“Open gifts”
“Inventory”
“Redeem starter pack.”
Skyler tried saying multiple things but none seemed to work. Once a few minutes passed with nothing happening, she decided to have a closer look at the island.
The small island had little of importance to him currently, but there were a few things that could be useful later.
Other than sand, dirt, stone, flint, and grass the island also had a total of five trees, two of which grew coconuts. The door on the hill of the island was still as useless as before but when Skyler inspected the area, she paid attention to something else.
There was a large tree stump in the middle of the island that Skyler found looked sort of out-of-place.
The trunk was much much thicker than a coconut tree and could easily be used as a dinner table for four people if it was removed.
Thinking that the tree stump might be something more than that, Skyler crouched down and but a moment later the top of the stump gradually disappeared, turning into sawdust that fell onto the items inside the hollow stump.
Surprised by her findings, Skyler quickly got excited. The size of the hollow stump was extremely big, going down more than a meter in total. Even if there wasn’t much inside now, if there was a pistol or some sort of magical item things would get a lot easier.
The first thing Skyler saw was a change of clothes that seemed similar to her current outfit. A leather jacket, a white shirt, and loose pants. Next to these, there was also a hip pouch, a welcome find considering she didn’t have a backpack on her when she was taken here.
After changing to this new set of clothes that didn’t have all the cuts and burns, Skyler looked within the stump once more, intending to take out the remaining items.
Next up, Skyler took out a small knife she saw in the corner of the hollow stump. It was a potato knife with a black handle and a blade just a few centimeters long. Hoping that this wasn’t her only weapon, Skyler looked into the stump for anything else.
It was then that she noticed something weird. There was a scroll within the stump that was emanating a weird greyish shine. Even though the ‘shine’ didn’t seem to be a visual thing, it certainly caught her attention.
‘Finally, something that looks magical.’
These were Skyler’s thoughts as she grabbed the scroll. When she unfolded it, a semi-translucent blue screen appeared before her.
| Skill Scroll: Dagger (Entry)
Quality: Grey (Very Common)
Description: After using this scroll, perhaps you will know what side of the knife to stab with. |
Skyler looked at the screen before her in surprise as she wondered how to activate this ‘skill scroll’. She was only just thinking that when the scroll was engulfed in black flames, not hurting Skyler at all but causing the scroll to be burnt up.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Then, Skyler almost subconsciously changed the grip on the potato knife she kept on her. Even though the description of the scroll wasn’t impressive, Skyler could still feel a clear difference.
She never fought with knives before, using either her hands, rubble, or a pipe to take out the people she fought, so even her grip had been wrong. Even though it wasn’t anything advanced, at least Skyler now knew the best way to hold the knife and make it harder to be disarmed.
Even though she was thrust into an unknown situation suddenly, Skyler didn’t panic in the slightest. Having taken everything she could from the stump she decided to make the best of it and prepare for any challenge that may come her way.
In all honestly, things didn’t look too good for her right now, every calamity she ever heard of was enormous, like a beastwave number tens of thousands or a tsunami leveling large parts of the city. She could only hope the calamities she was up against weren’t as bad.
Nevertheless, she had been given a clear direction to follow and prepare. After making a meal of a few coconuts on the island, Skyler spent a few hours practicing with her small knife, trying to get at least used to its handling. Then, she decided to sleep until it was time, she was sure she would need to be at her best for what was coming.
When Skyler woke up, the cause was another one of the blue screens.
| 5 Minutes left until mission start. Mission briefing 1 unlocked. |
Skyler rubbed her eyes as she warmed up her body, just as she was about to check the stump for the ‘briefing’ mentioned, another screen popped up in front of her, this time containing three pictures with some text beneath each of them.
The first picture was one of an old bald man. Even though his old age was visible, he seemed quite healthy in the picture, with a firm posture.
He was wearing a red cloak with golden lining and was clearly someone that had a lot of money, beneath the picture Skyler read the text accompanying it.
| Andrew Quillen: A guide for 15 years, high priest of the Helegarian church. Has information on internal structure of said church. 66% success rate. May be found in the hunting party of the Helegarian’s church. |
Having gone over the information quickly, Skyler believed she could infer what most of it meant. This ‘Andrew Quillen’ should be a helper, one of the systems created to assist the ‘heroes’. The Helegarian church should be one of the major factions wherever she was going and was probably involved in her mission, whether she would be working with or against them didn’t seem clear yet.
As for the success rate, there was no way she could tell if it were high or not, what it did mean though was that since there was a need for this ‘success rate’ to be shown, it was likely not all guides were equally fair or loyal.
Knowing there were less than five minutes until the mission began, Skyler looked at the second picture.
This second picture showed a number of trees, it was clearly taken within a forest. There were odd triangular symbols on a number of the trees. There was only a single line of text beneath.
“Forest of Esnea,” Skyler mumbled the name as she read it, making sure to commit it to memory.
The final picture showed a simple village, the buildings were clearly not modern works but did look newly-built. This confirmed that she would most likely be going to a less technological world, something that may cause problems since she did now have a metallic eye. The picture also showed the signboard in front of the village. It seemed this place was called ‘Salia’.
Finally, below all the pictures were one more line of text, finalizing this short briefing.
| Mission 1’ Aid Olivia Hardwood in her escape from the red priests. |
Now knowing the main mission, Skyler was at least happy she wouldn’t have to go out looking for a mystery person. After inspecting the pictures for a bit longer looking for any clues, the briefing disappeared and another message popped up.
| Mission start activated. Please leave through the spatial door within the next ten seconds. |
The notification could be heard in his head even if he didn’t read it and but a moment later Skyler heard a weird sound behind her.
WHOOSH
The sound reminded her of when the dragon flapped its wings, nearly destroying her eardrums, but it wasn’t the same one. It was the sound of air contorting, when Skyler looked around, the seemingly useless door had swung open. Looking through it, Skyler didn’t see the island but a forest instead. The image was weird to look at but as a countdown timer appeared in her head, Skyler decided to enter through the door, towards her first mission.