Third Chance

I was invaded by that feeling once more. I started to think maybe I should get used to this whole falling thing since I seemed to be in its pressence quite often. Anyways, when I opened my eyes, I was laying in a bed. Inevitably, my mind started to work on its own once again.

/ An unfamiliar ceiling....Always wanted to say that, but it would be dumb right? /

Were my thoughts. I had some sort of calm inside me that kept me from freaking out or fall insane from all of the shit that was going through my mind, probably something that Siegfried did when he touched my forehead I think.

For now, I simply sat up on the bed and checked my surroundings. I was in a somewhat small room, probably constructed for individual use. It had a closet, a desk, a window and a bed. And that was about it for it all, really. Right now, there wasn't anyone else with me, so I took a while to see if my body had changed at all.

I noticed that I no longer was covered in scars, and that I felt no pain whatsoever. I stood up and walked towards the window, opening it to see what was outside of this place. I found myself in what I would assume would be the third story of some sort of house in the middle of a village. What did surprise me was that I saw that the village itself was built inside a forest. And an incredibly massive one at that.

Just as I was enjoing the peaceful sight, I heard the door being opened. A girl entered the room. She was wearing what I would assume to be a wizard's hat, and an incredibly cute outfit. She had a long brown hair and almond eyes, but besides that, I could notice that she was quite surprised to see me.

This could be because of the fact that I was currently wearing nothing at all to cover myself up, so I was straight up naked. I was still not sure since she just closed the door and exited the room, waited a few seconds and then entered again.

"Excuse me? Where am I?"

"...Helena!! You woke up!"

The girl ran towards me and hugged me tightly. I had no idea what was happening, but since the girl was being friendly, I decided to do the same and hug her. When she released me, I started to explain her my situation. Obviously I skipped everything besides the lie that I had forgotten almost everything besides my name and how to speak.

The girl presented herself as Anna, and apparently she was this body's childhood friend. The previous Helena seemed to have lost their parents recently and Anna thought that maybe the traumatic event made Helena forget everything to protect itself from the shock.

I decided to go along with it and just asked her about common sense in general. To resume, this world was called Gaia. A year lasted 365 days, a week had 7 days and a month had 30 days, so the time seemed to past at the same rate as Earth's. Aside from that, our race was called Demi-Humans, or "Mixed Blood" Humans. Due to religious and cultural differences, "Pure Blooded" Humans treated our race as inferior, similar to certain dictators did back at Earth.

My mind worked its gears and I finally understood why Leo kept calling me Dog when he came into the basement to have fun. Some anger certainly remained within me, but right now I couldn't do anything about it since I had no idea what I would have to do to pay back the favor.

For now, I had other things to prioritize before vengeance since Anna told me that I should choose which kind of job I would like to do since apparently my 18th birthday was coming soon and it was part of local traditions that at that age one would already have in mind something to do in order to improve the community.

Similar to old villages in my world, this community of Demi-Humans had its won traditions and folklore. All of that would be too much to ask Anna about so she left some books about in my desk for me to read while I was getting used to this place. So far, it seemed like this place was much more similar to a starting zone in a game than those plains from before.

For now, I was given some casual clothes to put on since being naked wasn't part of the culture of this group of people. Anna left the room to let me think and get used to the room and all. I put on the clothes, which were some kind of linen dress with a leather corset to keep it tight around the waist and abdomen, together with a pair of knit socks and hide boots.

After getting dressed, I approached the desk and sat down in order to check the books. And it was there that something was revealed to me, a familiar notification window appeared before me, asking another question.

[ "Siegfried, The God of War, has sent you a gift. Would you like to receive it?" ]

[Yes.] [No.]

I pressed the obvious choice, [Yes.] and a whole new window appeared before me. As best as I could describe, it looked, without a doubt, like a character sheet from an RPG. Assuming this was Siegfried's gift, I thanked him in silence before checking it more in depth.

『 S t a t u s 』

Name: Helena.

Age: 17. [Birthday: 09/05]

Race: Demi-Human. [Canis]

Sanity: Stable.

EXP: 0/10

STR: 8

DEX: 8

CON: 10

INT: 10

PER: 8

CHA: 10

Skills:

+ [Commander Lvl 1]

+ [Bark Lvl 1]

+ [Bite Lvl 1]

+ [Enhanced Senses Lvl 1]

Tittles:

+ [Blessed by The God of War]

+ [Outsider]

Now that feels more like it. Even if I was happy that I had something like this now, the list of skills I had was a little bit worrying. For example, I had things like [Bark] or [Bite] which I could very much tell were due to my Dog-Like traits, but [Commander] threw me off a little. I mean, sure I was supossed to grow into a God of War at the end of my life and all but...I wasn't expecting that to be there to be honest.

Checking the descriptions was a little underwhelming to say the least. It just explained what the name was, but there was no actual descriptions of what it does on practical use. At least checking the tittles gave me more excitement since they were quite powerful on their own.

[Blessed by The God of War] Allowed me to progressively gain more skills related to warfare as I "Grow", which is what I'm assuming is the explanation for the experience bar. It alse helped my learned skills to grow faster by using them, and the best part is that it also gave me understanding over my race's language, be it written or spoken so I could really read those books that Anna left for me.

[Outsider] Was confusing. The description was filled with typos and strange symbols. I thought it was just a bug or something similar so I ignored it for now since I had a bad feeling about it. Anyways, Leaving the whole system that was given to me by Siegfried, I still had two books to read so I started to work on them.

Even if I say they were two books, it felt more like pictures being overlaped with a few letters here and there explaining certain things. They felt more like picture books for children more like appropiate books for cultured folk. I ignored the fact that probably Anna had that idea in mind and proceeded to finish them before noon.

Basically, Gaia was created by seven deities. Helos, Frey, Quetzal, Lupus, Siegfried, Rodena and Mahlios. They represented Luck, Life, Death, Chaos, War, Peace and Fate, respectively. These seven deities created Gaia as a representation of their divine will. Basically, the seven siblings had an inherent desire to use their power, and so they did.

Frey created the elements from her own existance. Earth from her skin, water from her blood, air from her breath and fire from her soul. Lupus used these elements to form all sort of creatures, from Humans to Dwarves, to Elves and even in-betweens (Demi-Humans). Quetzal created the underworld, a place beneath the ancient earth where those who grew tired of living could find eternal rest. Helos created the gears that move the stars and time, forever binding himself to keep the gears moving until the end of times.

Mahlios, brother of Helos, decided to create a system that would allow for all living beings the chance to grow beyond their limits, physically allowing them to achieve whatever they want through their own efforts, shaping their fate. Finally, Siegfried shaped the way for different creatures to conflict and interact with each other, many confuse him with an evil god but in reality he is believed to be an honorable and honest man.

Rodena, on the other hand, is the counter for Siegfried. She is neither good or evil, but rather her beliefs are to try and achieve peace through any means necessary. Most of her believers are usually spies or priests, depending on how extreme their faith is.

According to these books, Siegfried isn't pictured as a bad guy but most people do believe that most Wars are caused by him. This confused me quite a bit since it was quite the contradiction for such a simple thing.

It took me quite a bit to realize I was hungry, so after dumping all of this information into my brain, I exited the room, looking forward to try some new food.