The first thing August realized when he woke up was that the harsh, electronic noise in his ears definitely wasn’t his phone alarm. Something that he noticed a bit later was that there was another body in his bed.
To fully understand just why these things were happening, we must rewind the story a little bit.
-
Thousands of years ago, there was a powerful and prosperous place known as the Revarian Empire. It was known by all to have the strongest military, most talented craftsmen, richest lords, and of course, the most beautiful citizens. The streets of the capital city were constantly lit, performers entertaining cheering crowds, and townsfolk shopping in the markets.
However, the ruler that presided over this empire was not merciful on the battlefield. How else could he have amassed such a wealth for his people? The dungeons below the royal palace were filled with prisoners, human and demon alike, awaiting their executions.
One demon in particular had been causing the Empire a fair bit of trouble recently. One of the foremost commanders of the demon realm, by the name of Au’rul, had quietly wiped out several small villages around the outskirts of the capital in a single night. Out of the 3 liaisons that had been sent by Revaria’s king to warn him to back off, none of them had returned. So naturally, the two had met on the battlefield the very next day. When confronted with the question of why he had annihilated innocent townsfolk instead of just challenging the military directly, Au’rul had responded only after he’d cut the king’s head off with a very impressive sword. “Because,” he’d said, dropping the head casually to the side, “I had to appease my sister.”
For reasons unbeknownst to him, the High Ruler of the Demon Realm, his sweet younger sister, had requested of all her generals to go into the human realm and cover the land in as much blood as possible. All present assumed this had been part of some kind of ritual she was attempting, but were in no place to question their queen.
With the human’s king now killed in a rather humiliating way, Au’rul had ordered for the rest of his own troops to wipe out the remaining army, and headed back to his encampment. From that time on, Au’rul would be known as Au’rul the Infinite in the realm of the humans.
-
This had more or less been the last thing on August’s mind when he fell asleep, webnovel forum still open on his phone. The novel was certainly not one of the best that he’d read, and he was halfway through a long-winded argument online with some fans of the story when something had happened.
There had been a heavy rainstorm happening outside, and the power in August’s apartment was suddenly knocked out. Without precious wifi, and already over his data limit, August had no choice but to save the rest of the argument for another time and go to sleep.
Now, he was being harshly awoken by some kind of foreign sound. He tried to ignore it for the first couple of minutes, but it wouldn’t go away. After rubbing the sleep from his eyes and putting on the glasses that were resting on his nightstand, he looked around for the source of the irritating alarm.
Strangely enough, when he located the source, he was sure that he was still asleep and inside a dream. A red glowing box hovered slightly above his head. After slapping himself in the face a few times and confirming that he was indeed truly awake, his second thought was that this was some kind of alien device and that he was about to be kidnapped and experimented on. However, printed on the semi-transparent floating box were some real Human English words.
System Initialization Complete.
Continue?
>Yes
>Hell yes
August was no stranger to system webnovels, and thus understood exactly what this meant. Kind of. But usually, wasn’t the person with the system transported into a different world? He was still sitting in his own bed, in his own room. Also, both of the options were the same!
As there was no “X” button in the corner of the system’s dialogue box, he reached out and selected the “Yes” option. He wasn’t going to choose “Hell yes” because he wasn’t particularly enthused about this turn of events yet. He was already a busy college student, how was he supposed to deal with this nonsense now too?
The system made a rather pleased sounding beeping noise. Next, an even more annoying thing happened, and the system began to actually speak. It sounded pretty much as you would expect a snarky AI to sound.
Congratulations on obtaining your very own System! Please enter what you wish to be called in the box below.
NOTE: Once name has been set, you cannot change it. Many apologies.
August rolled his eyes at the annoying note and typed his name in, hoping for whatever reason that he wouldn’t ever wish to change it.
Thank you, August! Now you may begin the main quest objective: Get Au’rul back home!
>Okay, thank you for all your help!
>Wait, what?
Naturally, August hit the second option.
Would you like to play the tutorial mode before starting the main quest?
>Yes, please! That would be fantastic!
>No, I changed my mind.
He didn’t really want to, as tutorials in video games were usually mind-numbingly boring, but he figured one might be of a little help in this situation. He hit the first option.
Tutorial start!
Backstory: Au’rul the Infinite has just been unknowingly caught up in another one of his sister’s schemes. This time, he finds himself in a strange, foreign world. Only you can help him get back to where he came from!
NOTE: Free speech now enabled.
When no dialogue options appeared, August assumed this meant that he was able to converse verbally with the system. He tried,
Do you mean that he’s somewhere in this world? How the hell am I supposed to find him, let alone get him back to his own world? And wait, this man is a ruthless killer, why wouldn’t he just start massacring everyone around him???
No need to worry! The System has taken this probability into account. Try as he might, this demon general will find it difficult to land a hit on any innocents in this world. Try it out!
Still convinced that he very much would not like to try it out, August shuddered. At least now that the threat of physical danger had been removed from the situation, he could relax very slightly. Wait.
Try it out? What do you mean, try it out?! Is he nearby already?
He sure is! First tutorial mission starting now!! Get ready!!!
Before August could even have time to stress over the three (!!!) exclamation points in that sentence, something moved underneath his sheets. A startled gasp left him, and he was genuinely concerned that he might experience heart failure for a second. He leapt out of the bed and landed very roughly on the hardwood floor of his bedroom. Quickly, he got himself back on his feet, expecting to have to fend off a disoriented demon warrior.
The lump slowly moving underneath his sheets stopped moving after a second.
You’re telling me this is him?! Why the fuck is he in my bed?????
Location closest to you.
Oh, well that made perfect sense. Now, August was stuck between waking this guy up and just letting him sleep as long as he damn well pleased.
Helpful hint! There are rules to this game. If you hit the “STATS” tab on the right-hand side, you can view your stats! Certain actions are unable to be performed unless the required stats are fulfilled. Another tab you may find useful is “SETTINGS”, where you can configure this System to your heart’s desire. As this game operates in real life, options such as “SAVE” and “QUIT” are unavailable at this time.
Obviously, he wanted to say but didn’t. Just for the hell of it, he checked out the STATS page.
Character Profile: August
Intelligence: 55/100
Strength: 35/100
Courage: 20/100
After lamenting these rather pitiful stats for a moment, he switched to the other “character profile”.
Character Profile: Au’rul
Intelligence: ???
Strength: ???
Courage: ???
After gaining absolutely no useful information from that, he pushed the system dialogue box away for the moment and looked at the bed again.
System, if I do something courageous, will it increase my courage stat?
Obviously.
Without gracing that with a response, he knelt down and grabbed the metal baseball bat from underneath his bedframe.
