A man woke up on the worst possible spot.

He was by the beach, lying on his back. He opened his eyes slowly to revel in the sensation. The calm wind was refreshing, the temperature comfortable, the sky just bright enough to illuminate without blinding, and the sound of waves splashing on the coast was music to the ears.

But where am I?

Planting his elbows in the sand and lifting his torso was enough to see he wore nothing but a yellow shirt, a pair of green, rough pants, and yellow boots. Weird. Were these my clothes?

The man tried to recall things but found himself completely unable to. All his memories seemed to be missing, an incredibly disorienting feeling if he ever knew one, though not as disorienting as one might expect.

Who even am I!?

Mentally referring to himself as ‘the man’ was hardly convenient.

Wait. If I have no memories, how do I know things?

So, he stayed there, lying on the soft sand and exploring his mind. Turns out, he knew a lot of things, except he had no personal context for any of them. He knew what sand was and even how he’d feel if a strong wind whipped it against his body, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing sand before. He knew what the sun was but couldn’t recall ever getting blinded by it, except for that time a moment ago when he accidentally looked too far up.

In short, he knew many things, just nothing about himself. However, he felt surprisingly fine with having no memories, to the point where he decided to simply accept the issue as it was.

Amnesia. Guess I’ll just have to figure it out, he mused before directing his sight downward to take a better look at himself. A tanned, well-proportioned body was all the man could see without a mirror. He felt comfortable in it, which was good. He patted his body, finding it, well…familiar.

Which left him with one problem; he didn’t have the slightest idea of what was going on. Perfect, he thought. I hope I like surprises.

Therefore, he did the only sensible thing he could think of. He stood up to look around. Unfortunately, he only managed to get a glimpse of the blue sea and a forest a few dozen meters away before the sand below him collapsed, which was quite inconvenient for someone who would prefer not to fall with it but, at least, it led him to his very first discovery about himself: No, he did not like surprises.

Letting out an involuntary yell, he dropped into the hole and landed about a second later—painfully. Due to his surprise, he hadn’t managed to rotate himself and fell on his back, which led him to his second discovery about himself: His bones were more fragile than he’d hoped.

Your journey has begun! Please, choose your name:

You have entered the Hidden Dungeon “Crab King’s Lair.” Recommended level: 15. Proceed with caution.

Congratulations! For dropping to critical health within a minute of Awakening, you get the Title ‘Born to Die.’

Born to Die: +2 CON

Take your time. You can always die later.

Before the man even had time to consider the flashing blue lights, a block of solid sand landed on his face, breaking his nose.

His mind swam in pain. He tried to roll sideways, but his back felt on fire. He tried to bring his right hand toward his eyes, to wipe the sand off, but the mere effort caused him to sweat. So, he lay there, sand all over his face. It wasn’t in his mouth, at least, which allowed him to breathe.

Moments later, darkness encroached upon the edges of his vision. Fuck, was his last thought before he fainted.

You have thought of the name ‘Phac.’ Are you sure about your selection?

***

For the second time in a day, the man woke up oblivious of his surroundings. Feeling dizzy and his face itching, he raised an arm to wipe the feeling away before instinctively getting up. Then, he stood perfectly still as the memory of what had occurred—his very first memory, in fact—came back. Without moving anymore, in fear of the pain, he hesitantly checked his situation. Very, very slowly, like the laziest snail in existence, he tried to move his fingers, his arms, his body. Everything felt fine. Was that a dream?

But he was at the bottom of a deep round hole roughly two meters in diameter, solid rock walls surrounding him while equally solid rock functioned as the ground. Running his fingers over it, it felt hard, bumpy, and wickedly cold. The damp, wet smell of the underground filled his nose, while his eyes were still trying to adjust to the moonlight that shone through the hole's opening, illuminating most of the interior but leaving the contents of a few dark spots to anyone's imagination.

Moonlight? How long was I out for? It was only then that he noticed a blinking exclamation mark at the bottom-left of his vision. What’s that?

No sooner had he had that thought than the exclamation mark expanded, transforming into four blue screens with black letters that hovered in the center of his vision.

Your journey has begun! Please, choose your new name:

You have thought of the name ‘Phac.’ Are you sure about your selection?

Please, confirm your selection of the name ‘Phac.’

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Due to inactivity, confirmation is registered. Welcome, Phac!

You have entered the Hidden Dungeon “Crab King’s Lair.” Recommended level: 15. Proceed with caution.

Congratulations! For dropping to critical health within a minute of Awakening, you get the Title ‘Born to Die.’

Born to Die: +2 CON

Take your time. You can always die later.

Congratulations! For dropping to critical health twice within a minute of Awakening, you get the Title ‘(Un)lucky.’

(Un)lucky: +2 LCK

You look like you need this.

What?

Is this a hallucination of some sort? It seems like a video game…and those Titles seem unreasonably snappy. Is the hallucination making fun of me!?

“Fuck you, too, you blue bastard,” said Phac, and the screen disappeared, revealing his normal field of vision.

What was that? Now really confused, Phac decided to sit down and put his thoughts in order, but something nagged at him.

Awakening. That word loomed in two of the screens, seemingly indicating the moment he woke up on the beach. Did it have something to do with his amnesia? What was it supposed to mean?

Where am I? What happened to me? What is happening to me?

Phac felt panic encroaching, but he wasn’t just going to let that happen. I lack context, so the mysteries can wait. Let’s prioritize my safety and consider everything that happened so far. He forced himself into calmness.

First, he woke up on a beach. Okay, that seemed fine, even though he had no idea where he was or why he was there…or even who he was, besides the made-up name that the blue screens insisted on.

What was decidedly not fine was sand’s apparent tendency to fall here, wherever here was. This sounded awfully inconvenient, as Phac imagined that any self-respectable patch of sand would have the dignity to stay solid under people’s feet. Except for quicksand, he thought before deciding that quicksand was sneaky anyway and so didn’t count.

Plus, even quicksand doesn’t just collapse under its victims!

Thinking up to this point, Phac looked up and tried to calculate the height. Must be around three, four meters. Landing on his back from that height and surviving was surprising, but he wasn’t one to complain. Besides, it was the least compensation he deserved for waking up on top of somebody’s faulty sand.

After waking up, the next thing he remembered was falling and being in pain. Then, something hard fell on his face, and when he tried to remove it, he'd been pretty sure that at least a few bones were broken. Then, I only remember waking up, so I probably fainted at some point, but how did my bones heal in the meantime? Was I mistaken about them breaking in the first place?

Seeing no alternative, he accepted that explanation and moved on to the weirdest part: the blue screens. If Phac could accept being mistaken about his broken bones, he had no explanation for those screens and their questionable sense of humor.

It did seem like a video game. It even said something about a dungeon. Are there menus here or something?

As soon as he had the thought, another blue screen appeared in his vision, causing him to fall on his butt.

Name: Phac

Race: Human

Level: 1

HP: 26/26

MP: -

STA: 6/6

Titles: Born to Die, (Un)lucky

STR: 12

DEX: 11

CON: 13

INT: 8

WIS: 12

CHA: 11

LCK: 8

Huh, thought Phac as he lay on the ground yet again, looking up at the screen. Okay, so it really is like a video game. Am I in a video game? You’d think I would know.

While he wasn’t aware of the reason, he was familiar with the terms used in the blue screen, as he was with the concept of a video game.

HP represented his health points. Getting that to 0 was bad. MP was, what, magic points? Did that imply the existence of magic? An interesting thought, which Phac shelved for later. STA must have been stamina, Titles were something like achievements, and the rest were his defining characteristics: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, and Luck. The names came easy. He was apparently familiar with this scheme.

Hold on, does this mean I was at six LCK before that Title!?

Was ten the average? Phac knew little about himself besides his name, but if ten was the average as he assumed, then he was a bit above average in everything besides Intelligence and Luck, especially Constitution. Nice, go me! Oh, but I did get two points in that from the other Title.

Just then, the most important part of the screen registered in his mind.

Wait a moment…did this thing just name me Phac? Why would it even do that? Come on, this is just unfair. Fuck YOU, you blue asshole. Or rather, Phac you, Phac shouted in his brain, finding solace in the adamant belief that ‘Phac’ was different than ‘Fuck’ even though they sounded suspiciously similar.

Oh! If I can communicate with this blue screen mentally, then maybe I thought ‘fuck’ to myself as I fainted, and the stupid thing misheard…

But didn’t it say that I dropped to critical health twice? That must mean something like one, two HP… I was injured twice, once by the fall and once by the falling sand, I think, but the interval was too short. Did I manage to regenerate HP that quickly, or am I in a very wrong track? Phac pondered the issue. Well, if the first title came right after the fall, then maybe the extra CON gave me some extra HP, which was depleted by the sand right afterward.

This made sense, but Phac shivered at the thought of how close he had come to death—twice. I hope this doesn’t become a habit. Well, if this works in a game-like manner, maybe my bones healed because I regenerated HP while unconscious. Is that even possible?

Didn’t sound so, but he wasn’t going to argue against his own health.

Phac felt vaguely familiar with the context so, for lack of better ideas, he decided to accept he was in a video game world—or, hopefully, some less ridiculous equivalent—which brought him back to the first screen.

If he remembered correctly, a dungeon was a place crawling with monsters where player—Hold on, monsters? Do they exist, too? I hope not. It said unique dungeon, maybe in the sense that it does not have monsters? he thought, only for his hopes to be thoroughly crushed in the next second.

Hidden Dungeon: A dungeon that hides from the world along with its monster denizens found by the lucky or unlucky instead of the prepared. Usually contains greater rewards than a normal dungeon of its Level, though hidden dungeons can occur naturally as well. Proceed with caution.

Perfect. And what was that about a recommended Level? It said 15, but I am Level 1.

It must have been joking. Phac looked around, sweeping his eyes over the cold rocks in the hopes of finding something, anything. Squinting, he spotted the opening of a dark tunnel on one of the walls, but even though it was more than wide enough, it remained a bit too short for him to walk upright. He would have to duck. Right, crab dungeon… But how big would a crab have to be, to be over two meters in width…

He gave climbing the walls a try, then another, then a third. There were a few dents and outcroppings on it, but they were too small to be used for climbing, at least by Phac. He barely managed to get his feet off the ground on the third try but fell to his butt right after. There's no way I can climb this.

He looked up, patches of solid sand hanging from the top of the hole, four meters above him.

Probably a pitfall trap, with hardened sand covering it up. When something heavy enough walks over the opening, it falls like I did. My weight was spread while lying down, but when I stood up, I became too much for the hardened sand to handle…he guessed, trying to distract himself from the obvious issue of being trapped in a place with giant, Phac-ivorous crabs hanging around.

Well, only one thing to do, then. Maybe the crabs will be friendly if I walk sideways, he thought as he reluctantly entered the dark tunnel, making a valiant yet only partially successful attempt to not piss himself. The journey of Phac, the future great warrior, had just begun.