Armand Fights Monsters
Book 1
Part 1: James and the Cannibal Cultists
Chapter 1
James wiggled his nose as something brushed against it. For a moment he just lay where he was, enjoying the warmth and being well rested. He sleepily glanced at the digital display glowing in the corner of his vision.
11:25 AM
“Oh Crud!” Sitting bolt upright adrenaline flooded his system, “I am so late for wooorrr…”, his voice dying out as his surroundings came into focus. Glancing around he realized he was sitting on a patch of lush green grass, with two rows of intermittent hedges extending a good seventy-five feet before the grass pathway was blocked by another hedge.
“Um, what?” Bracing his hands to push up off the ground, his eyes clued him in to what his butt had already been trying to say. “Ok, why am I naked?” After a moment of hesitation, he pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. “Better able to move, then worry about someone seeing me. Where am I anyway?” He thought to himself before verbally admonishing himself, “Focus, what do I have?”
Taking a breath to steady himself, he continued, “I’m entirely nude and this looks an awful lot like a hedge maze. None of my friends would leave me nude somewhere, so that rules out a prank from my friends. The weather is warm and sunny,” He paused for a moment as a visual detail caught his attention, “and I have a floating clock in the top right corner of my vision.” When he shook his head in surprise, the clock followed his field of view. Even with turning his head away and closing his eyes, the clock continued to be visible. “I can still see the clock even with my eyes closed, and it's right on the edge of my peripheral vision, but I can still see it clearly. Vivid dream or Isakai then. I guess that simplifies things.”
Squinting up at the bright blue sky he spotted one, then two moons visible even during the day. “Cool, two moons, classic.” James wiggled his toes and fingers making sure all his limbs looked and functioned like he expected them to before frowning when he realized he couldn’t feel his ponytail brushing against his back. Reaching back his fingers only touched smooth skin over the familiar bumps in his skull. Glancing at his arms and legs quickly revealed that every scrap of hair was gone. “Well… that’s rude, could have at least left me my ponytail. Still, everything is in good shape, even the small scab on my right arm is gone.” He tried to remember if he was forgetting something important when a glowing window popped up right in the center of his view.
System Menu:
[Apps…]
[Utilities…]
[System Config]
[Close]
James moved his head side to side, and even momentarily closed his eyes to confirm he could still see it. When he opened his eyes, he had a secondary realization, somehow, the neon green text didn’t manage to obscure his vision in any way. The effect was similar to exercises to find your dominant eye, where something blocking one eye was still visible, just ignored. Unsure of how to interact with the screen, James started by just mentally poking the section that said [Apps…] and was rewarded with a new menu.
System Menu:
[Clock]
[Contacts]
[Draw]
[Music Player]
[Notebook]
[Todo List]
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[Video Player]
[Widget Manager]
[Back] [Close]
“Cool! It reacts to my thoughts. I was worried that I was going to need to find a wireless keyboard or VR gloves or something.” James mentally tapped to go back and then selected the Utilities option. “I’ve got Akashic Wiki, C3 Storage, Salvage, and VSM,” James muttered to himself, “The Akashic something or other was like a super library, so hopefully the Wiki will be able to explain what’s going on.” Deciding he wanted to know what was under the System Config menu first, James tapped the back button and then opened up the system config.
System Config:
Hardware ID: James Mathis
Motherboard systems:
Augmented Reality
Virtual Spell Machine
Akashic Wiki
Colossal Commodity Cache
Salvage Components
Astral Affinity
Storage: 0.1%
Power Slot: Upgrade not installed.
Speed Slot: Upgrade not installed.
Spirit Slot: Upgrade not installed.
Recovery Slot: Upgrade not installed.
[System Statistics]
[Close]
James read through the list noting that there seemed to be a strong correlation between several of the utilities and the motherboard systems. He opened up the System Statistics and was greeted by a wall of changing numbers, with hexadecimal labels.Closing the system windows, James looked around again and then up at the two moons, “I am probably going to end up regretting this, but this is really cool. If this is a dream, I’m going to enjoy the snot outta this. If this is an Isakai…”, his shoulders slumped, “ I’m going to have to figure out how to get Rose here. Well there went my good mood.”
Navigating back through the menu, James pulled up the Akashic Wiki and was greeted with several folders. Expanding the folders his optimism further fell when the limits of the documentation was made clear.
Akashic Wiki:
* General
* [Introduction]
* Magic
*
* Monsters
*
* Locations
*
* Systems
*
[Close]
Hoping for at least a clue about what was happening, he opened up the Introduction document.
Akashic Wiki:
Introduction:
Welcome to your personal Augmented Reality and the Akashic Wiki systems. These systems are designed to help you navigate the world you now find yourself in. To prevent Analisis Paralisis, additional documents will be unlocked as you encounter new scenarios and information. Even after you have become familiar with your various systems and surrounding, the Akashic Wiki will continue to update as you encounter new information.
[Back] [Close]
James read the message a second time and then down at his hairless naked body. “Great. I’m in a tutorial. I’ve done the looking around bit. I guess next up I’ll have to crouch under an inconveniently placed low hanging branch and then jump over a small ditch or something.” James’ eyes narrowed, “Unless this is one of those isekais where they throw everyone into a giant arena where only those who don’t have two brain cells to rub together won’t realize that the only realistic way to advance consists of killing all the other people.” Shaking his head to push away the thoughts, he closed the document and saw that there already was another one. Opening it he read the single sentence out loud to himself “Vane Family Estate. Set deep in the desert, the Vane Family Estate is a gorgeous man made oasis and has a truly top notch Hedge Maze.”
James closed the document and didn’t see any more, so he closed all the open windows and looked around at the thorny hedges that surrounded him, “Guess the only way for me to learn anything is to explore.” Looking towards the sun, nearly directly overhead, did nothing to provide him a sense of direction, so he ripped enough grass up from one side of the walkway to create a noticeable bald spot and piled the grass clippings on the other side. Task completed, he then headed off through the maze, keeping to the left hand wall.