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Your strength stat has been lowered by 1 point.
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My expression fills with terror. I shouldn’t have just plunged my arm into this thing without thinking first, now I’m stuck here with no way to solve this problem. I take a deep breath and quickly do some math in my head.
“12 seconds. I’m gonna lose a stat every 12 seconds.”
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Your agility stat has been lowered by 1 point.
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“No no no no no…”
I furiously start looking around for something, anything, to get me out of this situation. I was too distracted to notice it when the warning showed up, but now a purple box sticks out to me from the corner of my vision.
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Congrats! You have obtained a prize! Tap here for more information.
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I furiously take my free hand and tap where it says to on the screen. Yet another pop-up appears, and I try to read over it as fast as I can.
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The condition for Themed Roll has been met. Enter theme here: _____
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“Themed..?”
I try to process what this could mean, but I’m slowly running out of time to think. I quickly tap on “Themed Roll” on the screen, in hopes of getting some sort of summary. As I had hoped, that exact thing happens, and a new screen appears to its left.
-----
[Condition Skill Information]
Condition Skill Name: Themed Roll
Under Unique Skill: Dice
Condition: After 5 rolls of Infinity Dice. (The amount of rolls required to meet this condition increases upon use of the skill.)
* When activated, makes the singular next rolled item/effect guaranteed to be related to any theme chosen by the user.
* The themed item can be either positive, negative, or neutral
* This condition skill must be used within 5 rolls of obtaining it, or it will be removed until its conditions are met again.
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My eyes widened and a nervous smile came onto my face. This was exactly what I needed, as long as it worked how it said it did.
“Looks like today’s my lucky day, heh heh.”
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Your vitality stat has been lowered by 1 point.
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I flinch and shake my head, refocusing. I close the description for Themed Roll and look back at the screen to its right.
“Wow, ‘today’s my lucky day,’ what sort of an idiot am I?”
I continue mocking myself out loud to nobody, as I think of the optimal word to fill in the blank on the screen. A few seconds pass before I get it.
“Stats.”
The word ‘stats’ enters into the blank, and the screen begins to show three dots moving back and forth, before they eventually assemble into a checkmark. The screen then blips out from in front of me. I quickly reach out to snap my fingers again, before remembering that my Dice skill has a 1-minute cooldown.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me-”
I sit there, roll my eyes, and tap my foot as I stressfully wait for the cooldown to refresh.
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Your stamina stat has been lowered by 1 point.
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Great. Just 12 more seconds.
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Your magic stat has been lowered by 1 point.
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There it is, my chance. I focus on myself, rapidly snap my fingers, and stare at the table with my eyes wide open as it appears, the dice rolling on top of it. My heart beats faster than it ever has before as the roll screen appears in front of me.
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Rolling Infinity Dice
. . .
Rolled!
(This roll has been affected by Themed Roll. The theme is “Stats.’)
-----
One second passes. Two seconds pass. But before a third one can, a new screen pops up, and my expression suddenly lights up with excitement.
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You have obtained 50 stat points. They will all be allocated to 1 stat of your choosing.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
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I immediately think of ‘strength,’ and feel my whole body tense up a bit.
“Heh heh heh heh, hahahaha! Finally, things are actually turning around for me!”
I chuckle loudly and glance back over to the ball of slime. I simply begin trying to move my arm forward and it’s no longer stuck. It moves through the slime with surprising elegance and I grab the item in the middle, pulling it without breaking a sweat. Stat Rot is still active on me though, so I sit down on the grass and put my treasure down next to me, ignoring it for now. I’m not sure if anything else will happen until it ends completely, and I have to make sure I don’t lose any of my stats. I open my stats screen and watch it for the next 4 minutes, until Stat Rot ends, and the “stat lowered” notifications finally stop appearing.
-----
[Statistics]
(More stats may be revealed at future levels.)
Level: 1 / 100
Strength: 32 / 1,000
Agility: 2 / 1,000
Vitality: 2 / 1,000
Stamina: 2 / 1,000
Magic: 2 / 1,000
Craft: 3 / 1,000
-----
It isn’t the 52 strength it should have been, because of the last 4 minutes of Stat Rot, and all my other stats are absolutely horrendous, but my oh my, I’ve never felt stronger. I breathe out and fall backwards onto the grass, relaxing for the first time in a while. However, I immediately turn over to look at the treasure, analyzing it with a dumb grin on my face.
-----
[Item Information]
E-Rank Item: Cgoald
* A type of coal that is often found with streaks of gold on it. Contains a small chunk of gold in its center.
* May be absorbed for the D-Rank amount of EXP.
-----
Absorbed? What does that even mean? Man, I really wish I just had an encyclopedia or something for this stuff. I try to analyze the word “absorbed,” but nothing happens and so I take the cgoald into my hands.
“What a dumb name for a rock.”
I think about absorbing the cgoald as I hold it in between my hands. Eventually, it starts to flash and I feel a surge of energy as it disappears and is seemingly absorbed through my hands.
“That felt… strange.”
I stare down at my hands, but am interrupted when a new green screen appears directly in front of me.
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You have obtained enough EXP to level up.
You have reached Level 2!
(You have gained 10 stat points to allocate as you please.)
-----
“Let’s. Go. I can finally leave! And maybe see other people for the first time in who knows how long!”
This was apparently all I needed to do, and I was finally free from this small field of grass. As an added bonus, I also now have 10 stat points to do whatever I want with. However, as much as I desperately want to sprint out of this place, I assess everything I have and what I should take with me. Looking around, I have my clothes, the crystal dust, the Fist of Shadows, and the giant ball of slime that’s now completely empty. I have no need or desire to even try to lug around the ball of slime, so I just leave it there and move on.
I walk over to where I was pushed back before. Now, however, I can walk out of the grass field just fine, with nothing getting in my way. I’ve always valued freedom more than anything else, and now that I’m free, my heart beats rapidly with excitement. Finally, I’ll be able to figure out where I am, and maybe get some more information on what in the world is going on. I step out, beginning to walk through the surrounding forest. The trees are pleasant and natural shades of green, with some yellow and orange leaves and bushes scattered throughout the forest. There’s somewhat of a dirt path leading forward in the dirt, so I decide to head down it for now.
I take this time walking to start thinking about what even could’ve happened to me. If I had just woken up in a field in the middle of nowhere, I would have assumed I was kidnapped, stolen from, and dumped in a field to remove the evidence, However, the fact that my clothes were completely changed, the existence of the entire screen system, and the very real invisible barrier blocking me from leaving, all show that whatever is going on is absolutely not normal. Why is this world so much like a game? I’ve never played any that have these specific rules, so I don’t think I was transported into one, since I’ve never had contact with it. I barely find time to play games anymore anyway, what with all my work. Although I guess I don’t have to worry about doing it anymore. I suddenly stop. I don’t have to worry? Does that mean I don’t think I’ll ever return back home? Am I just assuming I’m out of time? What if my family is worrying about me? Ha, who am I kidding? I haven’t been getting good enough grades for them to care about how my life is going. I sigh and look into the sky. They’ll start worrying about me if I’m gone for long enough, but that’ll be a while.
Suddenly, something catches my eye. A storm seems to be brewing in the distant sky, but only over one area of land. It thunders over and over, definitely not as much as a normal storm would. I pick up my pace a bit and start heading in that direction, as the path seems to lead to it as well. The sky darkens a bit, and so I attempt to make things a bit easier to see.
“Toggle glow.”
My white sweater starts to glow, much more than I wanted it to. However, I can still somehow see decently through the blinding light, maybe because I have the shirt equipped? I decide to keep it on for now, since it isn’t bothering me that much. The storm still far in the distance, I start to hear a sound I haven’t heard in a while. People. Some talking, some moving stuff around. Whatever I am, there are other people that live around here. I prepare myself for what I might see as I step out of the forest and the area in front of me finally comes into view. Naturally, I’m expecting to see a bustling metropolis, with skyscrapers littering the horizon. What I actually see, however, is much different from what I’m expecting. It looks like an average medieval town, exactly the sort of thing I’d expect from an RPG. The roads, although wide, are just simple paved dirt. All the buildings look nice, but aren’t exceptionally large and are made mostly of wood and stone. I look around and see a few things that pique my interest. There’s a man pushing a cart filled with what look to be watermelons, a few of them tumbling out. At a nearby stand, a woman is selling various kinds of fruit, and looks to be competing with someone across the street from her, who is just selling rocks. I jump back as I hear a voice yelling loudly, triggering even more voices.
“Oh my goodness! Is that another one of them? But this one is glowing!”
“Is he an angel?”
“Is he the divine hero?”
“He must be descended from light!”
“From light? Then would he be able to cure my curse?”
I look around and see numerous people staring at me, surprise and awe on their faces. It takes me a second to realize that the light they’re talking about is the one coming from my sweater because of toggle glow. I glance nervously at them all before speaking up.
“Oh, uhhhh. Yes, hello people of… this town! It is I, your new hero!”
Many people start clamoring as they hear these words exit my mouth.
“Our new hero? Will we finally have a town hero? At last?”
I start hearing even more mutterings like this, and various people start cheering. I notice that a boy who looks to be around 14 years old is joining the people who are cheering. Compared to the dark and light browns of the outfits of everyone else, the boy is wearing a blue robe, reminding me of what a wizard would wear. I deepen my voice to sound more “heroic” and I call out to him.
“Boy. Yes, you. In the blue robe. Come to me.”
I hit the side of my leg gently in anger at how cringe I just was. However, I forget that my strength is much higher than my vitality, and so the hit makes me stumble and fall to the ground. I thankfully manage to catch myself with my hands and stop myself from falling onto my face.
“What was that?”
“Did he just make himself fall? Is he an idiot?”
“Is he possessed? It’d be an issue to keep him around then.”
“Are you okay?”
I look up at the one person who actually came to help me. It’s the boy in the robe, and he’s reaching a hand down to me. He has dark brown hair and similarly brown eyes. He has a kind look on his face, and looks strangely innocent for a 14 year old. I take his hand and quickly get up, making sure not to accidentally yank him down.
“Yes, I am. Thanks for asking. What’s your name, kid?”
“Me? My name is Elius Omonar. You can just call me ‘El,’ though!”
“I’ll consider it. What do you do around here, El?
“I’m the apprentice of the town wizard! I’m actually the one that summoned you, considering that you came down that path!”
A variety of thoughts rush through my mind. What’s up with that strange-sounding name? What does he mean by town wizard? But more than anything else, one word burns at the front of my mind. “Summoned.”
“What do you mean by ‘summoned?’ You called me here? Where is ‘here?’ And where was I before now?”
“Oh, you’re in Nineril! I put down the world crystal dust, then casted a spell, waited a day, and now here you are! Now, in terms of where you came from, that would be whatever world you were in before!”
My heart started beating rapidly in my chest. “World?” Does that mean another realm of existence? What about the last one, what about Earth? I tried to calm down and clarify that what I heard was right.
“So, what you’re saying is that I was pulled from my old world into another world? Can I go back if I want to?”
“Yep, exactly right, you’re in another world now, this world. And, sorry, but as far I know, there's no way to go back to your old world…”
Sweat starts forming on my brow, and my heart speeds up to a speed that is definitely not healthy. This can’t be true. It couldn’t be. I try to relax and finally respond to Elius.
“So I’m stuck here forever?”
“Well, basically… Yes.”