"O mighty God in Heaven, I pray that I may be reborn in a fantasy world."

I was in my room, meditating, as I was wont to do. The voices outside of my shut door turned to murmurs, then vanished completely as I cut off all sound from the outside world. Though it was less cutting off the sound and more just ignoring the sound until it didn't even register; it was less mystical in nature, and more just ferociously pretending reality wasn't real, which was one of my specialties. A specialty that also reflected itself in how I was pretending to believe in a sequence of gods in hope that one of them was simultaneously forgiving towards blasphemy and also powerful enough to grant my wish to be teleported away.

"O mighty Palutena in Angel Land, I pray that I may be reborn in a fantasy world."

My list of casual deities to pray to was quite long, and included video game characters as a matter of course. The gods of the ancient era formed from fables and oral traditions spoken over campfires for entertainment, so it stood to reason that they were just as legitimate as video game gods, even if the video game gods were created less out of awed respect for the inscrutable machinations of nature (thunder, the tides, etc) and more out of depraved lust for green-haired goddess babes. That said, I was being a bit presumptuous there. Who knew what the ancients were thinking of when they thought up Aphrodite? Perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Anyway, I rattled through a list of about twenty deities of various fakeness before opening my eyes. The sounds rushed back to my ears and I was instantly blasted right in the ear by the roar of some ungodly beast, so loud I found my self falling to my back. My brain rapidly processed all the sounds rushing to me now: clashing metal, screams, weeping, roars, explosions, and most of all, the roar of a massive green creature in front of me. An orc? I looked up at it and saw its axe lifted high in the air. I threw myself to the side, perhaps not gracefully, and heard the thunk of its axeblade sinking into the mud where I had been seconds ago. I scrambled to my feet and looked around desperately.

There were humans in armor wielding swords and spears fighting massive orcs—I already felt comfortable calling them that by this point, call me quick on the uptake—wielding mostly axes. It may have been organized warfare at the start, but by this point it was an all-out melee, with orcs and humans clashing on all sides of me rather than being organized into steady walls. There looked to be vaguely more humans on my left than to my right, so if anywhere was marginally safer than where I was now, it would be there. Directly to my side was a younger-looking guy trying to solo an orc, but his spear had been snapped down the middle and he was being forced to use its tip as a dagger. I got the feeling that he was losing.

I heard the squelch of the axe being pulled out of mud and bolted left, not even taking the time to look back. I wasn't exactly thinking at ten thousand words per second, and I hadn't exactly come to terms with my dream of being isekai'd actually coming true, but my survival instincts were kicking into full gear, and they screamed at me to run in whatever way looked the safest. So left it was, and left I went, even as I heard possibly the dying scream of the younger-looking guy. If I had more time to think or feel anything, I might have felt sad or angry at myself.

I got maybe a few meters away before my feet slammed into something metal and hard. I flopped forward and hit the mud face-first, a filthy puddle splashing onto my face. I leapt up as fast as I could and looked down to see what had gotten me; it was a person, in plate armor. His helmet was open enough for me to see his eyes staring unfixingly into the sky, with a sword held loosely in his hand. The sight of a body made my stomach turn, but I stifled the sickly feeling and grabbed for the sword. Did I think I could feasibly protect myself with it? No, but what else was I going to do?

Skill unlocked! One-handed Blades: Level 1

Oh, great. A GUI notification in the corner of my eyes. It seemed my prayers had been answered by one of the video game gods. I took a second to think that over. This was good. Skills meant I could get stronger through sheer reptition, and if my genre-savvyness told me anything, its that I would level up a lot faster than the chump NPCs currently being slaughtered by orcs. Just get me a wooden dummy, a few hours, and I would be the greatest swordsman to ever li—

An arrow hit me in the side of the head.. Don't monologue in a battlefield, kids.

I fell to the side, horizontally from where I had started, and was surprised to realize I was still alive, albeit in agonizing pain. As I groaned and swiped at the arrow on my head, I saw through bleary eyes an orc—the one from before?—come over and lift his axe. This time, I didn't manage to leap out of the way.

I opened my eyes and saw an orc lifting his axe.

Ah, a time loop! Boy, am I lucky that I got put in a time lo—

The axe came crashing down on my skull. Don't monologue in a battlefield, kids.

I opened my eyes and saw an orc lifting his axe.

Ah, a time loop! I thought while leaping to the side. Boy, am I lucky that I got put in a time loop too. Guess that balances out the whole "waking up in the middle of an ongoing, death-filled battle" thing.

The immediate questions came to mind. Did I have infinite loops? Had I just wasted one through sheer hubris, causing whatever video game god sent me here to seethe with anger at my incompetence? Regardless, I knew how things worked. Treat each loop like it was your last until proven otherwise. That means don't monologue in a battlefield.

I jumped up and ran to the left immediately, back to where I knew the corpse was, once again ignoring the probably soon-to-be dead guy in a 1v1. This time I scooped up both the sword and the dead guy's helmet.

Skill Unlocked! Heavy Armor: Level 1

No skill update for swords implied skills carried through loops, which was quite valuable information. Instantly, I had visions of simply fighting that first orc in an orgy of death and violence for millenia until I emerged a max-level god powerful enough to flick a dragon to death. Unfortunately, that violated my recently-established vow to treat each loop like it was my last, so I would be sticking to scrambling through the mud for my life for now.

I put the helmet on and kept running to the left of where I started, hoping the orcs would thin out and the humans wouldn't stab me in the side for desertion. My jeans and red T-shirt with a marginally out of date pop culture reference on it weren't exactly standard military uniform, however, so I figured they would be too confused by my getup to stab me immediately, thereby giving me a chance to escape. Somewhere. Anywhere. I didn't really have much of a plan outside of getting somewhere I could think for five seconds without being karmically punished for monologuing on a battl—

An arrow, probably not the same one as before, hit the left side of my helmet hard. It didn't cut through the metal, but the kinetic force was enough to knock me onto my face and make me feel like I had a concussion. Note to self: Always grab this helmet ASAP. There be orc archers here.

I stood up in a daze, wavering on my feet, and looked around. Particularly to my left. I resolved then and there to kill this orc archer or whatever at the start of each loop to avoid getting a concussion every time. I got the feeling this would happen every time, since it was so early on in the loop. Eventually I noticed a hill and on it a tree, with a small mass of green visibly shifting within it, though it was hard to tell from so far away. Was that my guy? Only one way to find out.

I rushed to the hill, weaving past the groups of orcs and humans going to town at each other. I kind of got the impression the humans were winning this fight, if only because the orcs were so slow and spears are canonically better than axes. Screw Fire Emblem, spears can stab from far away, and there's not much an axe-wielder can do once they have a spear in the eye. It looked like the humans outnumbered them too, what with two or three guys ganging up on most orcs, but I couldn't say for sure.

My thoughts were interrupted by a whizzing arrow. Without even thinking, on pure instinct, I contorted to the side and just barely missed it.

Skill Unlocked! Dodging: Level 1

Sweet. I had played a roguelike once where I got my Dodging level so high I literally went to sleep in the middle of a slime pit and got to level infinite just by dodging their attacks in my sleep. There were so many slimes it was like nine attacks every simulated second, which meant like... 250,000 dodges over night? Anyway, I had good experiences with this skill, and was glad to have it.

Sadly, Level 1 was not especially powerful, and my godlike instincts only helped out once. I got an arrow to the side right as I reached the hill, and it hurt like a motherfucker. Regardless, I finished running to the hill as fast as I could—Skill Unlocked! Athletics: Level 1—and looked up at the tree. There was definitely an archer in there—a goblin, though, not an orc? And only one? Strange. I waved my sword around in hopes of poking it out, but it was too high. In retrospect, I really hadn't thought this through. It was just staying up on the branches, unable to hit me due to the trunk, but I likewise being unable to hit it. I considered climbing the tree, but if that didn't make me a pincushion I didn't know what would.

In the end, I leaned against the trunk and peered down at the battlefield. The left side belonged to the humans, as expected; they seemed to outnumber to orcs at least two to one, and beyond the melee in the middle there were lined-up rows of soldiers, either waiting their turn or maybe just not sure of what to do. I kept seeing a golden yellow flash to the leftmost side, but couldn't squint enough to see what it was among the mass of bodies. To the right was a mass of green, with a mysterious blue fringe at the far right side. Not sure what that meant, but all in all they had a lot less soldiers, and given how spears kick the shit out of asses (canonically), I had to imagine the humans were going to handily win this one given enough time. I—

A flash of green out of the corner of my eye compelled me to leap forward without a second thought.

Skill Up! Dodging: Level 2

The goblin had stealthily climbed out of the tree and tried to stab me. Motherfucker.

I had never used a sword before, but somehow I still swung with purpose and speed. The goblin jumped back and threw daggers at me. I blocked one with my blade—Skill Up! One Handed Blades: Level 2—but got two daggers to the leg and shoulder—Affliction: Poisoned! Ouch. The goblin went to scamper back up the tree, either out of options himself or due to some other arcane machinations, but after a split-second of thought I pulled a dagger out of my shoulder—Ouch!—and threw it at the goblin's back.

Skill Unlocked! Throwing Weapons: Level 1

A hit. It fell back off the tree, screeching, and I stabbed down with my sword to finish it off.

Goblin Archer Defeated!

Level Up! All attributes increased.

That was generous. If EXP existed, my initial cap had probably been 1. Maybe it was 2 now if it doubled every time, which I kind of hoped wasn't the case, since that was exponential growth. Though maybe it also went like 1, 2, 3. I could probably reach my level cap killing goblins if so, but I needed more information.

After looting the goblin's corpse for loot and finding nothing, I sat down by the tree, away from the battle so as not to be spotted, and closed my eyes in hopes of summoning a status screen of some kind. I waited three seconds, for mysterious reasons, but nothing came up. I opened my eyes again and, perhaps due to feeling loopy from the concussion and/or blood loss, decided to risk looking like a total idiot.

"Status."

Nothing.

"Status Screen."

Nothing.

"Check Status."

General Information Attributes Skills Name Unchosen Name Value Name Level Species Human STR 110 One-Handed Blades 2 Sex Male DEX 110 Dodging 2 Age 18 AGI 110 Heavy Armor 1 Class Hero (Level 2) END 110 Athletics 1 HP 103/220 (-0.55/sec) INT 110 Throwing Weapons 1 MP 220/220 (+1.1/sec) WIS 110

Bingo. A quick look told me a lot, and also had some big warning signs. Good news: There was no LUCK stat, which felt like an immense blessing to me for reasons I didn't entirely understand. My Class was Hero, which all but confirmed I was the protagonist and therefore in for a good time (excluding all the painful death and such). If I assumed my attributes had started off at 100, then I had gotten a flat 10 in all of them from leveling up. A little tooltip appeared when I stared at one, which revealed that STR impacted my physical damage, DEX impacted my skill with bows/throwing stuff/etc, AGI impacted my speed of movement and nimbleness, END impacted my physical defense, INT impacted my magic damage (probably), and WIS impacted magic defense.

Oh, speaking of which. Bad news: My HP was going down at -0.5/sec due presumably to the poison, and it was probably going to kill me.

Thoughts raced through my mind. I had taken a lot of damage on the way here—arrow to the helmet, arrow to the side, multiple daggers to various limbs—but wasn't completely sure how much of the damage was from poison, how much was from blood loss, and whether I would be notified when the poison went away. I had minutes to live, and my best guess was that the bulk of the damage was from poison. The goblin tried scampering back up the the tree to wait me out, knowing I was about to die. Little fuc—

A massive, unbelievably loud explosion resounded through the air. My back was to the battliefield so I had no idea what just happened, but it was unbelievably loud, and fairly hot.

Once the air settled, I timidly looked around the trunk of the tree to see the battlefield, despite the fact I was near death. Call me pessimistic, given the lack of mysterious liquids on the goblin's corpse, I got the feeling I wouldn't find any antitodes in time. Anyway, what greeted me was probably not good.

Devastation, on the human's side. Massive craters and fires burned everywhere, and any numbers advantage they had had was certainly gone now. Some mysterious explosion had wiped out all the reserve soldiers, and regardless of how (canonically) superior spears were to axes, it was hard to win a 3v1 brawl with huge as shit orcs. The remaining humans were being mowed down, it looked like, and that was that. Strange how the turns had tabled so quickly. War was hell, I guessed, and high-powered explosions made all the difference.

As for me, some orcs saw me and pointed up. A few started coming this way. I figured I was dead in any case, but the holy mantra of "treat each loop like it was your last" compelled me to stand up on staggering feet and do what I could. I noticed to the left another flash of golden-yellow amidst a blob of green and red; I got the impression someone was attempting to solo the entire orc army. Perhaps the yellow I saw as the telltale golden-yellow of a spiky-haired anime protagonist, potentially in the process of going Super Saiyan. It was impossible to say, but their valiant efforts inspired me to never give up as well.

First, I ripped out the other dagger from my leg—Ouch!—and threw it at an orc. To my surprise it sailed fast and true, hitting it in the chest and knocking it back. No level up for that, but it took down one of its friends while falling over, which left me a single orc to 1v1. I drew my sword and YOLO'd a charge. It swung its axe down, and I used my godlike Level 2 in dodging to step to the side, then thrusted. My sword dug into its side, but it wasn't an instant kill. The orc roared and kicked me, sending me flying back into the tree. Oof. The sword was still stuck in its side, which left me no weapons.

I stood back up on staggering feet. "En garde," I said, holding up my fists in a boxing pose. I was pretty sure boxers said en garde. The orc, however, was either not a boxer or just hella rude, and instead of returning my greeting it just swung its axe with another roar. I dodged to the side again—these things were REALLY bad at fighting, no wonder the humans were going to win—and grabbed my sword, pulling. I wasn't actually going to try to bare-fist punch an orc, either in its face or its crude leather armor. My sword slipped out with just a bit of hard pulling, which made the orc roar with pain again. This guy was not having a good day, but neither was I. Reason being, before I could even take another swing, I died of poison.

I leapt to the side before even opening my eyes. It would have been nice to have some time to think, maybe check my status and confirm all my stats were the same, but Mr. Axe-Man was not a man of patience, or a man at all. He was a man of action, with that action consisting largely of swinging his axe down at me. At the very least, I had to be thankful that I got to grind a bit of Dodge EXP at the start of each loop, however miniscule it might be. Anyway.

I ignored the guy getting chopped down like always—thank god Sociopathy wasn't a stat, this situation was eroding my humanity faster than an online argument about game design—and picked up my now-standard equipment, including a few daggers on his belt. I had ignored them before, but now I understood the virtue of Throwing Weapons. I grabbed his belt too, whch made me feel increasingly like a despicable corpse robber, though maybe that was good because I literally was. Anyway, once my helmet was on and everything, I pondered my next step, trying not to do so for long enough that it was considered a monologue. Should I go get the goblin fuck, or retreat to where the explosion happened and try to warn people? I probably had enough time to do both if I got to the goblin fast enough, but I didn't want to get poisoned again, and at the moment the goblin felt a bit extraneous. I decided to just run to the left, ducking and weaving in hopes of dodging any arrows.

After a few minutes of running (and a few dodged arrows, with a complimentary Dodging and Athletics level up) but there were definitely less orcs around. Just a few stragglers, maybe? The rows of human soldiers seemed to be standing their ground, though it looked more like out of confusion and uncertainity than the result of any particular orders. I noticed there were pallisades built into the ground. Actual defenses. I was on the human side for sure. I swung my head around, looking around to see if there was any better direction to focus on, when I saw her.

It was hard not to, when the flash of her long yellow hair stood out so dramatically against the brown mud of the battlefield and the grey of all the armor. It was flowing out of the back of her helmet, pinched down but still having enough space to break free, and a closer look revealed her gesturing sharply in the air while presumably shouting instructions to the men nearby. A makeshift table and some scattered chairs implied this was the forward most base of the human army, perhaps thrown into disarray by an orc ambush. Either way, her ornate plate armor—better decorated than any other plate armor I could see at the moment, with the insigna of a golden hawk emblazened on the front—marked her as at least a captain. I stumbled in that direction, figuring it would be safer there than anywhere.

"—at least five hundred of them. The Excursed could send more at any moment, if she's behind this," I heard the girl saying; her voice was hard, like cold steel. "We need to fall back to Fort Treem and- no, I don't give a shit about standing our ground, we have no fucking mage support. Did you forget we were here for training, not for—"

I lost the rest of what she was saying as I sat on a nearby rock to observe and think over the new information here. The fact I understood her language as English was unsurprising; the GUI had been in English, after all. Standard stuff. It looked like the girl was stuck arguing with a stubborn officer who was more concerned with the disgrace of fleeing from lowly orcs than anything, while she was concerned about... some fantasy stuff I didn't understand. Mage support? Excursed? Fort Treem? Anyway, it didn't seem like I was going to get much more information while waiting. It was time to step forward and hope Chadness was a stat.

"Ma'am!" I shouted, assuming that if she was not the highest in command, then she was at least someone who already agreed retreat or regrouping was important.

She turned my way, ice-blue eyes visibly narrowed behind the front of her helm. "What is it, soldier?" She looked me over, that is, my t-shirt and jeans. "Where's your armor? Wait... What's your name and rank?"

"Ah," I began. "I am..." Crap, what do I say? My real name probably isn't like any name in this fantasy world, and marking myself as a foreigner when she's already clearly suspicious is not a good idea. I need to channel my inner fantasy nerd and effortlessly state a fantasy name that won't draw any suspicion. "I am Malcador."

Name Set! You are now Malcador.

Uh oh.

The girl sniffed. "That seems true, at least. Now, your rank? Squadron?"

"I... New recruit, left squad?" I said, before I could even contemplate the significance behind her words.

If her eyes had been narrowed before, they were all but murderous slits now. She silently drew her sword and thrusted it through my chest before I could even speak. I fell back, and as my vision faded I heard her curse. "Blasted doppelgangers. Not even a good liar, this one. Now, about the mage support—"

Okay, magic was real, and made things a helluva lot more complicated than it needed to be. Killing soldiers that didn't have their proper rank or squadron memorized was, to be fair, a natural reaction to doppelgangers. I kind of put myself into that situation, too, by clearly pretending to be a solider (what with the helmet and stuff) when I wasn't. Maybe in another situation the girl would have left me alive for questioning, but this was a pretty intense battle situation with people dying left and right. She didn't have time to spare for that. Am I simping for her? No, I just understand she made a rational decision. The fault was all mine.

In any case, there was a clear solution to this problem, and it was the dude who I usually left to die. This time, after instinctively dodging to the left, I ran to the 1v1ing guy. I didn't know if I had time to grab the dead dude's sword, so this time I just leapt into the air and dropkicked the orc in the side.

Skill Unlocked! Unarmed Combat Level 1

Skill Up! Athletics Level 3

Hell yeah, motherfucker. The orc tumbled to the side and the younger guy didn't hesistate for an instant before stabbing his faux-knife speartip into the side of its neck. It roared, and for good measure I kicked the other end of the spear tip. The roaring stopped.

Lesser Orc Defeated!

"Thanks," the younger guy said, breathlessly. His eyes scanned the area as we spoke, no doubt looking for a loose sword or spear to pick up. I stealthily positioned myself in between him and the dead guy I usually looted and nodded.

"No problem. By the way, what's your rank? Squadron?"

"Farmer Second-Class, Torso Squad. Why? If you're here, aren't you in the same... Wait." He stopped scanning the crowd for a weapon and looked me over. T-Shirt and jeans, once again. If I had learned anything it was to never meditate and pray to be isekai'd in casual clothing. Order plate armor off Amazon first so you'll fit in when summoned in the middle of a battlefield. Though it looked like this guy was just wearing leather armor. Perhaps I was looting a captain this entire time.

Before he could ask me anything, I shouted "Later!" and bolted directly away from him, not to flee so much as to get a helmet and sword ASAP. The only thing worse than monologuing on a battlefield was engaging in lengthy conversation on a battlefield, since in that case it was two people who would get arrows in the head not one.

He didn't follow. I equipped myself on the corpse like always. For a second I considered trying to snatch all of his plate armor, but it seemed like it would take a lot of time to undo it all and get changed. That was asking for an arrow to the exposed body part, not to mention probably a self-righteous human stabbing me in the neck for looting this honorable probably-captain. The helmet, belt of daggers, and sword would have to do, even if I did look fairly ridiculous. If only I hadn't been wearing a shirt with an out of date pop culture reference. I could not believe how much being trendy and hip was debilitating me here.

Anyway, back to the camp. A few minutes of running, dodging arrows in the form of ducking and weaving while on the move, etc. No level ups this time.

"We need to fall back to Fort Treem and- no, I don't give a shit about standing our ground, we have no fucking mage support. Did you forget we were here for training, not for—"

Same conversation as last time, though I got here a little later. The exact machinations were a mystery—the conversation with the dude took extra time, but I also spent less time putting on the belt of daggers. Trying to puzzle out the exact chronology of all this would kill me if I didn't just count the seconds from the moment I opened my eyes, which didn't seem very pleasant. Anyway, take two.

"Ma'am!" I shouted, and just like last time, she turned with her ice-blue eyes narrowed behind her helm.

"What is it, soldier?" She looked me over, that is, my t-shirt and jeans. "Where's your armor? Wait... What's your name and rank?"

"Malcador. Farmer-Two, from the Torso Squad."

She tilted her head. "Hm. What news do you have?"

"News from the front," I said, telling more or less the truth based on what I knew from previous looks. "There's going to be an explosion soon. Orcs are planning to wipe out the whole back ranks. Reports of blue orcs at the back of their formation."

"Blast!" the girl shouted, slamming a fist down. "Orc mages. And we don't have any fucking mage support!"

"Where are the mages?" I asked, thinking that could be useful information.

She shot me a look. "You should know that, soldier. This is an infantry excercise, and all the mages are back at the fort, recharging mana. They can't get here in time. I thought you had just..." her eyes widened a bit. "What's my name? What's the name of your commanding officer?"

"I... Uh..." Shit.

"Blasted doppelganger!" she said, and out came the sword. I bolted towards the fort with her shouting orders behind me. Probably for people to chase me, or shoot arrows. Why was this girl so mistrusting and deadly? I guess any commanding oficer in a world with doppelgangers would need to get suspicious, so I could hardly blame her, but sheesh. She was probably killing me more than the orcs ever would.

Anyway, the plan was—I say while dodging arrows, and actually getting a Dodging level up from it—to get to the fort, find a mage, and learn Magic Barrier or whatever the fuck spell blocks fireballs. It would be too late in this loop, but judging by what she said, the mages would never make it here in time no matter how quickly word was sent. Call me arrogant, but I got the feeling the only way out of this predicament was me learning the Magic Barrier spell, then rushing over to block it myself. That would probably also earn the trust of the girl, who in retrospect was so battle-hardened she was willing to all but solo an entire orc army that one time, and from there I cou—

A roaring explosion sounded out behind me, sending a blast wave so hard it knocked me onto my face, and knocked me out. At least the rock didn't smash my skull to bits thanks to the helmet.

Skill up! Heavy Armor Level 2

Yippe. Nguh.