A 'checkpoint' through and through

We have enough rest, so I got up and decided that we would have to finish the house now that we had a calm, non-dangerous situation.

"Well, let's go taking other material so that we can finish this off, and then we rest until me next challenge."

"I'll go take the wood. How much of it do you need?"

"Just take as much as you can and we can keep the spare one."

We started to get down, Junichi went before me and I was following. While climbing I made a misstep, my foot didn't get correctly on the next rung because I was thinking more about the height. In a matter of seconds, I was falling down.

Wooosh...Tump

It didn't hurt, how? I fell from a quite high place so I should have gotten hurt, but I just felt a warm and soft touch, holding me. The only solution was opening my eyes to find out what happened. I wasn't on the ground, my view was too high for it being true. I turned my head, a dark blue jumper in front of me, it was like a big wall that was put right there. Of course, it wasn't a wall, I already had the hang of it but didn't want it to be true.

Yet, it was like that. Junichi prevented me from getting hurt and was now holding me like a princess. My gaze moved from his chest to his face, he was already staring me, who knows how long he had done that. I must have appeared like a poor defenseless woman.

"Can you please let me down... and... thank you."

I started speaking with a high tone which gradually became lower until I whispered the last part. This was a total mistake on my part, I let my fear get in the way of my rationality.

"No problem"

Junichi answered with a grin on his face and with eyes which were as if they were looking to a little being who needed help. Well, I couldn't help it, what was done was done. I decided to focus on what to do.

I signed him to go take the wood and I started picking up stones, they were the only things needed to finish this house.

I was too absorbed in my thoughts, while picking the stones I thought about what happened just some minutes before. It was different than expected, I thought Junichi to be more skinny and a little smaller, yet he was able to completely embrace me. Then he held my like it was nothing, and from his grip I could feel his muscles, he had a lot of them, just hidden.

I blushed to my own thoughts, this wasn't something that I would expect myself doing. I was changing, slowly but steadily. Now, I decided to focus on something else.

We had built a shelter, so it was unnatural that the challenge didn't finish. However, it's always worth considering the fact that challenges are a little different, even though they explicitly state a condition, you can happen to have slight changes. Perhaps, not considering the first floor our shelter and thinking that we needed to build another floor was the reason why it didn't end.

Independently of the reason, it was good. We had the opportunity to create a good base now that there wasn't any major danger. I kept on picking the stones for a while, when Junichi arrived.

I wanted to tell him to forge that had happened but just didn't pursue the matter because it would be useless.

Clap

"Perfect, let's finish this house."

[House of Love actives, the whole project present will be finished]

Good, we had enough material and we could finish the house, again the view was spectacular as before. The materials just moving on their own like they were alive to find perfect coordination and position to match the project I had imagined.

The upper floor was finished, from our whole experience I could deduce that the temperature was different from our previous planet and that here wouldn't really snow so apart from the second floor I created a little structure over the it with a roof and just some columns holding it, a place to rest.

The last materials didn't even have the time to get in the right place that a clearance message popped up in front of us.

[You have created your personal shelter, from now on you'll have a place where you can rest, spend some time, hide from monsters. This will be fundamental in your experience as players. The most important points of your house are two. The first one is the safe zone function which you can just discover. The second one is the 'checkpoint' function. Exactly as the name says, you can save data of yourself here, and if you happen to die you will respawn here. You will be given with 3 spare lives, but throughout the game you will have the opportunity to collect more of them.]

My gosh, respawn, spare life what the heck was all this? I would never have expected that it was like I thought. But, again, respawning wasn't something simple that can be washed off as a common thing. I was rereading the message for several times, staring it intensely.

Ooooooi...

"Ooooooi!!"

Junichi was trying to call me, I was too focused on that matter that at first didn't notice him. Yet, it was impossible not to notice him when he screamed like this in my ear.

"What is it that you want, I wonder."

"I'm very grateful to have received your attention, great Akari-sama."

"So what is it? I'm trying to figure out everything about this respawn because it is a strange process which we are not used to."

"Yeah, let's just discuss about that. But first, let's cover the simpler topics, the safety zone, it said we could gain information on it so probably there's a way in this game to search for info."

"Since it's something which is explicitly possible to discover there should be a sort of information panel, let's go around this are a bit."

I moved and when I got closer to the three where there was our house a message got there. I called Junichi and we started reading.

[Safe zone information

After you have created a home base for your game, you'll be granted with a safe zone, or actually you already are since you're reading this message. It basically is a zone that prevents monsters from coming in, it doesn't matter how strong the monsters are, as long as you are in the safe zone they can't hurt you. You can decide it's boundaries starting from a basic area, designated by a green translucent wall, and changing its shape will modify your safe zone. Eventually, you may be able to expand the area affected by it.]

"Perfect, we now know how it works, we can take our time deciding what to do with it, so we should focus on the respawn now."

"Yeah, agreed. The safe zone is clear of doubts and is certainly useful, giving us the possibility to easily avoid monsters. Let's get to the respawn now, it's pretty much what the name says, you know. Basically, when you die you can return to life here."

"That was pretty obvious, Junichi-kun. The consequences that respawning implies are what frightens me the most. Will you still be yourself after respawning? Or actually will you really be yourself? The being that is reborn is you or not? There are some fundamental problems with respawning, plus we don't have any insurance about what it actually means. For the time being, I would suggest not really relying on the fact that we have those three 'spare lives', and just act as if we don't have them, when we gather more information about them we can consider again what to do."

A weird look was left on Junichi's face after I talked, he was probably clueless about all I said and was now starting to realize what really meant to respawn. We couldn't have any other kind of information though, so it was pointless to keep on mourning about that. We should have just focused on what to do now.

"Ok, Junichi. I know this was unexpected to you but we can't do anything about this, it would be just a waste of time to go on and think about it, we can't have other information out of nowhere. When the time comes and we'll know more we'll think about it. Now let's focus on another matter: the furniture, we don't have any of it so for now we just have a house which pretty much has got nothing in it."

"Yeah, that's true. Isn't there any skill we can use to make our furniture? You obtain... House of Love, was it?... anyway, that skill which allowed us to build a house, don't you have any possibility to get other skills. Apparently I haven't received any challenge so for me is not possible."

"From what I ca-"

As a I was talking a message appeared in front of me...

[House of love has levelled up. You have unlocked new functions.]