There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at the blue boxes in front of them. I could only see my own box of course, but the fact that everyone was simultaneously staring at nothing made me think they all had a box.
Suddenly, the wedding attendees started to react in a few different ways. The Soldiers stayed calm and assessed the situation, looking around for potential dangers. The members of my guild were split into three categories. There was the excited group, thinking about the potential of magic and adventure from isekai stories, the scared group, who were thinking about the isekai stories where the main character had a rather rough and painful start, and then there were the ones who were sad because they believed they could never go home. The excited group was in the majority by far. The other guests were similar to the guild’s reactions, with an added group who were panicking because they didn’t have any clue what was happening. My sister seemed calm, probably thinking along the lines of “This is the best possible group to get in an isekai situation with.” She was probably right.
We were in a small, grassy field surrounded by a forest. There was a mountain that could be seen past the altar that seemed relatively close. That, or it was absolutely massive.
My fianc- My husband quickly went into action, talking with Dean about the implications of the message and formulating a plan. I can’t say I hate that word, husband. I just wish I were wearing regular clothes instead of my wedding dress. Wedding dresses are not the kind of thing you wanted to be wearing when stranded in another world. Probably. Arthur seemed to be done talking with Dean as he turned to me.
“Sam, I’m going to address the crowd. Could you and Lilah settle the guests?”
“On it. Oh, and dear, do remember your audience, there are kids in the crowd.” And with that I took Lilah by the hand and dragged her forward. “We need to settle the crowd so we can get organized and prepare for who knows what,” I whispered.
“Agreed. Expansion release protocol?” I nodded, turning towards the crowd, and getting into my game mindset. Just as I finished preparing myself, Lilah’s voice rang out.
“Listen up!” Lilah’s ability to control crowds didn’t fail her as the guild section went silent. “We are in an unknown situation, in an unknown location, and with an unknown event happening in less than an hour. Guildies, we’re going into expansion protocol level zero. Soldiers, consider this an early deployment. For the rest of you, remember this, stay close, follow orders, and anything could be dangerous.” Their guild had developed protocols as preset directions so that the officers could quickly give orders in changing situations, such as a new area that came with an expansion pack.
“Arthur is going to be in charge of the situation, any objections?” There were, of course, none. With a nod, Arthur started speaking.
“I know this might be confusing and/or scary for some of you, but I need you to stay calm. As Lilah said, there are a lot of unknowns right now. We have found that there is no cell signal, and our phones are showing a strange date and time, 25:00, Monday the 1st of the 13th Pantheon. We’re assuming that this is using to the system of time used by the locals of Aesirvale, wherever this is. The first goal is to find a secluded and preferably defensible location within the time left until our souls are synched, whatever that means, due to the possibility that the changes will cause people to pass out, become temporarily paralyzed, dazed, nauseous, and/or cause unknown levels of pain. Grab everything that won’t slow you down too much. We’re hoping to find a cave at the base of the mountain. Be lined up in five lines in as many minutes. My squad will be surrounding the column in case we come across anything dangerous. Remember, stay calm and we will get through this alive.” With that, Arthur ended his impromptu speech.
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In five minutes, the guests had gathered most of the chairs and the most situationally useful wedding gifts. The formation formed was less focused on lines and more on layers, with people getting progressively less fit as you went further in. Any children were placed in the center of it all, along with their parents and/or guardians, with the exception of the active military parents. My husband’s squad was arranged so that the corners were guarded by the highest ranking soldiers other than Dean and Arthur. Dean, Arthur, Lilah, and I led the group as we traveled.
There wasn’t a single plant in the forest that I recognized. The fauna we saw were strange too. For example, early on in the trek, we thought we had found a rabbit until we saw its antlers. It was an honest to God jackalope. There was also the deer that was big enough to graze on tree leaves as though they were on a bush, and the trees were much larger than an oak with no low hanging branches, a snake that was as long as our column but the width of a regular one, and the murder parrot. The murder parrot was a normal size, but it had sharp teeth all the way around the inside of its beak, which was wet with the blood of the human sized corpse of the squirrel we passed a few minutes after. I was suddenly very appreciative that the murder parrot’s beak was already bloody when we saw the corpse.
The sight of the murder parrot and its kill made me think about how litrpg isekai characters usually defended themselves at the start, assuming that we were in a situation like that. The strange flora and fauna with the floating boxes made a compelling argument. I formed a list from most common defense to least common.
1. Running scared until they stumbled into power and/or safety.
2. Figuring out how to utilize the status screen to make themselves superhuman
3. Accidentally killing an absurdly powerful monster in an equally absurd way so they gain a lot of power right off the bat.
4. Bringing guns or something with them to the other world.
5. Having assistance from the locals.
6. Other bullshit requiring a bullshit amount of luck similar to bullshit survival method 3.
I figured my best bet if I wanted to be able to get everyone out of this alive would be method number two, so I started saying different command phrases in my head while trying to fiddle with the window. Status. Stats. Character. Character sheet. Info. Menu? Options. Traits. Abilities. Guide. System. A new screen popped into existence in front of my face. Yes!