On a Sunday morning, a man is sitting in his comfortable blue rocking chair, watching YouTube videos from the channels he's subscribed to.
System Initializing
2 minutes
His eyes grow wide as a large smile appears on his face. "Mom!" He yells while getting up and placing his laptop on his chair.
He runs outside his room, grabbing his pony tail holder as he does, to find his mom on the computer and dad watching TV, though they appeared to be looking at something close to their faces.
"Do you see it, too?" he asks excitedly.
His mom nods, and half way through her nod, the man quickly says, "Alright, both of you, listen up, I don't have long to explain. Someo-" He messes up and shakes his head as he continues, "Something somewhat similar to DnD is coming, and I need you to be prepared. In case we get split up, do not make ANY decisions without first consulting me or someone like me, understand? Survive, obviously, but don't make any choices until we discuss it."
System Initializing
1 minute 28 seconds
"The first thing you should do..." he pauses for about a second, "is to put your stats into whatever the defea- defensive stat is, whether it's called defense, endurance, vitality, or whatever. Focus on survival first."
A short pause before he continues, "Then focus on finding... someone like me." A short pause, "I don't care if that's me som- or someone like me, find them quickly. They will help you. Or, if they don't, convince them to."
He turns to look at his dad, "Especially you, dad, you will definitely require help in the initial stages. Let's hope we don't get split up."
"He-heeeeeyyyyy," his dad responds, playfully fake hurt.
System Initializing
1 minute
"Gather together, let's hope that we don't get split up or at least don't get..." a 3 second pause, "or that being closer together helps us stay together," he says, grabbing his mom's arm and pulling her up out of the computer chair before walking her toward the couch his dad is at.
His dad stands up, moving a tray out of his way. They meet up a couple feet from the couch.
System Initializing
47 seconds
"How do you know what this is?" his mom asks.
"I've read a bunch of series that did something similar. Often, they happen without real warning. We're lucky we got any." He responds, pulling out his phone and messaging the only person he really talks to on Discord.
Stay safe when this hits.
And have fun.
His phone dies just as he hits send. "Oh, well, at least I won't have to deal with your terrible battery anymore," he mumbles as he puts his phone in his pocket.
"As soon as this hits, attempt to open your status. Say 'menu,' 'status,' or anything you can think of to open it. Figure out as much as you can from that."
System Initializing
22 seconds
"And stay alive. I don't want to find either of your dead bodies," he says pointing aggressively at his parents. He takes a short pause before saying, "Or Deed's."
Everyone is silent for multiple seconds, the man putting his 2-foot long hair up.
System Initializing
7 seconds
"Find food if you can. Safety, shelter."
System Initializing
4 seconds
"Just stay alive."
System Initialized
As he sees that message, he recognizes he's not in his house with his parents anymore. Instead, he's out in sparse woods. He sighs, looks up, and holds his right hand on the back of his neck. "I hope they'll be alright."
"Now then, did I get Randidlyed, or is this just a tutorial solo dungeon?" He asks the air. "Alright, menu."
Status Skills Paths Map Friends Settings
"Ew, that's a bunch of wasted space," he says to himself.
Status Skills Paths
Map Friends Settings
He blinks. "Oh cool, it's customizable. Line all the edges of the buttons up."
Status Skills Paths Map Friends Settings
"Great, friends," he says. You said to open status first. "Yeah, yeah, me, but I know what I'm doing. They don't."
Friends + - None
"Alright, doesn't automatically add them. Status."
Name Degritone Race Human Resources 17.44.../17.44... (+71.42...) 13.11.../13.11... (+80.57...) 29/29 (+71.71...) Class None Experience 0/0 Strength 4 Endurance 2 Vitality 6 Agility 4 Physical 10 Magic 10
"Interesting that it's using my online name... Maybe it scanned my brain and found the name I'd respond to most...? How many Moms are there, then?" He says to himself under his breath. "Also, why are those underli-" he pokes Endurance, causing him to pause because the following to pops up.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Increases longevity.
Physically increases health.
Magically increases mana.
"Ah, cool, are all...?" He pokes Human.
+20% skill experience
+100% stamina regeneration from vitality
+25% health regeneration from vitality
-25% mana regeneration from vitality
-10% maximum mana from endurance
Base 5 health
Base 20 health regeneration
Base 1 mana
Base 10 mana regeneration
Base 10 stamina
Base 60 stamina regeneration
"Underline popup. Got it." He proceeds to read every popup.
(Author's Note: In case it wasn't clear enough, you can hover your cursor over any underlined text to get more optional information.)
----------------------------------------
"Cool. Now...name... So, maybe... Friends." The friends screen pops up and he presses the plus button. A keyboard appears alongside a text box with a speaker icon to the left of it and a check mark to the right.
He types in "lolianon" in the box and hits the check mark.
Request sent.
"Cool. Probably interprets meaning." He sends a request to his parents and sister, as well. "Now, surroundings." He looks around.
The woods around him appear empty, beyond himself and the plant life. Above him, trees with large, heart-shaped leaves block most of the light coming from above, causing the surroundings to be in light shadows.
"Safe. Weapon." He searches around for a broken limb or anything he can use as a weapon, finding a low branch an inch wide at the base. After snapping it off and twisting away the bark attempting to hold it to the tree, he inspects it.
"I was able to snap it, so probably won't be of much use. Better than my fists... Might as well keep it until I find something better. Mission one complete. Now to food."
He searches around for a while before spotting movement far ahead, slightly to his left. He stops mid-step and jerks his head to look at the source of the movement. He spots a brown blur dart behind a tree and disappear from view.
If I got Randidlyed, whatever that was will mean death. If not, I should see how powerful whatever that was is... Let's not risk it. He thinks before turning around, only to be knee to face with a nearly 2 foot tall, bipedal creature with rough brown skin; short limbs; long, spindly appendages; and shark teeth.
Above its head floats, Tree Walker Lv1
Underline? Click? He looks at the Tree Walker's mouth. Not now, hit and run.
The Tree Walker goes to grab Degritone's leg, but it is very, very slow, allowing him to get out of its reach easily. Slow. Kill. He steps back and smacks the Tree Walker across the face with his stick, and it imbeds itself into the Tree Walker's face.
The stick then begins attempting to wrap itself around Degritone's hand, and he pulls away. Don't attack with wood, he mentally notes to himself before walking around to the back of the Tree Walker and stomping it down into the ground, then stomping its head three times.
It stops moving and its name disappears, but Degritone continues to stomp. He stomps another 6 times before relenting.
"Let's hope I can find a rock or something to fight with. Being so close to these things that appear grapple-based doesn't sound very appealing," he says quietly to himself. "Also, I just made a bunch of noise, I should get out of here in case there's more. Hopefully find a river or other body of water and set this whole place on fire."
He begins jogging along, away from where he came and where he saw the other one. "Actually, probably bad idea. Water monster possibility is high." He spots a bush with berries, colored orange with a single stripe of yellow going from the stem to the opposite side and back again.
"Poison possibility...low. Map." A map screen appears with everywhere he's directly seen with his eyes already mapped for him in 3D. "Mark this bush." Nothing happens. "Waypoint current location." A white point appears on the map. "Make it orange." It becomes orange.
"Not hungry...one now...probably not good for pockets...whatever, three pocket," he says as he pops one in his mouth and puts three in his left pocket.
"It was named Tree Walker. I should get away from trees, as much as I can in woods." Degritone proceeds to start walking in the direction he was going before finding the bush. "Skills."
Stomp lv2
Running lv3
Improvised Weapon Mastery lv1
He brings up the popups for all the skills, reading them one by one. The last one catches his attention.
Increases speed and damage of attacks made with improvised weapons.
(17+3*SLevel+Physical)% Strength = 1.24 damage
Speed varies
Cost varies
"No calculator. MATH! ...IWM, 1.24? Uh... 0.3, 4, 3 and 4 12, 1.2...? Status."
Name Degritone Race Human Resources 17.88.../17.88... (+73.57...) 4.22.../13.22... (+81.43...) 29/29 (+71.71...) Class None Experience 0/0 Strength 4 Endurance 2 Vitality 6 Agility 4 Physical 11 Magic 10
"Ah, I guess Physical and Magic increase as you gain skills and/or skill levels in skills using them. I wonder the exact calculation. I gained 6 levels, 3 skills, one physical. Did that come from 3, 6, 5, 9... so many possibilities. Let's try something."
He slows down and starts searching around the area he walks in. After a few minutes, he finds what he's looking for: A rock. Picking it up, he looks it over and holds its sharpest point away from his palm, though it is still quite dull.
He holds it up over his head and holds his other hand out in front of him, with an intense look on his face.