Flagrant Flaw

The goal of inviting Lith up was to have his questions answered. Yet, Crush was even more disheveled, with a big hole in his home.

Crush, a boy with a poor habit of disconnecting, stepped into a subconscious stupor. His physical body halted most functions, and his mind reallocated its energy to a single task.

Puzzles, riddles, they were all the same. They were just slaves to their maker. A pitiful, jumbled existence designed to only wait and wait until one day someone clever enough could solve them and set them free.

(("Remember what she said."))

//"You've betrayed my bountiful bed, now bath in red..."\\

(("Sounds like SOMEONE fucked around, and now we're all finding out."))

//"Your source of bread will house your dead."\\

Crush's head involuntarily snapped up without his knowing, his eyes still latched shut. (("Bread? The main source of our food right now is the Garden. Something must be happening there."))

(("Right now Charles is-))

(("Come on, Crush, concentrate, one more line."))

//"My champion of light will not stop until he has your life."\\

(("The champion must be the final dungeon boss that Zombie is fighting against. We came to it for a fight; maybe now it'll bring the battle to us."))

(("It seemed they were having a hard time before. If the boss gets stronger because of this, Zombie's Guild is screwed."))

Crush opened his eyes and looked out of the opening in the wall onto the disorder that ensured. He wore an unrelenting grimace, knowing that business would definitely suffer because of it.

They were so close to being able to regard their business as "successful." But, he knew that if the hands that cultivated his rising empire were indisposed, it could all come crashing down.

Charles said he was going into the Garden, and according to the riddle, something terrible was due to happen there. Crush hardly knew him, yet he was a one-in-a-million employee he didn't want to lose. He wouldn't indulge the thought, but he also felt ill thinking of the possibility that the man would never see his family again.

Zombie was on the leftmost path challenging the boss with his Guild. They, too, were an asset. That group brought back messes of treasure and was his first sale and invaluable security. Also, the biggest hope humans had of escaping the dimension of dungeons.

Crush disliked- HATED the idea of leaving the Hub. Yet, he couldn't lose them both. Not when they were tied to their business's triumph.

He peeked at his forearm and saw the word he'd written when he failed to repel the crowd around the clown. It read, in pen, "TOO DUMB."

The sporadic font he wrote in illustrated his anger at the time of writing. He recollected what the notification signified: his Intelligence was too low to cast the skill "repel" on adult individuals.

[ Status Page ]

[ Name: ] Crush

[ Race: ] Human (Click to view race attributes.)

[ Class: ] Lvl 1 Coupler

[ HP: ] 40 / 41

[ MP: ] (+10 Class Bonus) (20) / 10

[ Attack: ] 15

[ Defense: ] 14

[ Intelligence: ] (+2 Class Bonus) (4)

[Stamina: ] 25

_

Not a single stat had changed in the month'ish they were there. Made sense, stats usually increased with level, and since he hadn't stepped foot outside of the Hub, he never progressed.

He'd already figured out the Race Attributes from his many side quest. As the Human race, they had +10 points to Crafting Mastery. It was how they were able to build so quickly.

As for the culprit, Crush read the provided description of the intelligence stat.

[ Intelligence: Magic orientation. Intelligence determines the player's resistance to magic-type afflictions and magical damage. ]

"Duh," he said in vexation. Intelligence was the only other stat besides MP with a Class bonus. Meaning the Coupler Class relied on that trait for its skills.

He recalled when that asshole talking door informed them that humans had a low affinity for magic. Explained why his base intelligence was only 2 without the Class bonus.

With all the details in front of him, he could have figured out the INT stat. But then again, there wasn't any need before. In an ideal scenario, he wouldn't have needed to do anything besides build cabinets with his ability.

Crush took a gander at his Skill Points next. In his time there, he'd picked up three crafting classes. Each one presented him with dozens of quests, most of which rewarded Skill Points. So-

[ Status: ]

[ Skill Points: = 269 ]

He momentarily gazed at the immense number, second-guessing if he'd really earned that many points from Crafting.

"Silly," he said, nonchalantly tapping onto his stats page. One of the first Quests he was required to do was assign a Skill Point to a random stat, so he already understood how to do it.

After a few slothful movements of his finger, Crush lingered. He peered at the system window, raised his brow in discontentment, then shook his head.

"What a lousy design," he insulted, hoping the creator would hear his critique.

"Rewarding Skill Points for anything other than Main Quest or leveling up is a flagrant flaw in your system."

[ Name: ] Crush

[Race: ] Human (Click to view race attributes.)

[ Class: ] Lvl 1 Coupler

[ HP: ] 41 / 41

[ MP: ] (+10 Class Bonus) (80) / 70

[ Attack: ] 15

[ Defense: ] 14

[ Intelligence: ] (+2 Class Bonus) (104)

[Stamina: ] 25

[ Skill Points: ] 109

_

He knew it was absurd to disrespect the same design that allowed him to increase his Stats without endangering himself. Yet, as someone who shed blood and sweat into creating a successful business, he was sickened by the lack of consideration. He knew their Guild Hall would be closed in a day if he was half as sloppy as the system's inventor.

"Well," exhaled Crush. He closed all his tabs, then looked at and flexed his hand. "I built an entire building with just 4 Intelligence. Let's see what we can do with over a hundred."

**

**

Composed, Crush moved through the disarrayed Hub to the Medical Center Sprite had accompanied Loriana to. The boy was by her bedside, sitting on a wooden stool. It was besetting for Crush to see that his brother hadn't taken any initiative to locate him when the atmosphere had literally become a bloodstained abomination.

Sprite noticed Crush first, jogging over to him and analyzing his body head to toe. "You're safe." He observed.

"Yea," Crush responded. Brief and direct.

By then, the first few gatherers had flown from the Garden, panic-stricken, if not too severely injured. Word quickly spread about the sightings of monsters in their safe area and how creatures attacked people. Crush asked if anyone they were acquainted with had returned, but there was no word.

Just ordinary people. Charles was a regular man.

Crush had battled with deciding whether to go after the lumberjack or Zombie's Guild, but the latest news tipped the scale. The Homecoming Guild was undoubtedly the best choice from a military standpoint. Regardless, Charles had no training; therefore, he had the trimmest likelihood of survival if left alone.

No one else would have known that the boss in the left path was going bonkers. Crush decided to keep it a secret in case more morons attempted to join the fight.

"Welp," breathed Crush. He shrugged his shoulders, turned from Sprite, then stated. "I'm going to send the staff home and close up shop. Be back soon."

"I'm coming too," declared Sprite, gripping the sword at his side and following.

"It's cool; I got this," fought Crush.

"I know. But, there may be troubles with the locking mechanism; you know it's had issues before," said the light-haired boy.

"No one is more equipped to deal with a malfunctioning door than me," griped Crush.

Sprite walked ahead of his brother, aiming for the exit, "No, I think my expertise and training make me the better candidate for this job."

Crush grabbed the boy's shoulder, beginning to heat, "Here's an update. While you were off playing friendly, I leveled my lock-fixing skills beyond anything you could hope to achieve."

Both the boys heard a pained whine from Loriana, who'd awakened and climbed out of bed in bandages. She weakly scanned the room for her weapon, mumbling just loud enough for them to hear. "I'm coming too."

Sprite hustled to her, compelling her back into bed and conveying the importance of rest.

"Let me go," she said. "What are you going to do. You're just merchants."

Loriana seemed to have woken up to their delusive spat. She knew just as well as Sprite that Crush wasn't going to lock the Guild. No, it was his excuse to get Sprite to stay behind while he ventured into the Garden alone.

The only thing worse than him going alone would be if Loriana also came. He and Sprite agreed on that much and assured her they'd only support the rescue effort with supplies.

As a helpless peddler does- They would only distribute gear, weapons, potions, etc. That was the lie they ran with, leaving the girl to the clinic staff.