My preparations are finished, I have a healing potion ready, the full suit of leather armor on and my implement of choice in my hand, though… even with every defensive measure I can muster my breathing is tense, the moment is terrifying.

This could very well kill me.

Gingerly.

Carefully.

With the utmost caution.

I lean from behind my stone barrier and… poke one of those boxes with a stick.

It rocks slightly before settling back into place without spontaneously detonating.

This is the fifth time I’ve performed this experiment.

Call me overly cautious, but when they appeared they carved holes in the landscape and very nearly did the same to me; now, call me crazy I can’t help but think they might be dangerous.

As hard as it is to wrap my head around it, I’m now in a sort of game like world and the only conclusion I can make is that someone tried to made a modification to it and did so incorrectly, the only question is… how incorrectly?

It’s a crapshoot really.

I could open them to find some very useful things like more healing potions or a healing potion could be launched at my head at the fucking speed of sound when I crack the seal on one.

“Lets go over what I know one last time.”

Each box to my knowledge exactly 30cm^2 in volume, weighs one kilogram, and is wrapped in brown paper fastened by twine. They are all labeled clearly making them easy to discern from one another despite their otherwise identical appearance and dimensions, and while the system gave me no clear description of their contents due to the glitching, their actual names are encouraging enough.

The whole decision comes down to one concept, risk vs. reward.

Is the potential reward worth the massive risk?

Right now, I’ve got a lot of the basics but I’m not sure how far that’ll take me; something tells me my dagger isn’t gonna do shit if I have to fight an ogre head on and a group of goblins could probably still fuck me if they attack together.

“Alright… three… two... one!"

With some difficulty I slip the end of my very safe and professional Lootbox Manipulation Implement™⁴⁸Stick into the loose twine tie and give it a tug before dropping prone fast enough that I smack my face against the ground.

I lie there for nearly a full minute with my eyes clenched shut.

“I’m not dead, which is a good sign.”

When I finally relent and open my eyes, a little window awaits me describing the box’s contents.

“Huh, So they’re not deadly to use… at least this one isn’t.”

The listed items are arranged neatly atop the unfolded brown paper wrapping. 

Still being a bit cautious I climb over the waist high stone wall to examine them more closely. None of them are the weapons or instant fix magic items I was hoping for, but it’s the strangest thing; money, dye, experience boosters, appearance changer, respec potion, inventory expansion...

“Wow, just hit me, this is like a premium subscription starter pack for an MMO...”

The silver bars are little oblong rectangles about the size of my finger; no idea what the market value of them is, but this is probably meant to be ‘starter cash’. All in all, they're pretty useless to me now, but it’ll be nice to have once I find civilization.

The dye is an interesting situation, bottles of a translucent somewhat foggy fluid that changes shades as I pick it up, matching whatever color I imagine with incredible precision. Every bottle has a little rainbow mark on the label making them very easy to pick out.

“Shit. These might be worth more than the silver depending on the local technology levels. I could dye my clothes fucking tyrian purple and claim I’m royalty, probably wouldn’t go well in the long run, so that plan goes on the shelf.”

“Also, I’d need to find some clothes first too...”

The growth boosters are easy to identify, the contents are a frankly offensively electric green and a little tags dangling from the neck of the bottles have three arrows pointing up⁴⁹▲▲▲ stamped on them.

The other potions are similarly packaged but a bit harder to discern from one another based on the symbols alone, one simply has a triangle⁵⁰Δ that after a moment I recognize as a delta next to a stylized human face, meaning 'change face' I assume; the other potion has a pair of arrows bending to form a circle⁵¹? which I can only guess is the symbol for the respec potion.

“Were these made for people who can’t read? Maybe it’s a standard locally, but I sort of find this confusing… why not just have the names written out clearly like they are in the menu?”

Puzzling over that I shake the appearance changing potion and watch the weirdly shifting contents change and warp through a rainbow of skin colors, sometimes with ‘freckles’, an eye even forms and winks at me...

“I’m… dubious regarding the safety of these and whether or not I’d even want to use them if they were safe; maybe if I make some kind of critical mistake when leveling up I’d use the respec, but I kinda like my face as it is... at least I think I do.”

A moment of realization, I haven’t seen my face in a mirror since coming here and my recollection is foggy and strange; like I was looking at someone else at the time.

“We’ll just add that to the list of mysteries…”

Last but certainly not least I pick up the [Greater Magic Bag]; the description says it has 9m^3 of space in it and always weighs 10kg… picking it up [Accurate Measure] tells me that’s right. Rather than a sack it seems to be a sort of stiff box-shaped leather bag with heavy duty stitching and a brassy metal buckle for closing.

“Huh… bag of holding style is it? Shame it doesn’t have that whole ‘time stops inside’ thing that all those isekai protagonists go on about.”

Undoing the buckle and opening it my jaw goes slack, the interior of the bag is just… indescribable, no more than that it’s incomprehensible.

Its not some swirly purple situation like you see in anime or manga, it’s literally impossible to describe or comprehend. I cannot ascribe any descriptor to the interior of the bag; shape, color, dimension, illumination or lack there-of are all not applicable concepts.

Carefully I close the bag and shiver.

"I’ll have to get used to it, but fuck me sideways that’s unsettling, I was planning on storing the rest of the stuff in this bag but how am… I…"

A fresh new unexpected development.

It’s all gone.

The potions, the silver bars, the dye...

“Wait.”

Focusing for a few seconds, I think to myself ‘I want to hold one of those xp boost potions’.

...

Suddenly it’s in my hand.

There’s no sparkling or flash of light, it’s just there.

“Okay, that is cool."

After playing around with the [Greater Magic Bag] for a few minutes I set about opening the rest of the boxes using the same precautions; after all, just because one of them worked without issue doesn’t mean the others will.

Thankfully, there are no accidents or incidents so lets just move on to sifting through my growing pile of crap.

From the top, the armor from the [Guerilla Fighter Class Pack] is top notch to my untrained eye. The leather is supple and the color of dark soil, just edging on black. 

"I remember reading that leather armor was uncommon in the medieval period because cloth was just as effective while being several times cheaper. I can’t help but wonder if this is really extravagant or if that common sense doesn’t hold here...”

The weapons aren’t too bad either, the dagger is hardened steel with one serrated edge and one plain sharp one; it looks a bit like someone  heard about a modern combat knife and tried to recreate it. Its hard to say how effective it’ll be in the long run but I’m glad to have it.

Examining the camo paints closely reveals three folding trays with differing shades, some in grey and white and others dipping through into reds and even more vibrant blues and purple; I can only imagine what sort of landscapes would require magenta to blend into... but this is a fantasy sorta world from my perspective, so lets not make assumptions.

The crossbow seems to have a sort of gear mechanism that allows for a hand-crank to pull back the string and an alternate manual fire option… fiddling with it I think it might even have a partial auto-reload that uses the recoil from firing to reduce the work of loading the next shot.

The stock and wings are some sort of matte finished black wood that along with brushed steel fixtures give the weapon a dangerous feeling. The entire assembly folds up tightly into something slightly shorter than my arm is long and about as wide as my palm. 

The weapon seems to have two primary purposes built squarely into the core of it’s design philosophy, killing and going undetected.

The bolts, aside from the black paint job, are fairly mundane as bolts go; sturdy and tipped with steel. I'm more intrigued by what they're filling; the quiver it's black leather banded with brushed steel to match the set with a slot for the folded crossbow to lock in and three empty pockets for separate storage; likely for poison if my guess is correct.

The [Smoke Pellets] are probably the foul smelling round black spheres roughly the size of chocolate bonbons and the [Flash Stones] are probably the rocks that look a bit like yellow quartz.

The mirror is a polished square of steel in a satin bag, I can’t really make out the finer details of my features in it but I can see enough… good for checking around corners or signalling allies, if I had any.

Last but not least a set of three unidentifiable postage stamp sized gems... uninteresting in appearance and if my inkling is correct I don't want to go using them willy-nilly.

“Well… onto the next bundle.”

So we've got... a thick leather apron, a mouth and nose covering mask with filters, and a pair of heavy duty gloves; all fairly mundane. 

What has my attention are the [Multi-Spectrum Goggles], they're less goggles and more... head-gear strapped with an adjustable arm ending in an eye-piece with a bunch of multicolored lenses on knobs; it doesn't have any clear use on first glance and it's description is frankly absolutely useless without context... but it looks neat.

The reagent case is really something too, unlabeled bottles full of powders and fluids that I dare not open as for why… one of them has a silvery fluid that can only be mercury. Again, there must be a meaning to it all but for the life of me I can’t figure out what the fuck I’d need with pure mercury.

The field alchemy lab…

"It’s… it’s a mad scientist’s laboratory in a box..."

I can’t describe it as anything else; I don’t know the name for all the fancy glassware here, but I’m 90% certain an expert could use it to brew up some seriously useful and/or dangerous shit.

The crate of vials is split between standard potion ones and another set that are identical to the bomb bottles with the tops stored separately next to a jar of clear goo…

"Sealing resin? I was wondering how those bomb bottles had such a seamless form..."

The bottle sling is, well, its a leather sling with a saddle for bottles; I suppose it’s better than throwing them manually.

The formula book is the real star here; it’s got step by step illustrated instructions for making… stuff.

What stuff? Not sure yet, it’s all in that sort of half-pictographic language all the bottles are labeled with.

Aaaand three more of those gems.

As awesome as this stuff theoretically is, this is getting tedious...

“Next..."

I’m floored by the contents; these aren’t just enough to get started on, no, we’re well beyond that point. 

"I’m armed like a secessionist."

A pair of bandoliers, simple enough but very sturdy with slots for twenty of those little explosive bottles.

A dark metal helmet of oddly modern construction that latches on with a chin strap, I can’t identify the metal either… the description was unhelpfully vague on that front but it seems extremely protective, with a sweeping design that covers the sides of the head and back of the neck.

The flak jacket is another mystery, it’s a leather vest with a set of adjustable straps on either side, if I’m understanding the design correctly, it’s meant to be worn over lighter armor. Inside the vest are thin sheets of a blue metal that is almost certainly not steel… once again the description doesn’t tell me jack but I’m beginning to think this is some sort of fantasy metal.

The alchemical bombs are easy to recognize and now I can tell what my starting set was; the weird triangle-r⁵²? thing must be the symbol for acid and as I expected the snowflake was for ice.

The descriptions on the bombs are... uncomfortable to read considering I've been lugging around a dozen of those fragile looking glass containers while jumping off cliffs and climbing trees, but eh, I've made it this far so maybe it's alright.

The blasting putty is really where its at, putting it delicately, it’s essentially a brick of ‘magic C4’ and I’m nervous just holding it; if my understanding is correct.., in these 500 grams is enough power turn this entire building into a smoking crater.

The [Madman’s Cookbook] really catches my eye above everything else. Unless my eyes fool me, it contains pictographic instructions for the creation of all sorts of delightfully volatile things; the juxtaposition of such dangerous contents with the bright and simple illustrations is hilarious in its own way.

“It’s like a picture-book edition of the Anarchist’s Cookbook…”

aaand of course the requisite three little gems with unhelpful descriptions.

“Alrighty, after three confirmations that these boxes can be trusted to some degree, I don’t think I need to hunker down as much for the rest.”

Thankfully the [Greater Magic Bag] makes cleanup a snap, everything just sort of vanishes in between blinks.

"So now, lets see if these treasure boxes are worth anything..."

Taking a [Treasure Box: Bonus Welcome Pack] in hand, I tug on the string with the intention of opening it when a message from the system pops up.

Level 1500? I don’t know what the scaling is around here, but that feels… big?

“Fuck it, I’ll open one now and see what sort of stuff it gives and save the rest for later.”

When the string is pulled, the packaging on the box unfolds to reveal a massive six sided die that leaps up into the air and spins before tumbling back to earth and landing on a 1.

…

"Unacceptable."

I give that die the hardest kick I can and watch it bounce off the wall off the chapel before coming to rest again on a 6.

"Muuuch better, I make my own fucking luck.”

Following that it bursts into a blinding golden light and the menu appears to tell me what my winnings are.

The light subsides as I read through the menu and the resulting rewards appear on the unfolded brown paper sheet.

Reading the description of the [Babel Stone] is like being dunked in ice water; I never did get how isekai protagonists can hold onto like, fucking Excalibur and not get at least a little fucking nervous.

At first it looks to be a fairly mundane piece of sandstone with cuneiform script on it but when I look at it closely the text seems to move and I hear distant thunder and indistinct voices screaming in strange languages.

“Okay so, gonna put that in the bag and not think about it.”

Out of sight, out of mind as they say.

Now, moving on from the new thing I'm not thinking about, those scrolls seem fairly nifty; once again I have no idea how to use them but when I figure it out I might as well give it a shot. They look old as dirt and the script is indeed incomprehensible but they aren't fragile; maybe it's because they're magic or maybe they're just like calfskin.

Finally, the pearl and the spark.

They levitate.

Like literally they're floating maybe three inches above the ground, one is a glowing white pearl and the other is a sort of mote of light... physics be damned they're just floating. I swipe my hand through the empty space beneath both of them and can't find any wires, smoke, mirrors, or any other flavor of bullshit.

"I knew magic was theoretically a thing here but seeing this is just... weird."

While contemplating the floating magic... things, the words of that message come back to me 'a tiered reward matching your current level capping out at level 1500'.

"I'm totally saving the rest of these for as long as humanly possible. This is a blind box that can give me fucking superpowers on its lowest setting; you can bet your ass I'm going to milk it for all it's worth."

After letting the shock pass, I toss my prizes in the [Greater Magic Bag] and then skip over the message from the [Treasure Box: Universal Administration Reparations Pack], it reads the same anyway.

The die appears the same as last time and flies up into the air, but this time before it lands I give it a kick… I was haphazard in my last meddling, but incredibly, I feel like I can see what it’ll land on and even manipulate it this time.

Of course I get it to land on a six.

“Fuck yeah, I am the great-”

"-est..."

This little window is red.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again, that's fucking ominous."

"Oh don't get fucking snippy with me! I didn't see any rules saying I couldn't do that! Maybe if you fucking explained some shit to me I wouldn't have to pull shit like that!"

...

No response... of course.

I am just shouting at a menu screen.

"Fuck it, confirm."

Only after confirming that message does the die finally burst into that golden light to reveal my prizes. whatever, I choose not to worry about it; I have plenty of other things to worry about.

At first blush, that's worrying, but what I see on the ground in front of me is... a sturdy nylon duffel bag.

"Holy shit, my gym bag?"

Digging in it I find my cellphone, my water bottle, a protein bar, shampoo, body wash, conditioner, deodorant, a hairbrush, a microfiber towel, and the crowning glory: clothes.

"Finally some body covering that doesn't smell like ass! Oh I take back every bad thing I said about you incompetent [Universal Administration] chucklefucks!"

"It's decided. Tomorrow morning when I go down to the lake for water, I'm going to get enough to take a fucking bath; tonight however... this system is going to cough up every bit of information I ask about, or so help me I will find a way to stab it."

Roxyreads

My sincerest apologies for two item-sorting chapters back to back with only one side chapter to soften it up, I've done my best to keep things from being too dry but I want to stay true to the character and give a window into her thought processes and I couldn't think of a non-contrived reason for her not to open those boxes!

I'll be posting a big info dump after this representing the info Amber manages to shake out of the system, feel free to skip it if you like, you should be able to pick things up from context clues later.

Thanks for reading!