Thorn Ketchup was driving his scooter, doing his part-time job in a midnight, delivering pizzas from midtown to downtown to suburban to chinatown.

"Haah." He sighed. He knew it was impossible and he hated his job, but if he stopped he couldn't buy the newest gaming console.

Either way, he needed to do it fast or they wouldn't pay the pizzas. Thorn was watching his GPS, checking for his next destination and all of sudden the screen on his phone was flickering and it went dead, along with several lights from the street lamps and the houses.

"Huh? Do I forget to charge it?" He muttered, though it didn't bother him as this was the last order and he already remembered the path.

Just as he throttled the handle, accelerating for a few km/h while realizing this wasn't a good idea, driving with this speed in a total darkness with exhaustion and drowsiness all around him. 

Well, it’s very unlikely for me to have an accident because there is almost no car passing this area. He thought in his heart.

BAM!!!

Thorn's body was flying for a few meters, and lucky for him he was wearing a helmet as he flew right into the pile of the dumpster.

***

When he woke up, it was because of the screams, the shouts and the loud explosion sound from his surrounding area.

Cradling his painful head, Thorn blinked several times and his blurred vision slowly went to a normal one but there were several floating screens appeared right in front of his eyes.

He was Looking at the computer screen. Only seeing his name written on top of it, and below his name was Level 1, Code 10 and Skill Points 3. And further below was a table with simple words like slash, shoot, force.

"What the heck?" He said even though he actually knew what the screen was. This was an ability table.

If he was right, just like a computer game, the screen showed his ability values. But, what was written on it was not Strength, Intelligence, HP or MP. From the table that was like game stats, he could realize that after all, he played a lot of RPGs.

There were only levels, code and skills these three components. This sort of game did exist in reality, and some of these games would even hide the character’s status.

He shook his head in suspicion. "Is this some sort of prank?" He muttered. "Or I hit my head really hard?!"

After all, it was impossible for a game-like screen to suddenly appeared right in front of his eyes. And just as he was wondering whether or not he still sane, or he had gone crazy because of the number of times he spent on video games.

"Kyaaa!!"

He heard another high pitched loud scream with a slight sound of a raspy voice. Followed by another sound of an explosion. And a thousand sounds of footsteps.

"What is going on?"

Seeing right through the blue floating screens, Thorn vaguely could see people, hundreds of them were running away.

But from what?

Just as he thought about that, he looked around, but no matter where he took a look, the screens always followed right in front of his eyes.

"What the heck are these screens?! How do I close this?!" He shouted as he stared into the screens.

The time has come and another threat is arriving on earth and as such, we give you the tool the tools to survive and repel the invader! Good Luck.

All languages have been synchronized! From today onwards, every living thing that can understand communication will know how to speak Common language!

Congrats! for becoming the first human to kill an Invader (Challenge 2)! +1 Skill points as the bonus!

General Information:

Thorn Ketchup / Human/ Male/ 18.

Level: 1

Code: 10

Skill Point(s): 3

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Slash Stab Smash Defend Shot Juggling Exploration Infiltration Blast Force Illusion Conjure Heal Boost Break Charm Forgery Carpentry Leathery Weaver Music Academic Culinary Apothecary Gathering Porting Trading Farming

For more information, you can open your stats by thinking “Menu” and then selecting “Status”.

"But how to close it down?!" The screen was too complicated and he didn't have enough information about those words and how he should allocate his point.

"No... this isn't the time for me to analyze the screen." Said Thorn as he heard another scream and explosion echoed on the distance. He couldn't imagine what had happened but one thing he knew for sure he must immediately close the screen and ran away to a safe place.

"...Close screen." Nothing happened. "Close status." It closed.

Cradling his body, Thorn went out of the dumpster. He looked around, it was a total darkness, except the fiery red flame on the distance.

Swaying around, Thorn began to walk while his body was filled with a trash. He did not care about his body smell, he only cared if someone was kind enough to tell him what was the time or what was going on right on.

Thorn walked to someone, from his silhouette and figure alone Thorn could realize he was a man. He was tall, thin but muscular, he was bald, and he had pointy ears.

"...Pointy ear?" Thorn muttered as soon as he realized the man pointy ear.

The man turned around and Thorn could see a pair of tiny glowing eyes coming out of the man's head. He raised his hand, opened his palm and a whitish blue energy started to glow on his hand.

As if he was watching a fantasy or sci-fy movie, the energy condensed into a ball and it flew directly into Thorn's stomach. The impact from the blue ball was enough to make Thorn flew for a few meters, it was dark but he knew his body was spinning around as he flew away.

What the heck was that thing? What the heck did he do? God, my stomach's hurt. My back's hurt, My head's hurt. Such thoughts were circling around in Thorn's head as he tasted iron in his mouth.

Not to mention from the smell of the place, he knew he flew back to the same dumpster.

....

The place was dark, small, and stink but in his mind right now, no one would bother to check him in this kind of place. He still could hear the sound of explosion and screams but he couldn't see a footstep near him and he only needed to endure the smell or the feeling of something was crawling on his legs and hands.

"Yeah, I should hide in here," Thorn muttered.

Breathing in, breathing out...Thorn thought his action would make he calmer but on the other hand, the smell of rotting junk and a slight smell of burning meat was made him sick.

Either way, Thorn opened his status screen and lucky enough the screen had a low luminescence dim light, bright enough so he could see the letter on his screen.

He used his confused mind to think. On it was Level 1, Skill Points 2, "does it mean that I can get 2 kinds of skills? Or it is that the points needed for different skills are different?"

Alas, this sort of thing was not important. Or perhaps it was not completely unimportant, in short just keep it aside for now.

But as a person, not knowing any information was a scary thing. Especially in an emergency like this.

"Guide?" Nothing happened. "Tutorial?" "Information!" "FAQs!" 

He continued to mutter all of those kinds of words, but no matter what he said, he couldn't gain any information.

"...Right, there's Academic as the option right? Academic is equal to information, right?"

Talking to himself, without hesitation Thorn picked Academic.

Congratulations! Academic is now Lvl 1! You have learned << Investigate >> and << Guide >>

" << Guide! >>" Once again, without hesitation or thinking too much Thorn shouted as loud as he could, until he closed his own mouth, tasting some trash entering his mouth when he realized he did something stupid.

Even though another screen appeared right in front of his eyes, Thorn didn't immediately read it. His heart was beating too fast, worrying whether or not someone could hear him from the outside. His sweat, a cold droplet of sweats were falling under his forehead, though after some time passed he realized no one was noticing whereabouts.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Thorn began to read the guide. 

20 minutes later, he finished reading all of it. Most of the guide had question mark rather than a real information. Though, there were several things he got from this.

First, every time he level up he could get skill points. And as long as he used those skill points then he could get the skills. Once he got the skill, then it was impossible to revert it back to skill points. "This was kind of inconvenient." He muttered.

Second, the so-called skill was something similar to adding value to his current body. As an example, once he got the Slash skill,  so as to say, if he was originally trained with a sword, then he might be able to defeat a person with Slash Skill Rank 1 or 2.  

Third, to increase the Skill Rank, of course as he realized it there was the need to use skill points. And to increase the skill rank to 1, he needed to use 1 skill point and to increase the skill from rank 1 to rank 2, he needed 2 points. Likewise, when he needed to raise from rank 2 to rank 3, he needed 3 points.

Fourth, after a person level up, other than skills, the person’s physical and mental strength would also increase. "So,  the HP and MP? this is getting to be more and more like a game."

Five, the first two rows were the weapon or combat skills. The fourth and third rows were the magic skills and the rest were the support skills.

As for why he got the skills, who gave it to him, what was going on or the detailed information on each skill, he couldn't get any of that.

Thorn did not know how many hours had passed since he entered the dumpster and struggled in the mind. But after setting his determination, he chose: 

Congratulations! Infiltration is now Lvl 1! You have learned << Stealth Lvl 1 >> and  << Trap Construction Lvl 1 >>

Congratulations! Exploration is now Lvl 1! You have learned << Flexible Weapon Lvl 1 >>, << Perception Lvl 1 >>, << Animal companion Lvl 1 >>