???? A.M.? P.M.?
January 6/7?
Void Between Worlds
In the end - and with not a small amount of morbid curiosity - he had simply walked off into the void past his little island of safety. Gary had been understandably nervous at this but he’d come to the conclusion that it was needed for the ‘process’ of being isekai’d to continue. With a great heaving sigh, he complied with the conclusion and had stepped off. He’d expected to tumble away but he simply floated gently without a sense of motion, the island vanishing behind him into the nothingness.
Gary made damn sure his Virtual Network System’s wireless connection feature was turned very firmly to the off setting. One of the last things he needed was for the darn thing to pick up some virus from a stray transmission in this place. He tried not to even think about it, just in case. Jinxing himself would be nothing but a fatal disaster at this point.
The blaring light display before him sprung to life as a floating box about halfway forward of his arm’s reach. It took everything Gary had not to try and adjust settings on it with his mind. The design was a bright blue with a simplistic border; very basic design-wise. He settled for a few rapid blinks before the box before him cheerfully continued like it didn’t notice his reaction.
“I guess,” Gary replied hesitantly. This was sounding like canned content. He quite liked Earth, thank you very much. The wording caught him a bit off guard, though. Did it think he was from this ‘Veotera’ and had simply lost his way? Well, if he was going to get possible powers and so forth out of it and maybe safely transported to solid ground Gary was perfectly willing to shut his damn mouth and let the process play out.
He shook his head in disbelief at the canned approach but dutifully stated the line. “Status open.” A larger box sprung to life behind the one speaking to him. It displayed ratings for statistical representation and basic information about himself. Name, age, gender, marital status? He noted empty spots in the “class” slot below that and the “skills” slot below the rest of it. That probably was covered in the later parts of this process.
“Can I choose my own regardless of my stats?” Yeah, it was truly time to play a semi-clueless isekai protagonist. The System was not his friend. The System was not Earth’s friend. Something that had this implied level of power was something to be wary of. To be able to simply glance at him and categorize his physical and mental capabilities into such simplistic rankings was suggestive of a System that didn’t offer protections from abuse by the gifted who lacked the discipline that came along with training to improve oneself. It might also be responsible for the holes in reality that had swallowed him and presumably more from Earth that he didn't know about. A lot of isekai stories had a System pop up right before an apocalypse happened.
The box talking to him scrolled through various ASCII symbols as it supposedly processed an answer for him. Gary floated without comment, reaching out to try and move the statistics box to one side so he could look at it uninterrupted. There wasn’t any graphical body display or ‘paper doll’ mechanic, so he figured he’d still have to put on equipment manually. There didn’t appear to be a limiter indication on the rankings though there did seem to be a toggle beside every part of his status besides his name and Class entries. Pressing the toggle grayed out the linked display though he could still see it. A toggle to show or hide things? Clearly a double-edged sword. Hiding would let him surprise or bluff others, but if he could hide things there was clearly going to be an ability or item to reveal it. There was also the social aspect of people asking ‘what does Gary have to hide?’ and that sounded no fun.
A third box materialized as Gary moved the status screen further to the side to make room. Within this new box there was a single flowery entry.
Gary blinked at the brief descriptions. Flowery text aside it was clear that each had some influence from his scores and hidden attributes about himself that the “skills” section would likely cover. The teenager gave a bizarre look at the fact he'd gotten what was at first blush a thievery-based skill. Gary wasn't one to shy away from what needed to be done but he'd never recalled an instance of having committed theft or otherwise taken something from another without asking for or being gifted it. Well, duh. He would have slapped his face in disgust at himself if he wasn't trying to ham up his role as clueless John Q. Public. He was 'stealing' information from this part of the System, and had intent on stealing himself a way back home if the opportunity presented itself. That sounded pretty thief-y. He found his voice after reading the words and committing it to the running text file in his mind that he was trying to be super subtle about. “What’s with this ‘rank in strength’ bit?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“It seems stupid of me not to enjoy Plunderer’s obvious potential power, but sneaky-beaky types tend to get looked down upon. Not sure I wanna deal with the hassle of being a wanted man simply by existing.”
Gary’s mouth puckered in thought as he reread the description of the offered option before he spoke again. “Am I locked out of everything else if I go forward with this? Like am I locked out of being a mage, a warrior, and so on?”
He looked at the display again, then sighed in resignation. It’d be stupid to not take the most powerful option he could get at this juncture, since arguing about it would probably be counterproductive at best and get him a punishment at worst. He was confident in his ability to get training as a warrior and a healer in short order, but he’d have to find someone to teach him magic. He did have textbook after textbook in his head thanks to his little super-expensive toy from the United States government, so it was really just a matter of getting physical practice in. Not a terrible start at all.
“It’d be stupid not to turn it down, then. Let’s lock in Plunderer.” With a little fanfare, the third screen vanished in a blink and his sheet updated with Plunderer as his Class. The skills section on his sheet pulsed to catch his attention, then began filling with relevant things from his Class and personal training, plus a flood of items the fell one after another under the heading 'Knowledge'. The tutorial box was flickering rapidly between symbols as it clearly tried to process what was happening before it could get a word in. Gary smiled ruefully. His Virtual Network at work, then. Hopefully it had registered only as his knowledge and not as something to be suppressed by this System.
Gary laughed at that. “Let’s call it the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom, to borrow a phrase. I know all of these things, but there’s a huge difference in knowing how and applying that knowledge. Lots of book smarts, not enough hands-on experience. The rating probably took that imbalance into consideration.”
“Sounds like a plan. So is that it for your end?”
The textbox of the tutorial blinked out of existence. Gary hung in the void looking casually over his sheet while he contemplated the grave meaning behind something simply being able to measure his existence so thoroughly, yet be oblivious to the nature of his list of knowledge. It amused him to note that the listed bits under the Knowledge entry was simply an abbreviated list. He guessed the status screen didn't want to extend into the next fifty feet listing the topics he had in the chip in his head. The problems were going to be remembering that he had them all in the first place and not to use too much to make himself painfully obvious. That was the issue most isekai victims ran into: making too much noise with their advanced knowledge, even if they somehow remembered it perfectly dragging a world ahead by it's bootstraps never ended without a pile of innocent bodies the size of a small mountain in one's wake.
The moments passed as a feeling of movement picked up, drawing Gary's attention towards a particular point that was clearly growing larger into his vision. A ragged sigh escaped him before dismissing the screen with a thought. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “Guess I'm about to get where I'm going. Yay,” he droned to himself as his vision went white as opposed to the black it had when he got flung into this place.
