Mike had only ever approached Bart’s store from the front, so he was surprised to find that upon exiting the back a large grove of trees was only a single street away. Behind the trees, he could make out the tops of some small foothills. It was a fortuitous turn of events, as it would make exiting the town much easier. Gritting his teeth through the pain of his shoulder, he crossed the street and quickly disappeared among the greenery that got denser with every step.

Despite the pain in his shoulder, he pressed onward at a hurried yet deliberate pace, doing his best to avoid leaving tracks wherever possible. As he started up a small rise, a loose stone gave way under his foot, forcing him to catch himself with his good arm. Despite his quick reflexes, the jerking motion caused his shoulder to flair in agony, and he was forced to slow down after that. After fifteen minutes, his broken nose had completely soaked his beard in blood, and each step he took flung small droplets on the ground, creating a very obvious trail with which he could be tracked. He had made good time, reaching the base of the foothills he had seen earlier. It had been a short trip, but he found himself completely isolated in a small clearing. It was as good a place as any to patch himself up.

Settling down next to a small stream, Mike decided to start with his shoulder. Breaking off a small branch from a nearby try, he put it in his mouth and began the arduous task of removing his shirt. Despite his best efforts, the process was extremely painful, and he actually saw stars when he pulled his head through the collar and again when he bent his arm to remove it from the sleeve. With his chest bare, he took his first unimpeded look at the 3 inch gash stretching from his shoulder bone to the top of his tricep. Thankfully, the cut looked clean and straight. His mind went back to when his squad member had taken a long range shotgun to the thigh and Mike had spent hours picking lead pebbles from the wound. Yep, he could certainly handle this.

Taking out his fishing hook and some fishing line that he always kept on his person, he threaded the hook and partially straightened it out on a flat rock. This wasn’t the time to be picky, but he needed to remove the sheer curve from the implement, while also creating a gentle bend that would allow him to loop through both sides of the wound easier. Stitching his own shoulder one handed was already going to be hard enough as it was, and he needed every advantage he could get. Taking three prolonged breaths, he lined up the needle and deftly made his first pass. Even being prepared for the pain, it was jarring, and the plastic line pulled uncomfortably on his pierced flesh. Pain was something he had been trained for though and he emptied his mind and focused entirely on breathing and steady, even movements. Five minutes later, as the last stitch was pulled through and tied off, another message greeted him.

[Congratulations! You have learned the skill First Aid.

+1 to Intelligence.

Healing activities will be 10% more effective and 10% less painful.

Continue training hard to develop even more skills]

The notification was unexpected and cut into his concentration, forcing him to take another set of calming breaths as he centered himself for the next task: setting his nose. This would be easier than sewing his shoulder closed, but from experience, he knew it would still be excruciating. His mind centered, he brought both hands up to each side of his nose, inhaling as deeply as he could through his mouth as he did so. Whoosh. Mike expelled all the air from his lungs in one great gust, even as he pushed his nose back into place. It was just the slightest bit better than he anticipated-but he still struggled to see through the tears overflowing from his eyes.

[Congratulations! You have leveled up your skill First Aid, now level 2.

+1 to Intelligence

Healing activities will be 20% more effective and 20% less painful.]

After resting for 10 minutes, Mike was feeling much better, and he gingerly lifted the cover from his wound to inspect his handiwork now that he had been removed from it for a bit. Unbelievable. The wound was already starting to heal, seemingly throwing out all of his experience in first aid and sports medicine. This was the final straw in what had been a very long and stressful day, and he stood quickly, pulling on his shirt as he prepared himself to head north towards Canada, where he would hopefully disappear. Upon taking his first few steps,, he realized he had forgotten his Felling Ax back at the store. That ax had enough of his fingerprints and DNA for even the most incompetent of police detectives to link him to Bart’s death. He had to go back and try and get it. His planned relocation would only save him from future prosecutions if there was absolutely no tie to the murder. It had only been about an hour since he first stepped into Bart’s store, and if somehow he could get the ax before the cops found it, he might have a chance of not being caught.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

30 minutes later, Mike slowly eased his way forward through the last bit of trees. He had been moving with all of the stealth he had accumulated through life’s experiences, making the trek back take almost double the time it had earlier. As he neared the very edge of the sheltering greenery, a figure emerged from the back of Bart’s store, causing him to press himself behind a very thick tree. It wasn’t surprising that people were already looking for him, but he was surprised that the individual wasn’t dressed like a cop at all. The 6’5’’ behemoth resembled a medieval biker more than anything, with thick leather pants and shirt, metal shoulder pads, and a big pink mohawk. As the man turned to engage with someone following him out the back door of the store, Mike couldn’t miss the large claymore strapped to his back. He couldn’t be sure, but from this distance, he would guess that that claymore was bordering on 65 inches, a full 10 inches longer than an accurately historic claymore would be. Mike inwardly cursed the cultists who insisted on mixing anime fiction with history, clearly such a long sword would be unwieldy even for such a large man.

Mike’s face felt numb when the next person emerged from the store, it was Bart. This couldn't be. He had seen what remained of Bart’s face as he dragged the man’s body several yards through the store. He should probably go back and find those mushrooms and start selling them as the world’s strongest hallucinogen, but first, he needed some answers.

No longer bothering with stealth, he stepped out around the tree and headed directly towards the conversants. They didn’t seem to notice him as he took his first couple steps, but as soon as his foot crossed the line where the town road started, both men’s heads instantly snapped in his direction–weird, but not the weirdest thing that had happened today. It also wasn’t as alarming as how promptly the large man reacted, turning to run towards Mike, while he yet struggled to pull the large sword from his back. Mike’s brain struggled to comprehend why this man would just attack him on sight if Bart was ok, even as his body prepared to meet the giant.

Mike had to give the man props for one thing, his large overhead swing was very powerful, but it was also very slow. Clearly, this man had never been in a real fight before, outside of maybe a drunken brawl. Mike’s feet had already moved him two steps forward, slightly behind and to the side of the man as these thoughts went through his head and he watched the sword hit the ground. After what happened earlier, he was a little hesitant to pull out his ax again, so he decided to just put this man to sleep. “A strong kidney punch will bring down even the biggest of opponents,” he heard his father’s voice say in his head, even as he shifted his weight forward to increase the momentum behind his right cross, hitting the man directly in the kidney.

As the man fell to his knees, Mike’s judo chop was already closing in on the pressure point in the man’s neck. The large man seemed unaffected by the first chop, forcing Mike to repeat the strike again, which knocked the giant out cold. The KO would have been faster if both of Mike’s arms were fully functional, but his left arm had been injured less than two hours earlier, and even without using it, he could tell he had made it worse.

Mike crossed his right arm over to apply gentle pressure to the wound even as he turned to talk to Bart, but he didn’t see what he expected. Bart’s usual jovial face was screwed up in shock and fear, and not the awkward shock and fear that Mike was used to seeing on bystanders’ faces when he beat someone down. Bart’s face showed the terror of a cornered animal.

“Bart, listen man, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know how to react when he attacked me, but I’m not here to hurt you.” Hope flickered in Bart’s eyes, and his face relaxed slightly at Mike’s words. Mike hoped that he hadn’t blown his chances of getting some answers with that show of aggression.

“I just want to figure out what is going on. Earlier today, I could have sworn I killed you. I have been seeing all these weird notifications. It seems all of technology has been wiped out. I just don’t understand what is happening.” Mike continued.

“You mean you didn’t get to see the tutorial?” Bart asked. “I would have assumed that even as a monster, you would have gotten some kind of training like the rest of us.”

“What do you mean training? Tell me what is going on Bart.”

“10 days ago, we received a message from an entity called the System. It told us our world was being assimilated into the multiverse, and that each of us could rise to greatness. Greatness comes from gaining experience and levels both for our bodies as well as for our skills. Experience for our bodies can be gained by completing quests and killing monsters. Skills can be awarded by the system, but generally, you acquire skills by getting trained on how to do something, and then completing that action correctly,” Bart explained.

“That is madness! I just got a message last night, not 10 days ago.” Mike exclaimed. “So someone managed to use technology to give everyone a fake message, and people are believing it?”

“Well a lot more happened after the message. After a lengthy tutorial, everyone was transferred to what the System called Noobtowns, where we can start leveling up. That is why this town got so large overnight. Also, technology was destroyed. You wouldn’t have noticed living out in the woods like you do, but there are no more electronics as far as we can tell in this town. All guns have been transformed into basic weaponry. And it all just happened instantly.”

“That still,” Mike tried to interject but Bart continued in a louder voice.

“And if you still don’t believe me, how do you explain me coming back to life after you killed me earlier? Do you think I could just respawn if it wasn’t for the System?”

He didn’t have an answer to that. He had seen Bart’s body. The only explanation for everything that had happened was that Bart was telling the truth. But this just made Mike have even more questions.

“What are all of these notifications? How do people get used to every item showing text that blocks their vision?” he asked, settling on the question that had been plaguing him ever since he opened his eyes that morning.

Bart seemed surprised. “You mean the System notifications? Those only appear if you haven’t set your settings up correctly. You can update them by focusing on the word Menu, and from there you can personalize your System experience.”

Mike logged the information away to look at later.

“So you can’t die?” he said, trying to tiptoe around their earlier confrontation while continuing to extract the information he needed to survive this new world.

“Oh we die, and it definitely hurts”, Bart replied, Mike could see the fear fading from Bart’s face as he warmed up to talking. Bart almost seemed like his old self. “But when you respawn, you lose all experience towards your next level, and it takes several days. The only reason I already respawned is because I had a treasure for being a store owner that gave me one free respawn” Bart continued, preemptively answering his next question.

“Well what about monsters, do they respawn?” Mike was suddenly interrupted by a large group of people coming around a corner several streets down, running pell-mell towards Mike and Bart.

A blur of motion caught his eye, and he instinctively lurched away from it. Before he had gained much distance, pain exploded from his abdomen. He looked down to see the same dagger Bart had attacked him with earlier, but now only the hilt was visible, as the three inch blade was embedded in his stomach.

“I’m not sure,” Bart said in a low voice, “Why don’t you figure that out for both of us?”

Stepping in closer, he continued speaking with the same conversational tone he used when passing gossip with his customers, “At any rate, there is one more piece of information I’ll give you, if you respawn, that is. It seems only fair since I struck out at you first. After you killed me this morning, we updated the Town Interface to now warn all villagers if a monster enters.”

“Well, I was planning on tracking you down, but thanks for coming to me, I bet I will get a full level up off of your death.” he concluded with the same jovial tone.

The edges of Mike’s vision were already beginning to blur as he brought his bad arm up behind Bart’s neck with one swift motion.

“And I’ll give you one more piece of information,” Mike gritted out, “never stay standing next to someone you have stuck a knife in if the job hasn’t been finished.”

For the second time that day, Mike watched as his ax approached Bart’s forehead. Unlike before, he wasn’t acting on instinct, but rather, executing a calculated killing blow. Despite Bart’s bulging eyes and panicked struggles, Mike’s arm held the other man’s head like an iron vice as the ax entered the tissue right between his eyes.

Turning away from Bart’s still falling body, Mike cradled his bad arm around his now impaled stomach. Groaning, he fought the instinctual panic to pull the knife out, knowing that it could make things worse if he pulled it out now. He had been through worse, and he would do his best to get through this too. He had just enough presence of mind as he speed hobbled towards the forest to briefly pause and send the prone behemoth to respawn. The rush of adrenaline and System notification congratulating him on yet another Level Up were insufficient to distract him from the crowd of angry cultists that were now only 100 yards away.