The ground shook violently on what seemed to be a perfectly normal day.
The sky was a nice light blue with just a few bits of clouds to block out the hot sun, toddlers, teens and even adults all having an amazing day, until they weren't.
Ever since the Elden warriors had come into play, dealing with monsters that climbed out portals, wasn't that big of a deal, until the day the world flipped itself over.
No literally.
All over the world, massive portals claimed the lands with hoards of monsters climbing out what seemed to be a new star level portal. Those monsters are nothing like we've ever seen. Vicious beasts that took the lives of hundreds of thousands the day it happened, cities on lockdown, all sense of sanity that we had desperately longed for,
Gone, in an instant.
Before that though, My name, right now it's not that important, but, my name is Asahi Kunigawa, and all my life, I wanted to become an Elden Warrior. life has other plans though. I end up working a desk job at 19, after my mom left, and my father being chronically ill with a disease that has no cure, I was more or less the leader of my family. i had to take care of my little brother all by myself.
Seeing Elden Warriors in action made me want to train harder and hone my body and maybe, just maybe I would be able to apply again. No, fate is fate. It stays the same no matter how lucky you are, there's no changing it. When those portals appeared, they were originally measured to just be a [2 STAR] portal, meaning there was over 3 months to clear and defeat the boss.
But, after the seventh day, the portals shattered and the monsters crawled out, beasts we had never seen before now killed the people of our lands and tore our city apart.
The day it all happened, I dropped my little brother, Shinsuke off at school, he wanted to become more of a scholar at a prestigious Chinese school, he's a smart kid, so I have no worries there. I gave money, a 100,000 yen exactly for more of my father's treatment, for me, it's a lot, but, my father deserves it. Seemingly long process of getting to work and staying there for about 5 hours, it happened.
.
.
.
The portal broke open, right up top of the EVME building, the headquarters of the Elden Warriors. There was no stopping these things and in a few moments, the countries of the world descended into pure chaos. I ran as fast as my legs would take me, half of Tokyo had already been destroyed in minutes. I got my brother and ran home, hoping to take some sort of shelter there, I was painfully wrong.
Not long after, we made it home, the building was swarmed with these monsters that are unlike any report has ever seen. They fight just like humans do and some even have humanoid looks, what the actual fuck is all this?
As you'd expect, I failed hard, the monsters broke into our home and as hard as I could, with all my might, it was not enough, the grabbed my brother and escaped with him, not after pulling my arms off and and biting my legs.
'I failed dad...Shin...Mom...' As I took my final breathes, tears filled my eyes as I collapsed to the ground and dead.
[This is a beta test. The offer closes shortly. Would you like to become a player?]
The words slowly appeared In front of me, like as if someone was typing it. What did they mean, I was confused, scared, wondering what all this words meant, when suddenly a countdown appeared in front of me.
[You have 1 second to decide, or you fully die. Gone, bye-bye.]
Without a second thought processed, I accepted the message saying yes and I was teleported into some white space where there was nothing, just a vacuum, I stared and waited for something to happen, what about my brother?!
[Welcome player! Out of the hundreds of thousands of people we asked this question, they all declined and died painful deaths. But you! Asahi! Are quite the special one, the weakest of the bunch.]
'What is all this?! And where's my brother?! Why did they take him and not me?!' i shouted in anger as the words slowly showed itself to me.
[…]
[…]
[…]
[Asahi, you do realize, you are weak right?]
[Despite your brother wanting nothing to do with the tasking life of a warrior, they wanted him more than you. He is stronger than you, without any training.]
[So where does that place you, hm? In all the years of the Elden Warriors existing, no one as weak as you ever applied.]
As they poured out, the humiliation and shame that I felt was unmatchable. All it said was right, I was so weak they wouldn't even accept me. I looked down, avoiding the text box in front of me when suddenly, I heard a ding sound.
{DING!! DING!! DING!!! Advancement achieved, Strength in the Weak!}
[Don't be too sad, that's why we have this for you.]
'What is it? It's just a bunch of words on a screen, like in a video game.'
After I said that I didn't see any more messages on the screen or anything for a while. I was starting to get frustrated, if I didn't die, then what the hell was this place!?
Seconds, minutes, hours, days maybe... I lost all sense of time in this white space. What the hell was happening, suddenly, I saw a string of messages on the screen.
{DING!! DING!! DING!!! Daily quest received!!}
(Survive!)
{Loading quest time...}
{Quest Loading complete!}
(Quest time: 190 Hours, If not survived 190 Hours, player: Asahi Kunigawa will receive a penalty.)
Survive?
That's very concerning...What am I supposed to do?
(Teleporting player: Asahi Kunigawa to.... ERROR.... ERROR.... System malfunction.... Rebooting now....)
Suddenly the ground, the sky and everything around me started to morph into what looked like Japan.. during the portal break?
(GOAL: Survive 190 hours.... ERROR..-_..WRRR...--_)
Suddenly the ground started to shake immensely, It was the exact same thing as what had happened before, The portal broke and the monsters came flying out. I had to survive for an absurd amount of time, I have to be able to do this, If I want a second chance at life, I need to survive this!
There wasn't anyone I had to worry about, I was on my own this time, I have to find a weapon to defend myself, the city was already in ruins in a matter of minutes.
(PENALTY Initiated! All System Bonuses have been erased!)
There were system bonuses?
"What do you mean by penalty? I just got here." As I finished my statement, a wolf pack heard my voice and they all turned they eyes to me.
"Oh shit."