Choking on his spit, Damien held his belly tightly. His face was pressed into the concrete as the rocks cut up his cheek, his eyes dazed and belly woozy as a foot slammed into it again. He let out a gargle from the spit moving its way up his throat as he groaned and tried to roll over or move at all.

  “Oh boy, I thought he was a big guy stepping in trying to stop us from the fight, huh? Yeah, right.”

  “Come on! Fight us like you were!” The leader of the gang shouted. The system showed his name to be David, David’s shoe shoved deep into Damien's stomach causing him to vomit across the pavement. The boy snarled and bent over.

  “Remember this next time you see us picking a fight with someone. Mind your own business.” David threatened as he stood up and they began moving through the alley and out the other side. Damien rolled onto his back heaving in pain, his eyes dripping with tears as he tried to keep himself from crying too hard.

  “I thought I won.” Damien said, as Core appeared in his view. “Well kid, you won the quest, but you lost the fight. Sometimes winning ain't all that it seems. Just cause you won this doesn't mean you actually won.” The words felt like needles in his ears. “If you win a quest, then it should mean you won.”

  Core snarked, “if you win a quest-” he mimicked, “List kid. You aint gonna win at life by completing every quest. Most of these chumps don't have a system directing them. What are you gonna do without it?”

  “I won't be without it!”

  “You don't know that for sure, things change, people change, this ain't some video game though. This is life, and you gotta be prepared for anything. Remember kid, the person I came from once thought I was permanent.”

  Those words struck Damien like a brick to the head. He wanted to explore that more, explore what happened to him if he lost the system. However, he was cut off by the sudden boy running up to him. “Oh my god your alive, I thought you were dead!” Toby said in panic as he squatted down to the tiresome Damien.

  “No, nope, I'm still alive and kicking. See that kid? That's how you win a fight.” Damien said sarcastically slowly pushing himself up off the ground and sat up. “Win? It looked like you lost.” Toby said when Core laughed, “HA! I like this kid!” Damien snarled and grumbled, “Yeah well, I wont just as much as you were winning.”

  Damien glanced at the kid, he saw the sadness fill the boy's eyes leading Damien to frown. “Look, I'm sorry. I didn’t mean it like that, I simply meant that…well,” Damien tried to change the subject the best he could. “Why were they picking a fight with you?”

  Toby sighed and slowly helped Damien up to his feet, Damien winced and leaned on the wall as he coughed. He felt like his ribcage was busted, or torn out of his body he hadn’t decided. “Well, it wasn’t me, it was my older brother they were after.”

  “Your older brother, then why are they after you?”

  “Theo owes them money, and is struggling to pay them back.”

  “Sounds like an awful brother.”

  “Shut up! You don't know what’s going on!”

  Damien went quiet, he had stuck a foot in his mouth again. Taking a moment he stood up and sat a hand on Toby’s shoulder, “Hey, sorry. I don't know what's going on.” Damien wasn’t sure what it was about the boy, but he resembled Damien just before he spiraled out of control. “Let's go for a walk, maybe get some food.” Damien offered.

  Damien wasn’t one to pay for other people's food, but what Toby hadn’t seen was Damien opening the quest completion notification.

  *Congratulations QUEST COMPLETED!*

  *Level Up*

  *New achievement-Punching bag!*

  *Reward: 50$ +50$ out of pity!= 100$ worth of self loathing.

  ‘When did the system get a sense of humor?’

  Damien and Toby had made it a few blocks, it was quiet, Damien didn’t know really what to say to the kid. He was 12, isolated, and from what Damien could see from his system, depressed and anxious. “Theo?” Toby suddenly said, Damien’s eyes focused passed the system screen towards an older man running towards them.

  “Toby! Are you okay!” The man, who Damien assumed was Theo, shouted.

  They were definitely brothers. Toby was about average height, black hair and pale skin. Theo was tall, lean, and semi-muscular. He was no body builder, but he was toned and taller than Damien. His hair was short and buzzed all the way around his head except for the top that was spiked up bangs and messy.

  “Theo?” Damien minimized the main system and read his information over his head.

  *21

  *on alert

  *5 Mutual acquaintances.

  ‘Mutual Acquaintances, What is that all about? I've never seen that before.’ Damien questioned rubbing his chin, it felt like he was looking at a social media profile page and expecting to flip through Theo’s profile photos.

  “I'm Damien.” Damien said introducing himself, his hand went out towards Theo, “Oh I recognize you.” Theo’s hand went into Damien's, his gears going into over drive, ‘How does he recognize me?’

  “We were in school together, I was two grades above you.”

  Damien's gears began burning up, his eyes stared into Theo’s eyes as the world around them began to close in. Damien didn’t like the idea of people knowing him, recognizing him, and the fact they were in school together made it all the more worse.

  “Oh.” Damien said softly, Theo setting a hand on Damien's shoulder, “Lets go get some food.”

  The food had a stale taste to it though, the entire walk was even more quiet, and the ordering of the food was the only words spoken for what felt like forever. A few things were realized, they were all socially anxious human beings who hadn’t adapted to social situations like this.

  Theo even paid for the food, meaning that Damien got to keep the 100$ he earned from saving his little brother. It made the food taste a little better since he wasn’t the one paying for it. He ate slowly, a cheese burger and French fries, but his eyes flickered in any direction that Theo wasn’t sitting.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Damien.” Theo finally said, breaking the awkward silence. Damien’s eyes flickering, staring into his, almost anticipating the mockery to begin. “I never agreed with what happened to you, and for you to still stick up for someone even with what you’ve dealt with just shows that you have more value then you think.” Damien went quiet hearing Theo speak about him, ‘he knows.’ Was the only thing on Damien's mind.

  “Thanks.” Damien responded after letting the words settle in his mind.

  “No, Thank you, you protected my little brother.”

  “Why are they after him though?” Damien asked, he wanted the situation off of him. He didn’t wanna hear the thank you, if they knew it was for a quest they wouldn’t thank him.

  “I borrowed money from them, and they charged me a lot of interest, and now want me to pay triple what I owe.”

  “What do you owe?”

  “3 grand.”

  Damien choked on his soda, the burning sensation in his nose as he started coughing. “You borrowed a thousand dollars from them? Why?”

  “I needed to pay rent.”

  “Rent for what? Tents are free bro!”

  “Rent for my gym, I teach MMA.”

  “Teach MMA? If you can’t afford the gym in the first place, why would you suddenly expect to have the money for the gym AND the loan?”

  Damien’s point rang true, Theo knew it too, and looked away. “I was hopeful.”

  “Sounds like you were stupid.” Damien's words left his lips before he could catch them, it was happening more frequently. Normally he wouldn’t have been saying things like this, but here he was doing it now. Damien’s eyes weakened as he sipped his drink, "I'm sorry…the words just slipped out.”

  “I see it's a habit.” Toby interjected, Damien's cheek turning red.

  “Yeah, it's becoming an issue.” He admitted, Theo nodded as he fidgeted. “I wanted to just do what I love and that was MMA. I thought I'd train people, but it's hard. When I got the offer for the loan I accepted it.”

  Damien was quiet listening, he couldn’t blame Theo. If he had any dreams left, what would he do to accomplish them? “The problem was, there were hidden rules, almost like in video games when there's a hidden quest or achievement you only get by meeting certain criteria.”

  Something in Damien’s head made a ding, a click, he realized something major. He hadn’t really deep dived too much into the system, at least, not since he had leveled up like he had.

  Damien's hands slammed into the table, “I gotta go to the bathroom!” He shouted, Theo and Toby being caught off guard by this as he took off through the fast food joint into the bathrooms. He slammed a stall door shut, thankfully it was a clean one, and he stood with the interface open.

  Damien's eyes were wandering all across the interface, for some reason Core hadn’t appeared yet to interrupt him, he was wondering why and how it worked since it seemed to be changing on its own but he needed to think about those things later on.

  There were a few things he had noticed that were different, first all the store page was locked, but he could see things a little bit better. He had more access to the pages and seeing deeper into what they were. It felt like the system was updating itself like an early access video game did.

  He saw the skill page needed him to pick a class to have full access too, this led him to the class page, where his eyes lit up with excitement.

  *Congratulations. You meet the level for a class. Please choose below.

  They were mostly basic ones, like from a rpg video game or a table top game. Barbarian, Fighter, Mage, wizard, his eyes scanned them all. Each one of them had a bonus too it as well, some of them were what you'd expect such as rage for barbarian, others were unique, the one that made Damien pause was the Inventor.

  *Inventor!

  *Stats Wis+Int

  *Special Perk: Early access to monster loot!

  Damien stared at it for longer than a few seconds, it felt like minutes, ‘Loot monsters.’ He slowly looked at his inventory, it only had his sword and Core in it. There were the secret missions that were hidden, they were like secret achievements you'd see for a video game, and a locked shop.

  Looking in the locked shop, he could see the question marks over the photos of the items but he could still browse, there were hundreds of items to choose from, could he make these items if he hunted monsters?

  Damien finger slowly went over to the inventor class, his finger clicking it.

  *Would you like to choose Inventor?*

  *Yes Or No*

  Damien continued staring at the choice, his heart was pounding out of his chest. He wasn’t sure if he could change his skills, stats, or even his class later on if he wanted to. This meant everything he chose now would be permanent. That's why he hadn’t spent any of his skill points yet, but he didn’t wanna waste time and hold back on a class either.

  Damien’s fingers slowly moved forward clicking the Yes icon on the screen. The world shimmered around him, he felt a pulse in his head and chest. Everything went black for a few seconds, and then reuploaded like the matrix forming around him.

  *Congratulations. Skill tab Opened.

  *Congratulations. Inventor Class

  *Congratulations. Inventor Tab open

  *New quest

  *Collect 10 monster parts in Dungeons or Instances.

  Damien's fingers slowly tapped on the inventor tab that appeared, it showed an alchemy table, there was a crafting table, and there was an inventory where he could drag and drop things like an rpg video game.

  Moving under the skills he saw he had 5 points, and the monster loot skill which was almost 5 skills away meant he would have had to use all 5 points to unlock it if he had chosen another class. That's if the skill tree was the same for every class.

  “5 skill points, 15 stat points, and two godly artifacts.” Damien said softly, his eyes glistening.

  “Anyway, hey we are heading out.” Theo’s words shattered everything around Damien, he was sitting at the table with Theo and Toby. He was lost in thought from the excitement of his new class, that he hadn’t even fully been listening to them. They were talking about some secrets in a video game or something. Damien had been zoned out for over 20 minutes at that point.

  “Oh, yeah hey no problem.” Damien said and stood up with them. “Thanks for everything today, come by the gym sometime and we can hang out. I bet you are a pretty good fighter.” Theo laughed as they walked out the fast food joint and they headed the opposite direction then Damien lived.

  Damien raised a hand watching them leave, he had no idea if he would ever actually take them up on that offer but it was nice of them to offer. His eyes looking out towards the direction he lived, the sun was slowly beginning to set.

  “Core you awake?” Damien asked, a yawning core strolled onto the screen stretching. “Yeah kid, I'm here. What ya want??”

  “Find the nearest Dungeon.”