CHAPTER TWO: STARTING FROM THE BOTTOM
Noise.
That was the first thing my mind registered. The creaking of cartwheels, the pattering of footsteps, the rustling of clothes, and above that…
Voices.
Soft whispering, snippets of conversation, sounds of peddlers selling their goods.
Peddlars?
I looked around, and realized that I wasn’t dreaming. It was real, all of it.
I was in a large city of some sort, the typical starting area you might arrive at in the beginning of an MMORPG. Brick and stone buildings rose high into the sky, casting dark shadows upon dank alleyways. I was in a marketplace, filled with small stalls held together by cloth tarp and wooden frames. The ground was made of a paved stone, worn smooth by countless footsteps trampling across it. Above me, the midday sun beat down relentlessly upon my head.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to a city of this size. The vibrant colours, the brightness of the sun, the chaotic voices… they dug at the edge of my mind like piercing needles.
This wasn’t a game. This was real life. I wasn’t experiencing this through a computer screen, with headphones over my ears. It was real.
It didn’t feel like my body had been reborn with the stats of an average person. I felt weak. I felt dizzy, as if my
I covered my ears, trying to drown out the sound of the merchant who was auctioning off his over-ripened fruit. I squinted, trying to avoid the glare of the sun against the ground. I could smell stone, dirt, fruits and vegetables, and all manner of strange and exotic perfumes in the air. There were too many sensations at once, a battering ram assaulting the walls of my mind.
“Shit…!”
I hadn’t expected this. I fled, feet blindly pounding across the pavement, ducking into a small alleyway. My pulse slowed down as the shadows engulfed me, my ragged breathing fading away. I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.
It was all in my head. I was no longer the nerdy shut-in from my past life. I’d started afresh, as the hero that this world needed.
I could keep telling myself that, but the sad truth was that simply being outside was enough to make me feel sick.
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I looked down at my body. I was dressed in a patched up tunic of some sort, a white garment from the middle ages with billowing sleeves and a thin cord below the v-necked collar. My trousers were roughed up, riddled with discoloured patches, and I was wearing thin calfskin boots. Typical starting equipment for a commoner.
I needed to get a grasp on the game system first. There were no experience bars or stat tables, or menu buttons around my vision. In fact, nothing save character creation suggested this was even a game.
I ground my teeth. The way things were, this was no different to playing the game called ‘real life’. Granted, it was a lot harder.
“Hey, you.”
A low, venomous voice seeped into my ears, startling me. I jerked my head towards its source and found myself face to face with a man, standing just far enough to be out of reach but close enough to feel menacing. A chunk of his nose was missing, presumably lost in a knife fight of some sort.
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
Two more men emerged from behind him. They were dressed in similar tatters, with all manner of bruises and scars upon their bodies. They towered above me, the smell of the slums rising from their bodies. One of them had lost half his teeth and his mouth was stuck in a permanent grimace. Another had a scar along his left eye, rendering it useless.
I tried to stammer a response, but nothing came out. I cursed myself silently for not interacting with people more.
“This is our turf,” the noseless man continued. “If you wanna pass, you gotta pay the toll.”
“S-sorry,” I finally managed. “I’ll get out of here-”
“Too late for that.”
He moved his hand, and I saw a glint of rusty steel. They were armed.
“H-how much?” I asked, feeling around my pockets.
“Everything you’ve got.”
My face fell.
I was being mugged.
My hand closed around a hilt around my waist. The three thugs in front of me stiffened.
“I hope you’re not thinking of fighting us, boy,” the toothless man growled.
No. That was out of the question.
I might consider it in a real game. I was only level one, and if I died I could just start over.
But this wasn’t a real game. I had no idea if I would respawn or not, or even reincarnate. There was no way I could take them on with a rusty iron dagger at my level.
I fumbled around, and found a pouch at my waist.
“H-here,” I said. “That’s all I have.”
The lead thug snatched it from my hand and emptied the contents into his other palm. He counted ten gold coins, biting one with the few teeth he had. Then, he smirked.
“Get outta here, kid. And don’t come back.”
I stumbled backwards, almost tripping over myself, and ran. I ran back the way I came until I was on the main road, panting on all fours.
I’d screwed it up.
I’d lost my starting gold, and now I was just a homeless peasant with a single knife. I had no food, no water, no means of obtaining shelter. I had no skills, no strengths which could help me land a job.
I was no amateur to games. I knew I was at a severe disadvantage.
How exactly was I supposed to come back from this?