Wilfried awoke to sunshine and a distinct lack of a headache. That was nice. He looked around from his position on the bed. It took his mind a moment to recognize that he was not in his room. In an instant, his groggy brain spun up and set his body to high alert.
His first observation was that the walls were made of some sort of plaster and the roof consisted of roughly cut wooden studs. That alone informed him that he was not in his dorm nor anywhere he recognized.
The next observation was that the bed he was resting in did not have springs. It reminded him of a sleeping bag – softer than the floor but little in the way of proper back support. A glance at the bed revealed that it was indeed a bed and not a sleeping bag. Wilfried was not aware of anyone who had such a bed nor of any place that one could buy such a bed.
His third observation reared its ugly head when he was studying the bedding. His brain appeared to be stuck in ‘want more MMO’ mode. The damn UI was still there!
He had zero ideas where he was and may be going crazy.
Was it an appropriate time to panic?
No. He could panic after he figured out what the fuck was happening. The first thing to do was to gather all the facts.
1. He was in a bed in an unknown location.
2. There were not any lights or plugs that he could see.
3. He had no idea how he arrived in this room.
4. His phone was not in his pocket.
5. Creepy game UI.
Wilfried paused to review everything. It was a good enough list. Next he had to recall his events leading up to his current predicament.
He started the morning going to classes. The day went as normal. All his lectures were either quite boring or very interesting. Lunch was soup and chips with a side of homework. He turned in the paper that was due. Classes ended with Dr. Marsh giving out a pop quiz then letting everybody go a few minutes early. Then he woke up in the field...
He was missing the bits between his final class and the field. Not a good sign.
Wilfried decided to ignore the growing panic.
After he woke up in the field, he listened to some birds until he had a squad of farmers next to him. He tried to speak to the farmers but they didn’t seem to speak English. And one of them had a tail? Maybe. Tails aside, he could guess that the farmers took him to wherever he was now.
Now, he needed to figure out the gap in his memory.
His normal Friday route would take him down the stairs and over to the pond near the staff parking lot. He could remember walking out of class and down the hall. Then stairs and pain in his neck? Could he have fallen? Did someone pull some men in black covert ops bullshit?
Despite his best efforts, Wilfried just couldn’t remember. He’d need to narrow it down.
Was there anybody with him? There shouldn’t have been. The route he takes isn’t in the direction of anything important aside from some staff parking. There were some students in the hallway, but they were doing some last minute visits to the professors.
He made it to the stairs, but held the door. That meant that there was somebody with him. His neck hurting indicates that whoever was with him did something. Maybe?
Could he have fallen down the stairs? Surely he’d remember more than just neck pain. If he did fall, then did that person bring him to the field?
Wilfried had no idea why a stranger would bring him to some unknown location after he fell. It would be more likely that he is in some sort of coma. Did people in a coma have lucid dreams?
The next possibility was that the stranger was some sort of covert ops specialist and he is now captured and drugged to the gills. Such a scenario was outrageous, but given the fact that he is looking at a UI that had been seemingly yoinked from a game, he was willing to entertain the notion.
The memory of the stairwell was not clear. Wilfried couldn’t be certain, but the pain he did remember didn’t seem to be a needle or anything similar. Add in the number of cameras around campus, there was no way someone could just carry him away. So his clandestine organization idea was probably a bust.
He could remember yelling. Then more pain in his head. And maybe a shoe? Everything was too fuzzy to make out well.
Almost there. He could feel that he was on the right track.
Panic was what he could clearly recall. But over what? The stranger? Probably, but something told him that was not the biggest factor.
Wilfried’s arm rubbed at his chin in thought. His hands felt the barely grown stubble as his brain tried to recall more. He would need to shave soon or just let the hair grow.
A sudden tremble started in his hand. Wait? He could feel his hands? Of course he could. Why would he think he couldn’t?
His face morphs into a frown as he stares at his hand. The appendage refused to stop its jitters, but slowed a bit. Was it something to do with his hand? The voice in the back of his head told him that his panic had something to do with his hand.
Suddenly, his brain fired up and he could remember being unable to feel anything. Panic flooded his body as he sat transfixed at his twitching hand. He could feel and move. That was good.
Wilfried flexed his fingers. He could see them working and feel the feedback as he touched the blanket draped over his body. Despite that, all his brain could focus on was the echo of no sensation.
It took a few minutes before Wilfried could accept that he could still move his limbs. The memory felt so strong. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to remember more.
The hand in front of him clenched and unclenched. Surely the rest of his memory wouldn’t be worse. Even if it was, he had to know.
With determination, Wilfried went through his day. When he made it to the stairs, everything felt foggy. He had to know. He held the door for a man. The man’s face held a scowl. He was grabbed?
The memory slammed into focus. He knew what happened. The man tossed him over the railing. He couldn’t feel anything. Then the man stomped on his head. Then he woke up in that field.
Was he dead?
If he was, the afterlife was not anything like he thought it would be. He wasn’t religious, but living in America meant that you generally had a family member or neighbor that was very much religious. He certainly wasn’t at the pearly gates. The farmers, abundant nature, and empty bedroom didn’t exactly scream eternal torment…
The only reasonable conclusion was that he was not in any sort of afterlife. Did that make him not dead? Maybe.
He could have been reborn. That would seem somewhat reasonable. However, being reborn would mean that he should be a baby. Or at least that he should have memories of his new self. Given that he had no idea what any of those farmers were saying, he concluded that being reborn was unlikely. Especially given that he was wearing the same polo as he was prior.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The final option was that he got isekaied. If anime, books, and manga taught him anything, it would be that his situation was suspiciously similar to that type of story. Died? Check. In some unknown location? Check. World runs on video game logic? Given the bullshit in his vision, he was willing to give that a check.
If he was in a different world, then he had no clue what the fuck he would do. A character in that sort of story was often stupidly broken and/or lucky. A fair few tended to be a ‘chosen one’ or something similar. Hopefully he too would get cheat powers, but he’d be more than happy to avoid having to fight a demon king or any other world-ending event.
Wilfried’s mind raced as it recalled how a decent number of portal fantasy stories included heaps of shit for the summoned to deal with. Please let him be somewhere decent!
The more likely explanation for his situation was a coma. People dream up crazy shit in a coma all the time! Maybe. He has no real knowledge about comas.
If he was in a coma, that means nothing would be real. He could do whatever he wanted in his little dream land. It would be fun.
Sadly, he had no way to prove that he was in a coma. Sure, getting tossed into some new world filled with green grass and farmers and probably magic was not the most sensible option. But he couldn’t pick the more reasonable option.
He had to act off the assumption that everything happening to him was real. If he was in a dream, his actions wouldn’t matter. If he was living in some other world, his actions would have very real consequences.
In the event that he was just experiencing a dream, he’d wake up and go back to his normal life. Or as normal as it could be after probably being paralyzed from the neck down.
On further thought, he concluded that it would probably be better if he was in another reality.
Wilfried took a deep breath. He would work with the assumption that everything was real. Looking at the UI elements in the corners of his vision was the best option to start with. He was alone and could bumble through it without much issue. Once he knew more, he could decide what he wanted to ask the locals.
That assumed the locals were friendly. At the least, they didn’t seem to want him dead given how he was now inside.
The first element was the health bar and two resource meters. The red bar was obviously the health bar. It was full and more importantly it had numbers that he could read. Below the health bar was a yellow bar. It could be a stamina/sprint/energy meter, but given how the rest of the UI looks similar to his favorite MMO’s, the bar was likely an energy resource meter that was used for abilities rather than running. The bottom meter was blue, so he could only guess that it was mana.
At the bottom left was what appeared to be a chat box, although there wasn’t any text.
Wilfried glanced at the top right and noticed a distinct lack of a minimap. A bit disappointing, but not the end of the world.
The fuck ton of hotbars he willed into existence were still there. Every slot was empty yet appeared ready to house an ability. It was all standard MMO mechanics.
Staring at the empty bars made Wilfried wonder how to interact with them. No keyboard translated to no mapping and pressing keys. But perhaps he just had to think about a slot being activated? His earlier interactions with the bars hinted at thinking being the control mechanism.
A fair bit of focus revealed that he could indeed trigger a slot in the hotbars. A thought about pressing the slot and it just worked. Possibly. The slots would have their outlines briefly glow. Given the lack of abilities in said slots, Wilfried could not confirm they worked. He would have to test it again later.
The final bit of UI that needed to be explored was the main hotbar. Most MMOs liked to have a singular bar at the bottom of the screen filled with all sorts of UI decoration. There was often an xp bar above the hotbar; his personal UI seemed to share that feature. The hotbar itself tended to function like any other with the only difference being that it looked prettier. That seemed to be the same with his.
Next to the hotbar proper would be a suite of buttons to bring up all sorts of menus. These tended to vary from game to game, but the idea remained the same. Smack a button and some other UI element opened.
Wilfried’s UI seemed to only have five menu buttons - a head icon, armor icon, book icon, brain icon, and bag icon. Based on his previous gaming experience, the head was probably character stats or something related. Armor could be equipment. The book should be spells/abilities. He had no idea what the brain was, but the bag couldn’t be anything other than inventory.
He sent a mental tap to the head icon. A rather small window popped up.
Level 1 Health: 340/340 Strength: 13 Mana: 225/225 Dexterity: 10 Energy: 116/116 Stamina: 12 Attack Power: 42 Intellect: 14 Spell Power: 35 Spirit: 11
Those stats were rather minimal, but did tell him that magic was a thing. Strength, dexterity, and stamina were the physical stats. Intellect and spirit were presumably the magic stats. What each stat actually did was currently beyond him.
Health, mana, and energy seemed to just be resources. Attack and spell power obviously represented how much damage he could do.
Wilfried had no reference as to what any of the values actually meant. His stats could range from absolute garbage to crazy overpowered. None of those numbers screamed broken, so he would tentatively assume that he was probably somewhere on the lower end of the scale.
Just as he was about to will the window to close, he noticed a ‘Traits’ tab hidden at the bottom. As soon as the window cycled over, he was glad that he didn’t skip the tab.
There were two traits listed.
Divine Overload
Your body is overflowing with divine energies. You have increased growth of your divine energies. The effects of Divine Overload will quickly dissipate. After Divine Overload has dissipated, it will be replaced with the Otherworlder trait. +300% xp boost.
Divine Linguistics
Your body is overflowing with divine energies. You have increased growth of your divine energies. The gods have tailored much of your excess divine energy into assisting with language learning. The effects of Divine Linguistics will quickly dissipate. When Divine Linguistics has dissipated, it will be replaced with the Otherworlder Linguistics trait. +900% xp boost to language skills.
Wilfried had no idea what the fuck divine energies were, but he sure as hell knew that those xp boosts looked broken. A 4x boost to everything? That was perfect. The language learning one didn’t seem all that interesting in the long term, but a 13x boost if both multipliers stack and 10x if they don’t was still very useful given his current communications troubles.
He didn’t like the descriptions saying that the effects will quickly dissipate. How long would they last? Would they stay at their current percentages the entire time or would they degrade? He would have to determine those answers. Being able to power level quickly could potentially be a major balancing factor in his favor.
But he could figure that out later. He still needed to explore the rest of the UI.
The current window was closed and quickly replaced by another. The armor icon was indeed his equipment. From the looks of it, it seemed that he could equip multiple pieces of gear to the same body slot if his underwear and pants were any indication. The legs even seemed to have a third slot open.
It seemed that the hand and foot slots were individual. Even if this new world operated on game logic, it made sense that gloves and shoes were not treated as a pair.
Wilfried decided that now was as good a time as any to play with the inventory. He opened the bag icon and was greeted by a single inventory slot for each of his pant pockets. Most games had some sort of magical storage, but it seemed that his new reality disagreed with the notion. Not the end of the world. It wasn’t as if he had access to such bullshit before. He’d honestly be thrilled if he could jam a piece of furniture into his pocket.
Now that both windows were side by side, Wilfried mentally dragged a sock into the pocket slot. Nothing happened. It seemed that his new world was not quite as much of a game as he thought.
More testing was in order!
He swung his legs off to the side of the bed and lifted his torso into a sitting position. The first test was to take off a sock. As soon as it left his foot, the equipment window reflected such. Wilfried was quick to note that the slots on that foot reduced by one.
The sock went back onto his foot and the equipment screen was back to what it was. Did that mean there wasn’t a limit to equipment slots? Once more the sock was removed before being hastily shoved over the other sock. The equipment window showed two socks on that foot as well as another empty slot.
It seemed that the UI was a reflection of the world. But if so, what would happen if he put something on that didn’t fit in one of the slots?
The sock was removed and shoved into the top of his polo. It flopped over and resembled a tie, at least as much as a dirty sock hanging off a shirt could. A glance at the equipment screen revealed a new tie slot with the sock equipped.
Wilfried couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. The world was starting to seem less like a game and more like real life. The likelihood of a dresser in his pocket seemed to plummet…
And so, the sock tie was retired and appropriated as a pocket sock. His inventory reflected such a change and updated the pocket to have another open slot. That meant that his inventory was just a way to see what he had on him. The followup attempt to shove a pillow into his other pocket proved that his pockets were just regular pockets.
Both menus were closed. Wilfried didn’t really have much use for them if all they did was show what he wore or held in his pockets…
Opening the menu for the book icon was similarly disappointing. It was empty. Not that it was a big surprise. He didn’t expect to have any abilities or spells. With the traits tab in the character window, any passive effects would probably not even show up in this menu. The ability menu seemed to be useless to him for now…
The brain icon appeared just as useless at first glance. Wilfried noticed it had two tabs. The default tab was listed as ‘skills’ while the other was listed as ‘language skills’. He evidently didn’t have any skills. Switching over to the other tab revealed two skills. ‘English (Spoken)’ and ‘English (Written)’ appeared to just be his ability to speak, read, and write in English.
Why didn’t anything else translate as skills? He was a third year in his computer science degree. Surely something he learned should translate to a skill! He had a much deeper math background than English. Was math not a skill? What about cooking?
His mental rant was cut short when he noticed that both his English skills were designated as 100/100. While a typical college student would certainly have a high proficiency for English, there was no way in hell that he could be considered as perfect at it. What did the 100 mean?
Wilfried took a deep breath. There was not much point in getting worked up. He could stress over the details at a later date. He needed to dial in and figure out what he would do.
The world was not as much of a game as he first thought. He probably wouldn’t be slaughtering the wildlife just to get a pair of metal gloves. That was something he needed to figure out. The economy would be very different if decent goods were dropped by mobs. Why bother crafting goods if you could hit something with a hammer and get a quality product?
He can only hope that crafting is a viable option. As fun as farming dangerous creatures can be in a game, there is no way in hell he wants to take such a big risk with his life on the line.
No matter what, the first step would have to be establishing a line of communication with the natives. They would probably be able to answer any questions he had. Not to mention that he was currently at their mercy.
He needed to learn about where he was now. Both the local area as well as the world as a whole. What sort of government rules the land. The general political scene. All those sorts of things. Depending on the answers, he may need to prepare to get the fuck out. But he also needed to know more about the mechanics of the world. Magic could change his plans.
The next step would be to learn some skills and abilities. He needed to have value to the natives lest he worry about getting tossed out on his ass. At the least, he needed to learn enough to be able to afford food, water, and shelter.
Step four should be working towards stability. He would need steady work that could let him have a home and basic amenities.
Wilfried now had some sort of rough idea of what to do. The only question left was how he was going to pull it off.