Jolting upward, V regained consciousness. The first indication of having a physical form again, was his pounding headache. As his senses returned to him, so did his confusion. Was that whole Goddess thing real? Or was he just tripping extremely hard? As he took in his surroundings, only two options arose. All of it was true, trapped in a room, the bullets ripping through him, the Goddess, the game. Or, he had lost his mind.

He appeared to be sitting upward in the middle of a dense forest, he could hear sounds of nature all around him. As he stood up, he noticed that his hands looked different, they were missing all the scars and blemishes they once held, and instead were smooth and clean. His entire body in-fact. All of his former imperfections seemed to have vanished. His knife wound in the left knee, the burns on his upper arms. Not only that, but he seemed to be in perfect physical condition. Toned muscles, clean eyesight, trim body.

"Luckily, it seems as if I’m still human, I suppose Goddesses have no need to ask what form your soul desires." His thoughts turned toward his face, he wondered if there was a way he could get a good look at his face. Was it still his? Was it someone new? As he contemplated these matters, information jumped unbidden into his mind. A cross between words and images.

┌——————┐
Name: V
Age: 20
Race: Human | Other
Class: Divine Champion Lv 1   0/100000
Skills: None
Blessings: Blessing of the Mother Goddess.
└——————┘

"Well that's new."  V took a moment to examine this information. His name was V, that sounded right to him, but he felt like he had forgotten something important. As for his race, he was clearly human, as for "Other" he could only assume that was the "special species" the Goddess spoke of. Class, Skills, Blessings... The Goddess DID say that this was set up like the games from his world. He thought it was sort of condescending to say he did not have any skills, but perhaps it was not meant to be taken literally. Divine Champion though, that was a fancy name. Though, I suppose that one was literal. As for the blessing, well, that could mean anything. Its not as if she seemed like she wanted to bless him.

As he considered his situation, he heard sounds of arguing, it sounded as if someone had started yelling. It would be unwise to be taken by surprise by... anything really. The amount of information he had on himself, and the world he was now in, was worryingly low. He would be unprepared for virtually any situation. He also seemed to only be wearing a simple set of clothes, no weapon or anything else particularly helpful. Even so, he decided to creep closer toward the disturbance. The only way to learn was to observe after all.

After a few moments of sneaking, the individual who was yelling came into view. Although V was not particularly good at creeping through forests, two elements worked in his favor in his efforts to stay hidden. First, it turned out that he was on a bit of a ledge overlooking a lower part of the forest, it was not a sheer drop, but vertical enough that he was a few yards above the them. Second, they seemed to be in a heated argument, not worried about the forest around them.

Carefully, he appraised the situation. The individual yelling was a young man, more slender than a regular human. The other was a rather large woman, V figured she must have been at-least 6 and a half feet tall, she could probably bench press a horse. At this range, V realized that the smaller individual was not yelling in anger, but fear. The large woman laughed "I cannot believe that you would come as an elf, an ELF. They are one of the weakest of the civilized races on this planet. I never thought my first victory would be so easy...." The woman moved toward the slender man, wearing a somewhat crazed look on her face. 

As V focused on the woman, information once again flooded his mind.

┌——————┐
Name: O
Age: 30
Race: Herculean/Amazonian | Other
Class: Divine Berserker Lv 1 
Skills: "Brute Force Lv 2"
Blessings: Blessing of the God of Slaughter.
└——————┘

"Oh, her class is divine, but a little different then mine." Well, that is helpful information, not all of the participants are the same starting class. Interestingly, she seems to have started with a level 2 skill. As V considered this, he turned his attention to the smaller individual.

┌——————┐
Name: K
Age: 27
Skills: "Perception Lv 2"
└——————┘

"Well that is interesting, perhaps they found a way to hide their status. That is incredibly useful" Considering that your class would instantly give away your status as a participant in the gods game, hiding it would be quite important. As V wondered if he could also set his information to be hidden in some form, the large woman, "O" had closed the distance between her and "K." With one motion O picked up the small elf, holding him aloft with one hand. "Please, please don't do this, can't you just accept my surrender? This does not need to end in violence, you could win without killing me! I could help you convince the others to join you!" The woman tilted her head as she responded "I suppose that is true, it would be easier if all the other players just gave up..." The woman's crazed smile returned to her face "However, it would not be nearly as much fun!" The elf attempted to say something, but before he could get the words out, the woman delivered a sickeningly powerful punch to the elf's chest. The crunching of the Elf's bones could be clearly heard, V wondered if there was anything even left of his bones, it sounded like she turned them to dust with her single punch. What was once the Elf's internal organs came spilling out of his mouth as the light left his pleading eyes.

"Time to go." V decided that he had learned all he could here, and besides, he really did not want to become the next target of O. As he made a hasty retreat, he wondered how many of the Champions were placed in this forest. As he saw it, it could not be more than four or five at most. The gods called this a game after all. No one wants a game to be over before it even starts. There was no way they placed all of the champions in this forest, which would result in a rather swift end to their game.

After V was confident he had put enough distance between him and the scene of the elf's death, he stopped to examine his status. He hoped he could discover a way to hide his class, and maybe his skills. It would help if he could at-least bluff his way through a dangerous situation, clearly having "Skills: None" displayed would make that difficult...

As he was trying to figure out how he might go about this, another loud noise echoed through the trees. This time it appeared as a young woman's panicked screaming. It was also extremely close. Drawn in by curiosity, and emboldened by the fact that he had succeeded in sneaking around already, he crept toward the sound. The scene he discovered was horrifying. A creature straight out of a nightmare stood over top a young girl. The creature looked like a cross between a praying mantis and a gorilla. Furry, with four legs and two arms, spikes running up and down the length of its arms, its face had mandibles, placed in front of an almost human looking set of teeth, which globs of saliva fell from. Its eyes were bulbous and grotesque. After recovering from a moment of almost instinctual terror, V realized it was trying to drag the young girl away, to some unknown fate deeper into the forest.

Although he may not have felt any particular emotion about the unfortunate Elf from before, he was not so callous as to be unmoved by this situation. Whatever fate awaited this poor girl, it was certainly worse than a quick death. Even so, V was unsure of how exactly to help the poor girl. It was not as if he was a giant amazon woman with fists of steel. As the girl wailed and the beast gurgled horribly, he decided that his only option would be to distract it. While not the best of plans, it’s not as if he had a lot of time to formulate a better one.

V picked up a few rocks off the forest floor, and stepped out into the beast’s sight. "Hay! Leave her alone, you damn dirty ape!" he yelled as he threw one of the stones toward the beast. It quickly turned toward V, abandoning its interest in the small girl. V immediately took off running, taunting the beast a few more times. As he ran, he sure hoped that the beast did not have some sort of range attack, otherwise this was going to be a short chase. In Vs favor however, he seemed to be quite quick. Quicker than he ever was in his old life. Good thing too, the gorilla mantis thing was rather fast. He also realized that even when he was focusing on the beast, he was unable to see its status or any information. Rather than consider the mysteries of this monster, he decided it was wiser to keep his eyes on the forest as he ran.

"Almost there!" V was a bit panicky, the beast was faster than he anticipated. This entire plan also banked on his reflexes being faster than they used to be in his old life. As he approached the place where he spied on the Elf and the Amazonian, he pushed himself, running at his absolute maximum speed. As he neared the ledge which overlooked the scene he had witnessed earlier. He jumped, wildly reaching out for one of the trees that grew up from the bottom of the drop. He figured, as long as he could grab onto one, even if he slammed into it fairly hard, he would survive. On the other hand, he was hoping the beast would be ill prepared for the sudden drop, and would plummet downward. Something as heavy and bulky as that nightmare creature should be ill equipped for a fall, even if it was only ten or twenty yards.

As V slammed into the tree, he was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it only minorly hurt. Behind him, the beast flew off the ledge, unable to halt its charge. As it went over it flailed wildly, roaring on the way down. When it hit the ground, it stopped moving. V was not entirely convinced it was dead. Slowly climbing down the tree, he decided it was best to simply leave its body, and head back to the girl. Even if he wanted to try and finish it off with a rock, or a branch, it could still easily tear him to pieces. Even if only one of its arms worked, and the rest of its limbs had been broken in the fall, he was certain that would be enough to kill him.

V traveled back to the location where he first saw the beast. Its possible the girl was injured; if so, he would do what he could to help her. Perhaps, if she or her family was grateful, he would be able to use that to his advantage. A few coins, would be nice. Or even just some general information. He still had no idea what this world was like. For all he knew, it could be one giant endless forest. That of course seemed unlikely, but he figured it was better to be ready to accept anything as a possibility. Especially after seeing that beast.

When he returned to the location, he found a small girl, half his size laying there. It seemed as if she was unconscious, the fear and adrenaline may have given way to extreme exhaustion. He had not noticed before, but to his surprise the small girl had large rabbit ears! "I wonder if this is one of the "Beastkin" that the Goddess spoke of." Her ears were actually rather large, roughly a foot in length. As he examined her, information flooded his mind once again.

┌——————┐
Name: Eika
Age: 16
Race: RabbitKin
Occupation: Slave
Class: Tracker Lv 5
Skills: "Tracking Lv 2", "Hearing Lv 5", "Smell Lv 5", "ForestCraft Lv 3"
└——————┘

Perhaps monsters like the gorilla mantis simply did not have statuses. V considered this as he waited for the girl to awaken. He was no doctor, but she did not appear to have any external injuries other than a few cuts. He hoped that she would quickly awaken, and that he could get a move on. Between Berserk Divine champions, horrible horrible monsters, and whatever else lurked in this forest, he was eager to leave. He set down and leaned on one of the trees as he waited, “Occupation slave huh? I guess every world has em…”