Darkness surrounded him. His senses were still active, he could feel something cold behind his back and a sea of emptiness ahead of him.

"Where am I? Wait, don’t tell me… I didn’t follow a religion so they sent me to the atheist afterlife?”

He thought about it for a second.

“Is it too late to become religious? M-Maybe if I pray hard enough…”

Bright particles appeared from the dark and took the shape of letters.

[ Enter your name ! ]

He stared at it for a few seconds before unsurely mumbling his name.

“Tanuki… Hachiro Tanuki.”

Another prompt followed,

[ Welcome Tanuki ! ]

And when it disappeared, the world gained light. A sea of blue and a single yellow ball emerged from the dark. Tanuki needed a moment to realize he was lying on the ground and what he saw was the Sun in the sky. He was surprised it did not hurt to look at it.

Short green grass surrounded him from all sides. It felt natural to the touch, maybe a bit dry, though it showed no signs of dehydration.

Tanuki forced his limbs to work again and stood up. He wore the same clothes as before he had passed out: a black hoodie with blue shorts and pink slippers. Even his glasses were on him.

"This is not a fever dream," he muttered to himself while wandering the field. "I'm completely lucid and I feel pain when I pinch myself. Then what is this place? Heaven? If so, I'd like to go to Hell––"

He jerked his leg away just in time to avoid the next step, which would have possibly been the last he ever took. The ground ended there and a drop to the abyss followed.

"What the... the world just ends here?!"

It was the edge of the world—everything after that was just a blue void.

"If I cannot leave this field, then what am I supposed to do? Just sit here and starve to death?!" He took a deep breath. "Come on, think straight Tanuki! This is clearly some isekai bullshit. This is good. Isekais are fun. You dreamt about this, right? Well, maybe not this, to be precise. No, certainly not this with the floating plane and abyss below, but this cannot be it, there must be something more. Think, Tanuki, think! You must have got some kind of power or system when you got here, try to use them!”

He closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and focused. Then, sending all his life force into his palms, he reached out and shouted.

"System window, appear! Open sesame! Menu!"

Nothing happened.

“Come on!" He leaned back and fell onto the soft grass.

This was strange. Other isekais put their victim into a position where they would know where to go, what to do, and who to fight for. Some put the main character into the body of a baby and had them experience the world from childhood, while others just straight up put them into some God’s throne room.

And then, there was him.

On a field.

Alone.

That’s it.

Thinking about it made him feel even more miserable. Other worlds have cute girls and cool magic, but he was so unlucky that even when extreme luck befell him with reincarnation, he ended up in the worst possible world.

“At least I got enough grass to weave human-sized anime dolls. They should do until I die of dehydration.”

He closed his eyes to rest, but even then text appeared before him.

[ System available only at Gaia Core ]

He raised an eyebrow, “The hell is a Gaia Core?”

It was then he realized the two things about this field that stuck out. A narrow dirt path led from the abyss to a small purple obelisk which sat at the middle of the field.

Tanuki approached the small monument and felt its heavy aura on his skin. The crystal glowed randomly with faint light, and when it did, Tanuki could see his face reflect from the gem’s clear surface.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Wow! So, you must be the Gaia Core."

Touching the obelisk caused a burning sensation in his palm. It did not hurt, nor has it caused any harm. In some weird way, it felt somewhat nice.

[ Welcome Tanuki ! ]

[ You have unlocked your Gaia Core ]

[ Use the Gaia Core to expand and manage your realm ]

[ Defend the Gaia Core from incoming raids to earn Experience and unlock more features in the Menu ]

[ Good luck ! ]

Immediately after, a new prompt appeared.

[ Congratulations ! ]

[ You have received ‘Tutorial Package’ ]

[ Would you like to redeem it now ? ]

[ Yes ] – [ No ]

The barrage of text and sudden overstimulation hit Tanuki with a punch of nausea. Though even if it was a lot, he felt a sense of familiarity with the message. Expansion. Management. Experience. Waves. These were video game terms, more so terms from tower-defence style games, a subgenre of games that focused on building a defence to resist periodic attacks.

He reached out and touched the [Yes] prompt before him. Subsequently, a small gift box appeared and fell to the ground. When he reached down to grab it, the top of the lid blew off and white light emanated from within. Items emerged from the box one by one.

[ Congratulations! You’ve found … ]

[ F-Rank Class Token ]

A wooden token floated out of the box, a sword, bow, and staff crudely carved into it. Suddenly, it turned into white particles of light that flew into Tanuki’s pocket, where he could not feel its presence anymore.

[ 3x Minor Healing Potion ]

As expected, a small vial of red liquid came out of the box. Only one item was shown, but when it turned into light like the previous token, three separate groups of particles barraged Tanuki’s pocket.

Then, the final item appeared.

[ Lucky Coin ]

A golden coin. One side bore the engraving of a woman’s side profile. She wore blindfolds. The other side had a four-leaf clover. When this item turned into light, it was golden coloured and flashier when it flew into Tanuki’s pocket.

The box disappeared and Tanuki was left alone with his thoughts. Or rather, their lack thereof. His eyes were wide and immensely shooting the distance, his lips trembled, and anxiety hurt his chest.

“What the hell was that all about?”

The realization finally began to catch up to him.

Yes, this was not his world.

Indeed, these were video game terms.

Even the way they were presented reminded him of the way gacha games rewarded players with items. Indeed, if leaving his world was not already bad enough, things turned worse when he realized he could potentially be stuck in not just any game, but a mobile game.

A minute later, he touched the Gaia Core again. This time, a different interface greeted him, something resembling a video game menu. There was a welcome message on top, general information like time and weather below, and an icon for messages in the top right corner. Touching the latter revealed he had no new messages besides the one about the tutorial package, which he had already read and redeemed.

There were various other options, but most of them were blurred out, their button dark and unresponsive to the touch. These features were locked. There were only two that could be accessed, namely,

[ --- Menu --- ]

[ > Expansion ]

[ > Waves ]

Tanuki chose to see [Expansion] and a map appeared. It was a grid-based visualization of his surroundings, with only one grid being filled by none other than the field he was standing on. He tried to observe the field and a new window opened, showing the grid’s name and modifiers.

[ Field ]

[ Level: 0 ]

[ Modifiers: Gaia Core Nest ]

Focusing on the Gaia Core modifier revealed a description.

[ Gaia Core Nest ]

[ Holder of the realm’s Gaia Core. This modifier disallows hostile mob spawns in a 2-grid radius and makes the grid cost no additional materials to terraform. Only one grid can have this modifier in any realm. ]

Exiting the description, Tanuki noticed a value displayed atop the map, Expansion Points. “I have zero right now. Maybe when I defend against a wave, I will get some I can spend to expand the realm?” He pondered for a while then returned to the menu.

Next, he selected the [Waves] button.

Immediately he was brought to a different menu, which displayed all the necessary (and available) information about the next incoming attack.

On the top, the number of the current wave was displayed. In this case, [Wave 1]. Next was its difficulty, [Level 0]. Under these, a peculiar line of three stops was shown.

[ Beginners’ Tutorial ]

[ • – O – O ]

It displayed the current set of waves which had three stops. The last one showed a skull face, a clear sign that the last wave of this set would feature a boss-type enemy, a more difficult, stronger opponent.

There was also information about the enemies, but due to the fact Tanuki had yet to encounter these creatures, only their names were present. For the first wave, there was only one enemy.

[ Enemies: ]

[ 1x Soulless Husk ]

Tanuki’s mind dreaded the sound of such a creature, but his worries conflicted with a sigh of relief when he thought about the difficulty of the wave. Level zero, which meant that he was in no true danger, none that could not be easily defeated.

“But that’s the thing,” he thought, “Is this considering my strength or the average human strength? I am only seventeen years old and the worst of my PE class. If this is considering my strength then I am fine, but if it’s the average adult strength, then I’m not sure what to expect.”

Thinking back on school left an unfamiliar disturbance in his mind. He pushed it to the side and refocused on the [Waves] menu.

There were two other things he found interesting. Firstly modifiers, that were not present for this wave. Second was the rewards tab, but its contents remained hidden.

The last thing featured in the menu was a clock much like that in the main menu. This one showed a countdown until the next wave.

The current time was 12:26.

For the first wave, the countdown was frozen. It had to be manually activated, which left Tanuki with some time to prepare.

With no more to do, Tanuki exited the Gaia Core and looked around. Had it been a dream, he would have enjoyed the liminal aspect of the floating field and perhaps even liked it for its surreal yet comfortable atmosphere.

There was not a bird in the sky, nor a cloud. Not a bug traversing the grass jungle, nor a pebble stuck in the dirt. It all felt so unreal; rather than being a part of reality, Tanuki felt as though he was stuck in a dream.

He felt another disturbance in his mind but could not determine its reasons. He thought it might be anxiety, something he felt a lot of.

In these moments he was safe, but in a few hours, he would have to face a creature unlike anything from Earth. It was exciting yet so terrifying to think of, especially when he realized, yes, he would need to kill it somehow, or else the thing would destroy the Gaia Core and the game would be lost. Whatever that meant, he dreaded to find out.