As I opened the door for Mike and I to leave the flight deck, we were greeted with sheer panic and chaos. The sound of hundreds of people yelling assaulted our ears as we stepped out. Half of the passengers had moved to the isles and were arguing with the flight attendants. You could see the panic in everyone's eyes as they had no idea what was going on.

  I tried to grab the phone that usually served as the loud speaker, in the front of the aircraft, but when I picked it up nothing happened. Apparently our electronics were thoroughly screwed. However I wasn't completely unprepared for this situation. So I positioned myself where the most people could see me, put two fingers into my mouth, and whistled loud enough to make my ears ring slightly. That got almost everyone's attention.

  "Listen up everybody!" I yelled, so that those near the back could hear me. "A lot has happened in the last hour or so. I've seen things that can't be explained. Or at least that I don't have an answer to. I don't know what's going on right now. However I do know that somehow magic is a thing. I know, Shocking, I get it. When I woke up this morning I definitely didn't think that my day would go like this, but here we are. I'm sure that by now you've all read the system messages that so politely decided to clog our field of view. I can tell you right now that they are very real."

  I took a moment to let that statement sink in. Then I continued.

  "I don't know how many, if any of you, were awake during what happened in the last hour. however, I was and I can tell you that everything I have read so far from a system message has happened."

  Several people started trying to speak up and yell over me at that moment asking various questions about our situation.

  "Listen!" I shouted. "We can discuss what's going on and how we might go about surviving all of this later, however right now we have a bit of a situation. Approaching from the front of the airplane are some not so friendly looking people. We probably only have a few minutes before they get to us, and I use the term people quite loosely."

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean!?" Somebody shouted.

  "For lack of a better term there's a small army of what look like goblins running towards us as I speak."

  Almost all of the passengers started talking at once. You could see the disbelief and worry on their faces. In short order everyone talking turned into loud chaos so I whistled again.

  "Look, From what I could tell almost all of these goblins looked to be about half the size of a regular human. With our landing gear down we're sitting almost 10 ft above the ground. The immediate threat might not be as worrisome as it could be however we need to be prepared.

  If you haven't already done so, once you choose your class you will be able to see your stats and you will be granted a spell or ability from what I can tell. If anyone has chosen a class that gave them a ranged spell, please come up towards the front of the plane where we might be able to defend it better. I ask that everyone else please stay in your seats and make way for those who are trying to assist us."

  Many still stayed in a state of panic refusing to accept the reality that was right in front of their eyes. The only reason I was doing so well was because I was a major fan of Japanese culture. Some of which was isekai, and had to do with being teleported away to a world with video game logic. You could say in a way that I've been waiting for this my whole life.

  If only I had my wife and kids with me when it happened. Now they're probably on the opposite side of this monstrous world, facing the same insanity without me. The system wants survival of the fittest? Fine. Then I'll get as strong as it takes. Strong enough to cross a sun sized planet if I have to. Nothing on earth, or whatever this is now, is going to stop me from getting back to them.

  Despite those panicking some did make their way up towards the front of the plane, and offer help.

  "Mr Captain, sir?" Came the petite voice a young japanese lady pulling me from my thoughts. "I was given an archery class called 'shadowfletcher'. I would like to help."

  She looked to be in her early twenties and was wearing what was probably a college uniform. She had a dress shirt and tie worn under a suit coat with some sort of crest on the left breast area, and a black skirt that went down to about knee length.

  "Excellent, what kind of spell or ability did it give you?" I asked with perhaps a bit to much enthusiasm.

  "Nightbolt, It lets me shoot a mana formed arrow of shadow from my bow, and apparently the system gave me a basic wooden one. But I don't know how to find it."

  Thinking, I remembered that the system said I received a basic wooden staff. I tried thinking about pulling up an inventory, since the system seems to be reading our minds, and almost instantly a 10 by 10 grid of boxes popped up in front of my field of view.

  Save for The very first box, which had a tiny picture of a wooden staff in it, all the others were empty. The picture was labeled 'basic wooden staff x 1'. I held out my hand in a gesture like I was about to grab a staff and mentally selected it. Instantly a wooden staff about chest height from the floor up appeared in my hand. The Japanese girl took a step back, surprised by the sudden appearance of it, and I could hear gasps from the other passengers seated nearby.

  "Apparently you just have to think about opening an inventory. Then you can select it and it will appear in your hand."

  A moment later a simple wooden bow appeared in the young girls hand, then disappeared again, then reappeared.

  "I wish I could have done this before the flight. Would have saved me a ton on checking my bags."

  I hiked a thumb over my shoulder. "Hey I don't make the prices. I just fly the airplanes. That's all Mike's fault over there. He's the one who makes the prices so high not me."

  "We literally have basically the same job dude." Mike said from behind me.

  "He might not admit to it but it's definitely all his fault." I said conspiratorily to the young girl.

  That's when a large man got my attention. He was in his mid to late 40s, and was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts with tall white socks on inside of sandals.

  "I've got a ranged spell" he said. His voice deep and resonating. "It's called 'thundershard'. It says I can toss an unstable ball of electricity that explodes on impact."

  "That sounds awesome!" I almost shouted. "Uh... I mean, yeah, thanks for helping that sounds very useful."

  "Your enjoying this way to much" I heard Mike mutter from behind me.

  "Anyway I suppose I should go look back upfront and see where they are." I hurriedly said. "It looked like we should still have several minutes when I seen them last."

  I walked back onto the flight deck, and looked out the windows expecting them to be almost on us. But I couldn't see them anywhere. I scanned the surrounding areas for any signs of movement but there was nothing.

  "Hmm... That's probably not good" I muttered.

  I turned to head back when an explosion rocked the side of the aircraft. I hurried back out to the front of the aisle. There I could see a large group of people had moved away from the windows and were pushing themselves towards the other side of the plane in a panic.

  When I looked closer I could see that the windows were blackened where you could barley see through them anymore. As I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what was happening several more explosions went off along the same side of the plane, so I rushed over to one of the windows closer to me that wasn't completely covered in the dark charing. Just outside I could see that the goblins had grouped together in mass, and several were flinging fire balls at the side of the fuselage.

  I turned back around to Mike and the others. "Alright, I don't know how long the side of the fuselage will last with a barrage like that. we need to act fast. Mike do you think you can make some ranged damage happen with your class?"

  "Yea, shouldn't be a problem"

  "Alright good. Mike you and this young lady go down to the next exit door and get ready. Make sure you disarm the emergency slide so it's not blocking your field of fire when you open the door. We can always set them off later after we handle this. Let me know when your ready."

  "On it." Mike said as he and the Japanese girl hurried down past a few rows of seats to the next exit.

  A few moments later he gave me the thumbs up and shouted

  "Ready!"

  "Alright, on the count of 3." I said as I grasped my staff in one hand and put the other on the door handle. Looking over at Mike I yelled "1, 2, 3!"

  We both jerked open our respective doors. The goblins noticing almost immediately. However I wasn't about to give them an opportunity to take advantage of it.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  I mentally aimed at the goblins who had been throwing fireballs and willed myself to cast Arcane Squadron. I could feel myself draw from a pool of energy inside myself that had never existed untill today. The power flowed through me like liquid fire and into my staff creating a glowing green orb of arcane energy at the top. Then about a dozen aircraft the size of footballs glowing with neon green light zipped off toward the enemy with the sound of little bottle rockets.

  At the same time I cast the spell I noticed a heads up display appear to the edge of my field of view.

  "So each Arcane Squadron costs 4 mana. Noted." I thought as I watched the 'squadron' split up about half way there.

  They Fanned out so 3 or 4 planes went to each of the goblins I mentally aimed at. When they struck, they visibly did some bludgeoning damage, rocking the bodies of the goblins back a bit and tearing flesh where the propellers struck. Then once the plane had made contact and caused some damage the entire construct exploded in a flash of green arcane force damage.

  In less than two heart beats almost a half dozen enemies were reduced to pink mist and body parts.

  "Holy hell," I muttered, already casting again. "These things pack a punch"

  Only a moment after the first spell struck home, the Hawaiian shirt guy tossed a crackling ball of electricity towards the center of the group. As it arched toward them, I Saw black streaks raining sideways toward the goblins from the other exit door. Each obsidian black bolt popping a goblins head for the body's to fall lifelessly to the ground. Then the crackling ball touched down and unleashed an enormous explosion of blueish white lighting engulfing a half dozen of the goblins at once. When the light faded all that was left of those caught in the blast were charred smoking corpses.

  Then I saw what looked like frisby's with some kind of daggers or spikes mounted along the edge. They spun down to assault those remaining, crashing into goblins, and rending flesh apart causing howls of pain.

  "That's metal as hell." I muttered "Way to go mike."

  While all of this was happening the goblins were still trying to assault us however they could. From the looks of it we had already taken out their spell casters though, because the rest of them swung ineffectually at the landing gear with clubs, axes, and swords or tried to throw whatever they could at one of the two openings.

  While I was distracted by all the action, one of the goblins managed to land a lucky hit with a rock about the size of a baseball. It stuck me on my right brow leaving a gash bleeding into my eye.

  Glancing at the HUD I had 96/100 HP.

  That hurt like hell but didn't really do much damage. I wonder if I'm more resilient now? I feel like a baseball sized rock might of knocked me unconscious or something before today.

  Then one last ball of electricity from the Hawaiian shirt guy took out the last 3 goblins that were batting at the landing gear.

  "Pretty sure these things are feral" he said. "They just kept attacking blindly. Like they just wanted to damage something or someone. At least they go down easily."

  "Yea, I think I one shot-ed like a dozen. But at least the passengers are safe and we can figure out our next step."

  "My next step is assigning my free points. I got 3 levels from these guys"

  "Oh really?" I asked as I noticed my own blue dot flashing in my peripheral. "Guess I should check mine too."

  Opening my stat window I seen that I had several messages waiting.

  As soon as I opened my notifications and acknowledged the levels I could feel the bliss of the system power coursing through me again. It was a very distracting sensation, which made me happy that apparently you had to acknowledge the levels you gained. Otherwise I could see a level up getting you unintentionally harmed or killed in battle. But on the bright side it looked like accepting a level renewed your resources. My health jumped to full replenishing the couple points I lost. I touched my brow and the cut was gone.

  As the rush of bliss faded I took the time to recap what happened. Apparently I gain 1 point per stat per level. Then my class gives an additional point in Intelligence, Wisdom and Will Power as well as 2 free points each level.

  Hmm... 8 Free points... I suppose if I plan on surviving all this I'll need to have extra health Points to make myself as resilient as possible, as well as health regeneration to heal from any wounds.Alright here goes nothin.

  I put 5 in vitality and the other 3 in constitution. Another wave of ecstasy rolled over me as they clicked into place. Then I pulled up my stats to check a theory I had.

  I could tell that vitality and constitution controlled HP and HP re-gen respectively, and it looked like intelligence and wisdom controlled mana and mana re-gen. Then presumably Endurance and fortitude controlled stamina and stamina re-gen. I felt like perception made me perceive the world a bit better but I couldn't tell for sure. As far as Will Power, Charisma, and luck I'll just have to wait and see.

  "Hey Mike." I called out.

  He came walking back with the Japanese girl.

  "That was a great job guys. We were able to defend the plane and keep everyone safe for the time being. Thank you both for your help. I wasn't able to get your names earlier. I'm Dean, nice to meet you both."

  "My name is Akira" the Japanese girl started. " It was a pleasure helping. My father and I made many hunting trips when I was young. Shooting the boar and dear. In many ways, this felt similar just with more targets. If there is anything else I can do just let me know."

  "I will be sure to do so. What about you? What's your name" I asked the Hawaiian shirt guy.

  "Greg." He said. "Im retired U.S. Navy, and I've worked as an electrical engineer for the past 10 years or so. I figure thats how I got my class."

  I shook his hand "I did 10 years in the army before my wife demesticated me. It's good to have a brother in arms on board. Thanks again for the help."

  I walked over to the exit door on the other side of the plane, and when I opened the door the emergency slide deployed.

  "I'd say the next thing we need to do is get these people off of the plane. Any of those fireballs could have left something burning. Let's ask around and see if anyone else has a combat class and get them to help form a perimeter around the area. We're gonna need lookouts in case anymore guests try to come introduce themselve. Make sure you use this side of the plane though. I know we've got a couple kids back there and they don't need to see what's off our other wing. Mike can you and the flight attendants make that happen? I'm gonna go ahead and take a look around."

  "You got it" Mike said as he turned to go get the flight attendants who were still trying to calm panicking passengers.

  I gestured toward Akira and Greg. "Would either of you two like to join me in a little scouting of the area?"

  They both agreed and made their way to the exit.

  "I'll see you at the bottom then." I said with a wave as I hoped out the door.