A translucent, blue screen materialized in front of Eis's vision, its text cold and clinical.
[Congratulations on your achievements!]
[Achievement: The host took his sister's virginity. Reward: 10000 AP x 2 for Taboo = 20000 AP]
[Achievement: The host has normalized kissing his mother on the lips. Reward: 10 AP x 2 for Taboo = 20 AP]
[Note: The 20000 AP calculation includes all associated acts, including the non-consensual elements of the encounter with your sister.]
"Hey, I didn't know you could calculate those," Eis whispered, a shocked expression twisting his features as he lay trapped between the sleeping forms of his mother and sister.
[The host does not want me to calculate such achievements. I will revoke them.]
"No, no!" he hissed, careful not to wake the women. "I was just shocked, that's all. And I think kissing your mother on the lips is totally normal."
He tried to project a sense of conviction, but a sliver of doubt snaked into his heart.
[Sure. Repeat it enough, and you will make yourself believe it.]
"And I didn't r@pe my sister!" he argued internally, his jaw tight. "She said 'Don't stop.' I'm sure that's consent."
[Hey, I'm just here for the show.] The system replied, its tone infuriatingly neutral.
GUUH GUH GUH!
The sudden, frantic pounding on the hut's door shattered the fragile morning peace. "Mmmm, who is that so early in the morning?" Eis groaned, still feeling the warm, heavy weight of his mother on his chest. He carefully disentangled himself, sliding her softly onto the bed beside Kaela.
He yanked the door open to find a breathless village runner. "Hey, man, I was having a good dream. What's up?"
"The chief has demanded that every warrior in the village must go to the forest to fight the monster horde coming straight at us! You must also join in this fight."
"Sure, I will be there."
As the runner sprinted away, Eis muttered, "Bra, I was having a good time." He grabbed a small pouch containing a kilogram of purified salt, a basic reagent for any fledgling mage.
He turned back to the bed. "Kaela, Mom. Hey, guys."
"Mmm..." They released low, sleepy sounds, stirring awake.
"I'm gonna go for a while. The fat man has summoned all the warriors to fight against the horde."
"WHAT?!" His mother was instantly alert, her eyes wide with terror. "No, Eis, no! You can't leave us! You remember what happened last time you went there!" The unspoken memory of their father, who never returned from a similar call, hung thick in the air.
"Well, can I say no?" he replied, his voice softening but firm. "I will be back as soon as the monsters start to decrease in numbers. I'm doing this for you guys. I'm doing this to protect you. I will come back, I promise."
He didn't allow time for more arguments. With a final, lingering look at their frightened faces, he turned and left the hut.
With just a few determined steps, he arrived at the village square. It was a chaotic scene. Warriors, some seasoned, many just boys like him, were hyped up, shouting, beating their chests, and behaving like animals ready for the slaughter.
In front of them stood the Chief, a large, rotund man whose girth belied his past ferocity.
"Warriors! This is it!" the Chief bellowed, his voice carrying over the din. "Fight for your home! Fight for the future! Warrrrrrrr!!!!!"
"Yesshhhhhhhh!!!!!" the crowd roared back, a wave of misguided bravado.
"Go out there! Be warriors! YEAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
As one, the mob surged forward, a frenzied stampede toward the main gate. Eis just joined the flow, a single sober note in a symphony of hysteria.
They were running to their deaths, he knew. But he had the "god's blessing." He was not going to die.
System, he commanded internally. Give me a staff similar to that of Son Wu Kong's.
A new screen flashed, glitching violently.
[Item: Staff of Son Wu Kong. AP Cost: 1#$@$#$##@#$#@#$%... ERROR. INSUFFICIENT AUTHORIZATION.]
"What the fuck?" Eis grumbled. "I said similar. Okay, fine. Just give me a stick. Made of strong metal, light, and is great at receiving and channelling mana."
The air in front of him shimmered. With a soft chime, a staff materialised, floating horizontally before him. It was a sleek, unadorned pole of a dark, polished grey metal.
It was perfectly balanced and felt as light as a feather in his grasp, yet he could sense its incredible durability. As his fingers closed around it, he felt a resonant hum, a perfect conduit waiting for his power.
He gripped the staff tightly. The horde was coming. The village was behind him. And he was the only one who knew he would be walking back out of those woods.
The sleek, metallic staff felt like an extension of his own arm, humming with latent potential. Just as Eis was about to test its balance, a new, starkly formatted blue screen materialised, blocking his view of the charging warriors.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: MANUFACTURING FEE]
[Item Requested: Custom Alloy Staff]
[Specifications: High-Tensile Strength, Ultra-Lightweight, Superior Mana Conduction]
[Status: MANUFACTURING COMPLETE]
[AP Cost: 3,500]
[Current AP Balance: 20,020]
[Proceed with Transaction? Y/N]
Eis blinked, the frantic energy of the mob fading into the background for a moment. A fee? Of course. The system wasn't a charity; it was a cosmic merchant.
"Proceed," he thought, a wry smile touching his lips. The system was as transactional as the village market, just with higher stakes.
[Transaction Approved.]
[-3,500 AP]
[Remaining AP Balance: 16,520]
[Item: 'Gale-Heart Staff' has been added to your inventory.]
The staff in his hand solidified, the hum settling into a steady, reassuring vibration. The weight of the AP cost was nothing compared to the weight of the weapon now in his hand, a tool for survival.
Hefting the Gale-Heart Staff, Eis turned his focus back to the forest's edge, his expression hardening from a young man into a warrior. The roar of the monsters was getting louder. It was time to pay a different kind of price.
Eis moved forward for a few minutes, the Gale-Heart Staff a comforting, cold presence in his hand. He whistled a tuneless melody, kicking a loose stone along the path.
"I have been up, I have been down, whatever it is I have done..." he sang under his breath, a mantra of his strange, system-guided existence.
"Hey, you!"
Eis stopped, the stone skittering away. He looked around the dense, shadowy undergrowth. "Who, me?"
"Finally left your fat, ugly mother at home?" a sneering voice echoed. Three figures emerged from behind the thick trunks of oaks. They were village boys, the same ones who had made his early life a living hell.
Braden, the ringleader, whose father did indeed work for the Chief, stood front and centre, a cheap but sharp-looking iron sword in his hand.
Eis's face broke into a wide, unnerving grin. "Yessssss!!! Yes!!! It's you guys! Hahhhhhh! I would hug you if it didn't look gay. I mean, you guys are the reason I am here. Thank you."
Braden and his two cronies exchanged confused glances. "What are you talking about? It seems like the last time we met, you went home and started going mad."
"You guys know the idiom, 'you give the chickens the water you drink'?" Eis's grin didn't waver, but his eyes grew cold. "Well, in this case, I am the chicken. You gave me bad water, and I want to do something to you. Something bad."
Braden barked a laugh, gesturing with his sword. "What can you do? We are all on the brink of Tier One, and you are outnumbered. Plus, my father works for the village chief, and we have metal weapons.
So we have the upper hand. Today, we are really gonna have fun." On cue, all three pulled their swords from their sheaths with a metallic rasp.
Eis tilted his head, his voice dripping with faux curiosity. "Ooh, so your mother is that thin prostitute who went to get crystals?" It was a lie, a cheap shot, but it was the kind of venom they understood.
"Why, you! I'll have the skin off your back!" Braden roared, charging forward with a clumsy, anger-fueled lunge.
Eis didn't even raise his staff. He simply sidestepped the charge with an almost lazy grace. As Braden stumbled past, Eis delivered a precise, measured karate chop to the side of his neck.
Thud. Braden collapsed to the forest floor like a sack of potatoes, unconscious.
"Just twelve ounces of pressure to the vagus nerve, and this is what happens," Eis mused aloud to the two stunned bullies. "Of course, I had to adjust because he's a Tier One warrior. More resilient."
"What did you do to him, you bastard!!!" the other two yelled, charging simultaneously.
They only met the same fate. "I just told you," Eis said, dropping his arms after delivering two more swift, precise strikes. They joined their leader in the dirt.
After a few moments, the three men woke up, groggy and disoriented. They were tied firmly to a large, gnarled tree, rough hemp rope biting into their chests and arms.
"What did you do?! If you kill us, there will be trouble!" one of the cronies stammered, his bravado completely gone.
"No, I don't want to kill you. Don't worry," Eis said, his tone conversational as he paced slowly in front of them.
"I believe killing you is a gift I would make you, a final rest. And we don't want that, do we?" He stopped and looked at them.
"Do you know why I am doing this?"
"Is it because we called your mother fat and ugly?" the other crony blurted out. "Because it is true!"
"You know that too," Eis acknowledged with a nod. "But no. It's because you bullied a man, which was good—hats off. But then that man went on to say some shit for a long time to the people I really love now. And I didn't like that." His voice had dropped to a deadly whisper. "I didn't like that one bit."
The Gale-Heart Staff shimmered and appeared in his hand.
PWAK! PWAK! PWAK!
The sound was sickening—a wet, cracking thud of dense metal meeting bone, repeated three times in rapid succession.
"AHHHHHH! NO! PLEASE, NO!" Their screams tore through the quiet forest, a symphony of agony.
When Eis was done, he stepped back, sweating lightly from the exertion. The legs of all three men were bent at impossible angles, pulverised into a million pieces.
"No, I only like it when my sister does it," he said, wiping his brow with his forearm, the statement as casual as a comment on the weather. He looked at their tear-streaked, pain-contorted faces.
"Well, I think I'm done here, guys. Please, help yourselves off the tree."
With a final, chillingly calm glance, Eis turned and continued his whistle down the path toward the monster horde, leaving the echoes of their screams as an offering to the woods.