Spoiler: Spoiler
It's important to read the Prologue. If you have not done this, please do so now or don't I'm not your mom.
I awoke to an alarm like sound making me think it was time to get up and go to work but I was not in my room. This place is stark white and with no walls that I can see. I yell “Hello?” and suddenly a word pops into existence about a few feet away saying:
START
I move to press it and my hand passes right through the button. Confused I try again with the same result at this point I was getting a little frustrated so I yelled START! In my head and the button disappeared and was replaced with new buttons:
ROMANCE AND DRAMA
ACTION AND ADVENTURE
VACATION
Of course, I think these all sound cool but I don’t have any clue what they mean or what they could entail. So I yell all! In my head and the buttons disappear replaced with a warning sign saying
YOU HAVE SELECTED ALL, THIS CAN BE TOO MUCH FOR SOME PEOPLE
again a little irritated I yelled in my head IT'S FINE.
Suddenly I'm not in the white space anymore I'm in a forest. My ears are filled with the sounds of birds chirping and fluttering leaves. There are rocks seeming to dot the landscape with moss growing on them. In the distance, I can hear the sound of flowing water but I can't see it from where I'm standing. I look and see that I'm on a wide dirt road that has a small trail that leads of into the woods that has a small shack that seems to be in somewhat disrepair at the end. I start walking along the outcrop path toward the shack.
But just before I reach the door I hear a scream and a bang. I take a step back from the door as it bursts open to a beautiful black haired girl with Brilliant blue eyes that are currently filled with fear. she pushes past me I have a sudden realization as to why this girl is running there is a beast about as tall as my chest chasing after her with its teeth bared it was about to continue after her right past me. But more on instinct than the reason I tackle the beast to the ground and start beating on it with my fists. I have never beaten anything with my fists before. So this is a new experience but I take it in stride because I'm not feeling any pain and this beast is getting its face pounded in.
This only lasted a few seconds and then the beast had countered me and its teeth were suddenly in my lower right forearm causing a remarkable amount of pain.
-3 HP
As it slammed down on me I notice a fist-sized rock just to my left. So I grab it and smash the beast in the side of the head with a sickening crack making it fall to my right side. I jump at this opportunity and fall on top of the beast and bring my rock down on its head four or five more times until I'm sure I had killed it.
1-LVL 2 ★ DIRE WOLF KILLED
EXP EARNED: 10
GOLD EARNED: 4
I stand bloodied and hurt from the bite when I hear “Is it dead? Did you kill it?” it's the girl from before she is staring at me now. She looks to be about thirteen or fourteen years old which is weird because you normally don't see kids outside the academy but I'm in a dream world so I guess anything can happen. So I reply “yeah I killed the beast, what even is this thing? It looks like a dog but I have never seen a dog act like this or even one of this size.” she seemed a little shaken by the attack but me asking this seems to have pulled her away from her shock. “We call them dire wolves there are not many of them during the day so we thought we were safe staying in this shack.”
I look at her a little surprised and somewhat confused because she had said “we” but before I could ask what she meant by it she let out a yelp of fear and exclaimed “Oh no! Your hurt look at your arm!” she then rushed to my side and grabbed my bitten arm and examined it. A worried look appeared across her face. I tried to relax her by saying “it's not that bad it doesn't even hurt that much” she gives me a reproachful look and proceeds to pull me inside the shack and says “Don't give me that! I know how much being bitten hurts and if we don't treat it quickly it could become infected.”
She sits me down on one of the small wooden chairs that are in the shack and starts to work on my wound. I watch her intently and ask questions along the way trying to learn how to do this in the future as she finishes wrapping up my arm I see a little alert in the corner of my eyes say
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILL:
FIRST AID LVL: 1
I furrow my brow at this wondering exactly what the prerequisite is to acquiring a skill and what other skills there are. The girl is looking at me intently probably wanting to be thanked for the First Aid. So I say “Thank you for fixing my arm, I'm sure It will be good as new in no time.” she blushes a little and says “It's the least I could do, you did save my life after all.”
HP +2
But before I could put much thought into that we heard hurried steps of someone running to the front door of the shack.
I stand thinking it might be another threat. But the door slams open and the girl runs forward toward the figure that is now lit up by the sun to be an older woman about the age of nineteen or twenty with older but remarkably similar characteristics to the girl. She exclaims “Lucy! Are you ok sweetie did the dire wolf hurt you? Have you been bitten anywhere?” Lucy looks at me and says “No I'm fine thanks to this man he saved me and killed the dire wolf” the women for the first time seems to register me standing in the room and looks from me to the girl glaring her bright blue eyes slightly then she asks “who are you?” in a tone that sounds a little distrusting as she puts a hand on her bow that's on her back.
I try to reply quickly but her question stops me up a bit because saying GRN 55323 would probably sound weird to her based on the fact that the little girl's name is Lucy. So I say “My name is Green. What's yours?” Green is what people around the office call me so it's not exactly a lie but she seems to have taken it as one because she replies “OK, Green well my name is Blue.” she says this in a condescending tone that says that she thinks I made up my name and has come up with one for herself. Lucy looks up at her confused but says nothing.
I say “OK, blue well I will just be on my way then. But if you could tell me the direction of the closest town from here It would be much appreciated” at this point I had lost hope of recovering from my lie and just wanted to leave so I looked a little downtrodden. She seems a little taken aback by this probably expecting me to have asked for some sort of reward for saving the girl and says “What? You don't want to do that their lots of monsters out in the woods at night and the sun is going to set in just a few hours.” her saying this completely catches me off guard. I catch myself and say “Monsters? What monsters I haven't seen any monsters up till now on my hiking trip through this forest.” I catch a surprised look from both Lucy and Blue before I get another alert in the corner of my vision
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YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILL:
LYING LVL: 1
So it seems that my half-truth earlier about my name was not enough to gain the skill but telling a blatant lie about hiking through the forest was, interesting. Blue pipes up saying “That seems Highly unlikely. How long have you been traveling through the woods?” with a look of remorse I say “Ok you caught me I have not been in these woods but for about half an hour. Lucy was the first person I found upon getting to these woods.” A look of shock crosses Blue’s face and she exclaims “an hour? But the nearest edge to this forest is at least six hours walking distance so how is that possible?” I look concerned at her and say “I woke up here and I'm not even sure where I am right now or how I got here.” I say in an exasperated tone hoping she will believe me.
She looks bewildered and says “You woke up in the middle of the forest? Just a bit ago? What do you remember before that?” pondering for a second wondering how to reply I respond with a simple “Nothing all I remember is waking up.” I feel the back of my head trying to look confused which I definitely do because upon feeling the back of my head I realize that my chip port is missing and that all I feel is skin. Blue upon seeing my reaction seems to believe me and seems a little regretful for being hard on me and says “You must have amnesia, I don't know any magic that would fix something like that but someone might have the spell in the town we are headed to. If you want you can tag along with us? We could use some extra muscle” relaxing a little I return to my chair and say “that sound like a good idea.”
We continue to talk and I ask questions about the forest and learn about how monsters have different classes from one-star monsters like the dire wolf to ten-star monsters like a Demon Lord or Vampire King. the two girls talk about how they are trying to reach their relatives in the next town over because their parents had been killed when their hometown had been ransacked by monsters a few weeks ago.
Apparently, most of the townspeople that survived went to a neighboring town but these girls are headed to a town about a week's journey on foot from here because they have relatives there. After we talked for some time Blue told me her real name was “Abby” she said a little embarrassed that she had lied and I had responded saying “I don't remember my real name but I like the name Green so I'm just going to stick with that for now.” Abby and Lucy seemed to understand as they nodded.
Then Abby stood up and said “Well guys I didn't catch anything while hunting but thanks to Green we at least have something to eat” we went outside the shack and examined the Dire wolf. Abby then explained to my quizzical looks “Monster flesh is edible it just tastes really bad.” she then hands me a Knife and we start cutting up the Dire wolf after slicing it up she then showed me how to start a fire which I had quite a lot of trouble doing. Then showed me how to cook the meat on skewers of wood at which point after finishing cooking the meat I got another alert
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILLS:
COOKING LVL: 1
FOOD PREPARATION LVL: 1
FIRE STARTING LVL: 1
we enjoyed our meal and although it tasted very bitter and somewhat sour I couldn’t really complain because it tasted way better than the slop they feed us at the office. This food actually had flavor and I was relishing in it. Apparently, it showed because the girls both looked a little confused by my overzealous eating.
Abby then decided that it was time to take shelter in the shack for the night as it was getting dark. So we went inside the shack and Abby started bolstering up the defense with sharp spears pointed at the front and back door and brandishing her bow. Abby handed Lucy a Knife almost identical to the one she gave me Lucy held it in a way that looked rather menacing. I tried to copy her but I probably look like a fool. As the last ray of light fell below the horizon Abby said “get ready” and not thirty seconds after her saying that did we hear an unearthly moan come from ten feet outside the house which was soon joined by more and more moans of hunger and desperation.
With fear in her eyes Abby looked to me and saw my confusion and in a whisper said: “Zombies aim for their head!” I didn't know what a zombie was but I knew that It couldn’t be good. Within seconds the zombies were upon us they banged and bashed at the doors and made holes in the ramshackle doors to which Abby shot arrows out of into the zombie's arms and legs and when she was lucky a head.
Unfortunately right when I thought we were making headway we heard banging and moaning from the back door. Abby looked to me and Lucy and said “you guys go cover the back door don't let them in or we are done for” me and Lucy jumped into action and started stabbing at the arms and legs that were pushing through the door. Right after this, I got an alert:
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILL:
KNIFE PROFICIENCY LVL: 1
I stabbed at least three zombie heads before the door buckled and collapsed inwards. Revealing a massive zombie that was at least two feet taller than me with a gut that protruded out of its tattered shirt.
Lucy screamed and backed away and I dropped my knife thanks to the door hitting me on its way down.
HP -1
I scrambled and grabbed one of the spears and stabbed the giant zombie right in its fat face it fell backward on top of two other smaller zombies crushing them under its weight at which point I received another alert
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILL:
SPEAR PROFICIENCY LVL: 1
I then grabbed the fallen door and slammed it back on its hinges.
We then continued to stab and shoot the rest of the zombies until it was silent again at which point Abby said “I think it's over” we watched through the holes in the doors for any new threats but after a couple hours we could see it the sun was coming up again on the other side of the house but it was a dark blue color compared to the yellow one the one we saw set just two hours prior. So I came to the conclusion that this place has two suns and as a result has a very short night cycle. I then received another alert:
5-LVL 1 ★ ZOMBIES KILLED
1-LVL 2 ★ ZOMBIE KILLED
XP EARNED: 35
GOLD EARNED: 14
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED:
FIRST NIGHT SURVIVED +1 TO ALL STATS
Of course, I had no idea what an achievement is or what it meant that it was now unlocked but I didn't have time to ponder it because Abby had handed me a hammer. I looked down at her confused, to which she said: “We need to fix the shack before we can take a rest” and so that's what we did she showed me how to repair the broken doors and the outside of the shack with the spare lumber around the back of the house. To which I got an alert:
YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE SKILL:
REPAIR LVL: 1
She then explained that there is a shack like this one every couple of miles down this path throughout the forest to help protect travelers during the night and that it's common courtesy to repair the damage done to them during the night.
After we finished Lucy started to complain that she was tired so Abby said “we can sleep in the shack for a couple of hours but then we need to a move on if we want to get out of this forest today.” so we moved into the shack and locked up the doors and went to sleep. Before falling asleep I pondered about how you leave this world and go back to the normal world but failing to come up with any ideas I drift off to sleep.
Spoiler: Spoiler
It is important to note that this is the rough draft and is very prone to change so don't expect it to stay looking like this I might even change this first chapter entirely if I decide to go a different direction with this story. Also if you see any errors please post them down in the comments.
Thanks for reading!