The servant picked up the cleaver from where it had fallen and resumed the task of slicing along the pig’s spine. Timmy’s lack of confidence in handling the cleaver suggested his hesitancy in participating, likely indicating he was not a free man. Yet questions lingered. How is he doing this? Is this some kind of magic? He claims to have seen it somewhere.

  Occasionally, the cleaver slipped beneath the skin, yet it was sharp enough to remove the layers without pausing the servant’s motion. In some twisted comfort, he felt glad there was only a piece of wood against his back.

  “Are you an NPC or a Player?” the Baron inquired.

  “What? I’ve told you I don’t know what you mean,” he replied.

  “Wrong answer.”

  The servant drove the cleaver into the pig’s lower back with a sickening thud. Simultaneously, a blow landed on his own lower back, ripping a scream from his throat. The pain sent his heart racing. Without hesitation, the Baron pressed the stick to the top of his spine, mimicking Timmy’s actions once more. Realisation struck him—this was all a mental trick. He was convincing himself of the cleaver’s presence on his back. He attempted to focus on the skin being peeled away and dropping to the floor. Don’t let him get into your head.

  “Hey, eyes open and to the front,” the Baron snapped.

  Reluctantly, he complied, observing the synchronicity between the cleaver’s movement and the stick on his back.

  The Baron pressed on, “Maybe this will help: Are you an Adventurer or a slave?”

  “I’m a slave,” he grunted in response.

  “That was an obvious answer, wasn’t it?” Bonatelli remarked. “I can see your belly button is missing, but your Status tells a different story.”

  My belly button?

  He glanced down at his stomach in alarm. Sure enough, his belly button was absent. He had sensed something was amiss but hadn’t given it much thought until now. Staring at his flat, featureless abdomen with no visible ‘middle’, he understood how wrong that was. How?

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I don’t understand,” he said in disbelief, “where is it?”

  “So you’re aware of the anomaly. And the game perceives you as a Player. How do you achieve that without the mask?” the Baron asked.

  A sense of dread welled up inside him.

  “Please, you must believe me, I don’t understand any of this,” he begged.

  “Wrong answer.”

  The cleaver struck again, as did the stick on his neck. The anticipated pain was still shockingly intense.

  Bonatelli unleashed a torrent of questions: “Explain your Status! What’s wrong with your stats? How are you LVL 1? What’s your Class? Where are you from? What’s your name?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what any of this means!”

  “Wrong answer!”

  The cleaver descended, along with the stick on his left shoulder. The pain was tolerable this time. His brain must have seen through the trick.

  “What are you?!” Bonatelli shouted.

  “I don’t remember anything before yesterday; you have to believe me,” he pleaded.

  He didn’t know what else to do in this situation other than plead. Clearly, the Baron remained sceptical.

  “So what? You were born into this world but as a Player? That’s it? You’re just an anomaly? I’m supposed to believe that?” The Baron became more and more unstable.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, frightened.

  “Timmy!” Bonatelli noted the servant had paused. “I’ll gladly make you the pig in this experiment if you don’t get back to it.”

  The servant hastily resumed his task, cleaver in hand. The Baron turned his attention and got up in his face.

  “So what’s it gonna be? NPC by birth or Player by Status?” Bonatelli asked with menace.

  Weary, he found the only answer he could muster was a question: “What is a Status?”

  “Wrong answer.”

  A scorching pain seared through his body, unprecedented in its intensity. His body convulsed uncontrollably; he couldn’t even scream, much less breathe. What did he do?

  His eyes tried to locate where the pain was coming from. Looking down, he saw it—a blade protruding from his abdomen. His vision blurred as panic signals flooded his brain, teetering on the brink of unconsciousness. Attempting to calm himself with deep breaths, his chest constricted, yielding only groans and involuntary shudders. Then the blade was withdrawn. His legs buckled, and he hung limply by his wrists, gasping through bouts of coughing.

  “Look at me!” the Baron commanded icily.

  He struggled to regain control over his body, still reeling from the stabbing, perplexed by the absence of blood or wound. The God of Life?

  A hand gripped his face, forcibly turning his head to meet the Baron’s gaze. The Baron gestured upwards with his sword. He recognised the translucent white box above the Baron. At the top, the name: ‘Lucio Bonatelli’, beneath it a vibrant green and a light blue bar. Both bars were filled completely. At the bottom, the text and numbers read:

  LVL. 50 Life Points: 6250/6250 Mana: 100%

  “This is what a Combat Status looks like,” the Baron said.

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