The sun, an orb of soft red blush, slowly diffused a delicate glow as it made the way for the moon that had been poking out in the opposite corner for some time, with its descent. A long empty road stretched forward endlessly beneath them with a few wooden utility poles accompanying it every few hundred feet or so, as far as the eye could reach. Perched on the overhead power lines were exactly 10 crows in the view, if anyone counted, cawing at a group of foreign people at a lone bus stop. The scene conveyed the impression of the group having escaped the hustle and bustle of city life to this serene, rural place to reconnect with nature, though the truth was nowhere near. Apart from a certain young man, not a single person had come here willingly.
Avah’s calm eyes of cornflower blue moved across the incorporeal bright blue screen which cast no light onto his face.
Avah Striken Rationality: 100 Resistance: 60 Weapons: None (Try stealing if you can’t afford to buy) Keepsakes: None (Maybe go dig some graves) Titles: None (Mr No-Achiever) Traverse: Unknown record Current World: Their Return Main Quest: Survive 5 days Story Quest: Undiscovered World Completion Rate: 0% Soul Points: 0
After giving them a minute or so to look at their system, the two-meter man started with an introduction, “The name’s Masom and this’s my 5th world. For now, all you need to know is Rationality which obviously represents your rationality or how much influence fear has on your judgement and action, if you couldn't tell. As it drops you will start seeing things, become more susceptible, and will eventually get attacked by them, even in broad daylight. Once it reaches zero, you go insane and become a part of this world. And then, there’s Resistance, a representative of both your health points and physical strength. Lower Resistance also lowers your Rationality. Newcomers don’t usually have any Keepsakes or Titles but if you do, figure them out yourself. Now introduce your name and your number of worlds so we can continue.”
There was one more thing they had to look out for other than their Rationality and Resistance inside the world of rifts. It was what the Overseers referred to as the ‘green sign’, an emergency exit of the world through which they could leave early without completing their main quest. Masom intentionally chose to not mention it because once the newcomers knew about it, they would focus all of their energy on finding one over their survival and thus dying faster. More deaths increased the overall difficulty of the world to everyone’s disadvantage. Either way, they won’t be able to find it even with a lifetime of luck for the green signs were not easily found even with seeking-type Keepsakes.
At his command, Aythe, one of the girls crying earlier, was the quickest to introduce herself, wanting to make a good impression on Masom who naturally took the role of the leader, “I’m Aythe. This is my first time.” She had long black hair down to her hip in one neat French braid with her sharp features only standing out now that she was no longer crying.
“I’m Mara and this’s Ning. We’re here for the second time.” Ning gave a warm smile to everyone exposing her braces while Mara slightly tapped on Irina’s shoulder to encourage her.
“I-I am Irina, this is the first-” Irina started hesitantly only to be interrupted by the baby-faced man.
“Oliver, third world. Let’s get over with it already.”
The cotton candy hair tsked at him before she introduced herself as Khassa. “This is also my third world.”
Avah thought he should finally introduce himself when the purple-haired, no longer cursing as he seemed to have been greatly satisfied with his system, cut him off instead. “My name is Peter although this is my first time here, you should not look down on me or exclude me on important missions.” He said in a smug tone as if he was barely holding himself back from revealing his hidden strengths.
“My name’s Dimen, this is my first world.” Even though he might never see those people again, Avah introduced himself by his Ranker’s name instead. To his friends and family, he was Avah but most people on Earth referred to him Dimen. Although he was not a huge fan of the name ‘Dimen’, he started to associate himself with the name when he was in a rift fighting with his life on the line or when he was greeted by civilians expressing their gratitude for protecting his and their world.
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“Are you sure?” The man who spoke out of nowhere had bright lava-red hair reminding Avah of his little self-declaration of how red was his ominous colour. What bothered him more was that he had an inkling that he had seen the man before but his last brain cell refused to recall.
“Huh? What do you mean? I’m positive that this is my first time here.”, he replied pondering if the man knew him too. Could he be from Earth or from his current world?
“No, that’s not…never mind. I’m Adnam. Third time here.”
With that, it went back to Masom’s turn as he said, “The reason for this little self-intro is that the ranking of the world generally depends on it. To be more precise, how dangerous the world is can be roughly guessed by the number of newcomers present. We have 5 newcomers out of 10 so this shouldn’t be so terrible. That doesn’t mean you can let your guard down and court death. You’re now traversing this world. Great powers are guaranteed if you can get out of this place alive. You’ll be awarded only after you’ve left this world having completed the main mission but, if you die, the sole ruling entity of this world, our enemy, will immediately grow stronger having consumed your soul. So, be aware that any death would drag the surviving people down, and do not conspire against each other.” Masom stressed on the last part hoping the newcomers this time wouldn't be a pain in his ass like his last world.
Masom was going to continue preaching about how they should cooperate when he suddenly heard a loud, rattling noise all of a sudden. It was an old, small-sized dump truck with its yellow paint decorated with layers of rust from years of transporting dirt and gravel. To no one’s surprise, its engine which had been in service for such a long time made a deep rumbling sound like that of a wild beast along with rhythmic creaking of its metal parts. That was exactly why unsettlement and doubt brewed in the heart of everyone on the spot. They had not heard any noise of the truck approaching them at all until it had come close for them to be able to see its driver.
“Hey! You guys are here. Quickly get on, everyone at the village is waiting for your return.” It was an old man with a wrinkled and sunburned face. His friendly greeting could not ease their mind from his truck’s sudden appearance. The nasty smell of diesel coming from him along with his bloodshot eyes darting around as if making eye contact was an unforgivable sin didn't help either.
The back of the truck that he pointed at was visibly muddy and dusty. Maybe it was the last drop of their fortune that the dump bed was dry. But, the drop should not have been much as there were armfuls of plastic bottles filled with foul-smelling, reddish-yellow liquid of who knew what, some of which leaked from the loosely screwed caps permanently staining onto the truck. All of them were reluctant to get on but they knew beggars had no right to choose unless they wanted to spend their night out in the open in this outlandish place. Although he was unenthusiastic to do so too, Avah(Dimen) was the first to get on with not much hesitation. It wasn’t just once or twice that he had slept on warm corpses of monsters he had just killed inside the rifts to not freeze to death. A filthy truck was still better even if it wasn’t by much.
Seeing Dimen get himself as comfortable as someone on a dump truck could, the others followed suit. Masom signaled everyone with his eyes to keep quiet as they got on and soon the truck started to head away from the bus stop in the opposite direction from where the sun was setting to a place that might just be their grave. As the truck sped up, sharp cold wind mercilessly slashed against any flesh that was exposed. Masom and Adnam surrounded the girls shielding them with their bodies as much as they could while Dimen, having given his coat to Irina who was wearing a crop top and shorts, sat by himself near the truck head at the front.
Never did he think that he would miraculously find himself at peace inside a rift. The rifts of Earth contained no human-like creatures that could communicate nor were there any civilizations such as this one. Even the quiet night’s cold air felt comforting to him as he lightly closed his eyes and concentrated on the noise of the truck as it rushed them toward the village.
A short while after he had recited the Ponian Empire’s national anthem in his mind to ease his boredom, the truck took a left turn leaving the concrete road. Although the concrete road was in bad condition, it was nothing compared to the dirt road they were now on. The truck shook like crazy and no matter how they sat, every bump and jolt made them feel dizzy as those with car sickness leaned over to vomit which only stirred up their stomach. Rather than the dust that flew into their eyes, noses, and mouths, everyone was more anxious about the condition of the truck as they silently hoped that it wouldn’t break down forcing them to spend the night here.
At last, they found themselves strangely relieved to see a small sign that said ‘Welcome to Rago’. As the truck driver said, everyone from the village was indeed waiting for them, just that the group got an inexplicable feeling about the villagers. Something about their eyes gave off an impression that they were instead waiting for the cows to be delivered before a festive night. Around thirty elder men were standing at the front almost motionlessly with some younger people behind them while most others were peeking from inside their houses. Hundreds of pairs of eyes were all focused on the ten people on the truck and continued to stare wordlessly and almost lifelessly as they got off.
Finally, a serious-looking elderly with a heavy air around him broke the deafening silence as he spoke to them, “Welcome back, good children. You might feel out of place in our humble village since you’ve been staying in the cities for so long but may our warm welcome put you at peace.”He motioned to a young man who stood on his right side and continued, “You must be tired from the trip, right? Johnny will take you to where you’ll be staying and there are some light snacks prepared for you there. Don’t worry about anything and just rest for the night.”
At the same time as the old man had finished talking, a pop-up screen appeared in front of all ten of them.
[[ You are orphans from the village who had been studying at a big city having been sponsored by the villagers. You’ve returned to the village during a holiday to rediscover yourselves. Please be on your best behavior or your sponsorship will be terminated once you reach 0 favorability with any of the villagers and will be kicked out of the village into the wild. ]]
[[ Main Quest: Survive five days (0/5) ]]