The day started out like any other. Logan got up ate breakfast and then had a light workout before heading down to the local homeless shelter to help prepare lunch. He enjoyed this part of his life, being able to help others. He wished it wasn't necessary but dwelling on that isn't going to help anyone. As he walked in he was greeted by the familiar faces of his fellow volunteers. To his surprise however there was another volunteer this time. A young red head named Tommy who used to be among the homeless but last he heard had managed to get a job and shortly after had saved up enough to afford the deposit on an apartment.
"What are you doing here" asked Logan hoping he already knew the answer. "Well as you may have heard" answers Tommy "I got that job I was applying for, and I also found a place to live. So, I thought I'd come back here and try to pay it forward." "After all it was all thanks to you and this place." "Nonsense" says Logan with a smile. "I'm sure you would have gotten that job even without my coaching you through the process."
After that it was back to business as usual serving meals and greeting people by name. He always made it a point to remember one important detail about them or their lives as a way to let them feel seen and heard. Growing up he was fortunate enough to have never been homeless. His father on the other hand would tell stories about living on the street as a teen. "You just get used to being invisible after a while" his father would say. It was because of his dad's stories that he decided to volunteer in the shelter the first time where he soon realized two very important things, few people chose to be homeless, and everyone has a story.
In the evening it was off to his actual day job, not that he considered it work but he actually got paid for this at least. He taught both advanced and beginner level self-defense classes and tonight was the advanced class. As such he was ready to hit the shower by the time class ended.
Deciding to wait until he got home, he gathered his things and took off walking. About a half a kilometer later he saw some young lady being attacked by a group of men. Upon closer inspection he realized that it was one of the newer ladies in his advanced class and although she was talented, she was in no way ready to take on multiple opponents. Without hesitating he picked up a bit of metal pipe that was on the ground and managed to hit one of the attackers in the back of the head knocking the guy out cold before getting noticed. At least he hoped the guy was just knocked out, although judging by the sound of the impact and the blood he may have been a bit to forceful. No time to worry about that now though as that attack got the attention of four out of the remaining six attackers. To be fair it might have gotten the attention of the other two as well, but they were busy dealing with their less than cooperative victim. The guy on the far right lunged at him likely hoping to tackle him to the ground. he dodged out of the way and brought the metal pipe down across the guys back. The far left guy seeing what he believed to be an opportunity to catch the would-be hero off guard launched a haymaker of a punch. This time instead of dodging Logan deflected it with his arm and brought the metal pipe up smacking it across the guy's face causing him to pirouette away comically and possibly breaking his jaw. While he got ready to square off against the last two the first guy had regained his composure. Seeing the movement out of the corner of his eye he ducked down just in time to dodge a sucker punch and brought the metal pipe around catching him the in the back of the knee causing him to lose his balance. Before bringing the metal pipe up and changing one guy from baritone to a soprano. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to respond to last guy who promptly stabbed him in the neck with a knife he had pulled from somewhere.
The young lady had managed to deal with one of her attackers and the other guy along with the ones that were attacking Logan decided the risk was no longer worth the reward. They ran and/or hobbled away as fast as they could leaving the would be hero to his fate. Recognizing the now bleeding man who had come to her rescue she ran over to try and help. As the icy touch of death claimed him his last thought was "at least she's safe now."
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Then almost as if nothing had happened, he found himself sitting at a table in a solid white room. Sitting across from him was a group of seven people wearing the brightest white robes he had ever seen. "We are willing to give you another shot at life if that is something you desire" said the one in the center. "what's the catch" Logan said suspiciously. On the one hand he didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth but on the other hand he'd been around enough to know that if something seems too good to be true it either is or it comes with a catch. Considering what they were offering he realize it must come with one doozy of a catch. "No catch" the one second from the left insisted. "Well not much of one anyway" continued the one second from right. "We just want you to continue doing what you were doing" claims the guy far right. "I think I'd actually like that" thinks Logan "Although you will get sent to another realm" says the one far left at almost a whisper. "Wait what" says Logan realizing they just tried to sneak that last part by him. "We would be sending you to another realm to help the humans of that realm" says the one left of the center figure. "That is if you agree" clarifies the one right of the center figure.
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Logan thought about it for a few minutes before something finally clicked. "Wait a minute" he said "what do you mean you need my help". "Out of all of us here surely I am the weakest". "That is true" answers the one in the center "but to apply our powers directly we feel would cause more harm than good". "As such" the figure continues "once you get down there you will be on your own". "So my choice is either go continue to help people or find out what comes next" he asks the group. "Essentially yes" confirms the center figure.
He wasn't really a fan of either option but since going back to his body on earth didn't seem to be an option, he decided to take the option that in his opinion had the fewest unknown variables. "Ok I'm in" he said matter-of-factly. "What do you need me to do exactly". "Just what we said, help the humans of that realm" the central figure said before everything started fading.
Upon regaining consciousness, he was immediately made aware of two very important things. The first of which is that he didn't seem to have a body of any kind. The second being that he could only see an area of about three meters by three meters, or nine square meters. He appeared to be in some kind of grass field near what he could only imagine was the side of a house. He tried to move around and see if he could get a better idea of where he was but for some reason, he couldn't go past the area he could perceive. That alone wouldn't have been as bad except that the only things in that area aside from the wood wall with some weird growth on it was a praying mantis that was perched on top of a small gem almost like it was protecting the thing, and the gem itself.
Somehow although he wasn't sure how he knew it exactly he could sense that the weird growth was called a praying mantis spawner, "but uh what's a spawner". Focusing on the growth/spawner thing he realized that he could do stuff with it. He could upgrade it, or he could "increase population" whatever that means. Population of what is the question, although thinking logically he realizes it has praying mantis in the name so that must mean something ... right? He mentally focused on the option to increase population and a praying mantis came crawling out of the spawner. Not a baby praying mantis either but a full grown adult. He decided it was probably best not to think too hard about that. With nothing else to do he eventually spawned another praying mantis. Once again, however he found himself bored but this time he didn't even have the Mana to summon another praying mantis. Even though he had no idea what mana was he seemed to instinctively know that he didn't have enough.
After what seemed like an eternity something interesting happened. Well ordinarily it wouldn't be, but Logan was so bored that anything happening was suddenly very interesting. A mouse found its way into his perception. Perhaps even more interesting though was the reactions of the three praying mantises to this new intruder. Two of them approached the mouse blocking its path. After a brief stand off the two mantises suddenly and with surprising speed attacked the mouse pinning it to the ground. As soon as it was pinned, they both began ripping away chunks of flesh with their mouths. While watching the morbid show he realized they weren't actually eating it, just ripping chunks of its flesh away. Shortly after the mouse stopped moving, he noticed something else as well. He gained energy or . . . uh mana apparently from that somehow.
After another long break of nothing happening, he decided to look and see why the mantises were so fascinated with that weird gem. He focused on it and realized it had options as well. The one that caught his eye was called expand territory. He hoped that would allow him to see further. Focusing on it he realized he could expand in any direction including down . . . somehow. After thinking about it for a while he decided to choose the side to the left of the one that was covered by a wall. once selected his vision began to expand in that direction eventually adding another 3 meters to his perception in that direction. Nothing else changed except that he could now see slightly further. Suddenly it occurred to him that the gem was more important than he initially thought, and he suddenly wished he could tell the mantises to hide it or something.
Eventually another mouse came snooping around and was quickly dispatched. This gave him enough mana to expand again but this time he expanded in the other direction finding the end of the wall and what appeared to be a broken sword.