Chapter 4 - The Player’s first Domain

Sunlight shimmered across the vast field of grass. Somewhere, lying down a young man with scruffy black hair was hidden by the tall grass. He wore a bloodied grey t-shirt, and a pair of blue baggy jeans, similarly dotted with dried blood. 

His complexion was pale, as if he had been badly wounded. With closer inspection, one would notice a deep gash that spanned across his back. A jagged piece of wood was impaled at it's centre, blood slowly seeping out of the wound. 

His breathing, was slow and uneven. Eventually, the boy forced his eyes open and he quickly realised that with each breath, pain stabbed into his chest. Lucas would've screamed but just opening his mouth hurt, so instead he just lay there in silent agony. 

After a while, Lucas grasped a clear thought process through the pain. 'I think, my right lung has been impaled. Wait... Where am I? I was in the coffee shop and then... Did everything fall apart? No. Must've imagined it.' 

Lucas tried to slowly push himself up, bracing against the pain. He was in a... field? It seemed to stretch quite a distance as well, still going in every direction as far as he could see. Actually, futher than he should've been able to see. 'Did my vision look get better?' 

But then, he stopped thinging about that, oblivious to the detail. 'A person. There's a person over there.' He tried to move toward the person, but fell on his face, in spasms of pain. 

'Argh. How do I get to him?' 

All of a sudden, he had a brilliant idea. 'I don't need to get there. All I need to do is just call them over here... This is going to hurt though.' 

After a few seconds of silence, trying to hope he wouldn't have to shout, Lucas prepared himself. Taking a deep breath, that caused him an intense amount of pain, he pushed through it and screamed. 

"Oooveeer heeereee. I'm oooveeer heeereee." 

Struggling to breathe after his ploy, Lucas tilted his head upwards, hoping that he had caught the person's attention. 'Yes' 

Far ahead, the person was running towards him, going at full speed. 'It's rather fast. Damn. Wait... it?' 

As the creature got closer, looking less like a silhouette, Lucas got a better look at the thing. It was the shape of a person but had one striking difference. 

Wheat like material, entirely replacing where the skin should've been. Yellow hay, strung across its body. From a distance it would have looked like slightly yellow skin, but now the creature was barely a minute away Maybe half a kilometre. 

'Huh. Must be hallucinating.' 

After somewhat painfully rubbing his eyes, Lucas looked forward again. 'Nope. Still there.' A cold gripping feeling latched around his heart. He felt a mixture of fear, and pain, but mainly dread.

He didn't want to die. But what could he do?

Clawing at the grass, Lucas hastily tried to pull himself up. If he could run, even slowly, maybe he could get away from the creature. 

But before he could even run, a stabbing pain escaped from his spine. 'Aargh. Fuck.' The wooden knife empaled deeper into his body as he tried to get up. 

And in a moment of pain, while he wasn't thinking clearly, he pulled his hand towards his spine and stole the shard from his lung. Blood lurched from the hole, as his right lung collapsed.

With the obstacle, out of his way, Lucas forced himself to run, struggling through the pain.

He kept on running, for so so long. It felt like he'd been running for an eternity, but he didn't stop running. And finally he made the mistake of turning around.

Barely having stumbled 10 metres from his original location, the creature was about to be upon him. It jumped forward, closing the remaining few metres like they were nothing.

Meanwhile, Lucas was frozen on the spot. His instincts however, still completely intact. Lucas' hands barred in front of his face, protecting him.

The creature, landed in front of him. The hay around its head retreated, and in its wake, 3 rows of small but razor sharp, serrated teeth. It lunged forward, going straight for his arms and head.

As its teeth dug into Lucas' arm with a crunch, it quickly stopped biting after a wooden knife escaped from the other end of its throat into the air. It seemingly let out a gurgle as blood dribbled through the daggers in its throat. It dropped dead, weighing down on the boy, despite its light weight.

[You have slain a Creature (Rank - 0)] 

As it hit the floor its wheat like skin, turned grey, then quickly black. Lastly the hay, decomposed, leaving a clump of purple entrails, organs, and blood that spread out over Lucas and the surrounding grass.

Lucas' previously clean clothes were now cothered in both his and an alien creature's blood. As for Lucas... he had removed the only thing stopping him from bleeding out. His arm also completely destroyed, the bone underneath visible at some points.

Lucas writhed in intense pain, his body in critical condition. It was a miracle that he was still alive. But his heartbeat was slowing down, and to worsen that, a flaming pain was burning through his fingers.

For the second time that day, Lucas questioned whether he was dying. Rhetorical completely. He already knew the answer this time.

The pain around his fingers turned into agony. And then it became something so intense, that no word gave it justice. The ring around his hand felt like it would melt through his skin at any point, fusing with his actual fingers.

The feeling was so intense that the pain of all the injurys that he had disappeared entirely.

His vision, yet again, started to fade.

[You have absorbed a Relic (Rank - F)]

And his vision went black.

***

"You fool. If -redacted- finds out about this, we're all dead."

Sweating bullets, he screamed at the foolish moderators he had been entrusted. "How does that even happen. The chances for a domain to be registered on a subjects location, is so low, that it should be near impossible."

"To be fair lord, we tried to account for all of the possibilities, and we caught the fault extremely quickly. We activated the use of relics very soon after it happened. I doubt something could've gone wrong..." he stuttered out, only now realising that he should've stopped talking halfway through.

The admin turned in his direction. Blink. The moderators body fell to pieces on the floor. Blink. Any hint that there had ever been a moderator in that position gone. The blood didn't even reach the metal floor.

'All I can do is hope that he doesn't find out.'

***

When Lucas awoke, he was surprised. He had fully suspected to never wake up. Or at least be in hell, maybe heaven but doubtful with how many places he'd robbed.

Instead he was greeted by the never ending fields of grass, and a disgusting stench that filled his nostrils. 

'Aah. That thing.'

Lucas quickly scrambled up off the floor, away from the purple corpse that was lying on top of him.

And then it struck him. 'Wait. I'm not injured?'

Any trace of Lucas' wounds had completely vanished. The gaping hole that ran through his lung and back, completely missing. The crippling wounds across his arm, vanished.

He did a little tap dance, proving that he could walk yet again. Then he took a deep breath in, finding that it brought him no pain. Lucas felt envigorated. In fact, he was in the best condition he had ever been in. 

And then another thing struck him, 'What was that voice I heard. It said something about killing that thing, and absorbing a relic. When'd I do that?'

Lucas took a few steps away from the horrifying stench, closing his eyes, trying to help himself think better. 'This all feels so surreal, it feels just like a novel or a game...'

His mind rushed with visual stimuli. Despite his eyes being closed, ahead of him, luminescent white text covered his vision. He opened his eyes, and the text was gone.

Closing them again, Lucas returned to darkness. 'Game?'

The text appeared.

---

Name : Lucas Ruff

Skills : [Lucky], [Sight], [Player]

[Lucky] (Rank - 0) : Player will be inherently lucky, in any given situation. All things will naturally move to benefit him slightly.

[Sight] (Rank - 0) : Increases how far Player can see. 

[Player] (Rank - 0) : Grants access to the advanced system. This will allow the Player to use -censored- and -censored-. The player may also gather information from the system. The information will directly correlate to the Rank of the skill.

- Skills : [Lucky], [Sight] can be evolved using RP

- Special Skill : [Player] can be evolved using DP

Information gathered - Subjects : [Current Location]

[Current Location] : You are currently in the Domain known as 'Hideout of the Persuasive Snares'. (Rank - 13). This Domain holds creatures such as 'Voracious Stalkers' (Rank - 0) and 'Mimics' (Rank - 1)

---

'What does it all mean? What is RP and DP?' Lucas wondered. He was simultaneously questioning the truth behind the text and thinking of way to disprove the things written. He didn't want to believe that he was in a game just yet.

However, his interaction with that thing, still felt very real to him. 'I guess I'll just have to believe it for now.'

Because, he currently had other things to worry about. A vast field lay ahead of him, and Lucas, now given a bit of knowledge about his surroundings, needed to escape.

'Let's find out how lucky I truly am?'