Brad had considered himself a typical American guy once. This was a month before he became a heroic candidate of Mythokos. A month before he was thrusting his badass sword hilt deep in the guts of elven scum.

Back then, he was a University Freshman away from home for the first time. He was a floater, someone who hovered through life in a gray daze of mediocrity because everything felt purposeless and boring. He was sparsely engaged with social activities and physical sports growing up despite the nudging of his parents. He had more fingers on one hand than strong real-life relationships.

Back then, before he walked into green-lighted traffic with his head in the clouds, his focus was on one aspect of life that made it worthwhile.

Videogames.

He loved MMORPGs where he was a badass warrior cutting down hordes of enemies. No matter the quest, no matter the danger of a dungeon, no matter the length of a raid, he would go running at the front as the cape-wearing knight leading the charge. Then he would utter tales of his pixel badassery to actual girls that played online⁠—as hard as it could be to find them⁠—and spark enough interest to have them tag along since they were lower-leveled adventurers who needed help with something. They always needed help with something, or he didn’t waste his time with them.

He formed a guild that way⁠—for him and a few bros⁠—and collected girls who needed help with somethings and didn’t mind giving Brad their attention. He never met any of them in real life, but the late nights that should be spent cramming for a test were made really lit when they got on chat groups together, cleared a dungeon, and talked all the way into the gray-blue morning. In that separate gamer world, Brad’s life was good.

Then Brad mindlessly jay-walked into traffic and failed to play a game of chicken with a truck. The end result: an isekai into the body of a young beefy farmer who found a magical sword in the woods behind his barn.

A month passed since then, and he was now dashing full sprint in golden armor across one mesa among many in the Broken Plains, Western Brogheim, Brogheim. This time around, he was not charging into the enemy front. He was running from them as fireballs and lightning bolts exploded around him, each impact shuddering up through the sole of his pounding boots.

Smoking rock fragments flitted around him and dinged off his robust pouldrons and the side of his faceless helmet, the red feathers on top fluttering. Plumes of caustic-tasting smoke hazed the air as he chugged in deep breaths to keep his fatigue build-up manageable. He could feel the zing of electricity dispersing after every near-hit blast of elemental bombardment. This was a hell of a situation to be in, especially since he wasn’t alone.

All around him were human soldiers armed with swords, staves, shields, and less-impressive armor. All around him, human limbs flew in separate pieces, bodies fell in smoking heaps, and men cried for their friends or their mothers as they were left behind. Brad had led them into an elven ambush, and they had to make a full-tilt retreat to the safety of their battleline on the other side of this one mesa where the war progress had stalled. Again, this was hell.

But Brad had a huge smile on his face anyway. This was the first time this week he actually got a major push-back for anything. Here he thought his run through this game would be met without a challenge since he was already a Lvl 22 Golden Knight. His next class advancement was only 18 levels away. Would’ve been 17 if he had conquered this mesa instead of getting blindsided by fey bastards using cloaking spells⁠—oh, look, he was back on the other side of noman’s land.

Brad leaned back and slid over the edge of a trench that dwarven laborers had dug. Lots of hands reached up to collect the Golden Knight before they deposited him against a dirt wall where he could catch his breath.

Brad huffed while bent over, his shiny gauntleted hands on his knees. Sweat soaked into the linen undergarments he wore under his plate armor and leathers. It was gross, but that made the experience even better. Everything was incredibly life-like, especially the consequences.

Once he recovered, Brad straightened to his full height, which was an awesome 6 feet, 4 inches on bare feet that complimented his new dynamic physique. The heels to his boots added another two inches, enabling him to stand above most of the NPC’s⁠—err, denizens⁠—of the Righteous United Front, also called the RUF.

They were mostly humans from the city-state Kardvale of the midlands, the empire West Mysteria of the west, the united provinces of JourneyFall at the eastern board, and some immigrants from other nations far east or south across the waters. There were nonhumans, too, but they were mainly second-class citizens of West Mysteria; they had to fight.

The humans were more like Brad, adventurers or soldiers seeking glory. Unlike Brad, they couldn’t really keep up.

Brad frowned as he peeked over the top of the trench to check on damages. Against the bloody-orange backdrop of a sunset on the east of Mythokos, he saw pillars of smoke rising into the sky. He watched dozens of men that had followed him out there start to return, their bodies silhouetted at first. But once they were down here with him, he saw that many of them had scrapes, burns, and cuts that ran bloody. One man was carrying his legless female companion as she screamed horribly.

Brad shook his head. No wonder the Administrator and System needed candidates; the human denizens lacked the gear to compete with fey advantages.

“Sir,” called a short man that was the captain of this unit. He was a portly figure squeezed into dirty armor that made him look more like the grunts around him than a distinguished noble. He would’ve gone unnoticed if he wasn’t a Lvl 26 Knight. “Our diviners are scrying that the elves are earth-magicking new trenches. They’re closing the gap under cover of the magical assault.”

“That wouldn’t have happened if our abjuration wizards weren’t retarded at their job,” Brad snapped. He scanned the trenches for mages to lay the blame on, but among the bloody, crying mess of humans and nonhumans, he found mostly warriors that were a dime a dozen. Unlike him, a Gloden Knight warrior.

“Many are needed in the deeprock tunnels, sir,” replied the noble. “The Fey had sent their twisted abominations to skirmish with our units there. We’re barely holding them back from under flanking us. They have lvl 30 Fomorians leading the skirmishes, sir.”

Brad sucked his teeth. The damn fey-twisted giants were hard to deal with without being a few levels above them. A deeprock troll had nearly crushed him down there during his first foray as a Lvl 15 after the tutorial. Apparently, all giants were like that, near impossible to defeat without a good advantage in levels or a strong party.

Right before Brad replied, a light in the sky caught his attention. He looked up along with everyone else in the trench. The clamor of cries and shouts fell to a hush as a bright, burning object roared in the sky above.

Brad grinned ear to ear, knowing one of his candidate members with the help of other mages probably evoked a meteorite aimed where the elven ambush had struck. Brad leaped seven feet from the trench floor to ground level, his hand reaching for the great sword magically strapped to his back. He stood mightily while glimpsing the edges of fey barrier spells erecting quickly, their magical surfaces scintillating under the sunset glow as the giant meteor descended.

Brad knew what would happen and started to seize the moment. “Up, you dogs! Up, you sons of hard-working men! Here’s your chance to make a name for yourself and bring gold back to your families. Come with me if you want to be a hero!”

His voice was booming while he empowered his Charisma by invoking his ability [Infectious Knightly Cheer]. A sudden magical gust of wind blew across him, causing his cape to flutter most awesomely. His gold armor accented by rich red looked cleaner than it was moments before. It caught the last rays of daylight perfectly to make him glow and stand out to the fighting units and reserves in the trenches.

“B-but, sir, we could use the time to recover!” said the little fat noble.

He was ignored as human and non-human soldiers, and adventurers started to stream out of the trenches cautiously. Then the meteor hit. It shattered the fey barriers, blasted a huge hole in their line, and helped incentivized healthy trench-hidden fighters to stream out eagerly.

“Let’s go, RUF Riders!” Brad roared, leading another charge.

The earth trembled greatly beneath his feet as a thousand soldiers and adventurers followed him. It was a larger charge this time around due to Nick and his cabal’s outstanding spellcraft; they could pull out higher-level spells way above one twenty-something wizard.

Now it was Brad’s duty to advance this part of the line aggressively. He hopped over smoking craters and corpses from the first failed charge of the day. He reached the fey line where the meteor struck first. Then he found a half-burnt elf that was staggering through the smoke.

Brad wet his shiny greatsword with his first kill of the day.

He moved quickly, whirling his blade in vertical circles to avoid hitting the walls while he attacked enemies whose levels were in the high teens or low twenties. He hewed three elves from shoulder to hip, splattered a bumbling faerie, and curb-stomped a fleeing brownie.

He did it all before the rest of the charge caught up. They spilled over the edges and turned the trench into a bloody mad brawl of animalistic carnage.

Brad smiled throughout, his voice booming as he cheered on his allies. “That’s right, RUF Riders! Shut these suckers down and open up the butcher’s shop!”