Chapter for word count to enter the Ranking, you can skip it!
Chapter for word count to enter the Ranking, you can skip it!
Chapter for word count to enter the Ranking, you can skip it!
Chapter for word count to enter the Ranking, you can skip it!
Chapter for word count to enter the Ranking, you can skip it!
Next, there will be the first chapters of an Solo Leveling fanfic I wrote. You can skip ahead if you want!
[Solo Leveling Fanfic]
Chapter 0 – Prologue
New York never slept.
With its skyscrapers rising like the ribs of a giant made of steel and glass, this city pulsed like a living organism. On the streets, traffic was always heavy, with horns and sirens mingling with the hubbub of voices from the crowds living their urban lives. But on that night, another sound rose above the rest—screams.
"Ahhhh! Run! They're coming this way!"
"I don't want to die!"
"Mom!! Has anyone seen my mom? Sniff... Mom?!"
At the corner of 32nd and 6th Avenue, a portal, surrounded by a bluish aura, floated a few inches above the asphalt. This portal trembled like a mirror of water when touched, expanding and contracting erratically as it cracked.
The cracks meant what humans feared most: a portal breach.
Normally, the portal would be closed before that, with a designated guild doing the job, but the Hunters couldn't act in New York. At least not officially. Because of this policy, the streets were under attack.
The breaking of a portal did not mean that all the monsters inside the dungeon would be released immediately, but rather that the bridge, previously one-way, had become two-way and now the monsters could cross over to Earth. In this way, usually a small horde of monsters was sent by the boss, as scouts. The problem was that even a small horde of monsters was terrifying when there were no Hunters around.
For now, there were five Night Gargoyles, Rank-D monsters. With their long, curved bodies covered in skin as black as polished obsidian. The eyes of these monsters, three on each side of their skulls, showed no recognizable emotions other than hunger, and perhaps that was why they attacked without tactics, driven only by a primitive desire—or a voice in their heads—telling them to kill.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
The police opened fire on the Night Gargoyles.
The bullets hit the monsters squarely. However, the result was discouraging. With skin as hard as steel, normal bullets had no effect other than to irritate them. To them, bullets from firearms were like insect bites.
"Damn, they won't stop!" One of the officers shouted, reloading his pistol as he took cover.
"Cover! Someone give me cover so I can get out of here!"
"Arrrghw!"
A scream of terror cut through the night as one of the creatures flapped its wings and flew with its velociraptor-like claws to grab a man who was trying to run.
Then a red and blue figure fell from the sky, holding the creature's claws with his bare hands. "Hey, ugly! How about you go back to the hole, I mean, the portal where you came from?!"
"It's Spider-Man!" The policeman who had been saved in time shouted, recognizing the figure in the suit that covered every inch of skin from head to toe.
However, Spider-Man quickly realized that the Night Gargoyle was too strong, and he began to be dragged backward. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the police officer he had saved had already run away, so he threw his body slightly to the side and let the Night Gargoyle go forward.
The Gargoyle landed heavily against a New York City police car, crushing the metal with her weight and strength. She shook her head, a little disoriented, but was already preparing to return to the attack.
Spider-Man gritted his teeth behind his mask. "This isn't going to be easy."
He shot a web into the air and grabbed it, moving to dodge the charge of another Night Gargoyle with superhuman agility. His moral code always complicated battles like this—he couldn't just kill these creatures because they were deemed monsters. That meant he had to be creative, find ways to contain them.
But how do you restrain something that apparently feels no pain?
To help the police officers survive, Spiderman moved between the Gargoyles, punching them and shooting webs at them to get the attention of each of the five.
The problem was that they were dumb individually, but cunning predators in a group, and they surrounded him.
"Oh, man..." He realized his mistake when he was surrounded by the five at the intersection.
One of the creatures jumped. Spider shot a web to try to stop it, but another came from the side. Its claws were aimed at the hero's chest. At that distance, there was no time to dodge, even with his spider sense.
And then something flashed through Spider-Man's vision. It wasn't a web, it wasn't a bullet. It was something sharp.
A blade passed inches from Spider-Man's face and found the black skin of that Night Gargoyle, causing the creature to shudder before its body was reduced to a lifeless heap. A clean cut with a bluish trail.
Spider-Man didn't see where the blade came from, nor did he feel it with his spider sense. Even so, knowing he was still surrounded by monsters, he shot a web to get out of this situation. And surprisingly, it wasn't difficult. Strangely, the Night Gargoyles didn't try to follow him, and he landed on top of a pole to observe what had happened.
Then he noticed that, among the monsters, a shadow was moving. A man in a black hood. He moved like a professional dancer, but using daggers. There were no sounds of footsteps, and each blow was brutally efficient. No wasted movements. No mistakes.
Peter Parker, the boy behind the Spiderman suit, felt a chill. Not a chill like he normally felt when he was fighting, but a natural chill.
_
[Notification!
You defeated a Night Gargoyle.
You defeated a Night Gargoyle.
You defeated a Night Gargoyle.
EXP gained: 600.
Current level: 107 (32%).
–
Sung Jin-Woo wiped the blade of his dagger on his coat sleeve and looked at the last two Night Gargoyles. His eyes quickly analyzed their movements before entering battle.
'They're not very smart, but wild enough to be troublesome.
Jin-Woo charged forward. His speed, thanks to his level and the active skill called [Sprint], made his movements a complete blur to the naked eye. Then, he slid between the two gargoyles, dodged their claws, and his blades slashed upward as he jumped, cutting the creatures' necks. One of them fell to the ground, but quickly became just a pile of black clouds.
Another notification arrived.
Even without intelligence, the last Gargoyle felt an instinctive fear in the presence of that human. Fortunately, it didn't have time to flap its wings to try to escape. Sung Jin-Woo spun the dagger in his left hand, holding it in a reverse position, and stabbed it directly into the creature's throat.
–
[Notification!
You have defeated a Night Gargoyle.
EXP gained: 200.
Current level: 107 (34%).
–
The police officers, who had previously fired unsuccessfully, now looked over the hoods of their partially destroyed cars. They were stunned, staring at the stranger who had cleared the area in seconds.
"Could he be a hunter..." One police officer asked the other in shock.
"Of course he is..."
However, there were laws in this city, and some of those laws needed to be strictly followed by certain officers of the law.
"Hey, you! Stop right where you are!" A police officer pointed a gun at the hooded man. "According to New York State Special Law, hunters are prohibited from using their powers on state soil! Please put your hands above your head and surrender so that the law can apply the appropriate punishment!"
The first officer's exclamation was the cue for the others who, though hesitant, stood up and pointed their guns at the man who had saved them.
"Hey, hey, guys! What are you doing? He just saved our lives!" Spider-Man raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture and tried to calm them down. "I mean, he technically did something illegal, but come on, you saw what he did!"
The police exchanged uncertain glances.
"It doesn't matter. The law is clear! A bunch of civilians died last week on the Brooklyn Bridge because one of them was 'testing' his powers!"
"I know, I know, but..."
Taking advantage of the distraction Spiderman had created, the hooded man disappeared. It wasn't a movement too fast to be seen, no. He simply vanished.
The police officers panicked. "HE'S BACK! SHOOT!"
The collective hysteria caused most of the police officers to pull the triggers. The shots hit the assault, others ricocheted off the metal of abandoned civilian cars. But they didn't hit the mysterious man.
The shooting only stopped when a loud sound came from the sun, followed by a heavy, metallic sound. The police officers looked up and saw a man in red and gold painted iron armor. A wave of hot air and soot spread around the point of impact when he landed.
"Iron Man..." someone whispered.
The helmet turned slightly, the bright blue eyes scanning the situation. Crushed cars. Cracked asphalt. A cracked portal.
"I've been informed that a dungeon break has occurred," Tony Stark said. 'Where are the ugly ones?"
"They've already been defeated, sir,' a police officer replied.
"And what exactly were you shooting at?" He turned to look at the police officers behind the cars.
The men in blue uniforms seemed uncomfortable answering. Thanks to their silence, Spider-Man came out from the rear with one hand raised, waving to Iron Man.
"Mr. Stark, I..."
"Kid, are you here? Can you tell me what happened?" Tony asked, almost relieved to have someone who could tell him exactly what had happened.
"Well... There was a hunter here. He was the one who solved the problem. He was fast, strong, but then... Poof! He disappeared."
Ironman sighed. "These hunters insist on acting where they shouldn't... This city already has too many heroes. Well, at least nothing went wrong this time." He turned his head toward the unstable portal and crossed his arms. "Great... Now I'm going to have to clean up this mess before the monsters come back out."
Tony turned to Spiderman, pointing at him.
"And you. Yes, you. Go home and do your homework or whatever it is you do when you're not jumping between buildings. I told you these portals are too much for you to handle. You have my number, call me when one of them breaks. I can't be at every portal in the city, but I'll try to close all the ones that are breaking."
Spider-Man looked down and saw that his suit was torn in places. "Okay, okay... I'm going."
He shot out a web and swung off into the city, knowing that Ironman could handle that portal. However, as he passed one of the nearby buildings, his eyes caught sight of something on top of a water tank. The person wasn't wearing a hood, but Spiderman recognized the hood. It was him.
Tall, almost two meters, broad shoulders and black hair.
Spider-Man didn't hesitate for a second and went to find out who this man was.
"Hey, you there!" Spider-Man exclaimed after landing on the terrace of the building where the water tank was.
Sung Jin-Woo looked at Spider. "Ah, the weird guy from earlier... What is it? Did you come to thank me for saving your life?"
Spider-Man was surprised to see the man's face up close. He was... young. Very young.
"Ah, the weird guy from earlier... What is it? Did you come to thank me for saving your life?" asked Sung Jin-Woo with his hands in the pockets of the gray coat he was wearing.
"Thank you? I don't... I mean, okay, it's fine, thanks for your help." Spiderman had almost no pride, so he bowed his head slightly and thanked him. 'Now, what was all that? How did you do all that?"
"I'm sure you already know the answer to that, but...' Jin-Woo took a deep breath. "I can say it out loud if that's what you want to hear. Yes, I am a Hunter. And yes, I also know that it's illegal. I wouldn't have interfered if the other weirdo had arrived earlier."
Spiderman scratched the top of his head, thinking for a second before realizing that the 'other weirdo' Sung Jin-Woo had mentioned was Ironman.
"Hey! You can't call him that!"
"Why not? You're all weirdos for wearing those exaggeratedly colored suits." Sung Jin-Woo said, approached the edge of the water tank, and jumped down, landing perfectly on his feet below.
At that moment, even the visors of the Spiderman costumes were wide open. Then he did it and landed in front of Sung Jin-Woo without any problems.
"Hold on, hold on!" Spiderman stepped in front of Sung Jin-Woo. "I think we got off on the wrong foot. How about we introduce ourselves? I'm Spiderman, what's your name?"
"Spiderman? Seriously, I almost didn't notice because of the spider on your chest. Look, Spiderman, you seem like a nice guy and all, but I don't think it's very safe to tell you 'heroes' my name."
Sung Jin-Woo was within his rights. After all, since the night of the orb fusion, the Hunters had been seen as the new problem in this world.
– S.H.I.E.L.D. Floating Aircraft Carrier, May 18, 2016 – 9:09 p.m. –
PEEMM
PEEEMMM
PEEEMMM
"Code Red! Code Red Alert!"
Sirens were blaring throughout the aircraft carrier, and S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers were running around conducting standard Red Code procedures.
In the aircraft carrier's operations room, dozens of holographic screens were also flashing red, and the operators didn't know exactly how to proceed because their devices couldn't identify what the hell was going on. The temperature parameters in the atmosphere, the magnetic poles, and even the gamma radiation were too volatile to even be measured or organized in a logical way.
At that moment, the main door of the operations room opened and a black man with an eye patch over one eye entered.
"What's going on? Report, now!" Nick Fury exclaimed.
A man in a white dress shirt and square glasses was fiddling with the computer near the entrance. He looked at Nick Fury and said:
"S-sir, the sensors are going crazy. They're reporting massive amounts of different types of energy being moved in the Earth's core, the atmosphere, and also the Earth's crust. The only other time I've seen something like this happen was when..."
"Thanos snapped his fingers and used the Infinity Gauntlet three times in the same day."
"Exactly, but what we're dealing with is on a much crazier scale."
Suddenly, footsteps approached from behind Nick Fury. He turned to see who it was and saw a middle-aged Caucasian man. He had a phone to his ear, so he took it away and handed it to Nick Fury.
"Commander, it's the President. He wants to speak to you directly."
Without hesitation, Nick Fury took the phone and had to try to calm the President of the United States about what was happening, because neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Space could explain the data.
In the days that followed, governments around the world did not have an easy time. Dozens of mysterious portals appeared as masses of blue mist that ran through reality, connecting it to different dimensions, usually arenas or caves with complex labyrinths. These portals were of different sizes and appeared in more than a hundred different countries.
It was soon discovered that inside these portals were monsters that looked like they had been taken straight out of a fantasy book. Goblins, Orcs, Armor that walked on its own, and worst of all, the Bosses of these portals.
In the Marvel universe, video games existed, so the concept of dungeons was well known. Thus, it didn't take long for them to understand the dynamics behind the portals. If the boss died, the portal would close after a few hours. No secret.
However, the strength of each dungeon varied greatly and was still impossible to determine with precision.
To make matters worse, most firearms were completely useless even for low-level dungeons. Hundreds of soldiers from around the world died before it was realized that fighting portals with firearms was impossible.
Without a Plan B and with the portals under government supervision, the heroes had no way to use their powers to try to help. This led to Day 8 after that night, the day Marvel discovered the horror of portal breaches and deliberate chaos nearly plunged the entire world into flames.
However, the heroes were finally able to help as best they could, and although most of them did not have the proper weapons to kill those monsters, they had superhuman powers that made the job easier.
This series of portal breaches brought relevance to a man, an old man who had been considered crazy and was imprisoned in South Korea. His name was Go Gun Hee, someone whose identity did not exist in this world, and he had warned the Seoul Police at the time of his arrest about the great danger of the portals.
No importance was given to Go Gun Hee's words because the game had completely changed. If before the Hunters like him were the ones fighting Invaders from another world, now the Hunters were the Invaders.
The big problem was that not all Hunters were from Sung Jin-Woo and Go Gun Hee's world. An example? Myself.
I was a great admirer of these two worlds until I woke up in my small college apartment, with just enough space for a few pieces of furniture, and when I looked at the news on TV, I could hardly believe that what I had dreamed had been real. The contract I signed with that DAMNED man had not been just a dream.
*
Chapter 1
July 18, 2016, was the day my mind exploded in a thousand different ways.
A series of memories flooded my mind, deep in the recesses of my brain, and finally made me remember who I was, who I had always been, and who I was destined to become.
For anyone in the small residential building at 871 220th St. and Bronxwood Ave. in New York, it was a morning like any other. But amid so many dreams, mine was the only one that could be considered real.
Eighteen years ago, I signed a contract I shouldn't have signed with a complete stranger. A post-death rookie mistake.
At the beginning of this long dream, disconnected flashes were all I could see when I tried to remember my death in my former life. However, these flashes began to become more concise as I proceeded down a long corridor. In this way, I was able to remember.
I took a bullet in the chest to protect the woman I loved from a... thief? It was too dark. Besides, what was her name again? Well, I couldn't remember details like that. However, I managed to remember quite a lot about my life.
I was a recent graduate of the College of Information Technology. I was excited about this new phase of my life because I had neglected everything during my teenage years. When I say neglected, I mean that I spent many years playing video games and online games. I was always among the best players on the Asian server. That means I was from some Asian country, but I can't remember which one.
Well, I guess brains really do have a limit to the amount of information they can store. Which is curious, because although I can't remember crucial details about my personal life, I remember everything I've consumed in my life. Every song, every game, every soap opera, every manga...
In fact, it was because I was addicted to all of that that I ended up in this situation.
"What situation?" you may be asking yourself.
Well, I'll explain.
When I passed out with my girlfriend crying on my chest, I woke up in a strange world. The walls seemed to be made of pure darkness, but fortunately, there was a table in front of me, with a chair not far away.
Above me, there was a white light that I couldn't figure out where it was coming from.
It looked like the setting of an interrogation room.
Yeewk
A door creaked and I looked back over my left shoulder and saw a man in a white suit. He was big and had bulky arms, but I wouldn't say that such simple and superficial characteristics were what caught my attention. His lion's head was surprising.
A voluminous lion's mane with black hair so shiny that it made me want to ask him what brand of shampoo he used, even in that situation.
This mysterious lion-headed being sat down in the empty chair, rested his arm on the metal table, and smiled at me.
"I have a proposal for you." He got straight to the point.
"Where am I?" I asked. I had to ask.
"Sigh..." He took a deep breath and touched the air beside him, causing a holographic window to appear. "Here on your file, it says you have the Avid Reader skill at level 10. Why are you asking me a question with an answer that is so obvious to you?"
"I just want to confirm."
"Okay. If you want me to say it so badly, I'll say it with pleasure... You're in the Afterlife!" He exclaimed, spreading his arms wide and smiling broadly. Then the smile disappeared. 'Are you satisfied now?"
I smiled ironically. 'What proposal do you have for me?"
Finally, he smiled sincerely. Probably because I didn't ask any more clichéd questions. Then he crossed his fingers and his legs as well.
I have a problem and I need you to solve it for me. Billions of years ago, two of my creations accidentally met. One was called The One Above All and the other was called Absolute Being, both with power bordering on TRUE omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. Their contact happened for only a brief moment, a crossed path, while they were traveling to their multiverses. However, a second for an ordinary creature is an infinitesimal amount of time for creatures like them."
"Let me guess: during that contact, they planned something you didn't want."
The lion snapped his fingers and pointed at me. "Exactly! I've created more Itarims than I can remember, and they all ended up the same way I did—boredom, pure boredom. So my Itarims usually create universes, instigate wars, and then build other universes to entertain themselves and nothing else, except that The One Above All and the Absolute Being have planned something bigger than that. Take a look at this."
He touched the holographic screen in front of him, and it floated toward me.
When I looked at the screen, I saw a bunch of symbols that I couldn't recognize. Slowly, I raised a half-squinted look at the lion, and with that he realized his mistake.
"Ah—! Right... I always forget the incapacity of normal humans." He snapped his fingers and the letters became legible.
"Now I can read it. Number Report... Blah, blah, blah! Description: Marvel Multiverse is on a collision course with Solo Leveling Multiverse. Recommended to avoid merging spheres."
My eyes were wide with surprise. I shook my head, swallowed hard, and frowned, but none of that helped me process what I had read any easier.
"Man, is this some kind of joke? If it is, I have to say it's not funny at all." I looked at the lion and said without hesitation.
"I wish it were... Your universe is a matrix universe, where the Itarim who rules your universe allowed his humans to glimpse other multiverses. Because of this, most of the works you know actually exist, and their authors are the prophets who saw through the multiverses."
I blinked a few times, still very incredulous. "That means Game of Thrones..."
"Yes, all real. However, the prophet George R. R. Martin is having a little trouble glimpsing the last book."
"Stephen King?"
"Some yes, some no. He's a little greedy, so he uses some references from his own dreams to create some bizarre things... And if you want to know about Tolkien, well, he was a genius writer. Nothing glimpsed from another universe. He created everything himself."
I took a deep breath. "Okay, fine... And what do you want from me? Because I'm here, before the being who created the beings who created all those magnificent things?"
"Because you're an ordinary human. Everything you have is ordinary. Your dreams are ordinary, your appearance and even your..." He looked down suggestively and I felt invaded.
"Hey!"
"Don't get me wrong, but it's all true. However, it's not a bad thing. It's what I need. Someone ordinary, but with a lot of knowledge about the multiverse that will soon collide and need to come into harmony."
"Soon? You are the Being who created everything! Why don't you prevent the collision from happening?"
"Being the original creator of some beings does not give me power over the creations of my creations. My omnipotence ends where another's omnipotence begins, and there are rules in each omnipotence that do not allow one omnipotent being to interfere directly and decisively in the creation of another. Anyway, it's too complicated to describe in words. That's where my proposal to you comes in... You will be reincarnated in the Marvel Universe, and on your eighteenth birthday, you will Awaken and remember this conversation we had."
"Awaken? That's not something from the universe..." At that moment, I stopped talking because I finally understood.
The collision of the spheres the lion was talking about was not an event similar to the collision of two planets, but rather the fusion of two universes.
"It seems you finally understand." The lion said, smiling with that exorbitant amount of teeth. "You will be my contingency plan. The One Above All and the Absolute Being did this as a great form of entertainment not only for themselves, but for all of his brothers and parents. However, the other Itarims can quickly become bored with the same characters, which is why you will be there. A man from an ordinary universe among Hunters and Heroes. They will eagerly await your next moves."
Those were the lion's last words to me. If there were more, I couldn't remember them and probably never would.
Shivering, I woke up drenched in sweat. There was sweat on my forehead and my shirt was sticking to my chest. But none of that mattered. When I woke up, I didn't even have time to wonder if it had all been a dream because before my eyes was a holographic screen with golden light
[System Initialization!]
[Player Number 2 Identified!]
[Welcome, Ryan D. Wolfe, to the Player System!]
[First step: Choose your class.]
*
Chapter 2
[Available Classes:
1 - Warrior
Future Specializations: Knight, Gladiator, Berserker.
2 - Mage
Future Specializations: Archmage, Dark Wizard, Elementalist.
3 - Rogue
Future Specializations: Ninja, Mercenary, Ghost Swordsman.
4 - Archer
Future Specializations: Phantom Marksman, Ranger, Beastmaster
5 - Paladin
Future Specializations: Crusader, Guardian, Paladin of Light.
6 - Summoner
Future Specializations: Beastmaster, Spirit Master, Chaos Conjurer.]
I was still a little dazed from the flood of information that had entered my mind in an instant. It was July 18, 2016, my 18th birthday. It should have been a happy day, but it was just like any other birthday. Still, I was looking forward to this date because it was normal to be excited about the day I would finally become a legal adult. However, I didn't expect all my goals and worldview to change drastically from one day to the next.
For the past eighteen years, I had been living as Brandon S. Oneal, the middle child of a family of three children from the same couple—my parents, of course.
My family and I were never rich and always lived in the suburbs of the most dangerous city in the world: New York.
So much happens in this city that it seems crazy to stay here, but, as the city hall advertisements say, this is the "City of a Thousand Opportunities" or something like that. But it's not because of that stupid slogan that we're still here. My mother is a lawyer known to the locals for fighting famous contractors, and my father is a man who runs one of the docks in New York Harbor. In other words, we're stuck here because of their jobs.
And don't get me wrong, I never hated New York, I just didn't think it was the ideal place to be with portals to other dimensions appearing in random places over the last two months.
As I remembered this, I realized that everything that lion had told me was true. My memories of both worlds were part of the proof, but the greatest proof of all was the system before me.
"Hmm... This isn't one of those random class selection systems. Well, it could be a perk given to me by that lion. Now, among my options, which one has the best potential?"
As in any MMORPG, I had to think wisely about which class to choose. There was no information such as skills, attributes, or starting items, only future "specializations," that is, some of the possible class evolutions, were disclosed.
At first glance, choosing Warrior was tempting because I didn't like the style of just watching everything from afar, waiting for my thousands of fireballs to destroy the battlefield. That way, Mage was definitely out of the question.
A Warrior could fight with anything that looked like a weapon or even with their bare fists. As someone who had awakened, i.e., a Hunter, I could end up adopting a fighting style similar to that of Hwang Dong-soo or Thomas Andre and focus entirely on strength and endurance.
The downside of this was that someone like Sung Jin-Woo could eventually defeat me and turn me into his shadow. As much as I admired Jin-Woo tremendously, I didn't want to become his shadow if we ever fought.
For that reason alone, I ruled out the Rogue and Archer classes. Rogue was ruled out because Sung Jin-Woo already had skills that could match or even surpass all the Rogue skills I could ever obtain. And Archer wasn't an option because of its vulnerability, even though Hawkeye was one of my childhood idols.
With four of my six options ruled out, that left Rogue or Summoner, and I obviously and quickly decided to be a Summoner.
You may be shouting and saying right now, "Why Summoner?! You just said you'd hate to stay in the back, just watching the battle. Isn't that exactly what a Summoner does?"
To which I would categorically reply that you are wrong. A great example is Sung Jin-Woo himself. Sure, he's a Necromancer, but isn't a Necromancer basically a Summoner of the dead?
Besides, if I ever had to fight Sung Jin-Woo, being a Summoner was the only thing that would give me a chance, since he had already defeated people from all the classes that were mentioned.
[Class Selected: Summoner.]
[Do you confirm your choice? YES/NO.]
I clicked YES and the screen flashed, updating itself, and a series of new notifications appeared.
[Player Number 2 chooses the Summoner Class.]
[Acquiring all data on the Summoner Class and its Specializations...]
[Data Acquired.]
[Installation is required. Do you want to start installing your new class now? YES/NO.]
My eyebrows rose as I read that last message. An installation? I was being referred to as Player 2, but I remember that no update was necessary for Sung Jin-Woo when he obtained the system. Or was it? Well, he was unconscious for some time after nearly dying in the Double Lair and being saved at the last moment by the Player System. Perhaps the installation happened while he was unconscious.
That made me wonder if installing it would cause me to faint or feel excruciating pain. So, very cautiously and with only one eye open, just enough to know where I was clicking, I tapped YES once more and closed my eyes.
"..."
I expected something to happen, but I felt nothing after tapping.
I slowly opened one eye and saw the screen informing me of something.
[Installation in progress: 0%.]
I stared at that screen for a few moments and it updated to one percent. It wasn't a quick update, but it was painless.
Grrrr
My stomach growled like a rabid stray dog. I remembered that I had come home from work the night before and gone straight to bed, too tired to eat dinner or take a shower. That also meant I should take a shower and change my clothes, so that's what I did.
When I got out of the shower, feeling fresh, I glanced at the screen that was always hovering within arm's reach and saw that the installation had reached 20%.
I shrugged, unconcerned. I wasn't in a hurry, and it would be better to analyze my skills later.
I left my room and came across a short hallway with two other doors. One of these doors was in front of me and was my parents' bedroom, where my little brother slept with them. The other door was the bathroom. Following the hallway toward the light, I found the largest room in the apartment, which contained the TV room, a table with four chairs, and the kitchen. In addition, there was a window on the left, illuminating the entire room, and also a small entrance hall.
Everything was empty and quiet, with a little wind and noise from the city coming in through the window. Horns, sirens, and things like that.
I was a little disappointed that my parents had gone to work without wishing me a happy birthday, but as I started walking toward the kitchen, my father, mother, and younger brother, standing together, suddenly stood up.
"SURPRISE!" they shouted in unison.
My mouth opened and a silly, excited smile began to form on my face. They hugged me, showed me a chocolate cake they had hidden, and sang "Happy Birthday." For obvious reasons, I felt my chest fill with love.
"Brother, brother! What do you think of the cake?!" My younger brother, Maxwell, asked. He was practically standing on his chair, leaning forward with a bright, toothless smile. "I picked it out! Did you know?!"
I smiled at him and put another bite of cake in my mouth. "Huh? You picked out the cake, Max?"
Max nodded quickly, eagerly awaiting a response.
"Of course it's great. You picked my favorite flavor of cake."
Max's eyes lit up. He looked at my mom and said, "I told you, Mom! I told you he really likes chocolate! He's just like me!"
"You really got it right this time, because last year you chose a mint-flavored cake for your father. Do you remember?" My mother replied to Max.
"That was... That was..." He tried to argue, but couldn't.
Little Max's cheeks flushed, and he finally sat up straight in his chair. He decided to focus only on the plate with the cake.
My mother's name was Fumiko Shibutani Oneal, and she was the daughter of Japanese parents. It was from that side of the family that she had inherited her small eyes and Asian beauty, with long black hair and snow-white skin. Of course, it was also from that side of the family that we all had the surname Shibutani.
The table was a little quiet after Max calmed down. That's when my father said to me:
"Brandon, I know you want to help us with the bills, but you don't have to work at the dock today. It's your birthday. Go see your friends or go to college. I know classes haven't started yet, but there's a library, isn't there? You like that kind of thing."
I looked at my father, and normally I would have insisted on working to help with the bills, but I had important things to do.
"Okay, Dad, thanks for that."
He smiled slightly and nodded, fiddling with the brim of his cap a little. My dad was a classic American man, the kind who likes to watch football when he gets home from work and is very devoted to his family, but can be a little cold at times. His greatest displays of affection were always through actions, and we didn't have a very good relationship because I was always a bookworm and he hated books.
John A. Oneal was his name, and I inherited my last name from him.
So, after our breakfast of birthday cake and soda, my mom took my brother to school and then went to work, and my dad went to work at the port, leaving the apartment all to me.
[Installation in progress: 99%.]
[Installation in progress: 100%.]
[Installation Complete!]
[You have received all the basic skills of the Summoner Class. To check them out, open your General Window.]