The Bad Offspring

Another: "Hi" appeared as the young man carefully watched the structure of what he had in front of him; there was a kind of reduced window that could be moved into which text was written, a kind of dialog box and three tabs were at the top of the rectangle: overview, statistics, capacity.

"My gift… huh…" he thought aloud, as a response was being written in the dialog box.

[I"m talking to you, you moron. At least say: h.e.l.lo.] sent the ent.i.ty with an unusually loud notification noise that only Algos could hear.

"f.u.c.k!" the young man jumped out and stopped talking before he calmed down. "It"s… you who do this...?"

[Hi.]

"...h.e.l.lo, is that okay now?"

[Incredible. Amazing. Unbelievable. You answered me like a civilized human being.]

"Well... f.u.c.k you?"

[D:]

Algos looks at the smiley he had in front of him, he reminded him of the little drawings he made on his notebooks when he was a child. In any case, the reaction of the thing in front of him made the young man smile and he briefly apologized for his harshness before resuming a real discussion.

"So, you"re… my gift, I guess."

[Yes. As you may have understood, I am unique… more unique than the gifts given to other men.]

"Yes… I could see it, is there a reason for that, or...?" Algos asked as he walked towards a small room that served as a bathroom to avoid waking Elizabeth.

[Yeah, there"s a reason. It could be due to the way you were born, Bahala had a lot of pity for humanity and even more for those who will not be born equal to others.]

"What does that mean?" he asked again with a slight tone of anger.

[It means you"re NEGATIVELY different from the others and I think you"ve understood that for a long time. The way you were born, how your mother treated you when you were very young, the discrimination that you"ve been through, the death of your grandfather, the loneliness, the destruction of your childhood home, the pain of the curse, the distress, the anger. All these things you have experienced and felt had opened a huge gap in you in which Bahala"s willingness found a place to be. A gap that her will has sealed.]

"I see… so my pain was finally a positive thing?" asked the young man with a tense voice as he wet his hair to try to style it a little.

[Yes, like it or not, yesterday"s pain is today"s fuel. And the fact that I am either an ent.i.ty isn"t insignificant either. I lived with you everything you lived, I don"t know if you remember, but when you were little and alone, you made an imaginary friend, I am its materialization, thanks to you and your drawings I have a reaction bank such as: D: or, :) or, è_é or, (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻, and many others.]

"What the… So you are… Tom…" he began, hiding his face behind his hands. "I created an ent.i.ty by my solitude, I don"t know if I should be happy about this or sad. No, it"s just f.u.c.king sad. Definitely."

[Be happy :) Otherwise, I"ll answer any questions you may have. I am now a system that will help you progress in this world as a man and not as a p.u.s.s.y f.u.c.ker, don"t forget this. You can see me as an ent.i.ty, a friend, but I remain a gift of Bahala. We are both descendants of Bahala"s will, our duty is to grant her wish, that is to say, to lift this curse even if it means that the old a.s.sholes of the Clouds will go berserk once again. In other words, our common goal is to allow humanity to prosper again.]

Algos didn"t need to question the words of his gift, Tom, he could feel that feeling that only the descendants of the people of Bahala felt when they were close to each other. He wasn"t lying. The young man scratched his arm before leaving the bathroom, after a short thought, he looked up at the blue rectangle that followed him.

""Our common goal"… what is your personal goal?"

[Experiencing life. And you?]

"Me?" asked Algos rhetorically, looking down. "As a child, I dreamed a lot, but with time, the curse has ripped out my childish thoughts."

[Do you have nothing to hold on to keep moving forward?]

"Find my father... for sure... and maybe try to destroy this curse that made so many people suffer… but that not realistic, huh. Maybe with a gift, I can afford to dream again..."

[Understood. Information a.s.similated.]

Algos folded Elizabeth"s sophisticated clothes, which had been thrown to the ground during the night and then placed them on the s.p.a.ce of the bed he had left.

It was certainly still early, but Al was almost certain that the religious who lived there were already awake. He took advantage of the benefits of tradition to politely ask for breakfast and went back up with it after a short discussion with one of the Cardinals about the fact that he had to follow the Lumio into the Salvatrix room. In other words, the room in which the various Salvatrix could sometimes sleep, this made Algos uncomfortable, but who decided not to tell Elizabeth. In any case, she would end up knowing it — by her mother, — so he just preferred to take breakfast back to the young woman, not to mention what he had seen and learned during that early morning.

She was awake and sat against the bed base, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in the air leaving just a few strands of silver hair to cover them, her eyes loosely staring at the horizon that the Sun was beginning to illuminate with its soft white light. She yawned before turning to the one who took her virginity and greeted him with a wave.

"Thanks for the breakfast… but you know, I could have gone to get it myself." she said in an urgent tone.

"I went to get mine, so I took yours at the same time." he replied, trying to ignore her naked body. "You"re not a morning girl, huh."

"No, not really…" she admitted before she started eating. "Thank you for yesterday, Mother had always told me that it was harder and painful for women, even harder for the one from the last decan, but it was a thousand times better than I was thinking."

"Oh yes… thank I suppose... we were indeed all part of the third decan, I learned that in a book, but generally men don"t know this fact… women"s periods are a little taboo, after all."

"Yes… For the skylight to react, the young woman must be "pure", she must not have her period and after that, there are usually not enough men even with other races for all women to find men with whom to spend the night… and they…"

"They become outcasts, I know." Algos continued as he had just finished drinking a gla.s.s of water. "I guess... seeing the time that went by without being called, you must have worried about not being with a man." Elizabeth nodded simply by moving her head. "You"re the Salvatrix"s daughter, it"s normal that you stress about this kind of thing. No need to feel guilty, it was you or one of them."

She nodded again, her lips pinched and her eyebrows frowned. There wasn"t much Al could do except try to make her forget her concerns. It was a little later, after waking up completely, that Algos was able to recognize the young woman he had met yesterday; the morning seemed to have a very bad effect on her, he would have to remember it. After a short half-hour discussing the day ahead, Elizabeth ended up dressing quickly, taking care to put her belt back on, if it ever came off, it could be problematic; Algos helped her to redo her bun, he knew how to do it thanks to his cousin, but the young woman"s haircut wasn"t as sophisticated as yesterday, but well, he wasn"t a hairdresser.

They ended up going down all the floors of the cathedral after having tidied everything up in the room. The fresh morning wind was still here; in the large square, the market was beginning to take place, different traders placed their equipment and greeted the couple with their particular accents. Dinois came to life shortly after the sunrise until sunset. The traders were doing their work leaving to exhaust themselves, Algos didn"t know if he should admire them or have pity, but one thing was certain, they were very resistant which was certainly because they were for the most part Elves or Half-elves.

Algos and Elizabeth had to head towards the city"s large mansion, it was mainly used to celebrate royal birthdays and other small events of daily life for the richest, but at the end of the years, the place was used to welcome the couples of the ceremony who lived in the city. If, for example, the couple didn"t like each other, well, after having s.e.x, if they didn"t want to sleep together, they could come to this place for the night until the next morning. Thinking about this, Algos immediately thought of his cousin, he knew her tastes, and a Poisonous was very far from what she liked, so if in addition to being a Poisonous, he had a poisonous behavior and character, then they must not have stayed together very long. Moreover, it wasn"t a girl who gives up under pressure, so even threatening her wouldn"t have let her do it, it was her mother"s influence and it was probably for the best.

On the way, they decided to take a break and go for a walk near the banks of the river that crossed the city, they were still early, so they might as well take advantage of the little influence to in the street to chat together with the sound of the water.

"So, your gift?" Elizabeth asked, taking a pebble. "Did you get it?"

"Ah… yes, I received it, it"s quite… special." Algos declared as the dialog box appeared: [I"m not special, I"m awesome.] "Let"s just say it"s not what I expected."

"I see, I guess it has something to do with you talking to yourself this morning like a senile old man." Elizabeth replied with a sly smile as she tossed the pebble over the water to make it do ricochets. "Do you want to try?"

"Uh? No, I"m bad at this… and, it"s not good to spy on people, you know…" she looked at him a long time before he admitted defeat. "Yes, yes, it has to do with my gift. It"s a kind of weird ent.i.ty, it floats in the air, it"s blue and transparent, it follows me, in short, it"s weird." he paused and fixed Elizabeth in the eyes. "Without the ceremony, my gift would have been much less powerful, and honesty, I don"t know what it would have been like if I had chosen not to do this ceremony, for others, their gifts are simply less powerful, but mine probably wouldn"t have existed... so..."

"Well, there you go, you see, you can talk about personal things when you want." she replied, throwing a pebble again. "I guess that"s a part of your charm, "sir" wants to be mysterious."

Algos didn"t prefer to answer and changed the subject, talking about the clergy"s plans was probably better for him and allowed him to escape an argumentative battle that he seemed to lose. According to Elizabeth"s mother, the west part of the outer city had finally been completely purified after 12 years, but they were waiting for the approval of several expert building companies before rebuilding; the floors would have been weakened by the Corruption, but luckily the walls managed to save the inner part of Dinois, otherwise, the entire city would have had to be demolished, but the wall would have to be rebuilt within the decade. At least that"s what they say.

After this discussion, the couple finally decided to leave for the mansion, the sun had risen well in the sky and was starting to heat the paving stones that reflected the heat in the opposite direction. A drop of sweat was running down Algos"s forehead as they finally arrived in front of the building that was the Boreal mansion.

Without wasting time, they get into a shelter, escaping from the heat; the interior of the place was, as expected, luxurious. Marble on the floor and wall, gilding, fresco on the ceiling and, of course, red carpets, because nothing is ever enough when you have a lot of money. Some furniture with inlaid pearls here and there adorned the huge hall of the manor. Already many couples were there, that was usually what happened, people made love without loving each other, so that"s where it led to losing their virginity with people who weren"t to our liking.

For Algos, this had a name: ideological and religious slavery. Putting pressure on young people to force them to accept traditions more easily, because that is precisely what allows the Ancient G.o.ds to continue to live: prayers, tradition under their yoke and fear. That is why, sometimes, it was better to become slaves for women, some rich people allowed themselves to do this when the rich man loved a woman, he made her enslaved so that this woman couldn"t lose her virginity with someone other than her master without his consent. That said, it"s a double-edged sword, whether it"s for s.e.x, true love, or manipulation and therefore for the selfishness of the n.o.bleman or any other person holding the right to enslave people, such as the Salvatrix, for example.

Algos preferred to stop thinking about that and walked on the carpet, it was the first time he had set foot in a place like this, the size of the hall made him sneer.

His gaze was captured by something else, at the back of the room, at the top of the marble staircase, the young n.o.bleman who had spat at him, seemed to wait for something, he also stared at Algos with a thoughtful look while biting his nails, while a few meters away was Felicia, her back resting against a wall. His cousin didn"t see him. It was better this way for now.

Al warned Elizabeth that he was going to the toilet before leaving for a dark corridor quite far from the stairs. Even the toilets were oversized, the room was the size of his room; the young man sighed when he saw this and cracked his neck before wetting his face with water.

"Tom… the things we talked about earlier, could explain that to me now please." he said as he wiped his face.

[If you want to talk to me, no need to open your mouth, just think. But think harder than normal.] write his system in the dialog box.

[I know how to do that, it"s not a problem, but you could have told this me before.] replied the young man with a grumpy tone. [Elizabeth heard me this morning.]

[What a pity ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Anyway. You wanted to talk about something, go ahead.]

[I can see the "statistic" of other people, huh ?]

[Yeah.]

[Well, this n.o.bleman definitely has a grudge against me… I don"t know why, tho, but I prefer to be careful. If I can see his statistic maybe that can help me to know how he gonna react, etc.] he says by pressing the tabs: statistics.

[All right. I won"t have time to explain everything then. The statistics are simple, but the only way you can make them evolve is by training. Otherwise, it just allows you to see what level you could be concerning others. And for the mental stats, they can change with time depending on what happens in a person"s life, the best thing is obviously to achieve a perfect balance.

[OK, thank.] begun Algos while getting ready to come out of the bathroom. [You can access people"s statistics easily?]

[Unfortunately, I can"t open people"s statistics as much as you want, it"s draining your energy, so you"d end up collapsing to exhaustion on the floor like a ragdoll. In other words, you have to train that too.]

[Uuuh... OK.] sighed Algos. [Do you have any other particular power?]

[I don"t know. I think I can like you, use magic and it seems to me that I"m acting as a kind of second energy reserve for you.] explained Tom.

[Thank... I need to think of that...] replied Algos looking at his current statistics.

╔════════════════════╗

╠► Physical:

╠═► Attack: [29 — 999]

╠═► Defense: [17 — 999]

╠═► Speed : [8 — 999]

╠═► Stamina : [35 — 999]

╠═► Magic : [0 — ∞]

╠═► Charisma : [28 — 999]

╠═► Charm : [36 — 999]

╠► Mental:

╠═► Covetousness : 1 [••••••••] 10

╠═► Pride : 1 [•••••••••] 10

╠═► Anger : 1 [•••••••••] 10

╠═► l.u.s.t : 1 [•••••••••] 10

╠═► Gluttony : 1 [•••••••••] 10

╠═► Despair : 1 [••••••••] 10

╠═► Acidia : 1 [•••••••••] 10

╚════════════════════╝