Prologue: The Void Beyond
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So this is something new that I came up with, it's going to be an interesting journey. The protagonist of this story was a flawed person before the story even begins, and his new life and the journey he is on will only twist him even further. The protagonist will quickly become what is considered evil by most, and he will be far from the worst person featured in this story. There will also be plenty of dark moments in this story, descriptions of gore, abuse, rape, mind break, and many different forms of torture...

This story is not for everyone, and that's okay. If you are uncomfortable with anything I just mentioned then you probably shouldn't read this story. If you are ok with those things, then I hope you enjoy this story.

Comments are appreciated, and may encourage me to write more and release faster...

It was like something out of a child’s worst nightmare.

I was in a seemingly endless black void, and around me were featureless figures that looked like mannequins made of pale flesh. No eyes, no hair, no skin color, not even real nails or a belly button, just pale flesh imitating the features found on a human. What made things worse was that when I looked down at myself, I was the same as the monsters around me. I watched as the nude pale mannequin people around me flailed around and panicked silently, and I knew from their actions alone that if they had mouths capable of it, they’d be screaming.

Closing my eyes, or at least that is what it felt like I did when my vision cut off since I no longer had eyes to close, I began to consider the task that had been set for us. Reach the end of a hundred floor dungeon. It was a goal I was pretty familiar with, a goal that could have come straight out of any number of RPGs. Given that most of my waking hours were spent either working on a commission, playing a game, or reading a story that had caught my interest online I was something of an expert on dungeon clearing. I was one of the few people who had managed to solo clear every dungeon in Everdawn, hell, I had even designed a few dungeons myself both in games and in concept art. Still attempting to clear a dungeon in my own body instead of an avatar, especially when that dungeon had a hundred floors, seemed like a suicidal idea.

Sitting down on the invisible floor we were all standing on I began to seriously think about what was going on. This whole situation was actually fairly similar to a couple of the Isekai stories I’d read before. A group of people abducted by a mysterious force with no warning, given an impossible task, and told to select a class and starting skill; sure, the whole becoming a featureless mannequin person thing was new, but otherwise this might as well have been the setup of an Isekai anime.

Watching the other mannequins panic I let my mind wander some. I actually wouldn’t mind being Isekaied all that much, after all there was nothing really holding me to my old life and old world. I was a nerd who rarely left his little apartment, barely made enough to afford his boring lifestyle by drawing paid commissions and making concept art for games, and who basically lived his life online. I didn’t have any family who would miss me, and I didn’t have a girlfriend, and pretty much all my friends were online buddies who played the same games I did or frequented the same forums as me. No one would miss me if I were to suddenly vanish, and the only things I would miss from my old world were the endless abundance of stories and porn.

As I was idly watching the other mannequins and considering how indifferent I was about my life a grey semi-transparent screen with white glowing writing appeared in front of me. I stared at the screen and saw it was a fairly basic character menu, like something out of a low budget indie RPG.

|{Balance: 1 Level} [Fighter: Lv0] [Crafter: Lv0] [Mystic: Lv0] [Believer: Lv0]|

|{Balance: 1 Skill Point} [N\A Requires 1 Class Above Lv0]|

|{Balance: 10 Stat Points} [Agility: 1] [Endurance: 1] [Luck: 1] [Mana: 1] [Magic Resistance: 1] [Mind: 1] [Piety: 1] [Strength: 1]|

I stared at the screen in front of me and found myself once again wondering if this was all just some vivid dream. After pinching myself again and letting the pain remind me that I was in fact awake I began to consider my options. The goal was to clear a dungeon, a rather large dungeon, and I was fairly sure that this dungeon was going to be filled with monsters and traps. What class I was would determine how I handled the challenges of the dungeon, and would probably determine if I survived.

I smiled slightly and silently chuckled to myself. I was sure that the skills each class got at the lower levels would either be foundational skills that needed to be built up before they were useful or garbage. I was pretty sure that how you distributed your stat points mattered more right now than what class you chose, but the flip side of that was that your class and skill might not line up with your stat distribution and that could cause problems down the line. Then there was the fact that this wasn’t some game were you could min-max without any worries, this was real and I didn’t think extra lives or respawns were a thing for us mannequin folk so if you leave yourself too weak in one area you could easily end up dead.

Movement and rustling sounds turned my attention to the other mannequins, and I saw that many of them were now clothed. Some were wearing a white long-sleeved shirt and tan pants, but what really caught my attention was the chest piece, forearm guards, and shin guards that all looked to be made of some sort of hide. Others were in what looked like the white robes that catholic priests wore, and in their hands were books with white covers that featured a golden circle on them. Two were in a white short sleeved shirt and brown pants with a crafting apron with many pockets covering their fronts. Then there were the ones in the brown hooded robes that looked almost like zipped-up cloth coats, only the coat reached their boots and the coat didn’t actually have a zipper.

I watched as some of the brown robed mannequins conjured fire balls or orbs of water, while some of the white robed mannequins began to glow with a soft refreshing light that surrounded them. The armored mannequins seemed to be shadow boxing or stretching, and some of them made their fists glow when they punched. The two mannequins in aprons just looked around at the others, and one seemed to hang its head in dejection.

I could already sort of guess what each of the classes offered based on the appearance and actions of my fellow mannequins, and that helped me make my decision.

I didn’t want to be a fighter, especially when they didn’t seem to get any weapons, the crafter class also looked like it was a bad idea considering my goal was to survive in a potentially very difficult dungeon. That left me with the mystic and believer classes, one looked like it was the standard magic damage dealer and the other was probably the healer and buffer class.

If I was with a group I could trust and communicate with then I would immediately go with believer, after all the ability to heal myself and others would be invaluable, but just watching the majority of the other mannequins silently playing around and goofing off told me that this was not a group I could count on. I saw a few other mannequins like me, a few who were still nude and seemed to be carefully considering their options and observing the other mannequins to get a better idea of what each class was. Still there weren’t many of those careful mannequins, out of the around 100 mannequins only about seven besides myself were still nude and considering which class they wanted.

I had already decided that I would need to be a mystic, at least for this first level, and hopefully later on I could take a level in another class.

As I was about to tap the mystic option on the screen a brilliant flash of light nearly blinded me. Blinking, but not actually blinking since I didn’t have eyes or eyelids, I looked at where the flash of light came from and saw that there was a rippling portal of white light. I stared at that portal with the other mannequins, and watched as a mannequin that was either brave or stupid walked up to the portal and started to mess with it. Once that mannequin stuck its hand through it was unable to pull it back out, and eventually after futilely tugging on its arm for a while it ended up going through the portal. One by one more of the clothed mannequins stepped through the portal and disappeared.

I turned my attention back to my screen and tapped on the mystic class. Suddenly I was wearing the same brown robe as many of the other mannequins and I learned that all that was under the robe wear a pair of pants and boots for my feet. Shaking my head, I wondered if hoping for an undershirt and some underwear was asking for too much.

I saw that I now had my choice of four skills. Fire ball, orb of water, earth spike, or wind blade. Each one had clear advantages. Orb of water seemed like it was the weakest offensively but it also meant I always had access to water, though I wasn’t sure if I even needed to worry about dehydration in this mannequin body. Earth spike seemed like it could pin its target in place if it pierced them, but it obviously required there to be earth near the target to use it. Wind blade looked like it could be a good offensive option, and I was pretty sure it was the fastest option if these spells worked anything like they did in games.

After some hesitation I tapped on the fire ball option. Fire was just too useful an offensive tool to give up. Fire both burned and lingered, and it typically hurt more to be burned than to be pierced or cut by something, also in games a lot of monsters had specific weaknesses to fire. In my eyes the fireball spell was simply the best option out of what was offered.

Standing up I eyed the stats that were listed out on my character screen. After some thought I decided to invest in my magic without totally neglecting my physical attributes. After I had spent all my stat points, I looked over my character screen one last time as it slowly began fading away.

|Class: [Mystic: Lv1]|

|Skills: [Fire Ball: Lv1]|

|Stats: [Agility: 2] [Endurance: 3] [Luck: 1] [Mana: 6] [Magic Resistance: 2] [Mind: 2] [Piety: 1] [Strength: 1]|

I winced as I saw the other classes and skills disappear as options, I was apparently stuck as a mystic now. I could only hope that mystics could learn some sort of healing skill in the near future, but I didn’t regret my choice. Mystic had been my best option for survival, I was able to deal damage from a distance with this class and that was a very good thing.

Now that the screen had fully disappeared, I tried to use my fireball skill. With a thought I was able to conjure a ball of flame above my hand, it was around the size of a basketball and felt incredibly hot to me. Willing the fireball to disappear and closing my hand into a fist I watched the fireball be snuffed out into nothing. I could feel that it took some of my energy to summon that fireball, but it didn’t feel like I had lost all that much energy. After about a minute or so I felt normal again, like the energy I had lost had been recuperated.  

Nodding my head as I got a handle on my skill, I figured it was time for me to see what the dungeon was like. I turned towards the white portal of swirling energy and began walking towards it. When I reached the portal I poked a finger in first, mostly out of curiosity, and I felt like something was trying to gently pull me in from my finger alone. I couldn’t pull my finger back out, and I had already seen someone struggle with fighting the portal’s pull, so I simply stepped through it.

I didn’t know what I would find on the other side, but I was feeling confident in my choices and my odds of survival.

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