The Runesmith Chapter 2

Roland kept looking at the status window, he was someone versed in computers so he knew what those meant.

'Am I stuck in some kind of game world? Did someone put me into virtual reality?'

He pinched himself to see if he was feeling any pain and to no surprise he did.

'Did I really die... is this the afterlife...'

He was shocked, not too long ago he was tinkering in the computer repair shop and now he woke up in a young boy's body. He even knew who this child was as he regained all of his memories and what the child knew about this world. The place he was in was called the Kingdom of Caldris and he was the 4th son from the house of Arden. His new father was a Baron and he was the youngest son, besides that he even had two sisters one being younger than him.

'This kid... his family doesn't really think much of him, does it?'

He looked at the shabby room he was in. He knew from his memories that he wasn't really in contention for the noble title of this house. This 'honor' belonged to the firstborn, maybe the second-born still had a shot at it if he was especially talented. But he was only the 4th in line, unless all of his brothers died he had no chance.

He wasn't sure what this boy's fate would be in the eyes of his family. He was too young to know how the political structure in this world worked. He only knew that he was the son of a noble, so it was probably still better than being a commoner.

'I should be safe here for the time... not sure what the age of adulthood in this world is, but the bigger question is...'

He looked to the hovering window in front of his face, it looked like some kind of status screen of an RPG character. It had things like strength and endurance, just like in games that he used to play. Most of his stats were low, but some of them stood out.

'My intelligence is quite high, so is my willpower and dexterity. Aren't the first two mage stats?'

He needed more information first, he needed to figure this status screen out. This was something that the people leaving in this world saw as natural, the boy's memories reflected that as he could recall him using it.

'Okay, I need to think status and it should show up...'

He strained his thoughts, the game-like screen appearing in front of him again. He could see all of his main stats, if he guided his gaze to the desired option he could even get some flavor text to give him an explanation.

He started reading the short explanations for the attributes and looked at his own to see what he was good and bad at. Most of his stats were quite low but some were uncharacteristically high compared to the others. For one, his intelligence stat was really high at a whopping 35. Followed by willpower at 18 and then dexterity at 15.

'Intelligence increases my mana and magic attack... am I a mage or something? I'm resistant to status effect and good with my hands?'

Besides those three everything else was below ten, he had no idea how the stats of an average person's in this world looked like. He tried recalling something from the memories that he got from this child, but there was nothing concerning this.

The boy left a boring life without anyone really telling him anything. This was due to how low his social standing was in this family, he was the lowly 4th son and he wasn't even the child of the main wife but came from a mistress that wasn't even allowed to live together with him at this estate. He tried recalling how the boy's mothered looked, a face or even the shape but he couldn't.

'Don't think he ever saw his mother...'

He tried thinking about what kind of world he was in now. There was a window in his room, but he was still feeling sickly. By the looks of the doctor and the maid he was somewhere where the technological advancement wasn't that great.

'Great... how am I supposed to live without the internet now?'

He became dejected, all those shows and movies that he was eagerly waiting to devour in his free time were all gone now. What was he even supposed to do here, go to school like a normal kid and then become some kind of court official?

'Is that even an option? My status is fairly low... won't they just toss me out, or tell me to go join the army or something?'

He wasn't sure how things worked, from his internet knowledge he knew that noble sons sometimes became servants of higher nobles. Some were even forced to join the clergy to become a monk.

'Ugh, I don't want to shave my head... or be forced to take some vows...'

He moved his attention back to his status, did it always look like this. He tried recalling the memories of the boy that had previously looked at his own attributes.

'I'm sure those three stats were lower... though his intelligence was above 10 from the start...'

He had somehow influenced these stats but what was the reason? He decided to investigate and looked at his status screen again.

'What is that... there is a skill menu...'

He willed the skill menu to open, with some mental gymnastics he managed to bring out the window, this one showed him all the skills and traits that he had.

Roland's eyes went wide, he didn't expect to find so many various skills in there. He knew that most of those weren't in here before, this also explained why he had an increase in stats.

'Most of those passive skills and traits increase my intelligence, willpower, and dexterity...'

The traits and skills that were there before he got here were: Fast Learning, Knowledge Retention, Identify and Mana Sense. He could also recall that this kid read a lot of books in his past time. Though that probably had to do with the fact that there was nothing else for him to do besides that.

'Those nights I spend playing games must count for that sleep resistance passive...'

'Okay, so why am I here, did I overwrite this brats brain or did he die and then my soul jumped in, or something?'

He tried recalling why the boy was sick, the moment he did he got a slight headache. He recalled that the boy was trying to do something, he managed to see some kind of glowing mist in the air and he tried to somehow absorb it into his body?

'Then something went wrong and he got sick. Didn't that doctor say something about my status already recovering?'

He looked at his status screen again, the moment he thought about it the window expanded and showed him a new part.

'???? Sickness?'

'Why are there question marks there... do you need some kind of knowledge to see what it actually is?'

He squinted and concentrated on the question marks, but nothing changed. He did have some kind of identification skill, but maybe it wasn't high enough being only at L 1.

'Well he got sick after that glowing mist entered his body...'

'Does it have something to do with that mana sense skill... I sure have a huge amount of MP compared to everything else.'

This was a really odd situation to be in, he thought of what happened that night. Two murder trucks turned him into a bloody pancake and now he ended up in someplace with a game system. From the kid's memories he was sure that he wasn't the only one with this system, everyone had it with them since birth. The rest was unclear as no one really explained much to this child, this was probably also why he suffered some kind of backlash from absorbing that glowing mist.

While he was at it he looked at his stats and then compared the bonuses from the passive skills that he was receiving. Most of his intelligence came from his passives and traits, if he removed them all then he would end up with 11.

'Still over 10, though is that even a lot for a 5-year old?'

'Still with those two traits that he had it would put his int at 19... maybe his weak body couldn't handle the excess mana?'

He started doing some mathematics in his brain, trying to count how much his stats affected his HP and MP. It didn't take him too long to figure out that he gained 10 MP for every 1 intelligence, and 4 MP for every point in willpower. The surprising thing came afterwards as after he was done with his calculations.

"What?"

The sounds belonged to a woman and she sounded quite gentle. He looked around to see if someone came into this room, but there was no one to be seen.

'So, I've gained a new skill...'

He checked the description, but it didn't say much besides it being an indicator that he knew mathematics, it didn't even increase his intelligence stat at all.

'Guess you don't get stat bonuses for every skill?'

He had no reference point, the boy's memories didn't answer many questions about these skills. The identify skill was something that apparently showed up after time passes, maybe it was something everyone had? He really needed more information about his situation, but he was only a five-year-old child that wasn't taken seriously around here.

'Maybe that maid will answer some questions?'

He thought back to the old lady that showed concern when tending to him. Her name was Martha and from the looks of things, she was the only person that tended to the young boy's needs. He had a vivid image in his mind of the woman bringing him food, helping him put on clothes, or cleaning around the room that he spent the most time in.

He remembered something, there was a certain book that the youth was reading before succumbing to the sickness. In the corner, there was a large desk with a chair. Some old cushions were placed there by the maid so that the boy didn't feel uncomfortable while reading. There was a pile of books there and one, in particular, was the one he was interested in.

'Think I feel better now, should be able to move...'

He wasn't sure if it was due to his willpower stat that supposedly helped with status effects but he was feeling better with each passing moment. He wiggled down his bed and moved over to the desk which had the book in question.

"The basics of magic..."

"So, he started learning this and something went wrong... that's harsh..."

He thought back to the poor child. He was more or less abandoned by his family, the doctor was too late to save him. He might have even been too lazy to bother by how he acted when he saw him recovering.

He left the book on the desk and moved to the sole window that was right next to it. He peeked outside and noticed that there were some people there. They looked to be working the field, some kind of plow was attached to a farm animal.

'Is that an Ox?... why is it so big and why does it have three horns?'

He was clearly not on earth anymore, the farmer there was using the large animal to help him plow the field. He could see other people walking around, even some in not so well kept armor. While he was preoccupied with sneaking glances outside the window, the door opened up, Martha returned to check up on the boy.

"Master Roland! You shouldn't be out of bed, here I brought you some porridge."

The man in the child's body looked at the smiling woman, he wanted to speak up but decided on just nodding and going back to bed.

'This will take some time getting used to...'

Chapter end