Liam gripped the edge of the table as hard as he could. All around him was the noise of excited people, mixed with the jaunty tunes of various machines. Yet, it all blended into the background, as his attention was fully focused on the spinning disk to his right. And more specifically the little ball rolling around in it.

He wasn’t sure what exactly it was that drew him to the roulette table, but he felt a kind of energy from it, a certain vibe. Yes, he was sure that he’d make big money here, so it was without hesitation that he approached, and bet all of his remaining chips on the number fourteen. It had to be fourteen since it was his lucky number. It said so in the newspaper’s daily horoscope.

A drop of sweat rolled down as his hands started to hurt, his eyes following the little steel ball as it slowed down. He was so certain that this would be the play that’d help him out of the hellhole that his life had become over the past couple of months. But as the ball kept spinning around, doubts started to eat away at his mind.

He was thousands of dollars into debt and had taken some shady deals to make ends meet. His life lay in ruins, yet he still attempted to keep up the facade for his family and friends. Making sure they never found out, meeting with them for drinks with money he had borrowed, which made him sink deeper into the hole he’d dug himself. Crying himself to sleep had just become par for the course.

Why? Why did he just bet all of his remaining money on an incredibly small chance of taking it all? How did he let it get this far? What would he do if the number fourteen didn’t come up? What would his parents think once they finally found out? Would he even get the chance to see them again? Or would the criminals he borrowed money from get to him first?

He started to taste iron in his mouth. Apparently, at some point, he started to bite his lips and drew blood. The little ball was now dangerously close to picking a number, barely skirting the rows of black and red holes. Liam held his breath as it finally came to a stop.

“Number Fifteen! Fifteen Red!”

All strength left Liam’s body, as he lethargically watched his chips being taken away from him. The person next to him cheered happily, as they had won a small payout, unaware of the life that was crumbling to pieces right next to them. The next few minutes became a blur, as Liam extracted himself from the Roulette table and slowly made his way outside.

He barely registered the fact that the cool night air was somewhat refreshing, before already reaching for his cigarettes that were tucked away in his jacket. Lighting it up, he started the slow walk back to his shitty little apartment. Before he knew it he was walking past the familiar run-down apartment complexes in his neighborhood.

This area of town was barely maintained, the city itself having long abandoned it as it became more apparent that only the dregs of society made it their home. Something clearly visible by the ragged-looking people lining the streets and alleyways. Potholes everywhere, plants growing where they shouldn’t, scavenger animals on the prowl in broad daylight. It all built a picture of decay, despair, and dismay.

And Liam fit right in.

Ignoring the usual sights of his neighborhood, Liam found his way to the building he lived in and made his way to the fourth floor. He opened his door, while simultaneously wondering why he even locked it. It wasn’t like anything of value was in there, and the door had sizable holes in it anyway. Not bothering to even close it properly, he made his way inside.

What greeted him was a tiny room, barely able to fit his bed inside. And there was little more except for his meager possessions and trash decorating his living space. Feeling sick at the sight, he turned left and into his equally tiny bathroom to wash his face.

So it was that he came face to face with himself. Reflected in the broken mirror above the sink, a haggard man stared back at him. Shoulder long, unkempt hair, lifeless brown eyes, and yellowed teeth were his defining features, and he was already sick of looking at himself. Hastily turning on the knob, he hoped to get at least a little refreshed by washing his face with the cool water, only to be disappointed when nothing happened.

Right. No water. Because he didn’t pay his bills.

With a sigh he looked up again, once more setting eyes upon his run-down self. Yet this time there was someone else in the mirror. A man stood behind him, presumably just walked in through the still-open door. Yet there was something even more disturbing about him than his casual entering into somebody else’s home.

The man was wearing a tidy suit, which was so ridiculously out of place in this area that it could only mean one thing. Sure enough, above the man’s breast pocket, an embroidered image of a snake wrapped around a spear caught his eyes.

While Liam was distracted by his realization, another, much bulkier man entered the room, filling it to capacity. The suited man gestured towards Liam, which the absolute unit of a man confirmed with a grunt.

“Wait! I can…”

Liam didn’t get very far in his attempt to bargain with his debt collectors, their patience apparently having reached the end. And so he was only halfway through his sentence when he was knocked out by the muscle of the operation. He absent-mindedly registered that he fell on the floor, the suited man’s indifference reflected in his eyes.

“I’m sure his organs will fetch a nice price…”

Unbelieving right until the end, Liam couldn’t quite process what was happening to him, as it all happened so fast. It didn’t help that his mind was still reeling as his vision slowly faded, wondering what exactly it was that was going to happen to him now, but it sure seemed like he was well and done for. So he watched with morbid fascination as a boot rushed towards his face in slow motion before everything turned black.

I felt consciousness slowly return to me as I took some deep breaths. Deciding to leave my eyes closed for a while, I felt at peace. Well-rested even. No sounds could be heard that would disturb my rest, nor did I feel a particular need to rush getting up. All in all, this was entirely unexpected.

My encounter with the two mobsters is still quite vivid in my head. A thing as traumatic as that is not easily forgotten after all. So it was with great confusion that I found myself in my currently incredibly peaceful state. Even though my head got uncomfortably intimate with some burly guy’s boot, I had no headache. Even though I was captured, apparently to sell my organs, I was not tied up, as far as I could tell. I didn’t feel drowsy from any weird sedatives they might have given me to keep me down. Nor did I feel like any of my organs were missing.

No, I was just lying here, in the warm embrace of… something that seemed all-encompassing. Honestly, I felt better than ever.

And that was very unsettling.

So with the same enthusiasm of somebody who wanted to sleep about twenty “five more minutes”, I slowly opened my eyes. What greeted me was complete darkness. Not the kind of darkness one might associate with having a sack shoved over your head so you can’t see, mind you. Just regular old, “you’re in a room and nobody turned on the lights” darkness.

Well, I say complete darkness, but in reality, the vast black in front of me was disturbed by a blinking blue light in front of me. Unsure of what it was, and slightly annoyed by its incessant blinking, I reached out to swat it like a fly.

Congratulations! As the first human to die after the earth reached an assimilation rate of 10%, you have been chosen for the traveler initiative!

Much to my confusion, a game-like screen appeared in front of me when I made contact. I had to read the text several times to wrap my head around what it was saying. The first and most obvious thing was that, apparently, I was dead.

Now, this was somewhat within the possibilities I’d imagined when I got attacked, but I felt very much alive right now, so this confused me to no end. Was this some kind of prank? Was I sold to some government facility that was testing some crazy new tech on humans? Or did I actually die and this was some sort of weird afterlife? The blue textbox did mention earth and some sort of assimilation rate, so… aliens? Maybe?

“The traveler initiative?” I mouthed the last words slowly as I traced them with a finger, contemplating what this might mean. As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait any longer. Maybe it was due to me touching the textbox again, or maybe it was because somebody or something heard me, but the box changed.

Welcome, human, to the traveler initiative! As a traveler, you have earned the right to traverse the manyfold planets associated with the program! You will be expected to perform certain duties and will be given the tools necessary to complete them. Before you receive further instructions, please select the planet you would like to be reconstituted to.

Planets? So did I die and then get abducted by aliens? And then got a job from them? Again, I was thinking that this was just some fucked up experiment and shifted my eyes uncomfortably. Now that I was properly awake and assessing my situation, several weird things caught my notice.

I didn’t appear like I was in a room, instead, I was just surrounded by darkness. Playing into that was that I became aware of the fact, that I was NOT feeling anything beneath me. No bed, no ground, no anything. It was as if I was floating in nothingness. Not willing to think too hard about this, and slightly panicking about it, I refocused on the only thing of interest, which was the little textbox.

Curious, I gave it an experimental tap to see if it’d go to the next slide or whatever this was, only for nothing to happen. I wondered how I could make it move on when it did exactly that. Was this thing maybe controlled by my thoughts? The little box wasn’t intent on letting me figure it out, as it suddenly turned into a humongous box instead.

My vision was filled with a massive list of names, extending as far to my right as I could see, presented to me in sets of twenties. Flabbergasted I took a look at the first name on the list. “Hebrion” was all it said. I wondered if there was any more information or if I’d have to go just by name here, when a secondary box opened up.

Hebrion.

Tier 1 War type planet.

Inhabited by several intelligent lifeforms. No Monsters.

This planet’s inhabitants are in a constant state of war. Contribute to whichever faction you choose and collect points to complete your task.

The way this was described felt an awful lot like a video game. Before the debt and gambling, I quite enjoyed playing some games. But at the same time, this felt pretty fucked up as well. If I choose this planet I’d have to wage war and kill others for points? How did me doing this contribute to whatever I was supposed to do for this… system, these aliens? Curiously, I selected the next one in line.

Zeninin.

Tier 1 Merchant outpost

Inhabited by several intelligent lifeforms. No Monsters.

This planet serves as an outpost for several spacefaring races. Assume the role of a merchant and earn enough money to complete your task. The traveler will not be allowed to leave the planet.

Again with the seemingly arbitrary task, even if it seemed to correlate to the type of planet that was selected. At least with this one, I could make a connection with how this might help whatever entity was doing this to me. Money was always needed, and if I made them money, they’d profit. Another thing caught my eye as well. Both this planet and the one before had a mention of “Monsters”, whatever that meant. Although I wasn’t too keen to figure it out. It was probably best to select a planet with no monsters present.

My heart sank a bit when I looked to my right, once again being confronted with the seemingly endless list. How the hell was I supposed to choose? Should I just scroll through leisurely until I encountered something that caught my fancy? Or should I just pick one within the first few and be done with it?

There’s no way this list is actually without end, right? So for the first time, I consciously tried giving a command to the textbox.

´Show me the end of the list´

No sooner had I thought my command, did the box start scrolling at blinding speed. The writing became a blur as the letters raced past me. It was crazy to think about how many planets were “associated” with this entity, as thousands had already gone by, and still, there was no end in sight. I waited patiently, getting bored and somewhat dizzy after a while, until suddenly it stopped, the endless list now expanding to my left.

Not entirely sure what I was expecting, the list went on and on until it suddenly ended. If anything, the sheer length of the list was the most remarkable thing about it. Just as I was thinking about how to proceed from here on out, the very last option on the list caught my eye.

Random.

There was no way that was the name of a planet, right? It was also located suspiciously at the end of the list…

Random

Randomly selects one of the available options for the traveler. Due to giving up on the right to choose, and potentially ending up with a dangerous result, the traveler will be compensated with additional benefits.

It really was the random option! I couldn’t help but be tempted immediately! Not only would this take care of the task of painstakingly choosing a planet, but it would also offer up some goodies as well. Of course there was a chance of ending up with a bad pick, but after everything was considered… wasn’t this a form of gambling?

Risk and reward. You let your fate be decided by something which you can not, or just barely influence, and in the end you either lose everything or walk away with more than you had before. The thrill!

My mind was already halfway through selecting this option when I suddenly paused. After all, gambling was what got me in this weird situation. It even got me killed. Thinking back on it, gambling was the root cause of all the problems I had, so, was it a good idea to just keep on going like nothing happened?

Then again… Gambling was a game of luck. And I feel like I just used up all the bad luck I could by losing everything. So wouldn’t it make sense that I would now pull a winning ticket right here? Yes, that made perfect sense! I should absolutely go for this option! Everything pointed towards success right now!

‘Select Random!’

Random has been selected

Randomizing…

Planet has been selected and locked in.

Suigoss

Tier 1 Poison Jar Type Planet

No intelligent lifeforms detected. Inhabited solely by Monsters.

This planet serves as an experimental world for the administration. The monsters inhabiting it are in a constant state of slaughter, growing stronger and descending the eight layers that separate the world. Descend to the final layer and complete the quest you will be given there, to complete your task.

“No no no… wait, hold on a second!” I yelled. “This doesn’t look good at all! How does this make sense?”

I yelled and gestured around me wildly, trying to appeal to whoever or whatever was listening. But it would seem like either they didn’t care, or nobody was actually watching me, and this entire process was automated. Not willing to give up too fast, I tried a little longer until I had to face the sad reality. Nothing I would do would change the result. So, with a sigh, I redirected my gaze towards the offending textbox.

“So, what’s next?” I asked nobody in particular, resigned to my fate.

Traveler Type selection will now proceed.

Please note that your Traveler Type will stay consistent through your iterations and cannot be changed. Please select carefully.

Error.

Due to the first-ever destination of the traveler being a planet with only one type of being, the traveler’s type will be forcefully selected.

Please note that due to the forced selection, additional benefits will be granted.

You have been assigned as a Type:Monster. Congratulations!

I blankly stared at the textbox, once again. Oy! Was this entire thing somehow rigged against me? What do you mean I will not be able to change this? I was stuck as a monster for… who knows how long? It seems like the random option screwed me over even more than I originally thought! The congratulations at the end seemed like it was mocking me, so to get it to disappear I mentally gave the command to move on.

Please select your desired species.

Another list, similar to the planet selection appeared. But compared to that one, this one was tiny. It still went on for quite a bit, but if I moved my head to the right, I could very clearly see the end of it. All in all, maybe about… a thousand options? Maybe this was due to the nature of the selected planet, and the number of monsters was higher than on other planets?

Pushing that thought away, for now, I took an idle look at some of the options that were presented to me. And boy, oh boy, were these things monsters all right. Some of these things would be best described as eldritch abominations. Or at least that’s what they seemed to me after the system described them to me. There were some “normal” ones, like a giant frog, or a massive bear, and after some scrolling, I even saw some familiar names. Like goblins and kobolds.

As I ruminated about what exactly I would want to be, I looked at the place where the list very clearly ended. It was just sitting there, the end, taunting me. Daring to take a look at the option that was sure to be there. My breath quickened as I suppressed the urge. Nothing good would come from it.

So I continued to peruse the list, getting the textbox to explain everything that caught my eye, but somehow nothing really appealed to me. To be honest, all of this was surreal. I wasn’t even completely sure if any of this was real. Yet here I was, attempting to select what kind of abomination I would like to be reborn as, on an alien planet, no less.

While continuing to browse, I tried to think of a feasible strategy going forward. All signs pointed towards me having to fight once I got to this planet, so it would stand to reason that I would select a powerful monster. After all, I had the liberty to choose. It was unclear what would happen if I died again, so it was probably best to focus on survivability as well. Maybe I could become a mighty dragon?

Fantasizing about how cool it would be to just become one of the most fearsome, yet cool, creatures humanity had thought up, I arrived at the end of the list without noticing. Huh. Weird. I must have scrolled through the list absent-mindedly while daydreaming. And of course, there it was again.

I gave the random option at the end of the list the stink eye. It landed me in a right mess yet again, and I was intent on ignoring it. This list was a lot more manageable than the intimidating list of planets, so if I spent my time carefully combing through it, and planning out my strategy, there was no way anything could go wrong. No amount of “AdDiTiOnAL bEnEfItS” could change my mind here.

Random has been selected.

Randomizing…

“No, wait! Hold up!” I desperately shouted, grabbing at my hair. “I don’t want this, please! It was an impulse decision!”

No sooner had the guaranteed benefits entered my mind than I had a knee-jerk reaction to it. My addiction flared up and made me select the option immediately, even as I was making fun of it. Was this karma? Gambling already ruined my previous life, how could I let myself go and let it ruin this second chance I got as well?

Or maybe…? Maybe this was a good thing? As far as I could tell, almost all of the monsters on the list had their advantages, and none necessarily seemed like a bad pick. So I could potentially end up with an average, or even a very good race, AND get benefits on top! In fact, the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Weak monsters were few and far in between, and it made sense, considering what the purpose of planet Suigoss was.

Monster Race has been selected and locked in.

Here it comes! I was getting pretty excited at this point as well. Just what would I end up as?

Monster: Slug(Tier 0)

The Slug monster mostly serves as food for the monsters in the upper layer of the world, as well as being a source of easy experience points for the weaker monsters, to aid their growth in the early stages. It has close to no combat ability.

Or… you know, I could just end up as a useless little slug. That could happen too. And considering the trend so far, I’m not even surprised anymore. I let out a deep sigh and tell the textbox to continue. No point in delaying the inevitable.

Seeing as you are embarking on a new journey, a new life, you may now rename yourself.

Renaming myself? I couldn’t quite grasp the point of it, as was with a lot of the things the textbox was doing. Still, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to leave behind my name and opt for something newer. After all, “Liam” was connected to a lot of bad things. Maybe by renaming myself, I could try and start another approach to life. One that wasn’t centered around gambling away everything I had.

You have renamed yourself as: Gary.

Haha, get it? Because of Spongebob! Yes, I know that Gary is a snail, but it’s still funny.

Congratulations Traveler, you have completed the basic settings for your new life. Here is your temporary status:

Name: Gary

Traveler Tier: 0 Type:Monster

Species: Slug

Level: 1

Strength: 1

Agility: 1 (permanently fixed)

Intelligence: 2

Wisdom: 2

Constitution: 3

Now, I was by no means an expert on what good values were on a status page, but even I could tell that this was garbage. Considering that slugs were supposed to be food for low-tier monsters, I can’t say I’m surprised to see these low numbers. It was almost funny to see agility being fixed at one, because it meant I was basically doomed to a life at a snail’s pace.

Then again, even if this status window was somewhat lacking in the information department, I could still glean quite a bit of information from it. For one, my basic settings were done, which probably meant that there was more to come. With a little… luck, I might be able to turn around this situation and make a slightly better slug out of myself. On the other hand, these attributes were incredibly RPG-like. Which made me wonder if they were made like that on purpose so that I would have an easier time understanding them.

Well, anyway, onwards!

You will now be given any additional rewards that you have collected during the previous process:

Random Planet selection: 10 additional Attribute points.

Forced Type selection: Bottomless Inventory system will be unlocked.

Random Species selection: Two Mutations may be selected.

Traveler Tier 1 Bonus: Error! Due to the target creature being too weak to handle the traveler bonus, it will be temporarily disabled. Instead, another bonus will apply to help you reach the target strength faster.

Traveler Tier 0 Bonus: Double XP earned until evolution to a strong enough creature occurs. Additionally, 5 additional attribute points will be given.

Finally! My suffering was paying off with these bonuses! Just look at them, so juicy and shiny! All my regrets at having chosen poorly vanished as I beheld the benefits I received for picking random at every turn. With these bonuses, I could make my lame status into something decidedly not lame! With a little luck I could even compete with the regular monsters I’d encounter.

Then there’s the bottomless inventory! If I wasn’t completely mistaken, that meant I’d get some type of inventory system to store my things in, and one with infinite space as well! Well, maybe not infinite, but very, very large. Which was good! And depending on what exactly these mutations were, I could potentially even get some new avenue of attack!

The more I thought about it, the more pitiful slugs seemed in the combat department. Assuming they were similar to the ones on Earth, there was no real way for a slug to do combat. Even if the type of slug I would become was huge, since it was a monster, I would still be a sitting duck. But those mutations could potentially change that.

Please select two of the available mutations

Once again, I was faced with a long list. Yet, even if it was still long, this had to be the shortest one yet. Barely a hundred mutations were listed, but that didn’t mean that they were useless. Or at least that’s what I thought at first. All of these mutations were things that mutated the body of a slug.

Things like better eyesight, better tentacles to feel around with, more or better mucus, faster digestion, more efficient mouth to eat with. The options were mostly useless to me. Now, I was aware that slugs probably had shite eyesight, and were generally bad at a lot of things. But what use was there for me to see the thing better, that was going to eat me? What I needed was some offensive power, and barely any of the options added anything in that particular vein.

After some deliberation, I eventually decided on the Poisonous Mucus mutation. There wasn’t much of use in the list, and maybe if I built a strategy around this mutation, I could actually kill some monsters. Maybe if I just increased my constitution so much that anything trying to eat me would die before I did?

The textbox all too happily confirmed my choice with a fancy pop-up congratulating me on my choice, almost managing to distract me from what was happening in the other window. It was very subtle, but it looked like the list refreshed after I locked in my first selection. Having a hunch about what just happened, I carefully scanned through the list again, and sure enough, I found a new option. Time to go all-in I guess.

You have selected the mutations: Poisonous Mucus, and Lethally Poisonous Mucus.

Here’s to hoping that lethal modifier added some speed to the whole killing business. To be honest, poison being my only way of inflicting damage was pitiful at best, and suicidal at worst. But after going through the list, it truly was the only thing even remotely feasible. The textbox did mention that there was some way of evolving, so if I could just survive long enough to get to that part, I might get some juicy attack options.

Maybe I could even evolve into a not-slug. Fingers crossed.

Due to your selections, your species will be changed to: Poisonous Slug.

You have collected fifteen additional Attribute Points, please distribute them now.

Now, this. This was important.

I took another look at the status window that was still open. Weirdly enough, the base stats of a slug seemed to be specced into what I’d associate a mage build with. What use did a slug even have for intelligence and wisdom? Weren’t they supposed to be stupid fodder-type monsters anyway? I don’t think this status window took into account the fact that a human brain would be in that slug, otherwise, there would be no way wisdom and intelligence would be that low… right?

Putting this weird tidbit aside, I went ahead and “asked” the textbox for more details regarding what the separate attributes did, which it happily provided. The results were to be expected.

In true video game-like fashion, the stats pretty much exactly did what I assumed they’d do, and then some. For example, Strength. In a video game, all this would do, is make your physical damage a bit higher and maybe help you pass some arbitrary strength checks. And here it did the same, yet, it went about it in a much more realistic way.

Every point in strength would make my muscles stronger, which would help with pretty much anything related to me moving my body. Weirdly enough, it specifically mentioned that every point would increase the amount of damage my physical attacks would do. Was there some weird system in place for attacking that relied on these numbers? Skills maybe?

Going through the list revealed some interesting things about the attributes that I never thought possible. They were a lot more in-depth than regular old RPG stats, with each attribute upgrading a whole bunch of things. And while I still heavily doubted a regular monster slug needed the extra points in intelligence and wisdom, they sure seemed hella useful to me. If I had to summarize the most important things the attributes influenced, it would look a little something like this:

Strength: Physical Attack, Muscle Mass, Physical Prowess, Stamina

Agility: Dexterity, Precision, Speed, Tool Manipulation

Intelligence: Magical Attack, Memory, Situational Awareness, Status Effect Damage

Wisdom: MaxMP, Ability To Learn, Analysis, Passive MP Regeneration

Constitution: MaxHP, Passive HP Regeneration, Stamina, Defense

Interestingly enough, there seemed some areas where the attributes enhanced each other. For example, both strength and constitution raised stamina. And while there were good reasons to upgrade all of these, I was constricted by my species and game plan on what to choose, at least for now. Agility was straight out the window since I was being blocked from adding to it as long as I was a slug. And even if I had originally planned to just throw all my bonus stats into constitution, there seemed just cause to put at least a little into Strength and Intelligence.

Having made my decision, my final stats looked like this:

Name: Gary

Traveler Tier:0 Type:Monster

Species: Poisonous Slug

Level: 1

Strength: 3

Agility: 1(permanently fixed)

Intelligence : 3

Wisdom: 2

Constitution: 15

I still put the bulk of my stats into constitution, after all. I just wanted to maximize my chances of surviving in these early stages, so it seemed like the obvious choice. Strength would help me by making me stronger, and Intelligence I took mostly in the hopes of making my poison even stronger since status effects seemed to scale off this.

Based upon your choices, the following skills will be granted:

Slug Base Skill: Compress

Poisonous Slug Skill: Lethal Poison Mucus Armor(Modified)

Lethally Poisonous Mucus Modifier: Lethal Poison Shot

Bonus Compensation: Bottomless Inventory, Double XP(Limited)

There they were! Just as I theorized earlier, skills did exist! And there was even an attack skill! Eager to learn more, I asked for more information.

Compress Lv.1

Tighten all your muscles, doubling your defense as long as the skill is active. Cannot move while the skill is in use.

Lethal Poison Mucus Armor Lv.1

Generate Poisonous Mucus that covers your body, making it harder to grasp your body or inflict damage. Additionally, Inflicts the Lethal Poison status effect.

Lethal Poison Shot Lv.1

Generate a glob of Lethal poison and shoot it at an enemy. Inflicts the Lethal Poison status effect. Cost: 5 MP

Bottomless Inventory

Grants access rights to the Tier 3 Inventory system.

The synergy of these skills blows my mind. If I activated Compress and Lethal Mucus Armor at the same time, wouldn’t I basically be unkillable? No, I couldn’t allow myself to get carried away, I was still a slug after all. But these skills would rise my survivability by a LOT. To make things more interesting, I could even shoot poison at whatever was attacking me. I could technically not move while in defensive mode, but Lethal Poison Shot seemed like a magic spell, so what need was there for me to move?

Speaking of Magic, only Lethal Poison Shot had a cost attached to it… did that mean that my other skill could be used freely? They did seem connected to my bodily functions, so it would make sense for me to be able to just use them as is. There might be some hidden cost to it though. For example, compressing my muscles probably isn’t something I could do indefinitely. Most likely, this was tied to my Strength stat in some way, and maybe endurance from Constitution.

Then there was the Lethal Poison Mucus Armor. I’m sure I couldn’t just generate infinite mucus from my future body. Did slugs have some sort of Mucus gland in their body? Did I need to stay hydrated to make mucus? Did any of that even matter since I would be a monster slug, and not a regular slug? I suppose the only way to find out was actually trying it when the time came, but all in all, I was very happy with the skills I got.

Yet, the craziest thing seemed to be the Bottomless Inventory skill. It said tier three, which was crazy, considering I was to be a tier zero creature and my Traveler bonuses were locked for now. How far did you need to advance to even get that skill normally? It seemed like the forced type selection was a big deal, and the compensation was big in proportion.

Congratulations Traveler! You have completed the advanced settings for your new life! The last thing to determine is to assign you to the overarching system that will accompany you throughout your travels.

This process is automated and dependent on your choices, please take a short break while the optimal system is calculated.

So I was finally done, huh? All in all, I gotta admit this was kind of a fun experience, if a bit weird. The various text boxes that were floating around me had disappeared, replaced by a singular box that informed me that the calculation was still in progress. I felt a strange kind of satisfaction as I thought about how my bad choices worked out somehow in the end, and I let my gaze wander a bit, no longer focused on my task of navigating the menus.

And then I started to get nervous again. I was so fixated on the shiny textboxes, that I completely forgot that I was in a black void. Once again, I was hit by the weirdness of everything that was going on.

I was supposedly killed and came into this alien space to generate what kind of monstrous body I would inhabit in the future. The text boxes, or the system as it seemed to call itself, seemed too advanced to be some sort of prank by my loan sharks. I also doubted that I was being tested in some government facility since I distinctly remember them wanting to sell my organs. Which would leave me dead, for sure, and not stewing in some laboratory.

Did I have no other choice than to accept this whole situation at face value? As it turned out, I wouldn’t have to fret over it too much, since the system seemed to be done with its calculations. Depending on what happened now, I would find out the truth very quickly.

You have been assigned to the P2W System, Congratulations!

The P2W System lets you collect a special type of currency called ‘data points’ which you can then use to exchange for goods and services from the system store. Data points may be acquired from successfully completed tasks, and in lower quantities from monster kills.

Best of luck in your new life, Traveler!

As soon as I finished reading, the system message disappeared, leaving me in complete darkness once again. I didn’t even have time to properly digest the fact that apparently the system I was assigned was quite literally ‘Pay to Win’, before I started to black out. Which was a weird sensation, since everything was blacked out already.

Anyway. Let’s see what’s about to happen.