It was Wednesday. I woke up at 8 AM as usual and, after completing my morning routine, left my apartment. I drove my good old Ford Focus—a memento of my dad—to my office and then spent most of the day answering calls. Half of the callers could barely speak English and the other half treated me like I was responsible for everything bad in their life. Just the usual stuff. Working in Customer Service of a multinational online shop wasn’t the type of future I’d envisioned for myself when getting my Communication and Journalism degree, but it brought bread to my table and paid my rent. Also, working only six hours a day was a very pleasant bonus.
At 5 PM, I already was back at my home. Too bad no one was waiting for me in my small apartment. I had no real family to speak of—only the asshole of an uncle who’d took away my mother’s house from me when she was gone. I hadn’t dated anyone since my freshman days, so no girlfriend, either. Now that I thought about it, wasn’t my life kind of lame? I was already twenty-six, and yet I hadn’t achieved anything of value and had no plans for the future.
I looked at the calendar on my refrigerator while eating the pizza I had for lunch—June 7, 2017. It was my birthday, actually. No one congratulated me. Not my ex-girlfriend, not my friends from school and college. Well, it wasn’t the end of the day yet. But I was already sure that everyone had forgotten me. It had been more than a year since I’d talked to anyone I could call a friend. On the bright side, I’d gotten a discount when ordering pizza.
Should I buy a cake and yet it by myself? I thought with a wry smile. Nah, I’ll really get fat at this rate.
I’d always been on the skinny side, but now, after two years of living alone, I started to get some weight. And it wasn’t muscle, unfortunately.
With a sigh, I decided against indulging my sweet tooth. I made my way towards the corner of my bedroom where my computer was. With nothing better to do, I choose to just forget that twenty-six years ago at this day, my mother had brought me to this world. Yeah, wasn’t this just an arbitrary day date people choose to have some fun for themselves?
I spent a couple of hours reading webnovels—that was one of my hobbies alongside video games and anime. Honestly, I preferred reading to other types of entertainment—at the very least, no one could call me childish and immature for that. Well, at least they didn’t know what type of books I was reading… or writing.
After finishing yet the last available chapter of one of my favorite stories, I felt a sudden urge to write a chapter of my own. I had an idea what I wanted to integrate into my story—even if it wouldn’t make sense in terms of world-building or consistency. But who cared, anyway? My thirteen followers? Or those mysterious people responsible for the six views on the last chapter I’d posted? Two of which were probably my own…
In a way, it was a relief to me that my story hadn’t gained any significant popularity. I could write whatever I wanted without giving a damn what others thought and how stupid and contrived the plot was. On the site where I was posting it, top stories had as much as twenty thousand followers with millions of views. Compared to them, I could as well as never sharing my work to begin with. The only reason I was posting new chapters of the same lame story for seven years straight was because I didn’t really care. I knew that I was a terrible writer and that my book was trash, but it scratched my writing itch and allowed me to indulge myself into my wish-fulfilling fantasies.
Title: The Dragon Soul Hero
Author: CookieSlayer007
Synopsis:
June 7, 2017. The world is at peace.
Then Earth is introduced to the Godmaker Games, a multiverse-scale battle-royale where civilizations fight for glory and survival. Tom Walker, a seemingly normal young man, awakes to the power of an extinct race of dragons and turns out to be humanity’s last hope…
Rating: 1.3 / 5
Reviews: 0
Comments: 37
Chapters: 786
My glance rested on the synopsis of my own book for a few long seconds. I’d almost forgotten this little detail—that with so many chapters written and the fact that I’d started the story years ago—but wasn’t today the exact date of the Apocalypse set by me? I tried to remember why I’d chosen this exact day—which was also my birthday, no less—back when I first wrote it, but I really couldn’t remember. I’d started writing this webnovel on a whim while still working on my degree. Most likely, I’d just chosen it randomly.
Without thinking too much, I started to work on Chapter 787. Having so many chapters could seem as a lot, but most of them were around one thousand words, written in an hour or so. Most active writers produce way more than that in seven years.
In this Chapter, I made Tom Walker meet and save yet another girl. She was the princess of a race of humanoid butterflies and, secretly, plotting to destroy Earth. Of course, she had no chance. She was going to fall in love with Tom, betray her own people, and become yet another addition to his ever-increasing harem. All of this was about to happen in just twenty chapters or so—my story was extremely fast-paced. If anything, it was closer to a detailed outline than a proper story. Something one of my unfortunate readers had pointed out in one of the thirty-seven comments my story had gathered in seven years of being posted.
In the first place, The Dragon Soul Hero was a wish-fulfilling power fantasy with an overpowering main character who was admired and loved by everyone. Tom was a great example of a male Mary Sue, a terrible character. Not like I cared. I’d started writing this story to enjoy my fantasies of having what I was lacking in the real world—loving girlfriends, unlimited power, wealth and fame.
Tom was young, handsome, kind, smart, and powerful. Extremely powerful, to be honest, but this was something only to be expected from the savior of Earth. He was to become the Champion of Humanity, and then, in the end, reach Godhood. It was called the Godmaker Games for a reason, after all. But at the moment, the story was very far from reaching that point. How long would it take for me to complete it? Another seven years? Maybe more. But, most likely, I’d just give up at some point. Perhaps when and if my life was to get better, I’d lose interest in Tom and his adventures.
After completing the chapter, I spent some more time browsing the internet, commenting on social media and so on. That was a way for me to recover that little mental energy I’d spent on writing. Before I knew it, it was already 8 PM. Recently I’d taken a liking to enjoying an evening stroll in the nearby park and now was the perfect time, just before sunset.
It didn’t take long for me to reach my destination even without driving. Wearing my new headphones—a gift I’d made myself yesterday—I was walking through the neat alleys of the park, enjoying the view while listening to my music. My playlist was a mix of famous rock songs from 2000-s and tracks from my favorite anime series, both gave me the feeling of peace and nostalgia.
While the park wasn’t bustling with activity, it had its own share of people walking their dogs, happy couples, and young parents with kids. I didn’t mind them—even if some of them were noisy and annoying, I wouldn’t even know. I was really satisfied with my so-called birthday gift—the earphones had amazing sound and almost completely isolated me from the outside world.
Before I knew it, I reached the center of the park, where a large fountain was. Right now it was painted in red by the setting sun. I sat down on the nearby non-taken bench and just relaxed. All things considered, I liked my current life. Even if by conventional standards, I could be considered a loser, I was mostly content with how things were. The only thing I lacked was human warmth. I wasn’t even starved for conversation, considering my line of work.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
While I was breathing fresh evening air and vibing with the music, something unexpected happened. My phone vibrated, and the current song was shortly interrupted with a “ding”. That could mean only one thing. I received a message from someone…
Probably just spam, I assumed. But it won’t hurt to be sure.
I took out my phone and, sure enough, I received an SMS from an unknown number. I was in a surprisingly good mood thanks to the music, so I decided to check it anyway. What if that was one of those rare spam messages that was actually useful?
Hey, Leo. I hope you’re well. Happy Birthday!
The beginning of the message confused me just a bit, but also made me secretly happy. For a moment, I wondered if someone I knew congratulated me from their new number. I was about to reply, asking them who they were, when I read the rest of the text.
I really like your story, Cookie Slayer! I hope you’ll finish it one day. Don’t feel discouraged just yet, I’m sure that your talent as a writer will be acknowledged by everyone sooner or later. I wish you good luck! Also, remember this number: 71486. And most importantly—survive.
Sincerely, theloSTlAMb.
The content of the SMS made me shiver. With my heart beating hard in my chest, I looked around, trying to find if anyone was spying on me from the shadows. I didn’t find anyone but this didn’t make me feel better at all. In fact, I was even more disturbed.
I was familiar with the person whose nickname was a weird variation of the phrase “the lost lamb”. It was someone who left the majority of the thirty-seven comments to my story. It was also the only person whose comments weren’t just insults. In fact, that person praised my book, despite its obvious faults. I hadn’t really treated them seriously, though, thinking that they were just trolling.
Now, though, that same person was sending a message to my phone. There was no way for them to know my name—let alone my number—just based on the information on the site where I was posting my story. That was damn creepy and scary. They would need to hire a skillful hacker or to be one themselves to find out my identity, just from my author profile. Of course, if it was someone else and not me, it wouldn’t have been this surprising—after all, many people bragged to others about their stories. I, on another hand, had never told anyone about The Dragon Soul Hero. Not even when I was socially active back in my college days.
My dark thoughts were interrupted when someone lightly pulled my sleeve. I turned my head, only to see a cute little girl, no older than ten. Her eyes were red from crying, her face stained with tears. She smelled like trouble.
I reluctantly took of my headphones and gave her a questioning look. “Do you want something?”
“Mr. Whiskers!” the girl cried out, the words barely intelligible. My experience with foreign clients made it rather easy for me to understand her, though. “Pwese save, ‘im!”
She continued to pull my sleeve while pointing in a certain direction. I followed her finger only to see a large ginger cat at the top of a nearby tree. Just like I’d thought—the girl was trouble. Did she really expect me to risk my life for her pet? Did I look like such a fool? The tree wasn’t that tall, but I wasn’t much of an athlete, either. Where were her parents, anyway?
While I was trying to come with an excuse to refuse the little problem before she stained my jacket with her snot, some people came to my—and probably her—help. Probably attracted by the little commotion, someone approached us. Two extremely good-looking people, to be exact—a guy and a gal, both in their late teens. They looked like a perfect couple, damn it.
“Do you want me to get your cat down from the tree, little miss?” the boy asked, giving the kid a heartwarming smile. I really had an urge to punch him—how could someone be so damn handsome? His face was flawless with a chiseled jaw, smooth porcelain skin, and gentle blue eyes.
“Yesh!” The girl vigorously nodded as she, at last, let go of me and looked at the young man with expectant eyes. I was curious to see how he planned to solve the situation, as well. A part of me was hoping that he would fall while climbing—without harming himself, of course, just so that he looked lame.
C’mon Leo, envy is a sin, I told myself. Why are you comparing yourself to some kid, anyway? He’s probably still living with his parents and never earned a penny.
It was unusual for me to feel so bitter just from looking at someone very attractive. But something in this guy was getting on my nerves. Be it his looks, his voice, his posture or the way he carried himself—everything screamed of perfection. It was as if he was from another world, or from another species of humans. Well, at least compared to me with my slightly below average appearance.
“Are you sure it’s going to be fine?” the girl asked Mr. Perfection with a frown. “It seems that the cat climbed rather high…”
The boy’s female companion wasn’t as unearthly beautiful as him, but even so, I wouldn’t find it surprising if she turned out to be a celebrity. She was thick in all the right places, her face was cute and lively, and her hair—blonde as his own—flowed in a captivating waterfall that reached her waist. Still, despite some similarities, they didn’t seem like siblings to me.
“Don’t worry, Liz, something of this extent is a piece of cake to me!” He gave her a thumbs up before walking confidentially towards the tree.
To my utter disappointment, the boy was as physically capable as he looked. He was wearing a simple blue t-shirt, despite it being cold enough for me to wear a jacket like a normal person. That meant that his well-developed muscles were for everyone to see.
With the agility of a monkey hungry for a banana, Mr. Perfect climbed the tree in an effortless fashion. I wasn’t very good with animals and, I could bet, even if I decided to risk my life, get up the tree, and reached the cat, that hellish creature would just hiss at me and gave it all to make sure that I fell to my death. That wasn’t something that happened to the boy, though—the cat instantly started to purr as soon as he outstretched his hand.
Without any complications, the cat was saved by the brave young hero. Who are you, Tom fucking Walker, huh? I lampooned while the guy returned the cat to its rightful, and extremely happy owner. Now that I thought about it, he really reminded me of the protagonist of my story—even the visual description was spot on.
Wait a moment… My thoughts froze as I recalled the beginning of The Dragon Soul Hero. It had been many years since I started the story, and the last time I’d skimmed through the pages was five months ago, so my memory wasn’t that fresh. But I knew my own story well enough to remember the general events.
“Wow!” the girl—Liz, she was a fucking Liz, a disturbingly familiar name—exclaimed. “You really are amazing, Tom!”
A sense of incompatibility became increasingly strong with each moment. No, that wasn’t it. What I really felt wasn’t an incompatibility, but dread. Drops of cold sweat appeared on my forehead and I watched at the scene before me in sheer horror. I completely forgot the creepy message on my phone from a while ago—it wasn’t even comparable to what I was experiencing right now. Not even fucking close.
The boy replied, slightly, embarrassed, “Anyone would’ve done the same thing in my place!”
One of the most famous tricks when writing the main character was called “save the cat”. Just like it sounded, it was about making your protagonist do a good deed at the beginning of the book to make him more empathetic and likable. When I’d just started writing TDSH, I was actually trying to make it a decent read. So I’d searched for some writing tips online. Except, I wasn’t original enough to think of something better than following that exact advice—among some others—quite literally. So, in the first chapter of the book, Tom Walker—a handsome blue-eyed blonde lad—gets a cat down from a tree. At that moment, he was also accompanied by his childhood friend—Lizbeth Knight. As for their dialogue after he was done? It was exactly what I’d heard just now.
“He-he-he, am I going crazy?” I muttered to myself with a mad grin. The trio gave me a passing glance before ignoring the creepy, strange guy I was at the moment. I didn’t really care about their reactions.
The only thing that was different from the first chapter of my book was, perhaps not surprisingly, my own presence. There wasn’t any suspicious man observing Tom as he did his first good deed of the story.
Calm down, Leonardo Osborn… I told myself. Suddenly, I calmed down as my rational mind solved the puzzle. Do you remember that creepy message? Someone who read your book probably planned all of this to make fun of you. This is just a very elaborate prank. They got you for a moment.
That kind of prank wasn’t that hard to make. You only needed three people to cooperate with each other. Anyone who knew my identity could plan something like that.
Well, maybe, just maybe, all of this is just a crazy coincidence, I continued my mental conversation. Nothing supernatural happened, okay? The world is a big place, unlikely events happen all the time. Every day someone wins a lottery and someone catches an extremely rare disease. Relax…
I shook my head and turned away from the three pranksters. There was no point dwelling on the meaningless stuff. I made a deep breath before putting up my headphones. With loud music protecting me from the noise of the outside world, I stood up and prepared to walk home. It was getting dark.
Trying to distract myself from dark, unvoiced thoughts that were hiding at the back of my mind—the thoughts that knew that was going to happen next—I took my phone to select my favorite song. As if by incident, I also checked the time. It was 9:03 pm. A wave of relief washed over my body.
Something as insane as an Apocalypse isn’t going to happen just because of a silly prank, I told myself with a content smile. Indeed, in my story, the beginning of the end started exactly at 9:02 pm. So, a minute ago. Now I really felt like a fool for doubting my common sense, even if only subconsciously.
As if to make fun of my naivety and to destroy everything I knew about reality, a voice sounded inside my head. An indifferent, alien, chilling voice. A voice that spoke words as familiar as they were dreadful.
Integrating the planet into the Godmaker System…
Name: Earth.
Chosen Genus: Humans.
Grade: Delta
Commencing the initiation protocol…