The room was bright when Melmarc opened his eyes again. Someone had left the curtains open so the light shined directly into his eyes. Wincing from the discomfort, he turned his head to the side.
His throat was dry, parched. If he was to liken the feeling to anything, he would liken it to a man who had been in the desert for far too long or someone new to hiking who’d found themselves on an eight-hour hike with no water in sight.
It was annoying.
When he tried to make a sound to test how bad it was, a groan escaped his lips, the sound bouncing around his throat like a dropped rock in a dry crevice before coming out.
As bad as it was, Melmarc tried not to dwell on it. There were more important things to do, one of which was getting away from the light.
Pushing himself up to a sitting position, he tossed his legs over the bed and rested his elbows on his laps. His head hung down, turned to the ground. It took Melmarc only a moment to realize that he was tired. Weary.
It wasn’t a physical thing. As parched as his throat felt, his body felt healthy, full of life. He could run a marathon and not get tired. The throat was merely an annoyance. So, no, his weariness was of the mind.
He was tired, mentally fatigued, as if he’d just dealt with five arguing Delanos with five opposing conspiracy theories.
Why? He asked himself with no memories of ever being tired.
With the question came the realization that he couldn’t recall when he’d even fallen asleep. Turning, he reached for the space beside his pillow, just on top of his black bed sheet and paused. A tired sigh left his lips as he ran his hand through his hair.
I don’t have a phone, he remembered.
Whenever he woke up from his sleep, his phone was always there, right next to his head. Checking the time was just a raised phone away.
That was another confusion. He’d lost that habit since ending up in the portal without a phone that told the correct time and coming back to a home without a phone at all. A frown creased his brow as he wondered where the instinct had returned from.
I need to get up.
He needed to check the time, and the room he and Ark shared had no clock. Why? Because it just had none. There was no reason for a clock in their room when there was one in the living room and they had their phones almost always in their faces.
The simple thought jogged a random memory. It was of a conversation with Ark that had led to him waking up to so much pain. A frown line creased Melmarc’s brow as he remembered his conversation with Uncle Dorthna.
He had been awake then. Melmarc also remembered the pain. Uncle Dorthna had said that pain came with any proper healing. It had also added stat points to his [Constitution] stat.
Melmarc found that he didn’t like pulling these memories as if he was reading from a book. Still, it was all he had to work with. They were his memories after all.
As he recalled, he remembered his uncle stepping out of the room, leaving him and Ark together. Ark had been sent to get him a new phone. Maybe that had been where his instinct to pick up his phone had returned from.
But I don’t have a phone.
Melmarc looked at the spot where his phone would’ve been if he’d had one and remembered why there was none. Because Ark didn’t buy the phone.
If he remembered correctly, Ark hadn’t bought the phone because he hadn’t been sure what phone Melmarc would’ve wanted. The plan was for the both of them to go out and buy the phone together.
Well, that’s annoying, Melmarc thought as he took in another deep breath and let it out very slowly.
Why was everything so annoying? Why was his mind so tired? When had he even fallen asleep?
The answer to his questions came as one. In its singularity, it brought pain.
Melmarc winced as he felt it. It was a sharp pain in his head as if someone had run him through with a twelve-inch needle. He groaned under the pain. His head fell lower and he held it up with a hand placed carefully against its side.
His eyes pressed shut as the pain grew and he shut his eyes tighter against it. Against his will, his mouth stretched open and a soundless groan slipped from it as he remembered why he’d gone back to sleep.
So much pain, he cried in his mind.
He had felt someone die. Then he had heard someone scream. He had also felt someone die as they gave birth to knew life. Someone had been shot in the back of the head yet had survived. Someone had been curb stomped.
Bile rose in his throat. Melmarc stopped it before he threw up, swallowing it back down.
There had been so much pain. It had been too much to handle. Then he had passed out right in front of a very worried Ark.
The moment he was done remembering, the pain left him and he sucked in a deep breath. Melmarc had no idea when he had stopped breathing. Now, however, he was panting.
“What the hell was that about?!” he hissed, suddenly very angry. “Who the hell—”
The rest of his words died in his head as he realized that there was nobody he could hold responsible.
Uncle Dorthna had said that he had awakened properties relating to pain. It was the reason he had suggested that the pain from being healed was good for him. Was this what he had meant by it? Was this what Melmarc was going to have to deal with?
I don’t want it.
The thought was strong in his mind, singular. It was unquestioned.
Calm down, he told himself, taking in another breath. You’re just cranky right now.
At least now he understood where his weariness was coming from. Knowing was always the first step to solving any problem. First, you found out what the problem was. Then you found the source of it.
Melmarc pushed himself up from the bed and got to his feet. His eyes narrowed in surprise as he realized that he felt sturdier, firmer somehow, as if no one could move him from wherever he chose to stand as long as he chose not to move.
At the same time, however, he felt lighter, like a feather. There was no sprint he could not win.
Cataloguing the feelings away as the feelings that they were, he moved to leave the room, stopping only when he’d gotten to Ark’s bed.
Clothes, he thought to himself, realizing that he was standing in only his briefs.
He moved to his wardrobe and opened it. It was casually demarcated into two main sections. One belonged to Ark while the other belonged to him. Although, every now and again he kept on finding Ark’s clothes in his section of the wardrobe. He never complained about it because it never bothered him.
Searching for what to wear was quick, and in a matter of moments he was wearing simple white shorts that settled just below his knees.
Uninterested in wearing a shirt, he turned and walked out of the room.
Bounding down the stairs taught him that he had a headache. It was a small thing, minute in its existence, but it was there, happy to have his attention each time his head bobbed. So he stopped bounding down the stairs as he liked to do and took gentle steps.
“You’re up,” a voice called out before Melmarc had even walked into the living room.
“I’m up,” Melmarc confirmed.
“And cranky, too, from the sound of your voice,” Ark added.
Sitting on the ground in the living room was Ark and Uncle Dorthna. They were playing card games. Judging by the frown on their uncle’s face, Ark was winning.
“I woke up with a headache,” Melmarc muttered as he walked up to them.
With his face still buried in his cards, Uncle Dorthna said, “Are you cheating, Ark?”
“Of course not,” Ark snorted.
Their uncle looked at him from over his cards. “Are you sure?”
“Very.” Ark looked down at his cards and smirked as he pulled one from among them. “Besides, you and I both know that you would know if I was.”
He played the card, and their uncle groaned when he looked at it. To the side, there was a deck of cards that he reached for, taking one from the top.
“Contrary to what you might think,” he said as he added the card to his stack, “I am not all knowing.”
“But you know all.” Ark took a moment before playing another card.
“I know a lot,” their uncle corrected. “A lot, being the key phrase in this sentence.”
Ark raised a brow at him. “A lot sounds like code for all.”
Their uncle groaned in exasperation. “Mel.”
“Yes, Uncle?”
“Please tell your coconut headed brother that I do not know all.”
“I’d be more than happy to,” Melmarc said with a shrug. “But you kinda know all.”
Uncle Dorthna threw his hands up in frustration. “I know a lot.”
“You always have the answers to our questions,” Ark pointed out.
“Even the answer to the questions we haven’t even thought of asking,” Melmarc added.
Uncle Dorthna pursed his lips in confusion and looked at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be the reasonable one?”
Melmarc shrugged. “I’m cranky right now.”
“Besides, he’s still being reasonable.” Ark gestured to the cards, urging their uncle to play.
“Don’t rush me,” Uncle Dorthna grumbled before pulling a card out of his stack and putting it down. “And Mel isn’t being reasonable. He’s being cranky.” He looked up at Melmarc. “Headache?”
Melmarc nodded. “A small but annoying one.”
Uncle Dorthna nodded but said nothing to add to that line of conversation. “How many cards do you have left, Ark?”
“Four.” Ark looked at their uncle’s hand. “I don’t think I need to ask how many you have, do I?”
As fun as watching his older brother mock their uncle was, Melmarc was more interested in why there was no furniture in the living room and the both of them didn’t seem bothered by it.
“Why are we playing cards?” he asked.
“Because there’s no television,” Uncle Dorthna answered.
“No chairs either,” Ark supported, gesturing around with one hand. “Obviously.”
Melmarc gave the two of them a flat look. “Why?”
“Because you and Uncle Dorthna thrashed the whole place during your fight.”
Melmarc opened his mouth but closed it back.
Oh.
He remembered that. Not the fight itself but being told about it. If he was not mistaken, Uncle Dorthna claimed to have beat him up not gotten in a fight with him.
“The television, too?” he asked.
Ark nodded simply and played another card.
“I want to quit,” their uncle grumbled.
“I get two hundred if you quit,” Ark said with a sinister chuckle.
Melmarc’s eyes grew wide in surprise. “I’m sorry, you guys put a wager on this?”
Ark’s sinister smile became a full blown laugh. “Oh, yes we did,” he answered happily. “Oh yes we did.”
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“But Uncle Dorthna doesn’t bet.”
“I do… sometimes,” Uncle Dorthna corrected. “I did this time.”
“Have you played cards before?”
Their uncle nodded even though he was still frowning.
“Have you played cards with Ark before?” Melmarc clarified.
“I played cards with you guys as kids.”
“Recently, Uncle D?”
Uncle Dorthna shook his head.
Walking over to Ark, Melmarc leaned over and looked at his cards. Ark shot him an annoyed look in response, hiding the contents of his cards. He was a little too slow because Melmarc had already seen them.
He moved over to his uncle’s side and looked at his uncle’s hand.
“What do you think?” his uncle asked, staring Ark down. Ark smiled back at their uncle’s death glare.
“Not a chance in two heavens,” Melmarc answered. “How much did you wager?”
“Lost fifty on the first match,” his uncle answered.
“Then he doubled down,” Ark laughed. “Then went the extra mile to add a clause. Whoever quits pays the other two hundred.”
Melmarc pressed his lips in a thin line. Why exactly had their uncle dug himself into a hole?
“Lose with dignity and don’t put money on any card game with Ark again,” he told his uncle. “He goes super intelligent when playing cards. Which is weird because card games are annoying.”
“You could’ve told me that months or years ago when you found out,” his uncle replied, playing the wrongest card he had to play by Melmarc’s standards.
The card was so wrong that Melmarc couldn’t stop himself from grimacing.
“You winced,” Uncle Dorthna accused, reaching out to snatch his card back very quickly.
“No way,” Ark laughed, snatching the card faster. “You don’t get to take back a card you’ve played. This ain’t the junior league. You’re at the big boys’ table.”
“We don’t have a table, Ark,” their uncle pointed out.
Ark placed their uncle’s card back. “It’s a metaphoric table, uncle.” Then he played his own card, accompanying it with a smile.
Dorthna saw the smile then the card. “The next training you have is going to involve me sparring with you.”
That sounded eerily like a threat, a grumbled one.
Ark was unfazed. “I’m seventeen, and beating up a minor is illegal in this country.”
“Who’s going to stop me?”
“Ninra?” Melmarc suggested in good banter.
Ark stiffened at the same time their uncle did. Melmarc always found their reaction to his sister’s authority to be interesting. They loved her and feared her wrath in equal parts.
But why was Ark worried by the mention of her name this time? It wasn’t as if she was going to…
A slow smile stretched Melmarc’s lips as he looked at his brother.
Ark saw the look and beat Melmarc to whatever he thought Melmarc was going to say.
“Don’t you dare.” It was supposed to be a warning, but it came out like a plea.
Their uncle jumped on the tone almost immediately.
“Please dare,” he said. “No idea what’s going on right now, but please dare.”
“You don’t even know what we’re talking about,” Ark accused.
“I don’t have to,” Uncle Dorthna returned. “I only have to know that it might save me from paying two hundred dollars.”
“You’ve got money. Two hundred dollars is nothing to you.”
Their uncle shook his head sagely. “It’s not about the money, young one. It is about the principle. An uncle should never lose to his nephew.”
Melmarc cocked an incredulous brow. “You lost the first round, though.”
“There were no witnesses, so it didn’t happen.”
“You just told me that it happened.”
Uncle Dorthna gave him the most deadpan look. “Was it documented?”
Ark was already laughing his lungs out.
“Really?” Melmarc asked their uncle. “Is that the card you’re playing?”
Uncle Dorthna must’ve heard the threat in his voice because his own tone changed very quickly. “No. Not at all. I would never do such a thing.”
Melmarc paused for a very brief moment. In the silence his brain took in the entire situation and a smile touched his lips gently. It stretched slowly until it began to feel embarrassing.
“Alright, Ark,” he said, turning to his brother with a fuzzy warmth brewing in his chest. “You got your fifty from the first round. Let Uncle D keep his money or I’m telling Nin.”
Nobody said anything for a moment. In the same moment, however, a slow, triumphant smile touched their uncle’s lips. Melmarc allowed himself to bask in it. In the simplicity of a family simply having fun.
Their uncle being jovial with them. Everyone forgetful of the entire hassle they’d been going through. For a moment he’d even forgotten his headache and the fact that he was supposed to be cranky.
It was the beauty in the simple things.
But the beauty in the simple things could not be allowed to overthrow the necessary things.
“How long was I out?” Melmarc asked nobody in particular, taking the ease out of the room as they focused on the question.
Ark was the one to answer with a question of his own. “From the first time you passed out or the second time?”
There was a touch of guilt in his voice.
No, pain.
Melmarc sensed it easily. It was guilt but it was also pain.
The pain of guilt?
Melmarc didn’t know that there was pain in guilt. There was guilt, but…
This was new.
Why would he even be feeling guilty about what happened?
“The second time,” Melmarc answered.
“Three days,” Ark said. “Three long days.”
For Melmarc, those three days had been very short, so short that it had taken him a moment to remember that he had even been gone. For him, it had felt like falling asleep without knowing.
Moving on to the next important thing, he asked, “What about mom and dad? When are they coming back?”
“Your mom and dad are actually in their room,” Uncle Dorthna said. “Your dad’s asleep, though.”
“They’re back?” Melmarc asked, surprised. “When did they get back?”
“Three days ago.” Uncle Dorthna gave him a pointed look.
It was within the same time he had gone unconscious again. His uncle was probably letting him know that they were related.
Melmarc nodded, then pointed up. “In their room?”
Ark nodded. “Hurry up, though. Remember how I didn’t get you your new phone?”
“I remember.”
“That’s because you and I are supposed to get it once you’re up, and you’re up.” Ark stacked the cards in his hands and combined them with the rest. He held his free hand out to their uncle. “Once we’re done with that, you, mom and dad are supposed to go to Brooklyn.”
Melmarc paused as Uncle Dorthna handed his cards over to Ark enthusiastically.
“We’ll do the phone thing tomorrow, Ark. I just can’t muster the strength for it today.” Melmarc said, then paused. “Wait, did they say why we’re going to Brooklyn?”
Ark shook his head. “No idea. I’m assuming it’s to go pick up your stuff. Your clothes and all that.”
Nodding, Melmarc left his uncle and brother and headed for the kitchen. He needed a cup of water first.
Nothing had changed about the kitchen, not that he had expected to notice anything. The kitchen smelled like fried egg sauce. The culprit wasn’t hard to notice. Opening a pot—not a pan—Melmarc found enough egg sauce to feed three people—three large people.
He closed it, took a cup and headed for the tap. It had been so long since water had tasted as good as it did as it went down his throat. Something caught his attention as he drank. It stood out so blatantly that he couldn’t help but pause his drinking to look at it.
Among the knives hanging from the wall, one stood out in sharp contrast. It had a very clear indentation of four fingers. Finishing his cup of water, he took the knife and met Ark and Uncle Dorthna.
Holding it up for them to see, he asked, “Do I want to know?”
“You threw it at Uncle Dorthna’s eye, and he caught it with a little too much force,” Ark answered easily.
There was that touch of guilt again. That sense of pain. Melmarc would have to talk to his brother about that, but not now.
He turned back to the kitchen and returned the knife.
Right now, he had to see his parents.
As he went upstairs, Uncle Dorthna called after him.
“Every Gifted should learn the habit of always checking their interface, especially after going unconscious,” he said. “It keeps you updated.”
Melmarc wanted to shout back that he knew. But he couldn’t. For all his life long dreams of being a Gifted and learning the things he was supposed to know, he hadn’t checked his interface after waking up.
So, as he approached his parents’ room, he pulled up his interface, not to his personal details but to the notifications he had missed.
[New feat detected!]
[Dear August Intruder, you have drawn from the core of your very existence and taken upon yourself a level of mana in its purest form greater than your very capacity. You have been thrown into a state of madness and lived to tell the tale. In your terror, you have come to understand that when all hope is lost, madness reigns.]
[You have gained the title Mad God]
[Effect: +5 Endurance stat points.]
[Effect: +80% increase in Endurance when title is in effect.]
[Effect: +80% of pain received is ignored when title is in effect.]
[Effect: +60% increase in mana stat when title is in effect.]
…
[New feat detected!]
[Dear August Intruder, you have drowned in the depths of mana in its purest form and come out with your mind and body intact where most are washed away, scrubbed clean of their very existence. In your existence, you have earned the respect of Existence.]
[You have gained the title Mana Blessed]
[Effect: +8 increase in mana stats.]
[Effect: All mana-based damage received is reduced by 30%.]
[Effect: All mana-based damage dealt is increased by 40%.]
…
[New feat detected!]
[Dear August Intruder, you have drowned in the depths of mana in its purest form and come out with your mind and body intact where most are washed away, scrubbed clean of their very existence. You have gifted a part of yourself to mana in its purest form. Mana does not simply exist within you; it flows in your veins.]
[You have gained trait Pure Blooded]
[Effect: High resistance to natural mana poisoning.]
[Effect: High resistance to mana poisoning from Sentient beings]
[Effect: Medium resistance to mana poisoning from Sapient beings]
[Effect: +30% increase to mana regeneration speed]
…
[New feat detected!]
[Dear August Intruder, you have done the impossible. You have given hope to the hopeless. You have shown ???? the meaning of hope. When all hope is lost, may you shine the brightest.]
[You have gained the title Hope of ????]
[Effect: +40% increase in all stats to all allies nearby when all hope is lost.]
[Effect: Dispel all status debuffs placed on allies nearby by opponents up to two ranks higher when all hope is lost]
Melmarc stood in front of the door to his parents’ room now, mouth open in confusion and surprise. His interface was showing him a lot of titles, all of them gained from a single fight against his uncle. He was sure that there were other factors involved besides just being beaten up by his uncle but…
What the hell?
And it wasn’t done.
[Congratulations! August Intruder, due to a sudden bout of growth in your Pain concept, you have gained your first August Intruder skill.]
…
[You have gained August Intruder skill My Gift to You]
Pain should be shared. The August Intruder stores up pain inflicted upon them and releases it in a blast around them.
My Gift to You (Mastery 00.00%)
Upon release of blast you are slowed by -2 stats for 0.03 seconds.
Blast deals stun effect on affected enemies.
Blast deals stun damage dependent on the amount of pain received.
Skill possesses 00:02:00 cooldown.
Skill perks:
Mental +3 Balance +1 Endurance +3
Melmarc’s hand knocked absently on his parents’ door. A single thought was all that was on his mind as he pulled up his personal information and knocked again.
[Name: Melmarc Jay Lockwood]
[Class: Faker – Call of The Wild (Mastery -48.19%)]
[Rank: B]
[Growth Potential: Unranked]
[Existential Designation: August Intruder +3% mastery to all skills]
Titles
[Slayer], [Mad God], [Mana Blessed], [Hope of ????]
August Intruder Skills
[My Gift to You (Mastery 0.00%)]
Skills
[Knowledge is Power (Mastery 22.00%)], [Bless Your Kindness (Mastery 20.84%)], [Rings of Saturn (Mastery 22.00%)], [Secrecy (Mastery 15.61%)], [Mana Dilation (Mastery 3.00%)], [Not So Fast (Mastery 3.30%)], [Weight of Jupiter (Mastery 5.00%)]
Perks
[Optimum Existence (17.02%)]
The August Intruder draws on all necessary traits to achieve a perfect form.
Stats
[Agility 8, Balance 12 -- > 13, Mental 16 -- > 19, Mana 42-- > 50, Strength 14, Dexterity 7, Accuracy 6, Speed 5, Constitution 10, Endurance 0 -- > 8]
Traits
[Purified], [Pure Blooded]
[Calculating…]
…
[Total EP 103]
Looking at his personal information told Melmarc a few things. The first was that his details were growing in number. The second was that he still had no idea what calculating was. [Optimum Existence] had grown in percentage, but with the pain thing going on, he couldn't say he was surprised.
The final thing he noted was that he did not have the stats of a [Faker] anymore. In fact, the only thing he had in common with his own class was his high levels of mana. And even those mana levels belonged to someone with a mana-based class in the…
He wanted to say S-ranks, but he couldn’t be sure.
Looking at the [Purified] trait, he focused on it.
Trait
[Purified]
You are a repository of pure mana. All skills cast are cast using pure mana. All mana poisoning effects are reduced by 50%.
Oh.
With [Purified] and [Pure Blooded], he was practically immune to mana poisoning. That wasn’t just a good thing, it was a great thing. Delvers often returned from toxic portals, bedridden from mana poisoning. At least now he would not have to worry about that.
Now that he had seen his personal information, Melmarc could confidently confirm one simple truth.
He smiled widely. I’m a fucking Tank.
“Come in, dear.”
His mother’s voice from beyond the door pulled him to the present, but not away from his ecstasy. Despite ending up with the [Faker] class, his dreams of being a daunting, physical presence were very well within reach.
His parents’ door was not locked so Melmarc opened it and stepped inside. Closing the door behind him, he turned to face his mother.
His parents’ room was large. On one side of the room was a window currently covered in curtains that gave the room a calm ambience. Light streamed in through the curtains, but it was muted. A large bed fit for three people his father’s size settled at the center of the room, pressed against the wall opposite the door. There was a large, black shelf that spanned from the ground to the roof. Books in countless numbers filled it. As a child, Melmarc had often borrowed books from that specific shelf to read until he was old enough to buy his own books. When he was old enough to buy his own books, he did not. E-books had gained popularity, after all.
As for the color of the walls, it was a simple light brown, like the pages of old books.
Melmarc stared at his parents on their bed. His father was a calm presence, lying motionless on his bed. He lay on his back so that he faced the ceiling above. His mother, however, sat at the edge of the bed, just beside his father. She was looking at him now, when he was sure that her entire attention had been on his father before his appearance.
The sight of her sufficed to wipe the ecstasy of knowing that his dream was coming true from Melmarc’s mind.
With her bloodshot eyes, dull skin, unkempt hair, and current choice of clothing being a shirt so oversized that it had to be his father’s worn over a very baggy pair of pants, his mother was slouched very terribly even in her seated position. Her shoulders drooped, and her eyes lacked the light of life that he knew his mother for.
Melmarc had a lot of words he could use to describe his mother. But he doubted any long lines of sentences would do any justice. So, as he had once read in a book a long time ago, simplicity was always the most suitable answer in complex times.
Therefore, he only had one word to describe his mother in this moment. It saddened him to know that it was a word he had never associated with her.
His mother looked weak.
But even in her weakness, she remained motherly. Her eyes settled on him and they saddened a little more.
“Oh, Mel,” she cooed in sad worry, “it’s cold.” She pushed herself up from the bed and headed into the room’s walking closet. “Let me get you a shirt. You shouldn’t be walking around without one in this weather.”
