"First of all, as you had probably guessed, the world is going through an apocalyptic phase, and this is not just happening here, this mess is occurring all over the world, and it's just a matter of time before it gets worse"

The girl nodded her head, she had already guessed this much

"You had probably gotten a sort of notification a few minutes after hell let loose right? So I assume you already know that you can view a status screen like that of a game where levels and classes give you stats and skills, there seem to be more to the system than just this but let's settle with what we know for now"

The girl didn't seem satisfying feeling he had more to say about the situation but his next words piqued her interest more so she calmly waited

"Now what you want to know is what I did back there right?"

He let her anticipation rise for a bit before revealing his actions

"I used one of my skills, Contract-Slave, to make you my soul slave"

"Nonsense!"

She rose in defiance to his outrageous words, she wanted to tell him to stop messing around and tell her what he really did to her, she even wanted to threaten him to tell her the truth

A feeling of repulse toward her own thoughts though made her feel suffocated to the point she had to sit back down, she heavily resisted the feeling but the more she did the harder it was to breathe, only when she forced herself to calm down and let go of her aggressive thoughts was she finely able to get a breather

"Don't get yourself worked up, check your status and you will understand"

She looked into YuJu's eyes and didn't feel any falsehood, though she wished she did and he was lying

Taking a deep breath she called out for her status to appear

_________________________________

Name: Ellis Jasper

Race: Human

Gender: Female

Level: 2

Class:None

STR: 0.9

AG:1.1

VIT:0.8

INT:1.1

INS: 0.5

AP Available: 3

Special Status: Contracted Master: Yuju

_________________________________

Seein the new addition at the bottom Elli's face paled as she realized that all YuJu said was true, her chest rose up and down as she tried to take hold of her emotions, she could tell now that the feeling she got every time she was about to lash out was because of this contract thing

"Now that you know what happened already let me explain what we will be doing, first we must travel two days straight toward-"

"I'm not joining you! It doesn't matter what your skill did to me I will not be your slave just because my status said so, I will take these children and bring them to safety, don't try to follow me"

She got up with a huff, she still felt small suffocation with her words but it seemed bearable so she turned around and started to walk toward the door

Seeing this YuJu merely smiled

"And how are you going to protect them may I ask?"

"With this new system of course! How else, I don't need your help to use it"

"Quite the contrary"

He rose as he said this and walked toward her

"How about you try to apply your stats?"

"What"

She looked at him vigilantly as he approached but couldn't muster the will to take hold of her weapon

Stopping in front of her he smiled harmlessly

"Just try it, you will understand what I mean"

She looked at his eyes and again didn't see any falsehood, this made her very nervous, things were already bad as they are what if she couldn't....

"Status!"

She called hastily for it, then tapped the button next to agility issuing a pop-up screen in her status

{You have been denied access to you Status}

She froze on the spot

"What?... But now, it's my Status!"

"And I am your Master, your very being belongs to I, much less your status don't you think?"

She looked dazedly at him, loss and confusion filled her as she wondered what she did to get such a treatment, right after an apocalypse nonetheless

"don't look so worried, I will not harm you, on the contrary, I will help you achieve things you couldn't have done on your own, you just have to follow me"

She clenched her fists and grit her teeth

"I can deal with those things even without any stats!"

"Listen to me!"

He gripped her shoulders suddenly, shocking her out of her stubborn burst

"You think those weaklings were real beasts? You were just fighting squirrels and rats compared to what's out there"

He used one hand to point at Anput on the side

"You think you can beat her? She had just been summoned like the rest of them, not one too, beasts like her come in packs"

Ellis gazed at Anput recalling the way she fought back there, she felt like she wouldn't be a match for this strange dog, maybe she would tie with her, or whittle her down eventually, but a pack of them? There was no way she can win, not without stats at least

"And you think that the beasts will behave the same in a few days too? Right now there is ample food everywhere for them but once the population thins out they will start hunting in earnest, then we would be put at danger, forget levelling it would be hard to survive"

Clearly, his words struck true, he had thought this through much further than she did, all she thought about was getting these girls out of harms way right now

She looked down in thought, she didn't know what to do, she had to follow him that's for sure if she wanted to live, but then what would happen to the girls? Thinking of them her gaze moved to the back to see them huddling together seemingly scared by YuJu's words, whom she turned toward yet again

"Can we take the girls with us at least?"

YuJu shook his head

"We must leave here fast and hunt on the way as well, the levels exist for a reason, these beasts cant be all there is to it, we must get strong to face what the world will throw at us, taking a heavy burden like children with us will make our journey very arduous, plus they would be in much bigger danger travelling with us than staying with someone else"

She looked down again after his words clearly torn for choice

"Look, if it gives you any relief we can drop the girls at a rather safe area, there they would have a moderate chance at survival"

He comforted giving her shoulder a light squeeze

She looked into his eyes for quite some time, pondering her choices, finally, she nodded her head, what choice did she have anyway?

"Good, then let's get going, we have a long journey ahead of us"

He started rummaging through the fridge and threw her som fruits, telling her to eat and feed the children as well

Ten minutes later the group was rested and full, with that YuJu decided to head out

"Ellis you take the front, Anput will cover the rear, I will take care of the girl's safety"

She nodded and the group started to run through the alleys, their speed not so fast because of the girls whom they couldn't carry since not only would it tire them out, but also prevent them from reacting swiftly to sudden battles

"Watch out for the left!"

YuJu warned but Ellis was slow on the response, by the time she finely turned left a cat-sized rat was already upon her while another two had jumped down on Anput

Ellis barely crashed her large knife with the claws of the rat but when it tried to bite at her neck she had to move her weapon up letting it trace bloody scratched on her neck before being pushed away

The rat landed on the ground, squeaked and then ran toward Ellis yet again

Click! Click!

Rather than clanks, only small clicks could be heard when the two collided back and forth, on the side YuJu had a ridiculous look on his face, even Anput who was already finished with the two rats long ago shook her head seeing this "Battle"

"Hey, hey what are you doing?"

He yelled at Ellis who now looked to the side seeing him and Anput watching her

"You're already finished? Come help me then!"

"Help you?! Its a rat for god's sake! How hard can it be?"

"It's a Beast! Urgh"

She received another scratch as YuJu watched this silly seen of a girl swinging a knife to fight a rat like it was a life and death battle

Finely seeing that both Ellis and the rat were both filled with wounds he couldn't take it any more and walked toward the rat

Seeing an unarmed lanky creature heading toward it the rat hurried toward it to attack, jumping with a squeak

"Squeee! Sque?"

He just stepped to the side then grabbed the rats tail, swinging it around with his wrist before throwing it into Anput's maw, who mauled it with a crunch before spitting it out

Then he looked at the dumfounded Ellis

"This is supposed to be the Sword of Justice? Sigh"

He muttered under his breath before gathering his composure

"What were you doing just now?"

"Huh? Oh, I was fighting obviously?"

"You call that a fight?? Real fights end in seconds like what I did just now, what you were doing was sparring with the rat"

"Not everyone is as good as you in fighting, you seem to be experienced"

He shook his head seeing her shift the blame

"Look, only when two parties are in equal power, don't want to expose their trump cards or are afraid of a third party interfering would they fight prolonged battles, rarely would battles last longer than seconds when one opponent has a big advantage, hell these battles could last milliseconds even if we get superhuman speed when we up our stats"

Ellis wanted to object but seeing the two other dead bodies lying by Anput she could only swallow her words

"Next time when you fight you should use your full power from the get-go, you don't need to gauge your opponents through many clashes, just now you should have used your legs to kick it up when it jumped in a low manner, most creatures are easy to kill when they are mid-air"

The group started running again while YuJu gave some advice on the do's and don'ts when fighting certain creatures to Ellis, but he didn't point out her flaws using her weapon as he wasn't well versed in the sword as even though he was much better than she was now he knew a true swordsman is one who shapes his own style

With that the group started weaving a bloody path between the buildings, killing any who dared block their path and avoiding groups of opponents YuJu felt weren't suited for his two slaves yet