I awoke to the sound of crickets chirping, owls hooting, and a pair of dark mounds resting atop a creaking wooden bed snarling like a pair of wildcats fighting. Night had come to my new world, but I don’t remember falling asleep. Searching my groggy mind, I desperately tried to recall what had happened. I remember some blue boxes showing up, me pissing myself, my mother changing me into some woolen diaper thing that itched like hell. And then…

‘Oh no.’

She tried breastfeeding me. I remembered it all now. Curled up within her massive hulk arms, she had begun to coo at me in attempted baby talk while nestling me closer and closer towards her iron stomach and breasts that were far more muscle than fat. Had I the strength, I would have fought. Had I the power, I’d have run escaped. But that dark green, hairy nipple came ever closer until it had touched the side of my face. From that point on, there was only darkness. For that I am thankful.

‘Right then…’ I moved my head as much as I was able, only to see myself surrounded by large wooden bars like some sort of jail cell. I suppose a crib is certainly a prison of a kind. At least what I was laying on was cushioned and comfortable. A faint, earthy smell wafted around me that made me think of hay. It reminded me of the times I spent at my grandmother’s farm where she would make me shovel horse manure out of the stalls while she went out to ride her horse. Manipulative old witch, but I loved her.

‘Wait, shit, she outlived me! Thats just not right!’ I groaned in my mind. ‘Dammit, new goal. Live as long as my grandmother did. Wait, do Orcs live a long time?’ As I lay there in my crib considering my predicament, realization took over. ‘Maybe that blue screen thing can help. But how does it work…’ I had played my fair share of RPGs in my past life. Mostly while I was supposed to be on duty at my job, but nobody tries to break into a mall at night these days. Especially with most of the stores closing in favor of online shopping.

‘Right then, here goes. Status!’ I commanded in my mind. Just as I had assumed, the blue box appeared showering me with information.

Name: Kotek Jir'iroc Race: Orc Class: Villager Title: N/A Level: 0 Experience: 0/10 Health: 12/12 Mana: 8/8 Stamina: 11/11 Unspent Points: 0 Strength: 1 Vitality: 1 Dexterity: 1 Agility: 1 Intelligence: 1 Wisdom: 1 Perception: 1 Luck: 1 Abilities: N/A Traits: Orcish Might: Confers a 20% bonus to Strength and Vitality. Musclehead: Confers a 20% penalty to Intelligence and Wisdom.

‘Alright…lets see here…’ I fixated my eyes upon the ‘Race: Orc’ section of my status window. ‘Information!’ I called out in my mind, only to receive nothing. ‘Information: Orc!’ I tried again, and was rewarded with nothing once more. ‘Learn More!’ As I cried out this command mentally, a new blue box appeared in my vision.

Orc:

Hardy denizens of the world of Alrand, the Orcs live in small, brutish collectives known as Clans. These Clans are lead by the biggest and the strongest of all the Orcs, titled as Chief. The Chief leads-

‘Blah blah blah, words words word…lets see…’ I skimmed through the description to get to the juicy bits. ‘Natural warriors…bonus to Strength and Vitality, no shit. Penalty to Intelligence and Wisdom, no shit again. Ah, here we go! An average Orc will live to be about thirty five years old.’

Fuck.

‘The reason for it being so low is often due to their eagerness for battle. Were they not so driven towards fighting impossible battles, they could live beyond the standard hundred years that a human does.’ After I finished reading the prompt, it disappeared from my sight.

In the silence of the night, I lay in my crib processing what I had just read. My thoughts turned grim about my situation. Living a long life was top priority as far as I was concerned. I don’t think I could deal with living in constant darkness for a few months again. ‘Right then, primary directive is simple. As soon as I’m able, I’m outta here. The last thing I need is to live with a bunch of frothing savages eager to beat the hell out of me.’

Formulation of an exact plan could come later, as of now I just needed the outline. ‘Next on the agenda, just what the hell is this ‘Villager’ class?’ Commanding another ‘Learn More’ while focused on the Villager part of my status screen, a new box appeared.

Villager:

The most common class around the world. From farming and mining, to fishing and tanning, these men and women are the workers that keep life spinning. Though they are numerous, they are very weak in actual combat and have no bonuses towards their base stats. When a villager participates in enough successful combat encounters, their levels may reach high enough for them to ascend into one of the four basic combat classes: Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, or Mage.

‘Great, secondary directive is also simple. Kill stuff to get stronger so I’m not so easily snuffed out. Now which class to aim for…’

One would normally think, ‘Orc is strong! Go Warrior for big smash!’ and normally, I’d agree with this sentiment. But this was my life now, and the last thing I wanted to do was get close to anything that desired ceasing my existence. That would be a surefire way to get sent back into that accursed darkness. ‘Never again.’ I swore to myself. Close quarters classes were officially out. Anything that allowed me to defend myself from afar was my best bet.

‘So its down to Ranger or Mage. As if thats even a choice.’ Even with the twenty percent penalty to intelligence and wisdom, magic was too much to pass up. ‘Now then…onto my stats…’

One by one, I went over information pertaining to each and every stat. Many were typical, such as Strength making you hit things harder, Vitality giving more health and stamina, Intelligence giving mana, and Wisdom affecting the mana regeneration rate. Due to my bonus from Orcish Might, every point in vitality that would normally give ten health gave twelve. But my penalty to Intelligence and Wisdom turned ten mana per Intelligence into eight, and one mana per minute to eight tenths of a mana per minute.

Others were a little more complex than that. Dexterity directly affected attack speed, while Agility affected both movement speed and stamina. It seemed total stamina was decided by one point of Vitality granting five stamina, and one point of Agility added another five. But due to being an Orc, one Vitality gave an additional one stamina. Perception was the most unique of the lot in that it affected quite an array of things.

Perception:

Perception allows the user to identify things such as hidden rooms, traps, and magical items. Perception also helps the user identify threats during combat, such as the trajectory of incoming attacks and identifying a target’s weak points.

In other words, it’d be a good stat for spelunking. A part of me grew excited by the prospect of dungeon delving, as dungeon crawlers were among my favorite games back in the old world. But just because the stat made me think that it’d be good for dungeons, didn’t necessarily mean there were dungeons in this world.

‘Lets see if we can find out if there are, this status thing seems to be full of information…’ As I finagled about trying different requests for information, finally my efforts bore fruit.

Dungeons:

Dungeons are naturally occurring lairs filled with monsters. At the heart of every dungeon is a crystal infused with the essence of Falarond, the Dark God. It is from those crystals that monsters spawn. After spawning, they will wander from their lairs to spread ruin and destruction in their wake.

‘This keeps getting better and better.’

As for the Luck stat, well…it was the same as usual. The same vague ‘Affects everything you do in a small way! Teehee!’ description that tells you absolutely nothing. But anyone who says Luck is a bad stat has never played a full Luck build in any game ever. With max Luck, enemies would fall over one another and let you kill them. Gold and Princesses would fall into you lap like a waterfall, all your hits would be crits, etcetera, etcetera.

The only hard part was getting to that point where Luck snowballs into an unstoppable force. Until one got to that point, your life was in the hands of the flip of the coin. Unfortunately, I didn’t think saving and reloading was a thing in this world. Not that I would do such a thing. Save-scummers aren’t people as far as I’m concerned. Unless its Xcom. I completely understand save-scumming in that game.

As time passed, I made myself busy with these various pop-up windows. This system was a proverbial fountain of information pertaining to subjects I never thought I’d ever encounter. From the various Races that populated this world to a Bestiary of the various deadly beasts that lurked the wilds and from within the dungeons. Unfortunately, the information provided was very broad, and any attempts to get into specifics resulted in no results. But as far as I was concerned, all knowledge was good knowledge.

Slight rays of sunlight peeked through the various holes inside our hut. Morning had officially come to the world of Alrand. My first night in a new world and I spent it reading. I’m sure my school teachers would have been proud. Unfortunately, my reading frenzy had come at a cost. My stomach had begun to growl restlessly in an effort to grab my attention. Hunger had beckoned, and I was forced to comply. Against every fiber in my being, I did the one thing babies could do when they wanted food. I cried really really loud.

——————

The sound of wailing pierced the early morning air, causing Dabba’s orange eyes to shoot open. In an instant, she was on her feet with her fists at the ready, only to realize that it was her baby that was crying. With a calming breath, she walked over to the makeshift crib that had been a birth-gift from the clan’s woodsman. It was a sturdy contraption with thick oak bars that not even the strongest of Orc children could break.

“Kotek hungers.” Her husband, Koloch, spoke as he arose from the bed.

“Yes.” She responded with a gruff voice as her husband began to dress himself. With a smile, she approached her child’s crib. Slowly, so as to not scare her child, she reached down to pick up her young warrior. With careful hands, she gently took her child from his position in the crib, cooing happily as she did. Carefully, she brought her child closer towards her bosom. “Feed, young one. Feed and grow strong.”

A sense of motherly pride overcame her as she watched her child close his eyes as he back to suckle her breast. A moment later, her mate stood next to her. Unlike the night before, he now wore armor made from Drake leather and scales. Dabba looked at him questioningly to which he merely grinned in return.

“Be well.” Koloch spoke to her with a hand upon her shoulder. “And to you little warrior.” Pride filled his face as he gently patted Kotek’s head. “I will return tonight.”

“The forest?” Dabba asked.

“Mmmm. Goblins. I’m to take the younglings to be blooded.”

“May Grefane’s fury be your own.” Dabba grunted.

“And Kirkotek’s grace be your own.” He bowed his head to her respectfully before picking up his warhammer laying near the hut’s entrance and striding from the hut. After he had left, Dabba sighed as she held her child to her chest.

“May you grow to be twice as strong as your father.” She murmured to herself.

——————————

It was strange hearing an alien language, Orcs especially so. Theirs was a throaty language full of grunts and growls that was unlike anything I had ever heard. I was certainly not looking forward to learning this language in the least. Hell, I had barely passed Spanish in my past life, and now I had to learn something entirely new and different? That was going to be interesting. And by interesting I mean I hated it already.

‘My reincarnation for some good old fashioned English.’

After…consuming…my fill, I ceased any and all contact with my mother’s rock hard body. Once more, she began to coo and speak weird alien babble at me before placing me back down in my crib. I could only lay there and stare at the ceiling of our hut while the sounds of my mother dressing filled our home. Once she had finished, she walked back to my crib and lifted me once more. Strangely, a small blue box had hovered over her head. Squinting my eyes, I focused on the box and gasped at the result.

Dabba Jir'iroc Level 12 Tracker

‘Tracker? Whats a Tracker?’ As soon as the question entered my mind, a new blue box appeared in my vision.

Tracker:

A Tracker is an advancement of Rangers, focused on stalking their prey. They excel in combat using ranged weaponry, but are also quite capable in melee should the need arise. Their natural perception growth leads them to becoming great additions to parties for being able to spot hidden alcoves in dungeons and hunting prey for eating out in the wild.

‘An advanced class? Interesting.’ If Tracker was an advancement of Ranger, then I couldn’t wait to see what I could become after Mage. I could only drool at the possibilities withing my hands. With a careful hand, my mother wiped the drool from my mouth. ‘Thanks mom.’

Rocking me gently and speaking softly, she proceeded to head towards the exit flap to our hut. Bright light filled my vision as we exited our home. An early-morning sun burned the sky an orange hue for untold miles in the distance. Only a few white clouds dotted the vast horizon. Flocks of strange birds flew through the skies to destinations unknown. Grassland stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. And sitting upon those grasslands were hundreds upon hundreds of huts nearly identical to our own.

‘The status lied…this isn’t a ‘small clan’…This isn’t a small clan at all! In what way is this small?!’ My eyes widened as I watched hundreds and hundreds of Orcs in the distance leave their hovels and begin their daily lives. ‘This isn’t a clan…this is a freakin’ city!’ I cried out in my mind. My heart chilled at the prospect of being surrounded by thousands of battle-hungry savages all eager to attack one another.

‘This complicates things a great deal...’ I groaned mentally.

With a smile upon her face, my mother began to stride through the jungle of huts, carrying me along with her. I guess it was time to meet the neighbors. I desperately hoped that they were friendly.