Flynn decided that he was going to be optimistic. Sure, he was trapped in a fleshy hellscape. Sure, the world had gone crazy. Sure, monsters were everywhere.

  But.

  He had magic at his fingertips. He had a cute little bow-friend. Cheek, as if it’d heard his thoughts, did a little cartwheel to his amusement.

  He had a bow in hand, and a devilishly handsome illusion for eye-candy. He had a lot of good things going for him.

  Look at it like an adventure, he told himself. Like a DnD campaign. He could almost imagine himself seated behind his desk; eyes glued to his computer screen, blanket around him and a bag of chips to the side as Tim voiced in his very dramatic deep, rumbling DM tone the happenings of the story.

  The lone archer strode through the Buttholio Caverns, enduring the great stench and the ever-present threat of monsters to see his great promise kept. Great promise? Did he need one of those to start an adventure? Flynn considered that. He promised to survive. No. He promised to thrive.

  ‘That’s a pretty great promise.’ Especially considering the circumstances.

  And as the lone archer walked, so too did other, malevolent things walk in the shadows. Stalking him with eyes full of greed and hunger. Flynn paused. Eh. It didn’t feel the same.

  Tim would’ve been more descriptive. The man had a handle of words that a mere amateur like him couldn’t match. He pr-

  Cheek swept into view, and Flynn through their bond, he knew immediately that something was wrong.

  The bow summoned an arrow on its drawstring and pulled back before it took aim at some place behind him. Or something.

  He whirled, his bow raised, and arrow summoned.

  Flynn’s eyes narrowed. The gloom was thick, the ambient light only present in scattered patches around him, but it was enough for him to barely make out the faces of the three monsters inching towards him. They were the same species as the one he’d killed earlier. Flynn frowned, before a thought struck him.

  ‘Ah. Magic practice. How nice of you to show up.’ He smiled as he took careful aim and then loosed at the center-most monster. His arrow flew true, and the stocky little creatures were too slow to dodge it. The arrow struck the first monster square in the head, cutting deep through bone and meat with a fleshy squelch. A second later, the arrow exploded with a light that cut through the gloom like a torch in the dark.

  Flynn was forced to look away. Maybe he’d over-tuned the flash-bang in that Spectacle Arrow. It explained the larger than normal drain in his mana.

  He hoped that the light hadn’t attracted any unwanted attention.

  He was quick to look back. He saw spots in the dark, though that was just his eyes adjusting. No other unwanted presences that he could see. Good, though Flynn figured that he’d better get moving quick.

  The other two monsters had been stunned by the light given how they ambled about like drunks after a heavy night’s binge. Killing them with a single shot each had been easy enough. Flynn thanked Cheek for the warning, and the little guy pecked him in reply. He then turned about, ready to slink towards somewhere quieter, when he noticed a glimmer out of the corner of his eye. It came from one of the monster corpses.

  Was he still seeing spots? No. That was an actual glow.

  Torn between a desire to leave and the gremlin-like desire to study the shiny thing, he finally lightly swore and gave in to his greed. Damn his inner loot-goblin. Softly stalking forth, he sidled up to the corpse, his bow ready and his fingers light in case it was some kind of trick.

  On its body, right next to where his arrow still sat, was a softly shining finger-sized stone, or maybe a gem. Whatever it was, it was dull for all that it was slightly aglow, its surface a lusterless off-white, like a freshly laid egg. Flynn blinked, before his lips curled upwards in a knowing smile.

  Of course.

  Everything else was so beautifully game-like in design, so why not this too? Why wouldn’t the monsters drop loot?

  Lucky Gift

  Rank 1 Spellgem

  Every slain foe has a 5% chance to drop a [Lucky Gift]

  A [Lucky Gift] can contain any one of the following :-

  A minor healing potion

  A minor mana potion

  A minor stamina potion

  A slice of bread

  A cup of water

  A soft pillow

  A small blanket

  A slip of paper containing a limerick

  A refreshing breeze

  A cat’s meow

  Flynn almost guffawed after he’d read the tooltip, but he caught himself in time. Pocketing the item, he quickly hurried away into the dark. The time to contemplate his earnings would come later, when he was secluded somewhere safe.

  Well. Somewhere relatively safe.

  He was still in a hellscape after all. Fortunately, he found a good spot after just a few minutes of searching. It was a secluded dip behind a weird patch of black stone that poked out of the flesh around it.

  “Keep an eye out, or a sight out, Cheek. Tell me if you see anything.” The bow nodded.

  Flynn thanked it before he returned his attention to the gem. Its dull glow had faded away in the meanwhile, leaving it an interesting but featureless polished white rock.

  Its effects remained, though.

  Flynn reclined into the soft embrace of the fleshy surface behind him.

  It provided a lot to take in. Alright. First things first, the effect itself was pretty interesting. He’d never been much of a fan of luck-based mechanics in any game. It felt too gatcha-like for his taste, and too heavily weighted towards those with the means and the willingness to shell out dollar-dollar for the conveniently available cash items that allowed for a slight boost in their fortunes.

  That said, there were no cash shops here, and some of the rewards were very appealing. The potions most of all. He needed those, if only as preparation for the worst. Long-range though his class may be, Flynn wasn’t quite so optimistic as to believe that he could pass the whole exam without suffering a single scratch.

  A healing potion could very well be a life-saving godsend when he needed it. A cat’s meow was pretty cool too.

  The gem also had a rank, and that clearly meant something. Flynn remembered that his spells had a rank too, and the exact same rank, and the gem was called a spellgem. The connection was there. The link was obvious.

  A consumable item? A boost? Or a socketed item? The thought struck him immediately and he pulled up his character sheet.

  There, beneath the rank of each of his spells was an empty grey circle. He’d not paid it much mind before when there’d been more important things to consider, but now?

  Further application of focused will onto its dull surface did nothing. Flynn nodded quietly before he raised the gem up to the book and pushed into it his intent for the gem to connect with the spell.

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  Socket Spellgem?

  Would you like to socket Lucky Gift to Spectacle Arrow?

  A wide grin swept his lips.

  Progress, how sweet its nectar.

  Flynn declined the option and tried again with his other two spells and received the same options twice more. He declined them again and set the gem down, his gaze thoughtful. Now that he knew how to use it, the question remained about how best it should be used.

  Where would this be the most applicable, he asked himself. Not Illusionary Self, because it couldn’t kill anything. Either Spectacle Arrow or little Cheek.

  He studied the gem’s tooltip again before he stilled. Wait.

  The description of the spell never specified that its effects only applied to the spell it was socketed to. Every slain foe, it said. Didn’t that mean that it could work on his Illusionary Self. Wouldn’t it affect him wholly no matter where it was socketed?

  It was a theory worth testing. Steeling himself, he slotted it into Illusionary Self.

  There was no satisfying click as it settled into place, but he imagined that there was. A second later, the spell’s tooltip immediately updated.

  Create Illusionary Self

  Rank 1

  (Lucky Gift)

  Create a false image of yourself that will follow your commands. Your image cannot physically affect anything and does not produce sound or smell. It can last for up to 10 minutes and is not bound to you by proximity.

  Up to three Illusionary Selves can be maintained at any given time.

  Every slain foe has a 5% chance to drop a [Lucky Gift]

  A [Lucky Gift] can contain any one of the following:-

  A minor healing potion

  A minor mana potion

  A minor stamina potion

  A slice of bread

  A cup of water

  A soft pillow

  A small blanket

  A slip of paper containing a limerick

  A refreshing breeze

  A cat’s meow

  Flynn tested whether the gem could be removed again and found that it could be without any problem. Satisfied, he resocketed it and rose to his feet, waving away the page. Now came the fun part: testing his little theory. He wondered how long it’d take him to find his test subjects. Or how long it’d take them to find him.

  ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

  As it turned out, not very long. The archer had scarcely walked five minutes from the pit before Cheek alerted him to their approach.

  Five of the same species as before crept towards him, the air alive with the squelch of feet against flesh. This time, the creatures were spaced widely apart in a loose semi-circle. He frowned at that. Their numbers kept increasing, he noted, and now they were trying to surround him instead of just charging straight at him?

  It felt to him like they were learning as they died to his arrows. Improving. Would killing these five make the next seven or ten or whatever that much harder to kill?

  He smiled at the thought. Would he care if it did? It’d be a challenge, and Flynn did love his challenges.

  He strung his bow, as did Cheek. “Keep the two on my left busy, little buddy. Kill them if you can or just keep them away from me if you can’t.”

  There was a pulse of agreement from their bond.

  Flynn took aim at the nearest of the monsters, sucked in a fortifying breath, and then loosed. The second it left his fingers, Flynn knew that the arrow would hit the thing square in the head, but these monsters were either smarter or more agile than their precursors and it managed to dodge his shot. Just barely, but it managed.

  It didn’t dodge the flash of light that followed. Two of the creatures shrieked in pain, but the third managed to look away at the last second. Was it just lucky, or had known to expect his Spectacle Arrow? Wouldn’t save it either way. Smarter though they were, stronger they were not.

  His follow up shots killed all three of the monsters without much fuss, deft footwork keeping him well away from their gnashing maws.

  Turning away, Flynn found Cheek well in control of its assigned foes. One of the monsters was clearly dead, its body peppered with little arrows, but the other was alive and only lightly wounded. “Need some help?” he asked.

  It refused adamantly. Flynn could almost imagine it exclaiming that it could handle them on its own. Maybe not a little pet, he thought, reconsidering his image of it, but more an excitable little brother. Did that make him a big brother?

  Flynn figured that he should show his support, as a big brother should. It took the little bow the better part of two minutes, and a decent chunk of his mana, but it eventually killed the thing. He grinned and showered it with praise at the feat, and it spent a solid minute twirling around his shoulders as a result.

  You have earned a level

  2 >> 3

  You have earned a trait

  Forerunner: Monster Slayer

  Achievement Trait - Legendary

  Requirement: Global first to slay 10 monsters.

  +5% to all Stats.

  Trait Spell: Monster Sense

  Flynn blinked.

  Okay.

  Okay.

  He saw no Lucky Gifts glimmering amongst the corpses, but that was fine. That was absolutely fine. Because the heavens had slapped him with a much bigger meal to sink his meal into.

  A trait. He’d wondered what those were, but the tooltips had nothing to say so he’d pushed it to the corner of his mind. Now he knew. They were achievements, basically.

  And what an achievement to be his first. A legendary achievement to boot. Flynn’s blue orbs danced over the words beneath the title.

  Global first to slay ten monsters. That alone was a lot to digest.

  Because the word global implied so much.

  Flynn swallowed thickly. He’d never even considered that whatever was happening to him might’ve been happening everywhere. That all this crazy shit was just a small part of something much wider in scope. What did that mean then? Was everyone around the world trapped in mundane structures gone mad? Had the local library been turned into a den of monsters? Was the community pool infested with monstrous squids? The Walmart around the corner? An offic-

  Office building. Flynn blinked. His aunt and uncle. They would’ve been at work when he’d first fallen unconscious. How were they doing? Were they trapped in a similar hell? Just the thought alone was enough to claw at his nerves. He could easily picture his aunt being run down by one of the ape things, or his uncle fighting desperately to survive.

  Flynn grit his teeth. More images flashed through his brain, and it took an effort of will to swallow down all the murky, unpleasant thoughts that sprang forth from an overactive imagination.

  No, he told himself. He couldn’t function by assuming the worst. What had he decided just moments ago? Be optimistic. Think positive. He sucked in a calming breath. Right. They’d be alright. Both of them were made of hardy stuff. They were fighters. Whatever was happening, they’d make it through just fine. They had to.

  They would.

  After all, he was the first in the world to kill monsters? What’d that mean?

  He’d done it with just a bow. A normal gun could’ve mowed down every monster he’d seen so far with ease, except maybe the exam monster. And even it would die to the heavy stuff that the military and police had access to.

  But they hadn’t. He had. Flynn could only come up with two explanations to explain why. One: guns and all the rest of humanity’s better weaponry had somehow been disabled outside. He had no way to test that, but it checked out. He’d only seen archaic weapons since he’d woken up. Bows, knuckle-dusters, the lot.

  Two: there were either no or fewer monsters outside than there were here. That was the one he was counting on. It would explain why he’d managed an early lead. It would mean that his family was safe. It was what he needed to be true.

  Flynn sucked in a breath.

  Discounting the reasons why, the reward itself was very interesting.

  A percentage stat boost, and to all stats? Sure, five percent didn’t sound like much. Not at the lower levels. But in the twenties? The fifties? The hundreds, if levels could even go that high. How big would his base stats be then? How big his gains?

  If he could push his stats high enough, then the extra stats he’d gain from the trait would be a sizable boost to his ability, and it gave him cause to wonder how often he could expect to find other traits that would give him percentage gains. Not very often, he presumed, given the requirement. Thinking on it, he idly wondered if there were more variations of the trait. It seemed weird to have a ‘first to slay ten’, and not more. Had there not been a ‘first to slay a monster’ trait? First to slay fifty, or a hundred?

  If there was one, he’d already missed out on the first. The others...

  Flynn felt that familiar upwelling of greed that spurred every achievement hunter forward, but more desperate. More pressing. He couldn’t risk losing it, not now that he’d grasped the scale of whatever was going on.

  He’d need that strength when he managed to escape and reunite with his family.

  Which mean that there was no longer any time to waste fucking about. He’d have to start grinding.

  Fortunately, he’d been gifted with just the spell to make that easy.

  Monster Sense

  Trait Spell - Rank 1

  ?

  Passively detect the presence of monsters within a fifty-meter radius.

  Yes, that would do. It would do very nicely.