Second Shot (Fantasia Book #1): LitRPG Series, page 1
Second Shot
by Simon Vale
Fantasia
Book #1
Magic Dome Books
Fantasia
Book #1: Second Shot
Copyright © Simon Vale 2021
Cover Art © Vladimir Manyukhin 2021
English translation copyright © Taylor Margvelashvili 2021
Published by Magic Dome Books, 2021
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-80-7619-305-5
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the shop and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.
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Table of Contents:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5 [Steven Mursley]
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17 [Steven Mursley]
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22 [Steven Mursley]
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter 1
I SWEAR SHE WAS the most beautiful woman in the world. And she was laughing.
“Three huge wet fish,” I said. “I’m not making this up, I swear!”
That laugh! And I was laughing along with her. Not at my own story, which was mediocre, C+ at best. Out of sheer happiness.
The waiter came over and she immediately buried her nose in the menu. She was embarrassed that she had spent the time allotted for studying the menu chatting with me instead. Her red ears stuck out from behind the folded menu, and by God, in that moment, she was the most beautiful woman in the whole wide world. I felt breathless. I needed a moment of respite from my overwhelming joy. I asked the waiter where the washroom was.
“Past the front desk and to the left, by the meat display counter.”
I stood up and she tracked my movement with narrowed eyes. As if I was throwing her to the waiter to eat for dinner. I grinned maliciously. But all my malice involuntarily slipped into the smile of a happy fool, and she reveled in triumph.
I turned and swaggered down the hall as if in a drunken stupor. An elderly couple at a neighboring table studied their menu scrupulously, while further down, a pair of five-year-old twins picked at a basket of french fries. Their sandals lay under the table.
I made it to the display case and saw a white door. My head was swimming. I pushed the door open and turned on the cold water tap. Raising my eyes to the mirror above the sink, I saw my own reflection. And the forest. And then just the forest.
The forest was an undeniable and mind-boggling hallucination. It was just like the real thing, and I saw each detail distinctly: every blade of grass, every leaf. I tried to keep my head as still as possible, afraid that the wondrous vision would vanish, but I moved nonetheless and realized that the hallucination was three-dimensional.
I stood under a tree, sunbeams shining through the canopy above my head. I spun and felt a breeze on my face. The forest was all around. And it was a summer forest. A summer forest in mid-November. I reached out and touched the bark of a nearby tree. The sensation was faint, not real. But there was a sensation.
What I experienced over the next few minutes defies all description. My mind was trying to work out what had happened and was coming up blank. I was in a forest. Alone. Oh my God, Yana! I left Yana back at the table. And I’m in a forest. A completely incongruous smile bloomed across my face. What a stupid prank! This is simply impossible!
I looked down at my hands and was completely dumbfounded. They were no longer mine. There was something very unnerving in those slender hands covered with smooth, yellow-tinted skin. I hastily glanced around and felt my body. With each passing second, a feeling of horror and strange disgust grew stronger within me. This was not my body, and it was a very strange body, as if someone had forcefully shoved my consciousness into someone else... It carried out the signals sent by my brain, but all of my senses aside from sight and hearing were dulled. My sense of smell was almost completely gone, and the sensation of touch lacked any variation. But most importantly, if I was here, then where was my real body?
And then I saw the window. It hung in the air directly in front of me, and bore the following message:
Find your true body within 7 days
The message disintegrated into a thin stream of golden sand, which then flowed through the air towards me. I flinched in fear, but the sand was quicker. It gathered itself into a tiny pyramid, froze mid-air, and took the shape of an hourglass amulet around my neck.
I grasped at the hourglass. Minuscule grains of sand slipped slowly from one side to the other. Seven days! What, I’m just supposed to spend seven days wandering around this forest in — and here, I shuddered at the thought — this body?!!
A golden glow illuminated the bottom of the window, and suddenly, a new notification popped up:
You require weapons
Below the message hung miniature replicas of a sword, bow and spear, all of which were slowly rotating. Maybe it was the forest surroundings that made me jab my finger at the bow. The sword, spear and message disappeared. The bow began to grow until it reached the appropriate size and continued to hang in the air. I reached out a trembling hand. Weapons? Why do I need weapons? Hold on, stop. A stranger’s body, weapons, weird pop-up notifications. Why do I get the feeling that I’m inside a computer game? But that’s just absurd. VR games can be quite spectacular, but the technology to embed VR chips in the brain simply doesn’t exist. Or does it? But for God’s sake, I don’t have one of those chips, and the bathroom of a restaurant can’t be a VR capsule. It’s complete insanity!
The bow was in my hands. A flexible branch with notches to hold the thick bowstring in place. I tested it out. It wasn’t strung too tight, and was clearly not a toy, but a combat weapon. But what about arrows? Acting on an unknown reflex, I felt around to touch my back and felt something rough. Reaching in, I pulled out an arrow. A long arrow, adorned with grey feathers and fixed with an iron tip.
I had never shot an arrow in my life. Why did I choose the bow?
Because I require weapons.
Why did I require weapons?
* * *
I took a few steps forward, then stopped. I didn’t want to wander too far from the place I had spawned. What if the door suddenly opened again and I was far away? But there was nothing there. I had searched the area thoroughly. I stood there for an eternity. What do I do now?
Say: “Character Sheet”
I stared blankly at this message for some time, unable to comprehend its meaning. But no thought was required: as soon as I had read the full phrase aloud, the window filled with more information:
Please enter a name, level 2 (2 experience points)
Strength: 1 (base level)
Dexterity: 0
Intellect: 0
Wisdom: 0
Constitution: 1 (base level)
Damage: 1x6
Armor: 0
Health: 10 HP
Speed: 5.5
Stamina: 50
Mana: 0
Available:
1 character point
I considered the information carefully. At one point I had devoted a considerable amount of time to video games, but it had left little impression. Because the technology was so primitive! There’s no way such a crude system would ever be able to support such a high level of graphics! Another puzzle was the fact that the program’s analysis of me stated that I had a base level of strength and constitution, but found me lacking in intellect and wisdom. I’m not pretentious or anything, but that kind of hurt. In my head, I wished that my intellect was higher, and it immediately increased by one point.
New Intellect skills available
“View!”
Build a bonfire
Cartography
Languages
Magical damage 1/2
Prepare a trap
View five more skills…
No further explanation. I turned away from the message, deep in thought.
The sun was low on the horizon. The light was beginning to turn crimson. God, what am I supposed to do? Play the game! And then it dawned on me. Wit
Open Cartography skill
Not a single damn thing happened! I thought, “Map!” and a wide black rectangle appeared. In the bottom left quadrant, pressed up against the edge of the map shone a tiny white speck, and I realized that this was the very place where I stood.
But then where was the map? There was no map. In its place, a new golden message twinkled:
Your hunger is at 20%. You only have a few hours of strength left to go hunting!
Long-term starvation may lead to your ultimate demise!
* * *
My ultimate demise. In other words, I’m already practically dead, but not entirely? What, am I in a coma? And this is some sort of glitch in the astral plane? God, anything but that!
In a clearing, I found a thick-trunked tree and decided to try out my archery skills. It turned out I only had ten arrows. I lost three of them rather quickly, and was only able to recover one. Some of them somehow managed to hit the tree. But these skills would only catch me a rabbit under a very opportune set of circumstances. I’d have to invest a point in Dexterity. And I’d have to actually go somewhere to hunt. I turned towards the tree that I hadn’t let out of my sight for the past several hours, and thought the words: “Mark a spot on the map”
Name?
“Entry Point.”
* * *
Birds. If you step carefully, there are an awful lot of birds in the forest. I didn’t think I’d be able to bag a bird. But I did it on the second shot. With a heavy thud, it fell from the branch where it had been sitting. It was big, with red and ochre plumage. Standing above it, I wondered what someone who chose the sword would have done in the forest. Toss it at the bird? Go after a boar instead? The bow seemed like the best choice. Then I remembered the “build a bonfire” option in the list of skills where I had chosen cartography. There were no fires in the vicinity. The sun was now completely obscured by three trees, and dusk hung heavy over the forest. My hunger was growing. It was odd, but I thought I actually felt something almost like hunger.
I wandered through the forest until I came across a small clearing with two fallen trees. I plopped down on one and gave the bird a sniff. It had no odor. I tried to pluck the feathers off the carcass and succeeded rather quickly. I used the end of an arrow as a knife, and soon held a hunk of bird meat in my hands. I didn’t want to eat it in that state, but what else could I do? I automatically opened my character sheet and spent some time perusing it, until I noticed that I had already reached level three. When? After a brief parley with the program, I gave the command, “Open activity log.” Aha! The bird was apparently level five. Killing it gave me only two experience points, but that was enough! How quickly do you gain levels in this game?
I used a point on “build a bonfire” and a flint and firesteel appeared, held in the newly-created inventory. I could hold a small number of items, which had to be arranged within a small flat plane. Almost like pin the tail on the donkey.
I quickly built a bonfire and must admit that it instantly improved my evening. I laid the bird on the fire and, although the meat had no taste whatsoever, my hunger pains subsided and I warmed up a little. As it turns out, the forest gets pretty cold! I lay by the fire and thought about Yana. How wonderful it would be to fall asleep now and wake up next to her!
Chapter 2
MY DREAMS were troubled. Yana and I were lost in the forest. She thought it was funny, but I was terrified. It was unclear to me where this terror stemmed from, but it seemed that the dark trunks were melting into some sort of ill-defined threat. The precise nature of the threat became clear when I awoke.
“Get up!”
I opened my eyes. In the ashes of my bonfire stood a huge, rough boot. I lifted my gaze to its owner. An enormous orc in a horned helmet loomed over me. He was much larger than I was, and his arms were as thick as my legs. In his hands, he held a sword.
“Huh?”
“Get the fuck up, on your feet!”
“Why’re you using such big words before breakfast, buddy?”
“Shut your fucking mouth and stand!”
The orc prepared to kick me, and I prepared to lose my jaw, but instead he threw smoldering ashes and embers in my face.
I stood. The orc was a full head taller than me. The old leather vest stretched across his powerful chest fit like a glove.
“I am Tartarus, Lord of Fear!” stated the orc with an unexpected pompousness. “From now on, you serve me. If you serve well, you’ll level up quickly and become a great warrior. If not, I’ll fucking kill you!”
“Okay, buddy, I get it. I have one question: where exactly are we and what…”
Here, the orc punched me. A good strong sock to the face. I think the lack of sensory receptors saved me. In real life, I might not have gotten up after such a blow.
The orc waited for me to pick myself up, and then calmly said, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. And honestly, I don’t give a shit. Your life now belongs to me, but don’t worry, you’ll learn quickly.”
Tartarus wasn’t wrong. It only took me one day.
My first escape attempt happened only a few hours later, when the orc sent me to fetch water from a stream only twenty paces away from camp. He caught up to me within a minute and knocked my legs out from under me. I flipped over, spitting out leaves, and with an icy calm, the orc drew his sword, swung it briefly, and dealt a swift blow. I cried out from the pain in my side. Words flashed before my eyes:
You took 9 HP of damage
Critically low life! 1 / 10 HP
“You’re lucky,” said Tartarus. “The probability you would have died was one in five.”
He said nothing more, but turned heel and walked back towards camp. I writhed on the ground.
“Don’t forget the water.”
Aside from me, there was one other member of Tartarus’ tribe. His name was Paul Lamsy. Curiously enough, he was unable to tell me this himself, although he tried to strike up a conversation a few minutes after we met, as Tartarus led us through the forest. However, I was completely unable to understand a single word he said. Instead of any form of articulate speech, a series of dismal and completely unintelligible sounds fell from his mouth. He didn’t understand me either, although I thought I was speaking normally. I learned his name from the nametag that popped up over his head shortly after our first attempt at communication. We tried switching to symbols, and things were going better, until Tartarus came over and gave us a good thrashing.
My sword wound hurt all day long. Luckily, the orc wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere in particular, and after lunch (he fed us raw fish piece by piece), he dozed off. The thought of running away had barely crossed my mind when I glanced up at Paul and he shook his head, gesturing towards the orc. He understood! We tried to communicate again, and it soon became clear that Paul was in practically the same position as I was. He was transported into the game a few days ago and was just as bewildered. He had chosen the spear. He had spent all his points on constitution, which meant that he had a total of 40 HP. For this, Tartarus called him fat and beat him more often. Paul gave the overall impression of being a simple, absent-minded guy. On his chest, I spotted an hourglass amulet.
