Markus Fickus was running. Running away as fast he could. He was being chased, and he was close to getting caught, but he just kept running and running. This was good, because as long as he was running and his pursuers were running, at least he didn't have time for introspection. This meant that this way, the story could start with some kind of tension and drama. Everybody loves tension and drama. It's important not to bore the readers to the death right at the first paragraph.

So Mark was running from the group of women that chased after him, but he couldn't run forever. As the Ancient Prophecies foretold, he was the Harem King Reborn. He would bring change to the word with an army of women at his feet. His legend would be sang all across the continent.

"Wait, so why am I running, then?" Mark asked, and stopped. "This prophecy sounds awesome."

When the group of screaming women crashed into him and tore at his clothes wildly, he almost regretted his decision to stop. Almost. Sadly, it didn't matter anyways. Before he could get to the fun part, he woke up.

"Dammit!" Mark shouted as he almost fell out of the bed. The author could be a real jerk sometimes. Why did he make Mark have this dream only to wake him up when the real action was about to begin?

It couldn't be helped, though. The main character having a dream right at the start of the novel is a great way to start off the story. Nothing hooks in the readers better than a mysterious prophecy! Every main character who knows their business needs a prophecy. Otherwise, how else would the readers know who is the Chosen One?

"I always dream about this fucking dream over and over," Mark muttered, just to make sure everyone knew that this hadn't been a normal dream. That done, he got up and made his way to the bathroom. Now that we had established that he was indeed the Chosen One, we needed to get to the details. First and foremost, how he looked like.

"I woke up a bit earlier than usual," Mark remarked totally unnecessarily as he washed his face. Casually, very casually, he looked up into the mirror above the sink and looked at his reflection. Short black hair, brown eyes, a week-old stubble on his chin. His body was still a bit on the chubby-side even though he had been working out regularly. Yup, his mirror image looked like just as always. Except the stubble, because that usually changed after shaving. As Mark made his way to the toilet, he wondered why he had scrutinized his hair and eye color. It's not like they would change overnight, and there wasn't anything special about them.

He had no idea how much the readers cared about these things, but let's forgive him this oversight. Mark didn't know that hair- and eye colors were important. When describing a person, the writer can easily leave out other details like long or crooked nose, large ears, pimples, freckles, moles, general facial structure, straight white teeth, bushy eyebrow, and so on and so on... but what is absolutely necessary is the color of the hair and the pupils. With the power of these two, basically anyone could be introduced!

Meanwhile Mark, oblivious to the hardships of being an author, made his way down to the kitchen. No, wait! First, he looked out through the window. He was living alone in a rather small apartment, on the fifth floor of a large building. The weather outside was sunny without a hint of any clouds, which contrasted well with his childhood. He had a difficult childhood indeed. Because the writer didn't want to deal with detailing Mark's parents, both his mother and his father were unfortunately dead. What's the most likely reason for that? Hmm... Oh, yes! They died in a car accident.

Mark also didn't have any friends. Fuck friends! This way, the author doesn't have to write about them either. Plus, this situation might be also relatable to a lot of readers, thus making Mark instantly more sympathetic.

So yeah, Mark was kinda antisocial. He was a freshman in collage, but it was Saturday morning so he didn't have anything to do this day. He was happy to stay at home and play video games all day! Well, except for the afternoon where he had to go to the local theater. He had a part-time job there as a cleaner and ticket collector. Mark never considered it a fun job, but it was good to earn some extra money.

Okay, great. Now that Mark successfully thought about these totally random things and everyone knows more about his backstory, he stepped into the kitchen. Suddenly, an ominous déjà vu feeling took hold of him. Of course he didn't remember what happened in the synopsis of this story, because no one was supposed to remember, so he made his way to the coffee machine.

Instead of making that damned coffee right away, he grabbed his kitchen table and dragged it outside into the garden. Then, he grabbed the coffee machine and a chair, and took them outside too. Only after he sat down comfortably on the chair did he begin to make his coffee. When he finished, he looked up at the sky—and saw only the dull grey clouds above him. He felt utterly cheated that the last thing he would see in this world were the raindrops falling to his face.

"They are still not paying me enough for this," Mark grumbled, then drank up his coffee.

And then he died.

**bzzzt**

**brrrr**

**random mysterious sound effects**

**blip**

Mark woke up with a sudden jolt, because that's how people usually arrive to other worlds. He was reincarnated in the middle of nowhere, wearing his pajamas on his twenty-year-old body. It would have been cool if he reincarnated into a newborn's body and became a genius child, but unfortunately there wasn't enough budget for child actors.

No reincarnating into a monster's body either. That much CGI would just have been ridiculous.

So Mark reincarnated into a body which looked—very conveniently—the same as his last body. He stood up slowly, and looked around with great interest. Is this another dream? He thought in italics. Or was my whole previous life a dream, and this is the first time I wake...?

Those were a bit too deep thoughts for this kind of novel, so for the moment let's just focus on the surroundings. Mark was on a grassy hill, with no civilization in sight. A shallow river was running around the base of the hill he was on, disappearing in the distance. Mark could also see the outline of a forest there. Oh, and it was also nighttime. Probably should have mentioned that first. Light's off!

When Mark saw the large, amber-colored moon, he immediately knew that he wasn't on Earth. But wait a minute! He knew this planet. This was the same place where the author's other story, Shades of the Moon was set!

"Really?" Mark raised an eyebrow, clearly not impressed.

Of course, Mark didn't know that it wasn't actually the world of Shades of the Moon. That would have been just shameless self-promoting. No, this world was far less dangerous than that other world. For that, Mark was very thankful.

"Open menu," Mark said, waving his hands in the air. He thought that he got transported into a virtual MMORPG, even though no one told him that yet. Well, he could have figured that out from the synopsis, but for story telling purposes, that should be ignored for now. The realization that Mark were transported into a game had to come later.

Usually protagonists just shrug off these revelations, not freaking out at all when they see that they are in a whole new world. Everyone always takes things in stride, jumping excitedly straight into reading through their stats and starter classes. Some might even begin killing goblins or other sentient creatures right away, without any hesitation! Well, it wouldn't be so with Mark. He would be utterly devastated by—

"Listen buddy," Mark spoke up, "I'm trying to move the plot forward here. Would you mind helping me out? I wanna open my menu."

If narrators were allowed to sigh, this one surely would have done so. Alas, it was simply not meant to be. Mark was a genius and a hardened, emotionally stable veteran in the body of a young man. He already knew he was in a game, and took steps in order to learn as much as he could about it. He eventually figured out that he needed to stick out his tongue for his Character Menu to open.

"What?" Mark asked with a confused expression. "Are you serious?"

In this situation, some people might ask why sticking out the tongue was needed. They clearly cannot appreciate of the simplicity of this act. Why wave around your hands like an idiot, or say ridiculous phrases out loud, when this simple gesture is more than enough?

Although, one had to admit that this kind of system also appeared to be an appropriate revenge for insolent actors who constantly derived from the script.

After some grumbling, Mark stuck out his tongue and his Character Menu appeared right away. It also disappeared immediately thereafter, because he stopped sticking out his tongue.

"This is ridiculous!" Mark exclaimed. Although he didn't appreciate the ingenuity of this system, he should consider it lucky that he didn't have to stick other body parts elsewhere.

After some more grumbling, Mark got back to examining his Character Sheet. It was the same boring stuff that every gamer knows by heart. Stats for endurance, strength, vitality, metabolism—okay, metabolism was a bit unexpected, but honestly, was it really that odd after stats like luck or charisma? Well, maybe it was. Mark made a mental note not to put any points on metabolism in the future. He wouldn't be a good protagonist if he had to stop every ten minutes for toilet break.

Mark spent a lot of time staring at his menus, but since it was kinda boring, we will have a little time skip here. No one would remember those numbers anyways. Other novels may describe their meticulously planned systems in great detail—but this novel is special! Like a snowflake. There will be no bombarding the readers with unimportant details. Onwards to exciting part!