Ten Very Boring Days Later
Darian sat in the dark, hunched over on his mattress like a gargoyle, watching the seconds crawl.
"Come on..."
00:00:07
[ WORLD STIMULATION SYSTEM READY ]
Points: 10
Begin Selection?
Darian's hand hovered in the air. He grinned like a wolf starving for a second chance.
"Round two, you smug piece of software."
He hit [YES].
[ CONFIRMED ]Points reset: 0 / ∞
The instant he pressed [YES], the system drained him.
Ten points—gone like breath in frost.
His grin faltered.
"…Right. Forgot about that."
Three shimmering panels unfolded before him, bathing the moldy room in faint, flickering light.
The list was back.
Thousands of identities.Thousands of lives.Thousands of dreams he couldn't afford.
He scanned it anyway, just to hurt himself.
—Arcane-Blooded Prodigy: 3,000,000 Points.—Child of a Noble House: 150,000 Points.—Chosen by the Moonlit Church: 72,000 Points.—Peasant: 0 Points.
That last one didn't even try to pretend.
Commoner — Free
Pros: NoneCons: Everything
Limited food. No training. No birthright. No magic.High probability of death in early childhood.Still no refunds.
Darian stared at it, dead-eyed.
"…Back to the dirt again."
His finger hovered over the Free option like it personally owed him money. Then he sighed, pressed it.
[ Identity Selected: Peasant ]
[ Please Select Operation Time ]
Default Start Age: 20Note: Each year younger costs 10 points.
He didn't even have one.
The scroll bar just laughed at him with its silence.
"20 it is," he muttered. "Again."
[ Age Confirmed: 20 ]
[ Begin World Transfer? ]
Darian didn't press it right away. He sat back, rubbed his face, and stared up at the ceiling. The piss stain had started to look like a map of all the places he wasn't allowed to go.
"Alright," he muttered, dragging his hands down his face. "Let's try this differently."
He glanced around his tiny room like someone preparing for battle.
Then he folded his hands, bowed his head, and said:
"I don't know if there's a god of war, or luck, or statistically improbable survival odds... But if any of you sick bastards are listening…"
He inhaled.
"…Please. Just give me a body that can hold down a meal before it keels over."
He opened his eyes.
Grinned.
"Alright. Light me up."
He hit
[ BEGIN ]
[WORLD STIMULATION: INITIATED]
Points: 0
Identity: Peasant Militia
Darian woke to screaming.
And mud. And something cold and splintered gripped in his shaking hands.
The sky above him was gray—sickly, choked with smoke. Ash drifted like dirty snowflakes. He blinked hard. His vision swam. Somewhere in the distance, metal clashed against metal. Horses shrieked. Men shouted. Something roared like a dying god.
His head turned sluggishly.
Corpses lay in the mud beside him. Faces twisted. Eyes glassy. One still twitched, like the body didn't know it was dead yet.
His breath hitched. He dropped the thing in his hands—a pitchfork. It landed with a wet thud.
He stared at his fingers. Blistered. Red. Mud-caked. Someone's blood on the cuff of his sleeve.
He couldn't remember how it got there.
"What is this…" he whispered.
Someone nearby screamed. Another boy—not much older than him—cried out, charging forward with a makeshift spear. He didn't get far. An arrow punched through his throat. He dropped without a sound.
Darian flinched. Something hot rose in his throat—panic, bile, or both.
"I can't… I'm not supposed to be here," he choked. "This isn't the game. This isn't right—"
A horn blew.
The world moved.
The line of boys surged forward.
Darian didn't.
He stood frozen as the ground shook beneath his feet. His heart slammed against his ribs. His body wouldn't move. Wouldn't listen.
A blur of motion—then a peasant beside him collapsed, blood pouring from a wound that looked wrong, like the body had been torn in the wrong direction.
"Move," Darian whispered to himself. "Move, move, move—"
Darian didn't charge.
He turned and ran.
A screaming commander pointing a sword at him like a guillotine.
"TURN AROUND OR DIE WHERE YOU STAND, YOU SON OF A WHORE!"
He picked up the pitchfork with trembling hands. The wood was slick.
He couldn't stop shaking.
He stepped forward, knees barely locking.
Then the first real clash happened, and someone screamed—loud and close. The sound was so human it broke something in him. The air reeked of iron and rot and shit.
Someone barreled into him. He stabbed without thinking—instinct, terror.
The pitchfork met flesh.
A boy. His age. Maybe younger.
It sank in.
For a moment, the world stopped.
The boy's eyes met his—round, wet, confused. He opened his mouth. No sound came. Just blood.
Darian let go.
The boy slumped, the fork still in him.
Darian staggered back, hands shaking violently. He stared at them like they weren't his.
He killed him.
He killed someone.
The battlefield kept moving. He stood still. A body slammed into him. A shout. A blade glanced off the dirt where his head had been seconds ago. His body moved before he did.
He didn't remember the next swing. Or the next one.
All he could hear was the blood in his ears and the silence where the boy's voice should have been.
All he could hear was the blood in his ears and the silence where the boy's voice should have been.
A shape lunged at him from the smoke.
His body moved before he could think.
Stab.
The pitchfork slammed forward—sloppy, not aimed, just shoved. It struck something soft. A scream, wet and human, tore through the fog. Hot blood sprayed his cheek.
Darian blinked.
Adrenaline surged. His heart felt like it was breaking his ribs.
Something in his mind snapped free. The fear was still there, but it got locked in a cage. A new voice took over vicious and Primitive.
Survive.
He screamed and jabbed again. A man fell—Darian didn't know how, or why. Just blood. Just mud. Just pain. One kill blurred into the next.
He didn't feel the cuts on his arms. Didn't feel the weight in his legs. Everything narrowed into the seconds between killing and dying.
Kill.
Move.
Breathe.
Kill.
Thought was gone. Memory was gone. Even the system—gone.
All that remained was the pitchfork. His hands. The enemy.
And the choice: them or me.
Time stretched. Minutes or hours—he didn't know.
When the horn finally blew again—retreat, or maybe victory—Darian found himself standing alone in a patch of churned-up earth, soaked in blood that wasn't his.
His hands trembled.
He stared at his blood-caked hands.
His chest heaved.
"I didn't want to…"
A deep, thunderous laugh snapped Darian out of his haze.
It rolled across the battlefield like an avalanche, drawing every eye.
A giant of a man was striding toward him. He wore mismatched armor—iron plates strapped crudely over boiled leather, dented and blackened with soot. His broad chest rose and fell like a bellows, steam curling from his body in the cold air.
His face was smeared with blood and ash, and his grin—too wide to be friendly—split the grime like a wound.
"Well, well," the man said, stepping over a corpse. "Didn't think you'd last this long, pup."
Around them, the battle had quieted. Men were gathering—mud-slick, blood-soaked survivors dragging themselves to the giant like he was a bonfire in the dark. Some dropped their weapons and collapsed into the mud, forming a rough, wide circle around him. Others stood alert, watching the tree line, weapons ready in case another wave came.
The giant took one last step forward and looked down at Darian.
"Name, boy?" he asked, voice rough as gravel but steady. "What do they call you?"
Darian blinked up at him, lips cracked, throat raw.
"…Adrian," he rasped, barely above a whisper. "My name is Adrian."
"Adrian, huh?" the giant muttered, tilting his head like he was tasting the name. "What a strange name. Sounds like something you'd give a mule with a limp."
He grinned again—big, wolfish—and without warning, he reached down and hoisted Darian clean off the ground, like he weighed nothing more than a sack of turnips.
"This little pup here," he bellowed, turning to the ragged circle of surviving peasants, "killed at least two score—by accident or blind rage, I'm still not sure!"
A few of the men chuckled. One spat blood and muttered, "He nearly stabbed me too…"
The commander laughed, full and loud. "Well then, lad—what do they call you? Any war names? 'The Bloody'? 'The Screaming Bastard'? 'Pitchfork Reaper'?"
Darian blinked, still dangling by the back of his collar.
"I... I don't know."
The giant scratched his beard, pretending to ponder it. "Hmm. Well, I've got a better one."
He turned, dropped Darian onto the dirt with a thud and declared, loud enough for everyone to hear:
"You shall be named... Son of a Whore!"
The men roared with laughter—some dry, some wheezing, a few probably laughing through cracked ribs.
The commander pointed at him. "Not because your mother was one—though, let's be honest, none of us here are nobles—but because I saw you trying to run like one. You had one foot in the mud and the other halfway to coward's piss."
The laughter grew.
"But," the man continued, raising a finger, "for your... ahem, admirable savagery—and the fact that most of the people you killed probably had it coming—you won't be flogged, hanged, or skinned."
He clapped Darian on the shoulder so hard it nearly broke bone.
The laughter dimmed.
The commander's grin didn't vanish—but it slowed, like ice creeping across his face. For a second, his eyes flicked with something unreadable. Then—
Without warning, his hand snapped out.
Darian didn't even get a breath in before the giant lifted him clean off the ground and slammed him into the mud with a thud that knocked the world sideways. The air left his lungs in a pathetic wheeze. The sky spun. Then darkness.
Not death—just the kind of pain that shuts the world off for a while.
As Darian lay sprawled, gasping, the commander turned to the others and barked:
"Someone get this pup a whore when we take the castle. Maybe then he'll stop crying about his mother."
The commander grunted and walked away, his boots splashing in the blood-thick mud.