Chapter 2: Limbo
Kade woke to the cool caress of a breeze against his face. His head pounded, the ancient warning from the gateway still echoing in his mind. Abandon all hope. Had he made a terrible mistake? Too late to reconsider now.
He pushed himself up from the surprisingly soft grass beneath him, taking in his surroundings with narrowed eyes. A thick gray fog hung in the air, restricting visibility to about one hundred feet in every direction. The landscape was a muted blend of gray and green, the grass underfoot verdant but somehow lacking vibrancy.
Looking up, Kade found no sun, no clouds—nothing. Just an empty void casting an unnatural twilight over everything. The dim illumination provided just enough light to see, but nothing more.
This place was far from inspiring confidence.
A blue notification pulsed at the edge of his vision. Kade focused on it, and the full message expanded before him:
[Welcome to Tutorial Level 1: The Gateway (Limbo), a realm of endless fog and disorientation. Those who enter Limbo are doomed to wander without purpose, forever separated from both salvation and damnation. Time has no meaning here. Distance is an illusion. Only the worthy find the path forward.]
[Main Quest: Discover the exit to proceed to Level 2]
[The faithful shall be rewarded...EV#N @S TH3!R SH@... CORRUPTED DATA... F?R#D !N H3@VE... ERROR...]
The corrupted text caught Kade's attention immediately. He frowned and tried examining it with his skill, but received nothing useful. An all-powerful interdimensional System with bugs? Seemed more likely to be flavor text considering how sophisticated everything else appeared. Something to keep in mind—being faithful is apparently good, whatever that means.
The description of Limbo matched what he could see, endless fog and disorientation. The 100-foot visibility already felt suffocating. Kade was thankful he wasn’t claustrophobic.
"System?" Kade called out, hoping for guidance. "What am I supposed to do exactly?" He waited for the blue interface to appear with instructions as it had in the white room, but there was only silence. The System that had been so responsive before now seemed to have abandoned him entirely to this gray purgatory.
At least the rest of the message and the main quest seem to indicate the main goal of this level. Easier said than done in a place where apparently "time has no meaning" and "distance is an illusion." Was this realm designed to be impossible to navigate? And what qualified someone as "worthy"? Kade hoped he met the criteria.
This "tutorial" was nothing like he had expected. He had anticipated a gradual introduction, maybe a friendly NPC guide, some starting equipment, at least some indication of which direction to head. Instead, he got vague quest objectives and cryptic, partially corrupted messages. In every RPG he'd ever played, the tutorial was the easiest part, designed to teach mechanics and ease players into the game world.
This was the opposite of that. Just thrown into the deep end and left to sink or swim.
He examined his status window, hoping for something that might help, but nothing had changed from before. No new skills, no equipment, not even a map function. Just the same underwhelming stats and the "Examine" skill that had proven nearly useless so far.
As he stared at his status pondering what to do, a new notification appeared:
[Beginner Quest: First Blood]
[Defeat your first enemy to begin your journey]
Kade half expected and half didn’t expect this. The initial System message gave off the feeling that no combat would be involved, only a navigation challenge, but that was inconsistent with the previous implications in the white room and the essence absorption skill. Kade was painfully aware he had no weapon and no special abilities. At least this counted as some sort of guidance from the now silent System.
Defeat an enemy—but what enemy? What kinds of creatures lurked in this fog? In most games, the first enemy was something trivial—slimes, goblins, rats, or wolves. Weak creatures designed to give new players a confidence boost and teach basic combat mechanics.
But this wasn't a game. Whatever he fought would have real claws, real teeth, real weapons. The thought sent a chill down his spine.
He stretched his arms overhead, working out the stiffness in his shoulders. The pen that had traveled with him all the way from his apartment still rested in his pocket. At least he had that. He picked it up and started twirling it between his fingers, an old habit that now felt incredibly soothing.
Lacking any better options or any idea on what to do, Kade picked a random direction and started walking. Better to explore than stay in one place and hope for the best.
The fog parted before him only to close again behind, creating the unsettling impression that the landscape was being generated as he moved through it, disappearing once he passed.
"Hello?" he called out, not knowing what he was hoping for, his voice sounding strangely muffled, as if the fog itself was absorbing the sound. No response came.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The message was right—time was impossible to track. The unchanging twilight offered no hint of passing hours, and the featureless landscape provided no markers to gauge distance traveled. Just grass and flowers, then more grass and flowers. Sometimes green, sometimes grey.
He was beginning to understand the difficulty of this tutorial. Internally cursing the System—if he'd known it would be this difficult, he might have returned to Earth. Well, probably not. Despite everything, he felt a glimmer of excitement at his situation.
After what felt like less than half an hour without encountering anything, Kade paused, doubt creeping in. His intuition was telling him that he should have met something by now like an enemy, and he swore that the patterns of flower and grass were changing, yet the message from System remained in the back of this mind.
"Distance is an illusion."
What if the fog was magical? What if even walking in a straight line would eventually lead him back to where he started? That seemed like a common plot point in stories—travelers walking for days only to find themselves back where they began. He needed to mark his path somehow.
A rustling sound broke the silence.
Kade froze, his hand reaching to pull up some grass and wildflowers to mark his path. The noise came again, closer this time, something moving through the grass just beyond his field of vision. He slowly rose to his feet, eyes straining to pierce the fog.
A hunched figure emerged from the gray haze. Standing barely three feet tall, its sickly green skin was covered in warts and blisters. Long, pointed ears framed a face dominated by a wide mouth filled with jagged yellow teeth. Beady red eyes fixated on Kade with unmistakable malice. In its gnarled hands, the creature clutched a rusty, notched sword.
A quick examine revealed a floating label appearing above the creature's head:
[Goblin Scout (Level 2)]
For one surreal moment, Kade almost wanted to laugh. A short ugly goblin? Really? Truly a tutorial enemy if he ever saw one. But the sight of that very real blade in its hands quickly sobered him. If that sword cut him, he would bleed.
The goblin let out a shrill war cry and charged.
Adrenaline flooded Kade's system. His muscles tensed, ready for fight or flight.
The System wasn't going to help, apparently. No helpful pop-up window. No combat guide. Nothing. He half believed that perhaps it would grant him powers once he got into his first fight. No such hope.
He backpedaled from the advancing goblin, dodging a wild swing, the rusty blade whistling through the air. Another strike came, and Kade jumped back again, the tip of the sword missing his stomach by inches. The creature was surprisingly quick.
His heart hammered in his chest as he weaved left and right, his eyes narrowing, locked onto the incoming blade. The adrenaline fogged his thoughts, reducing everything to instinct.
In the back of his mind, it registered: he couldn't just keep dodging. The goblin was faster than it looked, and eventually, it would connect.
The creature pressed its advantage, leaping forward once again. Its blade caught the fabric of Kade's shirt, tearing it without touching skin. Too close.
Kade's mind raced. In games, goblins were always low-level monsters with predictable attack patterns. This one had no such limitations. But it did have one weakness—it relied entirely on that rusty sword.
He needed to separate it from the weapon. That might give him a chance. He watched the goblin's movements more carefully now, noticing how it gripped the sword with both hands during overhead swings, but switched to a single-hand grip for horizontal slashes.
The next swing came at knee height. Kade jumped over it, and instead of continuing to back away, he saw his chance. The goblin was off-balance after its wide swing.
He lunged forward, slamming into the goblin with his full weight, targeting its center mass just as it was recovering. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs, but more importantly, it sent the goblin's sword flying from its grip, just as he'd planned.
A horrid stench assaulted Kade's nostrils—a mix of rot, sweat, and something sulfurous. He wanted to throw up. The goblin thrashed beneath him, surprisingly strong for its size. Sharp claws raked across Kade's arm, drawing blood.
"Shit!" Kade gasped at the sudden pain. This was really happening. He was fighting for his life against a monster in another dimension.
The goblin bucked upward, nearly throwing Kade off. Clawed hands reached for his throat. In desperation, Kade remembered his pen. He yanked it from his pocket and gripped it tightly, thumb hovering over the clicker.
Click.
The ballpoint tip emerged with a sharp sound that seemed impossibly loud in the moment. With a primal yell, Kade drove the pen deep into the goblin's right eye.
The creature released a high-pitched shriek, its body convulsing beneath him. The goblin's claws raked frantically at his arms, drawing blood.
But Kade didn't stop. He yanked the pen free.
Click.
He retracted the pen tip and then—
Click.
—extended it again, driving it into the monster's other eye with even greater force.
The goblin's thrashing intensified, then weakened. Its mouth opened in a silent scream, yellow teeth gnashing at empty air.
Click. Click. Click.
Kade stabbed again and again, no longer aiming, just bringing the pen down wherever he could—the creature's throat, its chest, its face—until his arm burned with exertion and his hand was slick with dark blood.
The goblin finally went limp beneath him, twitching once, twice, then stilling completely. A faint glow emerged from the corpse, particles of light drifting upward and flowing into Kade's chest.
Multiple notifications appeared:
[Enemy Slain: Goblin Scout (Level 2)]
[Essence Absorption activated]
[Level Up! You are now Level 2]
[You have 3 stat points to allocate]
[Subquest Completed: First Blood]
[Reward: Basic Healing Potion, 3 Faith]
Kade rolled off the goblin's body, collapsing onto his back and gasping for air. His entire body trembled as the adrenaline began to ebb.
He lifted his hands, grimacing at the dark goblin blood coating them. The stuff had a faint sulfurous smell and was already getting tacky. Some had spattered onto his shirt too.
Despite the gore, relief washed over him in powerful waves. The disgust at the blood couldn't overshadow the simple fact: he was alive. Somehow, he had survived his first encounter with a creature that truly wanted to kill him.
"The pen is truly mightier than the sword," he said to himself with a laugh. Never had that saying been so literally true. Thank god he'd had it in his pocket when he was transported here.
After catching his breath, he pushed himself up to sitting position and wiped his hands on the grass. It didn't help much. He turned his attention to the floating notifications still hanging in the air, trying to process the rewards and points he received.
His status screen appeared when he focused on it, showing his new level and available stat points. Kade considered his options carefully, thinking through what might keep him alive longest in this hostile environment.
[Status]
Name: Kade Brown
Level: 2
Strength: 7
Dexterity: 5
Constitution: 5
Intelligence: 0
Wisdom: 0
Faith: 3
3 available points to allocate
Kade blinked at the unfamiliar stat. "Faith? That wasn't there before."
