Grayson read over his apparent stats, slightly insulted that his strength was only a six, but with nothing to compare it to, he was unsure whether that was a good score. He felt his eyes growing heavy now as he pushed himself forward, each step slightly slower than the last. Between running this far into the city and the spike of adrenaline when he fought the goblins, he knew he was utterly worn out. If he ran into other monsters, he would easily be a target, barely able to lift his arms to fight back. He gathered up the other dagger and sword left behind by the goblins. He dragged himself down the street until he encountered a large mattress store between two larger buildings. Making his way inside, he resisted the urge to collapse in the first available one. He made his way to the warehouse space in the back to flip one onto the cement floor before falling into it and passing out immediately.
Feeling like not even seconds had passed, Grayson’s eyes snapped open. As far as he could tell and confirmed when he made his way back out the store's front door, the sun had not moved at all, meaning he had slept for a full day or was no longer following its usual route in the sky. He was not sure which was the better option of the two. He drank an entire sports drink and took off down the road again.
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“Interesting little experiment you have found yourself,” a deep, rasping voice growled. But let us see how he fairs against one of my children.”
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Grayson stared up at the dark windows of the hospital. A growing sense of unease sat in the pit of his stomach. He had yet to see another person or animal except for the goblins. While one part of him still hoped his father was here, the logical side of his brain screamed that his father was no longer there. He pried the sliding doors apart with the ruined sword he had taken from the goblins, the two daggers tucked into the water bottle pouches on his backpack. He had fashioned a new torch with his extra shirt from his backpack and the end of the broken broom from earlier as he lit it as he made his way into the dark interior of the hospital. Grayson let the eerie feeling of the completely empty and quiet hospital take over his thoughts, pushing down his worry for his father, as he trudged up the flights of stairs to get to the fourth floor and made his way through the mess of hallways to find his father’s room.
The bed was empty except for the tangled wires and tubes on the sheets. Grayson sighed to himself and stopped as he heard movement down the hallway. A clicking sound echoed off the walls as heavy footfalls slowly approached him. Grayson immediately thought back to the two goblins that had run, cursing himself for not chasing them down until he realized the steps were much too heavy to be the small goblins. He could hear the monster panting slightly and sniffing the air with deep inhalations. This was something bigger and more animalistic than the goblins. He took off down the hallway in the opposite direction of the sounds. Thankfully, most hospitals were designed in large loops like this one, and the loss of power released all the magnetic locks on the doors, which pushed open quickly. Grayson skipped the first hallway he passed and cut down the second as he charged towards the door labeled as a stairwell.
Grayson flew down the stairs, taking two or three at a time, as quickly as he could without toppling down. As he hit the landing for the second floor and began to turn to head to the ground floor, he heard a massive crash above him as wood splinters rained down from the gap between the flights of stairs. Whatever the creature was above him, it was large and strong enough that it needed to smash open the stair door to follow him. A bellowing roar sounded out, echoing off the cold stone stairs and walls as Grayson pushed through the ground floor door and made a dead sprint for the front door again, but as he reached it, a tremendous sound of shattering glass could be heard above as large shards of plate glass smashed into the road. Then, a massive furry monster slammed into the ground, leaving cracks in the asphalt where it landed.
Raising itself up, the monster stood nearly two and a half feet taller than Grayson, making it somewhere near nine feet tall. It had a long, lupine snout full of a carnivore’s teeth as it snarled at Grayson, thick globs of saliva hanging from the sides of its mouth. Two beady yellow eyes focused on him as it hunched forward to support itself with its two distended arms, each tipped with long fingers ending in curled claws. Its back legs were curled like a dog's, tensed and ready to push the large creature forward to attack with its power muscles. They stood facing each other as they stared, waiting to see who would attack first. In the end, it was Grayson. He slung his backpack off his shoulders and to the ground before hurling the goblin sword at the beast and pulling his two daggers free. The sword clanged harmlessly off the shoulder of the monster as it sprung forward and slashed its large claws at Grayson. The impact of the blade-like nails digging into his chest sent him flying across the hospital lobby, slamming into the wall behind the front desk and sliding down.
Grayson gasped for air as his breath had been knocked out by the impact. One of his daggers had gone spinning out of his hand, and blood poured from the four long wounds in his chest. A small bar appeared in the top right of his vision, not blocking anything but where his peripheral vision could make out the information.
HP: 2/12
Grayson knew exactly what that meant. One hit from this monster had taken away more than half of his life force, and a second one would kill him. He rolled on his side and looked for anything that would help him. His eyes landed on a bright red cylinder tucked to one side underneath the desk. He shuffled over and grabbed it, pulling the pin and aiming the nozzle upwards as he could already hear the monster moving towards him. With a crunch as the heavy desk almost buckled under its weight, the beast jumped on top and bore down with a triumphant roar with its fangs to tear Grayson apart. Grayson squeezed the handle of the fire extinguisher. Freezing compressed carbon dioxide gas blasted out of the nozzle in a white cloud as it coated the monster's snout, eyes, and mouth. It howled in pain and stumbled off the desk, clawing at its eyes and hacking coughs out. Grayson sprung to his feet and charged, slamming his remaining dagger into the creature's chest, ripping it out, and ramming it back in. He kept stabbing until his arms gave out, past the point the monster fell down, past the point where it stopped fighting back, and past the point that he heard the faint ding.
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Grayson sat on the floor, still taking shallow breaths. He had found some medical supplies in a closet and now sat with a poorly wrapped upper torso as he finally opened his menu screen again. Multiple notifications sat waiting for him.
TIER 4 WEREWOLF KILLED
EXP REWARDED: ERROR
GOLD REWARDED: 2,100
LEVEL-UP REQUIREMENTS MET
NEW LEVEL: ERROR
STAT INCREASE: ERROR
REWARD: ERROR
LEVEL-UP REQUIREMENTS MET
NEW LEVEL: ERROR
STAT INCREASE: ERROR
REWARD: ERROR
LEVEL-UP REQUIREMENTS MET
NEW LEVEL: ERROR
STAT INCREASE: ERROR
REWARD: ERROR
ADDITIONAL LEVEL NOTIFICATIONS x7
YOU HAVE SLAIN AN ENEMY OF A HIGHER TIER THAN YOUR LEVEL GROUP
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
YOU WILL RECEIVE THE AFFINITY: BEAST - MONSTROUS
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU QUALIFY FOR A HIGHER CLASS!
CLASS: BEASTLORD (RANK 3)
WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACCEPT?
Y/N
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU QUALIFY FOR A HIGHER CLASS!
CLASS: CURSEBREAKER (RANK 3)
WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACCEPT?
Y/N
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU QUALIFY FOR A HIGHER CLASS!
CLASS: JUGGERNAUT (RANK 3)
WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACCEPT?
Y/N
Grayson sat and stared at the final three notifications. A higher class? If he remembered his stats from earlier correctly, he did not even have a class. He also did not know what a rank three class even was.
“Would it kill you to explain these to me?” Grayson asked the lifeless screen before him, barely hoping for a response as three more windows opened.
BEASTLORD
YOUR DAYS AS A SUMMONER HAVE SEEN YOU HANDLE MANY GREAT FOES AND DESPITE THE ODDS, YOU HAVE CONQUERED THEM. NOW, AS YOU STAND AT THE PINNACLE OF RANK 2 BEASTCRAFT, YOU PUSH EVEN FURTHER TO REACH THE MARK OF A BEASTLORD, YOUR CREATURES UNENDING AND UNDEFEATABLE.
CURSEBREAKER
AS AN ACOLYTE, YOU HAVE SEEN MULTITUDES OF AILMENTS AND HEXES, BUT YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN FACED WITH A MALEDICTION YOU COULD NOT UNDO. AS YOU EXCEED YOUR LIMIT OF RANK 2, MAY ALL DARK MAGICS SHUDDER AT THE MENTION OF YOUR NAME.
JUGGERNAUT
WHILE A WARDEN IS NORMALLY A SHIELD FOR HIS ALLIES, YOUR TIME HAS SEEN YOU BE THEIR WARHAMMER. WHILE A DREADNAUGHT MIGHT BE AN IMMOVABLE OBJECT, YOU ARE THE UNRELENTING FORCE. MAY YOUR ATTACKS ALWAYS STRIKE TRUE AND THE RUMBLE THE VERY FOUNDATIONS OF THE WORLD.
“None of that means anything to me,” Grayson mumbled as he stared at the blocks of text in front of him like they would suddenly make sense.
“I would imagine not. You’re not close to the level that you should be seeing such things,” said a voice from outside the doors.
Grayson’s head snapped up to see a well-dressed man in a waistcoat. His head was entirely smooth, including no facial hair or eyebrows. Grayson immediately pulled up his dagger to point it at the new figure.
“Stop that,” the man said dismissively, “You couldn’t harm me with that even if you were hundreds of levels higher.”
Grayson lowered his arm, letting the blade rest on the floor again. There was no tension or fight in the man’s body as he looked over Grayson with the eyes of a man tired and ready to finish his work.
“Good,” he continued, “Now, let’s input your information so you may be integrated properly.”
The man leaned down, his white eyes flashing with a faint green light as he looked over Grayson. Then his brow furrowed as the light in his eyes changed to a blue tint and then yellow.
“What the hells have you been doing?” he asked, “Did you kill the goblins earlier? But even that wouldn’t be enough to get you to level twelve. Maybe level two or three. What did you…”
“Werewolf,” Grayson responded as the individual focused on the spot where the monster's body had been.
“Where did a tier four come from?” Anger was apparent in the man’s voice, “I should be the only GM here and the goblins were a non threat to slow you down.”
Grayson’s only response was to shrug. He had finally reached the point that this weirdness was no longer surprising. He had no idea what a GM was or what the goblins had to do with it. He turned back to the windows before him as the GM continued to rant to himself. He was heavily considering going for the juggernaut class simply for the power it seemed to supply. After facing the werewolf, he would mind some unstoppable force.
"How did you even manage to kill a tier four monster?" The GM wondered.
"Use a fire extinguisher on it," Grayson replied without looking at him.
"Interesting. Creatures from Averden must have odd reactions to things in your world like this 'fire exalter.'"
"Extinguisher."
The GM waved his hand dismissively.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Deciding which of these classes to pick,” Grayson responded, continuing not to look up.
“You have class options? That shouldn't even be possible at this stage. You haven’t even qualified for a rank one class yet and you aren’t at the level for a rank two class.”
“I don’t know, man. I’ve got three rank three class options here.”
“Rank three?!”
The GM spun around to face Grayson, quickly peering over his shoulder.
“By the Seven, how the hells do you have rank three classes available?”
“You tell me. You seem to know a lot more than I do,” Grayson retorted, his frustration rising again.
“It shouldn’t be possible,” the GM said as he pulled back and pressed his coat flat again.
He rubbed his smooth chin and stared at Grayson for a long moment as Grayson watched his eyes dart back and forth, seemingly in deep thought or making some calculation.
“Very well. You’ll already be late to join seeing as you have taken a couple of days to wander around,” the GM started.
“A couple days?!” Grayson cut him off.
“Yes. Just because your star was not moving across the sky does not mean that time had stopped. This will have a compounding effect in Averden. I imagine you’ll arrive a few months after the rest of your species. Giving you a head start for being late to the game will keep things interesting.”
“A head start how? Interesting to who?”
“I will offer you a rank three class of my own design, one not yet seen in Averden, which will hopefully mask the error of whatever ridiculous flaw in the system gave the ability to jump rank not once, but twice. All you will have to do is swear to me, here and now, that you will not tell another soul of how you came to cheat like this.”
“Hey, I didn’t cheat-”
“Silence. Do you accept?”
“Can I get some more information on the class?”
“I call it ‘The Void Priest.’ As I said, I designed it myself as a half melee, half spellcasting, so it will probably need some adjustments as it's probably a little too powerful right now.”
“Fine. I’ll take it.”
“Very good,” the GM said with a clap of his hands, “Then let's input you and I’ll send you right now.”
“Send me where?” Grayson asked.
“Averden. Where you should have been already except for this slight hiccup in the system. It happens every once and awhile.”
“Averden? The system?”
“You’ll see.”
Without a chance to ask any more questions, Grayson suddenly felt like the world was spinning around him. His vision went blurry, and then everything went dark. His muscles burned like they had been injected with pure magma, and he felt his eyes watering despite his lack of sight as he tried to scream in agony, but no sound came out. His brain pounded like someone was trying to hammer a hatchet into his head, and his heart beat so fast he was worried it would burst inside his chest. Finally, he saw a point of light rushing towards him, so bright he had to squeeze his eyes shut as he plummeted downward.
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Bright green grass swaying gently in the gentle breeze. In the distance, a small group of trees could be seen leaning over a small pond. Sitting at the water’s edge was a simple fisherman, taking a short nap as his bobber floated in the blue water. Suddenly, he was awoken by a loud splashing sound as he ripped his pole up, hoping he had finally gotten his big catch, but as an empty hook landed in the grass next to him, he looked up at the pond. Walking to the edge, a strange man, taller than anyone the fisherman had ever seen, climbed out of the water wearing only a strange pair of pants and boots. Grayson nodded to him and took in the landscape.
“Which way to town?” Grayson asked him.
The fishermen pointed towards the road. Grayson nodded to him and began to trudge down the road.