Ray took a moment before responding to the purple woman. “Uhhh… I think so?”

  “Well, now that we’ve established contact, human, sit there and shut up for a minute.”

  Ray kept his hands behind his head in supplication while the woman turned toward the trees and let out a sharp bird call whistle. It was short, specific, and immediately answered. After about twenty seconds, five other dark elves stepped out from between the trunks like they had been there the entire time. Ray realised that must be what the system meant by Dark Elf Communication. Not just language. The way they moved through the forest made it feel like the forest was theirs and he was just trespassing.

  The dark elves were exactly as Ray had read about in past books. Slender builds, long pointed ears, cat-like eyes and dark toned purple skin. It was the little details that made them unsettling in person. The way their eyes tracked him without blinking. The way they shifted weight silently, like they could explode into motion whenever they wanted. They did not need to say much out loud either. Ray watched them and realised an entire conversation was happening without proper speech. One of them flicked two fingers near his chest, another tapped the side of their own neck, and the oldest looking one gave a slow ear twitch that somehow looked like a decision being made. It was like a set of signals they all understood and he did not.

  Of the five other elves, three were male and two were female. The male elves still looked extremely feminine. Aside from slightly more masculine features like a sharper nose and thicker forearms, Ray wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference quickly. If anything, that just made him feel more out of place. He was used to looking at people and reading them fast. Here he felt like the dumbest thing in the clearing.

  As the silence went on, Ray began to feel uneasy. The woman who had shot the arrow at him was beginning to frown deeply, and Ray had always hated awkward silences. He was the kind of person who filled them without thinking, joked his way out of tension, talked until the other person relaxed. Right now that part of him was useless. He could feel eyes on him, not just from the elves in front of him, but from the trees. He couldn’t prove it, but his instincts kept telling him they weren’t alone.

  After a few minutes, it was clear the conversation had broken down. The woman started making visible signs of frustration. She stamped her foot in exasperation and said, “Ugh. Why me? Why do I have to be the babysitter?”

  The oldest looking elf, possibly an elder, finally spoke out loud. “Well, you’re the one advocating for the human to live. You deal with it.”

  “Fine,” the elf said, clearly acting like a child being dumped with a chore they didn’t want to do. She turned back to Ray. “You human. On your feet.”

  For the time being, Ray complied. He was willing to bide his time and find a mechanism of escape if he needed it. He slowly stood and decided it was time to at least try and gather information.

  “Hi… my name’s Ray. Um, I’m not sure what to call you or your friends?”

  It happened so fast he barely processed it. Ray was knocked to the ground hard, the air punched out of him, and for a second his vision flashed white. His shoulder hit first, then his cheek, and it felt like he’d just been dropped onto concrete. He was definitely hurt from the fall, though he didn’t know how much. The woman knelt beside him with a panicked expression that looked real, not just annoyed.

  “Shh. Don’t speak,” she hissed. “It could cost you your life. You are a prisoner right now, human. While the elders decide, speaking is defiance. Defiance is permission.”

  Ray swallowed and forced his hands to stay visible. “Permission to what?”

  “Permission to kill you,” she said like she was explaining something obvious. Her voice dropped lower. “My name is Ilaria. You’ll get a chance to speak soon. We’re taking you back to our clan centre.”

  Ray started to gain a basic understanding of what was going on. Some of the elves clearly wanted him dead while others may be in his corner, or at least in the corner of not killing him immediately. He slowly stood up again and gave a stiff nod at Ilaria. As he finally came to his senses, he noticed the others had melted back into the trees. Not gone, just repositioned. That was worse. Ilaria prompted him to start walking, keeping close to the stream.

  As they walked, Ray couldn’t help but admire Ilaria’s physique. With sleek black hair, a nice body and only being slightly shorter than Ray himself, he immediately knew that elf or not, Ilaria was attractive. The fact she was armed, confident, and clearly in control of whether he lived or died only added to it in the most unfair way. He caught himself looking and didn’t even bother pretending he wasn’t. Ilaria noticed. Her eyes flicked toward him, then forward again, and she started swaying her hips just a little more. It felt deliberate. It felt like she was doing it to remind him she was in charge, and Ray hated how effective it was at distracting him from the fear sitting under his ribs.

  As Ray walked, he noticed a blinking icon again. This one looked like a plus symbol. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t risk saying “Character” out loud. He tried thinking it anyway, half expecting nothing to happen.

  A system message snapped into his mind like it owned the space.

  [Congratulations, you have taken a beating. Continue your masochistic ways to get stronger… Body +1]

  Ray smiled to himself. Knowing he could simply think about activating the screen meant he wouldn’t look like an absolute idiot by shouting commands out every time. He was also extremely happy levelling wasn’t the only way to gain stats. It looked like you could gain them through various normal means as well, even if “normal” now included getting slammed into the dirt by an irritated dark elf. He’d have to test it later properly, when he wasn’t one bad decision away from an arrow through the spine.

  While Ray was walking he decided to check his status screen since he wasn’t sure how much damage being thrown to the ground had done. He still hurt from it.

  Using his status screen, Ray could see his regeneration rate, along with the remaining cooldown on his debuff. About thirty minutes had passed since being revived. Since he couldn’t gauge time yet, this at least gave him a decent indicator, and it also confirmed something else. The system tracked everything. Even when he wasn’t trying to engage with it, it was sitting there in the background measuring him like a piece of data.

  They kept walking in silence for another hour. Ilaria stayed close enough that Ray couldn’t sprint without her catching him, and far enough that he couldn’t lunge for her dagger without getting his throat opened. Every so often Ray caught a glimpse of movement in the trees, then nothing. Shadows that were not shadows. The other elves were keeping pace, just not where he could see them properly. It was a quiet reminder that he was not being escorted as a guest. He was being transported.

  Eventually Ilaria showed the first sign of relaxing. It was subtle, but Ray noticed it. Her shoulders dropped slightly, and her eyes stopped scanning as hard. It felt like a decision had been made somewhere behind the scenes, probably by the elders he wasn’t allowed to look at. Within ten minutes of Ray noticing this, Ilaria began to speak again, like someone had finally given her permission.

  “You’re free to talk now. The elders have decided to question you for information before making any decisions,” she said.

  “So… I get to live? Will I be a prisoner, or a slave, or will I be allowed to go free?” Ray asked. He tried to keep his voice steady, but his throat was still raw from the stream and his body still felt wrong from the debuff.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what the elders are thinking,” Ilaria said. “They are confused by you. You are human, but you are not. You look like a baby to us. What adult human is only level two? Were you sheltered at birth?”

  Ray opened his mouth to answer, but Ilaria was clearly on a roll.

  “The only reason I didn’t kill you on the spot is because you drank the water and came back,” she continued, eyes narrowed. “Are you immortal?”

  “I’m not immortal, at least I don’t think I am. Honestly, I don’t even know what’s going on,” Ray replied, choosing his words carefully. “I’m only level two because until today I didn’t even know you could level up.”

  Ilaria stopped walking so abruptly Ray nearly bumped into her. Her expression changed instantly. It wasn’t curiosity anymore. It was alarm.

  “Wait,” she hissed. “Are you an off-worlder? Are you a system chosen?”

  Her hand went to her dagger, then the dagger was at Ray’s throat before he even saw it leave the sheath. The edge bit into his skin just enough that he felt the sting. The other elves appeared like ghosts, bows raised, swords out, half a circle closing around him from the trees.

  “Let’s just kill him!” one of the elves shouted.

  “Yeah, it’ll save us the hassle of elder interrogation,” another said, quieter, but not quiet enough.

  Ray lifted his hands slowly, palms open. “Wait. Just settle down,” he said fast, and tried to take a step back, but Ilaria followed him instantly, the dagger moving with him like it was attached. “I’m not a system chosen. Just check me. I don’t even know where I am.”

  Ilaria pressed the blade harder into his throat. He felt a warm line as blood started to bead. “You’re clearly an off-worlder,” she said, eyes hard. “It makes sense now. You must be a chosen.”

  She whirled around and pointed at the oldest elf. “Arj. Your Identify skill is the highest. Use it. I know it’s not polite to use it on other people but now isn’t the time for that. We could all be in danger.”

  Arj moved closer. His eyes drilled into Ray like he was looking through him rather than at him. Ray noticed a green light blooming around Arj’s pupils. It was subtle, but once he saw it he couldn’t unsee it. The skill activated, and Ray felt it.

  It wasn’t a physical hit. It was a crawling sensation behind the eyes, like cold fingers pressing into his skull. His stomach twisted and his thoughts flickered, and for a second he had the irrational urge to slam his head into a tree just to make it stop. He held still anyway, because if he flinched right now, Ilaria would probably open his throat.

  About ten seconds passed. Arj’s hands started shaking. Not from fear of Ray, but from what he was seeing. Arj slowly lowered his weapon, still staring.

  “Arj, what’s wrong?” Ilaria demanded. She had clearly never seen him react like this from a simple Identify.

  Arj didn’t even look at her, eyes still locked on Ray. “What the hell are you?”

  “Mate, the name’s Ray,” Ray said, voice tight, trying to keep it light because panic would get him killed. “I’m twenty eight years old, clearly a human and I’m from Sydney, Australia. Can you point me in the right direction to get home?”

  Arj laughed in response. It wasn’t friendly. It was disbelief. “You aren’t going anywhere until we sort out what you truly are. You’re clearly an off-worlder…” He cut himself off as the other elves hissed loudly, the sound sharp and warning. Arj turned his head slightly toward them, then looked back at Ray. “But he’s not a system chosen. In fact, by the looks of it, he’s the furthest he can be from that.”

  Ilaria blinked. “What do you mean? How can he be an off-worlder without being a chosen? That’s never happened before.”

  “My skills show he’s not a chosen,” Arj said slowly. “He’s an outcast.” The word came out like it tasted bad. Arj’s eyes narrowed. “Ray. Explain how this came to be. If you can’t, we kill you here and now. You are still an off-worlder.”

  Ray sighed. This was the part he hated. He needed them to believe him, but the truth sounded insane, and he didn’t have the energy to play games. He went over the events of the last few days. The job interview. The chaos outside. The sirens. The flash. The death. The void. The system demanding he accept. His refusal. The title. The stream. Dying again. Being dragged back. Being punished. He kept it as straight as he could, because the more dramatic he sounded, the less they’d trust him.

  After explaining, Ray ended it with the question that had been sitting in his head since the void. “What is an outcast anyway? Also, what’s the problem with being a system chosen?”

  Ilaria slowly removed the dagger from his neck, but her eyes never softened. “System chosen are a cancer,” she said flatly. “They are people who have become part of the System. They can still think for themselves, but they are driven by one goal: assimilate worlds into the System.”

  “Our race, along with others on our world, have been fighting against the System for the last one hundred and twenty-two years,” Arj added. “Unfortunately, we are slowly losing. Nearly forty percent of our world is now assimilated. Every time it happens, we evacuate the area. We lose land, we lose people, and the System grows stronger.”

  Ray frowned. “Wait, but aren’t you using the System and its skills?”

  “You noticed that huh,” Arj said. “For some reason, when the System decides to assimilate a world, all members of the world are provided access to a levelling scale. Skills. Growth. Power. It makes people desperate, greedy. It makes them useful. As the world gets stronger, so does the inherent energy of the world. It’s essentially a gamble by the System.”

  “So… if I understand,” Ray said, forcing himself to keep calm, “people get stronger by the defined rules of the System, so that it can get a tastier meal?”

  “Yes. And no,” Arj replied. “Our understanding is that if we manage to beat the System back, we get to keep our world without losing our abilities. We believe it’s some kind of trial. A trap disguised as a reward. Either way, with what you’ve provided, you’ll likely be allowed to go free after speaking directly to the full council, though you’ll definitely be interrogated first.”

  Ray exhaled slowly. Allowed to go free was not a promise, but it was better than an arrow. “Let’s get to it then I guess. I suppose I can ask questions on the way?”

  “Sure,” Arj said. “We are still around an hour’s walk away. Ilaria can answer any questions you may have.”