Inside a darkened room, a naked man slept peacefully on his bed. If Luke hadn’t shut the curtains before he went to bed, he may have been aroused by rays of sunshine. Unfortunately, his day started with violent knocking at his door.

  Luke jumped out of bed and hurried to put his clothes on. He decided to leave the brown jacket and just wear his pants and shirt before opening the door.

  “Morning” said Luke.

  “Good morning” muttered Matt.

  “Didn’t sleep well?” asked Luke.

  “I did, but I could really use a coffee” said Matt with a shrug.

  “The champion’s cabin doesn’t come with an espresso machine if that’s why you’re here” said Luke.

  “That was one reason but I also wanted to talk about how we’re going to level up. We’d probably be in less danger if we do it in groups rather than alone” he said.

  “I’m glad you’re taking this seriously. How are the others doing? I assume most of you spent a few hours talking about this last night?” asked Luke.

  “Well, most of us agree that we ought to treat this as our new reality, strange as it is. Surprisingly, Johnny came around rather quickly and even helped convince some of the others”

  “Maybe he’s taken a “new world, new me” resolution” said Luke, hoping it lasted.

  “So what should we do about the monsters?” asked Matt.

  “We’ll be swift but wary” said Luke, remembering the message he’d gotten when he was transported to the village.

  “Don’t try to be Gandalf, what does that even mean?” asked Matt in annoyance.

  “It means we need to balance safety and efficiency. Obviously, moving in large groups and attacking the weakest monsters is safest, but I doubt it will be efficient. In most video games, you gain little to no experience from doing stuff like that so it’s probably the same here. We need to take on some risk to be strong enough for the trial” replied Luke.

  Matt nodded in agreement and for a few seconds, the two of them went quiet as they thought about how to proceed.

  “I saw that most of us got spears but do we have any archers?” asked Luke, breaking the silence.

  “Jim and Mary got bows, but Mary’s not particularly skilled with it” said Matt.

  “They’ll probably be in less danger than the close combat fighters. Having some sort of long range attack would be nice” said Luke.

  “Maybe this world has magic! Imagine shooting fireballs at goblins and kobolds!” cried Matt, with a sudden burst of energy.

  “I forgot you were a fantasy nerd” sighed Luke.

  “Oh don’t act like you don’t want magic, everyone does”

  “I don’t care” said Luke, lying through his teeth.

  Matt stared back at him, clearly not buying it, which prompted Luke to change the subject before his deception was revealed.

  “Anyway, I think we should start by fighting some really weak monsters” said Luke.

  “Should we do that right now? I think we’re also supposed to eat what we hunt, there’s no food here” said Matt with a groan.

  “But are you hungry, or even thirsty for that matter?”

  “Um, no?” said Matt, with a confused expression.

  “Neither am I, but we should be. It’s not just that, yesterday I was annoyed to see that there was no toothbrush here but even though I’ve just woken up my breath feels fine” said Luke.

  “So our bodies were altered by whatever brought us here” muttered Matt.

  “I’d assume so but that’s not important right now. We’ve only got a few days to prepare for the trial, so to answer your question from earlier, we should indeed start hunting right now” said Luke.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Matt agreed and Luke went back inside to get his sword. When he returned, Matt was holding a foot long dagger which Luke didn’t even realize he had on him.

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh don’t tell me you’re a knife hater” said Matt indignantly.

  “Everyone’s a knife hater, it’s the dumbest weapon” retorted Luke.

  “I’ll have you know that I’m a level 22 knife wielder, the monsters stand no chance against me” said Matt.

  “Don’t jinx it” replied Luke as he and Matt started to walk towards the tree line. Soon, they were out of sight of the cabins.

  “Should we have gotten the others to come with us?” asked Matt.

  “I feel like they’d sooner stab themselves with their spears than kill a monster” said Luke.

  “Mean but true” agreed Matt.

  For the next ten minutes, the two of them walked around without seeing anything unusual. Along the way, they made conversation and Luke enjoyed it quite a bit. It wasn’t like the old days, when his depression made him want to do nothing except sit around and feel sad.

  Eventually, they found a “monster”. Matt saw it first, pointing towards a small snake on the grass with a questioning look. Luke shrugged and decided to give it a shot. He stepped forward and casually sliced the serpent in half which instantly prompted a familiar ring.

  *You have slain [Grassviper (Lvl.1)], 10 EXP earned*

  *You’ve reached Level 1, +1 to all stats, +1 free point*

  Once again, Luke felt as if the energy within the snake was now his. However, while it was certainly a pleasant sensation, it didn’t feel nearly as good as the first time. To be honest, Luke was grateful for the fact, he didn’t want to end up addicted to killing.

  “Did it work?” asked Matt.

  “Yeah, I levelled up. You get a “+1 to all stats” and a free point to assign. Speaking of which, I should do that now” he replied, willing his status to be shown to him.

  STATUS

  Name: Luke Carpenter

  Race: Human (Lesser)

  Level: 1

  Rank: 0

  Class: N/A

  Health: 100%

  Stamina: 96%

  Mana Reserves: 100%

  Free points: 1

  Skill points: 0

  STATS

  Strength: 19

  Agility: 18

  Toughness: 14

  Stamina: 21

  Vitality: 12

  Perception: 19

  Soul: 17

  Spirit: 14

  Luke decided to just assign his free point to strength and bring it to twenty. After he willed the screen away, he saw Matt staring at him curiously.

  “Do you feel stronger?” he asked.

  “Maybe a little bit” said Luke.

  “I can’t believe a small snake is all we need to level up” said Matt, looking oddly disappointed.

  “You might need a bit more. I’d already killed a monster before so that might have helped” replied Luke.

  “Oh yeah, I saw something about that. That's when the system said you were the champion” said Matt.

  “The system?”

  “Yeah that’s what the screens and stuff come from, it’s called the system” he said.

  “How on earth do you know that?” asked Luke.

  “I asked it” said Matt, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Try it” he encouraged after seeing Luke’s disbelief.

  What are you? thought Luke, feeling rather stupid as he did so.

  *I am everything…from the earth to the stars, I bind the universe together*

  *I have many names but most mortals call me the system*

  “It’s pretty dramatic” commented Luke.

  *Fuck you*

  Luke stared at the message for a few seconds before he decided not to start a fight with the so called system.

  “Let’s find a monster for you to kill” he said, looking at Matt.

  As it turned out, their village was apparently located in the most lifeless area there was. The two men walked for hours without finding anything worth killing. Along the way, Matt had squished a beetle to see if it had some effect but as expected, it gave him no exp.

  “We should head back, we’ll try again later.” said Luke after they’d walked so far that they’d reached a crystal blue lake.

  “Alright” said Matt miserably.

  “The water looks nice” he added after a few seconds.

  “You cannot be this stupid…” said Luke, rubbing his temples.

  “What?! We’ve been walking for hours and it’s hot as balls out here, let’s have a swim!” cried Matt.

  “Yeah that sounds great, let’s swim straight into some fish monster’s mouth!”

  “…Point taken”

  Although they agreed not to swim, they did stand there for a few minutes, enjoying the cool breeze. The water did look very inviting but Luke couldn’t even imagine what sort of creatures dwelled within.

  “Do you think fishing would give us exp?” asked Matt.

  “Probably, but I doubt we’ll catch a big one. Here’s what we should focus on for now…” said Luke. He turned to look at Matt, intending to elaborate but that’s when he noticed something on a nearby tree.

  Hanging from one of the lower branches, was a small creature with brown fur. It looked like a cross between a sloth and a monkey and had a tiny horn on its forehead.

  Matt followed his gaze and grinned when he noticed the creature. Without hesitation, he walked over to it with his dagger raised high.

  As it turned out, he probably should have hesitated. As soon as Matt got close to the strange animal, it spit out a black blob at him. He leaped back in shock, and just in time too. The dark liquid splashed on the grass where he’d been standing and started to dissolve it.

  “I’m glad we didn’t have to find out what lived in the lake” said Luke after a few seconds of stunned silence.

  “I guess I owe you for that…but what do we do about this thing?” asked Matt.

  “Throw a rock at it” said Luke.

  “What?”

  “It’s probably got a limited range on that acid attack. Just throw rocks at it until its dead” said Luke.

  And so, Matt started stoning the creature. Luckily, it resembled a sloth in more ways than one and was too slow to escape. Eventually, the bloodied animal stopped moving.

  As soon as it did, Matt started to sway slightly with a stupid smile on his face. Luke grimaced at the comical scene. He may have laughed at it if not for the implication…

  There’s no way I looked like that after I killed the cat he thought.

  *You did*