《Testanum》
Prologue ~ Im suddenly in a RPG world with no memories of myself... Oh well
"Ugh... Where am I?" He asked himself as he slowly woke up from his unconscious state.
After struggling to get up, he began to examine his surroundings.
''Hmm, looks like I''m in the middle of a dense forest with a lake near me.''
Still feeling a little groggy from suddenly waking up, he decides to head towards the lake to clear his mind. He knelt at the edge of the lake and with his hands he cupped some water then splashed his face with it.
On the surface of the lake, there was a reflection of a man in his twenties. He had light brown hair with a fairly long ponytail in the back. The colors of his eyes were of a clear blue color. His body was thin but not thin enough to be considered unhealthy. His overall looks can be said to be average, but it had a "warm" feeling to it. The clothes he had were composed of: a white shirt with "No Violence!" written in a stylish font on it and light blue jeans.
''Ugh, I still can''t remember who I am.''
The man still didn''t have memories of himself back, but he could remember living somewhere called "Earth" before.
After his mind was cleared, he finally noticed something dangling near his left wrist. It was a book that would perfectly fit in his hand. There was something strange about the book though, it was attached to a chain and the chain was coming out of a hole where his ulnar artery was supposed to be. It''s cover was made of leather that was mostly white yet it felt like steel on touch. The book also had four diamond shaped slots on its cover and five bookmarks. [Stats] - [Skills/Spells] - [Blessings] - [Items] - [???] were written on the bookmarks.
Normally, someone would start panicking after noticing there was a hole near their wrist. But the man seeing that it wasn''t causing him pain or bleeding, he didn''t really care rather, he was more surprised and fascinated. ''Did I get kidnapped and they somehow implanted this in me? It''s pretty amazing that they could do this with today''s technology.'' You could tell just from this thought that the man was very easy-going.
He held the book with his left hand and opened it with his right hand.
The pages were made of papyrus that were oddly white aswell.
[Stats]
Name: Deilus
Age: 23
Role: (None)
Level: 1
EXP: 0/100
HP: 100/100
MP: 100/100
STR: 10
INT: 10
SP: 0
BP: 0
Skills: (Empty) | (Empty) | (Empty) | (Empty) | (Empty) | (Empty) |
''So my name is Deilus... that''s a rather weird name if I do say so myself, oh well. Actually, that''s not important right now.'' If someone heard his thoughts, they would immediately rebuke him with "How is knowing your own name not important?!".
''What are these things under it? Level? EXP? STR? INT? SP? BP? Aren''t they from some kind of RPG game? Isn''t this one of those old RPG books they used to play with a long time ago? But why is it attached to my arm? Haaa.... too many questions. I don''t care anymore, they''ll eventually answer by themselves right?'' Irresponsibly thought Deilus as he was crossing his arms and bending his upper-body sideways.
As he was about to flip to the next page, he was interrupted by a rustling sound coming from behind him.
He broke out in cold sweat then mumbled: "I hope it isn''t what I think it is..."
Right as he finished his sentence, the entity behind the bush came out as if it wanted to prove that Deilus was right; it was a goblin. It''s entire body was green and his height barely reached a meter. It had pointy ears with a ring that had the head of a dragon symbol engraved on it pierced through one of them. It was rather thin. The beady black eyes were staring at Deilus as if he was his next meal.
Deilus more or less expecting this, wasn''t really surprised and kept level-headed. Rather, he was the first one to make the move after he saw that the goblin was armed with a butcher''s knife. The distance between Deilus and the goblin was around 5 meters, within a few steps Deilus was already swinging the book towards the goblin''s head.
The goblin hurriedly raised the butcher''s knife in panic trying to block the book, but it only managed to graze Deilus'' arm.
The book that felt like steel hit the goblin square on the head, leaving the goblin wobbling for a few seconds. Deilus not letting this chance go, tackled the goblin down to the ground then started strangling him while restricting the goblin''s arms with his legs.
Why not disarm the goblin and take the butcher''s knife as weapon? By the time he disarmed the goblin, the goblin would''ve regained himself and Deilus didn''t know what the goblin would''ve done then; cry for help? Run away? Or would he still try to attack? Deilus decided it was better to not take risks and finish him off when he has the chance to. Strangling the goblin also prevents it from calling for help.
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The goblin tried to struggle but to no avail, although it was 4 levels ahead of Deilus; it only had 5 STR. Compared to Deilus'' 10 STR, it wasn''t enough to shake Deilus off. Deilus has slightly more stats because he was human. Goblins only starts with 1 STR and 0 INT at level 1 and gains 1 STR point every level. But Deilus doesn''t know that.
Deilus saw a red bar on top of the goblin''s head that was still full, he was worried that strangling him wasn''t enough to kill it. But after a minute or so of struggling, the bar instantly emptied itself completely and the goblin finally ceased all movement. Deilus letting out a breath of relief, let go of the goblin''s neck then sat down next to it, panting and exhausted. The goblin corpse suddenly started glowing following by a faint blue stream of light coming out of the glowing corpse, slowly spiralling in the air before heading to the book near Deilus'' left hand.
Deilus raised an eyebrow then opened the book to find out he gained a level and 1 SP and BP. Before Deilus could think of anything about it, the stream of light and the corpse both disappeared, leaving behind the goblin''s butcher''s knife and the tattered cloth that was hanging around his waist.
After finally calming down from the adrenaline, Deilus noticed a red bar slowly emptying itself in the corner left of his vision. The bar was draining at the rate of 1% per five minutes ''I was wondering where the HP(Health Points) was at, but it only appears when it actually drops.''
''Ouch.'' Deilus felt pain from where the goblin grazed him. ''Is this why I''m still losing HP?'' the spot where the goblin grazed him was red and continuously let out red particles that started floating upwards for a short distance before fading away.
''I wonder if this is gonna work, although it''s a bit disgusting.'' Deilus picked up the tattered cloth that was covering the goblin''s groin area and wrapped it around the wound. ''Oh, it really worked. My HP bar has stop draining.''
"This is starting out so well. I can''t believe I really am in a RPG-like world. Everything feels real, I can clearly feel the breeze and even smell the goblin''s stench; smelled like somebody that didn''t take a bath for months. The goblin felt like it was a genuine living being. "I felt him breathing onto my hands and his heart beating while I was on him."
"Hmm, I feel a bit guilty by killing it, but it couldn''t be helped since it had hostile intents towards me... Oh well, let''s move before any more of them pops up." Deilus picked up the butcher''s knife and was planning on leaving, but he heard multiple rustling sounds in front of where he was facing: the forest. ''Great... I just had to jinx myself.''
As if the world wanted to laugh at him, four goblins rushed out of the forest and surrounded him. They each had that ring on one of their ears.
''Just why is this happening anyway? Oh right, no one is gonna answer me because I''m alone here, oh well, let''s just get this over with.'' Deilus kneaded his eyebrows as he thought this.
He equipped the butcher''s knife on his right hand and had the book in his left, ready in a stance. The four goblins all jumped towards him with knives in hand.....
Hello to everyone reading this and thank you.
I want to say a couple of things about myself first. English is actually my third language and so my grammar isn''t all that great. I do spend a bit of time editing before posting it but there are probably still a lot of errors in there. By no means do I want to use this as an excuse for having grammatical mistakes, which is why I would like to ask if you guys could help me and point out mistakes if you have the time. That would help me improve myself. I would be very grateful if you do so.
Secondly, I''m starting this out as a hobby, which may result in slow updates and such, unless it garners enough attention. (If a lot of people read this and likes it, it''ll give me more motivation to update more frequently.) Currently I think I''m capable of churning out one or two chapters per month. I don''t want to be too overly ambitious but I do want to make this into a "real job" one day.
That''s all for now, thank you very much for just being here.
Chapter 1 ~ Goblins wont let me read my book in peace... Oh well.
Deilus breaks out of the encirclement by deflecting the knife of the goblin on his right with his own while simultaneously blocking the incoming knife of the goblin on his left.
The goblins prepared themselves for his counter-attack.
"Goodbye!" But to their surprise, the human left them a farewell before making a dash into the forest; leaving them dumbfounded for a moment.
Currently, Deilus could take on one or two goblins at a time, but four was asking for too much. Unless he was prepared to die, he wouldn''t be able to take all of them down with only a butcher''s knife.
Generally in RPG games, whenever a player dies, they can revive at the cost of a penalty such as: losing equipments, EXP/level loss, stats reduction or even getting your game character permanently deleted.
Deilus kept glancing behind his back every so often to check if the goblins were chasing after him. After a couple of minutes, he still hasn''t seen any goblins which made him relax a bit.
''Considering how novels about VRMMORPGs death games were the trend lately back on earth, I''d rather not risk it. Although I don''t know if the "MMO" part applies to me yet.'' The pain was very real aswell; the small wound Deilus received from the first goblin still had a burning sensation. ''Pain is pain after all, everyone would like to avoid it.''
He went into deep thoughts while running through the forest randomly then suddenl-
*Thump*
He ran straight into a tree.
"Nnngh! That huuuurts!" shouted Deilus, as he clutches his red nose. There was a visible crimson liquid trail coming out of his nose with the same red particles as before. The red bar popped up in the corner of his vision again with 5% of it missing.
"Oh well... I guess this is about the right time to stop and continue investigating the book."
He sat down under the tree he ran into then opened the book and went to the bookmark with [Skills/Spells] written on it.
On the page, there were the words [Light] and [Novice] under it near the top of the page and under them was:
Arrow of Light | 10 MP | Cost 1 SP [+] : The user can summon projectiles in the form of arrows made of light.
Shining Steps | No MP Usage | Cost 1 SP [+] : The user borrows the power of light to increase their movement speed.
Aegis | Dependent | Cost 1 SP [+] : The user can use light as a shield to block attacks. The stronger the attack; the more MP it consumes.
Heal | Dependent | Cost 1 SP [+] : The user will use the light to heal minor wounds. The bigger the wound; the more MP it consumes.
And it goes on and on...
"Huh? There''s something that resembles a scrollbar near the edge of the page... Don''t tell me..." To confirm if his thoughts were correct, he moved his finger upwards across the page. The words actually started ascending, following his finger; revealing new lines of words.
"What the hell is this?! Was there a logo of a certain fruit on the book somewhere?! Has technology advanced far enough to create a multi-layered tablet in the form of a book already?!" exclaimed Deilus while the scrollbar reached the bottom.
"Oh well, there''s nobody around to answer me or think with me... I''m getting lonely." Deilus slumped forward, acting dejectedly before going back to the book.
It shown a similar layout as the previous, but this time the [Novice] was replaced with [Divine] and the line of words under it were also different:
??? | ??? | ??? : ???
??? | ??? | ??? : ???
??? | ??? | ??? : ???
...
"Looks like these are the skills that I can learn by tapping the [+] on the page. They were split by four ranks but I can only see question marks past the Novice Rank. That''s rather annoying, I would like to know the effects of future skills right now." Like Deilus said, the ranks were: Novice>Expert>Master>Divine.
"Let''s choose something that''ll let me defend myself." He lightly tapped the [+] mark for the skill. Soon after, information on how to use the skill entered his mind.
"Let''s try it out." He straightened his right arm in front of him with the palm facing towards the sky, then focused his mind on that hand. His hand felt slightly warmer, like blood was rushing to the end of his fingers.
A brilliant light in the form of an arrow appeared above his hand. The arrow was around 30 inches in length; it was shining but it wasn''t that bright where you would have to close your eyes after looking at it. "It was this simple? I thought I would have to chant something or call out the skill''s name. Thank God I didn''t have to do that, that would''ve been embarrassing."
Deilus wanted to test the control he had over the arrow and so he moved his hand up and down. The arrow similarly moved up and down, following Deilus'' hand. Next, he spun his hand. The arrow started spinning on the spot. "This is rather amusing." laughed Deilus.
He also noticed a reticle in his line of sight for awhile now. It was quite similar to the ones you see in First Person Shooter games. "I''m guessing this is how I aim it?".
He lined up the reticle onto a tree then flicked his hand forward; sending the arrow of light flying towards the tree. The speed was quite impressive, it was slightly faster than an actual arrow shot by a bow. It blasted a hole through the tree and kept going for a few more meters before fading away. "I wasn''t expecting it to actually be able to blow through a tree''s trunk..." The power surprised Deilus quite a bit. He was only expecting it to dig into the tree and be stuck within the tree.
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There was a blue bar that was emptied by around 10% near the top left corner of his vision after he let the arrow loose. "Hmm, seems like I don''t lose MP until I actually shoot it, that''s surprisingly generous. I could intimidate someone if I summoned multiple of them without actually using MP, that could end up being useful someday." The reason being is that the arrow was still "connected" to Deilus. Later on, Deilus will discover that he can still control the trajectory of the arrow with his hand through a smaller connection when it has been shot.
"I feel much safer with this now. Onto the next page! Hopefully nothing will disturb me this time..." Feeling satisfied about the skill, Delius was about to flip over the page but-
*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*
Listening closely, he hears footsteps far behind him. He turns around to find out that the four goblins from before were dashing towards him. "Why do I always keep jinxing myself!!!" He face-palmed himself.
"Ugh, oh well, this is actually a good time to test something out." He lifted his arms and four appeared, two above each hand. Similarly, four cross-hair popped up in his vision. "As I thought." A small smirk could be seen on his face as his thoughts were correct. The information he had gotten when he obtained the skill only told him the general outlines on how to use the skills, such as: How to activate it, control it, what effects it would have. There was no real details explained, hence why he has to experiment with the skill to discover its full potential.
To control the four cross-hairs, he had to concentrate his mind on each one of them to guide them towards his intended targets. It was easier said than done. It was as if you were multitasking four things at the same time, normally a person would already have problems doing two things at the same time let alone four.
"Nngh, this is hard as hell!" He was squinting his eyes to focus harder. The four reticles were moving across his vision in a haphazardly manner. Deilus was trying to aim for their bodies but it was too straining for him and so he decided to just let them go instead of wasting anymore time. ''I''ll practice aiming later.''
As expected, only two of them actually hit a goblin, one in the head, the other in the chest; missing the heart by a few inches. The goblin that got hit had a hole in the head and with a *plop*, the red bar over it got emptied instantly. The one that got hit in the chest was still alive with the red bar missing about 75% of its content and it was still depleting as the red particles kept leaking out of the big gap in his chest.
It got down on one knee, seemingly in pain and breathing heavily. It was already quite amazing that it still held its consciousness, a normal human would''ve been knocked out because of the shock of having a gaping hole in their chest.
The other two goblins were momentarily stunned due to the unexpected magic that Deilus used. They didn''t know Deilus could actually use magic, usually they would run away from such danger, but after seeing their own kind getting killed and fatally injured; they became enraged. The expressions on their pimple-ridden green faces were even more savage than before. After snapping out of it, they yet again started running towards Deilus with killing intent.
"Hmm, That was pretty good for my first time. Guess it''s about time I finish this to continue reading the book." Feeling happy that he even hit one of them on his first try, he prepared another set of four arrows. This time he lined all four reticles to the side of a tree, it was much easier than last attempt since he only needed to focus on a single point with all four. With a flick of his hands, the arrows went right through the tree as if it was paper. The tree was fairly large, which was why Deilus used four arrows.
The tree started falling towards the goblins, people with a certain profession would suddenly yell "Timber!!!" if they saw this scene. It crushed two goblins into pools of blood and the last one was still clinging to his life on one knee further away from the fallen tree. With a pierced lung, it was desperately gasping for air. The pain was so unbearable that it didn''t even notice the rest of his kind had died.
*Thunk*
A butcher''s knife went deep into its skull, putting it out of its misery. Deilus felt a tinge of guilt but quickly dismissed it. "They were chasing me to kill me, so there''s no point in feeling guilty." Deilus convinced himself.
"Haaa... Give me a break already, I just want to read this damn book, is it too much to ask?" asked Deilus to no one in particular while surrounded by goblin corpses with his shirt that has "No Violence!" written on it.