Miche looked around the room, mildly dazed. He noticed his mother at the side of his hospital bed, asleep in a chair. He suddenly remembered what happened.

The man in the overcoat, the odd injection. He wondered what it all meant and whether he was drugged with a virus of some sorts. While his mind trailed down dark paths of possible solutions, a light green holographic text box appeared in front of him.

He wiped his eyes hard to see if he was dreaming. It was like those text boxes those main characters in books had or the text box from video games that he played all day on the weekend. He read it closely.

“Welcome! New item placed in inventory.”

“Inventory?” He asked himself.

Suddenly, an even larger green box appeared in front of him. It had many empty squares but the one at the top left had a sort of flask looking item. It read ‘Health flask +1 (x10)’.

“Whats this? So I’m assuming this can heal my injuries?”

The description of the item immediately came up after Miche asked this.

‘First acquired once placed in life threatening situation.’

“This must be some kind of dream because there’s no way I’m accepting this. It’s a literally those fantasies I would have at night in bed. Maybe if I imagine myself taking it out, It’ll come out of the inventory.” He said to himself.

Miche imagined the image of the flask in his hand. A sudden green light flashed on his palm in the shape of the flask. It was now in his hand.

“Might as well try it out?” He thought.

He popped the lid open and took a few sips. It was sweet and salty at the same time with a tinge of strawberry and milk. He could feel the dizziness from before and the muscle fatigue all slowly disappearing from his body. Since this was just like a game, Miche had to check if he had a stat page.

“Do I have a stat page?” He asked the screen.

Nothing moved and nothing changed on screen. The inventory started to become more see through and disappeared. He thought that having a stat page with points would be a stretch. Maybe these improvements had to be acquired from actual training on those specific traits, rather than just placing stat points in from doing tasks. While thinking about how to increase strength or endurance, his mother woke up.

“Miche..” she cried.

They immediately hugged. Miche knew that she was most likely there the entire time he was unconscious. He wondered if his dad would come by. Either way, he appreciated both of his parents very deeply. Even after catching up with his mother, the lingering thoughts of the man in the overcoat lingered. The memories of the moment still sent chills up his spine. To him, it was like a scene from that one horror movie you can never forget.

“Miche, are you alright. You’re spacing out.” His mom asked.

“No. I’m fine mom, I’m just wondering when dad’ll come by.”

Soon after, Miche’s father entered the hospital room and they all caught up.

“By the way, how did you guys find me?” Miche asked.

“Well some of the neighbours thought you were a corpse on the ground, but since you were so close to home, people recognised you and were able to get you to the hospital before we even found out.” His dad replied.

“I’m assuming no one saw a man in a black overcoat. I should keep quiet since I don’t wanna stress my parents.” Miche thought.

As time went on, doctors came and analysed Miche’s state. Thanks to the usage of the health flask from before, he was able to be discharged that same day. After a few days of rest at home, Miche was finally able to go to school.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

“That’s him isn’t it?”

“Yeah. They say he was probably high or drunk.”

“Seriously?”

Miche sighed. He was baffled as to how they thought he didn’t hear them, maybe they just didn’t have that level of respect or courtesy towards a loner like him.

Miche entered class a little earlier than last time. There was no teacher but there were a good few of the students, maybe one or two people missing. They all looked at him as he sat down at his desk. He was immediately crowded and showered with questions.

“Did it hurt when they did surgery?”

“Surgery?” Miche thought

“Was you high”

“Have you heard what happened to Erica’s locker?”

“Have the police caught the guy that did this to you?”

Out of the twenty or so questions that came his way after, Miche could only think about the one involving Erica’s locker. He was freaking out since he remembered doing it out of spite.

“Do they know I did it? No way, I was in a coma for a few days theres no way. Maybe she suspects me.” He thought.

His mathematics class had already started and all he could think about was if she knew. He turned back and caught Erica glaring right at him. He quickly turned back around.

“She knows…” he cried internally.

At the end of the day, Miche learned that his art teacher had provided him and Erica an extra few days to complete the work due to Miche being in the hospital. The sun was setting and both Erica and Miche were alone in the art room doing their work. Miche looked up at her nervously. Her hair glistened from the sunlight and so did her pink plump lips. Now he understood why boys would constantly dawn over her, she really was a beauty.

“Did you do it?” She asked.

“What?” Miche said quietly.

“I’m asking if you’re the asshole who trashed my locker.” She said irritably.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Miche looked at her extremely calmly but also mildly confused.

“Nevermind. It couldn’t have been you, you were in the hospital after all.” She looked back down at her work.

“Saaaafe.” Miche said to himself.

Suddenly, the bright red light engulfed the room. A sort of red version of the portal Miche saw that day he was knocked out appeared at the other end of the table. A man wearing an all black suit came walking out. Miche was half expecting the man in the overcoat to come walking out. Erica ran to the corner of the room terrified while Miche backed up slowly, still standing in front of Erica.

The man lunged at them both with a short sword that began to crackle with blue lightning. Miche immediately picked up Erica and jumped to the side of the attack, narrowly dodging. The sword hit the wall hard, causing it to break and fall apart, creating a giant hole to the next classroom and to the roof. All the training Miche did was really helping out here. Sadly, he didn’t have the cliche stat board to see how well he was doing with strength or speed.

“Nice dodge boy, but sadly you will die here today.” The man said.

“Who are you.” Miche asked nervously.

“I’m an assassin. I’m here to get rid of you before you cause havoc on my world.”

“Your world?”

The man didn’t reply and jumped at Miche again. Miche was able to lead him away from Erica who was too stunned to move or speak. Miche dodged each attack, he then saw an opening on the mans chin. He did a back flip and kicked the man in the chin while flipping. The man stumbled but quickly came back to his senses and grabbed Miche’s foot. He slammed Miche into the ground hard. While Miche was on the floor, he kicked the man in the groin with his free leg and the man shouted in pain.

“Nice.” Miche thought.

While stumbling, the man dropped his sword. Before he could grab it, Miche got it and cut the man in the chest while also paralysing him with lightning. Miche kicked him back into the portal but kept the short sword.

The portal immediately closed and all the objects that were floating in the air from the energy emitted from the portal came crashing down to the floor. Miche looked around and saw that the classroom was a mess. Miche looked down at the sword in his hand and imagined it being in his inventory. It glowed green and disappeared. A green text box appeared in front of Miche.

’New item acquired: Lightning short sword lvl 10’

Miche looked back up at Erica who was staring at him in both awe and relief. He dropped to his knees in shock and then looked at his hands shivering.

“That was my first ever fight. I’ve never fought before but my body just moved on instinct. All those training requests from this system in my head really did improve my body. Damn, I almost pissed myself too in-front of Erica. I was so fucking scared.” He thought to himself.

Eventually, firemen arrived since a fire started from burst pipes and destroyed infrastructure. Only Miche and Erica knew what happened that day and didn’t mention a word of what happened to anyone who questioned them.