Benjamin stepped out of the capsule, stretching slightly before walking out into his livingroom. There, Andrew, Nataly, Haruo, and Jasmin were already waiting for him. The old man dropped down onto his armchair, as the five of them all stayed silent for a while. The one to break that silence first was Nataly.
"So... we're all agreeing that Samuel stooped to a new low with this, right?" she asked, and Andrew leaned back and scoffed, "Honestly? I don't even think so. The more I find out about the guy, the more this event doesn't seem all that shocking."
Jasmin let out a long, nervous sigh, "He's done a lot of really bad stuff, sure, but... his plan this time was to directly kill millions of people," she pointed out, "Honestly, he's... terrifying... how can any person do this kind of thing?"
The five stayed quiet once more. They had all met Samuel personally. He was the one that had gone to interview all of them that initial first time, and had been the main person they had been keeping in contact with ever since. And even after they had already started in the 'game', he kept being kind to them, keeping up the act perfectly, all up until the moment he was caught red-handed.
"I think we could talk about Samuel in general for a while longer, but seriously, let's be honest... would we say anything about him that we haven't already?" Andrew asked, "Rather, I'd like to know what exactly happened before you summoned us, Eisen."
The old man nodded his head. He gave everyone a run-down of the events leading up to everything, recounting it all as well as he could. Not only that, but Benjamin also explained what he had found out about the curse, and more importantly, about his brother.
He then wanted to move on to some thoughts he had about why there were such differences between people and monsters in regard to the conditions to godhood, but before he could get there, Jasmin rolled her wheelchair up next to Benjamin and placed her hand onto the old man's chest. He could feel a soft warmth touch his skin, that was different from Jasmin's physical contact.
She was pouring mana inside of him.
"What exactly happened then?" she asked, "Frankly... I'm just confused. The amount of mana that you must have used is ridiculous, but..."
"If the amount was the only condition for 'that', then you would have experienced something similar?" Haruo asked, looking at his lover with a serious expression. She slowly nodded her head, moving her hand away from Benjamin again, "...honestly, yeah. My guess is that your body is just less compatible with mana overall, and the massive amount was too much to handle.
Or it could have to do with you being a monster-halfling... monsters' bodies are sort of different in nature to those of people, hence why they're able to change so massively during rank-ups. Maybe that amount of mana triggered something that made your body unstable afterward. It looks like some rest healed it though, so it's a physical phenomenon, at least."
Benjamin was quiet for a while. He knew that he had to tell the others about this, but he didn't even really know where to start. Soon, he let out a deep breath and just came out with it.
"When I logged out after that... I saw a system window," the old man explained bluntly, and the others seemed to try and comprehend what he just told them.
"'After' you logged out?" Nataly repeated, "What do you mean, after? That- what?" dumbfounded, she stared at Benjamin, who just continued on.
"Is there a skill you think you could try out?" Andrew asked, and Benjamin thought about it. The old man closed his eyes, and concentratet on one of his skills. The one that he could use without much of an effort at this point. He opened his eyes again, and for a brief moment, saw pulses of colour flowing through the bodies of Jasmin, Haruo, and Nataly.
Since Andrew's mana had been replaced with internal energy, Benjamin wasn't able to see anything there. But either way; his truth-seeing eyes worked properly, as they should. It was different to what had happened before. Though, that was for just a moment.
The old man's eyes twitched and they felt like they were burning up. His head felt a similar pain to what he had felt when that system window first appeared here. Benjamin felt as though the air had been robbed from his lungs as he gasped for just a single breath. His sight went dark for a moment, before the system window floated to the front of his sight. Changing every second into another message.
---
[XXXXXXX Skill has leveled up!]
[XXXXXXX Skill has ranked up!]
[XXXXXXX Skill is settling]
[XXXXXXX Skill's name is being adjusted]
[Searching for correct terminology]
[A fitting name has been found]
---
Benjamin stared at these messages, trying to keep up with what was happening. And then, the last message appeared. It stayed there, unchanging. At least for now.
---
[XXXXXXX Skill has been named System Resistance Skill]