As was becoming concerningly normal for me, I woke up with no idea where I was and surprised to be alive.

On opening my eyes, there were two important things I discovered. Firstly, I was in a tent of hide and sticks. Despite its fairly spacious interior, the only furniture within was a simple wood-and-fur bed which I currently occupied.

Secondly — and perhaps a touch more pressingly — I was not alone. Three men stood between me and the exit.

While I was fairly certain they were men, however, they were quite notably not human men.

Huh. Really is a fantasy world, I guess.

All three had mottled skin, predominantly gray but with patches of brown and dark green thrown in as well. Overall, their features were highly angular and pronounced, with ears that pointed upwards and hung close to their heads. On top of that, they were big.

Like, big big.

The shortest of them was roughly 7 feet tall, and all three looked like they ate a healthy diet of steroids for each meal.

All in all, they almost looked as if someone had crossed a few trolls with some elves and then given them a skin disease.

“Ah, I do believe she’s awakened. Good, good. Hello dear.” The speaker was the central of the three, by far the shortest and the eldest. He had long, gray hair styled in a single braid down his back, and he supported his weight on a lengthy gnarled staff. “Let’s start with some introductions, shall we? I am Elder Tafitz, chief of the Redmoss Tribe.”

He gestured to his side at a younger troll-elf with a similarly styled, but woody, red-brown braid. “This here is Amak. And then this,” he said, gesturing to the last of the three, “would be Rock, who is in charge of the tribe’s training and fighting forces. It was he who found you fighting the matriarch and then brought you here.”

While the other two seemed mostly all right, Rock looked like I’d insulted his mother and kicked his dog. Frankly, I was surprised he had saved my life considering how much it looked like he wanted to burn a hole in my head with his eyes.

It also didn’t help that he was by far the largest of the three. Appearing to be in his mid-thirties, he had a shorter, black braid, and a physique that suggested he could bench the other two in his sleep.

Getting tired of thinking of them as “troll-elves” I tried to focus on Rock, and a small name tag appeared above him: Forest Shadow Commander. They didn’t fully strike me as “shadows”, but they were mostly gray and they lived in the woods, so it worked for me.

“Um. Hello? I’m Tess. Thank you for saving my life?” I stood, somehow feeling even shorter after doing so. Idly, I realized that they’d dressed me in a new pair of clothes while I’d been knocked out. I would have been embarrassed, but it beat wearing my previous set of clothing, which was likely a heap of bloody rags.

“Of course, dear, of course. Though I will confess it was not entirely out of altruism. I’ll be blunt in this: You are perhaps aware that you are, in a sense, trespassing?” The Elder passed one hand over another atop his staff.

Lovely. Teleported into a forest that wants to feed me to spiders, and on top of that, it’s private property.

“Sorry, no? I was teleported here. I don’t really even know where I am, if I’m being honest. Definitely wasn’t trying to trespass.” Hopefully it wasn’t some grand crime that they executed people for. Judging from the light streaming into the tent, I’d slept through the night, which meant I had managed to go a full day without dying. That didn’t mean I wanted to die on day two, though.

“Oh?” The Elder raised a grayed brow large enough to be a mustache on a normal man. “Quite a claim, that is. Pray tell where you came from then and why you were teleported here?”

What exactly was I supposed to tell them here? Hello, I’m Tess, I come from a different planet, and I was sent here by a god.

Then again, why not? There was no way in hell I was going to be able to convincingly lie to the guy. I didn’t know the name of a single country or city in the entire world. Chosen by a god certainly had a nicer ring to it than lying trespasser.

“I, uh, kind of came from another planet? I don’t really know how common that is here, but I woke up in the forest yesterday and some prompt told me I was now a ‘Protagonist’ if that means anything to you.”

Immediately their eyes went wide, and then in an instant, Rock’s face turned to one of intense anger. I let out a yelp as he darted forward and grabbed my arm, hoping that I hadn’t just made a big mistake.

“That’s a very bad joke, girl. Protagonists aren’t weak children like you, and they don’t lose to level 10 spiders. Show us your mark.” He painfully yanked my arm towards the other two, and even with my newly gained stats, his strength was bounds above mine. “It’s bad enough that I’ve had to follow you around while you went stomping through our forest. That you have the gall to come into our home and say something like that...” He fixed me with an intense glare, and I shrank back away from him, trying to pull my arm from his grip.

Even as my heart started to pound in my chest, his words struck me. He’d been following me? Well, that explained how he’d been there for the fight, at least.

The Elder shot the bulky shadow a reproachful look. “Release the poor girl. That’s not how we treat our guests, even if the notion is a bit… far fetched.” Rock held on for another moment, continuing to glare at me before briskly letting go.

“He is, of course, right dear. Could you show us your mark?” Polite though the Elder was, I could tell he didn’t think I’d be able to. That being said, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Still feeling a bit panicky from having been rushed at by a giant angry troll-thing, I tried to will the mark to show up, but nothing happened.

“Uh, sorry, this is all kind of new to me. How do I pull up the mark?”

Rock snorted and the Elder shot him another look. “Just focus on your arm and then think of the name or the image of the mark you’d like to show, of course.”

I followed his advice, and a moment later the alien swirling gold pattern rose up from my veins until it was fully displayed on my wrist. All three of them went slack jawed at once, the up-til-then silent Amak going so far as to let out an audible gasp.

While Rock seemed to only get angrier at the sight of the mark, once the Elder recovered from his shock, his face lit up with near-childish glee. He took a step closer to me and bent down, examining the mark in finer detail while making no effort to contain his excitement.

“Gods abound, I apologize, child, but this is wonderful! Wonderful! You must be here to help us with our problem, yes? I’ve prayed every night for the past month for some sort of help, but I never dreamed that the gods would bring an actual Protagonist to us! A Protagonist!”

I was about to correct him, but I realized that he might actually be right. Dex had probably dropped me here for a reason. What if he was nudging me to help out with whatever the Elder’s problem was?

The Elder spun towards his commander with a stern expression. “You will, of course, apologize to the girl. There’s a very serious chance she’s been sent to us.” Before the commander could reply, the Elder turned again, this time to Amak. “This might take a while, and the girl hasn’t eaten anything since waking up. Please fetch some food while we talk, if you would.” Amak simply nodded before heading out without a word.

The commander stared me down before turning back to the Elder. “With all due respect, Elder, this child cannot help us, Protagonist or not. With how she handled the matriarch, she can’t be more than level seven.”

Barely audibly, I mumbled out a protest: “Level two, actually.”

The two stopped and turned to me, eyes wide again, neither speaking a word. After a moment, the Elder broke the silence by bursting out into laughter. Impossibly, Rock’s mood seemed to darken, the veins on his forehead visibly bulging outwards.

“A level two Protagonist! Oh my, dear, you seem to be full of surprises. But imagine! If you’re going head to head with Spider Princes and Matriarchs at level two, think how strong you’ll be in a few more levels!”

The Elder’s laughter subsided, and he turned once more to the commander. “You are of course right to doubt how useful a level two will be in helping us, Protagonist or not. As such, provided that she agrees to help us, you will see to training her before we leave. And you will apologize now.”

The Elder’s voice brooked no room for argument, and the hulking shadow faced me with barely concealed derision before addressing me. “You have my apologies, Protagonist.” He paused for a moment before his face contorted into a wide grin. “Should you choose to help us, it will be my pleasure to see to your training.”

Great! It looked like I’d just gained a close, life-long friend! I was confident that once we all got out of this meeting, Rock and I would go off into the woods singing kumbaya and painting each other’s toe nails, right in between whatever completely twisted and sadistic ordeals he had in stock for me in the name of “training.”

“Now,” the Elder continued. “I’ll see to bringing the girl up to speed. You are dismissed, Rock.”

For a moment, it looked as though the commander was going to protest, but instead he simply nodded and left the tent. With both of the younger two shadows gone, it was just me and the Elder.

He hummed for a moment before continuing, as if searching for the words. “You’ll hopefully forgive the initial skepticism, dear. There are some old stories of Protagonists being chosen from other realms by the gods, but they are… uncommon. It’s generally accepted that each god can choose a single Protagonist, and to become one, you have to impress them greatly. One does not hear of level two Protagonists.”

Great. Other Protagonists were probably out there wrestling dragons while I was getting saved from spiders. “Why call them ‘Protagonists’ by the way? You’d think it’d be something like ‘Champion’ or ‘Chosen’. And do I actually have to do anything, or what’s the deal?”

He hummed once more. “Who is to guess at the whims of gods? I know not why they chose the name. As for the second question, it is generally held to be a blessing, not an onus. You are free to do as you please.”

Wow. That actually didn’t sound like it sucked? No dark overlord I needed to kill or anything? The random stats thing still blew, but if that was all, maybe this wouldn’t be entirely miserable.

The Elder tapped his staff against the ground, as if fidgeting with the giant thing. “That’s not to say that the gods don’t have plans when they make their choices. I would like to believe that you were brought here to help our tribe, if you’d allow me to explain.”

I nodded for him to continue, but before the Elder could begin, the tent flap opened and Amak came back in. He was deftly carrying three large stone bowls filled with a heavy-looking stew. The aroma was intense and unlike anything I’d smelled before.

“Ah, thank you Amak. Rock has left us. If you haven’t eaten yet, you can take the third bowl for yourself.”

The silent shadow nodded, and after placing two of the bowls on the ground before us, left with the third.

“Good. Sit, sit. Eat up and I’ll explain everything.”

We sat down on the dirt floor, and I tried some of the soup using a long wooden spoon that had been in the bowl. Not only was the stew intensely flavorful and pleasant, it tasted entirely different than anything back home. Whatever meats and herbs they were using, something told me that they didn’t exist on Earth at all.

I attacked the food with vigor, fully appreciating for the first time how many new and exciting things this world was bound to show me.

Using the general reprieve of the food, I took a moment to sift through my notifications.

You have learned a new skill: Spears. +50xp

+1% damage when wielding a spear

Trauma Suppression has reached level 4! +100xp

I winced as Trauma Suppression once again went up in the aftermath of my near-death experience. Who would have guessed that getting your insides clawed out by a giant spider would be a traumatic experience?

Ah well. At least it meant I could hold a conversation with the Elder without rocking myself in fetal position. I dismissed the window and continued to fill my stomach.

Noticing the gusto with which I inhaled the food, the Elder chimed in. “I’m glad to see it’s to your taste! Had I known you were so hungry, I would have asked Amak to leave the extra bowl! Now, where to start.” He ladled a few spoonfuls of the stew into his mouth, and at last he began his explanation.

“A few days travel to the north, there is a large patch of inhospitable land on which no one lives. The soil is dry, there is no game to hunt, and anyone who stays for too long has reported growing weak and fatigued. We simply refer to it as the deadlands.”

As he spoke, a large ball of light sprung from his hands and into the air before him. At first, it was blinding, but quickly its intensity died down and began to resolve into an image of what I assumed was the deadlands.

As he’d said, it really did look pretty barren. The most striking feature, though, was the transition from woodland to wasteland. It was abrupt, a neat line of healthy looking trees right next to a plain of cracked and dusty earth.

“Though the land borders the forest, it has long been of no concern to us. If anything, it was comforting — it serves as a natural barrier. A form of protection should anyone ever wish to attack us from that direction.”

A weary frown crossed the man’s face. “About a year ago, however, something changed.”

The image in the light shifted, rapidly zooming in on a small speck in the distance.

“It was at that time that we gained some new neighbors.”

The speck grew larger and larger until I could see it moving around. Was that a… person? Finally the ‘magic camera’, as I’d started thinking of it as, got close enough that I could make out the figure more clearly. What I’d at first taken to be a human could only loosely be called humanoid at all.

Instead, it was, for lack of a better term, a bug-person.

Its exterior was purple and chitinous, vaguely reminiscent of the matriarch I’d just fought. Pincers extended from its mouth, and on its face were two massive fly eyes. Segmented antennae grew from its head.

While it had two arms, and stood on two legs, it nonetheless looked entirely inhuman. As it lacked pupils, I couldn’t see where it was staring, but it just trudged forward, head unmoving like a zombie. Had I been the mayor of Nopesville, the creature would have made a model citizen in my town. As it was, however, I planned to stay far away from the thing if I could help it.

“We attempted to make contact with them, but even though they wield basic weaponry, they show no more intelligence than wild beasts. They attack anyone on sight, barely seem to feel any pain, and don’t seem to ever speak or communicate in any intelligible way.”

Freaky zombie bugs. Got it.

“Now, this in and of itself wouldn’t be an issue. They mostly keep to themselves and don’t venture too far into the forest. Unfortunately, shortly after they showed up, the deadlands began expanding. At this rate, we only have a few years before it reaches our current location. Worse yet, we don’t know why or how it’s expanding.”

The magic camera fizzled out, and the Elder fixed me with an intense stare. “That, is where you come in.”

Sorry, what? He didn’t expect me to fix something like that did he? “Look, I know I’m apparently some Protagonist now and all, but how would I even begin to help?” Frankly, I was starting to side with Rock on this one. What on earth could I do that they already couldn’t?

The Elder shrugged. “Important things tend to happen around Protagonists. I trust you wouldn’t be here if there weren’t a reason. We sent some scouting parties into the deadlands, but they never found anything too unusual that could be causing this. I believe you might have better luck.”

Despite me being pretty new to all of this, it kind of seemed like he was placing a bit too much faith in the whole Protagonist thing. “So you just want me to walk into the deadlands and wander around until I find something?” The notion sounded unappealing to say the least. Something told me I’d be bug chow pretty quickly if I did that.

“Not quite, not quite. I wouldn’t send you out there alone. We were already planning an expedition to head out in two weeks. I would feel much better at our chances of success were you to go on it.”

He might feel much better that way. Sadly, that only made for one of us.

“Is that safe? There are bug things, you said the deadlands saps people’s strength, and I’m only a level two.” As much as I wanted to help, I also generally liked not dying. “I’m not sure how long I’d last.”

“You’re quite right, of course.” The aged giant broke into a large, toothy grin. “That’s why you’d be training with Rock until the expedition left.”

With that, a notification popped up.

You have been offered a quest: For the Forest! I

Elder Tafitz of the Redmoss Tribe has requested your help in determining why the deadlands are expanding into the forest.

Requirements:

Accompany the expedition force through their journey into the deadlands.

Rewards:

1000xp

Increased reputation with the Redmoss Tribe

Combat training (received when quest is accepted)

I minimized the window without accepting or declining. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little excited to get my first quest, but the quest information wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

Still, I had to train with Rock of all people? I hid my frown behind the stone bowl, raising it close to my mouth to scoop up the last few bites. “Does it really have to be him?”

The Elder chuckled. “He is… hmm, perhaps not your biggest fan, yes, but he is in charge of training our people, and for good reason. He has the rare Forest Commander class, which, among other things, increases the speed at which those he trains earn experience and learn combat skills. And who knows? Maybe if you impress him, he’ll even start to like you. Stranger things have happened.”

I let out a light snort at the thought.

Still, I had to decline, didn’t I? There was absolutely no way I’d be of any help, and that wasn’t even considering the fact that I’d have to endure Rock’s training or enter the freaky bug–people filled wasteland. I’d say no and then I’d…

Do what exactly?

I had no idea where the nearest human city was, and even if I did, I’d probably die before I got there. Hell, even if I could convince the shadows to escort me there, I’d probably be vastly underleveled for my age and struggle to find a job. Was I going to spend my second life on a fantasy world begging for cash?

Instead, here was someone offering to feed me, house me, and train me up. I didn’t even have to solve all his problems; I just had to try.

Was it really even an option when I looked at it like that? Plus, it was just two weeks, wasn’t it?

I sighed.

Then, I hit accept.

Really hoping I don’t regret this. “So? When do I start training?”

“Well,” the Elder replied with a glint in his eyes. “You’re well-rested and well-fed. Might as well start now, dear.”