Want another chance? Reach the Final Island.

  The message flickered in his mind, sterile and cold, as the massive ivory tusk punched through him. It didn’t matter that he weighed four hundred pounds; the Great Boar hoisted him with sickening ease. The tusk tore through the soft tissue at his waist, shearing layers of fat and muscle, the tip scraping violently against his ribs as the beast went into a frenzy, inches from a heart that was pounding its final, sluggish beat.

  For a moment, he was suspended; a heavy, bleeding pendulum swaying in the wind. The world narrowed to a suffocating sensory nightmare. The boar’s musk mixed into a foul medley with the metallic tang of his blood and the sour stench of his failing bowels. He tried to scream, but only a wet, pathetic gurgle leaked out.

  Then the mercy of the system took hold, and for the second time today, he died.

  His vision blurred into fractured lights. His consciousness dragged through a vacuum, momentarily weightless before gravity seized him again.

  He slammed into the hard, unforgiving cobblestones of the starting plaza. Back where the nightmare had begun, shivering and gasping for air.

  Want another chance? Reach the Final Island.

  He reached down, frantically clutching at his substantial waist and chest. No signs of damage remained; his flabby skin was smooth and untarnished. Unwelcome tears threatened to spill from his eyes as he tried to get his rapid breathing under control, his heart, that moments ago had been still, now skipped beats to a chaotic tune.

  The cursed text hovered ominously in the air before him, bright red and indifferent. In frustration, he swatted the message away. It was a death sentence.

  Just yesterday, he had been Chris. Now, he was Mud.

  It was another cruel joke from a system he was rapidly coming to hate. Who names themselves Mud? He thought bitterly, as the tears continued to streak shamefully down his heavy cheeks.

  Across the courtyard, the ‘Players’, or Travelers, as they were referred to here, worked at varying tasks. He watched them through a haze of envy. They were celebrating, bartering, and clanking around in chain mail. One man, already clad in a polished set of starter plate, whistled as he put a new broadsword through its paces. The steel hissed through the air with a grace Mud’s bulbous arms could never hope to mimic.

  Judging by the speed of his swings and the way the armor weighed him down, Mud guessed the man had allotted far too many points into his speed and agility stats, and not enough into strength.

  But what did he know? He only had a lifetime of pushing games to their absolute limits. He had sacrificed his free time researching meta builds, giving his life and body over to the grind.

  Now he was seeing one of those worlds from the inside, and he was completely and utterly useless. The instincts were there, but trapped in this body, he couldn’t even pull off a fat-roll.

  The realization was a weight heavier than he was.

  He didn’t know how long he sat there, but eventually, the cold of the stones gnawed at him, a harsh reminder that he had to move, or become a permanent fixture of the plaza. He performed the familiar gesture, swiping his index and middle fingers through the air to summon the menu.

  His stats screen flickered into existence, sad and disappointing. His Strength and Constitution were decent enough, and his intelligence was surprisingly high, but his Speed, Agility and Stamina were abysmal.

  [Mud (Level 1)]

  [Strength] 11

  [Constitution] 17

  [Intelligence] 24

  [Agility] 7

  [Speed] 8

  [Stamina] 8

  And then there was his solitary skill: [Cooking]. A hobby that had served him well enough in his past life, but in a fight, it was completely useless.

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  Armor, he thought, a desperate spark, hoping to become an inferno. Maybe I just need armor. Every player started with five hundred gold. It was a pittance, really, but enough to buy a bare-bones set of leather and a couple of meals. With a determined waddle, he made his way to the nearest armor vendor.

  The smith was an attractive older woman with auburn hair and a friendly, practiced smile that faltered slightly as he approached. Mud felt his throat tighten; he was particularly bad at speaking to others, but it was even worse when they were of the opposite gender.

  “Hi... I’m looking to get a little starter gear.” His voice was cracked, dry, and wooden. Like the moisture had simply gotten up and went on vacation. “The… Boars have been having their way with me. If you know what I mean.”

  His eyes wandered aimlessly around her small stall, anywhere but at those bright hazel eyes. Weapons and armor were displayed in neat, orderly rows, everything clearly labeled.

  His gaze flitted to her tapping feet, the silence stretching for far to long. To fill the space, he made a frantic, clumsy gesture with his arm and an odd popping noise with his mouth; a failed attempt to mimic the sound of a tusk that set his jowls jiggling.

  She giggled at his awkward display, her voice light and pleasant. Mud felt his cheeks heat up.

  “Mess with the boar and you get the tusks. That’s what I heard one of you Travelers say.” Her smile lingered as she gave him a slow, appraising look. The further her eyes traveled, the more the smile faded, morphing into something sour and uncertain.

  “You’re a big fella,” she said, her voice dropping as she tried to maintain a veil of politeness. “I’m… not positive I have something that will fit around your, particular, frame.”

  The disappointment hit Mud’s face like a physical blow. He felt his ears burning, and could almost feel the eyes of the other players on his back, like tiny needles.

  Her expression softened. “But ain’t nobody ever said that Sheala doesn’t go above and beyond for her customers. If you’re willing to try, so am I.” She gestured toward a curtained area at the back of her booth. “Come on. Let’s go behind the stall and see what we can do.”

  What happened next was, in many ways, worse than the boar.

  Standing on a wooden stool next to him, Sheala was attempting to jam a stiff leather chest-piece over his head. It was a losing battle. Mud’s arms were pinned above him in a helpless vertical stretch, his face buried in the dark, musky interior of the armor. His world reduced to the smell of cured hide and the frantic view through a few tiny gaps in the stitching.

  Sheala grunted, throwing her entire weight into the effort. She shoved and twisted, her breath hot against his neck as she muttered a string of curses and prayers to gods Mud didn’t even know. He felt like an overstuffed sausage being forced into a casing three sizes too small.

  Finally, the armor reached its breaking point. With a sharp crack, the side strap surrendered. The leather just gave up, dangling off his shoulder like a broken wing.

  “Eww… yeah. That’s definitely not gonna work,” Sheala sighed, stepping down from the stool. The professional friendliness was rapidly vanishing, replaced by a weary, blunt honesty. “Sorry, kid. I tried.”

  Resigned and burning with a fresh layer of shame, Mud helped her peel the ruined equipment off. He mumbled an apology for the broken strap and retreated from the armory as quickly as his legs would carry him.

  There was an unfortunate truth about Chris, or Mud, whoever he was now. Food made his problems disappear. At the moment, Mud was bleeding internally from a wound no potion would ever touch, and the smoky, heavy aroma of barbecued meat was guiding his feet toward his only remaining remedy.

  “Oh, now that looks like a man after my own heart!” the vendor barked. He was a bearded man with grease-stained sleeves, waving a glistening hunk of meat around like a trophy. “I’ve got pork ribs fresh off the coals, slathered in my own secret sauce.”

  Mud stared at the ribs. It was likely the same species of boar that had disemboweled him an hour ago. There was a grim, poetic justice in the idea of eating it.

  “How much?” Mud asked, his voice thick with a mixture of hunger and desperation.

  The vendor tilted his head, his eyes dropping to Mud’s waistline before darting back up. He appeared to calculate for a moment. “I’ll tell you what, kid. I like your gumption. For you? Two hundred and fifty gold a rack.”

  Mud had no idea if that was a fair price or a complete scam. If he were playing a normal RPG, he would have quickly checked a wiki or tried to haggle, but Chris was gone. There was only Mud now, who pulled up his menu, transferred five hundred gold, every bit of his capital, and took two racks.

  He knew this was a terrible mistake. But it didn’t really matter. He was never going to succeed in a world where the deck was stacked so heavily against him. If he was going to be a loser, he was at least going to be a fed one.

  He slunk into a nearby alley, his feet feeling even heavier than usual. The shadows of the tall stone buildings offered a cold and lonely sort of sanctuary. With a tired groan, he slid down the wall and fell unceremoniously onto the hard ground. Laying his “last meal” out on his lap, his mouth began to water.

  The first bite was a revelation. The vendor’s secret sauce exploded across his tongue in a perfect mixture of tangy and sweet, complementing the tender, juicy pork. It was a war on his tastebuds, and for the first time since arriving in this strange world, Mud was more than happy to lose.

  He was halfway through the first rib, eyes closed in a momentary, greasy trance, when a strange, prickly sensation crawled up his neck.

  He was being watched.

  The feeling was unmistakable. Mud opened his eyes warily, scanning the alley from one side to the other. To his left, a stack of empty crates; to his right, a pile of discarded refuse. The passage appeared completely empty, silent save for the distant, muffled sounds of the starting plaza.

  Strange, he thought, clutching his prized rib a little tighter, a mixture of sauce and juice running lazily down his fingers.

  He took one more tentative bite, but the feeling of being watched wouldn’t dissipate. A slight scuffling sound came from the pile of refuse near his feet. A tiny, gray, furry head popped out, sporting dark beady eyes and a pink button nose that twitched rhythmically as it sampled the aroma of Mud’s prized meal.

  “You look as scuffed and broken as I feel,” Mud mumbled. He didn’t pull away; instead, his hand dropped defensively around his uneaten ribs.

  The rat didn’t scurry. It didn’t lunge for the food or hiss, or do any of the things Mud thought it would. It simply sat there on its haunches, watching him with a desperate, quiet intensity that mirrored Mud’s own.

  A fellow bottom-feeder, waiting for a miracle in a dark, grimy alleyway.

  As Mud took another bite, a heavy sense of guilt welled up inside him. He looked at the creature, then back at his five-hundred-gold feast. With a resigned sigh, he tore off a succulent sliver of pork and placed it on the cobblestones between them.

  With a high-pitched squeak of excitement, the rat vanished into the meat. It eviscerated a large portion of the scrap in seconds, its mottled whiskers quickly becoming coated in the vendor’s secret sauce. Mud couldn’t help but let out a small, dry chuckle. For a moment, the alley didn’t feel so lonely.

  Then the world fractured.

  A sound like a cannon blast echoed through the confines of his skull, making Mud jump so hard he nearly dropped his meal. Goosebumps erupted across his skin as a window of searing golden light burned itself into the space in front of him.

  [New Skill! Monster Summoning: Small Rat (Level 1)]