Before he makes his decision of which optional reward to choose, he checks what all actually changed with his status screen, or ‘character sheet’ as he’s now beginning to think of it. His health went up by 2, presumably as a result of Dura or Stamina increasing, though he has no idea if one of them just counts for 2 health points per stat or if they both contribute to health 1:1. His level did indeed go up as advertised, though instead of needing anywhere close to 10 exp to level up, now he needs 100.
Presumably, reaching level 1 from level 0 is supposed to be achieved by doing literally anything, whereas actually increasing from there is meant to be difficult. Or he has no idea how much one ‘exp’ is worth, considering he didn’t think to check how much anything gave him so far.
He’s tempted to take the TA option, or the H.Limit option, just to try and figure out what they do, but nah, he’d like a name. The man that once was John is a great thing to call himself in his head and all, but he’d like to at least be allowed to call himself something else. He assumes that if this world does operate under this system (and he isn’t special for having it) most people get this decision made for them when their parents name them.
Or, more horrifyingly, if a trans person wants to change their name, they need to level up to get the option to. That’s not exactly a good system in his eyes, and so lends some credit to the idea that the rest of the world is more normal and it’s only him that has a system. Regardless, he selects the option to ‘get’ a name.
The Name (choose) option wasn’t a joke. All at once, like some sort of psychic attack, a list of possible ‘names’ for him to choose entered his mind like a freight train smashing into a bicycle left on the tracks.
It took a minute for him to register what happened, and to ignore the information long enough to pick himself up off of the forest floor and properly examine the list. He can only see so many of the names he can choose from at once, but it still feels like an infinite or near-infinite list, enough for him to understand why his mind literally can’t take it all in.
Th-that one… He points a metaphysical finger at the list, hoping to whatever there is to hope to that that’s an acceptable way to choose and that it will make the list go away.
Thankfully for Leuen, it was, and this list retreats just as quickly as it came.
“Choose my ass! I didn’t get to do much more than have a seizure and hope I could throw a shot in the dark before my brain collapsed!” Leuen shouts to no one in particular as he regains his footing and bearings. Nothing responds to his exclamation, not god, nor anything in the forest, so Leuen simply huffs and attempts to move on with himself.
Only to realize that he doesn’t have much to move on with. Leuen may have a name now, and not one he hates, but that hasn’t solved any of his potential problems. Food and water, for instance, since he doesn’t see a hunger or thirst bar in his status screen, likely remain the same sort of deeply real need from his old world.
As if on cue, he feels his stomach growl a little bit.
Checking his surroundings for a second time, Leuen looks for the sun above the tree canopy. He has no idea if it is setting or rising because of how high it is in the sky, but he shouldn’t need to know yet, all that matters is that he has half a day, however long days are here, of daylight left.
This in mind, he picks a direction, the only one that slopes downwards, and starts walking.
-X-X-X-
The first thing Leuen finds is a dungeon. There’s nothing else it could be. A set of double doors set into a conspicuously barren hill jutting out of a valley landscape? Dungeon. Only thing it could be. It puts another point into the ‘gamelike’ world category, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s definitely not a good thing, but it doesn’t have to be bad either.
It could be like a… Skyrim dungeon. Quick in and out, four rooms with some rats or something. His optimism is quickly quashed by the other possibilities. Or a murder pit like certain novels… Or a murdersex pit. Or those annoying JRPG dungeons with infinite random encounters.
He almost convinces himself not to open the doors with the last possibility, but eventually relents and pushes through, forced by nothing more than his own curiosity. Besides, I can just walk out if I don’t like what I see.
Sword in hand, Leuen takes the first step into the not-so-dark hold in the ground. There’s a line of blue stone in the ceiling that seems to be bathing the whole place in soft blue light, and aside from the ‘rocky cave’ aesthetic of the walls and floor, it looks all rather clean.
The ground isn’t even uneven, it would just feel bad to walk on barefoot. The ceiling is far enough off the ground that he can’t touch it even with the tip of his sword, and there’s enough space to his left and right for the same. In fact…
Starting at the left wall, he lines his left heel up to it, pointing his toes at the opposite wall, then puts his right heel in front of his toes, and repeats this until he reaches the other wall.
That’s probably about 10ish feet across. As in, two five foot squares. Like a D&D map put into real life. Who designed this place?
Leuen looks down the dungeon hall to a fork in the path, then back at the door he came through. Not seeing much point to staying here any longer without more information, he exits back into the forest, taking extra care to shut the door behind him.
“Oh, right!” Leuen excitedly puts his hand onto the metal doors.
Terrain: Door (Material_Iron)
HP: 40
Hard: 5
Tough: 15
Flammable: No
Conductivity: Yes / 3.00
M.Conductivity: Yes 0.75
Material: Iron
HP: As object base times 4, as terrain base times 2
Hard: 5
Tough: 15
Flammable: No
Conductivity: Yes / 3.00
M.Conductivity: Yes 0.75
Doing some basic logic, this means that a ‘door’ has a base HP of 20, or 2 less HP than Leuen himself has. He’s not sure what exactly to do with this information beyond question if killing a person and destroying a hypothetical baseline door really take the same amount of effort. Still, Iron having a Tough of 15 but only a Hard of 5 is interesting. He wonders what the distinction is, or what the two stats actually affect.
Curious, he checks his own sword.
Item: Sword_Long_Messer_A (Material_Iron) (Material_Oak_Wood)
HP: 10
Hard: 5
Tough 15
Flammable: Yes (Grip only) / 1.00
Conductivity: Yes / 3.00
M.Conductivity: Yes 0.75
Material: Oak_Wood
HP: 5
Hard: 1
Tough 2
Flammable: Yes / 1.00
Conductivity: Yes / 1.00
M.Conductivity: Yes 0.247
Iron hadn’t come up a second time, implying that once he knows something from Analyze, it won’t pop up again for some reason. Or, more likely, it’s information he can simply pull up on demand without needing Analyze, and sure enough, he can examine the stats of the Oak_Bark item from earlier just fine, without needing to be near a tree.
Actually, Analyze is doing something a little weird. It showed me the object I was looking at, the sword, and what things it was made out of, Iron and Wood, but it didn’t tell me anything about the sword itself, like how good it is at being a weapon or anything. Hm…
After taking a stance he thinks might be effective for fighting with his sword, Leuen swings it four times in four different ways, then checks the sword’s stats again. Not seeing any change, he tries actually hitting something with his sword. Namely an innocent fern that happened to be growing in the sun near the dungeon entrance.
Thoroughly hacking the top half of the plant off, Leuen checks his status. He gained 2 exp from something at some point, he’s not sure what, but the thing he wants isn’t there. There’s no combat log or anything for him to determine how much damage he did to the plant, which seems to him like he needs to get more creative.
