"Huh? What the freak? Why am I in a forest?" Amaya exhaled.

It made no sense to her. She clearly remembered falling asleep on her bed

last night. So how did she get here?

'...Why am I in a dang forest?'

She jumped to her feet and looked around, trying to think of a rational

explanation. No reason she thought of was realistic.

'Teleportation?' Couldn't be.

'A prank?' But who could've done this?

'Sleepwalking?' Nope. She'd have to walk over 10 days to get to the nearest

forest.

Amaya looked in every direction, but all she could see were pinetreesand berry bushes.

[ Menu ]

She potted a phrase hovering inthe corner of her veiw. When focusing on it, a status screen poped up.

[ Level: 1 | HP: 9 | MP: 5 | ATK: 2 | Speed: 10 ]

"Wait...Stats?!"

This was something you'd only see in a video game.

"It's almost like this is a game, a very realistic game. Maybe I'm

hallucinating." She examined the palms of her hands, peicing together what was going on.

"Ohhhh. This Is what they call Lucid Dreaming. This is the first time I've

experienced it."

Amaya quickly came to an assumption.

This looked exaclt like an rpg gmae, so there had to be monsters somwhere.

"I mean, It would be disappointing if this leveling system was just for show."

(Level: 1 | Exp: 0@)

And because this was all dream, there would be zero risks to anything she did. Nothing was off the table.

"I bet I could even run through a town naked and nothing bad would

happen....Not that I would do that to begin with."

Any nerd like herself would love to be in a dream like this one.

"Now, Let's start this adventure." Amaya spun around incircles with her eyes shut tightly.

Her finger pointed ahead when she stopped, "I'll begin my journey this way!" She joyfully shouted.

Amaya was in awe at every single detail.

The branches on the pinetrees swayed in the wind, giving the air a fresh scent. Rabits hopped around, in and out of bushes. Birds sat in their nests, chirping and feeding their children.

Forest life was thriving.

The further she walked, the more excited she became.

"I can't wait till I see something amazing. Like a monster, or a glowing

magic crystal. Or a magic gem. Or...Or maybe even a magic animal that

can speak. Anything magic would be cool."

Her body vibrated with joy. This was always part of her fantasies, a chance

to escape to another reality; even if it was tempoarily.

'Alright. I'm going to make the most of this while I can.'

She strayed off path. coming across a small pond.

The water was crystal clear, but it still reflected the sunlight.

It wasn't until now that Amaya realized how dry her mouth was.

'I guess I am a little thirsty.'

She kneeled down, cupping the ice-cold water with her hands, but froze

when she saw her reflection.

Each strand of her hair was as white as snow.

This was a huge change to her appearance.

"Woah. I...I actually look good like this."

In fact, she found this far better than her original black-hair.

Finally, she brought the water up to her mouth and quenched her thirst.

Slurp.

"Ahh, Refreshing."

She was about to take another look at her reflection to admire her new hair,

but something broke her focus.

The sound of an animal's heavy breathing could be heard nearby.

She followed the sound and hid behind a tree, when she came near the

source. Peering out, she saw what the heavy breathing was. A large bear,

bigger than any other bear she'd heard of.

Its fur was like a shadow and its eyes were a fiery red.

Not to mention its claws that were like daggers.

'This doesn't look like an easy monster for a level-1 like me.'

[ Shadow Bear: Hp: 400/400 ]

This monster was definitely more powerful than her. With health points that

high, she would need to land around two-hundred strikes to kill it.

Amaya was aware that she probably couldn't compete, but she wasn't

scared.

It was just a dream and there wasn't anything to lose.

She jumped out of hiding and ran towards the Shadow Bear.

With all her might, she slammed her fist into it's stomach.

Bmp.

The bear's skin only rippled slightly, like a pebble hitting a pond.

An awkward silence passed and Amaya took her first off the monster's

stomach.

[ Shadow Bear: HP: 397/400 ]

Nearly no damage was done to it. Amaya already expected this, but it was

scary for her to see it play out.

She stared at the floor, avoiding eye contact with the beast standing over

her. Thoughts flooded her mind as she could feel the bear’s warm breath

on her skin.

' I know this isn't real but I'm actually terrified. Maybe if I apologize, it will

forgive me.'

She forced a smile and looked up at the bear's face.

"Uhmm..sorry..." Amaya awkwardly said with a chuckle.

A single drop of sweat slid from her face.

The monster opened its jaws and roared loud enough to shake the air.

An overwhelming sense of doom filled Amaya's chest. She could just

sense an attack getting ready to come at her. Without wasting a second,

she leaped out of the way.

The tree where she once stood was shredded apart by the Bear's claws.

'Woah!' Her mind was in shock for a second. If she had been any slower,

that could've been her that got hit. Quickly, she jumped to her feet and

sprinted off.

"I said SOORRRYYYYYYY!!"

Twelve minutes later…

Amaya had managed to outrun the Shadow Bear, but she continued to run.

She wanted there to be no chance that she'd run into it again.

When Amaya finally felt safe, she stopped for a break.

"Maybe I should be careful what I try to fight next time. That was actually

really stupid of me."

One breath in, one breath out. She cleansed her body of all the stress and

fear.

As long as she didn't come across something like that again, she would be

okay.

'Now, where to find other monsters?'

She didn't have to look far as she spotted movement nearby. A group of

human-sized snails were slowly moving through the trees. Their shells

were blue and the snails themselves seemed pretty harmless.

'They're actually kinda cute ;)'

Amaya approached one of the snails and patted its head.

Pat. Pat.

"Awe. See, I knew you were friendly creatures."

There was one detail she didn't notice till the snail turned to face her. Its

eyes were fully black and it had the deadly sharp teeth, clearly meant for

killing.

"Oh…nevermind."

Amaya took a step back in but stumbled on a rock. In moments, each of the

snails set their sights on her. But they were all very slow compared to

herself.

'I guess this is where my first real monster fight begins.'

(Elite Snails: 20 HP )

Nine minutes later …

“I had no idea snails could be so strong.”

Her body was covered in slime and she even had a few bruises on her

arms. All aside, it was worth the trouble. She received her first sign of

improvement.

[You have leveled up]

[ x 5 Snail Slime Added To Inventory ]

[ x50 Copper coins added to inventory. ]

[ New skill learned : Analyze ]

“Ah, that's cool. I get money for defeating monsters? Ooh, and what does

that skill do?”

[ Skill: Analyze - When in use, you can understand the workings of spells,

objects, machines, Ect. Can also help you see other's skills and stats. ]

A skill that allowed her to have an understanding of things was really

useful. Especially because she had a hard time understanding certain

things.

“I only gained one level but the changes are big already. Imagine what I

could do with a weapon. “

___________

It took hours of walking, but she arrived at a town.

“I didn’t even know where I was going. I guess I can be just a little lucky

sometimes.”

Her eyes looked left to right in search of a weapon shop, but she just

couldn't seem to find one.

She sighed, "Ah, I guess they don’t have a shop like that here? That

sucks.”

The voice of a random townsfolk approached her.

"You appear to be lost. I'd be happy to help if you needed anything."

It was a man with bright yellow hair. His face was very friendly, almost like

he was a saint.

Amaya replied, "Actually, I'm new here. I was looking for a place to get a

weapon or something."

The man put his hand on his hip while wearing an unsure look.

"Hmm. Well, there is one shop like that, but it only has low quality

weapons. If you want something better, you'll have to go into the city."

"It's fine, low quality is probably all I could afford right now. Where is this

shop, exactly?"

The man was kind enough to point her in the right direction. The direction

of an alleyway.

"It's down that way. Be careful though, thugs love to mug people that seem

weak. Some lady lost all her money there just this morning.”

Amaya couldn't help but remember a similar event happening to her before.

“Relatable.” She muttered,

Amaya thanked the kind man for helping then headed into the alleyway.

It was pretty dirty and dim there. A few thuggish-looking people were

hanging around, but they seemed to be minding their business, smoking

and drinking.

'Looks like nobody's going to rob me. That's good news.'

She approached the door to the shop.

{ Commoner’s Armory. }

The Bums In the alleyway all gave Amaya a look of disgust. It was like

nobody would ever think about coming to this run-down shop.

Despite the stares, she still went in.

It was clear that nobody had been here for a while. The shelves were all

dusty. However, there was a wide variety of weapons.

Broadswords, Lances, knives, daggers, ect.

Amaya walked up and down the aisle, looking for something affordable. All

of them were low prices, but there was only one option for her.

A small knife.

[Price: 35 Copper, ATK: 50]

This wasn't exactly what she wanted, but she could happily settle for this

much.

"It's got decent attack damage. Just this, alone, will make me stronger."

She placed it on the counter, but there was an issue. Nobody seemed to be

here in order to sell it.

'Nobody's here? I guess I can steal a better weapon and just walk out.'

It was tempting, but she shook that idea from her mind.

'No. I'll never be the type of person to steal what someone worked hard for.'

Even if nobody even came to this shop, someone did work hard to open it

and fill it with weapons.

Amaya left the coins on the counter and placed the knife in her pocket.

"Now. Back to that forest, I guess. I’ll grind one more level then come back.

I’d really love to learn more about this world while I’m here.”

Even the people here felt like real people.