Darkness. That's all he could see, if in fact he was actually ‘seeing’ it. It took a while for Raph to calm down, and for the realization that he wasn’t quite dead to set in.

‘So I clearly died.’ Raph exclaimed to himself ‘But I’m not dead, soooo is this like heaven? Or Hell maybe?’

He was unsure of how long he had been in this state, to him it felt like it could have been weeks already, maybe even longer. ‘If this is the afterlife I'm in for a boring eternity of darkness.’ The thought of spending the rest of his “days” in perpetual darkness was anything but reassuring.

‘If only they had an internet connection here. That would make it much better.’ Raph was rapidly running out of patience, left with his own thoughts staring out into the darkness.

Sometime later Raph had this strange sensation that he had not felt in the weeks previously, he felt heavy. Like back when was alive, he felt real, corporeal. And then finally someone said: “let there be light” and he opened his eyes.

As you might understand this came as quite a shock to Raph, considering he died and all. But there he was, eyes wide open, looking up at a poorly made ceiling made of rough sawn wooden planks that had seen better days.

“What the fuck is happening.” confusion and fear laced Raph’s words as the reality set in, he was somehow not dead. Although by how he was currently feeling, he wasn't far from it.

Straining to sit up, Raph took a good look at his surroundings, he was in a small room around 10m2 if he had to take a guess. The walls and floor were made of the same poorly constructed wood as the roof, although the wall looked to be in a bit better condition than the roof was. The rooms furnishings were sparse: a single bed in which Raph was currently sat, a small table and chair with what looked to be a wax candle on it, a tiny dresser which looked to be falling apart, and counter on the other side of the room with half a loaf of bread on it. Even though the room was bereft of things it did seem to be well looked after, it was clean and tidy; there was even a small mirror on the wall with the counter on it.

Raph proceeded to get up, much to his body's protest and walk over to the counter with the mirror on it. What he was met with when he stared into said mirror gave him a shock to say the least.

“Fuck me.” Raph exclaimed at the sight he was met with. He saw a frail looking body, maybe a smidge under 6ft (~180cm) in height and a face that was very similar to his and yet not his. It was a bizarre experience seeing himself, but with a different body and face than he was used to.

For a few minutes Raph was staring at ‘himself’ in the mirror, his trance however was interrupted by…

DING

“SHIT” Raph almost jumped out of skin as the rather loud notification noise sounded in his head.

“What was that!” he said and spun around, looking for the source of the sound he scoured the room to no avail. His search was interrupted by another noise.

DING

This time Raph realized the sound wasn't really coming from anywhere and he could hear it inside his head.

“What the fuck going on?” Raph said to no one in particular as once more he heard the noise.

DING

System initiated, please stand by.

“Well this is finally it Raph, you’ve gone insane.” Raph didn’t know what was happening at this point: he had died, finally woken up in gods know where, in a body or face he didn’t recognize, and now to top it all off he was hearing strange disembodied voices in his head saying shit that doesn’t make any sense.

DING

System activated.

The disembodied voice spoke again, then Raph blacked out and fell back on to the floor.

[]--- ---[]

An unknown amount of time later, Raph awoke with the most painful migraine he had ever experienced. Sitting himself up he cupped his head in his hands and groaned.

“UUUGGHHH, Fuck! What the hells was that?”

When he opened his eyes he could only assume that it was some strange effect of the migraine he was currently experiencing because there was a string of text boxes, front and centre in his vision.

“Huh.”

System initiated, please stand by.

System activated.

Reincarnation protocol deployed successfully, welcome user Raphael Smith to Aetas

“Yeah, I've definitely gone insane.” Raph mumbled to himself as he moved his head around, whichever way he looked the text was always in the centre of his vision. Raph stared absentmindedly for a few minutes and tried to collect himself.

“Right Raph, this is completely fucked but you’re apparently in some game world now called Aetas?” again mumbling himself, he decided to experiment with boxes he could see. He waved his hands in front of his face with gestures he remembered from his old world, to no avail of course as nothing physical seemed to affect the boxes. Next he decided to try some verbal cues.

“Dismiss.” he said, and still nothing happened except for a hint of embarrassment on Raphs part as he realized the absurdity of the situation he found himself in.

Dismiss, Raph thought somewhat directed at the boxes and lo and behold, they did.

“Finally, getting somewhere.” Raph said, relieved.

“Right, so it seems I have to think about what I want them to do.” Raph paused and recalled his previous life, where he used to play games with systems like this one.

“Ok so how about…”

Show Notifications

System initiated, please stand by.

System activated.

Reincarnation protocol deployed successfully, welcome user Raphael Smith to Aetas

The text reappeared and Raph was getting more familiar with what he could do.

“Next, maybe inventory?”

Inventory

…

“Shit, well no magic storage spaces, for now at least.” Raph said somewhat sourly. “How about this?”

Status

Raphael Smith

1st Class

--

2nd Class

Locked

Status

Health

5/50

Stamina

5/50

Mana

50

Str.

7

End.

8

Vit.

5

Dex.

5

Int.

10

Wis.

9

Skills

Basic language pack

Gives the user the basic languages they will need to get around.

Reincarnator

???

“Well, this is new.” Raph said to himself as he examined his status screen. The first thing he noticed was that his health and stamina were low, which explained his frail body state. The next thing that caught his eye was right below his name, classes.

“So this world has classes, like a game? And there’s two slots? I wonder if I have to get one first then I can get a second or if there is some kind of trail?” Raph’s mind was going crazy with the implications of what this all meant. He took a few minutes to calm himself down and accept his fate that he was now stuck in this place, wherever the hells Aetas was.

Through the small gaps in the walls Raph could see daylight shining in from outside and realized that he should go out and take a look at the new world. He got up from the bed that he was currently sitting on, grabbed what looked like a rough shirt from the dresser, pulled open the rickety door, and went outside.

What he was greeted with as he walked down a small alley that his room was situated in was a fairly busy almost medieval looking ramshackled market, with stalls and hagglers all over the place selling; bread, vegetables, and even some livestock that reminded Raph of pigs except they around 1.5m tall and green. Forcing himself to stop staring at the ‘pigs’ he kept on looking around in wonder at the various and exotic looking food that was on display.

That was until he heard someone call out his name.

“Raph!” Someone shouted rather hurriedly. “Where have you been?” Raph turned around to see a large gruff-looking middle aged man heading in his direction. He was a bit taller than Raph and had a similar physique to the world strongest men that he had seen in his previous life, very strong but not lean and aggressively muscley.

The large man grabbed Raph by the shoulder and began to drag raph away from the market. “I’ve been wondering where you were all morning kid, you are supposed to be helping me put that fence up in the fields remember?” Raph had a sudden realization that he knew this man, his name was Hamish Morgan and he was a farmer that gave Raph some odd jobs.

‘This is so strange’ Raph thought to himself, ‘How do I know him?’ Then it hit him. ‘In the notification boxes it said reincarnation, so that means that I'm occupying the body of someone else? I guess that's why my health is so low, the previous Raph must have been terribly frail.’

Hamish pulled Raph along through what he now knew is a kind of slum outside the city of Langreth where he lived. It took them about 15 minutes before he was met with the sight of expansive fields that went on for as far as the eye could see. Another 5 minutes later they arrived at their destination, a pile of large wooden stakes and horizontal beams that they were using to make a fence.

“Right kid, since you were late starting you're going to have to stay later tonight to get this done. I have other things to do later but until lunch I can help you out, at least you won't be here all night that way.” Hamish said proudly.

Raph groaned but he came to the conclusion that he really didn't have any other options at the minute so he and Hamish began to put up the fence. Just before lunchtime Hamish left for a few minutes and came back with a pot and a loaf of bread from gods know where, the pot had some kind of vegetable stew in it and considering how hungry Raph was after working all morning it hit the spot.

Out of curiosity while he was eating the stew he decided to give his screens another look.

Status

Raphael Smith

1st Class

--

2nd Class

Locked

Status

Health

20/50

Stamina

20/50

Mana

50

Str.

7

End.

8

Vit.

5

Dex.

5

Int.

10

Wis.

9

Skills

Basic language pack

Gives the user the basic languages they will need to get around.

Reincarnator

???

‘Well I’ll be damned.’ he thought to himself as he looked at the screens. ‘My health went up from eating the stew.’

After the excellent lunch provided by Hamish he got back to work, although this time without his friend and boy was it a long day. The sun had long gone down by the time he was nearing the end of the length he needed to put up for the day and Raph was exhausted. By this time the fields were empty as everyone had gone home for the night and were probably already asleep.

Raph was finishing up his job hammering in the last stake for the fence, when he heard an unfamiliar low pitched screech come from behind him. He turned around sharply and caught a glimpse of a horror illuminated only by moonlight. The thing was fairly short, only around a meter, and from what Raph could tell was a sickly green color, with claw-like hands, long nails and pointy ragged ears.

“HOLY SHIT” Raph screamed as he scrambled backwards from the fence while trying to draw his eyes away from the creature.

DING.

General skill learned: Analyze

Lesser Feral Goblin Lv.6

“SHIT, SHIT, SHIT.” Raph continued to shout as he scrambled further away from the goblin. The goblin was now coming straight for Raph, claws scratching away at the air and saliva dripping from its rancid teeth. Backing away Raph fell down on to his backside as the goblin closed in on him, with the hammer he was using still tight in his grip Raph braced himself for what was about to come.

The goblin was upon him, it swiped its claws and Raph rolled over to his left barely dodging the incoming attack. Raph swung the hammer wildly hoping to score a hit as the goblin continued its frenzy, after a few unsuccessful hits one of Raphs swings landed. The claw he hit made a rather sickening crunch as it was struck by the hammer and it was now hanging limp by the goblins' side.

With the upper hand Raph managed to get up on his feet and assume what he thought to be a fighting stance; legs wide, low centre of mass, and hammer at the ready. The goblin came at him again with its one claw thrashing furiously Raph moved in to the goblin taking another swing he traded blows connecting with the shoulder above its limp arm. The goblin managed to claw at Raph's side, thankfully the adrenaline was keeping him focused.

“Ahhhhhhh.” Raph grunted, as he realized the pain that was emanating from the gouge in his side.

“SCcrrrrrr” The goblin had slowed down considerably now after taking two big hits to the side, it made a more feeble screech as it lunged back at Raph.

Raph saw the goblin come back at him and knew he had to end this quickly or they’d both be dead. He took an almighty swing and aimed straight for its head, the goblin clawed again this time scratching Raphs chest. Luckily for Raph the attack from the goblin left its head wide open, his hammer with as much force as he could muster smashed into the goblins head, its skull shattered and the top of its head exploded from the impact.

The goblins' body went limp and slumped down right in front of Raph as he dropped the hammer and gasped for air, shocked by the pain that was radiating from his chest.

“ARRGHHH!” Raph screamed as he fell to his knees onto the dirt. He gasped for air as he was overcome with what just happened, then once again he blacked out.

Just before Raph blacked out he failed to notice the notification noise he got from the system

DING.

DING.

DING.