A minute passed, and Zack still couldn’t see a single thing. His vision was pitch black in every direction, extending infinitely.
Don’t tell me this thing is going to make me blind.
…
Thankfully, his worries were unfounded as a blurry environment appeared before beginning to sharpen into focus. He blinked, realizing that his visual clarity had been fully restored. An unfamiliar weightlessness enveloped his body, like a pillow cushion. Upon looking down he appeared to be floating above the ground, his arms and legs translucent.
Where am I?
Glancing to the sides, he noticed that the walls were carved with a familiar mural–the kobold spawn room he just came from. His eyes traced to the center of the room, and what he saw gave him quite the shock.
A ghastly apparition of a slain kobold lay near the center of the room, but that wasn’t what shocked him. It was what was standing on top of it–human, messy hair–it was himself! Only it didn’t look quite right.
This apparition of Zack Baker had a knotty scar across his left arm, and the kobold’s body lay in a different position from what he remembered.
This must be a different timeline.
Zack had seen quite a few sci-fi movies in his time and was familiar with the concept of multiple timelines. Somewhere, in a universe not unlike this one, he had a pretty janky scar, a backpack, and what looked like a sword in his right hand.
He watched as ghost Zack sat down cross legged, taking a water bottle from his bag and taking a swish. And then… nothing.
He waited patiently for ghost Zack to do something… anything. Maybe advance to the next room? But the apparition of himself did not move a muscle or even glance at the door leading forward. He appeared to be humming some kind of tune absentmindedly while throwing a pebble up and down before catching it.
Minutes went by of this, and Zack was beginning to question his alter ego's sanity. Ghost Zack was now pacing around the room, kicking the pebble around like a soccer ball, looking bored out of his mind.
Then, something stirred. The kobold’s corpse disappeared from the ground. His alter ego stopped pacing, turning to face the runes at the center of the room while drawing his sword.
The runes on the floor began to glow, and another kobold appeared in the center as if it had stepped out of a portal.
“Human?” the kobold apparition said.
Ghost Zack laughed. “Don’t you have another line?”
The kobold ran towards the scarred Zack, swinging a machete towards his shin. But he was too quick, swiftly jumped back while swinging forward with his sword. The blow hit the kobold and sliced into its arm, causing it to let go of the machete with a shriek and fall back. It tried to recover, but a second swing cut its other arm.
Another flash of a blade, and the kobold fell, its midsection severed into two.
The apparition of himself sat down again, appearing bored once more. He waited until the next kobold spawned, then repeated the cycle several times over.
A few cycles later, a single human emerged from the door behind. It was a blonde girl, carrying something he couldn't quite make out in her hands. Zack’s alter ego appeared to be talking to her, although their voices were faint as the connection began to fade. She seemed to be shouting at him.
Stellar memory fragment has been consumed.
The vision began to fade, leaving him alone in the same room as before and thoroughly confused.
He’d been expecting the fragment to be more straightforward, like a big warning sign telling him to not jump into the lava or something. Instead, he got some kind of convoluted vision that provided pretty much no clear guidance whatsoever.
That girl… she seemed oddly familiar. Wait, wasn’t she in his bioengineering lecture with professor Hawthorn?
Now that he thought about it, that definitely was a girl from Vermillion University. He’d seen her before walking around the agricultural terraforming sciences building with her friends.
Anyway, that didn’t matter too much right now. If he didn’t get ten iron coins he was toast anyway.
The good thing was that this omen showed him a secret–the monsters in these rooms respawned! That changed his plan entirely.
As he waited, he wondered if it might be better to head forward and take a peek at the rooms ahead, then come back later to kill the kobold as it spawned, to squeeze out some time between spawns. Sitting around doing absolutely nothing for minutes like what ghost Zack did felt like kind of a waste.
But he remembered the true purpose of the stellar memory fragments–to keep him alive.
Alright. I have no idea what’s up ahead, and the memory fragment didn’t do jack all to help me figure it out. So I guess that in and of itself is the warning– don’t advance. I’ll just stick with the omen this time and farm out the iron coins I need here in this room.
He waited patiently for several minutes until the platform began to glow once more, signaling the arrival of a monster respawn.
An enemy has spawned.
Zack brandished his steel pipe at the newcomer, who had a machete in his hand this time just like how he’d seen in the omen.
“Human?”
“You forgot already? Guess I have to kill you again,” Zack said.
The kobold sneered, angered by the comment. It raised its machete and charged right at him while shouting a shrill battle cry.
Let’s try not to get hit this time. Observe his movements.
Zack waited for the kobold’s approach until the last moment, then jabbed with his steel pipe. He missed narrowly, taking a painful slash to his right forearm from the kobold’s machete. Wincing, he ducked and grabbed the pipe from the ground and swung it at the creature, sticking it in the thigh.
The kobold staggered, and Zack kicked it as hard as he could, pushing it backwards until it stumbled and fell. He dove on top of it immediately, his sore body from the gym feeling slightly better after the health potion.
Thankfully, he had the better position, and was able to rain down punches onto the kobold’s head until it slumped to the side.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Congratulations! You have slain an Angry Kobold.
You have defeated an enemy. Experience has been distributed.
Angry Kobold has dropped the following loot.
A ragged machete.
1 iron coin.
Zack flipped over, panting. His body felt spent beyond belief. Just how was he supposed to do this eight more times?
He wanted to down another health potion, but… he only had four more left, and still needed to collect eight more iron coins. Four potions, eight kills… the math wasn’t adding up. He decided to share a potion between every two kills, starting from now, which meant that he really needed a better way of fighting off these kobolds while taking less damage.
Maybe this was why the omen showed him staying in this room. Whatever monsters were up ahead simply required too many health potions to beat, or were beyond his capabilities as a solo adventurer.
Oh yeah, didn’t the system say something about unlocking my status screen? I didn’t get to check earlier because of the memory fragment hijacking my body.
He pulled up his menu and opened up that notification.
Name: Zack Baker (Wharf Street Station Passenger 001)
Level: 1 (locked)
Race: Baseline Human (174th cycle)
Class: None
Profession: None
Coins: 2 iron coins.
Ascension: Baseline Human (requires level 50 minimum to ascend)
Strength: 6
Dexterity: 4
Endurance: 7
Vitality: 6
Intelligence: 8
Wisdom: 5
Luck: 1
Titles: None
Skills: [??]
You are still a baseline human. Any stat increases will only increase your power slightly beyond that of a regular human. You must ascend to break the limitations of a baseline human.
Note that these stats have been familiarized with your home world’s system. Strength reflects your physical strength. Dexterity reflects your nimbleness. Endurance reflects your stamina and health regeneration. Vitality reflects the size of your health bar. Luck’s effect is indeterminate. Intelligence refers to magic power, and wisdom refers to mana regeneration. They have no effect on your actual intelligence or wisdom, as these are unique to each initiate.
Diverging from the naming conventions of your home world’s system, the intelligence stat has been renamed magic affinity to better reflect its properties.
Diverging from the naming conventions of your home world’s system, the wisdom stat has been renamed mana regen to better reflect its properties.
Strength: 6
Dexterity: 4
Endurance: 7
Vitality: 6
Magic Affinity: 8
Mana Regen: 5
Luck: 1
“Now hold on just a second… why can’t I level up?” Zack shouted in alarm. One of the key components of any game-like system was the leveling up mechanic.
All of a sudden, a familiar soothing female voice began to play in his head.
Due to investigation into the unusual circumstances surrounding this cycle’s premature initiation and break from protocol, the level up mechanic will be temporarily locked until you advance into a safe room or a subway car. All experience gained will be stored until then.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Zack shouted back at the voice.
That meant that he wasn’t getting stronger right now when he really needed it.
There was no response. Zack sighed. He was on his own yet again, with no level ups to help him out for the time being.
Another minute passed, and the platform in the middle of the room began to glow once again, announcing the entrance of another hostile creature.
This time, Zack knew he needed to be far more conservative with his approach.
Opening his inventory, he drew the ragged spear that he looted from the original kobold’s corpse. This spear had a longer reach than the steel pipe or ragged machete, so it could help him keep away the kobold and retain his precious health bar.
The ground flashed, and another kobold spawned right about at the same spot as the earlier two.
“What’s disss?” the lizard looking creature hissed.
Zack’s brows furrowed. That didn’t seem quite right. He vividly remembered his other self from the stellar omen being visibly annoyed that the kobolds said the same thing time after time, like a mindless npc.
But this one clearly didn’t. Something was wrong. Something was different.
He didn’t have much time to linger on that thought as the kobold launched itself into attack.
Zack’s gym-worn arms felt like butter as he forced himself to lift the ragged spear at the encroaching monster. It had a machete again this time, and it lunged forward into his range.
That was the moment he’d been waiting for–the moment it entered the extended range of his spear. Zack hadn’t handled a spear before, but he used a garden spade and metal shovel quite a few times in his life. A two handed weapon instinctively felt at home in his hand.
He was human after all. His kind did become the dominant species on the planet through the use of handed weapons. The use of a spear, one of the most primitive weapons, was ingrained into the genetic memory of the human race.
Zack had full confidence that he’d be able to fend off this kobold without taking a hit.
That is… until the spear connected with it.
Your weapon has disintegrated due to its ragged quality.
The spear managed to land a good hit, but it immediately fractured into pieces before disintegrating into a shower of dust.
“You’ve got to be–“ Zack exclaimed in disappointment, before cutting off his own sentence to back step a machete swing from kobold.
“How come yours doesn’t break on contact?” he said in exasperation.
“Human is weak!”
It was a response, but not exactly answering his question.
––––
“Oooooh!” Ifrim hissed in glee as the spear disintegrated in the progenitor’s hands.
“He knowsss about the portal, but only a novice wouldn’t know about ragged items hee hee!”
Berndith looked suspiciously at the screen, his signature pipe dangling from his mouth. “I can’t tell if this guy is good or if he’s bloody terrible,” he said finally after a long pause.
He continued. “Might just be lucky. One more step out of that room and he’d land in the kobold lair room. Now that would’ve been a treat to watch a solo initiate go through.”
“Is it even possible to clear solo?”
“No,” Berndith replied. “Not unless you level up a bit first. Which seems to be exactly what he’s doing…”
“Why’s the first level designed to be so tough anyway? I thought it was just meant to be a tutorial,” Ifrim asked.
Berndith snapped. “Weren’t you paying attention at all, imp? These levels were designed with an entire batch of initiates in mind. There has never been an instance of a single person initiation in recent cycles besides the Red Cloak’s massacre, or the disaster of the 134th cycle. It simply isn’t meant to be for a single person to tackle by themselves!“
“And plus, those massacre episodes get a lot of views, but only in the first few episodes. After a while the viewers lose interest.”
Berndith paused, then sighed, deciding to correct himself. “The ratings are only bad until the next stage, where the serial killer gets thrown in with completely new initiates from the other areas. Then it’s sky high ratings like you’ve never seen before. Every viewer and their birth mother wants to see what the serial killer will do then.”
“High ratings means more pay hee hee!” Ifrim giggled.
Berndith laughed. “Zed does manage to find its way into an operator’s pockets when business is good. When ratings are high, the upper brass tends to get a bit more generous with our bonuses.”
“Let’s make high ratings this cycle!”
“Aye, we’ll try.” Berndith took a puff from his cigar. “Although it might not be pleasant for the initiates. That reminds me—what the viewers want to see isn’t just a monster slaughter on one hand or a pile of dead initiates on the other. They need to get invested into the initiates, so they can feel the stakes, the drama. And don’t get me started one the apostles… you either love ‘em, or you hate ‘em. Never a boring apostle.”
He took another puff, eyes narrowing into the screen before him. The young human in gym shorts was holding up quite well, all things considered.
For now.