I awoke not far from where I went to sleep. Went to sleep was a super generous and very kind way to say collapsed like a house of cards. Surprisingly my nighttime construction project had not collapsed like the aforementioned cards. Awkwardly I rose to my feet and looked around. The view was in short stunning. The path we had begun to cut through the lush dense forest stretched out before me. A mountain range extended across the entirety of the western horizon. To the east the forest continued eventually giving way to plains in the distance. To the south hills and valleys covered in forest stretched out to the horizon.

  Excitement welled up inside me hadn’t the voice said something about territory. With a wave of my hand I opened the magical scroll. The territory was the same. Or rather the lack of a territory was the same. Turns out what magic omnipotent British voice number thirty seven said was just bogus. The Map had updated now showing a massively large area that was as far as I could tell was satellite accurate. Part of me knew things weren’t gonna be easy, video games usually weren’t but I was kinda secretly hoping for this to be more sand boxy. With a heavy sigh I began my long trek down from the top of the watchtower.

  Curare, apparently didn’t sleep all that well on the tower, was an extremely grouchy and unpleasant companion all the way down. After completing the descent we discovered everyone was eating breakfast in the main hall. Someone had prepared breakfast, I didn't know who had done it but I was thankful. Magic as it turned out made people incredibly hungry. The food wasn’t great, no complaints, beggars can't be choosers and I was starving. There was a lot of talk at breakfast. I for the most part tuned it out. Between the lack of sleep, having too much to do and no time to be wasting, I just didn’t even bother to tune in.

  The fact was they didn't know why they were there, they didn't know how they got summoned and standing around and talking about it didn't really solve all the problems they had. The four people at the center of the debate seemed to be Don the Dwarf, Guitari the Dragonman Wizard, Nerium the Ninja, And May-Mihn they mer-selkie. Nerium normally didn't speak much and didn’t share a lot about who he was back on Earth. Dressed in dark blue leather armor he was covered practically head to toe. When he wasn’t wearing a hood and face mask he looked good in that rugged adventurer type of way. With black hair and tan skin he just had that hot tough guy look that so many seemed to like.

  The girl sitting next to him was May-Mihn. She was pretty in her own way, with teal colored hair, and orange yellow eyes. Fin-like ears marked her as being something other than human. She had a set of small holes on her back that acted like blow holes. On her front she had a slim breast band that was mostly obscured by her long cascading hair. While her hands had normal human digits her arms had small fins. On her hips she wore a kind of loin cloth that had a large long bit of fabric that went down to her knees draped in front of her. May had webbed feet and another set of fins on the back of her legs. A long tale that widened out into a large fin almost the size of her torso completed her fantastical appearance. The entirety of her body was dolphin-like in look and texture. Color wise she was a slate blue with a lighter shade on her torso.

  “Look alright I’m just sayin we should do some explorin,” Don cut in loudly.

  “Yes! Exactly what I say. We stay safe, stay here, Timothy say,” Nerium replied.

  “Propositioning everyone to abandon the valley is preposterous,” Guitari pontificated boisterously.

  “Shit we adults, even Alice she’s 18,19 sometin. Timothy fuckin treats us like shit eatin kids sometimes,” Don stated.

  “He is thirty five to us he’s old enough to be a parent,” Guitari pointed out.

  “I’m 28 ain’t no way,” Don declared.

  “We should be looking for a way home,” May-Mihn interjected.

  They continued to argue loudly back and forth getting louder and louder. This was driving me up the wall. Mana fatigue was like a bad hangover and it was made worse by there not being anything like Ibuprofen in this world. If I wasn’t eating I would have run away but my belly grumbled like an angry dog. I had reached my limit and I cut into the conversation.

  “Enough. We can’t look for a way home until we have enough food stores to mount an expedition. We don’t know how far away the nearest town or village is, other than it can’t be seen from the watch tower I just built. We are likely in the deep wilderness but we could be on a completely uninhabited continent. There are so many potential dangers to going out far into the unknown unprepared that we just can’t prepare for them all at this time. I see this like any survival rpg or sim game. In survival rpgs your biggest opponent was the clock. If you didn't start generating enough resources fast enough you'd run out of time and that would be game over. Except unlike a video game where if you messed up you could just close the game and restart messing up here would mean a very slow and painful death. That would be a bogus way to die and I don’t know about ya’ll but I don’t wanna die,” I interjected somberly. Rising from the table I scraped my plate then put the dish in a bucket.

  After building the out house I had created almost 1,000 small items ranging from dishware to buckets. They didn’t require a ton of resources but they, for some reason, required a ton of mana and appropriate “crafting/ building” tables. These tables were usable by absolutely no one else other than myself. So yeah I had an odd assortment of tables sitting by the warehouse. Which was next to the old fashioned outhouse. My power was so strange and weird that it was throwing everyone for a loop including me.

  I spent the next several days clearing the way for the four major roads and extending them out. The purpose of this was primarily to gather resources but the roads should make it easier for the hunting parties to get deeper into the woods faster. During these days I had hoped to maybe get on the good side with anyone but at the moment it seemed the only people who really liked me were Helen and Timothy. Rinn and Don didn’t dislike me but they weren’t fans ,that outburst probably didn’t help. Nerium and May-Minh being a married couple agreed on most things including their dislike of me. Maybe it was just in my head. People could like me and just be too exhausted to express the feeling.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  That was, however, a common feeling of the early days of Bogus. Exhaustion gripped everyone and everyone felt like there was no end in sight. Free time was a luxury that no one really had. Sleep was limited unless you got wiped clean of mana then you experienced an exhaustion conjured from the depths of hell. Which wasn’t better than being normally exhausted.

  If it wasn’t for the fact that our clothing and gear magically repaired itself in our sleep as well as cleaned itself we would have been grimey as all hell. As is, several people had begun to reek and Helen had to literally order people to go take baths. Things were blurring together as mana fatigue also makes you slightly stupid and makes it hard to form long term memories.

  All the same I one day found myself pouring over my resource screens. Or rather the section on my magical touch screen scroll thing. I had enough resources to construct everything except the forge. There was a huge problem and that problem was called stone. Everything needed it but the forge building was entirely constructed out of it. It was weird how in this case stone was just a stone it wasn't a specific kind of stone it was just stone. Pondering this and wasting time wouldn't do me much good. So, vowing to be productive, I set out to find Curare in hopes of getting to work building the necessary structures.

  The farm and it's two buildings went up without much of a hitch. The crafts workshop however was another story. The large building massively drained my mana pool and by the time I was done with the magic I was left weak and stumbling around. My speech was probably also a mess and slurred but noticing this would have taken self awareness that was currently lacking. Accomplishing my goals for the day was all I really hoped for. If slight mana fatigue was the price I was happy to pay.

  Shuffling into the temple hall in the evening, I found that Helen had cooked a meal for everybody. It wasn’t incredible but hunger and exhaustion made the meal fit for a king.

  “Slow down DJ, it won't run away,” Helen said with a giggle.

  “I’m just so hungry, mana starvation,” I said. Mana starvation was what they were calling the hunger associated with magic casting. It was causing a massive strain on their supplies as people were hungrier when they spent massive amounts of mana casting. As they leveled up this became more of a problem. More mana meant more mana drain which meant more hunger. It had been two weeks since I had awoken in this strange world. I still had no idea why I had ended up here but I decided worrying about it was a waste of time.

  “That’s why I was so excited about the level up this morning. I can now identify whether or not plants are edible and how easy they would be able to grow. Couple that with the growth magic and food problems will be a thing of the past,” Helen said confidently.

  “Wow that's so cool,” I said, admiring Helen.

  “Anyway I can’t stick around. We are trying to create healing potions tonight or at least experiment enough to level and magically learn the skill,” Helen said with a grin on her face as she got up from the table. I will admit that I watched her bounce away almost skipping down the hall. She was very nice to look at and you would have been blind not to notice her looks. Couple that with her drive, and compassion. Half of everyone was falling for her and quickly.

  “I wonder if I’ll get another level,” I pondered out loud.

  “Must be nice,” Curare responded.

  “What do you mean surely you've been leveling up,” I questioned, startled by the edge of agitation in their voice.

  “No I haven't. I haven't had the opportunity. It appears that my class needs to fight in order to level up. What have I been doing, oh yeah, I’m guarding you while you build magical buildings,” Curare stated angrily.

  “I didn't know,” I murmured, the good mood suddenly taken out like the flame of a birthday candle.

  “Great and now you know. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m stuck with this assignment. Timothy has emphasized over and over again how important you are to keep alive. I'm happy to be trusted with it. I just wish I was leveling up like everyone else,” Curare said, anger giving way to exasperation. Curare rose off the bench seat done eating. They began to leave the room. I couldn't leave things like this.

  “Curare!” Curare turned to look at me. I had risen from my seated position and was standing. My mind hadn’t quite finished figuring out what I was going to say. Things got awkward real fast. I stared for a minute. Curare stared right back. I opened and closed my mouth several times. The situation hit peak awkward when suddenly my brain finally caught up.

  “Tomorrow we will do some exploring. I can’t guarantee we will encounter fighting but maybe we will and hopefully you’ll level.”

  Curare didn’t smile but their face softened a bit and they nodded before turning and exiting the room. Unless they saw combat of some sort Curare was never going to level. I was very nervous about going out and looking for trouble. Especially with no combat abilities at all. If a fight did occur all I could do was build a box around myself and hide. Which sounded ever so glorious and dignified. It honestly wasn’t a bad strategy if Curare could actually wipe out enemies.

  “Shit….” Don said, having watched the exchange.

  “Shit’s right no levels blows,” Tawani chimed in. I looked down at the trio of Tawani, Rinn, and Don.

  “Mus make em what level two maysbe tree,” Don commented.

  “Three,” I mumbled miserably.

  “Are you serious? Only May-Mihn is that low,” Rinn added.

  “Hun, listen. I know you are a huge proponent of progress but maybe you need to sacrifice some so Curare can progress,” Tawani said sympathetically.

  “It’s just we needed so many things,” I said defensively.

  “Tawani’s got a point. We can live in the situation we have right now. We have toilets, a clean place to bathe in the river, a safe place to sleep, food, and overall a decent if not luxurious existence,” Rinn said.

  “Shit if this is decent you must have lived in a shithole,” Don commented.

  “I grew up in mobile,” Rinn said.

  “Alabama,” Tawani asked.

  “Sweet Home,” Rinn remarked.

  “Hillbilly Shithole,” Don whispered to me. “Tho fuck,” Don continued getting louder. “They gots a point. Dull knife’s a dangerous one.”

  “You got a point dudes. I’ll make sure to find a balance,”

  I mulled all of this over as I headed towards bed. Sleep found me quickly. That same robotic British omnipotent voice once again had news. Excitement. That is what I should have felt. Depression was what I felt instead. Curare wasn't hearing a similar voice in their dreams and that was because they were stuck looking after my pathetic self.

  Initiating level up procedure

  Dooley Jones level up to Builder level 6

  Builder level 6 accepted

  Health Increased From 50 to 55

  Manna Increased from 1200 to 1400

  Skill unlocked Mana regeneration

  Bogus Farms Established

  Registry Product of Bogus Established

  Bogus Farms, Bogus Warehouse, Bogus Craft shop established as Delineation Landmark.

  Establishing Bogus Territory…Success…Bogus Territory Established