It was akin to a primal fear, the innate concept that all living things avoid at all costs, that which is death. To say that experiencing death is one of the worst things that can be experienced would be, to say the least, a gross understatement. So when Wren was stabbed in the gut, it went without saying, that he did not have a good time.

Countless profanities ran through his mind, aimed at no one in particular, and a cold feeling spread through his body as he realized that he would really die. He laid on the floor, barely able to move, as his killer suddenly dropped her knife and quickly took him in her arms, tears running down her face. He took a small sense of solace that he would die in the arms of his fiancé, even if she did stab him. Dying in the arms of a loved one was not something everyone got, so he took his silver lining in stride.

Besides he had no one else to blame for his current situation, he had cheated on her after all. He wasn’t proud of his actions and he had little clue as to why he actually did it, but he did it knowing how she would feel, that alone made him unable to really hate her. In hindsight, cheating with the new girl at work wasn’t really worth dying for. He was prepared for her to break up with him, not a stab wound.

As the seconds ticked by and his body grew colder and colder, an unrestrained panic began to settle into his brain. Wren had never been religious, despite a religious background, but as he got closer to the void he could not help but hope that there would be something waiting for him at the other side.

Slowly but surely, even his brain began to slow down as his blood flowed into the floor. It was over, his life was extinguished.

But just as he was plunged into the endless darkness, a new light emerged. A new beginning.

“What the fuck?”

His first new words were that of surprise, Wren stood inside a sealed-off room. White tiles covered both the floor, walls, and ceiling; it was white to the point that he thought it might be the afterlife.

Everything was so pristine and spotless that he was reminded of a hospital, sterile and lifeless. It was only after a moment of Wren gathering himself that he turned around to look at the rest of the room. And while the room seemed to be uniform, the center of the room caught his attention.

Several small alters made of the same white stone held items that he thought he recognized.

A dusty steel sword that he vaguely recognized as a type of shortsword was on one such alter, next to it was a rapier-like weapon, each and every altar had some kind of weapon.

Taking slow steps to get a closer look at each item, Wren was surprised to see that each weapon looked real, something surprising to a man who lived all his life without ever being in a fight or even held a gun.

The weapons were diverse as even a whip could be seen to the side. He decided to walk around to get a good look at everything around him. Bows, shields, things he didn’t recognize or even understand how they could be used as weapons. But as the seconds turned to minutes, his curiosity grew until he reached out to pick up one of the swords.

But just before he reached it, a sudden floating text box got in his way.

[Selecting Common Gladius: Are you sure you wish to make this selection?]

Wren’s hand shot back at the sudden intrusion to his vision. He was having a hard time understanding what he was looking at exactly, so naturally, his brain was not working as it would normally, inhibiting his mental framework.

It was only after a few seconds of nothing happening that he calmed himself and approached the text.

Just below what he had read there was a yes and no option, he was starting to understand just a little of what exactly was going on.

“A game system?” he asked to himself, Wren had not played video games or buried himself in fiction in years, his job had been quite time-consuming, and what little free time he had left was usually taken by his fiancé. He had grown up with games and interesting stories, things he was told he would stop doing as he grew up.

He never believed them naturally, those things that his parents declared silly were a foundation for his being. Countless hours and efforts were dedicated to those fake worlds, the time he spent infatuated with those things was objectively the happiest time in his life.

It was due to that lingering experience that he was able to decipher that whatever was going on, he surely was not on his world anymore. That kind of story was not uncommon, a regular everyday Joe is killed after living a miserable life and is reincarnated into a new world filled with mysticism such as magic and monsters. They would then go on to adventure into the unknown and have every woman and their mother jump on his dick, an idyllic life to be sure.

But those were stories, works of fiction, and this was his reality, two vastly different things.

He was been given a weapon, which could only mean that he was expected to fight something, likely some kind of monster, and he was not looking forward to it.

The thoughts on why and how he was in his current position were placed on the back burner, what was important now was to find out what exactly was going on.

Taking a look at the weapons again he carefully weighed his options, after all, he had been asked if he was sure when he tried to pick up a weapon. That could only mean that his selection would stick, he was unlikely to get a return so he needed to pick the best weapon available.

Problem was that he had no clue what he would have to fight, if he really was in another world then something like a slime would not be strange but it could also be another human. There were too many variables to consider.

Ultimately deciding to pick a sword, as it was something that could be argued to be a versatile weapon as opposed to slow long-range alternatives, he inspected the more normal blades.

The only ones he was familiar with were a katana, a claymore, and a falchion. Aside from those, there were blades that looked impossible to actually use, longer than his own body and some thicker than an arm, they looked like weapons for a giant rather than a man.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

As far as he was aware, Kanatas were not easy to wield as they could easily break in the wrong hands, and the claymore was rather long and looked heavy. The falchion, on the other hand, was not overly long like the others, but still looked sturdier than the katana, satisfied with his decision he reached out and took the weapon after dismissing the text box.

It was a strange phenomenon to be sure, the floating text was not solid but when he intended to touch it he would be able to do so. Another mystery.

Testing the weight of the blade he was happy that it proved to be surprisingly light and easy to swing, though he, unfortunately, had no proper form or experience.

As Wren tested the new weapon on his hand, a strange feeling grew inside his eyes, a burn that wanted to burst through his eyes. Unable to stop the sensation he let the feeling rush out of himself and suddenly a new screen appeared in front of his eyes.

[Observe!]

[Common Falchion: Although the blade seems sturdy enough to be called a proper blade it is completely unremarkable in both its make and effectiveness.]

[Do you wish to view item stats?]

As the sensation left his eyes, a warm feeling settled as he read the new text. At the very least it wasn’t unpleasant and Wren could handle his eyes being just a tad bit too hot.

“Observe? The System is giving me information regarding the things I see? That’s… fascinating, and a little creepy,” his situation aside he found the System that seemed to guide him to be particularly strange. However, as he already decided to worry about those things at a later time he focused more on what was occurring to the room.

But before he was able to see the item stats, something in the room began to change.

The other pillars that held weapons began to glow and dissolved into motes of light, solid constructions turned to ether.

“There goes any doubt that I’m not home, that was clearly some magic bullshit if I’ve ever seen it, what is going on?”

Before him, new altars appeared and within each one, a new item was formed, only this time they were clearly not weapons.

The three new pillars held strange items that Wren did not recognize in any capacity.

“Did you give me that Observe thing for this?” he called out to the System but there was no reply, however, Wren was certain that his words were on the money.

“Fine don’t talk to me, how does this work?”

In games, he was used to playing you normally had to select the skill you wanted to use but there was no such menu, not one that he could observe anyway. Still, he felt instinctively that he could use the ability if he just tried, and he did. The warm sensation in his eyes revealed some interesting information as he looked at the first item.

The red stone that was shaped like a primitive knife was not a stone or a knife at all.

[Lesser Drake Fang: The fang of a drake long dead, part of its Anima lingers inside, and crushing it can imbue the user’s attacks with the drake’s flames momentarily.]

The flavor text was enlightening as it was concerning, it was exactly what Wren feared, monsters like drakes roaming about in the world.

Moving his vision to the next item, he spotted a small vial with a blue liquid inside. There seemed to be nothing strange about this object at first glance but Observe revealed its true nature.

[Eternal Medicor Water: Water from a Medicor pool, unlike its normal counterpart this water will not lose its effect after being away from the pool for too long. Consuming this can greatly heal the user.]

“A healing item? That seems useful… Medicor pools? There is so much to understand,” he whispered to himself.

He was still handling the new aspect of the supernatural with relative calm but he didn’t know how long that would hold. He moved on to the next and final item.

The bronze ring shone under seemingly no light source, it also felt unremarkable since it bore no symbols or gems.

[Ring of Small Minds: Wearing this enchanted ring will grant the user a small boost to their defense in exchange for decreasing their attack power. Grants user a 5% boost to the DEF stat while lowering the ATK stat by 5%.]

The ring was the only thing that didn’t seem to be a consumable but he was unsure if it was such a good item. And the mention of stats, which was something he was already expecting, intrigued him too.

Still, with a hesitant hand, he plucked the vial from its altar after dismissing the floating text.

Just as he expected the other items disappeared, but it didn’t stop there. The whole room was turning into light and vanishing into nothing.

What replaced the white room was a stark contrast, a wide tunnel with very low visibility on account of the lack of lighting. However, some small lights, stuck to the walls, appeared to illuminate the place.

As Wren walked toward the nearest light he could not help but notice the uneven ground. Where ever he was, he was likely not somewhere man-made.

Sure enough, the lights that came from the walls were actually a type of crystal that glowed, rather than a tunnel he was in a cave.

Surprisingly, the damp cool air in the cave was refreshing, it wasn’t all that bad.

Considering that for a moment, Wren thought he was heading to hell, a dark cave wasn’t the worst thing ever. It was at that moment that a low growl echoed from the not-so-distant darkness.

Wren felt his blood freeze, there was something just beyond the light. Feeling his hand tighten around his falchion, he ignored the goosebumps that traveled up his spine and focused on the approaching figure.

The light green face that appeared was anything but pretty, it’s head was disproportional to the actual size of its facial features. Beading black eyes that offered no emotion, snot-filled long nose, but a surprisingly long and sharp row of teeth that looked more at home in a shark’s mouth.

Wren would have been more panicked if the ugly creature was taller than what looked like at most 3 feet.

It wore what looked like a sack as clothes, but the rags did very little to hide the skinny limbs and malnourished ribcage.

However, the thing that really caught Wren’s attention was the rusty dagger it held in its right hand with a death grip.

There was no warning. The small monster scrambled in a mad frenzy towards Wren, the small dash it took was all it needed to cross the distance and jump at Wren with his little dagger ready to sink into flesh.

Wren’s counter was more of an automatic response by his body than actual intent or skill, but by sheer luck, he had swung his blade and slashed the little green attacker across its chest.

I did it?

He allowed himself to think that the battle was over because he had landed a gruesome blow to his opponent, but Wren did not understand that in a battle to the death there was no such thing as too injured to fight.

As his guts spilled to the floor in a visceral show of blood and gore, the monster jumped and latched onto Wren to get a solid bite of his chest.

The sudden pain was enough for Wren to freeze for a moment and the monster did not let his chance slip by as it took another bite and managed to rip out a chunk of Wren’s flesh.

Unfortunately, the monster was too close to Wren for him to effectively use his falchion and instead had to drop the blade to use both hands to attempt to pull the little leech off himself.

Fueled only by adrenaline Wren pulled at the surprisingly well-latched monster and rip the little guy off himself.

Wren could feel his rage at the offender explode as he saw it smile with bloody teeth and claws filled with ripped-off pieces of his flesh.

Before he knew it he had lunged at the near-dead monster and punched. Hard.

He could feel the disgusting crunch of its small bones shatter as he impacted its head, but in the blood and pain, he found he didn’t care all that much about such things.

After the third punch the skull was caved in, but his rage did not stop until the persistent monster stopped flaying for its life.

Heavy breaths were all that could be heard in the dark cave as Wren’s body greedily sucked in air to expel the carbon dioxide built up by the small struggle.

As the adrenaline rush ended the only thing that remained for Wren was a bleeding chest and pain.

“Maybe this really is hell…”

Without much thought, he downed the small vial in his pocket to save his life.