New Challange

I opened my eyes to a dimly lit room, my head was still hurting from the skill backlash but now it was bearable enough for me to regain my consciousness. My body ached, but I was alive—barely. While looking around, a pleasant scent of herbs entered my nose, mixed with the faint musk of old wood.

The room I was in was small, almost cramped, with a single wooden bed occupying most of the space within. A narrow window near the ceiling let in slivers of sunlight and acted as the only source of light.

I shifted slightly, trying to get up, and that's when I felt a weight on my chest. Systie was right there, curled up on my body and sleeping soundly. My sudden movement disturbed her and she stirred awake. The cat looked around, and as soon as she realized I was awake, she jumped towards my face, hugging it with all her might.

"You're finally awake! It's been 3 hours! How can you do this to me, you stupid human?" she meowed, acting all annoyed but I felt a tiny bit of concern in her voice, am I hallucinating? Why is the cat acting concerned? Something just didn't add up.

I blinked, trying to shake the fogginess from my head. "I'm fine, I am fine. Just stop climbing to my face and let me breathe you stupid cat." I screamed and the cat reluctantly let go.

She was still fussing over me like a mother hen, nuzzling my face and making exaggerated noises. It was... weird.

"Did you eat something weird? Why are you acting so chummy?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at her sudden burst of affection. The smug little furball usually preferred sarcasm over sentimentality.

Systie just huffed at my question and settled down, her cheerfulness fading slightly. "Well, while you were out cold, I had some... Annoying conversations."

She then took a deep breath and dumped everything that happened at once—about the crazy priest, William, and his intense desire to help her in whatever grand mission he believed the goddess herself had given to the cat. He didn't know what the mission was and also that the mission was given to me not Systie.

The more she talked, the more I felt annoyed at the priest. The prick had somehow managed to confuse Systie—this whole thing was bothering her. It looked like she was thinking about leaving me and following him. 'Am I ok with letting the cat leave me?' I asked myself. The answer immediately popped into my head. I didn't like it one bit.

Systie, annoying as she is, had been around me ever since I entered this world. Her constant chatter had become something I enjoyed, the thought of losing her made me feel like…like I was losing a family member. I wasn't willing to let her go.

Letting out a long sigh, I forced myself upright despite the dizziness that persisted. "I want to talk to this priest."

"You can't just go waltzing out there! You haven't fully recovered yet!" Systie jumped up in protest.

"I'm fine." I waved her off while getting out of bed. My body was screaming at me to stop, but I wanted to punch this William guy for filling her head with all the nonsense. As far as I could see, this priest was hella sus. I mean if a person loses their loved ones then they tend to blame the gods, but here he was acting like a fanatic, like his son's death didn't even affect his faith. That was a clear red flag to me.

I put a finger on Systie's mouth to shut her up from all her yapping about my safety and plopped her onto my shoulder. She wasn't very happy but resigned to the fact that I wasn't going to sit around and rest.

"Say, that new skill you got. What was it again, ah ya, <thought communication> I want you to use it whenever our eyes meet, is that ok?" The cat nodded as we walked out of the room.

The small room led out into a narrow hallway that had quite a few wallpapers, mostly belonging to the trio battle league. The walls looked like they had been patched up over the years with love but not a lot of money. As we walked through the hall, the sound of children's laughter and cheering filled the air, and the further we went, the louder it became.

The kids of the orphanage were in the courtyard, watching a group of 4 people using strange, eerie pitch-black weapons to attack each other.

"Williams is going to win just wait"

"No we should support Aron, he is our age and still is keeping up with adults"

"I bet that William's team will win"

"You are on!"

A team vs team duel was going on and the creepy priest (Willam) was in one of the teams. The children, some as young as eight, others in their late teens, were cheering and placing bets on the teams that they were supporting.

The teams were made of two members each, with team one having William as the defensive tank and a 30-year-old swordsman as the attacker. On the other hand, team two had a 16-year-old boy called Aron take on the defensive role while a 30-year-old guy wielding a pitch-black mage staff took on the offensive role.

I looked towards Systie's eyes, signalling her to use <thought communication>, and immediately asked, 'How strong are the priest and the kid? What are their stats?'

The cat glanced at them and then projected their stats in my head.

- - -

Name: William

Level: 28

Class: Frost shield

Ability: Faithful (skills become more effective the more faith the user has)

Stats

HP: 40

MP: 56

Physical attack: 30

Physical defence: 58

Magic attack: 40

Magic defence: 64

Agility: 48

- - -

Name: Aron

Level: 24

Class: Dauntless shield

Ability: Brave one (the more people the user is protecting the more his defensive skills become stronger)

Stats

HP: 54

MP: 49

Physical attack: 14

Physical defence: 59

Magic attack: 19

Magic defence: 59

Agility: 19

- - -

Holy cow, Those were some good stats. Both the kid and the priest had three 50+ stats. However, the thing that attracted my attention was their abilities. Both looked pretty useful for a defensive class like theirs.

Intrigued by it all I sat down to see how the match progressed. It started with the creepy priest's team making their first move.

The swordsman of the team rushed towards Aron's teams aiming to finish off their mage with one wide swing of his broad sword while muttering, <sacred slash>.

Unfortunately for him, Aron using his eerie pitch-black shield managed to intercept the powerful slash.

While he stopped the swordsman, the mage behind him muttered <light beam>. A concentrated beam of light rushed out from his wand and moved towards the swordsman but then an ice shield appeared out of thin air to block the beam.

Aron saw that a muttered <redirect >. The beam of light changed its direction instantly and moved towards William. Just as it was about to hit him, a transparent barrier encased the priest and protected him from the beam.

The mage clicked his tongue and aimed another attack towards William but before he could fire, a barrier popped in front of him and blocked all his moments.

With the mage now incapacitated, the swordsman swung his large eerie pitch-black sword towards Aron's neck, slowly hacking away the defences of the kid until finally, the shield broke in two.

The kid threw the shield away, then muttered <defence boost> and caught the sword mid-swing. From then on, he used his bare hands to intercept all of the swordsman's attacks. Unfortunately for Aron, he had no way to attack back and had to face the swordsman on his own.

He used < defence boost> again and again to somehow survive the swordsman's assault but injuries slowly accumulated on his body.

His vision blurred due to blood loss and he stumbled. Using that opportunity, he swung his large sword and chopped the kid's head clean off.

"Damn it, Aron lost again"

"Ahh my bet"

"Yay, I won"

The crowd cheered but I just stood there stunned as Aron's head fell to the ground. Why were they cheering!? A kid just dies, are all the people involved with the church some kind of deranged maniacs? Many questions ran through my mind but to my surprise, as soon as the kid's head hit the ground, it turned into black smoke and reattached itself to the kid's body. The boy was unconscious but he was somehow still alive.

'The heck just happened!?' I asked the cat wanting some explanation and it just pointed towards the eerie black weapons they were using.

'Those are called fake death weapons. Even if you kill someone with them, they won't die but will just fall unconscious. Those weapons are used during tournaments and for kidnapping'

That's some OP weapons, but man I don't think getting your head chopped off feels nice. Shaking my head to remove that horrific scene, I focused my attention back on the priest. I was here to talk with him, not to find out if all the people here are psychotic pricks.

Once the kids quieted down, I approached William and said, "Let's have a little chat, shall we?" he nodded and motioned for me to follow him. We walked through the dimly lit halls and into a secluded room at the back of the orphanage.

The room was quite dusty with just a few old chairs, a desk, and a bookshelf. It looked like no one had cleaned the room for years. Once we sat down on those dusty chairs, William looked me in the eye and asked.

"Is this about the goddess's mission?" I nodded and he immediately said. "Let me take care of that mission. You're still young—there's no need for you to bear such a heavy responsibility."

I mean, if he wants to do my job, should I stop him? I crossed my arms, leaning back in the chair. "I don't mind you doing the mission. In fact please do it for me but if you want to take the black cat with you then we will have problems. You can't take her away unless she wants to travel with you."

The priest heard what I said and turned to Systie, asking for her opinion. I knew that the stupid cat had a lot going on in her head. She thought that her being around me caused damage to me—which was all nonsense, but the cat actually believed it.

Considering all that, I knew there was a high chance that she could just leave me and choose to follow the priest but I wasn't going to let her off that easily. "Hold on! Before you say anything, swear on Terra-sama that you will only tell what you truly feel and not some guilty BS, got it you stupid cat?"

That got the cat's attention. 'Get lost human! I am not stupid' she cursed in my head and finally, with a heavy sigh, muttered, "I don't want to leave this annoying creature."

'Yeppe!' I cheered internally, but William wasn't pleased by her response and furrowed his brows in frustration. "Systie-sama, with my ability, I could protect you better than he ever could. My shields are impenetrable as long as my faith is strong."

He pleaded with the cat saying that her presence would help him immensely and that he would treat her well.

All his begging made Systie suspicious.

"Why do you want me to be around so badly? I don't have any attack spells to help you," she asked, her blue eyes narrowing in contemplation.

William, however, just smiled proudly and proclaimed. "I have an ability called <Faithful >. The more faith I have in someone or something, the stronger my shield becomes. If you were around me, then my faith would be endless and no one would be able to break my shields"

That's some useful ability but I had a teeny-tiny doubt. "Say, you always pray to the goddess and always did good things, yet you lost your son in a dungeon. Why don't you resent the goddess for not helping you then?"

I know, I know, reminding a father about his dead son is a dick move but hey, who said that I was a nice guy.

I honestly thought that the priest would be pissed that I brought up this topic but he didn't look all that upset. No scratch that—his eyes did get wet for a brief moment but other than that he looked alright.

After a brief pause, he turned towards me and said "I don't resent the goddess because she helped me preserve my son's body"

A reverent smile appeared on his face as he continued, "A year ago, my son and I recklessly entered an artificial dungeon filled with large mutated red salamanders. We went quite a bit deep inside and encountered a large mutated level 30 fire salamander. I was just level 23 and my son was level 18 at that time. We were no match for the mutated beast and my son became a victim of its fire attacks.

I used my ice shields to somehow protect myself, but after my son's death, all the salamanders in the dungeon surrounded him and opened their mouth to eat him right in front of my eyes."

A few drops of tears fell from his eyes which he wiped with a handkerchief, " No parent wants to see their offspring get eaten right in front of them. I was no different, despair filled my heart as the salamanders neared my son, in a desperate attempt I put all my faith in the goddess and used my ice shield to protect his body. To my surprise, the shield became strong enough to withstand the fire spells from the mutated salamander. Later I covered both myself and my son's body in a transparent shield and walked out of the dungeon. Because of my faith, no beast managed to break the shield"

He went on to explain how he had protected the entire village during a monster attack a few days later, using his shield to save all the children. Ever since then, his faith in the goddess had only grown stronger.

Fine, I admit that his fanatic faith in the goddess makes sense but just because it makes sense doesn't mean it's a good thing. Fanaticism is never a good thing. He is creepy and I had no interest in letting him take Systie against her will.

"That's all well and good," I said, standing up. "But I'm not giving up Systie. She stays with me."

William's expression darkened, his frustration obvious. "You're not strong enough to do this mission, boy. This is a goddess's task, don't get in my way."

Yep, there it is, the tendency of fanatics to not care about others' feelings. The cat just said that she wanted to stay with me but he was conveniently ignoring it, I shrugged. "Then why don't we settle this another way? I saw your team battles just now. How about we have a little team battle? If I win, you back off and let me handle this and if you win then you can do whatever you want."

He considered it for a moment, then nodded. "Fine. When will the match take place?"

"Ten days from now," I said and walked away with the cat still on my shoulders.

'That was a dumb proposal human' the cat spoke in my mind as we exited the orphanage but I didn't have many other options to convince a fanatic, 'What's done is done, now we just need to gather our team and train.'

Let's just hope Arya and Lily have no problem participating in this match. Fingers-crossed.