"The hell? Where am I?"
[*System reboot*]
[Loading...]
[I'm your land survival system, you are the owner of this new frogezoid body.]
[Feed me points, and I'll show you the secrets of survival with the aid of body upgrades.]
"Hmmm... well this is interesting."
...
[First main and utterly supreme task = Locate and claim the Flaming Crown!]
Whoever spoke to him, was very direct. This feminine voice that reverberated in his head, went right into business, and urged some presumably important bullet-points. She was all business!
Then, she continued. [Once you complete this task, you will be rewarded with 27,000 system points. Those points sound like a lot, Steve, and it is because they are a lot! This is the most important task of your life right now, so please take it seriously.]
"Wait, who the hell are you?" Steve asked, as he frantically looked around for help. "Angels aren't supposed to talk about flaming crowns or some other bullshit, am I in hell or something!? Is that it?"
[This is not hell, and please pay attention.] She urged, and unapologetically ignored the utter panic he was in. [The crown itself holds enough power, to strengthen your chances of survival in this cruel world. Make it a top priority to seek and obtain this item, you must understand this first. Are we clear?]
"Okay," Steve cooperated.
In reality, he had no idea what was going on and felt as if he was being mocked by demons or something of equivalent. He was supposed to be dead, he specifically remembered dying just moments ago, due to old age, and now a computerized voice spoke to him, rather than god himself. That latter part, felt like a godsent punishment instead of anything else, and his overall confusion was more than justified!
Things got even worse, once he finally got a good look of the surroundings. He couldn't believe his eyes, the scene was bizarre!
He grunted, "Is that a fucking frog, with hair?"
Moments ago, when he arrived into this 'hell' his vision had been very blurry. He had seen hints of green here and there, which convinced him that he was in a lush field, but now that he was more aware of his surroundings, he realized that he wasn't in such a relaxing field at all, no!
The hints of green did not come from any herbs or trees, but instead, the 'greenery' came from these countless tall, human-like frogs, who walked up and down a stone-encrusted street. It was a really pretty place, medieval-looking and that, but Steve was still petrified, he couldn't enjoy the scenery at all.
Steve didn't enjoy the scenery, but the fact of the matter remained that he was in an old, medieval city of sorts! There were a bunch of gray, tall houses around him too, their shade of color was very similar to that of the stone street. Overall, this place looked wealthy, if not architecturally impressive!
Nevertheless, he dismissed these vast details as illusions, and then asked himself. "Maybe I'm not dead just yet? My father saw ghosts before he passed away, and I'm seeing frog-men… What a hell of a way to go, haha!"
Steve waited to die, he waited a few more minutes, yet he remained alive. He pinched himself just to test how conscious he was, and discovered that his hard pinch hurt a lot! He wailed like a pregnant cow.
Afterwards, to put things further to the test, he moved his arms around slowly, just to have a look at them. In the greatest of details, he saw that his hands had just four, thick, green fingers. His knuckles had a darker shade to them, but that aside, this shade of color alone hinted that he was a frog-man as well, just like the rest of these people!
This was not funny, he didn't want to be a frog whatsoever, even if he was just dreaming about it. He wanted to complain, endlessly, but then the lady in his head interrupted him all of a sudden!
[Steve, you aren't dreaming and this is not an illusion of any sort, you'll have to trust me on that. You're in the ancient country of Firestone, and the planet that this country resides on, is hidden somewhere within the Triangulum Galaxy.] She explained.
Steve was struck silent. He had been convinced that he was having weird, pre-death dreams so far, but that may not be the case at all. The system just kept adding more and more details to what already seemed pretty realistic, so he couldn't lie to himself anymore!
The system continued speaking too, she said. [As I explained before, I am your Land Survival System and as long as you're breathing, you're bound to me for good, I will help you survive and progress. Would you like to hear a bit of information, regarding what primary capabilities I can help you upgrade?]
After hearing that question, he started crawling towards the side of the stone-road. This place seemed real, and furthermore, the sounds of this street's lively commute overwhelmed him quite a bit, with various sounds that he didn't care to listen to. These sounds have been gnawing on his nerves for a while now. Anyway, since he wanted to take the system seriously now, it necessarily meant that this was to be done best without any distractions. He wanted to pay the utmost attention to the system, so moving away from the crowd was the best course of action.
"Tell me about the upgrades you just mentioned." He then inquired.
[Okay, loading…] The system cooperated.
Afterwards, she explained. [I will be sharing a list with you now, Steve. The levels and or scores in the following list, explain how strong each category of your capabilities are, with the lowest of anything being close to zero. With my help, you can upgrade each and every one of them in due time…]
[Bodily strength, speed and durability = Level two]
[Jaws, eyes, sight and overall senses = Level three]
[Average score of either four, primary types of intelligence = Barely average]
[Mana flow and quantity = Disruptive]
[Magical powers = Flaming Fingers, Poisonous Tongue and Big Jumps]
[Sex appeal = Level zero]
With all of that said, the system convinced him more and more that he was indeed not dreaming! The details were too profound, and Steve just wasn't creative enough to dream of anything like this on his own to begin with, so he was almost entirely convinced now. His life had been utterly bland, so certainly, he never thought of man-frogs!
Steve then had an idea, to confirm the factual soundness of this world, once and for good. He wanted to jump, to test just how high he could reach!
In theory, this was the best way to help himself get convinced, but the sudden, brief pain that he felt instead was just as good. Apparently his legs were inverted, so as soon as he stood up, he face-planted onto the stone ground! He failed to jump, and he didn't feel as enthusiastic to try again.
He was convinced now anyway, and he grunted. "Yup, very real."
After he face-planted, Steve heard countless giggles and laughter too. He was near the street, and what he did was a bit funny, so it was understandable how this bustling street of people made a fool out of him once he failed.
These frogs didn't try to help him either, as they just giggled, and whispered awful stuff from a distance. From within those whispers, he heard one of them quite clearly!
"Look at that drunkard, what a shame..." Someone had mocked him.
That word stung him quite a bit. In his past life, as a human, Steve had never been in the position to be called a drunkard, ever, so he felt really offended.
Steve didn't want to be known as a drunkard, even now, so he tried to stand up and walk away from these horrid accusations! He almost face-planted again, but then suddenly, he felt a couple of hands slipping below his arms.
"Huh?" He grunted, and thought that someone wanted to help him.
In just two seconds, he figured out that these couple of people weren't friends whatsoever. They weren't cops either, but yet they twisted his arms behind his back to the point where they almost broke them, and then they dragged him towards an empty alleyway close by! Steve may be murdered in mere moments for all he knew, and he couldn't do anything about it!
…
Once these fiends dragged him into that alleyway, they then tossed him on the harsh, stone-path ground. It was the same, hard material that covered most of these streets, so it was fair to say that he didn't land softly.
"Fucking hell," Steve cussed, inwardly.
Things couldn't get any more real than this, and yet, they did. On top of being cut by some stone wedge on the ground, he then suddenly felt a shocking, and burning pain right near his spine! He guessed that they stabbed him, it didn't take much to figure that out.
However, he had no idea why he got stabbed to begin with, as this attack from their side seemed really random overall. At this point, Steve thought that these froggy abominations were just retarded or something, so he felt really unlucky.
Seconds later, one of these attackers finally spoke out. "This was just a warning, asshole!"
With that considered, they may not actually be retarded. Steve turned around to face them, but the pain he was feeling insisted on knocking him out, so he was stripped out of any logical thoughts. When he saw that one of their curled swords was covered in blood, he got freaked out even more!
Steve may die, which was very unlucky because he also died as a human, just moments ago. These couple of frogs remained ruthless, though, as one of them sprung forward, and kicked him hard a bit below the check-bone! This was an unplanned, emotional kick from the attacker's side, one could guess from the attacker's body form, he was upset. Steve didn't do anything to these guys personally, so he could never truly guess what they were so upset about.
Details of that sort didn't matter right now. The pain accumulated to above what he could handle, so Steve just laid there, and gave up entirely! At this point he didn't even care if he died, again, because it didn't seem ideal to be a frog.
The attackers left seconds after, so one could guess that they had completed whatever mission they had here. They didn't want to get caught near a dying body, but before they left, one of them whispered something very specific, right near his ear, and just like that things finally started making some sense!
"Ten gold bars, cunt!" He whispered, "You know what you owe him, and you know where to bring them… Don't make us wait any longer, because we have someone you love, remember? Don't put her innocence at risk, you stupid dick!"
"Fuck you…" Steve whispered, despite being still mostly clueless.
Steve had no idea what those attackers were talking about. He didn't owe anything to anyone as far as he knew, and they certainly couldn't have kidnapped his human daughter, no, yet as his conscience started dissolving towards the worse, so he started thinking that they did actually kidnap his human daughter! He associated his past, human life with this new and current one, and that only served to make things confusing.
Even if he wasn't so confused, Steve still wouldn't know if he owed money to anyone in this world, he didn't know those frogs that just attacked him, certainly not! He didn't know any froggy names at all, not even the ones of potential froggy friends or family members, so he wouldn't really know who to turn to in this world. Not that any of that mattered right now, as he was quite close to death, but it still was something to think about. Just then, he started hearing voices in his head again!
It said, [I see that you're confusing your old life with your new one, Steve. Let me make some things clear for you… you're not a human anymore, but instead, you are the new owner of this frogezoid body. The past owner had died because of a heart attack, and now, your soul floats within it.]
While Steve tried to figure out if this voice was real or a hallucination, the voice continued talking. [The memories of the past body owner will slowly appear in your head, which will be helpful in the long run. You'll remember who your friends and family are in this new world, you should start remembering your enemies as well.]
"Oh… as if that'll matter. My mom will stab me too or something, cuz I'm in big trouble here." Steve joked, inwardly, while his wound continued to bleed out. "It would be nice to have a mom again, though… haven't had one in two decades."
[You may have a mother, or you may not. If you survive, we'll figure it out.] The voice said, and then added. [As for your prior concerns about violence, you do have a point. The frogs here aren't so nice, most of them across the whole continent are horribly mean, or violent. You're in the country of Firestone right now, which is inherently a rough, strong, and barbaric place.]
Steve was not entertained by that explanation, but at least he understood the surroundings a bit better now. He didn't even feel so unlucky anymore, about being stabbed, because he started guessing that everyone across the land was stabbing each other for stupid reasons!
This may be one of those stupid reasons, as this was a dumb way to die. From what he understood, the past owner of this frogezoid body had likely gotten into some bad debt of sorts, for whatever reason, and now Steve was paying the consequences of that debt! This was not a good reason to die over.
The unbearable pain that coated his back was almost crippling. He could barely move, the dust and tiny rocks on the road were irritating his wound too, and he was soaked in his own blood. He was beyond miserable!
Steve wanted to stand up and look for help, but he couldn't. He was stripped out of energy, and could barely even talk, nonetheless walk. This may be the end, and there was nothing he could do about it!
Right then, the voice in his head reappeared, to sprinkle some sudden hope. She came back with some recommendations that may or may not help Steve survive.
She said, [I can see that you can't walk, Steve, but you have to crawl out of here, and look for help if you're to survive. You need a potion to seal that wound of yours immediately, or else, you won't make it! If you actually manage to find a potion in time, be careful not to drink the cheap stuff, or your wound will get inflamed beyond repair!]