The sky was painted a grim cobalt blue, standing still as it watched the clouds cry over the city. At night, as it rained, the aroma of death was tasteless yet could be touched. Then like every other time, a heart is unintentionally painted black.
At the edge of the city cramped with buildings a man stood in front of an alley. "This seems to be the right place." He smirked. Rain then dropped immediately making him run inside an alley. "The news never told me it would rain... oh well, it doesn't really matter now- ah!" A local rat peed on his feet
"Fuck, I'll get leptospirosis from this." He stretched his leg outside the alley while removing his bag from his back. A few roaches died and some escaped as it touched the ground.
The man took a plastic-covered map from his bag and flapped it at the edge of the alley, just an inch away from the rain. "Okay, that should be good enough." He retracted his leg and picked up his bag from the floor.
He stared at the big red X at the edge of the map. "There's no turning back now," rolling the map afterward. The man gulped, turning around, and walked deeper into the alley.
Boxes bumped against his legs, wiping them with wet and sticky liquid that constantly made him want to vomit from disgust. The more he walked further into the depths of this alley, his body blended with the darkness, it was like his eyes were eternally closed.
"Ow." His head bumped against something. It rang a jingle and a rotating hanging sign lit up the words "Open" on one side and "Closed" on the other. Then a door turned gray to his right, highlighted by a black line.
"Why the hell does the sign have to be hung so low." The man entered. Then immediately a bright yellow light shone on his eyes. After a few flickers of his eyes, it felt like his entire life flashed before his eyes.
Circular wooden tables with four chairs each crowded most of the room. An old man stood behind the glowing counter, wearing a dark suit, brighter than the light.
"Is this the Fantasy Store?" The man asked.
"Yes, you have come to the right place, take a seat first, it seems like you went through a lot." The one behind the counter replied.
He hurried over to the closest chair and sat, dropping his bag to the floor and laying the map on the table. "Finally, that alley was like walking through my heart."
"Well, that's a grim look at things." The man immediately teleported from the counter to the other side of the table.
"Whoa! Don't surprise me like that! My heart can't take it!" He yelled, almost falling over. His soul almost left his body, gasping for air as his nails left a lasting mark on his chest.
"I thought you didn't have a heart?"
"I said it was dark, not that I have none."
"Hahaha! My bad, anyway, here is the menu, what would you like to get?" The man touched the map on the table and it turned from the exterior of his city into multiple planets full of colors.
"Interesting, so many options, I thought there was just one," He quoted in the air, "Isekai World."
"Don't say that, it hurts me you know, I mean how did you expect there to be so many stories if there is just one world?"
"I thought they were just fiction."
"Well, you have so much more to learn... oh wait, what's your name?" The man smiled and placed one hand on the table and leaned forward.
Daren rubbed his baby strokes of beard and stared intently at the map. "Daren, that's my name."
"Ah... then, Daren... how did you come to know of this place?" The man asked.
"This place? Oh, if you want to know, we have to return to a few years ago..."
"I… have the time of the world."
"But that'll be too long, so I won't tell you."
The man's arm slipped off the table, "Ahh... I was definitely not expecting that answer." He awkwardly laughed.
"Anyway, can you tell me what is, like umm, the simplest… world. No not the simplest, but just a world of swords and magic where a really fun adventure could be had."
"That's a really lacking description, that could be literally every single one of them. Do you not want any twist?"
"Nah, it's kind of just too boring, it's like you have those classic adventures in the 90's and now I miss it. It's like when a retired veteran misses the screams of war."
"I'm pretty sure none of them are like that, but if you're giving me the power to choose... you wouldn't mind not knowing anything about the world beforehand? Would you?"
"Yeah, that's fine with me." Daren turned around and picked up his bag, laying it on his lap. He dug inside his bag like a plunderer, then zipped it up.
"It seems like you're pretty ready." The old man said.
Darren shook his bag to make the sound of banging gold and smiled.
The old man snorted and a razing sound of two rubbing wood clanged like swords in his ears. As the map glowed, it slowly levitated up in the air.
The old man's mouth randomly mumbled, its voice lost in the captivating display on top of the table. It spun and spun, wind slapping Daren's face the faster it got. Then boom, the map exploded, but rather than throwing him off his chair, his feet left the ground.
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It was a deafening sound, there was no noise yet it felt like there were cheers of people that circled just a few centimeters away from his ears, afraid of going in.
Daren was sucked into the map and it dropped down to the ground, soon scorching to ashes. "Well, he could be the savior of that world or just another disposable fertilizer. Though I am surprised... I've never met anyone coming from the planet Earth."
***
"Ahhh!!!" Both his hands clutched the ever-growing distant emotions of his bag. As soon as he was sucked into the map, he fell straight into a dark void, falling for a time that felt like an eternity.
He yelled, not cause he was afraid, but to cover the deafening silence.
The wind and darkness felt like such an amazing mix. With a color that blinds one's eyes, only something invisible could be its perfect partner.
His body was bent up like his legs and arms were tied and hung on a stick like livestock while a giant fan was stationed at his stomach. As scary as this scene may entail, boredom soon came to Darren.
But thankfully, that long fall will soon end.
[You Have Been Caught Travelling Between Worlds]
[An Alive Being Cannot Be Allowed In The "Border"]
[You Are Given Two Choices]
[Either Die Or Prove Your Worth]
"What?" Robotic voices rang in his head. His mind immediately visualized a System, but as nothing appeared in front of his face, that was just not it.
Before he could asses the meanings behind the words, he was dropped to the ground with no pain nor recoil, though his bag did drop down his stomach like a rock. “Ughh… thank God I didn’t eat today…”
His body lay in the dark void as light outlined his body and dispersed outward, revealing trunks of trees, birds chirping on top of leaves, clouds smiling, and a sun that stared at his eyes. “...!”
Daren hurriedly turned over and stood up, but before he could take in what just happened and why he was in the middle of a forest, a sonic roar pushed his back forward, his legs barely catching his fall.
The ground then shook and a wave of rocks ran toward him. A lump of rock erupted beneath his feet, launching him to the sky before he could even react. "Fuck! Shit!" He turned around and saw a giant gray lizard standing on two feet.
But that imagery shouldn't be too focused on as he was falling down on a spiked rock, death just right before his eyes and above his stomach.
Daren propelled his face forward and dived head first. With his hands leading down his fall, as soon as it touched the rock he front-flipped his body and landed on his feet. "Shit!" He yelled, running his eyes and looking for his bag.
As soon as he saw his bag, he ran toward the same worm of rocks like a wave of water escaping the ground. He jumped over, grabbed his bag, and rolled till he hit a tree.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Daren cursed indefinitely.
He opened his bag without stopping his feet, running to the opposite side of the giant lizard. After finding a rope and a knife he immediately turned around and threw his bag in between the two raised stone spikes.
The ground was ripped off its green grass in a straight horizontal line. Whatever that power was, Darren just had thought of it as a shark that could swim on land.
He could see the legs of the giant lizard as it raised one of them up and landed back to the ground releasing another stone shark. Daren moved to the side and learned that it could either just go in one direction or the lizard couldn’t see him.
But based on how direct those sharks were to him, it was one hundred percent the former.
With the rope around his left arm and the knife held at his right, Darren went to a tree as close to the lizard and wrapped the rope around it.
Then the lizard stomped its leg once again and Darren moved aside as the trees were uprooted from the ground and fell to him. "Fuck!" It was the only time he stopped saying shit.
Darren left his plan and let go of the rope, he thought that it was stupid he even thought that could work. Left with nothing but a knife, the only solution was a barbaric one.
With a simple stab to its leg, Darren retracted and stabbed multiple times and as fast as he possibly could, leaving multiple small marks.
The lizard yelled and kicked his leg up. Darren took the millisecond of opportunity and held his stabbed knife tightly and gripped his other hand in an open wound.
Before the leg could even be fully raised, Darren pulled his body up and ran on the lizard's leg. He raised his knife and stabbed its stomach, bouncing off with the sound of clashing metal. Hard scales enveloped the parts above his legs like clothes.
Daren changed the angle of his knife into an upward stab. Unlike popular beliefs or more of an image flaw, scales like dragons just had to be stabbed from the bottom of their scale, and all problems were solved.
A piece of the lizard's scale fell off and a waterfall of blood formed.
Its leg started to retract and Daren was about to fall until he stabbed on top of his thigh, just falling a meter down. "Shit!" He twisted his head left and right, causing nausea.
Above him, the lizard released a green-colored liquid from its mouth. Darren hugged the leg and moved to its back, avoiding the hand flying to the lizard's pants.
In a fast succession, Darren peeled off a scale with his knife and stabbed it; hanging on one hand as he caught the scale with his other. "Shit!" He yelled at the scale slipping out of his hand, again and again, until he was able to catch it.
The lizard's scale felt like a smooth metal coated with oil. He tried to switch it to an upward angle, aiming at the bottom of the scale, but then it jumped out again, falling to the ground.
Darren groaned. He shoved his hand next to his knife and removed the other. Raising his body with just his arm strength, he then ripped another scale off as far as he could and hung on it again. Darren repeated this until he reached the shoulder.
The size of the lizard wasn't as big as one would feel next to it. Its waist reached the top of the trees, towering as large as 3 whole trees. Then if you think about the size of a tree being 2 humans, it doesn't seem that large does it? It was just 6 humans tall, it didn't even take a minute to climb.
The lizard looked to his shoulder and spun around like a dog chasing its tail, flailing Darren like a national flag. With enough persistence, he reached the top, though a little light-headed and the world spinning. Then, even though he still couldn't perceive properly, it was like 10 hands were coming to his face. Darren fell to his side and touched the lizard's neck. He climbed up to its head with perfection.
Darren took a few seconds to close his eyes and roll his eyeballs inside. After finally forcing the world to stop spinning, another hand was coming to get him. He ran straight passed it and jumped to the front edge, above the nose. Fixing his hair for no reason, Darren looked behind him, staring at the sharp eyes of the lizard, as big as his chest.
The lizard then roared, tilting Darren's platform. He swallowed his saliva and closed his eyes as he fell into the lizard's eyes. With his knife he dug inside its eye entering a field of poison and slime. Darren's skin felt like it was burning from pain yet was constantly healed by the soft fillings of the lizard's mucus. He went deeper and deeper, swinging his knife endlessly with no direction.
"Kreeee!!!" The lizard dropped down to the ground, covering its right eye. With screams that made trees bald, a few seconds and it had stopped.
Covered with blood and pieces of eyes and brains. Darren walked out of the lizard's eye panting heavily with a smile. "Fuck... that was... kinda fun..."
[You Have Completed The Trial]
[Oh Courageous Hero Who Has Gone Beyond One's Expectation]
[May You Save This Wretched World]
The voices came back to his head and he dropped down on the lizard's face, looking up at the sky. "Save? Fine... that's why I escaped in the first place."