug smile seemed to somehow grow bigger and I could almost see an air of arrogance on the boy’s demeanor. “So, what about the second assumption. How can you be sure I won’t underperform due to unforeseen circumstances.”

“This is less of a science and more of a prediction. We are currently hard pressed, most of the people here have little to no combat experience, me included. Where do you think Johann and John will deploy you, someone who has already proven to be a good fighter?” I didn’t answer, as his question was rhetorical. “Where you can do the most damage, where you can kill the most creatures. Given you don’t die, you might be able to consistently place first. You will only get stronger and stronger as time goes by, especially with the first place reward. You will gain an extra level every two waves without actually making your level progression harder.”

“I… can’t argue with your logic on this, Chen, though there are still many factors you are choosing to overlook in favor of this outcome. Me not dying is one of them.” We both paused. A more somber mood setting between us.

“In the spirit of me not dying, how do you think I should spend my three points? I thought about using two in vitality and one in agility.”

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t want to die. Considering the creatures were fairly numerous and individually easy to kill, I thought the best route was to increase my endurance and ability to keep myself out of harm’s way.”

“That is a solid plan, although a boring one. I could argue with you about spending at least one point in MAG, but it's a risky move. Even I have no idea what it does, although I have a hundred and one theories.”

“I don’t think I am willing to take that risk at the moment, but maybe after we are more used to… this?”

“The rewards could be huge, you know? It would be immensely helpful if you could wield magic like a powerful battle mage. You already have the battle part covered.”

“Could be nothing as well, Chen. What if magic is only the potential to perform magic?”

“You also don’t know that. But yeah, I agree. It’s a risky move at the moment, but someone will eventually take the risk. It’s better if you do it first, in case there is some big reward.”

“I will keep that in mind, Chen. Thank you for the help.”

“Will you spend it now?” The boy asked, suddenly excited again.

“Yeah, why not.”

He stared at me with a penetrating look. I assumed he was trying to see if there would be any physical changes in my body. I opened my status sheet and willed the free points into the vitality and agility. A confirmation prompt appeared every time I tried to allocate one. After I was done, my status sheet looked like this.

[Name: Leo

Level: 2

STATS

STR: 5 VIT: 8

DEX: 4 AGI: 7

WIL: 5  MAG: 0

SKILLS

Throwing (Initiate); Hand-to-Hand Combat (Beginner); Dodge (Beginner); Running (Proficient); Submission Fighting Style (Proficient);

MAGIC

Language(Passive);]

 

I felt… nothing. By the look on Chen’s face he also had not seen anything change. Probably not even sure if I had already spent it.

“I feel the same.”

“You already spent them?”

“Yeah, I felt nothing change.”

“Hmm, maybe agility and vitality are more nuanced stats and they are unlikely to change your outer appearance. Maybe strength will have a more pronounced effect?”

“Well, we don’t have information to answer these questions. Plus, I think we have rested enough. Some people have already started to give us dirty looks. We better get moving.”

I motioned Chen to get up. He seemed to be caught up inside his head, the cogs of his brain turning at a fast paced, but he complied. We got our asses moving and back to work. It had been a fun discussion, but we now had more important things to worry about. The fight tomorrow was drawing closer as the sky clock marked.

13:11:29

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