Chapter 1: I’m a Lord?
I struggle to get up from the floor. “What the… did I just faint?”
What just happened? I look around to find myself by the side of my bed. The only light in the room comes from the small study lamp on my desk. I bend down and search for the mysterious orb that just caused me to lose myself.
The orb that rolled out of my hand isn’t glowing anymore, I feel drained and my head hurts.
Just minutes before this, the orb was glowing a bright blue color that gave a feeling of peace. I had gotten up from the chair and reached out to see what it was that Alan gave me earlier in the day. The moment I did make contact with the orb however, that’s when it started
The feeling was of excruciating pain… It felt like my brain was being stabbed from the inside. I tried to hold on for what felt like hours. Soon, I couldn’t take it anymore and gave in to the pain. That’s the last thing I remember before I passed out.
As I am getting up, I see the orb rolled out of my hand and under the my bed. I instinctively reach out to pick up the orb, but the feeling of the intense pain makes me shudder. The moment I pick up the orb once again, something flashes in front of my eyes.
[Would you like to enter Dunier? Yes/No]
“What…”
What looks like a pop-up window shows up in the middle of my sight. It is clearly not a projection. The text stays within my sight even if I move my head. Is this what Alan meant when he said ‘you just might activate it’.
“What did I activate though?” I try to reason the situation but my mind can’t come up with any physical explanation of the text appearing. My curiosity is reaching its peak, I have to say ‘Yes’!
The moment I thought of tapping ‘Yes’, a darkness envelops me and I feel like someone ripped me from where I was standing and flung me into the air.
Before my eyes adjust to the darkness around me, I feel a soft cold breeze against my skin. I slowly realize that I am not in my apartment anymore. With grass under my feet and a few small buildings around me, it seems that I have been… teleported?
The buildings seem old and abandoned, the doors are laying on the ground and there are parts of the walls broken down as if it were struck repeatedly by a sledgehammer. My curiosity is nudging me to explore, to understand what is going on, to brave the unknown.
As I walk around, I decide to enter the building closest to me. I can’t exactly knock on the door… seeing that there is no door. The inside of what seems to be a small house is dark and dusty. There is lack of furniture in the room except for a table stacked on the side. There are various pots and pans on the table with debris from the broken walls all across the room. As I explore the house, I realize that it is devoid of any modern day appliances or gadgets. The ceiling don’t have fans or light fixtures, there are no switches on the walls. The architecture of the house clearly isn’t modern.
It would seem that I have teleported out to some abandoned village. As I search through the house looking for any clues of my whereabouts, I small glint catches my eye coming from a knife stabbed into the table in the corner. “A knife… huh?”
Realizing the absurdity of the situation and the general spookiness of an abandoned ghost town, it seems like a good idea to equip myself with some sort of weapon. So, I pick up the knife, swing it around a few times and continue exploring other parts of the village.
The whole town is deserted. The only thing I can hear is the wind blowing and my own breathing. As I walk around the town to check for clues or any signs for where I am, , I hear a soft rustling behind me. I whip my head to the direction of the noise, half scared and half curious to see if I can get some answers. As I turn the corner of the wall, I see the silhouette of a dog engorged in eating something off the floor
As soon as I walk towards the dog, its head turn towards me and I realize that the dog… had a horn on its head. As the dog like creature stands up, I realize that it resembles more a fox than a dog. The creature seems to be ripping flesh out of what looks like a… child? Something turns in my stomach as I realize what was happening and a short gasp escapes my mouth.
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The creature suddenly raises it head starts growling. As I regain my senses, I quickly take a few steps back but it’s too late, the creature abandons its prey and dashes towards me. As it slams into me, I desperately try to avoid the horn on its head but it pierces my abdomen. Thankfully, the horn did seem fully grown and wasn’t as sharp as I’d feared. The attack still drew blood from the wound.
I quickly lash out a kick towards its body and feel it connect, forcing the creature to retreat a few steps. This time, as the creature circles around me, I take the knife from before in my hand and aim the pointy side towards the creature.
The creature tries to bite me but misses as I step back. I manage to slash the creature with the knife but it doesn’t seem to do any damage to the creature. It doesn’t even draw any blood. I do seem to have pissed it off more. As it jumps towards me once again, I desperately shoot my hand towards it and manage to stab the creature at the base of its neck. It suddenly starts whining and runs away.
Shocked by what just happened, I try to catch my breath. But before the adrenaline even manages to wane a bit, I suddenly hear a loud whelp.
From the distance, I see 2 children with what seem to be spears, stabbing the creature I just fought repeatedly. The sight of fresh blood spurting out of the fox like creature and onto the children makes me forget about the blood dripping out from my woud. I suddenly scramble to get up but one of them sees me.
The one that noticed me first lets out a shrill noise that make the other two focus on me as well.
“Shit!” I run towards the corner of the wall and quickly turn the corner. I rush towards the first building I entered. I quickly pull the table towards the corner and hide behind it
I hear weird noises that the two children are making and realize that one of them is growing closer.
The child enters the building when I realize that the thing in front of me isn’t a child… it’s a… goblin. I am pretty sure if it catches me, it will stab me with the wooden spear it is carrying. Contemplating the outcome of what would happen to me if I just give up, a renewed energy enters my body and strengthens my resolve.
As the goblin enters the other room, I rush out from my hiding spot and tackle the child sized goblin. I manage to push the goblin down as the wooden spear sent flying across the room. I quickly get up and run towards the spear, pick it up and swing it around to slam the goblin that was about to pounce on me. The goblin stumbles a bit, but resumes its attack. I pull the spear back and stab it into the golbin’s chest. The goblin suddenly stops moving and I see the orb in my pocket shine. I pull the spear out of the goblin and green blood flows out of the wound and pools on the floor. Before I could inspect the orb, the other goblin, attracted by my grunts and screams, runs into the room and sees the dead goblin on the floor. As it is about to lower the spear, I swing the spear and hit the goblin on its head. The swing is quickly followed by another stab and the goblin dies.
As I stabilize myself and place the other spear away from the two bodies, I calm down enough to realize that this village is probably not on Earth “Where the fuck am I?” I look back at the two bodies and the spear in my hand and suddenly my stomach decides to overturn. I puke out the sandwich I ate for dinner onto the floor next to the two corpses and rush out of the room.
I head out to the main room and slowly rationalize my actions. It helps that the things I attacked and killed were creature that aren’t supposed to exist. I remember the light blue glow that the orb emitted and decide to pull it out. As soon as I touch the orb, several text boxes appear in front of me.
[Exp gained]
[Exp gained]
[Level Up! You are now Level 2]
[You have successfully cleared the Ventos village territory]
[The Ventos village territory is currently ownerless. You can now take ownership of the territory? Yes/No]
“Experience…? Level..? … Territory…?” What the hell is going on? Is this.. a game?
As I read the text boxes hovering in front of me, I feel my chest tighten. After the fear wears off, I realize that more than fear, a stronger emotion is welling up inside me. The closest feeling I can relate is to the time when me and my friends went sky diving. Yes, it was excitement. The fear from before was now nowhere to be found.
I think ‘Yes’ and suddenly, I feel energy slowly leaving my body. I start panicking when a new text box appears
[Capturing Ventos village territory in the name of Lucas Travos]
[Mana gathered… 5/20]
“Mana…” Does that mean… magic.
I wrap my head around the implications of the latest text box. I have Mana. This would mean that I can perform magic. Seeing as how there is exp. and levels, there has to be a character window.
[Health: 11/15, Mana: 4/10]
[Strength: 4, Agility: 5, Intelligence: 9, Luck: 3][Remaining points: 3]
I stare at the text window for a few minutes. My mana is slowly decreasing as the Mana Gathered number increases. It seems that capturing territories uses Mana. The mana in my character window suddenly increases a point but soon decreases again. Mana regeneration is at work as well.
[Mana gathered… 11/20]
As I wait for Mana gathered to complete, I try to make sense of everything that happened within the past hour.
Summarizing everything, it seems that the orb teleported me to a world with monsters and magic. The world runs on RPG game mechanics. I am currently in a village called Ventos which I am capturing. I killed 2 goblins and leveled up. The level seems to have given me 3 points to allocate. I can essentially increase my stats as I level up. Mana exists, so it’s a fair assumption that magic does as well. Am I missing anything…?
[Mana gathered… 20/20]
[Congratulations! Lucas Travos is now the Lord of Ventos village]
[As owner of the territory, you can now access the Territory Management Menu for Ventos village]
[New summon available: Goblin – 5 MP]
“So.. I can now summon goblins.. huh…”