I felt a tingle of relief and excitement when seeing this screen. Clothes, armor, a guide. I wasn’t going to be walking around clueless for long.

I stroked my chin at these selections. While armor looked tempting, I couldn’t afford it if I wanted to get some clothes on me. Same with the 6 hour guide. A thorough immersive guide right now would leave me broke and naked.

Well, this choice was already set in stone for me, wasn’t it?

“One temporary guide, please,” I said a bit nervously. Though nothing happened. I pivoted my head to and fro, but nothing. Where the heck was my guide?

“Whoah! Full moon! Hello!” I heard a strong Italian Brooklyn accent over my head, realizing that I wasn’t alone. He was a metal orb with hummingbird wings, covered in etched lines and cybernetic crevices all over his metal plates.

[https://i.imgur.com/u22p1pH.png]

I should have picked the clothes first!

I crouched over to cover my unmentionables and cried, “Simple gear, simple gear!” Immediately, I was given a wardrobe. Even had the entire Sailor Moon glowing light as I was dressed up head to toe: A dark cloak with a hood lined with fur, pants, gauntlets, a padded leather top, high leather boots, and a bag over my belt.

“Heh, kid, you don’t have to call out your selections. Not that I mind. That high pitched squeal was unpredictable and hilarious.”

I scratched the back of my head sheepishly. “Heh, sorry about that. This is all very new to me.”

He zip-lined right in front of me, the sound of his wings buzzing making my eyes grow wider. He zoomed in on my face as if he was analyzing my features, then suddenly, a red dot appeared on him, and I fell on my ass.

The first thought that crossed my mind was a laser sight, and that was exactly what it looked like before a red scanning beam traced me left to right.

He chuckled. “Heh, you’re pretty skittish for a guy with those level 1 stats. Well, allow me to introduce myself, hero. My name is Devicho. That’s D-E-V-I-C-H-O. And I am your temporary guide, here to answer all of your questions!”

I got up off my ass and nodded. “My name is Silas.”

“Yeah, I got that from your base stats.”

“Oh, right. Well, crap, where do I start?”

“I got ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes!?”

“Yeah, I know. But them’s the rules. It’s all the boss is allowing me.”

“The boss?”

“The dungeon core. Alzera-Kar. We call this hidden gem mother, as she is the creator of all things in the world of Thalian.”

“Wait, a dungeon core created all of this?”

“Oh buddy, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Thalian is made up of five nations: Mavriel, land of the fae, Dradersi, land of the dragons, Guedmar, land of the orcs, Dokumbe, land of the goblins, and finally, Senterra, the fallen land of the humans.”

“Fallen?”

His voice dipped. “Hey, listen kid, I’m not gonna sugar coat anythin’ for you here. Senterra is gone. A barren wasteland from what I could tell. The little humans that are left are in hiding, so the other races can’t find them. A little history lesson for ya since we are tight on time: long long ago, these five nations lived in harmony as one. That harmony was doomed to fall, as the dungeon core, our great mother, created more and more resources. Now you see, the dragons were selfish bastards. They thrived off of money, greed, and pride. They started the racial divide, and these five species segregated themselves. Walls separate some regions, while big bodies of water separated others. With the way things were rolling, the dragons were on the top of the food chain, and the humans were on the very bottom of it. As expected, all the races started to take advantage of the weaker race, bullying them to no end. Wars broke and Senterra crumbled. I’m talkin’ mass genocide, kid. The savagery, the bloodshed. Oh, it was horrible. Alzera-Kar saw this and was very upset. To help these deprived and enslaved humans, she created cyber sense.”

“You mean that purple evil Kirby that I killed? That was one of them?”

“No, well, yeah, but that was a defective cyber sense. And I’ll explain how. Originally, cyber sense was a mechanism solely for humans. They are particles in the air, nano feeds that respond to humans around their perimeter. They are everywhere, essentially dominating all of Thalian. Now what they do is shape themselves into cyber gear to improve the biological functions of human beings. This gave humans the edge that they needed, but after the humans broke the shackles of oppression, they became the bullies. More war, more bloodshed. At this point mother Alzera-Kar was stressed. Her creations were dying. Her creations were killing themselves off. She didn’t know how to contain this ceaseless war and divide. Under this intense strain and tension, her outer crystal structure shattered, breaking off into three pieces. Without this protection, her inner core is vulnerable, and open for influence. These three pieces were scattered all over Thalian, but as of late, three nations have those pieces, and kid, they are protecting them with their lives! Dradersi has one, Guedmar has the other, and Mavriel has one, too. These three nations are in constant strife! When one nation has all three parts, they can locate Alzera-Kar, and make her do anything they want.”

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I was speechless…

“In this vulnerability, the cyber sense that was enhancing humans through cyber gear started to create evil fleshy beings. I’m talkin’ monsters. Of all sizes! They are only detectable by humans, which is why most nations made sense out of keeping humans as detectors. Remember what I said about them practically squattin’ everywhere? Well, that didn’t change. These hideous freaks lurk around, and materialize at any given moment. They became sentient. The upside though is when you kill the stronger ones, you get a full blown cyber gear. Some lesser creatures drop some precious loot too, parts to build a full-fledged cyber gear. It is good to note that cyber gear only operates for humans.”

“I think I’m getting some of the pieces to this puzzle together, here. Was I sent here to restore Senterra?”

“You bet!”

“And find the three shards to help Alzera-Ker?”

“Boy, you caught on quickly, didn’cha?”

“But I don’t understand. Why not snatch the shards herself? She is all powerful, right? She’s pretty much the god in this world.”

“Not when she’s unprotected. If mother could become defective when vulnerable, imagine how much harder it’d be for her to get those shards?”

“I guess you’re right…”

“Not only that, but those kingdoms who have her shards are keeping it on lock down. Warded I imagine. It won’t be easy.”

“Why me?” I asked honestly. “I understand her humans here are suffering, and she went out somewhere else to find a hero. I don’t know why she wouldn’t pick someone locally. So I have to ask, why a foreigner? And why me?”

“I guess she saw something special in you that she couldn’t find in her natives. But don’t feel too overwhelmed. You’re not the only hero she went out of her way to find.”

“You mean there are others?”

“Of course! This is an entire nation we are talking about, after all.”

“How can you be so sure? A girl and her titan hound hunted me down back in my home town.”

He paused and then asked me sternly. “What did this girl look like?”

“Platinum white hair, real model type bod. A few inches shorter than me. And her titan, a big brawny dude in armor, had a skull for a face.”

“That ain’t sound good.”

“You know her? Her name is Lucyna.”

He sighed. “She’s from Dradersi, daughter of King Orelus. Usually, dragon-kins have horns on their heads, sometimes along their jaws too. And some scales on their skin. They can materialize wings for flight at will, and are physically strong by nature. Lucyna probably used a spell to disguise herself as a human to remove those features on Earth. What’s more bothersome than that though was she found a way to open a gate to your world, and managed to track you down…”

“Not only track me down, she killed me.”

“I don’t understand. How the heck are you here if she killed you?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’d died and came back to life, isekai’d to this crazy fantasy RPG world.”

“You think this is wacky? You should hear what she thinks about people from Earth! Every race here was inspired by a planet from different galaxies. The plan was to make a cornucopia of races, but things started to get messy quick.”

“This mother seems to appreciate variety.”

“It has its goods and bads, as I’ve already mentioned. Which brings me back to Lucyna. This whole death business, it’s unsettling. And if she has access to Earth the same way mother does, you may very well be the only hero. Mother hadn’t started the recruiting process yet. She is still on the selection stage.”

“Then how did someone like Lucyna even know what she was planning?”

“Could be a precautionary step? Not sure. Lucyna is very smart. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a few steps ahead of her maker.”

“She’s on my hit list,” I vented. “Her and her dog!”

“Hey kid, slow down. You’re nowhere near her league! That dragon-kin is an elite, a royal one at that.”

“Then I’ll level up! Whatever it takes!”

“Kid…”

I wouldn’t expect anyone to understand. This was not just a vendetta. All of my life I was invisible. I blended with the background, and was someone you wouldn’t bother batting an eye to. I was a nobody. I loved my mom, but things changed when she started focusing on her career. She was hardly ever there. Dad was never around either. He taught me to never take shit from anyone, use my fists when I had to, and never give up. That was it. I was alone, in my own mind, in my own world. I became detached from everything, losing myself in my shell, finding fulfillment in playing my games. That’s where I felt like I was achieving something… where I was somebody. Still, it would have been nice to get that kind of satisfaction out in the real world.

I wanted my life to mean something. Then she came around and snuffed my chances out. But then the dungeon core brought me back and gave me my chance…

“This is an opportunity to start over, to start fresh. I will do right by Alzera-Kar, but not because she gave me this gift. I want to help these tormented humans of Thalian because it’s the right thing to do. A voice for the voiceless, and power for the powerless. She brought me here to become a hero, and I’ll do just that. As for my own personal agenda, that’s secondary. I want that psycho to know what having everything taken away from her feels like! My life wasn’t the best life, but it was my life!”

“You sound motivated! Thadda’ boy!”

“I’m going to raise Senterra up from the grave, and I need you to tell me everything there is to know about getting stronger to do it.”