Chapter 1:

Out of a Hole

I Am A Monster Reborn


He had enough of it all, and so he stood at the literal precipice of his life. To Victor, his life was nothing more than that of a slave. It was a inconsequential thing, a series of and a sum of bad choices and decisions. The life of a worker drone. Used, thrown away and abused by society. And now, he finally decided he wanted none of it, he was ready to end it all.

It was time to end his miserable existence.

But why did they have to make it so hard? It would have gone so smoothly. Why did they have to make it an issue right now? If only one of his bastard co-workers didn't go up to the roof. They all stared at him in frantic panic.

A crowd of onlookers stood from below the building, and behind him on the roof stood some of his co-workers. Most were simply staring, others were shouting, then there were those that were even silently mocking him. Like he couldn’t hear them, like he wasn’t standing right in front of them. It was a recurring theme in Victor’s life, to be ridiculed, and made fun of. Even here as he prepares to jump to his doom, some of them didn’t take him seriously.

“Get down right now boy!” His boss shouted at him. He could care less what the executive felt. He never cared much for the office Moguls. They did him absolutely no favors. Whatever bad publicity came out of this they more than deserved it.

“Make me you rich bastard!” Victor screamed back, flipped a finger at his now former superior.

“We all have our grievances son, and there’s a way to do things, running away won’t solve none of it. Killing yourself ain’t the answer, so get down here…let’s talk about this.”

He was through with talking. His therapist couldn’t fix him, his family didn’t care for him and his friends had abandoned him long ago. To him there was one of two ways to fix the mess that was his life. Seclusion into the woods and to live as a hermit for the rest for the remainder of his life expectancy or the final solution, Self-annihilation and the past would never haunt him ever again. And so,may whatever judgment come his way, if there is anything on the other side at all.

“Someone call the police or an ambulance, he needs help from emergency services!” a voice suggested, it was one of his female colleagues, amelia.

For the longest time now he has had a crush on this lady, she was fair in all she did, cute and petite, gentle and caring. Though she didn’t show any particular affection to him, she had always treated him with an aspirational kindness. He considered professing his endearing feelings to her once, but retracted the idea. What would she possibly find in a loser like him.

He wouldn’t want her to live with guilt he could cause here. It was a real shame she had to see this.

“Don’t be an idiot, Amelia! That is a waste of government working resources, this fool is throwing a temper tantrum. If he was man enough, he’d step down from there, face the consequences and move on with his life.”

Victor snared at him, Mark was his name, and he hated every fiber of his existence. His superior and supervisor. Someone who made it an effort to make his day miserable. He was everything Victor was not. Charismatic , athletic, socially adored by the office cliques. Victor tried not to be envious, and so resentment is all he felt for mark. He was the epitome of someone who climbed the social ladder, the male counterpart of a career woman. Victor hated his guts.

He shook his head, he had wasted enough time already, it was time to take a dive out of this world. He stared below at a sudden crowd that was forming. And for a moment he felt morally superior.

‘Mindless insects’ he thought, as he stared at the migrating bodies down on the street. Some of the car’s in the street started to slow down and stopped. It disgusted him, he was no spectacle. Yet here they were making one of him, all he wanted to do was reflect while up here, then he would go his way.

“Well what are you waiting for? Jump already!” a voice shouted among the crowd of office workers.

And There it was, the lovable hospitality he found in this company for the last few years.

“We didn’t come up here for nothing…” Another reverberated, they were starting to get finicky.

“Jump, Jump, Jump…” The crowd started shouting in unison. Some among the crowd started to take out their phones. His fat boss had started panicking.

“Anyone who films this is getting fired.” he cried.

Reluctantly they had started putting them away, but he could still see some of them filming the event. He honestly didn’t mind.

He would no longer keep his unwanted audience waiting… He stood at the ground again, it was a hell of a thing. To willingly end his own existence, but he had now long decided to adopt the samurai mindset. He has lived dishonorably and he must conduct self-punishment as retribution for his dishonorable lifestyle.

He took one more hard look at his former colleagues and snared.

“You're all fools, every single one of you. Mindless chattel to fat fucks like him.” Victor pointed his finger towards his former boss. Who raised a eyebrow

“Slaves, indentured servants, thralls to the elite. They will work your bones until your skin is rotten and drained. And for what a mediocre paycheck, and barely enough life benefits to make it through. I’m taking the only way out of this horrible deal. You're all worthless tools….

“Shut the fuck up… Get on with it already, or get in a straitjacket.” another shouted, an individual who looked like he was nothing more than the embodiment of a virgin himself. A fellow loser.

Victor was not surprised. Not even at the end of it all, did they respect him for speaking his truth… He peered below onto the ground ,took a very deep breath, closed his eyes and then he jumped…

As he flew from the 7th story building, an incredible rush possessed his body. The acceleration to the ground, the sudden change in air pressure was exhilarating. Adrenalin flooded his body, and as gravity completely took hold of him. Only then did he regret it.

Mere moments from colliding with the ground. He became enveloped with fear.

He should’ve ran away from society instead jumping towards his death, he wanted to martyr himself, this was not worth it.

“ Oh shit…”

Just as he said that, a pitch black tear in the ground was torn open, in the split of second, it expanded and swallowed him whole.

For a moment Victor felt nothing, saw nothing and heard nothing. Everything was dark, like being trapped inside a large void and being unable to do anything. He couldn’t move or scream, but the sensation of falling persisted like he was stuck falling in a dream except there was no wake up sensation. It was starting to feel like an eternity.

In the flicker of a moment, that void had disappeared and he could feel his senses again. The sensation of falling remained the same but he could see now, compared to the pitch black darkness of that minute long void. Bright blue skies and large clouds. He was falling through the air again.

‘Oh fuck.’ Was the only thought he had, he couldn’t scream as the density of the air was overwhelming. He was in the air likely kilometers up, he was no longer in his home city. He had somehow teleported here, from below he could see that he was somewhere much more ‘wild’, filled Lush green forests, and open pastures. He saw no paved roads, he was teleported out of the city and he would die in the next few moments.

Some force or being had brought him here. He didn’t want to process it further. He wanted out of this, his heart was beating like a locomotive. He was freefalling through the sky. Now merely moments away from the ground again. He braced himself, closed his eyes and screamed his lungs out.

“Aaaaaaaaah!!!!!”

A large thud echoed through the surroundings. Victor felt his ears were almost ruptured. They were ringing in pain but surprisingly his ears were okay. He could hear just fine. He could hear birds chirping, and something that sounded like it was rumbling, perhaps a river in the distance.

He felt unharmed largely. Nothing hurt and so stood up from the ground

He was alive. He didn’t die, that was for sure. Even in a suicide attempt, he wasn’t very successful. It was the recurring theme of his life. Was it godly intervention, did some deity take pity on some godless fellow such as himself or was he cursed to die here in the middle of nowhere.

Regardless, he suddenly found himself unable to care about processing any of it, traumatic as it may have been, he had a very, very, strong feeling to simply ignore what had happened so far. Something in his head switched it off, he didn’t know why. More importantly, he needed to know where he was.

He peered around . He was in a cultivated field, likely some farm’s land, there were miles upon miles of woodland surrounding the field. He saw no tractors , cultivators or harrows. There were peculiar farming tools lying on the cultivated soil. Wherever he was, it was in some rural place. Was he even in the same country anymore? He didn’t know. Was this heaven, did his last moments alive vanish from his mind because he passed on to the afterlife. Was he lying split open in front of his office building? He really didn’t know.

“Where the fuck am I.”

< NEW QUEST: FIND OUT WHERE YOU ARE >

“What the fuck!!!”

A box text appeared out of nowhere. Putting Victor into shock, he still hadn’t processed what was happening entirely. And now out of nowhere a blue box of text appeared out of nowhere in front of his face. It was unbelievable before, now it was absurd

“A dream, that must be it.” There was no logical explanation

Falling out of the sky, not once but twice. Not feeling any pain from the massive crash landing. Suddenly spirited away to who the fuck knows where. It had to be a dream.

He started to pinch himself and nothing happened. Followed by biting himself on his wrist then his arm. Stupendously doing breathing exercises. He didn’t seem to wake. A nightmare then, a very lucid nightmare that was haunting him or he really was dead and this was the afterlife.

“Yes, I died, didn't I?” he started talking to himself aloud “this is my brain just coping with sudden death.”

It made sense, he loved playing video games in his pastimes a little too much for the average person. Was this ‘Gamer heaven’, which was ridiculous of course. If this was the afterlife or something else, where was the magical gate with angels to greet him, where was the purgatorius judge to decide whether he should go to hell or be reborn as an ant. He didn’t understand. Could this perhaps be some kind of simulation?

< DO YOU ACCEPT THE QUEST>

<Y/N >


Could it hurt to say yes?

He reluctantly tapped on the Y.

It disappeared and left behind another screen. He stepped back and it seamlessly moved as if it was attached to his eyes. Still in front of him.

Active quests

<Active quests>

Find out where you are: You fell from the sky. You don’t know how or why but you appear to be breathing. You need information, Urgently!!!

<Review your Status: Knowing is half the battle.>

‘Urgently? Well if that isn’t ominous at all’ he wondered.

There seems to be an active quest, one he didn’t accept. He pondered on what he was supposed to do to review this status. Summon it out of thin air?

“Uhhh…. Open status?”

Race: Human

Name: Victor

Class: Office worker

Titles: Nerd(-25 charisma) + (10 intelligence), Wage slave (+10 constitution)

Level : 5

Alignment :Chaotic good

Attributes

Strength 9 (Weakling)

Dexterity 5 (non-existent)

Wisdom 20 ( average)

Intelligence 35 (Above average)

Constitution 30 (Average)

Charisma -15 (socially awkward)

He didn’t know what he expected but he wasn’t surprised at all. It would have been insulting if he was one to take offense. He wanted to contemplate the matter, but he knew he didn’t have time to.

Suddenly out of nowhere, he heard a blood piercing guttural scream. Something akin to…

“SKREEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!”

A few hundred meters away from the brush he was standing. A group of what he could only describe were foreign dressed civilians , dressed in ancient looking garments running like hell. Right behind them, a trail of destruction lay open. A minor tremor shook beneath the ground. The culprit… A 7-foot snake with the torso of a man. Slithering and trashing the ground beneath it.

He was in awe. It was a monster, an actual monster, its face resembled that of a twisted man. Deformed and disheveled. It wanted blood and it would get it.

The runaways were headed his way. But Victor was fixated on the sudden appearance of this mythical being. It was exciting, because it was mythical after all. Out of the ordinary. At that moment he knew he was somewhere else, very far away from home city. Struck by its stature and visage. It dawned on him again, They were headed this way.

He froze, falling on the ground. The monster had frightened him and he struggled to move at all. They sprinted past him, one the men stopped in front him, half dragging him upwards. It was moving towards him now. He didn't know what garnered the beast, but he was in its way.

“What the hell are you doing standing here, run you fool!!!” up close he could see the resemblance to that of a roman garb, a toga. The man left him and fled towards his fellow men. ”Die there if you want!!!”

It stood in front of him now, massive body, scaly skin and muscular limbs. The snakeman locked its eyes with Victor’s as if it was judging what he was worth. It Let out a wild hiss, which simultaneously sounded like the scream of a wild monkey. Its saliva landed on his face, and he rubbed it off his face.

What was left of the things mouth residue inside his hands started burning his hands.

< -1hp >

< -1hp >

< -1hp >

“SHIT!”

It turned its back to him, bent over and swung its massive tail to strike him into the air. He landed on face, dirt in mouth, face bloody. His whole body hurt and ached severely.

The screen had popped up in front of him again.

< -18 HP >


He didn’t know how to check how much he had left. How long it would be before he would actually die.If the monster had hit him again, the possibility of survival would be low. Without contemplating it, and without turning his face towards the towering monster. He ran in the direction of the ‘Romans’.

He didn’t know where he was going but it turns out he actually wanted to live.