Soulbound: The System Of Temptation

Chapter Two: A New World 2

When she finally lowered her hand, another minute had already gone by. A frown crossed the woman's face as she studied his body and the wounds that crisscrossed it. She clearly had expected her spell to achieve much more than they seemed to have. "The Beyond strongly calls to you, young one," she murmured. This was the first time the woman had talked to him in the past three days. Greg was immediately aware of the fact that the words hadn't been spoken in the english he knew from his previous life. He, however, seemed to have retained the comprehension of language the previous owner of this body had. As such, he could understand the words spoken by the woman. The woman's statement would have been incomprehensible to Greg back on earth. But in this world, or at least in this small remote village, there were no concepts of heaven or hell. The Beyond is where they believed spirits went after death. In short, she was saying that death was calling to him.

The woman's gaze turned to his own as they locked gazes. "However, just three days ago I was certain that you wouldn't make it," She confessed with a small smile. "The fact that you're here means that you already escaped the grasp of the Beyond," She said. Her gaze once again moved to the wounds covering his body, a small frown once again crossing her features. "The Beyond, however, is not so easily eluded. It seeks to recapture what it has lost," She spoke softly, more to herself than to him. "Rest well," The woman spoke as she reached out and pulled the covers back over him. She then turned around and started moving towards the door. "I'll be back in the evening to heal and wash you," She stated calmly. Having such a hot woman say she'll be back to bathe him, should have been exciting. But from his experiences over the past few days, he knew that there was nothing lewd about what she'd said or planned to do. Still, Greg couldn't help getting a strange thrill hearing it.

Once the woman had left, Greg's gaze turned back to the trail of ants moving up along the wall. But while his gaze was in the direction of the ants, he wasn't actually seeing them. His attention was on something else entirely. As incomprehensible as the situation he found himself in was, it was nothing compared to the thing he was currently looking at. In Greg's vision, was a translucent virtual screen. Written at the top of the screen in glowing bold text were the world.

Under it was a full progress bar that was now golden and reading one hundred percent beside it. As with the words that the woman had spoken, The words weren't written in any language that Greg knew. For some reason, however, Greg could understand it all. Greg knew that this progress bar was the reason that the woman that had just left his room was having such a hard time healing him. Three days ago, the progress bar had been at zero. But soon as the woman started healing him, it started slowly filling up. The thing had been taking away ninety percent of the power that was meant to heal him and leaving him with only ten percent. That's why it seemed to the healer like death was calling to Greg. While healing magic was a miraculous phenomenon, it couldn't grant one immortality. There were certain diseases and injuries that even the most potent healers were powerless against. With how slowly Greg seemed to be healing, it must have seemed to her like he was in one of those niche cases where even healing magic can't make such a drastic difference, hence her words.

At first, Greg had been confused at this screen that only he seemed to be able to see. Part of him had been certain that he was hallucinating. But when the screen persisted, his thinking had slowly shifted from confusion to curiosity. In the state he was in, there wasn't much he could do about this strange phenomenon. To pointlessly worry would be a waste of time, and so he simply chose not to. If things went south, he'd have to deal with whatever came his way. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Death? Been there, done that!

Greg psyched himself up even as his gaze dropped to the button that had appeared below the progress bar. There was a string of strange symbols on the virtual button, Greg, however, immediately knew what they meant soon as his eyes landed on them.

AWAKEN!

That's what was on the button.

Given that this was an interface that only existed in his mind, Greg did what came naturally to him and tried to click on it with his mind. Part of him had been skeptical that anything would happen. Greg, however, was pleasantly surprised when the words on the virtual screen changed.

WELCOME TO THE SIXTH SCHOOL!

NAME: Roka.

RANK: Virgin.

MAGIC POINTS: 0.

LUST POINTS: 0.

Greg hadn't at all known what to expect so he couldn't exactly say that he was disappointed. The small window that came after he'd clicked on the "AWAKEN" button, however, was a bit underwhelming if he was being completely honest. For the past three days, ninety percent of all the magic meant to heal him had been going to whatever this thing was. To only get five lines of text as the result didn't seem like a worthy exchange as far as Greg was concerned. Aside from the text, he couldn't see any new buttons to click on. Still, Greg tried mentally clicking on every single word and number on the screen. As he'd suspected, however, there was no reaction.

After ten minutes of unsuccessfully trying everything he could think of to get a reaction from the screen, Greg, at last, gave up. With nothing better to do, he turned his attention to the six lines before him. The first one welcoming him to the sixth school made absolutely no sense to him. Greg tried to go through his memories to see if there were any clues there but came up empty. As such, he turned his attention to the next line. There wasn't much mystery with this one as the memories he'd inherited told him that 'Roka was the name of the previous owner of this body. He'd probably change it in the future. Perhaps it's the bias of his previous life, but he'd rather keep his old name. To avoid raising flags, he wouldn't change it immediately, but with time, it'd be on his to-do list.

The third line on the screen was just as confusing as the first line on the interface. Part of the confusion stemmed from the fact that Greg wasn't familiar with any ranking system that had 'virgin' in it. It wasn't a nobility ranking, like Count, Earl, Marquis, and so on. It wasn't a military ranking like Colonel, Sergeant, or general. It wasn't a religious ranking like Deacon, priest, or Bishop. It wasn't even a general ranking like novice, rookie, or pro. It just didn't fit into any kind of ranking that Greg could think of. The other part of why it was confusing was because Greg couldn't see the logic behind this kind of ranking. One was either a virgin or not. What the hell would he become after virgin? Super-virgin?

Greg couldn't help but chuckle slightly at his own joke. The chuckle, however, was short-lived as a pain shot through his side. Greg winced as he was once again reminded of just how wrecked this body was. Whatever beast it was that had done this to him, it most certainly didn't hold back. Greg was still for a few seconds as he allowed the pain to fade away. After it was passed, he turned his gaze back to the screen. Greg couldn't even begin to make heads or tails of what the fourth and fifth lines meant. What were magic and lust points, and how was he supposed to obtain them? It seemed to Greg that this was a crucial detail that should have been explained. No such explanation was forthcoming, however.

A sigh left Greg as he at last lost interest in the screen and actually began watching the ants on the wall. Once he stopped focusing on the screen for a few seconds, the thing began to shrink. From covering the majority of his vision, it shrunk down to about the size of a stamp and drifted to the very edge of his vision. This was something that he'd already encountered before so he wasn't too surprised by it. Once he stopped focusing on the screen for a few seconds, it would dismiss itself and move to the edge of his vision. To summon it once again he'd have to look at the stamp-size screen at the edge of his vision for a few seconds. Once he does that, the translucent screen would once again be enlarged to cover most of his visual field. It wasn't long after Greg began watching the ants that he drifted off to sleep...