The blue-eyed young man wanted to argue with the hostile sounding voice that his name wasn't Walker.
However, when he opened his mouth to say this, two different things happened.
First, he was surprised at the return of his control over his own body. So surprised that he momentarily froze in mid-step.
The second thing that happened was that he realized he couldn't remember his name.
Walker had stopped and others began to pass him by.
He paid them no mind and closed his eyes. When he did so, he saw something strange that he couldn't explain.
A grey world with no other colors and vague shapes.
Among the shapes was a figure of composed of numerous polygons that moved with certainty.
It stood before an orange glowing pillar that dwarfed everything else within view.
Staring at the pillar evoked longing feelings in Walker that he couldn't explain.
A spoked wheel suddenly shot out from the abstract figure and struck the pillar. Though the pillar was undamaged, the wheel shattered into particles that quickly vanished.
As it did so, Walker spotted a large section of text written infinitesimally small on a portion of the pillar. The text suddenly begin glowing gold.
Though he didn't know the language it was written in, Walker found that he could nonetheless read the information there.
After all, it concerned everything about him. It was a narrative of his life, his true name making up the core of his being, and his personality which evolved from his experiences in life.
As he focused on the letters he had just begun to interpret them when something horrific happened.
The characters slowly began vanishing, as if being deleted haphazardly.
As they vanished, Walker found he couldn't remember what had been written there before.
Letters in all portions of the block of text vanished with no set pattern.
What seemed to take forever was over just as quickly as it began. The remaining characters had reformed and now read:
—Walker Tonlevar, an orphaned Archer Scout from the destroyed kingdom of Rostovo who was present when its king descended into madness and brought destruction down upon the world. Walker is originally from Earth, another planet, and has found himself trapped in the world of Korinn with no memory of the world he came from—
Shuddering at the memory of the king, which he quickly shuttered away in his mind, Walker opened his eyes and took a deep breath to calm the hysteria he felt building up.
Panicking wouldn't help him at all.
The light screen reformed in front of his view and the voice returned, commanding him.
[GET BACK IN FORMATION AND CONTINUE WITH THE OTHERS]
[FAILURE TO PERFORM ACCORDING TO THE SOURCE EXPECTATIONS WILL RESULT IN COMPLIANCE ENFORCMENT]
Awkwardly moving back into place and hobbling along, Walker responded, "What do you mean by enforcement? And, what are the source expectations? Are those the rules?"
No response was forthcoming. After waiting awhile Walker deliberately stopped walking to provoke a response.
[STAY IN FORMATION AND KEEP MOVING FORWARD, OR DRASTIC STEPS WILL BE TAKEN]
Walker held back a laugh, unsure now whether the oppressive mechanical voice was messing with him by using such an obvious pun in such a serious manner.
Shaking his head at the domineering nature of the voice, Walker resumed stepping forward once more, still shocked that he could now control his legs and body completely.
He didn't try to provoke the voice again and the light screen soon faded away.
Walker continued walking despite how badly his feet were hurting. He thought about his circumstances and wondered what the voice wanted from him.
He didn't understand what was going on, but he knew whatever was happening to him was beyond his control and understanding.
His psyche was still fragile, having seen true nightmares the evening before.
He was from Earth, he was not citizen of a fake country named Rostovo in a mobile game.
Yet here he was.
'If this is a game, then why doesn't it seem like it? Everything looks real.' Walker thought.
Looking at those nearby he noticed they too were suffering. The long march continued but the others were mostly silent.
Every so often some snippet of conversation broke out, but they were mundane things.
As the hours wore on, Walker began to feel a growing sense of dread.
It wasn't anything he could put his finger on, but something was wrong.
The surroundings looked much the same, rural settlements and now empty villages.
Everything looked to have been abandoned in a hurry.
Walker was thankful that their pursuit had ended but his knees were aching and his ankles had started to swell.
His sense of time was distorted but Walker soon realized that it was still dark.
He couldn't be sure, but he guessed that they had been walking for over a full day by this point.
'This is crazy, don't these people need rest?'
Confused, he looked around and noted that
everyone looked extremely haggard.
Walker's stomach had been rumbling incessantly and it was one of the few things keeping his eyelids from pressing down with the weight of his fatigue.
More hours passed.
By now, Walker was sure that nothing was going to happen unless he did something.
After all, it would be insane to expect something different to suddenly happen.
By his best estimate they had been walking over forty hours with no breaks, no food, and little change in scenery.
In most games, the protagonist would have to initiate an event or discover something to get things going but he had no idea how he could do that.
Except…
Walker stopped walking.
His feet and legs, which burned fiercely, still seemed to cry out in relief.
"What is the point of this? Can we get things moving?" He asked while looking at the sky.
Looking around, he saw a small cottage a short distance off the highway. Walker could clearly see a fruit tree of some sort in the yard.
He immediately ran over.
The fruits were pale green, like a pear, but more uniform, with a slightly rounded hexagonal shape.
His pack, which only held a spare shirt,was quickly filled with the small handheld fruits.
Walking back to the column, Walker smelled the pale green rind and realized he would need
to peel it.
He took his time. The rind came off easily and the green fruit underneath was inlaid with fibers that seemed to contain hints of a golden color.
The smell was invigorating and the flesh of the fruit was seedless and pitless.
As he had almost made it back to the column he grinned and closed his pack and shouldered it once more.
Stepping forward he felt some resistance with his left boot going down before the resistance suddenly gave.
The look on Walker's face quickly changed and he howled in pain. He tried to lift his foot but realized something very sharp had stabbed into his foot.
Gritting his teeth, Walker gingerly lifted his foot from the brush only to see a sharp looking and oddly shaped triangular spike.
A caltrop.
"A tetrahedron, not a triangle." He gasped out through his teeth as he groaned and pulled the inch of spike out of his foot.
[CORRECT- GET BACK INTO FORMATION]
'You're back, how wonderful.' Walker thought cynically.
[THAT WAS A VERY SLIGHT CHASTISEMENT]
'Thanks.' Walker thought.
His foray wasn't without benefits. The fruit he had eaten made him feel much better than would've been expected. The result way outpaced the expectation.
His speed was still severly hampered as he now tried to avoid putting weight on his wounded foot.
The pain was also terrible. As embarrassing as it was to be groaning and hobbling along, no one made fun of him for it.
Most seemed to be pointedly ignoring him or dealing with their own issues.
'I need some directions, or a quest guide or a menu or something.' Walker thought with heavy exasperation.
{Welcome,
Walker's eyes moistened with relief.
Continuing on, the new system voice rang out again as a translucent light-screen appeared before him.
{Available options are limited until
Quest Log - [Log]
Character Development - [Sheet]
World Map - [Map] (Locked)
Statististics - [Stats] (Limited)
Additional Options are unrevealed until further prerequisites are met.}
'Log.' Walker thought.
Nothing happened.
Rolling his eyes, he said "Log."
The screen in front of him shifted, showing two stupefying goals:
*I*
Forge your determination and body by traveling the massive world of Korinn to the neighboring kingdom of Cata Boral.
-Take two million steps (320,019 steps taken)
*II*
As an Archer Scout, your duties include reconnaissance, with a slight emphasis on logistics and procurement of supplies through hunting and foraging.
However, before that can happen, you need to reacquaint yourself with your noble weapon. Note that your ammunition will not run out during this quest.
-Shoot 10,000 arrows (0 arrows shot)
Dumbstruck, Walker wondered how he could have already taken a staggering amount of steps, yet was nowhere near finishing of the goal.
The maths didn't maths but there were too many variables, which he was unaware of,
to be certain.
Thinking for a moment, Walker suddenly spoke: "Sheet."
A brief window appeared:
Human with CoA Bloodline (0.7%)
Archer Scout of Rostovo
Skills: n/a
Magic Mastery: n/a
Traits: Unknown
Special: [ACTIVE!] - no description available
'Unimpressive.' Walker thought sheepishly.
'Still, I wonder what this special ability is used for?'