After his meal, Gary didn’t feel like he had been the one in control of his own body, yet somehow he had ended up at home. No longer in his gang clothes, not having met up with any of the others after the great attack that had happened, and no longer having the bag of strangers' bedsheets.
There were a few people that Gary would often go to for help in times like these, but not a single one of them seemed available. He couldn't tell the truth to Tom, and Kai hadn’t picked up his phone, leaving him to once again deal with matters himself.
Entering his room, he could see that Amy was safe, in fact the entirety of Chavley he had traversed had shown no signs of damage. Who or how Gary didn't know, nor did he ask questions. It was as if he didn’t even care about that right now. In fact, he didn’t utter a single word as he proceeded into their room.
Amy had entered the hallway, seeing her brother, she greeted him, but he didn’t seem to have registered it. Seeing him in his current state, the teenage girl knew that she would be unable to get through to him. Letting him rest on his own in their shared room.
‘Maybe it's best if I sleep in Mom’s room for today?’ Amy considered the possibility. ‘Gary, were you really involved in what happened on the news today? You told me to stay in, so maybe you were just concerned for me, or it was all a coincidence, but… all of those ‘coincidences’ are starting to pile up.’
The next day, Amy was sure that Gary must have somehow been involved in what had occurred yesterday. Although her brother hadn’t openly appeared in the broadcast, Amy had recognised the other members of the gang called the Howlers, after all she had seen them briefly when she had entered the Wolf’s Pool Club.
Part of her suspected the green haired leader to be her brother, but a bigger part of her was unable to accept this possibility. Being in a gang was one thing, being an Altered was a completely different one. Ultimately, she came to the same conclusion as Tyler, that Gary must have simply dyed his hair to resemble that person.
As curious as Amy was, she had promised her brother she wasn’t going to ask again, and she intended to keep her word. Fortunately, she had never said anything about trying to find things out herself…
It was a normal school day, yet she had woken up before him and there was no food out on the kitchen table like she had grown used to. The door to their room was still closed, and she hadn’t heard it open at all during the night.
‘He hasn’t done this before, but I'm not sure if I can make things better.’ Amy worried. In the end, pulling up her sleeves, she did what she could to help out Gary. The high schooler made a simple meal for herself and left a good portion for her big brother out on the table, with a small note underneath, before heading out to school.
———
It was the middle of the next day when Gary realised that he had just been staring at his ceiling. It was hard to say whether he got even a wink of sleep.
‘Sh*t, I'm going to be late for… ah screw it, after yesterday I doubt anyone will care about me having missed one school day.’ Gary decided. He stretched his body and looked around. ‘Hang on, what did I do with the bedsheet? … I can’t remember. How come I can't remember?’
The green haired teenager had been completely on autopilot to the point that he couldn’t recall where he had put the loose bag filled with bones. He was mildly sure that he must have brought it home, but that might just be wishful thinking on his part. However, he wasn’t in the mood to worry about it for the time being.
Since Amy hadn’t cried out, she must not have found it, and judging by the time of day his sister should be at school, leaving him with ample time to find it. Checking his phone, he wondered if there were any messages from the others.
Unsurprisingly, none of them had written something in the chat. However, there was one personal message from Kai.
[Continue today as normal, will let you know more later.]
Gary somewhat thought that maybe they would continue their attack on the Grey Elephants or the Underdogs, whatever was left of those former big time gangs, anyway. With their leader gone, someone had to take over, and it was clear they would be scattered.
However, he would leave this stuff to Kai, since he was the one that should know best in the first place. There had to be a reason why they wouldn't move out yet, so the Werewolf opted to wait until evening to get an update.
Getting up, Gary walked into their kitchen and on the table he could see some food that had been cooked. It had already gone cold, but there was a small note underneath.
[Big Bro, take the day off. Once I’m back, I’ll give you a massage to get your sore muscles out. You always look after me, so let me look after you for once.] Next to the message, there was a little doodle of what he could only guess to be his sister pumping her fist.
That note put a smile on his face, the first expression he showed that day, but not only that, it reminded him why he ended up in this crappy situation. He had done some crazy things, but he was doing all of it to make sure his family would stay safe.
Since he wasn't going to go to school in the middle of the day anyway and didn't really feel like doing anything else, he decided to check out his system.
[Name: Gary Dem]
[Class: Warrior]
[State: Human (Alpha)]
[Grade: Knight]
[Level 18]
[Exp 502/3445]
[Health: 100/100]
[Energy: 300/300]
[Strength 23 (+1)]
[Dexterity 24 (+1)]
[Endurance 20 (+1)]
His stats had gained a large boost compared to last time, mostly due to the gained stats. Currently, he had one extra stat point at his disposal, but rather than using it as a way to improve his body, he thought of something else.
[1 stat point has been allocated to Health]
[Your base Health has increased to 110]
During the fight with Kirk, he realised the drawback of overly relying on Claw Drain to refill his Health. It was only useful if he could actually connect his attack, but otherwise it was just a drain on his Energy. His Energy was able to heal his injuries, yet the lost Health would only be replenished once he was outside a fight.
The Werewolf had the skill Last Stand, but that's exactly what it was, something that should only be used at the last moment. Gary was pretty sure if he hadn't chosen that skill, then he would have died twice already. He had selected to increase his Health in the hopes of never ending up in those types of situations in the future.
One of his rewards for defeating the Altered was the option to learn one more skill. However, Gary was aware that he wasn't in the right mind for that right now, so he decided to leave that till later to select a good one.
Instead, he did something that he was sure about doing from the beginning.
‘I have three Pawn Points and a Knight Point at the moment. Using the latter, I should be able to directly upgrade my body to the next Grade, here it goes.’
[1 Knight Point has been assigned to increase your Grade]
[6/5 Pawn Points have been collected]
[You now have enough points to reach the next Grade]
[Upgrade is now proceeding]
[…]