“Wake up!”

I was hit with a feeling of déjà vu as Verita’s loud voice, coupled with her thick hands forcibly removed me from the void that was unconsciousness. Groaning while raising my torso into an upright position, I cracked open one eye and took stock of my situation.

We seemed to be on some island of some sort. I noticed that minus the beach we were situated, everything else was green forest with coconut, banana and sea grape trees dominating the ambient flora. In the distance – which looked to be the center of the island – was a large volcano that looked to be dormant.

Classic survival story. A handsome man and a beautiful woman all alone on an uncharted island with no idea what to do. If that woman had been Maria, I might’ve settled for just living it out on the beach, but my current goal was to return to my girl as soon as possible.

She still hadn’t sucked my peepee after all.

“How did we land here, Verita?” I asked her as I climbed to my feet slowly, brushing the beach sand off me.

She folded her arms under her ample chest and gave me a strange look. “Are you ever phased by anything? We’ve been thrown into two different hopeless situations and you’ve remain calm through both.”

I laughed and patted her arm amiably. “Hope is an emotion that is idealized and utilized by humans. If you create hope in yourself, no situation is hopeless.”

That and my background had seen me in different positions that I would argue were as bad as or worse than this. The age where I was helpless in an unfamiliar situation was long gone. My parent’s brutal training during my upbringing saw to that. I was made to be adaptable to any situation, given the brutality of backdoor politics in our world. It may have been harsh compared to any other child’s nurturing, but here it was going to and already had paid dividends.

“It’s still day time. I suggest we leave the beach and venture into the forest for shelter. Out here we’re open to anything that may view us as edible.”

Verita visibly shuddered at that and her façade of ferociousness dropped for a second to show me the scared and vulnerable woman underneath. I turned away from her immediately and started walking away. She would not appreciate me ogling her in her moment of weakness when she regained composure. If I wanted her to stop slapping the shit out of me, it was going to start with small kindnesses like this.

We trekked across the wide beach and breached the sprawling mass of greenery that stretched for as far as the eye could see. I could hear the sounds of insects, birds and critters all around me, though I struggled to gain the visual presence of them. Luckily for us, the trees weren’t pushed together and there was ample space for both of us to move side by side easily. Unfortunately, it also meant we were exposed to whatever was on top of the food chain here.

Verita and I walked in silence for the first few miles, the wariness of being in a populated jungle fully pushing us into alert mode. Still, even with that in mind, I decided to break the silence by the fifth hour of our aimless trek with some light banter.

“So you fine jewel of the sea, tell me about yourself.”

“Quite the smooth talker aren’t you? You know my name already, Verita. My last name is Halvadro. I’m a Colombian bartender who used her last bit of leisure money to buy a dumb game, and now I’m here. Your turn pretty boy.”

I spared a minute to contemplate what to tell her and how. Then I looked around, took stock of our situation and decided to lay it as it was.

“My name is Jay Garrick and I’m the fastest man alive.”

The resounding whack I received to the back of my head taught me one important lesson. Don’t talk shit to a Columbian Goddess.

“My name is Jay, last name omitted for legal reasons. Don’t look at me like that, I’m serious. I’m a drug baron from West Africa, Ghana.”

Verita’s eyebrows rose sharply, almost reaching her hairline. She lazily swatted a daring mosquito that had tried to get a free snack. I was confident that the offending bug was a male, seeing the part of her anatomy it chose to go for. Heh. No matter the species, men will always love tits.

“So you’re a criminal? Then that’s why you can’t tell me your name. Scared that I’d have to report you?” She teased with a grin.

I shook my head and grinned back, my calm body tenor contrasting my dark tone. “You do realize that I know your full name and where you originate, right? What do you think drug barons do to snitches? Haven’t you watched Narcos?”

She made a show of placing her index and thumb over her chin in a fake thoughtful pose. Heh. A living thinking emoji. Though with the face she was making, she tilted more towards being a thonk.

“But what if... what if I were stuck on an island with a strange and frankly scaring looking dude who asked for my personal details without sharing his first? What if I gave him wrong information until he shared his? Then I could apologize and give him the right info.”

I laughed. This woman was beautiful in mind and body! She was the finest specimen of humanity that I had seen since Maria! And she was here. Trapped on an island. With me. All alone.

A sudden thwack stopped my train of thought before I could fall down that rabbit hole.

“Don’t even think about it boy.” She warned with a snort.

Rubbing the sore spot, I thanked her for clearing my hormone addled mind before I did something unforgiveable.

As the sun continued to dip from the sky, I motioned for us to head deeper into the slowly thinning jungle before we lost all light. The fact that we had been walking for hours without tiring intrigued me and scared me at the same time. I wasn’t the most lethargic fellow, but I knew I couldn’t walk this long without having burning lungs and shaky legs. So far, Verita and I seemed to be pretty fine stamina wise.

She did say they were brought here when they were about to play a new game. What was it called? Seedorks Online? Something like that. I was brought here by a comic relief deity that wanted me to do something for him… without actually telling me what yet. Given his words, I was surprised that he went against his own thema.

So, that would mean that we were in a game-like world? If so, what type of game was this? So far, I could see the action and adventure bits and our current predicament hinted at survival. I just hoped it wasn’t survival horror as I was very bad with horror stuff. It was a personal joy for Maria to force at least one horror movie in our marathon nights just to watch me squeal like a little girl.

Still, every anime and game I’d played with an Isekai – transported to another world – theme had a focus on MMORPG – Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game – element. That meant that this world should have stats, character sheets and inventories as well as mini maps and world maps. Focusing on it, I thought to bring up a map screen.

I was subtly surprised when one did pop up, but grunted in disgust when I saw that it had only a small patch of green, blue and brown, the rest being pitch black. So, unless I walked the entirety of the land, I couldn’t see anything. Lovely.

Next, I went to my HUD – Heads Up Display – settings and set my mini-map to always on, as well as my health, mana and stamina bars. Tweaking a few other settings, I made sure that I wasn’t disturbed by pop ups and notifications unless they were marked with three exclamations marks, meaning they were extremely pertinent. With all of that set, I moved onto my inventory screen.

I scowled when I saw what I had. A rusty short sword, a flinty dagger, two copper pieces and some food and water rations. Totally useless shit… unless you were trapped on an island. Then it became a Godsend.

Moving on to the last screen, I decided to check my character sheet. It came up before me as a complex table with too many components, so I selected a simplified version to be displayed with no small amount of irritation.

Character

Name: Jay

Class: Pirate

Spec: Swashbuckler

Race: Human

Alignment: Chaos

Fame: 0

Level: 1

Exp: 0%

Deity: unknown

Health: 400

Mana: 500

Stamina: 500

Stats

Forte: 5

Alacrity: 3

Control: 15

Durability: 4

Magnetism: 20

Chance: 5

Skills

None

I frowned at what I saw. I had a cursory interest in games like any heathy male, so I could make heads or tails of what I was seeing. I just didn’t like how shitty it looked. Only two of my stats were in the double digits and my skills table was glaringly empty. Charming. I pulled up a tooltip description of all the info I was seeing and the meanings of the terminologies. Just to be sure.

__________________

Spec: A sub class specification that changes depending on rank within a class.

Fame: Current popularity in the underworld and the aboveworld. This ties in with your magnetism stat.

Deity: The patron God who you worship. For otherworlders, it’s the God who brought you here.

__________________

__________________

Forte: Your physical power. This affects your ranged, melee and magical damage.

Alacrity: Your physical speed. This affects your movement in and out of combat as well as your perception and intelligence.

Control: Your willpower. This affects your unit, structure and fleet control.

Durability: Your ability to withstand physical, mental and spiritual damage.

Magnetism: Your charm. This affects trade prices, crew respect and persuasive power. It has a doubled effect on the opposite sex or any individual with a sexual orientation that includes you.

Chance: Your luck. This stat is vital above all else.

__________________

Hmm…

“Hey wench, check your character sheet,” I commanded her rudely, a resounding thwack a reward for my efforts.

“Idiot…” Verita mumbled with a small smile, following my directive. Soon, I noticed her frowning and humming just like I did. “Absolute shit. I’m not telling you squat.”

I whimpered as if in pain. “B…But Verita darling… I need to know!!”

She raised her palm in a threatening manner and I dropped the act, getting the message. I looked around for something we could hopefully use to keep ourselves warm for the night – which was almost upon us – since I wasn’t much of an outdoors kinda guy. I mean, I had read some survival books like Robinson Crusoe, but that was ages ago and my comfortable lifestyle didn’t exactly make me aware of the nitty gritty of jungle life.

Even my harsh training didn’t account for this kind of scenario. Ballistics, unarmed, bladed and blunt weapons/combat? Hell yeah. How to rub two sticks to make a fire? Hell no.

“Uh, you wouldn’t know how to make a fire and crude shelter would you?” I asked my companion tepidly.

“Fuck no. Do I look like a fount of knowledge? Do I seem bursting with ideas? Hm?” She countered with a frown.

I looked at her heavenly form and replied without thinking. “Well, you’re certainly bursting in all the right places.”

This time, the hit was so strong that I was sent flying into a nearby bush. After struggling to extricate myself without ripping chasm in my torso, I turned to face a furiously blushing Verita. Instead of a reprimand or chastisement, she just coughed into her palm and indicated for us to keep walking. I obliged her, noticing that she was walking a lot closer to me now.

Instead of taking the obvious hint and course of action, I followed my nature and did the only thing I really could. I sneered at her in a dirty manner and scampered away before I could be sent flying.

Verita’s response was dark look that promised punishment when we had settled down. I shrugged and followed her out of the wilderness onto what seemed to be a wide plain. The grassland stretched for miles and miles, the only break being the volcano and a greenish outline behind it.

“Huh. So I’d guess that the volcano is smack dab in the middle of the island and we’re surrounded by the forest on all sides,” I remarked while casting a careful eye about the change in scenery, “a perfectly defensible location.”

“Yeah, no. If you’re going to do your Sherlock Holmes shit, speak English,” Verita cautioned with a grunt. She looked around carefully, but her eyes clearly failed to recognize key details that mine did. It probably was due to her lack of situational awareness training. Everybody was taught that right? Right?

“It means that someone might be holed up in that volcano. With this wide stretch of grassland, they’d be able to see any intruders for miles away and deploy defensive measures with time to spare.”

She crossed her arms under her blessed chest and gave me a skeptical look. “You got all that from looking at grass?”

I chose not to play the fool as I always did and injected some grimness into my tone. “Yes, but what sealed the deal is this plain. Think about it. We just came from a noisy jungle full of wildlife and entered such a large grassland.”

“And yet, do you see a single plains animal roaming? Bisons, cattle and other herbivores?”

Verita cast a new glance about and her body language changed from relaxed to tense. Good. She came to the same conclusion I did.

Turning to face the volcano itself, I sighed internally. The obvious course of action would be to turn around and find shelter in the jungle. But with us walking brazenly into the plain, there was a good chance we’d been spotted, yet there had been no response so far. Which meant they were either non-hostile or were hoping to lure us into some trap. My gut told me it was the latter.

“Open your inventory. There are some weapons. Equip them. I have a feeling we are going to be having a grand time tonight.”