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[Congratulations -El-L-i-u-a Kn---as Error- You are now being inducted into the World Order System!]
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The words flash into my vision, flickering and twisted as they attempt to right themselves in the air. A soft glow that burns my sensitive eyes to look at. As the barely functioning logical portion of my brain manages to comprehend the text I find myself more confused than ever.
What? I was already inducted into The System! And what is up with my name!?
Uncaring for my internal screaming, the text box changes, and like a broken computer terminal new words are spit out at a rapid pace.
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[Your Magic has been determined and your starting Skill has been granted.]
[Your Magic has been determined and your starting Skill has been granted.]
[Your Magic is -Light- and your starting skill is -Light Beam-]
[Your Magic is -Golemancy- and your starting skill is -Create Golem-]
[Congratulations on your induct-]
[Error, System interference detect-]
[Solution Found]
[Activating Backup AI Interface]
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Before I can even think any further about the strange error messages in this game-like system, or what the hell is up with my brain, A woman pops out of thin air. This woman is beautiful with long black hair and piercing blue and golden eyes. Standing straight, the woman in the maid outfit looks me over before speaking.
“Hello, I am Support Interface 073 and I will be assisting you from now on due to The System having trouble fully interfacing with your soul.” Her gaze is fixed and gentle yet completely devoid of any meaningful expression.
“Um, ok? what does that mean exactly?” I inch back incredulously as I try to organize my thoughts, which is quite difficult considering I now seem to be a mix of the two different minds. The sensation of having my memories and thoughts thrown into a blender then pressed into a new personality is rather unpleasant.
Smiling politely, the girl in the maid outfit answers my question. “Due to an unknown error The System is unable to read your mind which prevents it from providing proper assistance in your path. As a backup you have been provided with access to the supplementary support system. This system, AKA myself, can be asked whatever questions you have. And if I am permitted I will provide you answers. However since The System can not access your thoughts you must speak aloud to receive said answers.”
Huh, weird. I have never heard of anyone else ever having to query The System verbally or any kind of AI support system. Though I must say I am glad the thing can’t read my mind, It would be creepy knowing this system thing is always listening to my innermost thoughts.
Looking up at the AI lady, I wait for her to say more. And as I wait I realize she won’t be saying anything else, which is not very helpful.
Pushing myself off the ground I stand up and look myself over. As far as I can tell my body is that of the person who was originally from this world. Though I don’t see her, my? our? stab wound. I guess it was healed when I was reincarnated... resurrected? I am honestly not sure what to call this anymore. Well, whatever. I shrug my shoulders, ignoring what is very likely a severe mental break, and stare at my new AI assistant in a maid outfit. She doesn't seem to react at all to my staring.
Honestly this is disappointing. I was expecting something more interactive.
“Can you um, I don’t know, act more human-like? Standing there all stiff and responding to me with minimal answers is kind of off putting.” My confusion abating, I start to find a groove in my new mind and let it take over as I try and push along with this new normal. A moments pause and I see that she just seems to be staring past me, as if I am not even worth thinking about. If I am going to be stuck with an AI following me around all day then I would prefer something with life to it.
To be honest I was not really expecting an answer. The AI seemed disinterested, if that is even something an emotionless AI can be. However, the projection suddenly seems to take a moment of its own at my question before answering with a slightly different cadence in its voice.
“Of course, You may set my personality, appearance, and voice to any settings you see fit. Though you may only do so once.” The whole response is given as emotionlessly as possible but... Something seems off about the way she is saying it but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I am about to question things further, but decide that doing so would be a waste of what little mental processing power I currently have. And I honestly am not the kind of person to bother.
Getting back to the actual choice I have been given I thoroughly inspect the maid before me. Hmm, I am not sure what to do now, there are so many options and I don’t want to turn her into something annoying. I would hate to have to deal with a bubbly personality or someone who is overly pushy. I try thinking it over, but in the end it seems like both of the minds that make up the new me are the rather impulsive sort.
“Can you take on the appearance of a cute young villainess type girl who is a bit of a tsundere?” With a bit of a sick glint in my eyes I decide to pursue something I would find entertaining.
“Pervert.”
Suddenly standing before me is not a stunning maid but an adorable young girl, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, with blonde hair in cute pigtail drills in a sweet but slightly classy academy uniform. The little villainess is glaring at me with a bit of a blush on her cheeks.
“Perfect, I am going to call you Alice!” It may have been a rash decision but I already have no regrets.
“Out of all the possible choices you seriously wanted me like this? sigh, stop looking at me like that, I am a mental projection so it is not like you can get your grubby little mitts on me.”
I can’t stop grinning at how she looks and how she speaks. It is like she jumped right out of my deepest fantasies! I am curious how she can so quickly determine my gaze is an impure one, but I have more important things to worry about right now. “Well whatever." I dismiss her glare to ask a question I probably should have asked earlier. "So uh, where am I?”
Alice looks at me for a moment before giving an expression I can only describe as exhausted resignation. “Let's see, considering the stupidly massive trees and thick mana in the air my guess would be Avaton, or as the human race lamely calls it ‘The Sea of Trees.'”
Looking around at the earthy grey wooden pillars reaching into the sky and blocking my view with their thick green canopies, I realize I do actually recognize the scene from one of the books I studied as a kid. A forest full of powerful monsters that covers more area than all of the human nations put together. A place where a level 1 schmuck like me would be crushed in an instant. I just got dumped into the most dangerous place in the mortal realm.
“Shit.”
Staring up at the skyscraper like trees towering overhead I feel my mind start racing as I try to comprehend my situation. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I turn towards my personal and adorable AI Alice and I ask a rather rhetorical question. “Am I in, like, serious danger right now?”
“Yah, obviously.” She rolls her eyes.
“Well fuck, any suggestions on staying alive?”
“I would start by looking at your status, your only hope is that you can figure out how to use your skills to not get eaten before you inevitably starve to death.” Alice's voice comes out incredibly patronizing. The venom in her words, while rather rude, somehow helps me keep the panic under control.
“Why does it sound like you expect me to die no matter what?” I glare back at the AI girl.
“Because I do. Now hurry up before something comes to bite your head off for a morning snack.” This time with a little more bite and a hint of urgency I find myself unable to banter further as the villainess tells me what to do.
“Yes ma'am!” Giving a dumb salute that earns me chilling glare I focus on following her instructions. Stopping myself from the constant pacing I had not even noticed I had been doing, I opened my status.
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“Why is my status not opening?!” According to every lesson I was taught, I should be able to simply think and my status will open. I look up to see Alice with a clearly annoyed look on her face.
“Were you not paying attention? The System can’t read your mind, that is why I am here in the first place. Your only way to access The System is by speaking aloud. Now hurry along and open it!” Alice snorts as she lifts her button like nose in the air. An air of superiority surrounds her as she berates me. However, I can sense a bit of worry in the latter portion of her statement.
“Ah, I forgot about that. Ok um… Status?” Instantly a glowing panel appears in front of me. Though something about it looks off. I expected something sleek and refined but the screen before my eyes looks like it belongs on a vacuum tube tv from the 80s with orange text reading out my status as if it is a retro text adventure game.
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[Status]
-El-L-i-u-a Kn---as Error-
Species: Human
Level: 1
Class: 1
Magic: Light, Golemancy
Skills:
[Lesser Identification]
[Lesser Clean]
[Lesser Repair]
[Light Beam] Lv-1
[Create Golem] Lv-1
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“Huh.” My eyes bore into the information, mainly my messed up name. “Can I just set my name as ‘Lua Knight’ for now?”
I really don’t understand what is going on or how I have managed to break what I thought was an integral part of reality. What I do know is I want to file a bug report, several of them.
“Yes, though you won’t be able to change it again later unless something major happens.” The AI girl responds with a bit of uncertainty of her own, which again I find curious, but don’t have the time to question such things right now.
“Ok, that is fine, probably best for my name to match my body… How do I use my skills? Just say them?”
“Yes, although I would advise against shouting your skill names like a child playing make believe. Unless you want to announce a free meal to all the nearby monsters.”
“Rude.”
Smiling at Alice and her slightly bitchy attitude, I give it a shot.
“[Lesser Identification]”
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[Tree - It’s a tree]
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“Well, that is not very helpful.” I glare at the floating text box hovering in my vision.
“I really don’t know what you were expecting.” Crossing her arms and looking down on me, Alice continues her disappointed glare that she has had on for quite a while now.
Pointedly ignoring the disapproving glare at my waste of mana, I decide to just go ahead and try another one of my skills.
“[Light Beam]”
And at that, I feel a lot more of my mana move inside my body, flooding out towards my pointed finger and straight into the tree I am pointing at. Launching out from my finger is a beam as wide as my arm glowing a bright white. I can barely look directly at it, squinting my eyes to keep track of its trajectory is difficult without going blind.
I see it fly forward and impact the thick gray and brown bark of the tree in front of me. And a moment later it dissipates, doing absolutely nothing to the tree.
“Um, isn’t this supposed to be an attack skill? Why didn’t it do anything?” It sure looked like an attack skill, but maybe my memories are still too jumbled to realize it isn't.
“Well first of all, the trees in this forest are tougher than enchanted steel, and secondly it is a beam of light. The most you are going to do with it is blind someone, or yourself, for a second and give away your position to the monster currently heading your way.” Alice's minor reminded of the stupid durability of the trees in this forest aside; I really am concerned about my lack of firepower in this five star hell hole of trees and death.
“That is really stupi- wait, what monster?”
Suddenly I hear a screech coming from my right and in the distance is a small green figure holding a wooden club and staring at me like I just kicked its favorite puppy.
“Shit! [Lesser Identification]!” Screaming out I finally remember more of the horrible training I went through on combat and identify my enemy before anything else.
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[Goblin - Lv : 9]
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And what I see has the color draining from my face.
Scrambling, I try to run away from the goblin that is 8 levels above me. But the thing is already chasing after me, and the bastard is fast for its size.
“Huh, you must be quite lucky to only run into something so low level this deep in the forest.” out of the corner of my eye I see Alice casually standing around as she watches me run for my life with a bored look on her face.
“Stop just watching and tell me how to survive this!” The goblin is gaining on me and she is fucking standing there!
“Sorry, but that is not my job. I am just here to help you use The System. Good luck!” She smiles and gives me a big thumbs up. Though I can see a bit of an apologetic look in her eyes.
“Fuck!” Her guilty expression however does not improve my situation.
Looking around for something, anything that I can use to fight back, I notice a silver glint on the ground by the tree I woke up under. The dagger my mother used to kill me.
Ah, memories.
I leap out of the way as the goblin swings its club at my head and scramble for the knife. A heavy thud rumbles the ground behind me as dirt sprays out everywhere.
Holy shit! If I got hit I would have been crushed instantly!
I fumble around for a moment as I dig into the dirt with sweaty hands, my heartbeat racing at a million miles per hour I do my best to grab the sliver knife under the cloud of dust surrounding the area. My eyes sting just from the small particles of dirt that make their way in and my lungs burn from the exertion.
Finally wrapping my hand around the handle of the blade, I flip over on my back, facing towards the goblin charging towards me out of the thick dusty air. It brings its club right down on my head again as I lay there clutching the small knife. Just before it can start to bring its arm down I immediately sit up and lean in to doge the strike while also jamming my knife into its chest. Grinning, I know I won.
Clink.
The knife chips off to the side, barely scratching the goblins skin. “You have got to be kidding me?!” The club strikes right behind me spraying a cloud of dirt into the air again, obscuring my vision. However the goblin knows where I am as I freeze up, dagger still clutched in my hands. As a reward for my attempt I get kicked in the stomach and end up flying backwards into the distance.
“Gahk-!”
I can barely breathe as I cough out an unhealthy amount of blood from the strike. It hurts so much I want to cry. Actually I am certain I am already crying as my vision blurs. Damn it! How am I supposed to kill something at level 9 when I am only level 1?! And most of all what kind of shitty knife can’t even kill a goblin?!
I can barely move, clutching my stomach with one hand as I try and push myself up with the other. But my hand slips and I end up sliding my hand into a root sticking out of the ground. And the root cuts deep into the side of my hand.
“Fuck!”
Blood pours out of the wound at a concerning pace, the wound stings but I am used to pain. This day can’t get any worse. I got to experience dying twice in a day and got brought back to life only to die immediately after. It's stupid! It's unfair! I bet that cube god is laughing at me right now. I can feel despair creeping in as the pain in my hand worsens, the agonizing internal bleeding and likely cracked ribs from that kick draining my will to live.
I am so tired. I just want to sleep.
I start to close my eyes, giving in to the deep exhaustion, when I freeze. I feel a rush of anger flood me, remembering all the shit I have been through until this moment. Being ostracized and discriminated against all my life on earth, getting treated like a tool instead of a human being by my parents in this world. The pain, the loneliness, the fear I felt as I died with a silver blade in my gut.
No.
I won’t die.
Not again!
My mind races, and then it grinds to a halt. I look down at my left hand, still bleeding from the deep hole into it. Maybe, I am not so dead after all. My pushing on the root managed to knock it out of the ground slightly, It was apparently not a root but a single broken twig. I can work with this.
Looking up I see the goblin barreling towards me once again. I only have one shot at this. I grab the stick and yank it as hard as I can, over and over to try and dislodge it from the ground. Sweat pouring down my back and blood covering the ground as the goblin gets closer and closer.
I won’t make it in time! The stupid stick is too stuck!
“[Light Beam]!”
I shout with my other hand aiming straight for the goblin's eyes. A flash of bright light shoots out and the goblin screams. I roll over to the side as it strikes down, missing me just barely.
Finally, blood still pouring down my hand from the exertion, I manage to yank the stick out of the ground as the goblin turns towards me, angrier than ever. And just as it is about to strike down again to crush me beneath its club-
“[Light Beam]!”
-I blind it again and ram the sharp end of the stick right into its face. It screams out for a second and then stops, dropping to the ground dead.
I did it, I won!
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[Level 9 Goblin defeated!]
[Bonus Experience is awarded for defeating a creature 5 or more levels above you!]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
[Skill [Light Beam] has leveled up!]
[You have learned the skill [Flash]!]
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My eyes reflect the glowing orange interface as I grin weakly to myself. “Nice.” Then I collapse onto the bloody dirt beneath me, staring up at the proof of my victory.
