He moved around the clearing, spamming Examine as well as picking up any useful plants and placing them in his pockets.

Now he had to seek shelter. He could craft one in the woods, but it would be safer to find a settlement.

He moved deeper into the woods until he found remnants of a city. The place looked old and ruined, with no one in sight. Markus walked up to the rusted gates guarding the entrance to the city and tapped on them.

A small, greenish monster appeared. It had been behind the gate post and was wearing the kind of clothes you'd see on a 60-year-old man that tells kids to get the fuck off his lawn. He had a red hat on with a gray shirt and beige pants. Around his waist two holsters could be seen, one with a knife and another with what Markus knew to be a pistol.

"Greetings, player. Welcome to Ganbara City!" the goblin said.

"I have come to stay at the Zelroba Hotel. Afterward, I will participate in the grand hunt and enter the guild." Markus said.

"Huh, interesting! You know about these places but you're not an enemy and you've never been here...I'm out of date, aren't I? Well, enjoy your stay!"

After he stepped past the gates, the images of the ruins faded, and in its place stood a modern city, with goblin inhabitants. Not too many goblins walked on the streets, but they resembled modern life close enough that it could be mistaken for the suburbs. Cars and bicycles could be seen driving by, while goblins crossed streets when the light was red, looking down at their phones.

He first headed to the guild, to register and also to earn a living. Like reality, animals did not drop money, but the game system made it so that it was possible to earn money by registering at a guild.

At the guild, a lone goblin sat behind a counter, doing paperwork. A board with multiple sheets of paper stood on the wall to the right. Stairs led upwards on that same wall, to which Markus knew led to the guildmaster's room, as well as a large hall that led to the training rooms.

The guild staff greeted him roughly. "What's your business?", said the goblin.

"I'd like to register for the guild."

"Any reason?"

"To unlock the quest system, of course."

"Oh? And which one of us told you about that? I didn't think ol' Vaja had such loose lips." The goblin took out a piece of paper and a pen and gestured at him to sign. Markus did so and a blue box popped up.

Quest System Unlocked!

"Anyway, here's how the system---"

"I know how the guild operates so you don't have to explain it to me." Markus cut in.

"You sure? The way we operate might be a little different than what you're expecting."

"It's fine, I know how it works."

"Suit yourself then." The goblin turned away from Markus and

He then headed over to the quest board, ignoring the faded ones, and looked carefully before deciding on two of them.

Ganbea Leaf Collection Collect 5 Ganbea Leaves Rewards: 5 Credits The Grand Hunt Kill as many monsters as you can in the daily wave Rewards: Varies

The first he had chosen because he had more than enough of those leaves on him. The second was the grand hunt which was just a fancy term for a wave of monsters. This happened daily because that's just how the game was set up. Every day, a horde of monsters would attack each city.

Markus checked the time with the clock on the wall. The time system was the same compared to the outside world, thought time did not flow the same. He had a couple of minutes before the message to all players and the world about the game, so he quickly turned in the first quest and waited.

While he waited, a blue box popped up in front of him, telling him that he had unlocked Constitution.

He then opened up the classes list. Fighter was now unlocked, so he chose it before pulling up his status.

Learned Unarmed Mastery Lvl 1!

Name: Markus Zhang

Lvl: 1

Class: Fighter Lvl 1

HP: 115/115

MP: 77/77

SP: 62/62

EXP: 0/100

Strength: 13

Dexterity: 10

Persistence: 12

Agility: 14

Resistance: 10

Intelligence: 14

Wisdom: 20

Constitution: 14

Constitution, strength, and agility had all increased by 2. Fighter had a level beside it and started at 1 because of his new skill.

Looks like I'll have to get gloves or boots of some kind, Markus thought.

As he was thinking, a blue screen appeared in front of him.

Welcome, humans, to Moratulis!

Welcome to the simulation of your world's trial!

Why is this a simulation? Well, maybe you should have looked more closely at the game name before you decided to play it!

As some of you may have noticed, you cannot log out. You will be unable to do so until the fall of the demon king.

Now, what does this mean? This means that after the game ends, the exact same thing will happen to Earth!

But don't worry! If you manage to get out of the game alive you can take everything you have in the game into the real world with you! You can change your looks, become rich, and have magic powers!

Keyword there: alive.

Just like the real world, there are no second chances. If you die here, you die in real life.

"But why? Why is this happening to us?"

You, humans, have grown too lazy. You believe you are entitled to what you call rights, that you are above animals. Now it is time to put that to the test, by having you undergo a trial.

But some people don't have the advantages others have, so to show some mercy, we gave you this game.

There is no tutorial for this game, but you can get advice by asking the NPCs around you! After all, they went through the exact same thing as you! The only difference is, they lost.

Now, I hear that some of you are skeptical about this sort of thing. So for an example, let's zoom in on this young man right here.

The screen changed, showing a player's avatar inside of the game. The person is chained to a wall in the room. The room is dusty, with a rat in the corner and spiderwebs on the ceiling.

This young man right here is 16 years old, lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is one of the skeptics of the game.

So let's use him as an example!

The screen then split, showing the kid's body in real life on the right side of the screen. The kid is lying down on his bed, inside of a room covered with anime posters. Dirty clothes are strewn everywhere on the floor.

A lightning bolt comes out of nowhere, through the ceiling, on the left side of the screen, and strikes the kid's avatar. The player quickly fizzles out and dies.

On the right side, the boy's head suddenly explodes, covering the inside of the headset with blood.

Some of you may be thinking: "How could you kill a child?!"

Then here's a question for you: why was he in a jail cell?

There's something in this world called the law of karma: You're going to get what's coming to you.

So, have fun killing the demon king!

Oh, and by the way: I'll give you a little freebie as well as a hint to finding demons:

The only humans in the game are players.

Good Luck!

Unlocked Player Counter!

As he recalled from his previous life, any of the cities in the game that were named after major cities in the real world, like New York City, Tokyo, Beijing, and Sydney were all infested with demons. Of course, to mimic reality, all of these cities were in their proper places in the world, giving the world 7 continents.

The demons, of course, could shapeshift themselves into other living things, for example, humans.

As soon as he had heard the message in his last life he had gotten the fuck out of there. He spent the rest of that day on the run, looking behind him as he ran. Luckily, the demons were not too strong and were preoccupied with killing other players.

He now pulled up the player counter.

Players Remaining:

1,674,526,531

If he recalled correctly, there were originally around 2.5 billion players. Less had died than he expected, especially considering the majority of players should have spawned near a demon city.

Checking the time again, he found that he had about 1 hour before the wave. Monsters would start to gather soon, so he decided not to venture outside. Instead, he'd go use one of the other features of the guild.

If the only purpose of the guild was to unlock the quest system, there wouldn't be a need to construct an entire building for it. And so, parts of the building were used for various things.

One feature of the guild was the training rooms. They were free to use as long as you didn't break anything and were a member of the guild. The game decided to show mercy in some aspects to players and this happened to be one of them. It still had to mimic reality though, so it was first come first serve.

Markus entered one of the rooms, the walls painted white and 2 training dummies waiting for him. His stomach growled and so he took out a couple of the berries in his pocket. They were a little sweet with a mild poison, which was good as he could increase his Resistance attribute this way.

He pulled up his status and skill list once more:

Name: Markus Zhang

Lvl: 1

Class: Fighter Lvl 1

HP: 115/115

MP: 77/77

SP: 62/62

EXP: 0/100

Strength: 13

Dexterity: 10

Persistence: 12

Agility: 14

Resistance: 10

Intelligence: 14

Wisdom: 20

Constitution: 14

Non-Mana Skills:

Throw Lvl 7, Breathing Lvl 8, Running Lvl 5, Walking Lvl 6, Scratch Lvl 3, Punch Lvl 2, Kick Lvl 2, Jab Lvl 2, Hook Lvl 2, Communication Lvl 4, Cooperation Lvl 3, Training Lvl 4, Studying Lvl 4, Concentration Lvl 2, Adaptation Lvl 2, Blunt Weapon Mastery Lvl 1, Trip Lvl 1, Jump Lvl 2, Climbing Lvl 4, Cleaning Lvl 2, Cooking Lvl 2, Knife Mastery Lvl 1, Dodge Lvl 1, Uppercut Lvl 1, Ride Lvl 1, Examine Lvl 4, Listening Lvl 4, Reading Lvl 5, Writing Lvl 5, Sleeping Lvl 7, Spying Lvl 2, Premonition Lvl 7, Fall Resistance Lvl 1, Unarmed Mastery Lvl 1

Mana Skills:

I don't have any mana skills yet, so I'll start with working on my circulation, Markus thought as he looked at his skill list.

He sat down in the middle of the room, legs crossed, and hands at his sides. He closed his eyes before taking a deep breath in, using his core muscles as well. He felt the faint whisper of energy inside of him and started to try and move that energy around his body.

As he did so, he felt the small paralyzation in his body. The poison took effect, but just barely. After it dissipated, Markus shoveled more berries into his mouth, satiating his hunger and grinding his resistance.

By doing so, his resistance increased by a single point and he earned another skill: Paralyze Resistance.

As for his circulation, being level 1, he barely made any progress. He just managed to get a wisp out before he heard the rumbling and shouts.

Dammit, looks like I'll have to work on it some more later. Markus exited the room and headed outside the guild, where a horde of monsters could be seen, along with several players.

David knew something was wrong with New York City at the start.

It was weird how some of the people had red eyes, he recalled. When he had looked again, however, their eyes were normal, so he thought he had imagined it.

He managed to meet up with some of his friends.

And then the message came.

They managed to escape into the woods. For some reason, the demons couldn't go outside of the city. They could still fire bullets at them though. One of them plowed through Larry's head.

After running for a bit, checking behind them, they stopped for a bit. That's when the rumbling started.

And now they were running for their fucking lives. Again. In the distance, they saw the ruins of a city. Alex shouted out for them to hide in the city.

Alex ran into the ruins but was stopped by some kind of invisible wall. In desperation, he tried running into everything, including that rusty old gate.

A goblin then popped up out of nowhere. "Hey, welcome to---"

"Help me please help me!" Alex screamed, sweat running down his face.

"Geez, why're you in a hurry? Slow down, okay man? You gotta go through customs and---"

"Do you not see the monsters behind me help me!"

The rest of them had caught up by now, and so Vaja opened the gate. Alex, David, and Sherry ran in before Vaja closed the gates, locking Aidan out.

"Wait what?! Why can't I come in?!" Aidan yelled, with a scared look that quickly turned to anger on his face.

"Yeah, that's our friend!" David said.

"Well, your friend killed a goblin, so he's not allowed in the city," Vaja said calmly.

"This is bullshit! We need help, how can you do this to us!" Sherry said.

"So it's wrong if we kill one of you, but it's okay if you kill one of us?"

"W-Well--"

"Of course it is! This is a game! Human lives matter more than monster lives!" David broke in.

"Oh? Then you fuckers get to go outside with him!" Vaja activated his magic power, using a spell.

In a flash of light, David, Sherry, and Alex were teleported outside of the city, along with Aidan into the monster horde.

They barely had time to react before they were all trampled and bitten to death by the monsters.

"And good riddance!" cried Vaja.

Markus watched calmly. People that believed in human superiority would probably die out after this wave. He saw the numbers on the player counter drop to a little less than 1.5 billion, before continuing to fall.

In the distance, monsters approached, wolves and foxes in the mix, along with a couple of large figures. They were too big to be human, and from his past life's knowledge, he knew they could either be hobgoblins or ogres. Around him, the guards, as well as the various goblin adventurers, were getting ready to fight. Vaja had pulled out his daggers as he waited, and some of the guards sported arrows and throwing spears.

Like humans, the monsters only saw ruins. However, they possessed skills that told them that there were lifeforms here, even though they could not see them, and they attempted to move into the city. They bumped into the walls, before finally making their way into the gates. Vaja cleanly cut off the heads of the monsters that did so, exposing the barrier and illusion.

Markus checked his skills, stretching his body before stepping up. It was time for the hunt to begin.