Kalin walks into the decrepit house, the squeaky floorboards making him carefully step, the pungent smell of blood that lingered all around goes away as he enters as if it never existed. As he walks even further in, he wonders why this house wasn't destroyed.
Besides some scratches here and there on the leather couch, there wasn't a single sign that anything that could've caused the destruction outside had come in, it didn't even look like someone had lived there.
Kalin approaches the antique couch kneeling down and lifting the couch cushions to see if there's a clue as to what or who lived here, though he sees nothing but a bed of dust with some lint resting on it, he puts the cushions back down, after searching the living room and finding nothing, he walks to the room adjacent to the living room, this room Kalin assumed was the kitchen because of the stone counter and wooden table and chairs which were now rotten and crumbling.
The walls of the kitchen are covered in deep scratches, which let sunlight and wind in through them, Kalin stares at them for a moment and ponders what type of creature could have done it and how much he didn't want to meet it, 'Why would it just destroy the kitchen?' he thinks, he averts his gaze from the holes in the wall and walks over to the rotting table, noticing that the edge of it looked like it had a chunk bitten out of it, and that on top of the breaking wood laid a flipped over picture frame.
He grabs it and flips it over expecting a clue, or at least to know who lived here but... the picture just showed a man's face the man didn't have eye-catching features besides his glaring red eyes, the man in it smiles, the corners of his lips almost reach his ears and his menacing gaze seemingly points directly at him, Kalin shivers and puts the picture down.
As the picture touches the table, he feels a soft breath on his neck, he quickly turns around and equips his rock swinging it at it... but there's nothing, he stands in silence for a moment, his terrified breathing being the only noise in the silent home, 'What was that?'
Kalin calms his breathing down, unlike before he holds his trusty rock in his right hand now. And continues his exploration of the house, noticing that there is a doorway connected to the kitchen, leading to a hallway, he walks down it cautiously, ready to defend himself.
The hallway wasn't that long so he shortly was in front of the next room, he cautiously opened the door, luckily nothing lay in wait for him. He walked into the room, this one being what looked like a nursery.
He notices that the wallpaper which had flowers painted on the bottom of it, had been torn seemingly by something with claws, except everything else in the room remained untouched, a dollhouse stands next to the crib, nearly half of his size.
'That creepy guy had kids?" Kalin thinks as he explores the room, all throughout it wooden dolls with creepy beady eyes lay, Kalin tries not to look at them as he's always been afraid of dolls. If he did look he would have seen them looking right back at him.
He opens a door in the room putting his back to the dolls, dresses made for someone probably around 5-6 years old, that are now torn and devoid of color from aging are hung from a wooden pole placed between the two walls.
He turns back realizing there's no clues to be found in the closet, when he does he notices that, the dolls are gone where numerous creepy dolls laid, only the wooden floor remains.
'Shit...' Not excited by the prospect of having to fight the creepy dolls, he rips the wooden pole off the closet, it gives up no resistance, Kalin slides the dresses off it and onto the floor with a soft thud.
He goes back into the hallway, but it's no longer empty he notices on the floor a doll lying with its back resting on the wall of the hallway, its beady eyes staring right at him, "Hello..." Kalin says, to obviously no response.
'Did I just try to talk to a doll?' Kalin shakes his head slightly embarrassed now, but continues walking, encountering more dolls on the way but trying his best to not look at them, shortly he reaches the end of the hallway, which leads to the most harrowing room of all, the basement.
The house had been rather cold, but in front of the dreadful entrance of the basement, it became freezing, Kalin shivers and his teeth clattered, he looked behind him noticing that the dolls had moved again, except this time they lay in a straight line, blocking his only escape route.
'No choice then' Kalin sighs and begrudgingly starts walking down the basement stairs, each one makes him think the floor will cave in on him with their squeaking, luckily they don't and he reaches the basement floor, looking around, and what he sees surprises him.
He had been prepared to see some gruesome horrifying sight, but no... all that was there was a small circular table, which held a book atop it, the book itself had a red cover, and dust covering it but besides that, it looked untouched by even time itself.
He grabs the book and inspects it, flipping it around and skimming the pages and noticing that it has nothing written in it, after waiting for a bit... nothing strange happens, 'That's weird, surely this does something...' after thinking that, he waits for a moment, for something, anything to happen but nothing does.
'Hm?' he puts the book down deciding to go back upstairs, but something finally happens, Kalin feels something touch his shoulder, his back facing the circular table.
Kalin doesn't move a muscle until the feeling goes away, he closes his eyes and turns around to face the table, opening them slowly and expecting to see a hideous monster. But... nothing changed except for the state of the basement that is, the room had this faint feeling... like something was wrong, it was showing signs of decay and the wooden table became rotten and splintered, seemingly only staying up to hoister the red book, which had also changed.
He grabs the book again... but it says something now, Kalin reads it aloud, [Escape] he turns the first page, and in bold capitalized letters it reads 'RUN' Shivers run down Kalin's spine, and he hears a breath... that's not his.
Not even trying to see what did it, he dashes, running up the stairs not caring if they break or squeak, he throws the pole backwards but it doesn't hit anything or even make a sound. The breathing gets closer, until it's too close, Kalin is struck from behind by the thing's claws.
"AGHH!" Kalin screams but continues running, trying his best to ignore the searing pain, he can't afford to stop. He makes it back to the hallway jumping over the dolls that are in his way, and they come to life, trying to grab and pull his foot down, Kalin nearly clears them all, but the last row of dolls manages to grab him by the heels, making him fall on his face.
Kalin scrambles to get up, kicking the dolls away, but it's too late, he hears the breathing coming from behind him at the entrance to the basement, he gets up to his feet and tries to run but, the being closes the gap in an instant, gripping Kalin's skull with it's disgustingly slimy fingers and throws him into a wall.
Kalin crashes through the wall, landing on the coffee table in the living room with a loud thud, shattering the vase that held the wilted flower with his back, Kalin groans on the floor, wood pieces and glass shards from the table and vase puncturing his back and soaking it in blood, he stares at the hole in the wall that he made, and tries to force himself up.
Failing as he does, he lies on the ground in defeat, 'Shit... no!' at that moment he gets a notification, [You have obtained a Skill: Pain Resistance Lv.1] after getting this notification his body becomes filled with slightly more energy, and the pain lessen slightly but not enough to get up or run... until
[Jack Of Nothing's Effect Activated]
[Pain Resistance Lv.2 Obtained]
This is what he needed, the pain becomes much lesser, like from getting shot, to getting hit... by a Semi-Truck. But still it allows him to get up, as he hears the steps and breathing coming from the hole and getting closer, he limps to the door and opens it the sunlight nearly blinding him.
Feeling the breathing getting closer from behind him, he runs outside, putting his back against the door, and then it explodes, sending Kalin barreling into the rubble and rolling across pieces of stone and wood, he avoids getting fatally injured by covering his head, although the rest of his body is not so lucky.
His left leg and arm had been broken, but he managed to stand up on his right leg, he looked at the door of the house, expecting to see the monster approaching him, but it wasn't, it... wasn't there and neither was the house.
The only thing that remained from his terrible house tour, was his terribly injured body and the red book, which had reverted to nothing.
He looks at the book, with hate in his eyes, 'Could've warned me before...' he sighs which makes his chest burn with pain, 'I need to rest' With that thought, he pushes his battered body to move away from the rubble and into the next stretch of forest.
The moment his feet touched the grass, he fell onto the floor, every breath bringing with it a shocking pain, 'surely if I didn't get that skill...' he didn't want to think about what would've happened.
And he couldn't, because the moment the adrenaline had escaped from his body, he was knocked out cold.
'This is becoming familiar...' he's again in the darkness, his body completely unmovable, he tries to raise his arm but it feels like he's shackled.
He rests in the darkness for a while enjoying the feeling of not being injured, getting startled by the girl's voice again, it sounds familiar but he can't put his finger on it her voice sounds distressed now she says, "Wake up... Jack!"
His eyes open slowly, followed by a splitting headache, 'Ugh...' Kalin sits up and crawls to a nearby tree laying his back against it, he looks at the state of his body, it was... better, but not good.
His left leg and arm were still broken, but his bleeding had mostly stopped... so that was something, 'What was this place?' Kalin looked towards the rubble, he assumed it was a village but, it was indiscernible from a garbage dump so it was hard to tell.
'I'm sure that "thing" destroyed it though' his body shivers at the mention of the "thing" forcing himself to get out of that train of thought.
Now looking away from the rubble, he instead looks at the next stretch of forest, for some reason something in him says that this is the last stretch and it isn't far.
But, his instincts also told him to go into the house so... maybe he shouldn't trust them, 'I can't just sit like this...' Kalin uses his right arm to pull himself up using the tree for balance and his right leg to keep himself standing.
He lets go of the tree standing on his right and broken left leg, he grits his teeth forcing himself to ignore the pain, [Pain Resistance] helping him do so.
And he manages to take a step, immediately after, falling on his face. He flips himself over and stares at the leaves of the trees blocking the sun, with a brand new bloody nose.
He sighs and turns his head noticing a rather long stick, 'I could use that' he grabs the stick pushing it into the ground, and forcing his body up, until he's standing, using the stick he tries to take another step.
He managed to do it this time, although practically dragging his leg, but it was better than nothing.
He continues to walk at a very slow pace, eventually, he's so far that the rubble can't be seen and the only thing left are the trees.
He walks for a couple more hours until he physically can't anymore, and falls onto the ground.
As he falls onto the floor he sees something in the distance, the trees in front of him were slowly bending into an arch, creating a tunnel of sorts.
At the end of the tunnel stands a circular stone platform which Kalin assumes is the exit and crawls towards, 'So close...' Kalin crawls across the forest floor, slowly approaching the platform.
Soon the stone platform which was slightly taller than his crawling height, was right in front of him, Kalin sighed and placed his hand on the top of the platform, using that hand to pull himself on top of it.
As he gets on it, he starts slowly crawling to the middle of the circle and when he makes it to the middle, he flips himself over placing his back against the stone and staring at the sky.
Suddenly a blue light engulfed him, he turned his head to look at the stone, strange characters had become engraved on it, which were emitting the light.
In an instant, his body disappeared. The near blinding sunlight was replaced by pure darkness, he tried to shift his body but nothing happened, 'Did I do it...?' his thoughts seemed to reverberate throughout the darkness.
He floats in the darkness for a bit in utter silence when it's finally broken, this time the voice is more manly and deep than usual, with a heavy sadness in their voice they say "Jack, Get Up!"
His eyes shoot open, and he looks down his shirt which had been torn from various battles was now in perfect condition and so was his body, his broken bones, and other wounds were healed as if nothing ever happened.
Snapping him out of his confusion, he gets a notification:
[You have conquered your first trial: Skill obtained: Beginner Weapon Mastery, your name has been added to the leaderboard!]
As he's about to check this leaderboard another notification pops up.
[Jack Of Nothing Effect Activated]
[Novice Weapon Mastery Obtained]
'Huh?' Kalin stares at the text bewildered.
[Choosing weapon that best fits user: Sword]
[Novice Sword Mastery Obtained]
'That title was actually pretty good I guess' Kalin looks away from his system, and sits up on his dirty mattress, surveying his surroundings. nothing had changed in his apartment from when he left, the smell of mold was still wafting in the air and nothing had moved even an inch.
He looked down and grabbed his phone, which was sitting upside down right beside him, flipping it over and pressing the power button lightly, careful not to break it with his enhanced strength, he looked at the phone noticing that, the date and time were the exact same as when he left.
He had guessed as such because he had been walking in the endless forest for at least a month.
With a sigh he puts that aside and checks the leaderboard which he seems to be on now, he glances at the top of the leaderboard but keeps scrolling down until he finds himself
[Leaderboard]
1. Midas
2. King of Everything
3. Blade Of Death
...
1001. Jack Of Nothing
He looks at the names above and below him, realizing that besides the top three and him, most people didn't have titles and instead had their real names on the leaderboard.
After staring at his title on the leaderboard for a moment, he gets up from his dingy mattress and walks to his bathroom, after a quick shower he looks at himself in the dirty and cracked mirror he notices that his features have subtly changed... his face was more sharp and looked kind of dangerous...
His body had changed as well, his muscles got bigger and more pronounced, and he looked like a promising athlete. Still, the change was subtle enough that he could hide it, his face would be harder to explain though.
Averting his eyes from his body, he looked at the outfit he was wearing, which was his school uniform. It was a simple outfit, a white dress shirt, a black blazer, and a black tie. Still, now that his body had changed the uniform that once felt loose had become a perfect match.
He walked out of the bathroom, quickly grabbing his backpack which lay on the kitchen counter, and slinging it over his shoulder, he took a look back at his home and stepped into the hallway.