Christopher braced himself for the potential pain, his heart pounding. But his fears were clearly misplaced. All it took was a single blink. One moment he had been looking at the white spotless walls, and then he suddenly found himself somewhere completely different.

The experience was so unexpected and impossible, that his head lurched. His brain clearly had difficulty explaining the sudden change of scenery. He could only assume that he had arrived at his new home.

Christopher gazed at his surroundings in wonder. This was certainly not Earth. He had landed in some kind of forest. His eyes were immediately drawn to the incredible trees all around him. They were massive. Their circumference matched that of a small house, he had never seen anything like it.

Looking up, he could not even begin to guess the height that the trees managed to reach. Light-red leaves danced from the multitude of Branches. All around him, the forest floor was littered with light-red leaves. This world at least seemed to share the same blue sky as Earth.

He took some deep breaths. It felt good to be alive. He took in the smells, the sounds, the cold… oh no, not again. When he looked down, he saw his own naked and already shivering body. Those bastards had really put him here like this.

Should he have foreseen this? He had of course been naked earlier, and his inventory had shown no clothes. This was surely going to cause some problems for him. Under the right circumstances, he might have called it a pleasant day, but unfortunately, the wind buffeted his body and seeped the cold into his bones. He quickly took shelter behind the nearest tree to shield himself from the wind.

Oh right, earlier he had decided on his best first move already.

“Place bookmark” He spoke normally.

[The bookmark has been placed. Use bookmark currently available]

Excellent. If he were to encounter certain death in the immediate future, then he had a way to save himself and loop back to this point. And since the command use bookmark had not been activated yet, it of course was not currently on cooldown. At least he hoped that was the case, but now was not the time to test it.

He continued to shiver. If only he had some Soul Points already. He would have tried to buy some simple clothing from the store. Unfortunately, he was unlikely to earn any in the near future. The first time that he would run into other people might get a little awkward.

He went into a crouching position to conserve some body-heat by hugging his knees. He thought over his next move. ‘Let’s take a closer look at my attributes.’ Christopher decided. He focused on bringing up his attribute screen, and the interface hovered over his retina.

Vitality 10 Endurance 12 Strength 8 Agility 12 Soul force 4

The screen also gave him a representation of his health and soul force. Both bars were full at the moment. His attributes unfortunately did not seem all that impressive. Back on Earth, Christopher had always tried to run three times a week, but he often skipped due to laziness. He wondered how difficult it would be to increase his attributes in the future. At the moment he had no confidence in being able to fight against much of anything.

Most interesting to him was the last attribute on his screen called Soul Force, which at the moment was clearly severely lacking. There was a separate bar representing his soul force. He wondered if this attribute was associated with magic? It would be amazing if he now possessed the potential to cast spells. How was he supposed to use this soul force?

According to the automatic response system, the interface would present as something that would fit his comprehension. Well, he did not understand this Soul Force at all. Maybe if he concentrated...

He picked up one of the light-red leaves and placed it in the palm of his hand. He experimented for a few minutes. He tried to mentally lift it, freeze it, burn it, and to tear it. To his frustration, absolutely nothing happened. It seemed that he would not be able to figure this one out so easily.

He opened his skills tab next. Besides his unique ability, there was one other skill that had been sponsored by the administrator. It was a common skill called [Linguist]. It seemed like quite an important skill if Christopher wanted to succeed in this world.

Luckily it seemed that the administrator of this world at least had at least some foresight. Without this skill, he and the other summoned would have quickly run into some monumental problems. He hoped this skill would prove as effective in practice, as the skill claimed it would be.

As he was about to take a look at the available skills in the store, he heard something that sounded like a woman’s scream coming from the distance. Oh, hell no… He had only been here for a few minutes, had trouble already found him?

Surely, nobody could blame him if he did not take any action here. He was naked as the day he was born and did not even have a weapon, only an idiot would rush in… And there he went, it seemed that his feet had taken the decision for him. He comforted himself with the fact that he always had [Bookmark] to fall back on.

He tried to stealthily make his way through the forest detritus and unfortunately failed miserably. The noise he was making would have alerted anyone paying attention, but it was easily drowned out by the yelling and the sounds of fighting. He heard the ringing of steel hitting steel.

The screams also continued, and they were getting a lot closer. He had even heard children crying out. He finally came to a clearing in the forest. it looked like a path had been cleared for travel. It only took a few more moments for him to spot his first-ever monsters.

What the hell were those things. He first quickly tried to get a grasp of the battlefield in front of him. There were bodies strewn everywhere, both humans and… Goblins? That was the word that came to mind. Smaller and thinner than humans. Greenish thick skin, and large pointed ears. They were clothed in rags and were wielding clubs and blunt swords.

The battlefield was littered with them, there were probably twice as many dead goblins than there were fallen humans. It looked like the Goblins had overrun the human caravan in large numbers, too many for the people here to deal with. The Goblins that remained seemed to be trying to make their way into the last remaining horse wagon with survivors.

An older man was frantically swinging his sword for all his life was worth to keep the goblins from entering the wagon. In the wagon, he could also spot a young woman, a teenage boy, and two children. The young children were crying at the top of their lungs. The young woman also tried to keep the goblin’s at bay, by using a wooden plank to push off those trying to climb onto the wagon. Unfortunately, they seemed to be the last people left standing.

There were not that many Goblin’s remaining, he only counted four. Could he possibly be of some help here? Next to the corpses littering the forest floor he saw some swords and knives scattered across the ground. The old man received a passing blow with a club, and staggered, they were not going to hold out long like this. The Goblins had not seen Christopher yet, maybe if he quietly grabbed one of the swords and took some of the goblins by surprise…

His feet were already moving, those damn feet of his. Christopher managed to reach and pick up a sword just as one of the goblins spotted him. The people from the cart were now looking at him as if they could not believe their eyes. In his full naked glory, Christopher dashed forward looking like a madman, holding his sword in a manner that would have made any self-respecting sword user cry.

Before the other goblins realized what was happening, he managed to chop his sword straight in the closest goblin’s neck. Unfortunately, he lacked strength, so his sword got momentarily lodged. He kicked against the back of the goblin, and the sword got loose.

Shit, the three remaining goblins were now looking at him with faces full of rage and hatred. Luckily the old man used the distraction to impale one of the goblins that were still halfway on the wagon straight through the chest. Of the two remaining goblins, one was confused between the now two potential targets and the other was now only a few steps from his position.

Christopher and the Goblin both raised their weapons at the same time, but the green bastard was faster than him. He swung his club hard against his free arm and pain blossomed from the impact. Luckily his sword was sharp, and a moment later the sword left a deadly wound at the surprised goblin’s midsection. He quickly impaled the goblin to finish it off.

Christopher stumbled when he pulled out the sword, his center of mass was so different when he held it. The last remaining Goblin wielding a blunt sword had now also decided that he was the bigger threat and was moving his way. Luckily, Christopher received some help here.

The young woman on the cart threw anything she could get her hands on at the green monstrosity. He used the Goblin's anger and confusion and managed to cut the wrist holding the blunt sword clean off. The now enraged goblin tried to jump on top of him but Christopher quickly managed to dodge out of the way and impaled the last remaining bastard.

His body was now covered in sticky Goblin blood. He sank down on his knees and put his right hand against his damaged left arm. It had been hit at full strength by the Goblin. There was a blinding pain, there was something seriously wrong with it.

His body shook, not so much from the pain in his left arm, but perhaps more from the shock from all of the killing. His last remaining illusions of playing some kind of game had shattered. Just as he thought this, messages popped up.

[ You have defeated a minion of entropy; 120 soul points have been acquired] [ You have defeated a minion of entropy; 120 soul points have been acquired] [ You have defeated a minion of entropy; 120 soul points have been acquired]