Close acquaintance

"Good morning, world," I whispered as I woke up.

I looked around, there was only the leather tent around me, there were no other people, everyone was outside. It wasn't a horrible nightmare after all, it was reality.

As I stepped outside, Uncle Jack and Jeanne were praying, but now they weren't holding their fists to their hearts, instead they had both hands raised as if they were trying to embrace the sky. Or, more specifically, the sun.

Adele was tending to Kyle's wounds and when she spotted me, she said hello and good morning. I returned the favor. Kyle was silent.

At that moment the prayer ended.

"You're awake, wonderful," the paladin said. "Now we're going to unpack the tent and head to Surrik."

"Yeah... Right," I replied, still sleepy, heading to the river to wash my face.

The water was cold, but refreshing. At that moment, Kyle crouched down beside me by the river.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," he said.

"It's okay," I replied, leaving him to wash up.

Maybe, he's not a total bastard?

Walking over to Jeanne in her shining armor, I asked, "Listen, why are you here alone? Shouldn't you have a squad with you?"

"Squad?" she looked at me with surprise and... fear? "Squad... squad..."

She repeated the word over and over, trying to remember something. I took a step back from her just in case.

"Yeah, I couldn't be here alone, I must have a squad with me," she said, calming down a bit, "but I don't remember what happened to them. I don't remember anything at all except the reason I'm here."

"Tell us about it," insisted a worried Adele, "maybe that way we can learn something more about what happened."

"All right," said Jeanne after a short thought. "This forest is very large, it's home to a big amount of different magical creatures and monsters, but recently they've started going outside the forest and attacking nearby settlements, though they've never done that before."

"My mission was to explore the forest up and down and figure out the reason for this behavior of the monsters. Sigh, we entered the forest from the north and headed for Baba Yaga, the Guardian of the Forest, but we were attacked several times along the way."

"The roads have become dangerous, though they used to be enchanted and prevented monsters from attacking travelers. This only alarmed us more."

"When we reached Baba Yaga's hut, we... I... I don't remember what happened then. The only thing I remember is how you saved me," Jeanne said in frustration.

I only looked at the woman with a sympathetic gaze.

"If Baba Yaga did that to you, it's definitely not worth going there," I summarized. "We need to get to Surrik as quickly as possible."

"You're right," nodded the woman in shining armor. "But before we do, I suggest we get to know each other better. If we encounter monsters further down the road, it will be difficult without knowing each other's abilities."

No one protested much against the idea.

I figured it was the perfect time to use Insightful. I have enough health, no dangers, and I can see if anyone was hiding anything from me last time. Especially Kyle.

But whether out of cowardice or moral conviction, I didn't want to use that ability on my partners. Kyle was the exception, though.

Insightful... I thought, glancing at Kyle.

[Name: Kyle Moore

Age: 19

Race: Human

Level: 1]

It worked!

[Your health score has dropped from 7 to 6.5!]

While the allies were saying the same thing I heard last time, I have time to get to know Kyle better. Yes, I am guided by good intentions and my own safety.

[Strength: 12

Dexterity: 9

Endurance: 7

Health: 10

Mana: 0

Intelligence: 9]

Well so far everything is as he said it would be. However, I have a new question about the system. Why are unlearned stats like medicine not displayed as zero, but mana is?

Aside from that, it was still interesting to learn about levels and their effect on stats, as well as how you can get them. I'm 21, Kyle is 19 and we're both level 1. How much time should it even take to level up at least one level?

[List of abilities:

Active:

Combat onslaught – crush them all!

Description: Increases your Strength and Dexterity by +5 for a period of time.

Cooldown: 24 hours.

Power punch – for real fighters.

Description: Increases the damage of the following attack by 2 percent for each unit of strength, provided the attack is not magic, is not another similar active ability, is not a spell, and is a physical attack. Frequent use may cause injury.

Cooldown: 15 seconds

Passive:

Glass swordsman – your attacks are strong, but your survivability leaves much to be desired.

Description: reduces your endurance and health by -1, but gives you +2 strength. Increases the chance of being injured in combat or training.

Traits:

Angry – you have difficulty controlling your own anger and emotions.

Murderer – killing is more than just a way for you to survive.

Kill counter: 1

Sadist – you enjoy the pain of others]

I tried to speed up my reading as much as possible so I could finish everything without suspicion.

Well, Kyle hadn't lied about his abilities, but his traits were... terrifying. I guess when those two in the woods met me and saw my stats, their reactions were similar. He's someone to be very careful with.

I also noticed that he has the same trait as me, Murderer. This trait is still level 1, but the description is different from my version. I had some suspicions before, but now I'm pretty sure the system is personalized. That's scary.

Each person gets their own ability description, all that number 4 crap and invisible characteristics like resistance. Surely there must be something else, more scary and incomprehensible.

Then I looked at Adele and wanted to see her stats, but I quickly stopped myself. What if I saw her traits that I, as a stranger, shouldn't see?

Instead, I shifted my gaze to Jeanne, who started talking about her stats.

"Strength 28, dexterity 16, endurance 34, health 20, intelligence 10, charisma 10, intimidation 15, cooking 5, medicine 6, survival 8, wisdom 14."

Well, about what one would expect from a holy paladin. But now there were only more questions. How was she able to get into the jaws of a mimic with those stats, when we, unarmed, having one mage on hand with starter spells was able to defeat it by just wearing it down a bit?

"I have many abilities, but I'll only name the combat ones. 'Sanctification' is an active ability that allows me to endow things with holy energy for a while. Since I believe in the God of Sun, the holy energy comes from Him, so in addition to the 'holy' effect, the 'light' and 'fire' effects are applied. Always effective against undead, evil spirits and others that have vulnerabilities to these effects."

"Consumes nothing, stays on cooldown until I remove the ability from the item. Side effect is that the item may fail and break immediately or be subject to wear and tear, but my armor and sword are the exception."

Makes sense, they're also kind of holy items created with the help of the church too, able to withstand such a load.

"So that sword of light was the result of the Sanctification?" wondered Adele.

Jeanne nodded softly and smiled as if enjoying the interest in her person.

"'Paladin's Fortitude' is a passive ability that increases my resistance to fire, light, and holiness by 90%, to darkness and wickedness by 50%, and to poisons by 5%. Also has a 'Strong Body', just like Uncle Jack's."

Yes, a +1 bonus to strength, endurance, and health, as well as resistance to all physical damage by 8%.

"I have other abilities, but I don't trust you enough to tell you about them."

"That's fine, we only met a short while ago, I just hope we don't get a chance to see them," I said, sincerely hoping not to encounter some serious enemy, for the sake of defeating which we will have to use the entire arsenal of the paladin.

Or, worse, to avoid incurring Jeanne's wrath.

In the end, it was my turn to introduce myself. I only talked about what I had talked about the very first time I met the team, but as soon as Jeanne heard about Insightful, she immediately frowned.

"What's your level?" asked Jeanne with a serious expression.

"What's yours?" I replied with a question to a question. Why would I answer something like that without getting similar information?

She looked at me menacingly, I tried to keep my face straight and not show fear, but for a moment I felt like I was about to be skinned.

"10, my level is 10," Jeanne replied with a sigh.

[Congratulations! You were able to withstand the gaze of a stronger person and gained +1 to Charisma! Your Charisma is now 5!]

I sighed.

"My level is 1," I replied.

"That's fine then, carry on," she smiled in a friendly way.

You don't have to smile! It won't defuse the situation!

"What does all this even mean?" I asked in bewilderment.

"This kind of ability can mine the kind of information I'd like to keep hidden. The amount and quality of information depends on the skill level and the user. Given our level gap you're unlikely to be able to see even my characteristic points," Jeanne replied.

Afterward, I started to describe the last ability I wanted to talk about, Murderous feast, but she didn't like something here either.

"Are you a murderer?" she asked more menacingly than last time.

I sighed again.

"Yes, but it was self-defense, me and Uncle Jack were attacked by aggressive furries, there were casualties," I replied.

"Uncle Jack, are you a murderer too?" asked Jeanne, shifting her gaze to the other man.

"In fact yes, but the system didn't give me that trait," he replied frowning slightly at the interrogation that had begun.

"Does everyone here know how to get the Murderer trait?" asked Jeanne.

Absolutely everyone shook their heads in denial.

"This trait can be obtained in two cases, but one does not cancel out the other. One, if you kill and take pleasure in what you've done, and two, if you cause harm with the desire to kill."

"But if you're telling the truth," Jeanne said turning to me again, "that means you fought to the death. That's worthy of respect, sorry for the suspicion," Jeanne finished.

Phew, woman, you're going to drive me to my grave with your emotional swings, even if your suspicions were fair enough.

"I think we're done here. Time to move out," I summarized. Everyone nodded.