Chapter 7: Chapter 7: First Hunt

Max wasn’t sure what to make of his life.

He had only been alive for a few minutes, definitely less than an hour. He had a vague feeling that it wasn’t normal to be the only hive drone of a queen in the wilderness, without even proper tools or structures. He kind of liked the forest, actually, although it wasn’t like he had seen much of anything.

He glanced around warily as they walked through it. That was a bit of a problem, since he didn’t have any experience with its dangers. As the only Warrior, it fell to him to protect the Hive Queen. He wasn’t sure he was up to the task. But he had to be! Failure wasn’t an option.

He looked at his Queen, Regina, and noticed that she walked with easy grace down the game trail they’d found. She kept a quick pace without any signs of tiredness. Which was actually more than he could say, since he was starting to breathe hard already. Just then, she looked at him, caught his gaze and smiled. Was she actually stronger and had more endurance than him? Maybe that had to do with those stats? He knew his were low.

“Regina,” he began hesitantly. She’d told him he could call her that. He wasn’t sure if that was a softly-worded command or just an offer. “Can I ask you about stats?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Sure. I only know what I can guess from the video games that I somehow know about, though.”

He nodded when she paused, perhaps gathering her thoughts.

“I guess Con means Constitution and says how tough you are,” she began. “That probably means general hardiness and resistance to poison and so on. There doesn’t seem to be a Vitality stat and I haven’t seen any health bars, so I guess that just works like the real world. I mean, like it would without a System. This isn’t a video game.” She shook her head.

“Anyway, Strength seems pretty straightforward, just the strength of your muscles. Dexterity is presumably related to fine motor control and how nimble you are with your hands. If I had to guess, speed is probably determined by a mix of Dex and Str. But who knows. And Endurance is probably your stamina. I guess Intelligence and Wisdom sound clear, but I honestly have no idea how the System would measure them. Or increase them, if raising stat points is a thing. That thought is actually a bit scary.”

“It is,” Max agreed. He didn’t want any weird System messing around with his head. Sure, his Queen might have access to it, too, but that was completely different!

He shook his head to dispel that thought and focused on what he’d wanted to talk about. “My queen, if I may ask, what about your own stats?”

She glanced away. “Well, I guess I have to take the plunge sometime,” she mumbled.

He kept quiet as she stopped and stared off into the distance, clearly checking a System screen. After a second, her face twisted into a scowl. “What do you mean, unavailable? What the hell?” She paused, then narrowed her eyes. “And what the hell is up with that mana count? I’m pretty sure it was at most ninety earlier, I was practicing, and how did that increase?”

When she turned back to him, Max had to fight the impulse to bow his head and scramble away. He rather doubted that would please her in these circumstances. Instead, he gathered his courage and asked, “Is there anything I need to know, my queen?”

“Hm.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “Maybe I can share it with you. Hold on a moment.”

For another few seconds, she seemed to focus on her System interface while he waited. Then another window opened up.

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