Rin is still on the floor contemplating the event that transpired between himself and the goblin. If he had not dodged that last attack he would’ve been knocked out, allowing the goblin to easily end his life. He also would have fallen if it wasn’t because his back was against the wall, which might give the goblin another chance to attack. And there was the knife that he just so happens to hold when the goblin showed up. If any one of these were not in the picture, then he might have been in grave danger.

The goblin’s sudden appearance gave Rin such a surprise that he felt like his soul had jumped out of his body. After a few minutes, his left arm was no longer sore and his mind cleared up some more. He directs his attention towards the floating white text that was hanging about.

[Scanning body… pulling out status page]

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[Name: Rin]

[Race: Human]

[Class: none]

[Level: 1]

[Exp: 0/5]

[Stat Points: 0]

[Strength : 5]

[Agility : 5]

[Constitution: 5]

[Stamina: 5]

[Magic: 1]

[Mana: 1/1]

-----------------------------------------

[Quest received]

[Quest: Awaken thy class!]

[Clear Condition: Reach level 2]

[Reward: Class Selection]

-----------------------------------------

“A system? As in like, a video game system?” Rin accidentally blurts out. There were too many surprises today. First a goblin, and now a game-like system.

The system appears as white-colored words. A blue-colored background shaped like a square is placed behind the words and their size varies depending on the number of words. There is the status page that shows Rin’s information and below that is a smaller quest page.

Rin is familiar with video games since he plays them daily to pass time. Thus, he is somewhat familiar with systems and monsters such as goblins, which is a staple monster in fantasy games.

‘The stats are self-explanatory. Strength determines physical power, agility determines speed, constitution determines defense, stamina determines endurance, and magic determines… well... magic. There’s a row for stat points as well so it’s safe to assume that I gain stat points per level. This is starting to get interesting.’

After looking at his status page for a while, Rin looks at another page of notifications, which is the quest page.

‘A quest to reach level two and the reward is class selection! This is starting to feel more like a game. But level 2 to get a class? That’s kind of a weird number.’

Done with the system, Rin shifts his attention to the corpse on the floor. He was immersed in his status page and had almost forgotten about the goblin.

‘I should move this corpse somewhere else, I don’t want my house to stink. But I’m afraid to leave it outside, I don’t want it to attract any unwanted guests. Who knows what else is out there. Hmm… I’ll just have to bury it.’

Rin enters the garage to grab his shovel. His garage is mostly empty since he doesn’t have a vehicle. Instead, he has an electric bicycle for travel since it’s much cheaper than vehicles and he usually does not travel far. Other than that, Rin only has a few sets of tools that he rarely uses.

After grabbing a shovel, Rin drags the goblin corpse out to the front yard and makes his way around to the backyard. He doesn’t have a back door so he has to go through the front door first.

It took him around 15 minutes to dig a hole and bury the goblin. He then returns to the kitchen to clean the remaining blood.

After cleaning the blood on the ground and on himself, Rin glares at the system page that was hovering in front of him.

‘I thought that the system would start to disappear after a while but it’s still following me this whole time. It’s kind of obscuring my vision… I want it to disappear.’

After Rin thought of the system disappearing, it started to fade away.

‘Oh, looks like I only need to think for it to go away. Then, summon system.’

-----------------------------------------

[Status]

[Skills]

[Party]

-----------------------------------------

The system manifests within a second and gives him a few options. He skips over the status page and checks out the skills, but of course, he has yet to acquire any skills so it was empty. Then he opens the party page.

-----------------------------------------

[Invite another individual(s) to create a party]

-----------------------------------------

Rin has no way of knowing or testing what benefits a party provides so he simply closes the system and forgets about it.

He heads toward his room and turns on his pc then starts surfing the net. He was wondering if other people had encountered any monsters as he did. The results were a bit surprising.

There are photos and videos posted online showing numerous kinds of creatures that terrorized countries around the globe. There are wolves with lightning that circulates around their fur. Snakes that breathe poison fog. Mushroom monsters with claws as sharp as a tiger’s. Burning long-legged crocodiles viciously chasing every living being that is unfortunate enough to catch their appetite. An apocalypse has descended upon Etera.

Rin reads a couple of threads in hopes of finding any information that may be of help.

-----------------------------------------

“The world has come to an end! We are all going to die! Is this punishment from the gods? Is it because humans took the world’s resources for granted?”

“What is the military doing?! Why haven’t they sent any forces to clear the monsters? Surely a few bullets would be enough to kill them?”

“If you’re waiting for the military to come to the rescue then you can forget about it. I live in a city that is close to a military base and it got utterly decimated by a dragon. One dragon alone took on thousands of guns and units of tanks.”

“No way… you’re kidding… so we are all on our own?”

“It seems like the police stations were hit hard as well. A group of humanoid lizards raided the police station in my city. Those lizards were only wearing medieval-looking armor and primitive weapons but no firearms were able to pierce them.”

“The military base and now the police stations? Are firearms useless against these things? What else can we do if our weapons can’t even harm them?”

“Don’t lose hope! We can survive! You must kill monsters then you will gain this system that will help you get stronger, but don’t go for the strong-looking ones. I managed to kill a rat that was around 24 inches (0.6 meters) long. If we can kill the weaker ones then maybe we can still have a chance!”

-----------------------------------------

There was indeed useful information online. Rin suspects that it was not a coincidence that stronger monsters happen to appear where the military and police stations are located. It sounds a little too suspicious.

‘It seems like places with firearms got prioritized first. Almost as if the monsters’ attacks were coordinated. Of course, this is only an assumption and I have no way to confirm it.’

Rin reads a couple more threads and finds out that those who killed monsters will be rewarded exp points to level up, which was exactly what he had suspected when he saw the exp and level stats. Rin spends another hour digging for more information but there was nothing worth mentioning.

‘I need to find people and group with them, there is only so much I can do alone. But more importantly, I need to become stronger as well.’