God-damn my ass hurts.

--- A minute earlier ---

Cash woke up in a completely white room, with no doors, and barely perceivable corners.

"God?" he asked the empty room.

Yeah sure bud, wake up in some blank white room and of course you're going to meet Morgan Freeman… He thought to himself as he face-palmed hard enough to leave a mark.

He tried to get his bearings and realized immediately that he was naked! Well, close enough to it. The last thing he remembered was getting into bed, tucking himself into his fuzzy fleece blankets, and turning on his sleep sounds (hey, a guy can like the finer things, who are you to judge? Mister; "staring at his phone and eating freshly picked boogers"?). He slept in his underwear, and what did he see? Nothing but his Meundies. What'd I say about the finder things eh? You should treat yourself too, just saying!

"aaaah what the fu…"

Before he could finish his sentence, a loud voice filled his hearing from every direction, with the feeling of a sports commentator of all things.

"Welcome gladiator! you have been selected to compete in the Stardust BloodBowl…

"SPONSORED BY ZIPPYS BUZZBITES! STSRT YOUR DAY WITH A ZIP! WITH ZIPPYS BUZZBITES CEREAL! Parents, brood mothers, and spawn tenders note that Zippy's Buzzbites cereal by Zippy's Galactic LLC contains 369% of your offspring's daily recommended dose of amphetamines, and thus may not reach adequate levels for their daily labours and duties. Zippy's Galactic LLC is not responsible for any loss of profits due to under-doped offspring."

Suddenly a different voice cut in, even louder, and screamed some sort of bizarre cereal ad of all things at him? When it went back to the original voice, he was actually relieved, but only slightly took his hands off his ears.

"You may think that you should be honored to compete in this event. Don't be stupid. Your planet was predicted to house 1 billion near-civilized humanoids by the end of your evolutionary lease-period. Due to your propensity for breeding like Kalfroxian horn-flops, there are leftover humanoids on the surface of your planet, until such a time where a decision is made regarding the method of repurposing for your organic and inorganic materials.

"You have been selected at random amongst a pool of 1 billion billion of your kind* to compete, and given minimal* corrective repairs necessary to participate.

"You will be deposited into the Arena in 10... seconds. Good luck, and keep us entertained!"

"what the actual fuck?" he finally had a chance to say, just before massive red letters filled the wall in front of him, nearly ten feet tall.

10… 9… 8… 7…

Chaz tried to brace himself as the counter ticked down, but as the number began to fade from 1 to 0, he realized the one flaw in his amazingly perfect totally-not-in-his-sushi-print-undies plan. He was still laying down. He had barely got up into a sitting position.

Well in my defense, what would you do if you were abducted by aliens and woken up by some weird voice with no sense of volume control? He thought to himself just before the walls disappeared. And he was suddenly sitting, floating, a meter off the ground.

"Balls"

And then he dropped, hitting his backside hard on the ground below him, the soft grass doing little to cushion his fall.

---

It took falling hard on his ass to notice one more thing. He'd felt it. He'd actually felt the fall. And not just a half-tingle like he'd grown used to over the last few years, but he properly felt everything, from the initial hard smack, to the lingering tingle over his skin and the ache in his muscles.

NEW ACHIEVEMENT! FALL ON YOUR ASS!

Congrats! you discovered gravity at the same point you discovered aliens exist, Brahmagupta's mind would have been totally blown! And before you open your mouth; no, it wasn't Isaac Newton that first spoke of gravity, the guy just had a great PR team thanks to the secret cabal that is "Big Apple". You know "Big Pharma"? They've got nothing on "Big Apple", trust me. Now you've learned three things! Bet that whiplash really woke you up now!

"GAH!"

Cash jumped in surprise as the voice jumped out at him again, this time with a hovering, semi transparent blue box of text floating in front of his face.

NEW ACHIEVEMENT! YOU'RE A WORK IN PROGRESS

You know that annoyingly catchy country song? Well, we sped up the progress a little bit. We don't want you to die immediately after all, that's boring! You entered the Arena with an injury that significantly hampered you. Be it asthma, a sprained wrist, a broken leg, or NO legs, we patched you up! (Don't go expecting us to do it again)

If you're noticing your eyesight is a bit better too, don't worry, that's just an accidental side effect! We totally didn't do some freaky alien shit to you before waking you up. Totally.

Reward? We fixed your eyes, you can read.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Were his legs actually fixed? He felt them from hip to toe, patting and pinching every inch. There wasn’t any pain at all! What the hell? Was that bit about “minimal* corrective repairs” real? Why would an alien kidnap him in the middle of the night, and then fix his body? He’d used to want to be a forest ranger ever since he was a kid, but after getting run over by some rich trust fund douche in his fancy electric sports car, he’d spent the first couple years of his twenties in and out of the hospital as they tried to salvage what they could of his legs.

He’d spent those two years in near constant agony praying for the pain to just go away or for the doctors to just cut his shattered legs off until, gloriously, a risky surgery went south and left him numb from the waist down. After that, the pain transformed from mind-melting agony to just some annoying fuzzy aches. Aches he could deal with. Hell, those aches were down right luxurious. Or maybe he'd just gone full Kaneki and snapped, who knows.

Whatever happened, he then spent the next four years working at a desk in a wheelchair as an IT guy diversity hire. It worked well enough for him though, he had the settlement money from the accident, and the job actually came as an offer from the kid's dad.

Turns out he owned one of those fortune-whatever companies that you never really know what it does. Cash ended up as a wheelchair diversity hire in the IT department, with a contract stipulation that he not disclose his salary, which was clearly way more than his coworkers. Hey, he couldn't walk anymore thanks to this guy's kid, so he was happy to take the hush money.

But now? He could stand, jump, he bet he could even run again. Hell, that leftover nerve damage eye twitch was even gone now!

---

Cash looked around and tried to collect his bearings one more time, albeit this time with a bit more success. From what he could see, he was sitting on a small slope in an open, temperate foresty-type area. There were rolling hills, and collections of tall trees, giving the impression of a well-cared-for retreat or camp grounds. Through a small gap in some trees to his left, he could see another person standing just as stunned as he was, a couple kilometers away, and from the vibrant cursing he could just barely make out to his right, someone else had also been dropped on their butt too. By the looks of the person to his left, they were already standing, so maybe there was some sort of deciding factor? Or the little grey men running this thing were just dicks?

⚠️ NEW QUEST: SUCK LESS!

Tapping his grubby little fingers on the glass, a shitty entitled kid oggles you as his ice cream continues to melt onto his other hand. “Come oOooon, do something interesting!” Like that lame lion at the zoo that sleeps on a rock all day, little Timmy didn't drag his mom to the lion exhibit to see some cartoon sleep bubbles! Get a move on! Or Timmy's mom Karen is going to want to talk to the manager, and it'll be your head on the chopping block!

* Objective: reach level two.

* Duration: 23h:59m remaining.

* Success: beginner's bitch box, common.

* Failure: death.

This is a mandatory quest. It has been automatically accepted.

"What the… are you really going to keep doing that?!" he began to say to what could very well be the empty air, then decided he was going to get sick of that pretty quick. Oh heck no, I am going to need a better catch-phrase than that. Who am I kidding? I'm going to die soon anyhow. How the hell am I supposed to get to level two? Levels? This sounds like some dumb dime-a-dozen System Apocalypse webnovel.

Taking in his surroundings some more, one very specific thing came to mind. He was freezing. It was at worst the temperature of a late september afternoon, but again, naked. Micro-modal sushi print boxer briefs don't really lend to warmth as it turns out.

Without any other obvious option, Cash made his way through the woods. As he walked, he could occasionally catch faint screams and cries of pain throughout the wood, as well as cries of anger, and just plain crying. His card was already full though, and he had no desire to take on any more weight. At least not till he got some pants.

---

Turns out, six years in a wheelchair? No more calluses. He could feel every twig or pebble he walked over. Forget pants, he needed shoes.

Most of the forest seemed pretty normal, mostly. In the first few minutes, he'd seen large black-barked willow trees with pink leaves, and large thorny bushes in a deep turquoise. His stomach was rumbling but he wasn't even considering eating any of the fruit on the willows. They had these massive, grapefruit sized pear-like fruit with a slightly fuzzy, slightly dewey surface. They looked delicious, but he did not trust it one little bit.

The further he got into the forest, the more noises he heard in bushes. After the sixth different kind of trill, chirp, or chatter he heard from just out of sight, he grabbed a thick branch of the black willow wood off the ground, about as long as his arm and thick enough he could just wrap his fingers around it. And not a moment too soon.

One of the turquoise bushes off to his left rustled and a large, eight-legged bug creature skittered out. It stopped in the middle of the path and turned its whole body in his direction.

It looked like a cross between a shield bug and a ladybug, with a deep, oily pearlescent carapace of deep blues, greens, and purples. It didn't seem to have a separate head, but instead a large protrusion where a head would have been. Where its eyes would have been, it had an extra segment of carapace, and the entire bottom half of its head consisted of one large vertical mouth. Oh, and it was at least a foot long. Cooool.

It didn't seem to see him, or it didn't care, but as it wandered in Cash's direction, it seemed to zone in on him somehow and began to chitter its vertical mandible mouth things.

"Oh hell no," Cash said. Today was not the day to be snacked on by a blind-ass bug! "You want some of this?!" He swung his makeshift club down on top of the bug, only to have it stumble. Really? He thought, winding back to hit it even harder. This time, the strike flattened it to the ground. As it twitched its legs to get back up, he swung again with little success only leaving a small crack. He switched his grip on the stick and stabbed the end down at it like a spear. As he saw the shell crack, he stabbed down again a second time, and a third, his heart beating fast as the adrenaline from the whole bizarre situation he had found himself in caught up to him.

On the third stab, the stick pierced through the shell and continued on to the ground beneath it, leaving a goopy snot-like residue on it as he pulled it out. He tried to catch his breath as his blood pumped in his ears, but as he looked down at the bug beneath him, he let out a startled yelp of fear as it began to twitch. Hehe did the only thing that he could think of. He jumped on it, slamming down onto its back with both feet over and over again, and didn't stop till he was out of breath. He didn't even realize that he hadn't stopped screaming the entire time, only pausing somewhat between heavy pants for breath.

As he stopped, his chest heaving as he gulped in lungfuls of air after the most exercise he'd had in the better part of a decade, he was acutely aware of how quiet the forest was around him. He could feel a slight tingle up his spine as if something new was watching him from just out of sight, preparing to jump out at him from behind.

NEW ACHIEVEMENT! Level Up!

Congratulations, you don't completely suck! You managed to survive to level two without dying! Let's see if you can keep this up.

Reward: you leveled up, that IS the reward!