We quickly left the scene, leaving the group of people behind without hesitation. We couldn’t worry about others when we didn’t know where the hell we were. After running for roughly an hour, we were able to find an abandoned building to rest in.

“Kim... Can I come out now?” another young unfamiliar voice spoke.

Kimberly sighed and waved her hand. I wondered what she was doing and who the owner of the voice was but luckily for me, my curiosity was quickly satiated when a small flame appeared in the air next to Kimberly. The flame turned in a young boy.

This boy was rather small, about the size of Zeph, and wore a simple yet decorated dress. The dress was a gradient of red and yellow, the yellow starting at the bottom and gradually turning red. At the end were rubies lined all around the dress. The boy’s hair was short and black, with its tips a shade of bright red, like it was constantly burning. His eyes were large and round, the irises seemingly glowed red. His skin was dark in some areas and light in others, maybe he couldn’t control his flames fully and burned himself at times.

“Hello Kim’s friends.” the boy said, bowing to me and Zeph. “My name is Agni. Although I share the name of a famous god, I’m not him.”

“It’s a pleasure Agni. I’m Sam and this is Zeph.” I replied. “How long have you been with Kimberly? You called her ‘Kim’ just now.”

“Ah! Pretend you didn’t hear that! I’m so sorry Kim! I mean Miss Kimberly!”

Agni was flustered and kept bowing to Kimberly, begging for her forgiveness. This was a rather funny scene, considering what was going on. Zeph walked up to Agni and kept staring at him. She was probably wondering why a god was being so subservient to a human, when they had the power to squish one like a bug.

When Zeph was about to speak, a piercing noise emerged and we all covered our ears instinctively.

“What the hell was that?!”

“I have no idea, Miss Kimberly. But I think I’m seeing things now.”

In front of each one of us was a floating screen. It was a simple gray translucent screen. On the screen was a single phrase.

Welcome to the Game of Gods!

▼

Underneath the phrase was an arrow fading in and out. Without talking, we just looked at each other and all pressed the arrow. The next thing that showed were two phrases.

For the humans what appeared was:

You are a HUMAN.

Mastery: 1/100

And for the minor gods:

You are a MINOR GOD.

Mastery: 100/100

First ring gods became real and now this? For some reason, this whole situation felt familiar to me. I could remember this exact screen from somewhere else but couldn’t place my finger on where.

“What?! Why did my Mastery suddenly lower?!” exclaimed Zeph.

She looked like she was trying to shake the screen to try and make the numbers go back up, but to no avail. She eventually gave up and dragged her feet to the closest wall and slumped against it. Seeing her like that made me think twice about my feelings towards her. Of course, looking at my own Mastery, I probably knew why hers went down.

Mastery: 3/100

“Sam, Zeph, I need to talk to you two.” said Kimberly.

She had a worried expression and was thinking on how to explain the situation. Agni was fumbling beside her, trying to convince Kimberly to stay quiet. She ignored the annoying boy and spoke up.

“I guess I couldn’t stop you two from participating in this game. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

She was looking at the ground, afraid of our reaction. I was left speechless. Zeph on the other hand acted like she knew what Kimberly was trying to do and went back to her brooding.

“Kim, tell me. You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you? And you know more, right?”

I wanted to ask her many more questions but had to control myself. I was afraid of overwhelming her and not learning anything useful.

“Only a little bit.” Kimberly said in a quiet tone, looking up to meet my eyes. “When I woke up, I suddenly gained memories from somewhere and in the middle of them were memories of this ‘game’. That was also when Agni showed up. But no matter what I do, I can’t remember those strange memories anymore, they’re too foggy.”

I placed my hands on her shoulders and gave a slight smile. I wanted to reassure Kimberly that she wasn’t at fault. One thing did bug me though. She said that she gained memories when she woke up, that went against my earliest thought that she was the Dream Kim. Maybe she just inherited her memories from my dream. That still didn’t answer the how and where the gods came from though.

Night fell and we were eating cooked Hound meat around a small fire Agni had created.

The meat was a rich dark red, juices flowed out with every bite. It released a mixed fragrance of spicy and sweet that attracted even tiny bugs to its location. The taste was truly something out of this world. Unlike its smell, it had a slightly salty flavor and a bitter aftertaste that made you want more. It felt like an entire meal in a single ingredient.

We ate in silence, although our faces spoke for us. We were drowned in pleasure from eating, but we stayed somewhat vigilant of our surroundings. Once we finished eating, we threw the bones into the fire. Well, all of us except Zeph. She didn’t look pleased by our actions and caused a wind to push the bones out of the flame.

“You’re all idiots, genuine idiots.” she scolded us. “These bones are excellent to make weapons out of. We might need them in this new world.”

We ended up making a pile of bones so as not to anger Zeph anymore. Seeing this made her feel rather proud of the fact she was able to command humans and even another minor god without any resistance.

At that moment, Zeph’s eyes widened.

NEW ACHIEVEMENT!

[Fool’s Knowledge]

You proved your superior knowledge to those inferior to you. Keep going!

Sharing further knowledge with inferior beings will empower your skills.

“An achievement? What does that mean? And superior, huh?” Zeph muttered to herself.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at us, standing up proudly and with a puffed out chest.

“Listen here, chumps. I-”

Before she could say anymore, Kimberly jabbed Agni with her elbow which prompted him to interrupt Zeph.

“Umm... If you got an achievement, you must have done something special. We’ve got an achievement each so if you have any more question, just ask us.”

Agni couldn’t look at Zeph as he spoke, he was afraid that she would retaliate after her ego had inflated to such an extent. Instead, she pouted and sat back down.

“I have a question actually.” I finally decided to interject in the conversation. “Are there any more screens?”

I was confused by the fact that there was no more information for me to look at. This was supposed to be a game after all. What kind of game doesn’t give its players simple information like stats or even a quest!

“I’ve only found two more from poking around. A skill screen and an achievement screen. You just have to think about them and they should appear.” Agni responded with a smile and bow.

I did as he said and he was right. The moment I though about the skill screen, it appeared.

SKILLS

Active

- Energy Sap Lv. 1

Passive

- Wind’s Grace

Wind’s Grace? That must because Zeph’s my goddess. Energy Sap, however, was strange. It didn’t really feel like an air skill. Zeph displayed a healing power when she punched my gut and teleportation when she took me to work, but no sapping.

I wanted to ask Zeph about this but when I looked at her, she was already fast asleep. In fact, everyone was sleeping except for me. I wasted no time and also went to sleep.

Rustle... Rustle...

I woke up with the noise of something rustling nearby. When I opened my eyes, I thought I had become blind. I couldn’t see anything.

“You’re finally awake.”

When I heard the voice, my regained my sight and jumped immediately. I was surrounded by a fog, the floor was concrete and I couldn’t see any of my companions anywhere.

“Calm down. You’re asleep right now.”

The voice revealed itself. It was tall, thin shadow with a single glowing orb where the head looked like it could be located. Every time the shadow talked, the orb would glow with each syllable spoken. The shadow’s form fluttered in and out at the edges, only the center staying consistent.

“Who are you? You said I’m asleep, does that mean this is a dream?” I questioned the shadow.

Although I asked these things, I felt like I knew the answers to them already. This really didn’t feel like reality, my body felt way too light and my vision was strangely unfocused. For whatever reason, the possibility of this being an enemy attack slipped my mind.

“Yes and no. While it is a dream, it doesn’t mean you cannot learn in it. For example.”

The shadow created a shadowy arm and extended it toward me. I felt a sense of primal fear, like I would die the moment the arm touched me but I couldn’t move. When the arm finally touched my head, it all made sense.

“Breathe slowly and join your hands. In here I’ll teach you everything you already know.”

I began feeling every point of my body, every inhale and exhale, my muscles contracting and relaxing. My sight became more clearly with every breath and my body became even lighter.

“Shadow.” I said calmly as I joined my hands in a prayer stance. “I won’t forget you.”

“You will, but it matters not.” the shadow replied, like it was used to being forgotten already.

For the rest of the dream, the shadow gave me the task of meditating and focusing on my breathing. Before I knew it, I was awake and back in reality. I felt a jolt throughout my body from the sudden awakening and it quickly disappeared. I looked around and saw Zeph sleeping with Agni and Kimberly.

I was really back in the real world.