The other man laughed, and nodded.
“Yeah dude, what the shit.” He agreed.
“I take it you’re all just as confused as I am then?” Teresa asked, seeing how everyone looked out of place. She couldn’t really imagine what one would have to do to look like they belonged in a perfectly white cube with floating orbs containing supernovas, but everyone around her was clearly not in charge of this whole operation, or whatever was going on.
“Yeah, I was watching TV one second, then suddenly I was in a white room with a screen in front of me that showed me my stats.” One of the women said, looking to be the oldest person present.
“Yeah I get what you mean, my buddy Preston here and I were in a call playing a game, then suddenly boom - white room. At one point it felt like there were strings of lava or something inside of me, it was weird.” One of the men said. “Oh yeah, names Jake by the way.”
“Madeline.” The woman who spoke earlier introduced herself, waving her hand.
“I’m Teresa.” Teresa said, raising her hand and waving awkwardly as well. The last woman was silent for a moment, before meekly introducing herself.
“Sarah.” She said quietly. She didn’t wave.
Another screen appeared in front of Teresa.
Select Class
Everyone in the room seemed to get a screen as well, however Teresa could only see her own.
“Everyone sees ‘Select Class’ right?” Teresa asked, looking around the room.
“Yeah, mine says that too.” The man named Preston said, looking between what Teresa assumed was his screen and the five floating orbs. He walked over to the orbs and stood in front of one, before jumping after being startled by something. “Oh shit, come over here and look.”
Everyone proceeded to approach the floaty supernova orbs, and once Teresa was standing in front of one and focused on it, a screen appeared.
Class: Ranger (F)
Grants the class “Ranger,” which focuses on archery and ranged attacks. Upon selection, user will be granted simple archery equipment, as well as a minute understanding of archery.
Includes the skills
+1 Strength, +2 Agility, +2 Perception per level.
Teresa read the description, and realized this worked almost exactly like a video game. She had a feeling the other class options would all be similar in that regard.
Class: Tank (F)
Grants the class “Tank,” which focuses on taking enemy attention and blocking damage. Upon selection, user will be granted simple bulwark equipment, as well as a minute understanding of shield usage.
Includes the skills
+1 Strength, +3 Fortitude, + 1 Vitality, +1 Unallocated per level.
Class: Light Warrior (F)
Grants the class “Light Warrior,” which focuses on hand to hand combat and quick movement. Upon selection, user will be granted simple warrior equipment, as well as a minute understanding of swordplay.
Includes the skills
+1 Strength, +1 Endurance, +3 Agility, +1 Unallocated per level
Class: Mage (F)
Grants the class “Mage,” which focuses on spells and Mana applications. Upon selection, user will be granted simple mage equipment, as well as a minute understanding of magic.
Includes the skills
+3 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +1 Unallocated per level
Class: Healer (F)
Grants the class “Healer,” which focuses on healing and Mana applications. Upon selection, user will be granted simple healer equipment, as well as a minute understanding of magic.
Includes the skills
+2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +1 Perception, +1 Unallocated per level
Reading through all of the classes, Teresa noticed a few things. Firstly, all of the classes granted five stat points and one unallocated point per level. They all granted two skills, and minute understanding in a related field. Teresa wondered what that meant, would she just have information downloaded into her brain if she chose a class? She had so many questions today, and none of them had been answered.
Furthermore, Teresa had doubts that she was dead. From the sound of it, no one else had been about to die when they got sent here. That didn’t rule out being dead completely, maybe the world ended just as Teresa was about to commit suicide. Or maybe, they all died and had their memories of their deaths removed, and building on top of that maybe the afterlife didn’t care about time. What if they had all died at different times and got sent here, with their memories erased?
“Hey, what day is it?” Teresa asked Jake, who happened to be standing next to her.
“Uh, Monday?” He answered.
“Okay yeah, but of what month? What year?” She continued. Jake looked confused for a moment before realization dawned on him.
“Oh shit, you think we might all have been sent here at different times? I didn’t even think of that. For me and Preston it was March, 2025. I honestly don’t remember the exact date though.” Jake admitted embarrassed.
“Yeah, it’s March, uh, well, I think the 20th was a few days ago, I had an assignment due then.” Preston said, also seemingly embarrassed that he didn’t know the date.
“March 24th, 2025.” Madeline said.
“Sounds right to me.” Sarah confirmed.
“I mean, what are the odds we would be doing some time travel type stuff? If we were all sent here at different points in time then surely someone would have heard of this happening before.” Madeline pointed out.
“Listen man, we all just got teleported into a white room and now there’s floating magical balls in front of us telling us to pick a class like it's some sorta RPG. I think questioning anything and everything is fair game right now.” Jake said, defending Teresa’s question. Teresa nodded in response. It looks like we’re all from the same time then.
“Oh shit dude, are we getting isekai’d right now?” Preston asked Jake, eyes wide. Teresa was not familiar with the term.
“Hell if I know, you’re the one who watches that slop.” Jake teased with a laugh. “You tell me.”
“Listen here buddy, it may be oversaturated as hell, but I love my isekai. Let me watch Reincarnated as a Potato Chip in peace God damnit.” The two laughed, before Preston turned serious. “Well shit, what kind of isekai is this? Hang on, let me test something.”
Preston turned his head to Teresa, looking her dead in the eyes.
“I can return by death.” He said, completely deadpan. Teresa was confused, what the hell does that mean? A very awkward moment passed before Preston sighed in relief.
“Nothing happened, oh thank God.” He said, seemingly having a weight off of his shoulders. “That would’ve sucked.”
“What are you talking about? You can come back from the dead or something?” Teresa asked, her confusion growing.
“No, I only have the translate skill, level 0. I was just making a refer-”
“He’s being dumb.” Jake interrupted, still smiling at a joke that honestly went over Teresa’s head. “Anyways, I think I’m going to take the tank class, unless there are any objections? I mean, I don’t know if multiple of us can take the same class, considering there’s five of us and five options to choose from. I play football in my senior year of highschool, so I think I’d be a good pick for it.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I’ll take ranger.” Sarah said, surprising Teresa. She seemed shy, so Teresa hadn’t expected her to speak up so quickly. “My aunt taught me how to shoot a bow when I was a teenager, though I haven’t really kept up with it.”
“I’ll take light warrior.” Preston said. “I used to do fencing.”
“Huh,” Teresa said, frowning. “I did kickboxing for a semester in college, though that was only a few months.”
Teresa looked at Madeline, who also hadn’t picked a class yet.
“I take it you have some sort of athletic experience as well?” Teresa asked her, taking a wild guess.
“Yeah actually, and I coach a track and field team for one of the local high schools.” Madeline answered, also seeming to have the same train of thought as Teresa.
They were all at a very similar level of athleticism. Teresa actually was probably one of the more well physically defined people present due to her gym going routine that she had kept up for just over two years now, though everyone seemed to be in pretty good shape.
A quick noise that sounded like a static TV turning off came from in front of Jake, and the orb in front of him had dimmed and disappeared. Jake was then covered in a blanket of white light, which dissipated as quickly as it appeared. He was now wearing heavy armor that made Teresa think of a cosplay knight outfit minus the helmet, and he held a large metal shield in front of him that was about three quarters his size.
“Looks like it is only one person per orb.” He said, gesturing to the space the orb had once occupied. Teresa and Madeline looked at each other, as they were the last to pick a class.
Honestly, Teresa didn’t mind either way. She absolutely wanted to learn magic, she was sure of that much. Who wouldn’t want to be able to cast spells? Before any of, well, whatever it is that was going on happened, magic was either sleight of hand or a card game depending on who you asked. If she could sling spells, that would be pretty badass.
Then again, being able to heal stuff would also be sick. What is the upper limit for healing? Would Teresa be able to cure cancer eventually? Or what if she got seriously injured after winning a fight against an opponent, being able to heal up quickly sounded incredibly useful if levels were involved.
That is, if leveling even had anything to do with fighting.
Teresa would be absolutely down for either class, or any of them really. She really wanted to try a bit of everything if that was an option. Too bad she couldn’t make new characters for multiple playthroughs of real life, otherwise she totally would.
“Let’s compare our stats and see who would be better for what class.” Madeline said, suddenly displaying her status screen.
Status:
Name: Madeline
Race: Human (Earth)
Level: 0 (F) (0%)
Class: N/A
HP: (45/45)
Stamina: (45/45)
Mana: (98/98)
Strength: 5
Fortitude: 4
Endurance: 4
Vitality: 4
Agility: 4
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 8
Perception: 6
Unallocated Points: 0
}
}
“How did you do that?” Teresa asked, seeing how Madeline had not only shared her screen but summoned it without saying “status,” out loud.
“You can make it appear if you just will it to do so, and I figured I might be able to share it if I just willed it to work like that.” Madeline responded. “I don’t really know how else to explain it, it's like explaining how to flex a muscle.”
Teresa nodded, and mentally tried to will her status screen out. Her status screen appeared in front of her, and she was also able to will it to be visible to Madeline.
“It looks like my Mana, Intelligence, and Wisdom are higher than yours, but we both have 41 stats distributed total.” Madeline said after some quick math. Teresa just nodded and agreed as if she had arrived at the same conclusion, even though she was still trying to add them all up and carry a few ones.
“In that case, you will probably be better suited to whatever magic you pick, so as a party do we want better magic damage or better healing?” Teresa asked. She wasn’t really ashamed to have slightly worse magic related stats than Madeline, considering she made up for it in physical stats.
“Honestly, I would say we should take better magic damage.” Jake answered. “Better healing sounds nice, but more magic damage might prevent us from needing to be healed in the first place.”
“That makes sense. Plus it grants the skill
“Go for it, I’m fine with picking healer.” Teresa encouraged, walking over to the healer orb. Everyone seemed content with their picks, though Sarah spoke up before anyone made a move.
“Shouldn’t we all check each other’s stats? Just in case?” She asked.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea. We might also get a better idea of how the stats work.” Teresa agreed. Soon, everyone’s status screen was displayed.
While Teresa and Madeline both had a total of 41 status points, that was not true for everybody. Sarah had 37, with most of her points being in Perception which had a high value of 9. Jake had 42 points total, one more than either Teresa or Madeline. His highest value was Strength, which was also a 9. His physical stats generally reflected Madeline’s magic stats, while his magic stats were all at 4.
Preston had the highest stats, with a total of 45. All of his stats were pretty good, barring fortitude and vitality which were both 4. This showed that people definitely could have different stats to start out with, which made sense to Teresa. If a bodybuilder started out with the same strength as a cheerleader, that would be wild.
However, everyone had the same translation skill and title, barring Jake who also had his class related skills now. Jake also had not gained any stats from taking his class, so there were no freebies being granted.
“I think we matched our stats to our classes pretty well then.” Preston said, looking back at the Light Warrior orb. “I say we just full send it.”
“Sounds good to me.” Madeline said, and soon flashes of white began covering multiple people as everyone picked their class. Teresa selected the healer orb, and a confirmation panel appeared.
Class: Healer (F)
Grants the class “Healer,” which focuses on healing and Mana applications. Upon selection, user will be granted simple healer equipment, as well as a minute understanding of magic.
Includes the skills
+2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +1 Perception, +1 Unallocated per level
Are you sure you would like to select: Healer (F)?
Yes
No
Teresa selected “Yes,” by willing it the same way she could will her status screen to appear, and it worked. It seemed that interacting with the panels using your will required you to really will it to happen. That was honestly relieving, as it meant Teresa wouldn’t accidentally do something by mistake due to an intrusive thought. It would really suck if one day she accidentally selected something due to an intrusive thought.
The reason she realized this was because when she first saw the panel, she thought What if I hit no? Like does it do anything or could I just walk away and it would assume I meant no? However, she didn’t test it, and soon was covered in a flash of white light herself.
Teresa was now wearing a light blue robe that made her think of a priest, or even the Pope. In her right hand was a long staff made of wood that still had the texture of a tree, even if it felt comfortable in her hands. The staff had a pale green orb at the top of it, and Teresa could vaguely feel something flowing inside the staff the same way she could feel blood in her arm
She also had a hat that once again reminded her of a generic healer from an anime or video game. Looking around, everyone seemed to appear exactly as she would expect them to. I guess these classes were pretty basic, the outfits would be too.
She opened her status screen again to see if anything had changed.
Status:
Name: Teresa
Race: Human (Earth)
Level: 0 (F) (0%)
Class: Healer lv 0 (F) (0%)
HP: (71/71)
Stamina: (71/71)
Mana: (45/45)
Strength: 6
Fortitude: 3
Endurance: 6
Vitality: 6
Agility: 4
Intelligence: 7
Wisdom: 4
Perception: 5
Unallocated Points: 0
}
}
Teresa had gotten no additional stats, but two additional skills. Interestingly,
She implicitly knew how to use
She checked her status screen again and saw that activating the skill briefly had drained her Mana by one, and increased her
A screen appeared in front of her once again.
Party Formed
Transporting Party to Tutorial…
FWOOMP
Once again. Teresa was teleported. She was no longer in a white room but outside somewhere. Beneath her shoes was grass, and everyone else was still there. However, that wasn’t what really got her attention.
“Dude, I don’t think we got isekai’d.” Preston said, as they all looked at what was a few hundred meters in front of them.
It was the friggin Statue of Liberty.