Murphy respawned in the Beginner Village. Unlike his first time, the village was mostly just smouldering rubble. It appears that the Bandit Group had stuck around and were busy drinking and chatting at an open fire pit. There also seemed to be a few more new bandits.

Murphy presumed that these new bandits were the bandits that he was supposed to help the little village girl defend from.

After a brief glance about the place, he decided to go and see if they had any quests. Normally in these sorts of games he’d have thought he would have been thrown into some long serial quest that was essentially the main story line of the game.

However, he instead found himself standing in a smouldering village without the slightest clue what he should be doing. As such, he presumed that because he killed the villagers, the main quest line hadn’t been able to start.

That only left the bandits. As he approached them they quietened slightly, until the Old Bandit Leader smiled brightly and welcomed him over.

“Haha! Well if it isn’t the young bloodletter. We were just discussing your ruthless rescue of us brothers with these fellows from the guild hall.”

Amongst the new comers was a very suspicious looking fellow with oily black hair and thin twisty moustache. He wore something resembling magician robes, which were black as the night, and had half a dozen flasks or phials filled with colourful liquids strapped to his belt. He looked like a cliché bad guy.

Seeing this fellow, Murphy suddenly realised he was most likely about to get sucked into the evil side of the main story line and become a bad guy. Everything about this felt wrong and definitely did not want to start doing the evil story line.

With that in mind, he simply nodded in acknowledgement, then stiffly turned away and decided to leave. Hoping in his heart that he could find somewhere else to join the good guy main story line.

“Hey!”

Ah shit! That evil guy is calling me. Does that mean that because of the mistake with the villagers I’m suddenly going to be forced onto the evil quest line. This is bullshit! What kind of crappy game is this!

Wheww ... It’s alright. Just calm down. It’s going to be fine. Just smile and politely decline if he wants to give you a quest.

“Oh? Yes, can I help you somehow?” Very polite! Nicely done!

“You’re a newbie, right? You haven’t had an instructor teach you the ropes yet, right?”

Instructor? Teach me the ropes? What the hell? Don’t tell me this guy is meant to be my tutorial guide. Damnit! Why is my tutorial guide a god damn evil guy!

“Ahh. No not yet. Is there a town nearby with an instructor?” Please say yes, please say yes.

“Heh heh, you’re in luck kid. I happen to be the instructor for the Bandit Guild. Because you helped our brothers and killed all these villager fellows, I’ve no doubt you’ll fit in great with us!”

Damnit! God damn! Why me? Mother fucker! Wheew. Ok just politely decline to join the bandit group.

“Uhhmm ... well you see, I don’t really plan on joining the bandit guild...”

“Kill him.”

Uhk! What? I only said I don’t want to join the bandit guild! What the hell! You’re going to immediately kill me for that?! What the fuck kind of game is this?!

With a single command from the evil looking instructor, I now had to fight off not only the handful of bandits that recently came, but also the entire bandit group of nearly 20 that I had just rescued.

Making the situation, and my feelings, worse, was the fact that the bandits I rescued didn’t even bat an eye. Without reservation, they simply stood up and drew their weapons with sinister gazes. From what I could gather, they all looked at me like I was creepy pervert anyway.

Those cold gazes hurt the most. Then almost as quickly seemed to feel good. Ahh ... how cruel this special trait is. It might just send me mad eventually.

Seeing everything devolving into a brawl, I now had no other choice than to enter combat. I pulled my trusty broken dagger from my belt and readied myself.

The bandit group charged as a single entity. Waving their swords very threateningly and and calling me names like pervert and creepy. The first to arrive swung his sword for my neck. His strike was very wide and open.

Taking advantage of the wind up for such a strike, I slid up close and stabbed my broken knife into his neck. Using his limp body as a shield, I pushed forward to the next closest bandit and threw my bandit shield at him.

In that moment of confusion, I once again slid forward aiming for the neck. After this bandit became limp, I made a roll to dodge a chopping strike from the side. At the same time, I borrowed bandit number two’s sword.

With a real sword in hand, my weapon arts training from Uncle Calligso came rushing back to me. Without reserve, I went on a rampage. 5 bandits, 10 bandits, 21 bandits.

By the time there were only a handful of bandits left, my body was covered in amazing feeling cuts and bruises. Every time I moved my exhausted and sore muscles screamed at me in joy. Sigh ... I really hate this special trait.

The final four bandits were spread out and showing very guarded stances. They were waiting for me to approach them. One of them, the evil instructor who hadn’t made any moves until now, finally acted. He pulled a few strange phials from his belt.

Seeing this action, the other three bandits all suddenly had worried expressions. Before they could say anything or run, the evil instructor threw those phials onto the ground, smashing them open. A purple fog suddenly formed and spread out from the liquids on the ground.

In less than a second everyone was enveloped in the fog. The bandits all started rasping for breath and collapsed onto the ground while violently jerking around. The evil instructor pulled another phial from his belt and drank it as he quickly retreated out from the fog.

I, as opposed to everyone else, fell too my knees powerlessly for a different reason. My whole body was tingly like a had pins and needles. My skin, flesh and even my bones had a throbbing pleasant ache like when you take a hot bath with sore tight muscles.

That wasn’t the only thing of mine that was throbbing, but ignoring that for the moment, my body was limp because it felt too good. Having every inch of my body suddenly feeling amazing to the point that I was almost delirious, was very disconcerting.

My throat and lungs bore the brunt of it though. Whatever this stuff was, it was powerful enough to overwhelm my Hurts So Good when it made direct contact. My eyes nose and mouth were stinging somewhat and my lungs and throat felt like they were on fire.

All I could do was sit there and wait as my body occasionally shuddered outside of my control. Unfortunately, even my Please Sir trait couldn’t seem to keep up with the rapid deuteriation of my insides. If anything, it only slowed the poison fog down so that I didn’t die quickly like the other bandits and instead had the joy of suffering from a very prolonged death.

Eventually, I was still quietly suffering even after the poison fog had been dispersed by the wind. The evil instructor just watched on with a stunned expression as my hips occasionally thrust into the air and my body slowly decomposed from the inside out.

It looked like he wanted to laugh madly at my slow demise, but was instead greatly disgusted by my reaction to such a vile and deadly poison.

After a very long time of this, at least an hour, I finally died. I then suffered the experience of dying all over again, only this time I was slightly more composed than the first time. I found myself on the floor of my bedroom sweating profusely.

I was now somewhat glad that I hadn’t finished that bowl of cereal, otherwise it would have all ended up on the carpet of my floor.

Taking a moment to recompose myself again, I stared hard at my Key. I felt a great deal of trepidation and fear about going back into the game, however at the same time, my fury and anger at that evil instructor was ablaze to the heavens.

With vengeance in mind, I stood up and reached out to grab my Key.

Murphy found himself back in the white space, which he somehow intuitively knew was his ‘Status Space’. Presumably that blinding flash of light in the beginning had uploaded some knowledge or something into his head.

Right now, he had no way to explain it. He already accepted that he simply couldn’t fathom the depth of technology that was behind this game. Everything so far had already blown his mind and he simply chose to roll with it. After all, it was just a game. If it became too invasive, he could just quit, right?

Having returned to his Status Space, Murphy took a moment to peruse his inventory and status. Starting with his inventory he sorted everything by what he perceived to be most valuable to least valuable. He then picked out the equipment that was in the best state of repair and would fit him. When he was done, he surveyed his floating body that had everything equipped.

He then sighed dejectedly and questioned why the gods were so cruel. Everything he was wearing was bandit equipment. If he tried to walk into a city wearing this he’d be arrested on the spot. He also hated the idea of being labelled a bandit. If he actually wore this stuff, he felt he would be taking the first step towards being evil.

Obviously, he wasn’t counting the whole incident with the beast people villagers that he’d slaughtered. That was an accident. Some things are unavoidable. He chose not to think back on it too much because he knew if he did he’d just keep replying the scene of that first beast villager tripping on a rock and him attacking him because he immediately assumed he was a bandit.

Murphy refused to admit he was totally in the wrong and being completely racist toward beast people. Therefore, he just blocked the whole thing out.

After assessing his equipment, he just sighed again then unequipped all the bandit armour. Leaving him with only some crappy villager clothes. Once he was re-equipped he was wearing a dirty cotton shirt and trousers with a simple leather tunic.

He had a leather belt equipped with a simple sword in a plain sheath and his little backpack. Because all the shoes that he had, that didn’t have the label ‘Bandit’ on them, had holes in them, he decided to just go barefoot.

He may hate his weird special trait but that doesn’t mean he can’t make use of it. If he just roughs it around everywhere barefoot he can let his feet slowly build up a god like endurance. Who knows, perhaps one day he could walk on lava barefoot.

The finishing touch to his adventuring ensemble was a little short bow and a quiver of arrows. With his outfit now complete, he turned his attention to his status.

First, he checked his overall status.

Murphy sighed in distress as he checked his main stats again. Now that he had the time to review them properly, he felt like his stats were all messed up to some epic proportions.

‘For starters, what the hell was going on with those last two stats? Cement? What the fuck is that supposed to represent. And his luck! Why the hell was his luck in such a negative! It looked like it had dropped even further into the negative after he’d killed all those innocent villagers.

‘Then there’s charisma. Did that drop by 0.3? What the actual fuck? I’d hardly even used the charisma stat! Wait, was the charisma stat dropping because of the shameless actions whenever I’m was in pain? Argh! That damn special trait is fuckin curse!’

Such were his thoughts on the matter. After a slightly more in depth review he discovered that his bodies resilience had sky rocketed. That nasty poison he’d been sucking up prior to his last death had given him stronger endurance stats in every part of his body.

Even his bones and muscles endurances had risen. Also, having to endure that whole escapade, his mental fortitude stat was leading his other endurance stats by miles. At this rate, his mental fortitude was going to outclass every state he had before he even finished the tutorial.

Finally, the titles. He’d only been in the game for a few hours and already had a title. Unfortunately, it was a very disturbing and unsavoury title. He was hoping that this ‘need’ would not be like the special traits and literally bend his psyche. He also hoped that if it was, that his special trait Please Sir could raise his endurance against this need before it could consume him.

After assessing himself once more, he respawned again. After looking around for a while he found the evil instructor busily looting his dead bandit friends while muttering in a vary disgruntled manner.

Murphy hid himself nearby then checked the surroundings. After assuring himself that no one else was nearby he snuck out and crept up behind the instructor. He pulled the broken dagger from his belt and quickly raised it to the instructor’s throat.

“Don’t move!”

The instructor was shocked. He quietly glanced at the sharp broken dagger pressed against his throat, then gulped.

“Heh, heh ... whoever you are, I’m sure we can work something out. I should tell you that if plan to kill and rob me, that would be a bad idea. My guild mates are already heading this way to meet me here and will be here any moment.”

Murphy furrowed his brow for a moment. He could just kill this guy and run but he needed someone who could tutor him on the game system. He also needed directions to the nearest town. With that in mind, he decided to risk it.

With his dagger still pressed to the fellow’s neck, Murphy reached around and started undoing the instructors belt.

“Hey what the damnation do you think you’re...”

Murphy’s dagger pressed into his throat a little more until a little trickle of blood started to flow. His hand continued its action as he defended his actions.

“Shhhh. Just calm down dude. It only hurts the first time ... wait no, I mean, I’m not going to hurt you, I’m just disarming you.”

A cold sweat broke out on the instructors back as Murphy finally got the claps free and took the man’s belt with all its nasty little potions on it. He then quickly shuffled back away and flicked his bow out before knocking an arrow.

“Turn around.”

The evil instructor turned around to see Murphy aiming at him with an arrow pulled back in the bow from about 10 meters away. It was far enough to not be taken off guard if the instructor rushes him, and close enough that he could instantly kill the instructor if he tries to start dodging.

“It’s time for you to instruct. I want to know how the game works.”

The instructor smiled wryly. Unfortunately, he was bound by certain rules. He couldn’t lie about the game. He wasn’t even able to skirt the truth or imply things that weren’t true. If a knew player asked for instruction, he was obligated to instruct. That was his purpose after all.

“Heh, well I don’t know how it works. No one does. I only know the basics, the rest of it you’re expected to learn as you go.”

Murphy furrowed his brow slightly.

“I see. So then, what can you tell me about stats, skill and traits?”

The instructor let out a long sigh. He then glanced around and ambled over to fallen tree to use as a seat. He then sat down rather dejectedly and looked back at the young man pointing a bow and arrow in his direction.

“Fine then you brat. I’ll tell you what I can. The basics are as follows. By now you’ve surely inspected your Status Space at least once. You know that you can determine the statistics of your body, mind and soul all in a single convenient and up to date place.

“You’ve died at least once, so you’ve probably come to terms with the possibility that you quite literally exist in this world while you’re playing the game and when you die the game system rescues your soul and body and puts it all back together before it ejects you back to your dimension.

“You’ve clearly also been playing with the inventory and you most likely were summoned with a special trait considering your ability to survive so long under the torture of my poison fog.”

At the mention of the poison fog, Murphy made a reflexive grimace. Just imagining experiencing it again made him feel delighted ... wait, made him feel disturbed ... or should have made him feel disturbed? That’s just how Hurts So Good works.

The Instructor continued with his lecture, none the wiser at the inner turmoil of Murphy over how exactly he felt about dying a slow torturous death by poisoning.

“So, let’s start with the Status Place. Should be a white world with all sorts of interesting figures about every aspect that is ‘you’. Stats are the broad term for your foundations. Things like strength and intelligence. You can view each of these broad stats in more detail all the way down to the methods you’ve used the most to increase them.

“The broad stats are the average of your body and reflect your overall status while specific stats, like reflexes in the agility status, are more specific. This means that if you have one part that is low, for example your whole body is very strong except your wrists, then it will drag you broad stats down.

“Skills are learnt through practice. The more you practice a skill, the more experience it accumulates. Some people have unique skills that are slightly abstract depending on their life experience and personality. Every time a skill levels up your get a modifier when using it. As an example, if you have level 10 cooking, then regardless of whether you cook a 5-course meal or a boiled egg, they will both taste 10 times better.

“New skills can also be learnt through practice. Most people start off with a handful of skills based on their life experiences before coming here. However, they generally have a lot of skills already that haven’t even been developed. They just don’t show up in the Status Space unless you specifically search them. Until they reach level 1, which is about 1000 experience, they will remain invisible.

“Skills and Stats have no limits. You can easily level these to infinity. Now onto special traits, these are usually earnt during gameplay or assigned when you’re first summoned. They are based on certain skills, stats and life experiences. They’re affects can vary wildly and as far as I know it’s almost as likely to meet two people with the exact same face from different dimension as it is for two people to have the exact same special trait.

“Next is dying. Here, on Newb Planet, you can die as many times as you like and explore as much as you want until you feel you’re ready to go out into the big bad game world. Usually at first you will be scooped up by some faction like the villagers or the bandits and complete a bunch of mission to help you get accustomed to everything.

“You don’t seem to be taking any of those routes and are clearly just a madman that enjoys killing people, so I won’t bother with discussing that too much. When you want to go kill some more people just head along the south road until you reach a city called Gateway. You can travel through there to start the game in earnest.

“Once you pass through you will start learning about the game for real. At that time, it will also unlock the Player Store, where you can purchase things only the players can get their hands on. Us little NPC (Non-Player-Character) fellows have no such luck.

“Um ... let’s see, then there’s your inventory. I’m sure you’ve got it mostly figured out but I’ll explain it anyway. It pretty much acts like a separate dimension. If you touch something inanimate in the world, you can suck it into your inventory. Similarly, you can will it, and suck something out from inventory.

“You probably haven’t picked up much yet, but once you do you’ll learn that everything has a weight value. The weight that something adds to your backpack is equivalent to the items weight divided by strength and endurance.

“The last thing for me to mention is the experience points. You’ve probably realised that every time you take some poor bastards life you receive experience points. These are essentially Player currency. It can be used to purchase from the Player Store and from what I understand has many other uses later.

“Once you leave the newb world it can also be used to directly increase certain skills or stats. However, that’s incredibly expensive as a latter investment. With every level in a stat or skill doubling the number of experience points needed for another level, you would need almost a million points to level something beyond level 10.”

By this point, Evil Instructor had run out of breath and was sweating profusely. His whole body was a tense as a coiled spring and his eyes were very worriedly staring at Murphy still holding the bow taught with a shaky arm.

It looked like his arm was losing its strength and could accidentally let go of the string at any moment. As if to prove that the instructor’s fears were valid, a bird flew by overhead and relieved itself mid-flight. The bird’s gift fluttered on the wind like a rain drop and eventually found its way to Murphy’s head.

At the time, Murphy was mostly absorbed in processing everything the instructor was saying and had almost completely forgotten about his hand holding the bow string because it had gone numb with that pleasant tingling feeling.

When the bird’s shit landed on his head, by pure reflex, Murphy lifted his hand to touch his hair where he felt something landing, letting go of the bow string in the process. When he realised his mistake, it was already too late.

The instructor now had an arrow protruding from his eye socket and a face filled with shock and disbelief. Murphy, somewhat stunned by this sudden strange turn of events, went to step towards the Instructor, only to hear the ‘crunch’ of glass shattering underfoot.

He didn’t even need to look down to realise he’d just stepped on the instructor’s belt by accident, because his body was already aching all over in pleasure and his vision was once again clouded with poisonous purple fog.

The valiant efforts of his Hurts So Good and Please Sire special traits kept him alive and suffering for almost two straight hours this time. Unfortunately, they still weren’t powerful enough to grant him total immunity.

He reappeared in his bedroom and smashed his hand on the floor in frustration. When he did, his face became strange and his eyes suddenly widened in shock.

NOOO!! What the hell! Why? Why does it feel so good! It should be hurting! It should be painful! Something is wrong! Don’t tell me ... my special traits have somehow followed me out of the game?

Wait! Whew. Just calm down. Think rationally for a second. Ok, let’s try open my Status Space. Open!

...

Shit! What the hell kind of twisted game is this?! Everything followed me through? All my stats and skills are still in effect outside of the game. Oh ... I wonder if that means...

Inventory! Hmm, well I guess that was too much wishful thinking. So, my game stats followed me out of the game, but I can’t open my inventory. My special traits also followed me out of the game. I wonder just how strong my endurance is now.

With all the poison I’ve ingested, the Thorns of Punishment incident, the damage from the bandit group and then from the troll smashing my body into pulp...

Time to test it out. First let’s head to the kitchen. Juwan is probably still home so I need to be quiet.

Sneak, sneak, sneak ... Skip the third stair form the top. That stair always squeaks. Okay, check that the coast is clear. Excellent. Now too the kitchen.

Sneak, sneak, sneak. Hmm, let’s not go to overboard. Let’s just start with trying to make a little cut. That knife is the sharpest so let’s use that one. Hmm ... nothing? What the hell? A bit more pressure. A bit more. Ahh ... it feels good. Pretty sure I’m just mincing the flesh in the finger now.

My skins indestructible! HAHAH! Invincible skin!

“Oh? Little brother, I thought you were at school? You stayed home today?”

Eeek...

“Heh ... hey Juwan. Yeah, I just wasn’t feeling too well after our spar this morning. Don’t mind me, I was just heading back to sleep some more.” So honest and natural. I nearly even fooled myself.

“Oh. Was I bit rough this morning? Hmm, well, you need to train harder little brother. You used to be so formidable, but now your just ... Let’s go and have another quick spar. Perhaps if you sweat it out for a bit you’ll feel better.”

Hmph! Who do you think you’re fooling huh? I know you just love having an excuse to beat me! I see through your charade you bastard.

“Ehh ... not this time Juwan. I really don’t think I can. Tomorrow! I promise to have a good long spar with your tomorrow.”

I then fled the scene like a thief in the night, leaving the super sharp kitchen knife on the bench. Ignoring the fake concern and bewilderment on Juwan’s face, I raced up the stairs to my room.

As I sat down on my bed and stared intensely at my Key, I got a message from Social on the DataStream. Closing my eyes, I Linked Up to the DataStream through my implant and used my mind to navigate to the Social area.

When I arrived, I found a message from Seelie reading; “I just tried the blood thing and it seemed to work. Should we make a public post in the Social and tell everyone about it?”

Without even considering it I replied; “No. Let them figure it out for themselves. Come around tonight and we’ll discuss our findings from the game.”

I then decided to just sit for a while a consider the implications of this ‘game’ ... before I got too far into my pondering, I slapped myself in the head for being an idiot. Why would I sit out here in the real world instead of going into the game?

4 minutes in the game is equivalent to 1 in the real world. I’m wasting time sitting out here. That thought in mind I reached out and grabbed my Key and willed myself back to the game.

Once again, I found myself in the now familiar white world of my Status Space. I checked my stats and skills then respawned into the beginner village. The moment I respawned system alerts started sounding out.

‘Ping! You have completed the hidden quest, Revenge for the Villagers. +3 Renown.’

‘Ping! You have completed the hidden quest, I Know What I’m Doing, by killing both instructors in the beginner village. -3 renown.’

‘Ping! You have developed a new stat to level 1. Poison Resistance.’

‘Ping! You have earned the title, Lone Wolf, by killing everyone you’ve met since the beginning of the game indiscriminately.’

‘Ping! You have killed 20 Bandits and 2 Bandit Leaders in less than an hour. +10 Renown.’

I couldn’t help but sigh as I tentatively checked my Status Space to investigate my new title.

Lone Wolf

Killed everyone in the beginner village, good or bad.

Bonus Stat and Skill growth when operating alone.

NPC’s will feel discomfort in working with you as a team

Well, at least it wasn’t as bad as the ‘Unstable’ moniker. Unfortunately, it’s only useful if I remain alone and most likely will limit my interactions with NPC’s. I couldn’t stop the sigh of dejection from slipping past my lips.

I then realised, thanks to the Hidden Quest: I Know What I’m Doing, that there must definitely have been another instructor, most likely part of the beast villagers that I ... was involved in an accident with.

After checking my status again, I then searched around the village until I found all the dead bandits. Without reservation, I robbed their corpses. Everything they had, I took. I even pilfered the Evil Instructors corpse and retrieved his belt of potions.

Finally, once I was finished, I felt a huge weight pressing down on me. That most likely meant that I’d picked up too much stuff. So I opened my inventory to start organising everything. Considering my propensity for being injured, the majority of the ratty cloth and fabric was ripped into bandages.

All the bandits leather armour was sorted through and assessed. Unfortunately, this game didn’t have anything like defence modifiers or anything on the equipment. Or if it did, I simply couldn’t view it yet. So I spent almost an hour sorting all the equipment and throwing out anything that ‘looked’ damaged or worn.

If I had some sort of skill like Identify or Inspect, then I could probably determine the quality and prices of most of these items. Unfortunately, I had no such skill.

Once that was done, I investigated the few interesting items I’d picked up since I started the game. The first was a hair pin. I didn’t remember picking it up, but it was a hair pin the little village girl had. I could tell it must have some interesting effect or attributes, but I just couldn’t guess what they were.

I kept it though, because it was light and probably will sell for a decent price.

The next was the sword of the Bandit Leader. It was clearly the best of all the blades I’d picked up in terms of both quality and craftsmanship. When I equipped it and gave it a few test swings, I discovered it was unusually sharp and very light in comparison to the simple swords of the other bandits.

That wasn’t all. I also managed to luck upon another magic scroll. It had the image of flame on it, but unfortunately I couldn’t tell what the scroll did. I knew it had to be a magic scroll because it was almost exactly the same as the Thorns of Punishment scroll, but I couldn’t tell what it did because I didn’t get the little overlay showing its name and effect when I investigated it.

All I got was “Old Scroll” when I tried.

The last, and in my opinion most interesting thing, was the Instructors potion belt and all the potions he had apparently still been hiding on his body. When I equipped the belt, it automatically adjusted to fit my size.

Even more magical was that as soon as I equipped it, the potions in my inventory from the instructor started popping into existence on my belt. I had no idea what any of the potions did, but it was magical nonetheless.

Having finished sorting my inventory, I felt a little bit lighter. I finally decided it was time to head towards Gateway City. I had no idea what to expect but I was still very curious.

Murphy was both excited and wary as he started marching south towards the direction the instructor told him to go.

The road was peaceful and quiet. Now and then he’d spot some little animal running about in the forest. A rabbit or a deer. He walked for hours, until his feet were swollen and sore, and legs ached ... It felt great. Any normal person would have collapsed from pain and exhaustion long ago, but Murphy continued on despite his better judgement.

At about midday, he felt his guts rumbling in protest to their lack of sustenance. Considering that this old dirt road was travelling through a forest and both side of the road were covered in trees, Murphy decided to try his hand at hunting some fresh game.

He’d never had to skin or gut an animal before, but he had a feeling that was going to be part of this game. He silently hoped that just by touching a corpse with a knife it would automatically do those actions for him, but at the same time he was aware his luck stat was negative eleven and he would most likely have to suffer through the traumatic experience of cleaning a fresh kill.

Pushing down those dark thoughts, Murphy reached back and unshouldered his bow. Taking an arrow from the quiver he walked off into the forest. Sneaking about as quietly as he could, he started looking for any creatures that would be tasty.

It seemed however, that despite having seen dozens of tasty looking forest dwellers on his journey so far, the moment he wanted to encounter one, they’d all disappeared. He continued a little deeper into the forests and then a little deeper.

Finally, after a few hours of travel, he spotted something furry off in the distance behind some trees. Without considering the repercussions, he blindly shot an hour into the forest towards the furry creature.

‘Twang!’

“ARGH! Motherfucker! Who?! Who the fuck just shot me?!”

Murphy was stunned and froze in mid motion. His eyes widened in shock as he watched that furry thing stand up on its hind legs and roar out. He could now clearly see that it was a giant talking bear! It was the biggest god damn bear he’d ever seen.

It almost looked as tall as a two-story house and was as big and wide as a truck. Murphy sneakily crept backwards and slid in behind a tree.

‘Fuck! Why did it have to be such a monstrous creature! A god damn talking bear!”

“ROAR!!!”

The giant talking bear roared into the forest causing little forest creatures everywhere to suddenly spring up out of their burrows and hiding places then start scurrying off into the forest.

Murphy’s face became dejected when he realised that he’d been surrounded by all this potential food the whole time but had just failed to find it. Instead, he found a potential food but it was the size of a truck and could probably squash him flat in a second.

He started to consider his options. How was he going to get out of this situation? After considering everything he finally chose to just confront the bear. If he ran, it would catch him! Then he’d be in an even worse situation.

Then, an idea struck him. He couldn’t help but secretly pat himself on the back in his heart for his clever plan.

He very nonchalantly walked out from behind his tree and started approaching the bear in a casual manner.

“Hoh there Mister Bear. My apologies, my apologies. My arrow missed its target and accidentally shot off in this direction!”

Seeing the tiny human form of Murphy casually approaching it like this wasn’t a big deal, the bear was slightly shocked. This could only mean that this human was most likely confident that it could survive in a battle with the bear.

However, being a bear, it had its pride, and being shot in the ass with an arrow most definitely did more damage to his pride than his hide. This in mind, the giant bear roared towards Murphy loudly, in an attempt to shake his confidence a little.

It would be a lie to say that Murphy’s confidence was not shaken. In fact, he was pretty sure he was a split second away from wetting himself. However, all that negative emotion was clouded by the Hurts So Good, that was busily turning his emotional pain into pleasure.

In the eyes of the bear, Murphy seemed completely unshaken by his terrifying roar. Before the bear could make a move to squash this little bug of a human flat, Murphy made the first move.

“Ahh, sorry, sorry. I’m sure it must be painful. How about I make it up to you. I happen to be a potion master and have a potion here that will fix you up as good as new. What do you say? I’ll give you the potion and we can call it even?”

The bear was stunned. The human wasn’t attacking it but bartering. It wanted to barter away the arrow it’d shot into this mighty bear’s ass! What kind of human was that.

However, it’s ass did hurt. It also knew that it would most definitely have trouble sitting on its haunches later from the constant stinging. If it could get a potion to fix it, then it would be happy. Then it could just kill the human anyway.

That in mind, the bear growled threateningly once more and approached towards the human.

“Very well then human, give this Mighty Bear a potion to heal himself and it will grant you your puny life.”

Murphy put on his most gallant and friendly smile as he started to take potion after potion from the belt. He didn’t know if any of these potions actually had the properties of healing, but what he was certain of was that at least one of them was an incredibly deadly poison.

That in mind, he decided to just mix them all together and give it to the bear, hoping they were all poison. Knowing his luck, every single own of these potions was poison.

Murphy pulled out a flask from his inventory and started pouring all sorts of different coloured potions into it. He then gave it a quick shake to mix them together and flicked it over the giant bear. The bear, with bizarrely deft claw movement, caught the flask between two big black bear claws.

If you need a comparison for the level of difficulty that should pose to a creature this size, then imagine yourself with two thumb tacks glued to your thumb and finger, then having to use those tacks to catch a fly. That was the magnitude of the bears achievement.

After catching it, the bear didn’t even seem to suspect any foul play, being only barely considered a sentient creature. It tipped the flask back and consumed the potion. The moment the mixture in the flask reached the bears tongue, it widened its eyes in surprise. This potion was heavenly!

It tasted like sweet fruit juice and quenched the bear’s thirst as if it was the first drop of water after crossing a desert. It was like celestial wine made by the gods!

Murphy watched on expectantly as the bear swallowed every last drop, only to become slightly dejected when, even after a minute of the bear closing its eyes and enjoying the potion, nothing untoward happened.

No sudden explosion of poison fog, no roaring indignation from the bear who should by now be well and truly dead. Murphy was incredibly disappointed. The bear dropped the flask, eyed Murphy strangely, then gave him the equivalent of a bear bowing.

Murphy wasn’t exactly sure how to process this situation and was still trying to figure out what was going on when the bear finally spoke.

“Many thanks to this wandering potion master. Your skills are truly godlike. If it’s not too much trouble, this Mighty Bear has a request. This Mighty Bear’s kin are plagued with a sickness. Even this Mighty Bear could not avoid it. But your masterful potion skills have freed this Mighty Bear of its disease. Please help this Mighty Bear.”

With an entreating look, the Mighty Bear’s lowered head gazed fanatically at Murphy. Suddenly, Murphy felt very uncomfortable.

‘Why the hell am I getting sucked into some strange quest? I just wanted to eat something!’

As he had that thought, a couple system alerts popped up.

‘Ping! You have completed the Quest, Bear King’s Sickness. Renown +10.’

‘Ping! You have developed a new skill to level 1. Alchemy.’

‘Ping! You have created a new potion recipe! Miracle Water.’

Finally, after considering everything, Murphy decided to just wing it and try to help the Bear King. He had the potion recipe so he could just make more of the strange potion. Although he didn’t know what all those other potions were or their effects, they were still labelled in his inventory with a number.

Murphy assumed that these numbers were an assistance from the game system in helping him determine the which potions were which. Although he hadn’t identified them, he could differentiate them.

All these thoughts in mind, he decided to just roll with it. It wouldn’t hurt if he could complete this quest and fix his negative renown score from the ... accident, in beginner village.

He gave humble bow to the Bear King and agreed to assist him.

After a short trek through the forests, Murphy find himself a rocky hill filled with caves. This was obviously the home of the bear clan. Most of the bears here were only a little bit bigger than normal bears. It seemed only the bear king was as big as truck, as befitting his status as a king of bears.

Murphy didn’t feel like sticking around here for an extended period of time. Mostly because the place was littered with the bones of other adventurers that had wondered here and been devoured by the bear tribe.

As soon as he arrived, he went to his Status Space. He found a piece of old parchment floating around in his space with the recipe for the Miracle Water. Because he didn’t know what the other potions he used were, they were all simply labelled as their corresponding number on the recipe sheet.

He opened his inventory to start pulling out all the potions he needed, only to realise that one of them was missing. He had dozens of potions in his inventory from the Evil Lecturer, but it just so happened that one of them needed for the Miracle Water was apparently quite rare.

This left Murphy in a somewhat awkward position. He couldn’t just tell the huge Bear King that he had been pulling his leg and couldn’t save his clan. As he stood there near the hill, the whole clan had come to gather around him waiting with expectations filling their eyes.

He almost felt guilty for leading them on to this point. So, he firmed his resolve and decided he would just have to wing it.

He pulled out all the potions for the recipes that he had, then picked another potion that seemed equally rare to replace the one he was missing. The bears watched on with hopeful gazes as Murphy carefully followed the same steps he had before and mixed another batch of Miracle Water.

He put the cork in the flask and gave a swirl to mix the ingredients, then popped the cork. Moments later, he watched on horrified as a thick viscous green gas poured out from the flask and spread into the area. Bears started dropping like flies.

One bear after another got a whiff of the green gas and collapsed to the ground. Murphy tried to put the cork back in but it was too late. The pressure building the flask blew the cork back out and poured even more green smog into the surroundings.

The enraged and distraught roars of an entire tribe of bears filled the forest like a chorus of woe and indignation. Murphy also wasn’t lightly influenced by the smog as his body collapsed to the ground and was shaking like a leaf.

His body started sweating buckets and his skin felt like it was on fire. His hair started falling out as his skin began to develop rashes and welts. His lungs felt like he’d just breathed in fire and his mouth was dry and parched.

The Bear King, who had been watching the entire process, was filled with wrath. Unfortunately, despite the magnificent vitality of a Bear King, he too was as weak as an ant in front of the green smog. Just dying a little bit slower than all the rest.

For 3 full hours, Murphy sat in the green smog while his body was tortured to death. Unlike the last time however, his body only reached the very precipice before somehow miraculously stepping back from the edge.

Slowly, another hour passed and his Hurts So Good and Please Sir traits managed to keep him alive. He sat up slowly feeling as weak and powerless as a kitten. He couldn’t move and could barely even sit up. His body was still covered in rashes and his skin had started splitting like an over ripe tomato.

Another hour passed and the green smog remained in the surroundings. Murphy sat in the centre of it looking haggard and half dead. In this 5 hours of drowning in poison fog, his poison resistance had reached level 3 and his overall body endurance had gone up by another 4 points.

His masochism had also lurched forward by almost 200,000 experience points, rapidly approaching the tipping point to reach level 11.

When he reached poison resistance level 3, his endurance managed to reach the point in which it wasn’t just holding back the poison’s effects on his body, but slowly repairing all the damage. Out of everything, although his skin seemed to take to brunt of the damage from this green smog, it was his bones that benefitted the most.

This poison smog completely devoured his bones. It made his bones so frail and weak that if a sharp wind blew past, it would probably had snapped him in half. Now that Please Sir had been busily increasing his bones endurance for more than 5 hours, they were finally counteracting the poison and miraculously growing sturdy and strong again.

It was almost 7 hours after the incident when Murphy was strong enough to stand up. Strangely, even after this long, the green poison smog continued to linger in the area.

As he stood up, indicating that he’d somehow managed to survive this huge accident, the system started spewing prompts at him.

‘Ping! You have failed the mission Save the Bear Tribe. -3 Renown’

‘Ping! You have slaughtered an entire tribe of Ancient Bears that have run rampant through the forests of Newb Planet for centuries. + 20 Renown.’

‘Ping! You have created a new alchemy recipe, Endless Poison Fog.’

‘Ping! You have gained the Title, Bear Hunter, for killing an entire tribe of ancient bears.’

‘Ping! You have gained the Title, Poison Master, for killing a king class creature with poison, creating a new biome with poison, and creating a new high class poison recipe.’

‘Ping! You have raised a new Skill to level 1. Poison Mastery.’

‘Ping! You have gained a new Special Trait. Murphy’s Law.’

‘Ping! You have gained a new Special Trait. Misery Loves Company.’

Murphy was deeply aggrieved and pleasantly surprised. Aggrieved because he had somehow managed to get himself another weird sounding trait, and surprised because he was finally in the positive with his renown and had gained some interesting sounding titles.

Murphy surveyed his area, which was covered in the lifeless bodies of tens of bears and the numerous long dead remains of many adventurers. The thick green smog seemed to be a permanent fixture of the area now, and instead of being blown away by the wind, it appeared to be growing thicker and more toxic the more it eroded the forest and creatures in its area of effect.

Murphy willed himself to his Status Space and started surveying his status over view.

Murphy wasn’t sure if he should cheer loudly or cry sullenly. The new traits, Misery Loves Company and Murphy’s Law were both amazingly great, and equally terrible.

He still wasn’t sure exactly how the luck modifier worked, or why he seemed to be generating more and more of it as time passed. If he had to speculate, he assumed it was something similar to the amount of accidents and misunderstandings he caused.

The more stuff ups he makes unintentionally, the worse his luck stat becomes. By the same token, if he sets out to do something and achieves it without causing mayhem, it will increase his luck stat.

For the time being, he was sure the luck stat would mostly affect chance encounters, similar to having met the Bear King in the middle of the woods, and would also subtly affect other things like circumstances, equipment, quests, etc.

Even though the Murphy’s Law trait essentially promised him he would fail in many things and cause plenty of miraculous stuff ups, he at least could take solace in the special trait, Misery Loves Company. With the Misery trait, he would be able to offload the bad luck before it became too troublesome.

After some time inspecting his status, Murphy returned his focus to the world. He was still hungry, but seeing the state of the bears, he wasn’t sure if he should eat them or not. All their hair had fallen out and their skin was covered in rashes and welts.

He could only sigh at their luck. Being able to die quickly, and not have to suffer through 7 hours of the poisons effects, it was truly fortunate for them. After considering for moment, he took the sword from his sheath and approached a bear.

He then somewhat ruthlessly chopped down, severing the paw of the bear. He then also took the bears head and any other parts he thought he might be able to sell in the city. He considered skinning them and taking the hides, but their skins were so messed up he decided not to.

After that he wondered about and explored the caves for a while, looting the corpses of other adventurers in his travels. Finally, he reached the biggest cave, presumably the bear king’s home. When he entered, he could see all sorts of treasures scattered about.

Gold and silver coins here and there, weapons and armours were left scattered about covered in dust and claw marks. Out of everything in the cave, the thing that drew Murphy’s attention wasn’t any of this stuff though. It was instead a single old tome that was very auspiciously floating in mid-air.

When Murphy reached out and touched it, a system prompt came up.

‘Ping! You have completed the quest, Elizabeth’s Magic Tome. +10 renown.’

‘Ping! You have received the quest, Who the fuck’s Elizabeth?’

Although Murphy had nothing to say about the choice of words used by the system, he was still curious about the tome. At the same time as he received the quest, the tome fell into his hands and flashed with a bright light.

He then fell to the floor and started spasming and flopping about with foam coming out of his mouth. He’d experienced this before, and thanks to his Please Sir and Hurts So Good traits, he quickly came out of the seizure and wiped his mouth.

The tome had magically disappeared and was followed by another system prompt.

‘Ping! You have raised a new skill to level 1, Sinister Magic Arts.’

‘Ping! You have learnt the spell, Curse: Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked.’

‘Ping! You have unlocked the Stat, Mana’

‘Ping! You have raised a new skill to level 1, Mana Manipulation.’

Murphy once again returned to his Status Space. This time, he discovered a knew Stat called Mana. His race modifier was 0 and his human modifier was 2. Based on his experience with games in the past, Mana was needed to cast spells.

As he focused on the stat, it split apart into two sub categories. Maximum Mana and Mana Generation.

When he focused closer on them, a description came up on his stat screens.

Maximum Mana: This statistic represents the maximum amount of mana that the body can safely store.

Mana Generation: This statistic represents the rate at which a player can generate mana to replace used mana.

Although it wasn’t as helpful as he’d have liked, it was enough during the basics. He would look for ways to increase these later. He was also a little disappointed with how slow the regeneration was. Only being able to generate 1 mana point per hour.

After this, he wondered about his endurance. When he split the average stat, he saw tens of other statistics that all added up to create the overall stat. One of these statistics was called Regeneration. Its value was almost 30. Presumably, this was the result of his Please Sir, rapidly increasing his regeneration to combat the effects of the poison.

He couldn’t help but sigh in praise at the absolutely bizarre special trait. It was completely god like, but it came with a huge price. He had to suffer a great deal of pain ... and enjoy it.

When he checked his skill list, sure enough he now had two new skills.

Sinister Magic Arts: Sinister magic is, by its namesake, a very cruel and sinister branch of magic. Very few people choose to study these magic arts because they tend to have tremendous adverse effects on the caster.

Often, people being introduced to these magics are either driven mad or killed before they can even reach a beginner’s level of proficiency. That said, they are also a very powerful and very difficult to deal with type of magic.

Murphy immediately hated it. He hated it so much he tried to find a way to unlearn it. Unfortunately, there was no way to unlearn something in his Status Space.

After raging for a brief time, and Hurts So Good quickly confusing his discouragement and disappointment into happiness and jubilance, Murphy returned to focus on the next new skill.

Mana Manipulation: This is the most important and useful skill to a mage of any type. The ability to manipulate Mana properly plays a huge part in the power of spells. If a person is skilled in mana manipulation then they can even create their own spells!

Finally, he focused on a new object in his stat world. A floating tome. It was a very sinister and evil looking book. It seemed to suck the light in, giving it a very gloomy dark aura and making the book completely black except for an intricate network of veins glowing red across its surface.

Murphy felt a great deal of discomfort just looking at the book. After considering for a little while, he eventually worked up the courage to open it. It only had one page with anything on it, and the rest of the hundred odd pages were empty.

The single page with something on it was the curse, Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked.

Curse: Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked.

This curse is a vile curse with sinister intention. When cast on a target, the target will suffer from insomnia until the caster releases the curse or is killed. While in effect, the caster must spend 1 Mana point per hour to maintain the curse.

The curse prevents the target from needing or desiring sleep, however at the same time it increases the person’s irrationality and irritability proportionally to the time the curse is in effect. The rate at which the negative aspects of the curse increases is determined by the amount of Mana used when casting the curse.

Murphy wasn’t sure if he liked or disliked this curse. It had very severe effects and would be useful, but at the same time it was rather cruel and evil in nature. He decided to first test his new skills and see their effects before casting final judgement.

Once he was finished inspecting his status, he looted everything he felt was of worth from the cave and then tried to find his way back to road, and hopefully find some food along the way.

As I wondered about through the forest heading south, a strange scene suddenly transpired. When I kill an enemy, there’s usually some kind of white misty light that come out of the body and then merges into mine. This is usually experience points.

As I was moving through the forest a whole bunch of experience mist rushed towards me and was sucked into my body. I had no idea what was happening until I suddenly got a system prompt.

‘Ping! Your Poison Mastery skill has reached level 3.’

‘Ping! You have completed the hidden quest, Assassinate the Prince of Kindness!’

‘Ping! You have gained a Secret Title. Poison Assassin.’

‘Ping! Your Secret Title has gained -120 renown. Poison Assassin is now a wanted criminal.’

...

‘Ping! Your Mental Fortitude has reached level 30.’

I couldn’t hold back my confusion.

“ARGH!!! What the crap?! How the fuck did I accidentally kill the Prince? Don’t tell me he fucking walked into the poison fog? What the actual fuck?!”

Even my Hurts So Good couldn’t limit my feelings this time. The sudden shock of having killed someone called the Prince of ‘Kindness’ was too much even for my godlike special trait to limit. My Please Sir trait didn’t seem to mind though, as it pushed my Mental Fortitude to new heights.

I wanted to chalk this up to Murphy’s Law, but I hadn’t even set out to do anything yet! How can something go drastically wrong just from me setting out to hunt some food? It’s too illogical!

After some shouting and some raging, I calmed down enough for Hurts So Good to once again revert my emotions to the opposite end of the scale. Blessing ... Curse ... Hurts So Good was both of these things.

Once I was smiling and jovial again, I decided that this must have had something to do with my luck. When I checked my Status, I found my lack had taken a sudden huge dive and was now -18. The accident from killing the Prince definitely had very adverse effects on my luck stat.

It was time to test out my new special trait. I rummaged around in my inventory and pulled out my trusty broken dagger. I stared at it intensely for a moment, then uttered the curse; “Misery Loves Company”.

The dagger suddenly lit up like a flashlight and illuminated everything. A moment later, it looked like an ordinary broken dagger again. I checked my status and found my Luck had dropped back to -3. I then scrutinised the dagger closely until the game’s overlay came up displaying the items properties.

Broken Dagger (Unlucky)

This broken dagger was stolen from a group of harmless innocent villagers.

The thief was a villain of the highest order. After slaying the villagers, the villain carried this dagger as a token of his achievements and slowly imbued it with his evil intentions.

Wielder experiences hidden luck modifier of -17.

After checking its status, I assumed that the parts in red were a hidden effect. Presumably that meant no one would be able to tell this dagger was actually unlucky. They would only know that it was a broken dagger stolen from some villagers.

As I held the dagger, I wondered what should be done with it. Although the hidden description made me a little sick in the guts, I ignored it. After considering a while, I just decided to abandon the dagger in forest. After all, it was useless to me at this point.

So, I just tossed it off into the woods like garbage.

“ROAR!!!”

“Ahh shit...”

I should have known better. An unlucky dagger with -17 luck. How could that not be a recipe for disaster if carelessly tossed about. Without turning to investigate the source of the sound, I ran like the wind.

It would be more precise to say I huffed and grunted like a pig as I walked at a brisk pace through the forest. I’d picked up so much loot in the bear cave that my inventory weighed almost more than I could carry.

The only reason I could still move was because my Hurts So Good was busily resisting the pain and torment of carrying so much loot on my back.

As I waddled through the forest at a brisk walking pace, a huge rush of wind blew past me. I turned back to witness a huge dragon climbing into the sky behind me. It was a grand and majestic sight, filling my entire field of view as it slowly ascended.

Each flap of its wings nearly pushed me over just from the force of the air it was disturbing. It was a good thing my inventory was so heavy, otherwise I may have just flown off like a leaf in the wind.

The dragon was covered in dark green and dirty brown scales, which was probably why it fit in with the forest so well that I didn’t even notice walking past it. On its scaled head was a single glowing red scale that was inverted to the direction of the other scales.

‘Is that the rumoured inverse dragon scale. They say every dragon has a backwards scale that makes them go into a rage when it’s touched. I thought it was a metaphor for when people get angry at others for crossing their bottom line. I now see that it was true... ‘

As I was thinking to myself, I noticed there was something sticking out of the glowing red scale. I scrutinised it from a distance trying to work out what it was.

“Oh ... so that’s where it went.”

Realisation struck, when I determined the thing sticking out of the middle of the dragons forward was in fact the Unlucky Broken Dagger.

At the same time, I quickly checked my status and noticed my luck had already dropped back to -8. It seemed like no matter what I tried, my luck would always be terrible.

By this point in time, I was frozen in place as I observed the grandeur of the massive and frightening forest dragon taking flight. That didn’t last long though, because I very quickly discovered its big golden yellow eyes staring directly at me.

I considered if I would be able to escape this situation in a similar fashion to the bear incident, but before I could think of anything, a huge ball of flames engulfed me. My body was roasted to a well-done state on contact and was blown away by the force of the collision like a cannon ball.

A little moan of pleasure escaped my lips as I rocketed through the sky like a missile. My body flipped and tumbled about like a ragdoll and I’m sure my leg was missing. I then watched on horrified as I started to rapidly descend towards the ground.

There is sometimes fortune in misfortune. In this case, I was lucky and unlucky. Below me, was the rapidly approaching ground, which was very unlucky. But at the same time that rapidly approaching ground just happened to be a part of a big city ... most likely, the city I was trying to reach. Which was quite lucky.

Unluckily, I couldn’t slow my descent and continued to rocket towards the city was great speed. Somehow, by some miracle, I didn’t immediately die on impact. Instead, the bones of my lower body, which connected first, were disintegrated.

Everything then happened very quickly. I heard crashing sounds and screaming and crying as my body continued along the ground creating a little crater and displacing a tonne of dirt and cobblestones from the road.

Luckily, just as I felt my consciousness slipping, and the world was growing dark I heard a system prompt.

‘Ping! Congratulations on reaching Gateway City. Setting new respawn point!’

Unfortunately, the system prompt didn’t stop there.

‘Ping! You have gained a new Title. Orphan Crippler. -40 renown.’