The morning in Border Town's castle did not begin with the singing of birds, but with the mournful howl of the north wind punishing the stones. The Months of the Demons had arrived with brutal fury.
William pushed open the heavy oak door of his quarters and stepped into the freezing corridor. He was wearing only thick wool trousers and an unbuttoned linen shirt, defying the temperature on purpose, or perhaps out of sheer laziness to dress properly. Standing in the middle of the dimly lit hallway, he let out a long, noisy yawn that echoed off the stone walls, and raised his arms, stretching with such vigor that his bones popped in a symphony loud enough to wake the guards downstairs.
As he lowered his arms and rubbed his sleep-heavy eyes, his vision focused on a familiar figure at the end of the corridor. It was Arthur. The strategist stood near one of the narrow windows, watching the frost and snow outside. As usual, Arthur maintained an impeccable yet relaxed posture, with his hands hidden in the pockets of his dark overcoat.
A mischievous smile appeared on William's face. Just out of habit — and curiosity — he blinked and focused his vision, mentally invoking the System they both shared. The translucent blue screen flickered in the air before his eyes, projecting his colleague's biometric and magical data.
Status: Arthur Rossi
Strength: 6
Speed: 7
Endurance: 8
Agility: 8
Intelligence: 14
Magic Power: 8 [Telekinesis]
William let out a nasal chuckle that quickly turned into a full-throated laugh, breaking the gloomy morning silence.
— "Ah, you huge hypocrite!" — William exclaimed, walking toward his friend with heavy steps. — "I can't believe what my System-blessed eyes are seeing." —
Arthur turned slowly, tearing his eyes away from the blizzard. His expression was one of lethal calm, one eyebrow slightly raised behind his glasses.
— "Good morning to you too, William. And please, keep the yelling down. Half of this castle worked until dawn," — Arthur replied, his tone mild and analytical. — "And what hypocrisy, specifically, are you referring to at this hour of the morning?" —
— "HAHAHAHAHA, don't play dumb with me with that sly noble face of yours." — William stopped beside him, pointing a finger in his friend's face, though he was smiling. — "I just looked at your stats. Magic Power 8! Eight, Arthur! Less than a week ago you were giving me a half-hour lecture, telling me to save my System credits, not to be impulsive and waste it all on attributes. And what do you do in the dead of night? You burn your credits on your Telekinesis!" —
Arthur didn't back down, nor did he show any trace of shame. He simply took his hand out of his pocket and adjusted the collar of his suit.
— "There is an abysmal and fundamentally logical difference between our choices, William," — Arthur explained, his voice laden with pedagogy. — "Spending credits merely to increase the brute force of your biceps is a linear gain. You hit harder, period. Spending credits on Telekinesis is an exponential gain. I don't use it to punch things. I use it to deflect projectiles, manipulate the terrain, erect barriers, and move supplies that would take ten men to carry. It's tactical utility, not gym vanity." —
William rolled his eyes, leaning against the cold stone wall.
— "You have a lame excuse for everything. But you know what? I don't care. Because I fought in those tunnels, I survived, and the System rewarded me generously." — William crossed his arms over his chest, a gleam of childish excitement replacing his sleepiness. — "I have exactly 170 credits left on my interface. And I intend to spend every last drop of them right now." —
Arthur sighed, already foreseeing the headache. — "And what does the combat prodigy intend to spend this fortune on?" —
— "I'm undecided," — William admitted, scratching his chin with a thoughtful expression. — "I'm torn between Speed and Agility. Man, think about it: I want that absurd level, you know? Like Killua using Godspeed. I want to be one of those characters who disappears from the enemy's field of vision and, when the demonic beast blinks, I'm already crouching behind it whispering 'omae wa mou shindeiru'." —
Arthur let out a soft laugh. — "Hahahaha, that would be funny. But, William, we are in a medieval battle for survival, not in an action shounen that strictly requires physical conditioning." —
— "Or, or! Listen to this!" — William continued, completely ignoring his friend. — "If I throw everything into Agility, my reflexes will break the sound barrier! I could be agile enough to stop sword strikes with two fingers, or dodge a point-blank musket shot. Imagine if I get a katana in the future? I could cut bullets in mid-air! Then I'd just need to dye my hair green and I'd be the Zoro of this era." —
Arthur looked at William as if observing a particularly problematic laboratory specimen. He let the silence reign for three seconds before destroying his companion's otaku dreams with pure logic.
— "Your idea is cinematic, William, I'll give you that merit," — Arthur began, his professorial tone returning. — "But your knowledge of biomechanics is terrible. Your current Strength is sixteen, and your Endurance is ten, isn't it?" —
— "Yeah, my Strength is sixteen, but my Endurance is ten," — William replied, proudly.
— "Excellent. Overwhelming strength." — Arthur pointed to William's arm. — "And what do you think happens if a man with Strength 16 punches the reinforced skull, or the scaly carapace of a demonic beast, while possessing a bone Endurance of ten?" —
William frowned, his excitement waning. — "I... I would punch the beast, rip a hole in it, and kill it instantly?" —
— "Perhaps. At the very least, you would certainly manage to break its bones," — Arthur nodded, merciless. — "But, by Newton's third law, the beast would exert the same devastating force back against your hand. With your current endurance facing your disproportionate strength, the bones in your hand would shatter like chalk. The impact would tear your own tendons and break your radius and ulna. You would defeat the beast with one punch, and spend the rest of the winter amputated or useless with your arm in a sling." —
William blinked, imagining the scene. The phantom pain of having his own hand explode from the inside out made him swallow hard.
— "The best investment you can make right now, with the battlefront depending on you for the vanguard, is to spend those 170 credits entirely on Endurance," — Arthur concluded. — "Increase the density of your bones, your muscle fibers, and your skin. Become unbreakable to withstand the very power you generate." —
William hugged his own body, suddenly aware that he was shivering. A gust of cold wind seeped through a crack in the window and hit him squarely.
— "You know what? You're right. I'm going to put it into Endurance then." — William's teeth chattered slightly. — "Especially since I'm not the least bit used to this damned cold. My nipples are hard as rocks. I need weather resistance if I don't want to die of hypothermia before I even see that giant turtle-wolf beast." —
Arthur looked down at his own light coat and shrugged. — "Honestly? It is indeed cold today, but the weather isn't that bad. It's perfectly bearable." —
William shot him a look of profound contempt.
— "That's extremely easy for you to say, you shameless Argentine!" — William retorted, indignant. — "You guys are born programmed to drink mate in the middle of Patagonia in knee-deep ice. I'm Brazilian, man! My blood needs at least twenty-five degrees Celsius just to circulate properly!" —
Before Arthur could reply to the geopolitical banter from another life, the air in the corridor seemed to ripple. Like a mirage gaining substance, the light contoured around a feminine form, and the Mist gracefully parted, revealing Nightingale.
The witch was leaning against the opposite wall, just a few steps away. She wore her traditional white and gold cloak and was casually playing with a thin dagger between her fingers. She must have been there listening to their conversation for minutes. After the incident in the tunnels where William proved his worth and loyalty to Roland, And, thanks to her loyalty to Roland, the ice between her and the mysterious stranger William had melted. She finally recognized that they were on the same side.
As soon as William's eyes fell upon the slender figure and the witch's enigmatic smile, all his indignant warrior posing vanished. His gaze melted.
— "Nightingale, my queen!" — William exclaimed, his voice suddenly sweet, placing a hand over his chest as if his heart were failing, without a single ounce of shame.
Nightingale rolled her beautiful eyes, though the corners of her lips twitched upward into an amused smile. She pulled a piece of dried fish from a hidden pouch in her cloak and took a bite.
— "Your majesty has a name, William, And its name is not Nightingale," — she said in her velvety voice, chewing calmly. — "And, judging by the nonsense I heard you spouting about 'kiloas' and swords that cut through the 'thunder' of the new weapon, it means the cold has already frozen what's left of your brain."
— "Yes, my dear. That's why I need you around to thaw my mind." — William retorted without missing a beat, with a wry smile.
Arthur rubbed his face with both hands, muttering something in Spanish that sounded very much like a plea for divine patience. Nightingale just laughed softly, finding William lack of restraint and audacity in flirting with a witch, who were considered 'servants of the Devil', to be a source of comic relief amidst the tension of the castle.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the main stairs. Seconds later, Prince Roland appeared at the top of the corridor, carrying a roll of parchments under his arm, his face marked by sleep deprivation and the responsibility of ruling. Seeing the trio gathered there, Roland stopped and raised an eyebrow, focusing on William's shirtless figure.
At that exact moment, William felt his curiosity tingle. Out of pure reflex, he blinked, invoking the System's vision for a third time that morning, directing it at the Prince of Graycastle. The translucent blue interface instantly flickered over Roland's figure, revealing his hidden data:
Status: Roland Wimbledon
Strength: 5
Speed: 6
Endurance: 6
Agility: 8
Intelligence: 20
William swallowed hard, internally shocked. Damn, Strength 5? He mentally compared the number to his own Strength 16 and even Trevor's Strength 8. Roland was physically pathetic. An average commoner working in agriculture was stronger than him. Looking at the Prince's non-existent musculature and office-worker posture, William felt he could knock him out with a puff of wind if he used full Strength. Roland was a true "paper tiger".
However, William's gaze focused on the last number on the list, and his physical surprise gave way to a cynical understanding. But Intelligence 20. He expected as much. Arthur had high intelligence, but twenty was the level of a genius, as expected of Asians. Roland wasn't a warrior, and he would never need to be; he was the colossal brain changing the rules of the world with gunpowder, cement, and concrete. The number made perfect sense. He was the "faction leader" who dumped all his points into wisdom, not brute force.
Roland, oblivious, crossed his arms and cleared his throat. — "William?" — the Prince inquired, clear confusion on his face. — "What are you still doing here in your nightgown? I just passed by the training courtyard. Shouldn't you be on the walls coordinating the shock line alongside Iron Axe and the shooters?" —
William didn't break character. He straightened his spine, saluted, and flashed his best military smile.
— "Ah, my dear Roland! I am, at this very moment, undergoing rigorous tactical training to acquire resistance against the hostile climate," — William lied with the most barefaced expression in the kingdom, while simultaneously opening his mental interface and dumping all 160 of his credits into the Endurance attribute, leaving only 10. He felt a considerable wave of heat sweep through his veins, his bones growing denser, his goosebumped skin warming immediately. — "But the training is complete. I am heading to the wall right now!" —
Roland looked at Arthur, seeking a rational explanation. Arthur just shrugged, his hands back in his pockets.
— "He is a lost cause, Your Highness, but an incredibly efficient one," — Arthur replied peacefully.
Roland sighed, unrolling one of the parchments. — "So be it. Go put some armor on, William. Brian's scouts reported movement twenty kilometers to the northwest. A pack of demonic wolves mixed with boars. Their vanguard should hit our wall shortly after noon." —
The relaxed atmosphere in the corridor vanished instantly. Nightingale's smile disappeared, her hand dropping to the hilt of her dagger. Arthur straightened his posture, his analytical mind already calculating arrival times and the amount of available gunpowder.
William, feeling his blood pumping hard with his newly acquired titanic Endurance, punched the palm of his own hand. The crack sounded like the strike of a forging hammer.
— "Wolves and boars mixed?" — William grinned, but this time, it wasn't a joking smile, it was the smile of a predator. — "Perfect. I really needed to test if my bones can withstand breaking spines without crumbling. Border Town's breakfast is going to be beast meat." —
— "Their meat isn't even fit for consumption. Just don't die of hypothermia on the way there, anime hero," — Arthur pointed out, walking past him and following Roland down the corridor. — "I still need a living slave to carry the cannonballs." —
— "HAHAHAHA, keep dreaming! I'm not a pack mule!" — William shouted, feigning offense as he ran to his own room to grab his doublet and his new sword forged by Anna. Looking back and seeing Nightingale fading back into the Mist, he muttered to himself: — "I'm definitely going to wipe out the beasts and demons all by myself, just to rub it in the faces of those little geniuses." —
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[DIMENSIONAL SYSTEM]
User: [William]
Location: Border Town, Kingdom of Graycastle.
[Attributes]
Strength: 16
Speed: 11
Endurance: 14
Agility: 9
Intelligence: 8
Magic Power: 3 [Teleportation]