'Oh well, What's done is done so there's no use complaining about anything now.'
I was already thrust into this situation before I'd even been given the chance to consider anything, so I couldn't really throw fault onto the system.
Besides, the system was actually kind of my saviour. Without it my soul would have been extinguished. Whether or not that was because it kept me alive in a soul-like state or if the system itself would be doing the extinguishing was still up for discussion, but those kind of questions were far beyond the current me.
[Ability analysis begun… Ability analysis complete. Beginner Wooden Short sword has been sent to your inventory.]
Not much I could think about this message. I'd never picked up a sword, or any weapon of the like in my life at that, so I literally had no input on whether this was a good thing or not.
[Nick Balls has been registered. Confirming rank…]
The sentence was incomplete, which most likely meant it was doing some background processes like with my 'ability analysis', only it was taking much longer this time.
[Rank confirmed. You are 1st of 1 Dungeon Explorers on Earth. You are 324,876th of the 324,876 cumulative Dungeon Explorers. Rankings are renewed daily.]
'Is this good? Bad? I don't know.'
I was literally dead last out of every Dungeon Explorer there was, but that meant nothing to me, as I knew nothing about this place or what being a Dungeon Explorer was.
It could be because I'd just arrived at this place, so I was naturally placed last because I hadn't done anything yet, or that my 'abilities' that it had scanned were so abysmal that I was quite literally dead last in terms of talent.
Even though I didn't quite understand my situation just yet, I silently hoped that the answer leaned more towards the former…
'So what do I do now?'
The messages had stopped, so I just found myself alone in this somewhat medieval corridor left to my own thoughts.
[Saying or thinking 'Status' pulls up your details. Saying or thinking 'Inventory' accesses your inventory.]
'The previous messages mentioned something about a sword being sent to my inventory. Perhaps I should check that out first.'
"Inventory."
Following my thoughts, I uttered the word just as the system had instructed.
What appeared was a screen just like before. But this time it was almost too game-like. It didn't have words on it like the other messages did, instead holding a 3x3 grid of squares, 9 in total, with two of them currently being occupied.
There was nothing else except for that, and it looked like an inventory straight from out of a game, only smaller with less slots.
Two of the slots were occupied, the first with a bottle containing a red liquid, followed by the number '10' in the bottom right of its square.
Obviously this had to be the 1o Lowest grade potions I'd received as a welcome gift.
'So objects of the same type stack, that's relieving to see, I guess.'
It would be a damn inconvenience if they didn't. I wouldn't even be able to store all 10 of the potions in there if so!
Next to the potions was a rather crude, boring looking wooden sword.
A part of me expected to see a '1' in the bottom right corner of its slot, but there wasn't one. This wasn't really unexpected. I'd played my fair share of games in my youth, and you weren't able to stack weapons in any of them either.
With how this whole 'Dungeon Explorer' bullshit had gone so far, it only made sense that it followed this common theme.
It was disappointing, but not the end of the world.
'I've already died, so I guess that doesn't matter any more, hehe.'
Suppressing a chuckle, I moved on from those depressing thoughts.
Curious, I extended my hand toward the screen and tapped on the sword, wishing to take it out.
Of course, I say 'tapped' but what really happened was that my finger passed right through the screen, eerily similar to how my hand passed through that guy back at the scene of my death.
For a second, it even made me think that I wasn't alive again like I was led to believe, but I was only 20% sure that this could be the case.
Unlike the time with that guy when I died, it wasn't 'me' that phased through the screen, but rather the screen that phased through me, like it wasn't a physical object.
It's probably a little difficult to put into words considering I'm no wordsmith, but that's the best I could do to explain it.
'Okay, so that didn't work. How about this?'
Throwing that idea aside, I attempted a different approach this time.
I inwardly thought about the sword appearing in my hand and…
'Well would you look at that! It actually worked!'
The exact sword from the picture appeared in my right hand a near instant after willing it to do so with my mind.
I felt relieved seeing this, as I was hoping this kind of method could be used to take items out of the inventory and put them in. It'd be rather inconvenient if I had to physically touch the item with my finger to take anything out whenever I wanted to.
Nothing had happened so far, but even an idiot could have realised that there would be some dangerous situations I'll find myself in.
The fact that one of the first things I've been given in this place, was a sword, should be enough evidence of this.
I wasn't exactly too thrilled about this when I first realised it, but I just had to remind myself of the alternative — Death. Non-existence. Whatever you want to call it — whenever I get too worked up about it.
The sword wasn't too heavy, but it was made from wood so I didn't really expect otherwise. It was thick and the blade was blunt. From what I could tell, this thing wouldn't even be classed as a weapon if I were to carry it out in the open back on Earth. It would probably be classed as a training sword.
Naturally, this didn't exactly inspire much confidence in me.
But the system just kept giving me more surprises.