I stood on the upper balcony of the temple, staring down into the courtyard as I watched two Paladins square off against each other. One of them was my sister, Natalie. She stood proudly in her blue Paladin robes while her blond hair glowed with a soft yellow light thanks to her Radiance trait. The other person was a man whose name I did not know yet.. He had no visible glow, as did none of the other paladins nearby. I would at least be able to see his name tomorrow, everyone that’s been initiated into the system apparently has their name, class, and level visible above them at all times.

  I watched as Natalie stepped forward and brought her wooden sword down on Darrick who raised his buckler to protect himself. Instead of swinging downward like he expected, Natalie instead stopped mid swing and instead kicked at his left leg, causing Darrick to stumble forward. With his buckler now down, there was nothing stopping Natalie from thumping him on the head with her training sword.

  “You focus too much on your shield when you should be focusing on your foe. The shield isn't your mother and my sword isn't harsh language. You need to be more proactive when protecting yourself,” Natalie scolded. While her tone sounded harsh, her smile informed me that she was merely teasing.

  "Yeah, yeah," he complained, rising to his feet.

  “That's ‘yeah, yeah sir,’" she emphasized.

  The surrounding paladins chuckled softly at his expense but he seemed to be doing his best not to notice.

  “Let's just go again … sir."

  “I would but I can see my sister giggling up there, do you mind finding another training partner for a bit?" Natalie said, already turning away.

  He seemed like he was going to protest but he likely thought better of it and promptly turned to talk with a nearby man who was cleaning his sword.

  I watched Natalie climb the ladder so she could join me on the balcony. Sitting up on the ledge, she wiped the sweat off her brow and shook her head, causing her curly blond hair to wave around wildly. The clicking of her chainmail made the action seem even more dog-like as it sounded almost like the sound a collar would make.

  “Down boy," I said, backing away so I don't get hit with a face full of sweaty hair.

  "Sorry" she apologized with a wry smile. “You wouldn't believe how hot it gets underneath all this stuff," she pulled at the outer layer of her blue Paladin robes to illustrate her point.

  “So who was that you were fighting with?” I asked.

  “Darrick, he’s a new paladin, only level four… but did you need something from me or are you just stopping by to talk about boys?" She asked with a toothy grin.

  I gave her a light shove, not even bothering to respond to her later question. “Just stopping by to say hi; mom sent me out to get eggs and I was feeling a bit anxious about tomorrow.”

  “Come now, it's your birthday, you should be excited!"

  “I know. I just can't help but worry about what class I'll get. There's hundreds of different classes right? What are the chances I get something I don't like?” I laid my head down on the rail and idly watched the paladins below us.

  "Well, you know you can't be The Hero. That spot is still taken," I saw her smile mischievously from the corner of my eye.

  “I was nine at the time! Let a girl have her childish fantasies," I huffed.

  “You speak as if you weren't about to go out and save the day when Malinda got her purse snatched just last week," Natalie giggled.

  "Just because I don't have a class doesn't mean I can't help people,” I said, turning away to hide my reddening face.

  "And that's why I'm sure START will give you something good. They always say START picks what's best for us," Her tone was softer now.

  She then hugged me from behind which was still comforting despite the sweat. “I'm sure you'll do great no matter what class you get.”

  "Even if I get something like Chef?”

  She chuckled at my comment. “If anyone could find a way to save the day with cake, I'm sure it would be you.”

  Realizing I had probably spent too long here, I dislodged myself from my sister and said: "I should get going, I wouldn't want to keep you.”

  "Oh don't worry about that, I'm a big sister first and Paladin second," She waved off my concern with a grin.

  “Keep talking like that and they'll start calling you sister Natalie instead of sir,” I teased.

  She rolled her eyes, still smiling. " That title is reserved for you when you become a priest tomorrow."

  " Do you really think it'll make me a priest?” She may have been joking but that was exactly what I was hoping for.

  “Please, I still remember that time you woke me up just because there was a spider on the bedroom door. What else would START give to someone unwilling to hurt even mere spiders?”

  "It's not that! I just … didn't want to disturb it," I said, turning to the side while fidgeting slightly.

  "That's even worse,” She chuckled.

  I groaned. " Whatever, I need to get going before mom gets angry, see you!” I turned around to leave.

  “I'll be sure to stop by tomorrow so we can celebrate!" I heard from behind me.

  I left the Paladin temple but couldn't resist peering into the adventures guild. I longed to go inside. Tales of adventure from my late father told of and bardic tales sung of The Hero birthed a desire in me for adventure. I longed for the day I could walk into this building and accept a quest that would send me far away to save some small village from a dangerous monster. It might be a childish dream, but it's my dream regardless. Like Natalie said, I can’t be The Hero, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do what he does!

  I pull myself away from the adventures guild and head on over to the market, stopping by to buy the eggs mom asked me to get. Giving them the copper Mom gave me, I head back home with eggs in hand.

  Arriving home, I can already detect the delicious scent of whatever Mom is cooking. The moment I step inside, Mom is already at the door, pulling the eggs I'm holding right out of my hand.

  “I was beginning to worry you wouldn't be here before the food started to burn!" Mom huffs.

  "Sorry, I wanted to visit Natalie while I was out,” I said, grabbing a chair.

  "I see. Well then how was she?” She asked after going back to whatever she was preparing.

  "She seemed to be doing well. She was busy training some new paladins, I believe.”

  “Training new paladins? She is a new paladin!" Mom turns around briefly to give a look of outrage.

  "Mom, she's been with that temple for four years now.”

  "Four years, where did the time go?” Mom tisks with a shake of her head.

  "I really hope you don’t get a class like hers, I'd like it if you got someone more…”

  "Boring?" I add.

  “Safe,” she glares.

  I wanted to argue but at the same time I did understand, especially after my dad left to help fight against The Villain’s demon army and never returned. He apparently left when I was six so I barely even remember him. With him gone it’s easy to understand why she would be so worried about losing one of us.

  “We will be safe. Natalie is getting pretty strong these days, and she’s a paladin, so I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I comforted.

  “I suppose,” Mom sighed

  Come midnight, I saw mom off to bed but I found sleep difficult to grasp. Thoughts of what I would do if I got this class or that class swam through my mind. Regardless, no matter what class I got, I knew I would do everything I could to help people.

  I had just woken up when a series of semi-transparent, square boxes flooded my vision. I groggily sat up and studied them for a moment. It took me a good minute to realize what they were, but when I did I sat bolt upright in bed and immediately studied the display text with barely contained excitement.

  It’s time to finally check my profile! Remembering what my sister told me, I mentally thought of the word “profile”, causing another blue box to open.

  W-what? No, this can’t be right, there must be a mistake somewhere. I studied my profile carefully to find some way to fix this issue, but found none. Thinking the word again, I caused the box to disappear and then waited for a moment. Maybe it was mistaken or … or maybe I read incorrectly; there’s no way it said what I thought it said.

  A moment later I re-opened my profile and checked for my class. Again, it said the same thing: Villain.

  No, no, no, no, no, no! This is wrong, this can’t be right. She said it would give me the class that fits me best; there is no way this is what START chose. Again I close and reopen my profile and again, find that nothing has changed. This has to be a mistake; START MUST have made a mistake!

  But then another blue box appears, covering my profile:

  I wanted to scream. This is starting to feel less and less like a mistake! I broke out in a cold sweat and my heart began to race as my mind spun with the implications of this. This isn’t what I wanted, this is the exact opposite of what I wanted! I wanted to help people, I wanted to adventure, I wanted … I wanted to be like The Hero! Not only did I not get that, START also announced the existence of a new villain to the entire world! Everyone is going to panic the moment I walk out of my room and show off my new class to everyone!

  Maybe … maybe I can be a good villain? Is that possible? If the class is as strong as The Hero then maybe I could just use it to help people …. Sure it’ll be difficult at first due to the name of the class but maybe people will warm up to me. I mean, just because START calls me “The Villain” doesn’t mean I actually have to kill people. But then, as if to correct me, another blue box appears in front of me.

  This is a joke, it has to be a joke! I’m not doing this! I don’t care what the reward is or whatever “disciplinary action” is; I am absolutely not going to so much as hurt an innocent person!

  As the shock starts to fade, dread slowly creeps in. Just what am I going to do now? I am not going to start hurting people just because START told me to but even if I think that, that doesn’t mean other people will know. There’s nothing stopping someone from calling the guards on me and locking me up forever because of the possible threat I might pose! From what I’ve learned through stories, the last villain raged war with basically the entire world for a long time. Because of those stories alone, everyone will obviously think that I will do something similar!

  Should I just turn myself in then? Run out and find the nearest guard so they can capture me and turn me over to The Hero? If being a villain means I might kill people then wouldn't it be best to act now so that doesn’t happen? Oh god, what would my sister think? I don’t think I could handle seeing that. What if she attacks me?!

  Aaaaahhh, I don’t want to die! But what else can I do?! Should I just run away and try to get stronger so that it’s harder for people to kill me? No … that’s stupid. There’s no way I could survive out on my own. Also I doubt I could ever match up to The Hero if he found me. Shit, I’m The Hero’s enemy now!

  My profile! There has to be something in this stupid box that can help me out! First, my eyes wander towards my attributes. Even if I put all twenty points into one attribute, I doubt that would make much of a difference against a monster. I could put all twenty into endurance so that I’m harder to kill but that just feels like it would only delay the inevitable. I move on and look further down at the traits section. I’ve heard of all kinds of crazy traits such as anything from a calming aura like my Paladin sister or even a trait that lets you jump in mid air! Something here just has to help me survive; I mean, villains are supposed to be powerful, right?!

  I focused on my available trait points and thought about spending them, this immediately brought up a list of traits that I could buy. The list it came up with was … a lot. Some of them cost only one trait point and others cost as much as twenty! So many of the names sounded like stuff I wanted nothing to do with. The first ten were all traits classified under a section called “exclusive” which apparently meant I could only pick one on the list of ten exclusive traits.

  My eyes first were drawn to the first trait, costing an astounding twenty points. Assuming these options won’t go away when I level up like normal, I would have to wait for quite a while before I can buy it. The name makes me feel hesitant to consider it too much but out of pure morbid curiosity, I decided to check its description. Focusing on the name, more information appears below it, including the skills associated with the trait.

  Everything about it seemed really powerful but the part about becoming a skeleton completely ruins it for me. Pretty much all I liked was the first skill that let me avoid dying but that’s not worth making everyone think I’m a skeleton monster! The next trait I was drawn to at first made me think that it might be something that I can do some good with, seeing as it had angel in the name.

  I could almost cry; who would ever take that?! Oh sure that gear would likely make me incredibly powerful, right up until a Supreme Archangel descends from the sky and murders me! This is my first time hearing about angels outside of a fairy tale so that’s interesting I guess but I have far more things to focus on at the moment!

  Sighing in resignation, I decided to skip the exclusive traits for now. They all seem very powerful–well, maybe not that last one, but they just seem a bit too … evil. I don’t care if I’m literally classified as a villain now, taking a trait that encourages me to be more evil feels like I’d be willingly slipping down a path that I couldn't recover from. A knife on a table is completely harmless after all, it’s only dangerous until someone picks it up.

  Scrolling down to the regular traits, I was again surprised with how expansive this list was compared to the exclusive traits. Reading through the entire list could take an entire hour and almost all of them cost one or two points. From the few I read, most gave small bonuses for certain ways of fighting and various methods of … hurting people. Anything that didn’t involve attacking just made it easier to either hurt or manipulate people against their will. In fact, very little of the list seemed to focus entirely on fighting monsters.

  Scrolling back up to the top of the regular traits to see what the best could offer me, I felt my excitement grow as I read:

  My mouth drops after reading that trait. The bonuses are insane, just how high level is The Hero?! The most important part of the trait is definitely the part about hiding my class name. Rogue isn’t the best but at least being a Rogue won’t get me killed on sight. The crazy experience increase also means that I’ll hopefully be much stronger by the time the buff’s two month duration is over. I probably won’t be able to stand up to The Hero but hopefully it won’t be so easy for someone to kill me on the spot after reading my class.

  Purchasing the skill, I immediately breath a sigh of relief seeing the word “Villain” disappear from my menu. It feels like I just delayed my inevitable death but at least it gives me more time to figure out what I’m going to do.

  Now that I felt slightly safer, I felt a brief bit of annoyance that the class the trait was hiding me as wasn’t something more preferable. You would think if you wanted to make people think you weren’t evil you’d go with something like priest. Then again, I didn’t really see any traits that would let me heal people so maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea after all.