Winter settled over our village like a burial shroud.
The storms came earlier than usual. Harder than anyone remembered. Ice formed thick on the harbor. Snow piled against our doors until we had to dig tunnels just to move between houses.
But we were surviving.
The grain from the monastery fed our families. The silver bought us additional supplies from traveling merchants. Children who would have starved were growing fat and healthy.
Every meal was a reminder of what we'd done to earn it.
I spent most of my time training. The winter gave me months to focus on building strength and skill without the distractions of fishing or farming.
My father pushed me harder than ever. Morning exercises in the snow. Sword work until my arms couldn't lift the blade. Wrestling matches with older boys who should have been able to crush me.
But they couldn't.
"Show me my stats," I whispered one morning after a particularly brutal training session.
[Your Status is]
[Name: Njal]
[Strength: 35]
[Endurance: 24]
[Intelligence: 23]
[Skills] [Listening lv4] [Learning lv6] [Norse lv7] [Wood Cutting lv4] [Strength Training lv5] [Combat lv8] [Fishing lv4] [Sailing lv2] [War Preparation lv2] [Looting lv1] [Navigation lv4] [Star Reading lv2] [Winter Survival lv3]
[Titles] [The Giant] [Wood Pecker] [Wolf Tamer] [First Blood] [Monastery Raider] [Navigator] [Storm Walker]
[Achievements] [First Raid] [Survivor's Burden] [The Long Journey Home] [Winter's Child]
Thirty-five strength at ten years old. I was stronger than most adult men in the village now. Combat level eight meant I could probably hold my own against experienced warriors.
But numbers on a screen couldn't capture what the winter had really taught me.
The families of the men who'd died in the storm struggled despite our success. Widows tried to manage alone. Fatherless children grew up too fast. The silver helped but it couldn't replace what they'd lost.
Every day I saw the cost of our survival written on their faces.
"You're getting stronger," my father observed as we walked home from training one evening. The snow crunched under our boots. Our breath formed clouds in the frigid air.
"Is that good?" I asked.
He was quiet for a long time. We'd reached our house before he answered.
"Strength is just a tool," he said finally. "What matters is how you use it."
Inside, my mother was preparing dinner. Fish soup with grain from the monastery. The smell filled our small home with warmth and comfort.
But her movements were tired. Mechanical. Like she was going through the motions of living without really feeling alive.
"How was training?" she asked without looking up from the pot.
"Good," I replied. The same answer I gave every day.
She nodded. The same acknowledgment she gave every day.
We'd fallen into routines that kept us functional but not really happy. The whole village had.
Success felt different than I'd expected. Heavier.
"Mother," I said as she ladled soup into wooden bowls. "Are you angry about the raid?"
She stopped stirring. Her hand gripped the ladle tighter.
"Angry?" she repeated quietly.
"About what we had to do. About the people who died."
My father shot me a warning look. This wasn't something we talked about directly. Too dangerous. Too painful.
But I needed to understand.
"No," she said after a long pause. "Not angry. Sad."
"Sad that people died?"
"Sad that the world is the kind of place where good people have to do terrible things just to survive."
She served the soup in silence. We ate without speaking.
Outside, the wind howled through the village. Inside, we were warm and fed and alive.
The contradiction felt like a weight pressing down on all of us.
Later that night, I lay in my bed of furs and listened to the storm. My parents thought I was asleep but I could hear them talking quietly by the dying fire.
"He's changing," my mother said.
"He has to," my father replied. "This world doesn't allow children to stay innocent."
"He's only ten."
"I was younger when I killed my first man. At least he has the system to help him adapt."
They knew about the system. Had figured it out over the years. The way I learned too fast. Got too strong. Remembered too much.
"What if he becomes something we don't recognize?" my mother asked.
"Then we love him anyway," my father said. "And hope we raised him with enough humanity to remember who he was."
Their words hit me harder than any training session. They were watching me change. Worried about what I was becoming.
The problem was, I wasn't sure either.
[New Skill: Emotional Intelligence lv1]
Even the system was tracking how I processed these complex feelings. Everything was data to be measured and improved.
But some things couldn't be quantified. The weight of necessary choices. The cost of survival. The price of becoming someone your parents might not recognize.