The first thing he saw was a pair of pretty large tits, about to burst the buttons off a white uniform. He almost reached out to grab them… he thought about it, but in the end, it felt too mediocre. A total cliché, the perfect start to a crappy novel. But they did look real. The owner of the tits spoke to him in english, with an accent he couldn't quite place:
"Welcome. How are you feeling?"
"Better than ever."
And it was true, Zera believed he had never felt this good. He actually felt like getting up, for starters. That pressure in his head that only vanished after the first dose had been replaced by a strange clarity. Strange for me, thought Zera. So this is how normal people feel...
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"I'm guessing you're the tutorial waifu?"
"The what?"
"Never mind."
The woman pulled a pen and notepad from somewhere and jotted a few things down. Maybe he shouldn't have said that, obviously, NPCs can't know they're NPCs. She stopped writing and asked:
"What year do you think it is?"
"No clue."
"It's 2198. You've been asleep for almost two hundred years… I can assure you your body is perfectly fine, better than ever, like you said, but it's normal to feel confused after such a long cryosleep."
"Cryosleep? Like frozen in a time capsule or something?"
"Exactly. The system just reanimated you."
"So what did I die of, if I can ask?"
"Well, if you'd actually died, they wouldn't have cryogenized you in the first place."
"What did I almost die of?"
"We couldn't recover the full logs from the capsule, but there were traces of hard drugs in your system. Enough to cause an overdose, maybe even a coma… We don't know much more because your pod was in terrible condition. It was the only one still working in that entire bunker."
So this was the lore… Instead of getting sent to another world to kill the Demon King like in your typical isekai, they froze him and woke him up centuries later. And the drugs… well, looks like Team Alpha didn't leave anything to chance. Except for the part where Cuba had zero technology for cryogenic freezing. Not even for the president, let alone a random junkie like him.
"Nice. I love it. So… is this cryo-wake-up thing common? Are there others like me?"
"No, not at all. It's been decades since we found a viable cryopod."
"So that means no PvP for now."
"What?"
"Ehh… nothing. Bad joke from my era. So what now?"
"Rest. Maybe tomorrow or the day after we'll do a bit of sightseeing…"
"I'm not tired."
"No pressure. Is there anything you want to talk about? You must have a thousand questions…"
Zera looked around the almost empty room. He didn't see any reason to stick around. He noticed the woman was wearing a white overcoat, like a lab coat, but longer and more fitted. He sat up, moved his legs, arms, trying to find any sign, any clue that his real body was lying in another hospital room, totally different from this one, with a VR headset on his head and a bunch of cables and tubes hooked into him…
This is the fucking real thing, thought Zera. And for me, it might even be a bit more real… Where had the migraines gone? The tremors, the hangovers, the need to smoke something that had followed him like a second breath for so long?
"Look, I feel like I just got off a plane after sleeping through the whole flight. Who wants to stay in the hotel all day when there's a whole country to discover?"
"You're sure?"
"Totally."
"Well, at the very least, I have to explain how the system works. I guess that's the biggest change from your past life. If you focus on the word 'system', you'll be able to see it for yourself."
Zera noticed Diamond was barefoot, just like him. First bug? He thought about the word system, and instantly a menu appeared in front of his eyes. It wasn't exactly a hologram, it was more like the words had always been there, just waiting for him to notice them:
Name: Zera
Status: Optimal
HP: 1200
Reputation: (0)
Level: 1
Class: —
Profession: —
Bonus Stats:
Strength: o
Agility: o
Endurance: o
Perception: o
Willpower: 0
Unassigned Points: 0
Skills:
— Make Up for Lost Time (SR)
— Literary Talent (SR)
Okay, so no stat points, but he did get a couple of skills. Make Up for Lost Time looked pretty good. When he focused on it, a new window popped up explaining he would gain experience 1.5% faster than normal. That sounded pretty OP, definitely the kind of thing they'd give to beta testers like him, not to regular players or even VIPs. And that, of course, was awesome.
"Amazing, right?"
"Mhm…"
"But you don't seem that surprised… You're kind of weird, you know?"
"Mhm…"
"You're level 1, obviously. So you have 0 extra stat points. But each time you level up, you'll get 5 points: 3 are randomly assigned, and 2 you can place however you want—except in Willpower. The system will never put random points into Willpower, and if you want to level that up, it'll cost 10 points instead of 1."
"And what does Willpower do?"
"It gives you willpower… though some people believe that if you reach level 100 in Willpower, something else happens."
"That's weird… And I won't get more stats? Like Speed, Magic Power, stuff like that?"
"Magic Power?"
"Yeah, you know, MP. Or Intelligence. I don't know what it's called here."
"Did you have magic power before? Two hundred years ago, I mean?"
"No, but… never mind. What about Speed? Defense? Evasion?"
"Well, if you want to be faster, that's Agility. If you want your skin to take more hits without damage, boost Strength and Endurance… But honestly, I don't think we should be diving into these details right now."
"How come I can move around if all my stats are zero?"
"Because these stats are added to your natural stats. They don't replace them."
"How do I see my natural stats?"
"You can't."
"Seriously?"
"Well, you can always hit the gym, do some workouts, ask a trainer for an evaluation… but again, I think you're missing the elephant in the room."
"What do you mean?"
"Isn't it weird to you that a system exists at all? I know for a fact there was nothing like it in your time. I could explain how—"
"Later, later. Tell me about the skills. What's this Literary Talent thing?"
"What?"
"Literary Talent. I have a skill named that."
"Impossible…"
"Well, I'm looking at it right now. I've got two skills…"
"Two? What's the other one?"
"Can't you see my system?"
"No one can see anyone else's system."
"I guess there'd have to be a special skill for that—something like Appraisal, right?"
"Never heard of it…"
"Interesting… I've got a skill called Make Up for Lost Time. It makes me gain experience 1.5% faster than normal… Says it's SR."
"That's amazing, Zera. It's like the system is compensating you for having less experience than everyone else in this world."
"That's what I thought."
"I know a few people in HQ who'd kill for that skill… Tell me about the other one. Literary Talent. What grade is it?"
"SR."
"Impossible."
"It's that good? I thought it was the most useless thing I've ever seen in an RPG. Probably some leftover from my past life…"
But since the woman's mouth was hanging wide open, practically drooling, Zera figured maybe the skill had some hidden trick. He focused on the skill name, and another window popped up: "A generational talent, with a unique voice that stands out in any genre." Yep, exactly what it sounded like: talent for writing. He'd read a novel once where the protagonist had a super OP skill with a name like that, which let him rewrite the future… But sadly, this wasn't that.
"This is too much… Zera, just to give you some perspective: I'm twenty-four, and I only have one SR skill… and it's completely useless. And you have two, fresh out the pod?"
"Is that so rare?"
"You have no idea… Are you sure your Literary Talent is SR grade?"
"Yup. Says I'm a genera…"
"…a generational talent, with a unique voice that stands out in any genre."
"You know it?"
"Of course. All the great writers in recent years had that one. I had my writing phase too, you know… but no luck. The best I got was an R-rank skill for writing reviews… But you? You're a genius with a guaranteed future… and I'm the first person to meet you!"
What's this woman talking about now? How is good writing supposed to be useful in an RPG?
"Honestly, I was hoping for something a bit more useful… When can I get another skill?"
"Right now, actually. At the Sanctuary, everyone has the right to choose one free skill when they come of age… My name's Diamond, by the way. Feel free to write whatever you want about me…"
"Uhhh… okay…"
"So, what do you think of your welcome? I mean, your awakening… Do you feel like everything went okay or… I don't know, maybe we could start over? I can't put you back to sleep, though… But, do you like me?"
"Yeah. Sure. Why don't we head to this Sanctuary place?"
"Yes, yes, of course, whatever you want."
Zera couldn't understand how a writing skill could affect the way this NPC treated him… Apparently, the game wasn't just ultra-realistic in terms of graphics. Based on his interaction with Diamond, he already knew that everything he said would have some kind of impact… It crossed his mind that if he had grabbed her boobs right after waking up, they probably would've put him back in cryo with a single punch…
So much realism added a level of difficulty that felt kind of unnecessary. After all, he was here to kill monsters and level up, right?
Later on, he'd need to take some time to understand this world better, but first things first. And for Zera, first meant getting the SSR skill the devs had promised for his first pull at the Sanctuary gacha. One of the perks of being a beta tester.
Finally, with Diamond leading the way, the two of them left the room. They walked toward the door and simply passed through it, as if it had never been there. Then down a long, boring hallway to another door, same thing, they just walked through it…
"Why even have doors if you can just walk through them?"
"Mmmm… I guess so you can tell which part of the wall you're allowed to walk through… Were doors different in the past?"
"Everything was different."