It was another beautiful, sunny day in my part of the world, and I was content in the fact that I was not striving to make ends meet in any of the creative fields. No sir, no painting, writing or worrying about the oncoming storm of AI for me — I was very gainfully employed as a marketing consultant.

For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s where you get paid a lot of money for not knowing very much. In that way, it is a unique field.

I was sitting on my back porch, my beautiful children playing with toys at my feet, and my even more beautiful wife singing lustrous bars of her favourite pop songs. We were the kind of family that creative directors often hire for B roll in their pharmaceutical ads, and indeed we’d appeared in two — one for allergies and one for chronic constipation. We were the “after” shots in both, rather than the before.

I took another swig of cool, refreshing small-batch beer — my own batch, home-brewed in my plentiful downtime between contracts — then stretched and rose to my feet.

It was at this moment that a truck came out of nowhere — the one that would, in a few moments, end my life.

No, it wasn’t a real truck. We hadn’t had a real truck come through our backyard for a few years now, since that unfortunate incident with the ‘diversion’ signs facing the wrong way. Instead, the truck that took my life was a toy one, rolled under my foot by my charming if ever so slightly dim son.

I saw the truck coming just as I put my foot down onto it, and there wasn’t enough time to avoid slipping. However, if I had been quicker, and not preoccupied with which New England hops I would brew my next IPA, I might have avoided slipping onto the decking project, left unfinished by my terrible excuse for a brother-in-law, Pete.

Now, there are a few things you need to know about Pete: he has never turned up on time to anything in his life, including his sister’s wedding; he has a string of girlfriend who lie about their age to make their relationship seem less creepy; and he doesn’t know how to hammer a nail properly.

Typically, it was the first two issues that I had most problem with, but as I sailed down towards the unfinished decking — and the nails protruding from it — it was that last point that I preoccupied myself with.

So, the last thing I muttered in my otherwise incredible life was, ‘Oh, screw you, Pete,’ and then my head collided directly with the end of a long, sharp nail.

* * *

New Entity Detected…

Reviewing Log Of Previous Instance…

Happiness: 930 / 1000

Love: 401 / 1000

Integrity: 2 / 1000

Previous Class: Level 72 Marketing Consultant*

*System Note: Yikes

…Sufficient Information Collected.

New Class Assigned: LitRPG Author

I gasped as I awoke in what I could only described as a cramped, dark and dirty environment, blinking the world back into existence. I ignored the words that seemed to be in front of my eyes just for a moment to clutch at my forehead, at where the rusty nail wound should have been. When I found nothing, I turned my attention to the next priority.

What the hell is a LitRPG author? I thought to myself.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I looked around my environment, this squalid room containing a bed, a mini fridge and a desk complete with an old writing computer. This room was ridiculously small, almost as if…

I gasped, then ran to the window. Outside were tall tower blocks and bustling traffic. I was right, then — the worst had happened: I was in a city apartment.

As the words faded from my vision, I hurried to the old computer to search for answers, and was pained by how long it took to boot up. ‘Come on, come on…’ I said, clicking aggressively on the computer mouse.

When it finally loaded, I brought up my search engine of choice — you know, the only one worth using: Bing — and search for my own name, as I had done hundreds of times before.

There was… nothing.

It was almost like I didn’t exist. Almost as if I’d never lived, or I’d somehow left my own reality behind and been transported to another one through a complex and dubious system of soul transference. There had to be some mistake.

“What the [BLEEP]?” I said, only I didn’t say the bleep bit. That particular sound came from my desk — specifically the computer mouse I was grasping.

Beneath my fingertips, the plastic surface of the mouse changed. It became soft at first, then warm, then… furry. As I recoiled in horror as the device completed its transformation, from computer mouse to… mouse.

“What the [BLEEP],” I said again, only this time there was more emphasis on the bleeped-out bit.

“You know,” the mouse said, “you really shouldn’t curse. A small — but particularly vocal — percentage of our audience really don’t like profanity.”

“What?” I said, both in response to the wider situation and the fact that a mouse seemed to be offering me unprompted social commentary.

“I said that you shouldn’t curse, because—”

“No, I heard that bit, it’s just… Well, I’m currently going through a lot, and the last thing I need right now is a sassy animal companion who knows the English language for some reason.”

The mouse seemed to shrug, playing with its tail. “I’m not sure you have much choice, I’m afraid. New entities on this Plane get guides to help them adjust, and I’m yours. At least until you get going.”

“Huh?” I said, giving the mouse just enough to keep talking and get on with the worldbuilding so we could move past it to more interesting things.

“Usually in stories like these,” the mouse explained, “there are two important supporting characters: the increasingly annoying animal companion, and the guide who is all-knowing in the System but only whenever it suits the plot. For the sake of keeping our cast of characters streamlined, I thought I’d combine the two.”

“Stories like these?” I asked, but the talking mouse ignored me.

“You can call me Daemon.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Oh yeah? And that wouldn’t be too derivative considering you’re a talking animal?”

The mouse — Daemon — batted this idea away with the wave of a paw. “Nah, it’ll be fine. We’ll see if the lawyers reach out. And your name? Wait, don’t tell me — if we don’t give you a name, it’ll be easier for readers to project themselves on to you.”

“Readers? What are you on about, man?” I immediately corrected myself. “What are you on about, mouse? What is all this?”

“Right, yes, straight into the action; that’s good. So, the bad news: you’ve died.” Before I could interject, Daemon continued, “The good news: there’s an afterlife. This is it. And then there’s an afterlife for this world too, I suppose. It’s an infinite cycle of reincarnation, I believe. Best not to get into the metaphysics too much. In this world, you’re assigned a role — if you succeed at it, in accordance with the System, then you rise through the ranks, and the more you rise, the more you can do with your life. The most successful people can do anything they want. I believe you have a similar system in your last world?”

“Yes, capitalism.”

The mouse pointed with its tiny, spindly finger. “That’s the one.”

“So what’s this LitRPG Author thing about?”

“Well, it means you have to write LitRPG books.”

“I have no earthly idea what that means,” I replied.

“Well, you’re not on earth, so that makes sense. Look: the best way to understand all of this is to get stuck in. All the stats and such—”

“Stats? What?”

“—will be dependent on your class, so there’s not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ guide for you here. Get started, start feeling out the system, and we’ll take it from there. Any questions?”

“Yes, many.”

“Well, tough, I haven’t got time; a three year old has just been reincarnated as an interior decorator and she’s starting to drink the paint. She needs a guide more than you.” With that, there was a pop sound, and Daemon turn back into a computer mouse once more. One that wasn’t sentient, as far as I could tell.

I sighed. Though I seemed to have managed to acclimatize to all this world-shattering, upsetting news in a matter of moments — not to mention the whole “leaving my family behind” bit — I still realized I had some work to do, and it all seemed very intimidating.

I turned back to the computer, brought up Bing once more, and typed in ‘litrpg author’ as a search, before backspacing and searching instead for ‘why does Bing exist in this reality?’

Bing told me that it was all-powerful, and, satisfied with this answer, I searched for ‘litrpg author’ once more.