Shrugging I answer her unasked question, “I got mad after I respawned and took it out on the furniture.”
Lillian’s face softens, and she sits down next me. “I didn’t notice.” She looks around the room again then tells me, “It actually looks cleaner than the first time I came here.”
Recalling the crusty socks and moldy food that Lillian found on her first visit, I can’t help but laugh.
Lillian’s shoulders seem to relax, and she smiles at me. “I just wanted to check in on you after that fight.”
The reminder of my humiliating loss puts a damper on my laughter and a little of the heat in my chest returns. But a single look at Lillian’s concerned expression smothers that fire.
With a fake smile on my face, I tell her, “I’m fine.”
With a single gesture of her hand towards the trashed room, Lillian points out the lie of my statement.
The smile slips a little, but I’m used to holding in my feelings. I’ve had to be strong for my family since my dad left. Being there to listen to my sister about her school and social drama. Being there to help my mom pay our bills or reassuring her when she would lose a job.
“Lillian, I’m fine. I know I blew up, but that’s over now.”
Lillian sighs and takes my hand. Her gentle touch stirs something in me. “Anthony, it’s ok to be angry or sad or frustrated or whatever. But it’s not ok to hold in those feelings. It’ll eat you up from the inside.”
The anger starts to return. What does this rich little girl know? How often has she had to walk somewhere because she couldn’t afford to take the bus? Did the kid’s in her school ever make fun of her and call her trash because she had to wear holey hand me down clothes two sizes too big? Were there ever days when she wasn’t sure if she was going to eat? I doubt it.
Some bit of the anger must leak through the careful mask I’ve tried to put on. Lillian squeezes my hand, “I won’t claim to know how you feel or know what you’ve been through in life. I’m just saying that I’m willing to listen.”
And with that small bit of empathy, the misdirected anger vanishes. How can I be angry at someone who looks like she’s about to cry because she cares so much? I sigh and decide just to tell her how I’m feeling. One, it’ll get her to leave and two, maybe it’ll help me feel better.
“Ok, you win, Lillian.” She rolls her eyes at the inference that she was looking to win something. I turn and sit so that I’m facing her. Taking an honest look at how I feel, I find a weird mixture of anger at Auden, anger, and disappointment at myself, and the frustration at life that rich people just seem to win all the time. I find that it’s difficult to find the right words to describe these feelings, So I just blurt out, “The fight with Auden sucked big, hairy sacs.”
I can tell that Lillian wasn’t expecting that particular phrase to come from me. Her face has gone red, and her lips are pressed together trying to hold back a laugh. The sight brings a genuine smile to my lips, and I continue, “I finally thought that I’d be able to stick it to that rich jerk and instead not only do I lose the fight but he steals one of my major abilities. It all just seems so unfair. I worked my butt off to get to this level and get that ability. But in the space of a few minutes, I lost it.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better there are plenty of people at a higher level than you that wouldn’t have done nearly as well against Auden.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, that jerk has been stealing abilities and spells from his enemies for years. No one even thinks to challenge him or his family anymore. They’re all too afraid to lose the one or two abilities they may have.”
I hadn’t thought about what it must feel like to have the only ability you have stolen from you. I’m at least lucky that I have a lot of other abilities to fall back on and a way to get more.
Lillian pats my arm. “Also, you probably didn’t notice it, but the crowd was cheering for you near the end of the fight too. There are a lot of people who hold a grudge against the Arschlochs and especially Auden. That family has misused that ability for decades, and they’ve made a lot of enemies.” She grins and adds, “I’ve already had two offers of support for the upcoming System Games if I promise not to let the Arschlochs win.”
“Well, at least something good has come out of my humiliation.”
Lillian hits my arm playfully. “You still don’t get it, do you? You almost won. If you’d been able to put out more damage, or if he’d just had a little less health, you would have beat him. No one thought a newbie like you stood a chance. The bets gave you a 10:1 odds that you’d even be able to hurt him. Instead, you pull some weird combination of moves that let you take him down past half health.”
“Yeah, but all my fancy abilities didn’t let me win.”
“That’s not the point. The point is that with a little more training and leveling, you could beat that guy; Even if he does have some inherited cheat ability. No one outside some high-level Users I know would even consider standing up to that guy, much less fight him and stand a chance at winning.”
“So, you think I could beat him? But why did you try to stop me from fighting him?”
“I only tried to stop you because you didn’t know about his Steal ability. I knew you had an advantage with all the abilities you have and that you could get more even if he stole one or two.” She tilts her head and admits, “I didn’t want to reveal your powers until the System Games. For fear that Auden and other people like him would figure out some way to get rid of you or buy you off. But it’s worked out for the best.”
“How’s that?”
“Now we’ve shown everyone that we’re not weak. We’re willing to stand up to guys like Auden and the Arschloch Corporation. That fight gained us more support than months of my campaigning and networking.”
“Well, when you put it like that, it’s almost like I didn’t lose after all.”
“Oh, no you don’t. You’re not getting off that easy. You made some serious rookie mistakes in that fight. We have a lot of training and level grinding to do before the System Games.” Then she sighs and admits dramatically, “But yeah, the fight wasn’t a loss as much as a taste of what it’s like to fight other Users. It’s a lot different than fighting monsters in the dungeons. Now you know. Now you can train and prepare.”
I nod in agreement and realize that talking about this has made me feel better. Maybe the rich jerks don’t always win after all.
After discussing a tentative plan to train and dungeon dive, Lillian gives me a quick hug and exits back to her place through the portal door.
I fall asleep that night, a little less worried about my place as a User, and determined not to lose my next fight with Auden Arschloch III.
Chapter 32
The next five months pass by quickly. It’s filled with school work, work work, and dungeon work, not to mention the mandatory holiday family time.
I take my first college midterms at the beginning of November. With my enhanced Intelligence, Wisdom, and the variety of academic skills I have, the tests are easy. The Anthropology midterm is the easiest—it’s a paper and presentation that analyses how Jack Skellington was a great anthropologist in The Nightmare Before Christmas. The math midterm covers everything we’ve learned in the class so far, including functions, graphs, linear equations, transformations, quadratic equations, quadratic functions, linear inequalities, and polynomial functions. The English midterm is a combination of fill in the blank and essay questions. The Biology midterm is mostly multiple-choice questions but covers topics like hierarchical structure of life from atom to ecosystem, the scientific method, basic chemistry concepts, cell structure, photosynthesis, and cellular respiration.