It has been a bit over one hour since Tyler left the place where he was teleported to this world. The building had looked like an old run-down chapel that had definitely seen better days. In Tyler’s mind though, it definitely was a place for rituals, perhaps even sacrificial. Even thinking about it made his hairs stand up.

Now, after the initial excitement past a few realizations downed upon Tyler. Firstly let’s be honest, everyone would be excited when he first finds out that he is summoned/teleported to a fantasy world that basically has no limits. If you are strong enough you can live however you want and no one can call you out. However, what this initial first excitement masked out was what came crashing down on Tyler’s mind about thirty minutes after he left the chapel and started climbing down the mountain.

The Voice was quite serious about how dangerous this world is and as any other normal human being, Tyler was not a fan of the prospect of death. He’d rather avoid it. And this is where his other plights come into play. He has absolutely no idea how to survive in the wild, except some basic knowledge about camp fires and traps.

And then on top of that out of the blue hit him another tiny little realization. He was in a whole new world for God’s sake. Two opposing forces had a raging battle inside his head. On one side was the afraid Tyler, who didn’t want to die, who felt alone and miserable and on the other side was the adventurous Tyler, who was excited, who wanted to explore all that this new world could offer him.

In the midst of the raging battle and splitting headache that was slowly starting to form, Tyler finally remembered something so obvious that it made him feel ashamed that he forgot and ignored about it.

This new world had RPG elements!

Which brings us to the present, a young man sitting on a rock in the middle of a valley that was completely surrounded by forests, softly mumbling something under his breath like a madman.

That’s interesting. I deduced a couple of things from my experiments. Firstly when I thought about my status a small almost translucent window appeared in my vision. As if that triggered something, a ding sounded seemingly from all around me and a couple of notifications came to existence.

Congratulations: Titles Gained:

A Chosen - A being that has been chosen based on different criteria and managed to survive the trails, qualifying him to participate in The Game.

+ It is 50% easier for you to gain Classes, Titles and Traits. Beware though, there are not only good ones with positive effects. You reap what you sow. What? You thought you are special?

Natural - Not much is known about these beings. However, apparently they are natural at doing something, thus exceeding at that very field of expertise that they are natural at. Whether that is being a warrior or a basic farmer is yet to be seen.

Congratulations: Trait Gained:

Uncanny Prehension - You have an unnatural gift to sniff out inconsistencies within your surroundings. Allowing you to get a feeling of what’s about to happen to yourself in the immediate future. Strength and efficiency of trait can be increased further. The holder currently knows not how.

After I read the notifications they disappeared on their own accord and my status window slowly started changing. Letters slowly appeared. It looked something like this:

Status Window

Titles:

-A Chosen

-Natural

Traits:

-Uncanny Prehension

All this was quite amusing and exciting for me. I cannot say that I am not a fan of fantasy stories and this definitely brings me some amount of childish joy. Uncanny Prehension, huh, I guess I really did have some kind of a sixth sense, I was not going mad after all! On the other hand I don’t quite like the description of the Natural title.. And I can gain bad Titles and Traits 50% easier? I see what the Voice meant, the System really is quite the prick. And what the fuck does it mean that I don’t know how to increase the strength of my trait! Isn’t that why you, System, are here? To tell me!? I thought you should know everything on the realm, give me a good description and don’t be a dick!

After coming to terms that the system really is a dick and wouldn’t be much of a help, if at all, I tried to relax and feel the condition of my body. Just like the Voice said there wasn’t a pop-up window that showed my stats, however, I could faintly feel my “stats”, as in I could feel each “stat” in relativity to the others. It was really strange and I couldn’t find words to explain in. It was akin to just knowing how powerful each of your characteristics were compared to the others.

Currently it seemed that all my characteristics were at around the same level of power. Put in better words, so I could scale and compare it in the future, I’d say that everything, be it agility, strength, vitality, endurance, intelligence, was at around 10.

The feeling was really fascinating to me, as one could deduce from the fact that I spent around half an hour sitting on a rock playing around with my Status window and feeling around my body and different characteristics.

Finally satisfying my curiosity, I decided it’s time to move. The best course of action in this situation would be just accept my new reality. The more I try to deny it and the more I grieve of Earth, the less chance I have for survival. One thing that I agree with, that the Voice said, was that if I want to survive and if I want any answers, I will have to play and beat the Game.

Which means that I have to get strong. Apparently, incredibly strong. And here is where I meet yet another problem. I have absolutely no idea how.

There are too many unknowns fight now. What I think I should try and do is find some civilization. Hopefully there is some.

My eyes scan everything around me in 360 circle, trying to find any hints for what I am searching. No signs of civilization, however, I did see a river running across the forests directly on my right. Logically thinking if there is any civilization around, here it should be somewhere around a water source. And that rivier is my best bet.

Looking at the sky, the sun seems to have come behind the horizon a couple of hours ago, meaning that it’s still early in the morning. I am slowly getting thirstier and hungrier and that river doesn’t seem that close. I’d say about 5 kilometers away, however, going through the forest wouldn’t be as easy as walking a straight line so I better start going.

Hopefully I do find something before it starts getting dark, especially when I am still in a forest.

Thus with set determination I set forward to the river, mumbling streams of prayers that there are not any kinds of monsters in the forest and that I would find a friendly civilization.

It did not take long to reach the edge of the forest. The walking was even quite comfortable, I was giving some kind of really soft and tight fitting shoes that make walking easier and do not strain the feet.

Finally being so close to the forest, I could analyze it properly. The trees are definitely some type that I have not seen back on Earth. They were all of a varying size, however, even the smallest one was at least 7-8 meters in height and at least a meter in diameter. And the bigger ones? Well.. they were huge. Definitely larger than the largest tree on Earth.

The leaves were of an unknown shape to me as well and.. Had differently colour spots on them. I have no idea what biological purpose those spots could even have, but at least now I am certain - this is not my home world.

Bracing myself I step forward into the forest, using the scarce sunlight that barely cuts through the massive tree tops to navigate my way towards the river, based on the position of the sun. If it is like the Earth and the sun rises from the east, then I should be going north-west.

I’ve been walking for at least an hour now. If I am judging the distance correctly I should be really close to the river. There is, however, some strange happening. For the last five or so minutes I have been feeling.. Watched. On numerous times I scanned the flora around me, trying to not make it obvious of course, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. That didn’t ease my feeling though, quite the contrary, it’s been getting bigger and stronger with each step that I take. I can now almost feel tug at my heart, my senses screaming to me.

Congratulations: Trait gained:

Sense beyond senses - The being that has this trait is able to sense when something is amiss or not how it should be. It works best when the holder of the trait is in danger.

Well.. I guess that’s a way to confirm it. There’s no point in continuing this charade. Let’s face.. Whatever it is that is following me.

Stopping my walking, I slowly turned around, eyes darting to my left and right, “Who’s there? Why are you following me?”

Nothing.

I could feel my left eye start trembling with irritation. Do they take me for a fool? Are they mocking me?

“I know you are there, come out at once!”, I said while taking a step forward when suddenly I heard a slooshing sound. An arrow buried itself just centimeters away from my front foot, causing me to stop dead. Cold sweat slowly forming and dripping down my back.

Without any indication or sound a silhouette fell from one of the tree tops and landed a couple of meters in front of me. Upon further inspection the silhouette turned out to be a some kind of an.. She-animal? Or if I were to use a correct fantasy term it would be a beastwoman or rather a demi-human. The girl seemed to be in her late teens, judging from her face. She had a small nose, big green eyes. On top of her head I could see a pair of perked up black-dotted orange feline ears and a similarly coloured tail frozen in caution behind her back.

What mostly gathered my attention was the rather large bow with drawn string and an arrow pointed directly at me.

“Am.. hello?”, just as I finished my awkward first interaction in this new world at least a dozen other beastmen fell down all around me. Each one with similarly coloured ears and tails. All with pointed bows at me.

The girl, that was the first to come down slowly lowered her bow and took a step towards me, “What are you and what are you doing in our territory?”

Oh, at least I can understand them. That’s a good sign right? “Am, I didn’t mean to trespass your territory, I seem to be a bit los-”

A sudden pain in the back of my neck is the last thing I found my body buckling and falling forward like a doll with that had its strings cut. My consciousness escaped me before I even hit the ground.