Chapter 8: There! A Chest!
Kivas sat on the edge of her makeshift shelter, arms wrapped around her knees, the flickering purple flame still hovering before her.
The screen didn't fade, didn't change, didn't react no matter how long she stared at it.
"Ten HP and ten MP," she muttered, squinting at the numbers. "That's... neat, I guess."
She pressed her finger against the number beside her health, expecting it to pulse, maybe give a tooltip, or wiggle with some magical flourish. Nothing happened. It was like poking glass.
Kivas frowned.
"Then why," she said, reaching up to tap the side of her head gingerly, "have I been bleeding like a sacrificial goat for the past hour, yet these numbers didn't reflect that?"
Her fingertips came back damp and red. The bleeding had slowed, but her injury was real—and those stats hadn't budged a single digit.
"I've played enough RPGs before that stupid war happens, enough to know when something doesn't add up." Kivas pouted. "Well, either I'm in a world that doesn't obey common sense, or the common sense are just really bad at explaining themselves...
"Actually, now that I read it again, there is a chance that Hemo Psyche doesn't have the same meaning as Health Point at all."
She let the screen hover and turned her attention toward the Attributes section. Strength, Intelligence, Piety... nothing too shocking.
Though, the fact that it was referred as Intelligence Quotient, or IQ, instead of simply Intelligence in the Well of the Soul did spark some interesting implication.