I was walking for a very long time. Although there was no way to know the time, considering even the sun was not moving, I knew that quite a long time has passed since I started walking. I was quite bored. At first, I was inspecting my surroundings for something weird to pop out, or an attack. Nothing came. Nothing. There was no movement at all. Not even wind was blowing. If I was not seeing the ground change, I would've thought that I was not moving at all.
Naturally, I got bored, quick. Instead, I started playing with my die. I had a half mind waiting for something, but most of my attention was on the die. Practice was important, after all. I was flying the die around me, trying different scenarios that could happen. I wanted to be damn prepared if something was going to attack me. Considering the monsters were even in Earth now, the hell would be filled with them.
Controlling the die was much easier than I anticipated - that is, if it was on my sight. The moment I lost sight of it, when it was on my back or underground, it became much, much harder to control. Giving it a precise location was quite hard, and vague directions didn't work most of the time. My imagination was not enough to move it.
Several solutions were on my mind, finding another way to move it around, teaching myself to feel the space around me better - I had no idea how to do this!), or establishing a connection between me and the die. After all, if the system was to be believed, it was made from my soul. I should be able to feel it, right?
To my surprise, I could! When I focused on the die, I could feel a strong link. It felt weird, like the feeling whenever I used my skill. Next, I dunno, 60, 70 minutes - that's how long I felt, no way to be sure - passed with me focusing and learning about the bond and the die itself. The bond itself was not something too interesting, only thing I could feel was a similarity between me and the die, like a rope was tied between two apples.
The die, on the other hand, was much more interesting. I could easily feel my soul, it was the familiar part of me. But the other part of the die, felt familiar but at the same time, as if I was knowing about it for the first time. Like, meeting someone that looks like someone you know quite well. That kind of feeling. The inspection of that part did not go quite well, I was not sure how to inspect it. Only thing I knew was that part was somehow dissolving in to the outside, no, like somehow it was a part of everything outside the die. At the same time, it was more unique than everything.
Also, the was I was feeling was with my new sense. Somehow, I was able to sense my own soul. Whether this extended to other souls, I had no idea, but it was definitely a new sense. Something like seeing, tasting, hearing - it felt natural to use. My working theory was that it was a perk of my new race. Speaking of my new race, there was no obvious changes, with two exceptions: my skin was much whiter than before, I felt like a vampire and my hair was golden. Not blond, but golden. The first thought on my mind when I saw it was the stereotype of the color of luck - it felt like the luck itself. How it felt like that, or how luck was able to be felt in any way, I did not know.
When I finished inspecting my die and my new race, I was left with nothing to do. I was still working with my die - I even tried to fly on it, didn't work out spectacularly well - but I was bored. Never knew that being bored was this terrible, I was always full back then. Now, I just wanted something to happen. Well, not really. Even if something were not to happen, I was not too depressed, first breakpoint I decided was getting closer and closer. It was the starting point of the white dots I saw when I first looked around.
The dots slowly got bigger as I approached, and their figures got clearer. When I managed to see them clearly for the first time, I stopped where I was. They were humanoid shaped. They somehow looked like humans as well, if they were to have a skin/muscle/nerve/tissue on them. White, human shaped monsters - the first monster to be seen in quite a lot of RPGs. The skeletons.
The problem was, this was not an RPG. Death meant that, death. After I died for the first time, I woke up here, and I didn't want to try my luck again. Caution was a must. Avoiding them wouldn't work. There was no path that was not crossing them that goes to the door. Except the giant ravine of course, but I had a feeling that would be much worse than this.
Nevertheless, caution was a must. My die was quite strong, and if I was going back to earth, getting stronger was a must. Whether the system considered these monsters or not, I didn't know, but it would actually be great if they gave experience.
Taking care to make myself smaller and not making any noise, I neared the skeletons. They did not seem to notice me, even though I was not far away from them. About 20 or so meters. Perhaps they were not hostile? It would be nice if they weren't. I stopped advancing to observe them.
No, this was not the time to relax. Relaxation would lead to my death. Still, waiting was not helping, I could not see anything useful. Taking the same pose before, I continued. After I advanced about 10 meters, my wish for them to be not hostile was broken. One of them noticed and immediately started walking/rushing towards me. Its height was around my shoulders, making it not feel to dangerous.
Taking care to not disturb anymore, I slowly backpedaled. To gauge their strength, one on one would be much better. Still, if I knew they were hostile, I could've simply sent my die to lure on of them in.
To my relief, none of them followed. After the others was quite a distance away, my whole attention turned to my pursuer. For some reason, I could not feel the adrenalin filling my body. That explosive strength would be quite helpful, as well as the increased focus. But it was not the time to think about useless things now. I readied my die.
As a trial, I sent the die to its head while making it sharp. I was not quite hopeful, although the sharpness of the die was nice, it was too small. Die flew in the direction I gave with the fastest speed I could make it go - around 50 meters per second. After flying for a moment, the die hit the skeleton head on.
What happened left my mouth open. Unlike my expectations, the moment of penetrated the skull, the skeleton fell down. I was not that strong, I knew that. The die was too small to damage it properly. Perhaps the skull was its weak point? It coincided with what I knew from the games as well. Usually, weak point of the zombies and the skeletons was the skull. When it was destroyed, they died instantly. The reason usually was along the lines, brain of the zombies make them live, and souls of skeletons was on the skull. If that was true in here, it would be very nice.
Now was the time to check whether these skeletons gave exp or not. It was quite unnerving, if they didn't, I had no knowledge about how I could gain levels. Still, waiting would do no good. I opened my status.
[Level: 1 (30%)]
It worked.
I could increase my level with these skeletons. If they all were as weak as this one, then wouldn't I increase my level easily? Although it may be because I'm level one.
Closing my status, I walked towards the skeletons. This time, I decided to go without trying to hide myself. Killing a single one was easy, so two shouldn't be too much of a problem. And indeed, not long after, they saw me and started walking. Around seven of them were coming, but they were slow. Too slow, in fact. If I were to run to other side, they would lose me n minutes. Nothing to worry about.
Encouraged by their speed, I decided to put around 30 meters between us and sent my die. My first target looked quite similar to the one I killed before. Shorter than me, with pristine white bones. I could even say it looked cool. No matter what though, it was going to die. My die reached it soon after, and passed through its head. It slumped to the ground. Nice. I sent the die to the five
Next minutes were basically me slaughtering(?) skeletons. I killed any that come into my 30 meter limit. Soon after, there was no skeletons that was around me. About 100 meters were cleared, making it around 100 skeletons. This should get me quite a bit of exp. Excited, I opened my status.
[Level 6 (38.75%)]
Level 6? Just that? How low was the experience these skeletons gave? Or is it because leveling is hard? One skeleton was 30% when I was level one...
This was somewhat outside of my expectations. I thought my level would go up quite a bit considering how many of them I just killed. Well, whatever.
Leaving behind the stuff about levels and experience, I neared one of the dead skeletons. With the exception of a hole on their head, they were complete. I started my inspection, although they were quite weak I was curious about their physiology.
First was the limbs. How did they move? I could not see anything that would make them move. So, the answer was apparent. Magic. The rules of the universe was powerless against that. The bones were quite strong as well, which I noticed when I tried to break into their skull. Let alone breaking it, my hands didn't even leave a scratch on them. They left a red mark on my hand though.
It didn't discourage me though. Expecting it to open from my hands were idiotic in the first place. Instead, I searched for a rock around me. Something small enough to be strongly gripped in my hand, but strong enough to not break from the collision. After trying few rocks around me, I found the one I was searching for.
After preparing my strength a bit, I hit the skull. It didn't break open, but there was a small mark on where I hit it. So I could break them. I continued my onslaught on the dead skeleton.
After around twenty tries, the skull cracked, and next few hits broke it open. The whole process hurt like a bitch though. My hand was throbbing, and it looked like it was about to bleed. Still, I was happy to be able to inspect the skull. It was something unknown to me. Inspection didn't take much time.
It appeared that my first thought about skeletons having their souls inside their skull were true. Because with the exception of a fading feeling from the skull, there was nothing in it. I did not expect any brain or something, but they were capable of thought. Not consciously perhaps, but instinct was thought enough. This pretty much proved me that the thinking part of us was the soul. Then what purpose did the brain serve? Was it something like a container for the soul? Or was it something part soul, so when it got damaged humans changed personality/died? Or was it something completely different?
I stopped myself there. If I were to continue that line of thought, I was going to spend a lot of time doing nothing but thinking. This was not the time for it. Thought I made a mental note to learn more about it when I returned Earth.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
On a different subject, I noticed a change in my body. I didn't know whether this was the result of my new race or hell, but it seemed like I didn't need any food or drink. It was quite helpful in this environment. If I needed something to eat or drink, I had no idea where to find it. Though it also made me feel like I lost something precious.
After finishing my inspections on the skeletons, I continued my journey, with a new breakpoint in mind. There was a mountain somewhere in the distance. I would've thought it was a normal mountain - if it had its center. The shape of the mountain was a bow, it only had its outlines, the center was completely empty. Gravity didn't look like it had any effect on it. Though I had seen a lot of weird stuff these days, so I did not have the energy to get shocked. I simply continued my journey.
On the road, I saw a lot of skeletons. Without exception, all of them walked/rushed to me. And without exception, I left all of them with a hole on their skull. I didn't know whether the skeletons were getting stronger or not, but they got faster and faster as I continued towards the weird mountain. Their speed didn't matter much though, my die was quite fast. Anything that entered my 30 meter line was dead.
The problem was the repetition. I got bored. Again. Like, there was nothing to do except killing skeletons. And when they died with a simple hit to head it became somewhat, well, monotonous.
On the road, I started singing whatever I remembered. My repertoire didn't hold out much. I was going mad.
This continued until I reached the mountain.
---
"Finally, I reached the mountain. It's damn big though. What do you think, Lucky?" I murmured to no one.
That's right. Lucky was the name I gave to my die. Around when I was middle of the road to the mountain, I started speaking to the die. That was not a sign of a healthy mind, I knew as well. However, I was going mad. Having no one to talk to, as well as only repeating the same motion for like, forever, made me insane. I never knew that I was going to miss people so much that I was asking, no, begging for someone to talk to. Hell, after I started talking to Lucky, I even stopped checking my level. It was simply not important. Hell, even few windows opened in the middle of my journey. They were cast aside too. However, I was curious, now that I finished my journey. I started with the windows.
[Title gained: Skeleton Slayer]
[Title gained: Enemy of the Skeletons]
[Title Gained: The One Hated by the Skeletons]
Apparently, I had gained three titles. Though, I still did not know what titles meant, let alone what they did. I focused on them to get more information. Perhaps this time it would work. As if. Haha.
[Skeleton Slayer: You have destroyed 1.000 skeletons. By cleansing the world from them, you have done good for everyone.
+25 to all stats.]
[Enemy of Skeletons: You have managed to kill 10.000 skeletons. Your hatred for them goes above the normal. You hate them to the core of your being. They are your arch-enemy.
+50 to all stats.]
[The One Hated by the Skeletons: You have killed 100.000 skeletons. Alone. No one would help you in this meaningless massacre. Although they were not exactly the most normal, they were still living. You are a monster. All skeletons hate you, as much as you hate them.
+100 to all stats.
All skeletons will attack you on sight.]
The system answered my wishes. O great system, this lowly one is eternally thankful. Also, if you would explain WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH MY RACE, I would be most grateful. Regards, Odds.
Jokes aside, I did not expect the explanations to pop up, at all. Why did the system not explain my other title or my race? Perhaps there was some reasons behind that. No matter what, this was a good thing. Information would be useful.
According to the explanations from the system, I must've killed at least 100.000 skeletons on my way here. One. Hundred. Thousand. No wonder I felt the insanity creeping into me. That was madness. Doing the same thing over and over again... I got depressed by remembering. Never again. If I leave this shithole of a place, I was directly going to my home, and sleeping for as many hours as the number of skeletons I killed.
Still, the titles felt good. Although I still did not know what the stats did, considering I did not feel any increase in my strength or my ability to control the die, except my endurance. The need for sleep, rather, I was not even a little tired after walking for that long. What was going on? I thought of my status.
[ Status Screen
Name: Odds
Race: Lokkich
Class: Child of Luck
Level: 91 (61.86%)
Strength: 8 (274)
Vitality: 7 (273)
Sensation: 14 (280)
Perception: 10 (276)
Agility: 11 (277)
Dexterity: 9 (275)
Intelligence: 16 (373)
Skills : (Skill Points - 9)
- Manipulate Luck
Titles:
- Lucky
- Skeleton Slayer
- Enemy of the Skeletons
- The One Hated by the Skeletons
Items:
- Lucky Die
]
Wow. My level was much higher than before. Still, this was quite confusing. I would've thought that many skeletons should've resulted in a much higher increase. Even if they were level one, the sheer number should have made a difference. Also as I moved, the skeletons got stronger as well. That should mean an increase in skeletons' level, right?
On a side note, inspecting the skeletons yielded no results. It was the same as my race or the stats. It felt like the system didn't like me very much, considering how I was limited from the stuff mentioned in tutorial.
Back to the levels. If it was not because of the low exp intake, then it must mean an absurd level of experience requirement. If so, that was terrifying. If I was only level 91 after that much killing, I could not even begin to imagine the requirements for higher levels. Perhaps there was some exp multiplier for bosses or stuff, if they were even real. That must be true. Yes.
My stats was still the same as before, but this time they had a number on the side of them. They looked somewhat similar to the original ones, I started doing calculations.
If my mental mathematics were true, than the side numbers showed the new stat value. Together with my titles and the increase from levels, they were exactly the same. But why was on the side-
A massive feeling of fatigue fell on to me. It simply felt like the total acclimated fatigue from the journey. Fatigue of days, perhaps months of non-stop walking came back in an instant. My eyes closed as my body fell to the ground. Even before I could start thinking about why, I was asleep.
---
My eyes opened to the same red sky. My head had no dizziness from long sleep. In fact, everything felt more bright, colorful, lively. Even if I was in a bland Hell. It was as if a giant curtain was taken from my eyes. As if I saw the world for the first time. So many details in every side.
Mesmerized, I pushed my body to stand. That was a mistake. A giant, terrible mistake. From the force of my push, I rocketed towards the sky. Ground was too far away from me. The mountain was in a clear view. My eyes opened as I saw its real shape from top. Before I could understand what it was, I stopped on the air.
Oh no.
As with basic gravity, I knew what was coming next. The fall. From the height I was in, it meant death. My body could never, ever stand the crash.
What was I going to do? Every-fucking-thing disobeyed the law of the world, why was I subject to this terrible gravity?! I didn't want to die after killing that many skeletons! That was a terrible last act! My eyes teared at the thought.
A solution. There must be a solution. Think brain, think! The die. If I could fly with it... I remembered my last tries. Hopping on to the die only meant fall. What if I were to hold on to it with my hands and simply float down? Canceling my momentum now would be the same as hitting the ground. A more delicate way was required.
I immediately took the die out, and floated it to the front of me. This time, the position was simply relative to me, so it was following me at the same distance I put it. My hands clamped on to it.
First thing I did was to correct my position. Going head first to the ground would not help me. Thankfully, the strong wind resistance helped me with that. As soon as I tried to correct myself, I push from the wind completed the action. First phase, done. Next was slowing down.
My speed was at the terminal velocity right now. This meant that I was not getting any faster. If this was the same as Earth, then it meant that my speed was around 190 km/h, or 54 m/s. It was probably not the same, but it was the only data I had. Focusing on to the speed of the die, I slowed it to 53 m/s.
That was a terrible mistake. It was too slow. The force threatened my arms to leave my shoulders. My focus immediately got broken. This would not do. I had no way of knowing my speed.
Then, a light-bulb flashed on my head. What I was trying to do was damn stupid. What I needed was an upwards acceleration right now, nothing more. It did not need any actual data. I could simply start from lowest and increase it slowly.
That was what I did. Focusing on the die in my hands, I applied a 0.1 m/s upward acceleration. It showed no change, no slowing down, not even a pull to my shoulders. I slowly increased them. 0.5, 1, 2, 3... As the acceleration increase, I started feeling the pull of gravity increase as the wind resistance fell. I continued the increase and when it was around 13 m/s, my speed slowed down for the first time. This meant that my acceleration passed the gravity. But the rate I was slowing down was not enough. I continued to increase the upwards acceleration.
My speed fell down faster and faster as I increased the acceleration. Soon, it became zero, and I immediately adjusted it to the gravity I felt while increasing. 12.something m/s. I did not want to go up.
There I was. Floating at a spot on the sky. The view was awesome. Taking the chance that I could see quite a lot, I looked towards the gate. The view was much clear than I saw before. But, it was too far away. As I compared it to the distance I came or rather, from the start of the skeletons, I cried a bit. The distance I came was not even the 1/50 of the whole. This shit was going to take a lot of time. Still, there was a pro to this as well. A city or a town in the distance. Around the middle of the road, I could see some buildings. Of course, it being a city was simply my speculation, but it was my heartfelt wish. The loneliness was simply too much.
Still, first thing was the mountain. As I lowered myself slowly, I tried to make sense of it. It was the same as something I knew, but I didn't wish to believe. It was simply impossible.
An anchor, with its chain going down in to the ground.