Chapter 15-The Church

Eric is so shocked that he misses Anna’s response.

“Eric, what is happening? Are you looking at a screen?”

Hearing this Eric shakes himself out of his thoughts and says, “Sorry, I didn’t hear your response. I just received a screen telling me that my base charisma has increased by one, and I don’t know how that could have happened.”

This makes everyone look at Eric.

“Interesting. This does prove that stats can increase without leveling up, maybe through training some stats can increase. Such as weightlifting will eventually lead to an increase in strength.” Alastor says and presents a very plausible theory.

“But why did my charisma increase while having a conversation?”

“Hmmm. The tutorial said charisma reflects your appearance and how likable you are initially. I have no idea how that could be. A conversation doesn’t improve appearance, nor can it improve initial encounters,” Alastor wondered.

After everyone thought about it for a few moments Anna comes up with a possible answer.

“Isn’t it obvious? Eric, sorry if you are uncomfortable with my next question but to confirm my suspicion I need the answer. How much interaction do you normally have with girls?”

“Not much. I usually spent my time either studying or playing video games.”

“Then maybe through this conversation you gained a new experience, talking with a pretty girl, namely me, without any problems, this could improve your confidence towards girls in general. Confidence is attractive.”

With that Eric becomes very embarrassed at how his confidence towards women is being discussed so plainly. Luckily Anna decides to grant Eric some mercy.

“To repeat what I said while you were distracted with becoming more handsome,” She accentuates that with a wink in his direction, “I am a duelist, my class is good in one on one situations.”

‘Not a swashbuckler but a duelist.’

“I am a warlock. I don’t know what I am good at except that I have darker spells.”

At the word warlock, Claire visibly tenses up and as soon as Eric finishes speaking Claire must ask.

“In video games, wouldn’t a warlock consort with demons and be evil?”

“In some games, a warlock class or something similar would use darker powers including demon summoning and such, but this isn’t a video game, this is real life, who knows how my powers develop.”

Eric was not an idiot and didn’t mention that his class has some connection to the abyss, whatever that place is. Claire might connect the abyss with hell or something.

“I am a spatial mage, I manipulate space around me in combat.”

“I am a monk, from what I can tell I use a lot of martial arts and get bonuses for using blunt weapons such as my staff.”

“And if you must know I am a paladin, I serve the gods as their shield and they give me the strength to protect my allies, so don’t think I’ll let you get away with anything.”

‘Sheesh, she is a real bitch. She is acting as if I pissed in her morning coffee. Is there an off switch for her or something?’

“We’re here, this is our home for the foreseeable future.”

A few streets next to where the battle occurred was the church of the town. It is the tall building with its bell tower. It looks like a typical church you see in movies. There is a bit of smoke coming from an open window higher up on the building.

“Is it normal that the church is smoking,” Eric asked into the group.

Instead of Anna, it is Bruce that responds first. “No need to worry about that, inside is completely safe, there is a cooking fire which we need to use because stoves don’t work. We placed it at the altar because there is no chimney and from there the smoke has the easiest time getting outside. We can’t place the fire outside because we don’t want to attract any creatures and we 4, now 5 are the only real combatants.”

Before Eric can ask about the number of combatants they reached the door and Claire knocks in a distinct pattern, probably some code to tell the others inside that it is safe. Inside it sounds like some heavy things are being pushed aside to open the door.

Once the door opens Eric can see that it is a teenager that opened it. He is disinterested in our group and seems to be more annoyed that he had to do work. So just like a normal teenager.

Once everyone was inside they helped move a wooden cabinet back in front of the door so that no one can enter and Eric looks around, there are 5 others in the church, the benches have been moved around so that there is more room in the middle.

There are 2 teenagers, both boys and three elderly people, 2 women and an ancient looking man.

‘2 people don’t have access to the screens and abilities yet and the old people could never fight like we do, yeah, these are non-combatants.’

“Hey, we are back,” Anna announces so that everyone can hear her. “We also found another survivor; his name is Eric and he saved our butts earlier.”

Eric expected Claire to deny that last part, but she just kept her mouth shut and moved down towards a corridor deeper into the church.

The teenagers looked up at Eric, the one who opened the door just realizes that there was another person in the group, before turning back towards their card game. The elderly people looked towards me and one of them said: “It is a pleasure to meet you Eric.”

Not forgetting his manners, Eric approaches them and makes sure to give each a handshake. They introduce themselves as Maria, Sara, and David. They also tell him that the teenagers are called Max and Michael.

“We handle the cooking and the general organizing of the things here, we have difficulty doing much else, at our age, we aren’t as nimble as you young people. Thank you for saving the others, we wouldn’t know what we would do without them. There is enough room in the building for you and we have more than enough food.”

“There is no need to thank me, in this time it is important to stick together, and I am a horrible cook, so I am happy that I don’t need to do that.” The three laugh at that, with David saying that he is also a bad cook. At this point, Anna comes up to Eric.

“I’ll show you to your room and where you can wash up.” She proceeds to head down the corridor that Claire went down, and Anna starts to tell me a bit about the place.

Eric's Status Screen

Status Screen

Name Eric King Level 4 Age 19 Strength 13(0) Gender Male Constitution 12(0) Race Human Dexterity 14(0) Class Warlock Agility 14(0) Profession - Intelligence 29(2) HP 114/114 Wisdom 22(2) Mana 296/296 Charisma 12(0)