Spearbound

Kade opened his eyes with a harsh gasp and stared at the blue sky in confusion. He quickly sat up and looked around.

Where the hell am I?

The last thing he remembered was reading that wall of text on the freeway. Now, he was somehow in the middle of a clearing that was surrounded by a forest with nobody else around.

Greetings, Kade Beckett.

You have entered the Class F Rift Zone #8,274,177.

Class F is the lowest designation that can be assigned to a Rift Zone. The higher the designation, the more dangerous the Rift Zone becomes.

Planet Earth contains the Rift Zone designations listed below, from lowest to highest.

Class F

Class E

Class D

Class C

Class B

Class A

Once you enter a Rift Zone, you must complete the objectives given to be allowed to leave.

Objectives:

Kill 1 Corrupted Lifeform (0/1)

Kill 10 Monsters (0/10)

Kade chuckled before it turned into outright laughter. He looked at the floating text as his amusement died. “This has to be a stupid joke.”

This is not a joke, Kade Beckett.

We are unsure why so many humans think this is a joke. Do try not to get yourself killed thinking you are in a dream. It is a regrettable waste of resources.

We assure you that this is very real.

“What the—” Kade stopped himself from cursing whatever this thing was. “Who are you?”

You may refer to us as the system. We have temporarily allocated more focus to Earth to help integrate the humans and are able to field queries to those who have a Class.

Please receive your Class before you attempt to converse with us. Additional queries will not receive a response until then.

Kade’s lips twitched in irritation.

Well, fuck you too.

He apparently had to just accept that he now had a status screen. It reminded him of the days he played video games—particularly RPGs. The issue was that he hadn’t played in nearly a decade.

There wasn’t much time for fun since he had to support himself ever since he was in high school. It was either playing video games or doing some shady job and getting paid under the table to have money to eat.

Still, Kade remembered some of the stuff he used to do.

“Show my inventory.”

You do not have an inventory.

Kade blinked at the reply. “You said you would ignore me.” This time, the System ignored him.

… What the hell!? He took a deep breath and continued.

“Show my status.”

Kade Beckett

Arcana Level 1

Class: N/A | Skills: N/A

Race: Baseline Human

Titles: N/A

Stats:

Constitution: 3

Endurance: 2.5

Strength: 2

Dexterity: 1

Speed: 1.5

Free Points: 0

Kade had questions about some parts of the status screen—Title and Arcana Level in particular—but the stats were… comforting? He wasn’t sure what the right word was, but his stats made sense since they fit his natural traits.

“Right, I need to kill a bunch of monsters... and a lifeform,” Kade said to himself as he left the clearing. It didn’t have to be mentioned that he had killed nothing other than bugs before.

Monsters he didn’t mind as much if they were as he imagined. What the hell is a lifeform, anyway? Something that looks like a human?

Kade sure as hell hoped that wasn’t the case. The system mentioned that he had to complete the objectives to leave, and he knew himself far too well.

If it came down to it, he would put down whatever this lifeform was to get the hell out of this place. He was never the sort that was too self-sacrificing, and he didn’t intend to start now.

Kade wandered around with no proper direction. The only thing he kept a lookout for was some sort of rock or stick to use as a weapon. He was reasonably good with his hands, and while he had never done so before, he would bet that he could make some kind of bludgeoning tool as long as he found the proper material.

Unfortunately, Kade found himself in the cleanest forest to ever exist. There isn’t even a single fallen leaf on the forest floor.

He was about to give up and try to climb one of these massive trees and break off a branch just so he could have something to work with. Then, his ears perked up.

Kade heard a faint whistling noise and twisted in the sound's direction. That saved him.

He hissed in pain as he snapped his head to the side. Someone threw a sharpened stick with such great accuracy that it would’ve hit the middle of his temple if he hadn’t turned after hearing the noise.

Kade’s eyes frantically searched the forest before him as he tried to find what attacked him. He backed away and touched his cheek, feeling the blood that was drawn where the stick had sliced through his skin.

He didn’t take his eyes off the search as he moved his foot around as he backed away.

Found it. Kade’s foot bumped into the stick that was thrown at him. He pulled it from the ground and awkwardly pointed it in front of him.

Calling it a stick did it a disservice. A more fitting term would be a crude spear. It was hefty enough that he couldn’t comfortably use it in one hand.

Kade was most worried about someone throwing a weapon like this at him. He couldn’t imagine what else his attacker would have available if this spear had been disposable.

Kade narrowed his eyes as he stepped behind the tree to give himself some protection. It came with less with visibility, but that was a disadvantage he would take to avoid getting skewered.

He had dodged the initial attack by pure dumb luck.

His ears perked up again; this time, he heard a chitter. It’s coming from my right.

Kade felt his muscles burn as he strained his legs to place himself closer to the sound behind another tree. His heart skipped a beat when another spear sank into the ground right beside him. Kade’s quick reaction saved one of his legs from being taken out by a mere microsecond.

That didn’t stop Kade from tracking the origin of the spear. He saw a small, misshapen humanoid with large, sickly yellow eyes staring right at him. It looked like it wanted to eat the flesh off his bones, and the large, knife-like teeth had nothing to do with his assumption.

The ugly thing was looking at them with such a severe hunger that it drooled copiously.

Kade thought he would be more fearful after seeing this odd creature. He was not. He felt a cold determination. I can kill this thing without guilt.

The hideous creature reached back to pull one of its many spears from an odd sling it wore. It was using them as makeshift arrows. With its accuracy so far, he even understood why it did so. There likely weren’t many chances of its prey escaping after the initial ambush.

Kade’s eyes narrowed as the creature’s muddy green skin almost blended in with the surroundings when it moved to another spot.

He found he had shockingly good eyesight—far better than he ever remembered having. He didn’t know if the boosted focus was because of his life being in danger or if the system was the cause, but he was glad for it.

Kade never lost sight of the hideous excuse of a lifeform as it tried to be stealthy and move closer to him while using as much cover and camouflage as possible. If he wasn’t sure he would be utterly terrible at throwing a spear, he would’ve used one of the two had available to give the creature a taste of its own attack.

But it wasn’t time for that. Yet.

Kade had a plan of action. He pretended to have no idea where the revolting creature was. The closer it came to him, the more awful it was.

It had a dreadful, rattling way of breathing while it continually released a gulping sound from its mouth.

It couldn’t be stealthy as long as anything nearby had ears. No wonder it tried to attack me from a range.

He saw it reach for another spear, and he decided to act after it made a throwing motion.

Kade’s hand tightened around the spear’s shaft and waited. Less than a second later, he moved.

The repulsive creature launched another attack at him, and he made a risky decision to jump swiftly to the side, just enough to dodge the spear thrown at him.

Kade didn’t allow the creature to have time to think about its next move. With a grunt, he hurled the spear in his hands as hard as he could towards the creature. Kade’s throw, although not intended as a finishing move in the first place, missed terribly.

It still worked as distraction. He grabbed the spear thrown at him and charged.

The ugly thing let out a hacking cough—it’s a way of showing shock—and scrambled back to get away from Kade’s abrupt rush toward it. Unfortunately for the creature, he had closely observed how fast it could move.

Kade had especially observed how quickly it threw its spears and made a quick comparison to his own throw. He found he was much quicker than the creature, though stupidly more inaccurate — not that it mattered.

Before the creature could run too far, Kade was well within the spear’s attacking range. Its eyes widened in fear and rage when it saw the pointed end heading directly to its face.

Kade expected a lot of things when the spear met its target. A disgusting, flesh-tearing sound. A splatter of blood that would cover his clothes. Even a disaster where the creature escaped.

But none of that happened. He heard a dull impact when he pierced the creature’s head. Before he could pull back the spear, the creature disintegrated into a white powder that collapsed into a small pile on the ground.

“… This thing wasn’t real?” Kade nudged the pile with his foot.

You have destroyed a Spear Goblin (Arcana Level 1)!

Kill 10 Monsters (0/10)—>(1/10)

The Rift Zones harbor lifeforms that pose a threat to the universe. You destroyed a Goblin that was classified as a Monster.

A Monster is the initial stage of a lifeform that desires to accelerate the decay of the universe. Despite any form they might take, monsters are not to be given mercy. We recommend immediate destruction of any that comes to your attention.

As a reward for destroying these abominations, you will be allowed to absorb the energy they contain.

Level up!