John was laying on his back, his neck throbbing painfully from nearly getting choked to death. How sucky could your luck be to take a gun blast in one life and a zombie assault in another?

If these were the main talking points behind religions that believed in reincarnation, he would take their pamphlets and burn them. Then toss the ashes down the toilet. Hell, he was unsure if this really was reincarnation. Wasn’t he supposed to start as a baby?

His vision pulsated, going from hazy to okay to hazy again. He might've suffered a lot more damage than it seemed at first. The zombie had a hell of a grip on his neck and was about to wring it. Or snap it.

Ugh.

John shuddered from the thought of his neck getting bent at the wrong angle. The slight movements shifted the zombie remains that were still on top of him.

Oh, yeah.

That was still an issue.

With a slow, wheezy breath, John pushed up into a seat. The zombie parts fell off his chest and landed on his lap.

That was gross. But he was a little too woozy to do something about it just yet. He put up with it for now and gingerly massaged his neck.

He had never suffered a situation like this before. In boxing, you could get your head rung from a good punch, but it wouldn't leave you that bad off. This really felt like he’d nearly died again.

This was supposed to be a game.

But it wasn't playing around.

"Is there like loot and junk?" John croaked. It was a sudden idea. One he remembered from playing an MMORPG with Reggie a while back. That boy had sworn loot was everything in video games.

John remembered every defeated enemy having stuff on them when they’d played. But to loot in real life seemed wrong to him. If he wasn’t so out of it, he might’ve disregarded the idea. Instead, he pushed past his disgust of having a corpse all over him and sifted through the remains.

Oh wow, he was really doing this. He was robbing a body that had been reanimated. Wasn't that considered grave robbing?

But the unethical idea seemed to bear fruit when he found a little brown pouch tied to a leather cord as thick as a shoelace. Slowly, John shifted around onto his knees. The zombie… er… shambler's remains clattered around him. He felt sick. His neck throbbed harder. He kept pushing through his discomfort anyway.

Focusing as best he could, he loosened the knot around the top of the pouch.

It felt like it had some stuff in it. What could it be?

Ding! Congratulations! You've looted for the first time from your first defeated enemy. That's brilliant of you because some outerhumans don't think of it. You've been rewarded valuable experience. You've leveled up from Lvl 3 to Lvl 4. You've gained 8 Attribute Points (32 Unspent) and 1 Magic Core Point (4 unused).

"Yo, I really don't like you," John grumbled.

Nonetheless, he pulled out a couple of items he found in the pouch. One was a single copper coin as wide as a quarter from the old world. This world's penny, he supposed. Awesome. He got paid a penny for nearly dying.

Moving on to the next items, John glanced between a white shard the size of his pinkie and a red shard the size of his thumb. Concentrating on them, a small tag revealed what each item was.

The red shard was a [Vitality Stone, Poor], and the white shard was a [Essence Stone, Poor].

"What do I do with these?" John asked.

Ding! Allow me to explain since you're still in the tutorial phase.

John glared at the notification. "Can you explain how I can go back home?"

Ding! That's an easy question to answer. You can't! You are dead in your old world. Through the power of our system magic and some old-school divine mysticism, we've given your consciousness a new body and shaped it to be 99% like your old one. Now let us talk about the items in your hands.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" John shouted, which he instantly regretted. His throat flared harshly, reminding him of the damage he suffered from his near-death experience. "Run that back with me again. Why am I only ninety-nine percent myself? What is the other one percent?"

Ding! Access denied. Can't tell you because that's spoiler content that comes with a cost. And that level of information has a heavy cost! Find some joy that we didn't reincarnate you as a grasshopper. Although, a grasshopper hero would be interesting. Haha.

John gaped at the notification. Even though he was receiving everything in his head directly, looking at the floating see-through prompt box gave him something to focus on. Using his imagination, he could see a derpy face belonging to an insane person in that prompt. The messages moved on while John was stunned to silence.

Ding! The poor vitality stone will help you recover if you break it to pieces. Since you're weak still, I suggest smashing it with a rock. It's brittle enough to shatter upon impact, releasing healing magic that'll fix you up in a few seconds.

Now, when it comes to the poor essence stone, you can use that in several ways. Break it now and absorb its magic, and you'll get a free attribute point. But essence stones are quite valuable. It’ll definitely be worth more than the Celcia copper coin.

A few last points before we leave you be. Think personal interface. Allocate your points often when you can. Test out your magic cores. It’s magic. Everyone loves magic. It'll help immediately. Now keep being awesome, hero! I, we, are rooting for you.

John stayed kneeling for a while next to the remains of the shambler. He stared at the notifications until he willed them away. His head was throbbing either from the damage he took or his struggle to grasp the insanity of his situation.

It might be more the latter than the former right now, honestly. He had been talked to by a floating message prompt and told to interact with his interface to allocate his gathered points. Just like an MMORPG, but real.

He couldn't get over the fact that his life was part of a game so easily. What did that make of his previous life? Was everything for naught?

He didn't like to get into philosophy because it brought up existential crises and crap. He really didn't want to dive deep into that right now. Stuff like that would mess him up really hard while under the pressure of his new position in a different world. He wasn’t the smartest guy he knew⁠—he was a B or C student when he tried⁠—so thinking too hard about things made him nervous, made his chest itch.

Was it too late for him to call this out as a fancy prank?

Am I in one of those simulation things? Like in the Matrix?

Ah, crap. That was more philosophy. Screw that. He was better off treating this as a bonafide reality for now. The shambler neck-wringing he had suffered suggested such.

Should he just do what the ding-dong system suggested? Some part of him wanted to rebel against it.

Be all like, "Go to hell!"

Let the inner rage in him flare, just like when anyone tried to mess with him too hard. But that sort of rage had gotten him killed in the first place.

But I didn’t even go all out against, Kevin, John thought. I tried to squash the beef. Now I’m here dealing with shamblers, and an insane gaming system made real.

If he had gone all out against Kevin and knocked that punk back into the flintstone era…

“Fuck.”

“Fuck me.”

John groaned, feeling weak and pathetic and sad.

"If I don't listen, I'll get screwed up here.” It was the best move he could come up with right now. To do otherwise would require more information. On top of that, he was in a foul mood since his death had led to him being attacked in what could be another world.

He had no idea how any of this truly worked. What was empowering these game notifications from the system? Could it truly be magic? This coin in his hand had the face of someone he didn't recognize on one side and the head of a tree on the other.

Was this the basic currency of a fantasy nation? Celcia. A nation in the world of Urmatia. In this world, there were misty forests containing zombies called shamblers. Through some weird shenanigans, John killed the thing somehow.

John looked at his hand, the one that had ended the shambler. He could've sworn there was a glow coming out of his limb when it happened. Was that magic? Did he really have magic? He didn’t feel anything different when it happened. It just happened as soon as he asked for it. Like pressing a button.

"So, I got a choice," he said to himself. "Do what I'm told and get a move on, or don't."

There were consequences for following either decision and right now, he had to judge the consequence he could deal with the best. If he was going to be rational about this, he'd have to acknowledge he was in a game-like scenario, and his survival required improvements in his stats or whatever the ding-dong system called it.

But first, he'd like to heal.

John smashed the [Vitality Stone, Poor] under a rock he found shortly prior. Just like the system had told him. The stone broke over the surface of another rock John was using as his plate. Once broken, the vitality stone released fizzling red sparks. The energetic magic arced around the air and surrounded John.

Spooked, John flinched away as the sparkly red light twinkled around him. They drizzled little red dust that faded into his body with every looping pass. Then the sparks snuffed out, leaving no traces of what happened.

"Was that for real?" John said without too much pain in his throat.

Shocked, John felt over his neck. It was still sore. Maybe bruised up. But he felt a lot better than before. True to its identity, the vitality stone was too poor to heal him all the way. But he had to admit that was some magical work right there.

He knew kids who were prepping to be doctors. Their chosen professions were made to work miracles through medical science. But with one smashed vitality stone, John could solve his own problems without it costing him an arm and a leg to pay for an arm and a leg.

"Holy shit," John said, rubbing a hand over his face.

Where was this when he’d got bruised up from boxing practice? Or when he’d cut his palm open on a splinter while removing some rotten planks from the backyard to help his mom? So many painful injuries he’d suffered growing up could've been fixed with this little damn thing.

"Alright, man, get a hold of yourself," John said. "As cool as this is, it exists in a place where fantasy zombies called shamblers come after you."

When things got rough, John liked to talk to himself. It helped him when he got a little nervous before an amateur match. It helped him when he doubted himself or when he felt down. Pro athletes did it all the time. Talk to yourself so you could work out a problem and find the best solution.

"Now, what am I going to do with the essence thing?" John studied the [Essence Stone, Poor].

He had already put away the copper coin. One glance at the vitality stone fragments told him it was no good anymore. The red color had faded. It now looked like shattered pieces of a random pebble.

Looking back at the essence stone, John thought about what the ding-dong system had told him. If what the ding-dong system had said was true, then he could get another attribute point from breaking this. But the ding-dong also mentioned that the essence stone was valuable.

"I'll leave it alone for now." Sighing, John slipped the essence stone into his pouch with the coin. He tied it to his belt since fantasy worlds have an issue with pockets.

Standing, John felt over his neck again. He was alright. Sore, but alright. The forest remained the same around him. Trails of mist curled around the trees, shaded by a canopy so thick that the gloom around him appeared dark even though it was daylight.

John concluded he didn't want to be here when nightfall dropped. He needed to get to civilization somehow.

The moment he thought about that objective, he felt something tug at his chest. It was a light sensation. Like someone pulling on the few chest hairs he had. Or the muscle fibers in his pectorals. Or something deeper than that. Whatever it was, it wasn't exactly creepy. It felt like something was pulling him toward a direction.

When he turned sideways, the sensation changed from his chest to his shoulder. He furthered the test by turning ninety degrees again. Now it was around the middle of his back. Another ninety degrees and he felt it in his other shoulder. When he completed the full three-sixty turn, the sensation was back in his chest. It was like his soul was trying to point him in the direction he needed to go.

Okay, that’s weird. How many more weird things will I see today?

"Let me check out that interface whatever first," he said, his neck heating up. This was so nerdy it was embarrassing. But he'd have to get over it and trust his limited experience playing video games with Reggie.

Something moaned not too far away. It was not alone. There were multiple moaning creatures. John searched for the source, and to his misfortune, the mist seemed too thick around him to see far. It didn't help that the forest vegetation appeared taller here, hiding whatever was lurking nearby.

"Just great," John hissed under his breath.

Quickly, he pulled up his personal interface and started allocating points based on an idea he copied from Reggie.

He had leveled four times now. He decided to funnel half the points into five attributes he would choose as his primaries based on what he thought was useful. Then he spread the rest of his points around.

Without thinking too hard, he split his 4 MCP between [Ratel Rookie] and [Brightlight Orb].

He didn't have time to look over any of it when he heard the bushes rustle close to his left. Then he heard feet dragging to his right. Something thumped against a tree trunk behind him, too. And he had no idea what was in front of him because of the thickness of the mist.

"You’re really screwing with me here," John grunted, balling his fists. He had no choice. He was going to have to fight his way through this. The last time he ran, he got caught and nearly killed.

Time for a different strategy.

John Wright, Lvl 4

Race: Outerhuman, Rank 1

Weapon Art:

Blessing: One Good Punch, Rank 1

Total AP: 32

Resilience: 4

Stamina: 6

Strength: 6

Agility: 6

Perception: 4

Poise: 2

Intellect: 2

Soul: 2

Unspent: 0

Talents: [Identify, Rank 1], [New World Linguistics, Rank 1], [Inner Compass, Rank 1].

WA Skills:

Magic Cores (Max. 2): [Ratel Rookie, MCP 2], [Brightlight Orb, MCP 2].

Available MCP: 0

Items: [Leather Boots, Poor], [Trousers, Poor], [Tunic, Poor], [Rope Belt, Poor], [Small Pouch, Poor], [Essence Stone, Poor], [Celcia Coin, Copper/1].