Anansi Rambo was a thirty-year-old man who had absolutely nothing going for him. No girls.. No real friends. Not even a family that he could rely on. Being the oldest son sucked all ass. The man was burned out from chasing purpose. Chasing girls sorta. Chasing cash. Chasing jobs, results, muscles, success, serotonin, rent, and maybe—just maybe — fellow peace with other human beings. Spoiler alert: he caught none of it and humans are dicks.
Life had handed him a hard mode character sheet with all stats in charisma, none in luck. But that doesn't matter anymore.
Because Anansi King is a now sixteen-year-old again with white, pink, and purple hair that reaches to his back. Kind of weird. He won't lie. Wearing black fingerless gloves, gold chains around his wrists and neck, a black undershirt, blue jacket, and blue ripped jeans. He even got his six-pack again.
What better he is selling food out of a two-story house-slash-restaurant like some kind of cooking anime protagonist with a side quest addiction!
And it was a house nice too. Two-stories home with the top being an overly spacious luxury home found the richest part of the world with the downstairs' being a high-class restaurant that many features Anansi found to be part of many cultures.
It had been three months since he arrived in this new world filled with wonders Anansi can't believe. It barely resembled Earth. There were two moons, monsters, and so many kingdoms.
The new identity was auto-assign or something: Local restaurant owner in Star-Moon City, capital of the Star-Moon Kingdom, located on the Eastern Continent of Neo Terra.
His imagination is something wonderful sometimes. It sounds fake. It is fake. That's the point.
Anansi doesn't really remember what happened after Truck-Kun hit him and sent him to the Great Beyond. The hospital bed in Port-A-Prince where he is most likely in a coma and his mind is giving the most realistic dream ever. The drugs must be very top quality or the pavement messed up his head really good. He wasn't ruling anything out.
But it felt good.
Anansi can't remember what catalyzed this coma dream. All he knows is he has a bucket list miles long and this world is perfect for what he wants to do.
Was it a certain anime? Or was it a manga—or a movie? It doesn't matter at the end of the day. Anansi was all in for becoming the ultimate guy that rivals batman. Actually, who cares? As long as it was badass and supreme, it didn't matter what the medium was.
He loved it. He embraced it.
Before this? Life sucked. Uneventful. Unfair. Underpaid.
Sure, Anansi had some things going for him. Karate. Boxing. Kendo. MMA. All learned the hard way under the Tok Regime—a geopolitical block forged from the Caribbean Islands, Hawaii, the Virgin Islands, Brazil, South Korea, the Leewards, and Lesser Sunda.
He was a Token. Literally. It's not racist, don't be weird about it.
Americans are low key horrible human beings sometimes.
Anansi, like many other are required from age 15 to 30, serves the state in some capacity, as anything from a soldier to an administrator, from a construction engineer to a sanitation worker. It didn't matter. Just serve. Anansi chose combat. With ADHD and a weird obsession with mastering everything, he threw himself into every martial art he could.
And still ended up dead last in every unit. But as time passed and Anansi grew older, unease pressed upon him. It became time to face reality.
The reality was that all his effort was meaningless. Also, humans are mega dicks.
No matter how many martial arts he'd master, or languages, the regime requires you to learn. Anansi would still be far from the successful classmates. He would be fine if life didn't suck so for the average joe. Well, at the ones with debt that can't get better because so many corporations require bullshit degrees for minor shit.
The most Anansi could achieve would be the strength to beat up a few punks. And barely get an honorable discharge. But none if that matters until they plug him out, which is a good twenty years away Anansi would live his life in this world! It even comes with a system.
Heck, it came with two systems.
Now he was here, running a restaurant in a world where girls straight from gacha games exist.
[HOST IDENTIFIED.]
Anansi raised a brow at the blue text box before him. The voice sounds like the Time Guardian from Samurai Jack. The blue eye who defended the Time Door for eons kicking all types of ass from tall to small.
[Binding… Boss Cooking System... Wait, no way. This guy has the Ryōzanpaku System too?! Yo, brother, who did you bribe for this RNG luck? Well done brother you must have had an awesome life and got laid all the time to get gain two systems.]
Hearing this prompt, Anansi nodded in approval. It was about time for his imagination to give him a system.
[As such to not to waste time for the author, I be simply the carfax.]
And it was funny as well.
Anansi tapped the air.
A menu opened. Stats scrolled by.
Name: Anansi King
Age: 16
Mana Core: Black I
Cooking: ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (One Star)
Race: High Human (+200%)
Sect: Blue Dragon
Height: 6'3"
Aura Color: Burgundy Red
Martial Arts Rank: First Degree
Class: Chef | Martial Artist | Boss
Affiliation: Starblox (Neo-Terra) | Star-Moon Kingdom (Neo-Terra)
Systems: Boss Cooking | Ryōzanpaku
Titles: The Boss | Mad Lad Cook | Iron Stomach | Last King of Smoke
VITALS
HP: 22,100
Stamina: 4,500,000
Mana: 3,000,000
Energy: 9,000,000
CORE STATS
STR: 180
AGI: 162
END: 175
INT: 75
WIS: 141
CHA: 188
LCK: 10
COOK: 195
MARTIAL: 190
Skills:
Combat & Martial Arts:
Mixed Martial Arts (Master) | Wrestling (Grandmaster) | Fencing (Master) | Kendo (Master) | Grappling (Grandmaster) | Mauy Thai (Expert) | Kickboxing (Professional) | Judo (Grandmaster) | Kenjutsu (Professional) | Arnis (Grandmaster) | Iaido (Expert) | Krabi Krabong (Expert) | Haidong Gumdo (Journeyman) | Iaijutsu (Master) | Gatka (Master) | Karate (Master) | Kung Fu (Master) | Taekwondo (Master) | Boxing (Expert) | Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (Master) | Jujitsu (Professional) | Aikido (Grandmaster) | Wing Chun (Professional) | Hapkido (Journeyman) | Krav Maga (Master) | Capoeira (Grandmaster) | Juego de Maní (Master) | Sanda (Expert) | Jeet Kune Do (Master) | Ninjutsu (Expert) | Sambo (Master) | Savate (Master) | Silat (Expert) | Tire Machèt (Grandmaster) | Light Saber Combat (Master) | Dirty Boxing (Expert)
Utility & Professional
Cooking (Grandmaster) | Baking (Grandmaster) | BBQ (Grandmaster) | Medical (Expert) | Engineering (Expert) | Firearms (Expert) | Driving (Master) | Hacker (Professional) | Computers (Master) | Cleaning (Master) | Magic (Amateur) | Spiritualism (Professional) | Animal Trainer (Expert) | Pharmacy (Professional) |
Physical & Movement
Gymnastics (Professional) | Dancing (Master) | Acrobat (Professional) | Escapologist (Professional) | Magician (Professional) | Stealth (Grandmaster) | Free Running (Professional) | X-Games (Professional) | Pilot (Professional) | Peak Human Conditioning (Neo) | Peak Human Conditioning (Neo) | X-Games Athlete (Master)
Mental & Miscellaneous
Musician (Expert) | Gaming (Neo) | Multilingual (Master) | Polymath (Master) | Poly Mathematician (Professional) | Novelist (Professional) | Leadership (Master)
Ok yeah, Anansi will never list up his skills ever again after this. Dear lord, look at the sheer number.
Sure took 31 years of blood, sweat, and so many inhalers to get that many skills under his belt. But who gives a damn about that. The most important thing was one line:
Magic (Amateur)
There was magic in this coma world.Like, actual magic.
He could feel it now that he knew what to look for—like the static buzz before a lightning strike, crawling over the skin, humming in his teeth. Neo Terra was saturated with it. It pulsed through the soil, tingled in the air, and danced like steam off living beings.
That one word confirmed everything. This world had systems, sure. Martial arts, monsters, techniques, quests.
But it also had magic.
And Anansi King, ex-soldier, janky-lunged neet, Denny's shift manager, full-time cook and part-time larper?
He was gonna abuse the hell out of it.
Though, even he had to admit it looked suspiciously familiar.
This "magic" stuff? It sparkled red and gold and it danced through his body in spiral pulses.
Or maybe Ki from Dragon Ball, chakra from Naruto, Nen from Hunter x Hunter, or Spiral Energy if you wanna go off the rails.
"Eh, it's all good," Anansi muttered, rolling his shoulder and letting the energy burn through his body like a smooth shot of espresso. "Long as it works."
And boy, did it work.
The air smelled crisper. Colors got louder. His aches faded. His lungs cleared just a bit. The world slowed to a crawl for a moment—and that's when he realized:
"...Yo, I can see the flies flappin'."
This was gonna be stupid fu—
[NEW WEEKLY MISSION ALERT – BOSS COOKING SYSTEM \ Ryōzanpaku SYSTEM BROTHER!]
[• Sell: (0/150)
➤ Seafood Udon × 50 — $40 each
➤ Griot × 50 — $25 each
➤ Arroz con Gandules × 50 — $20 each]
[• Eliminate Threat:
➤ Fentanyl Gang – Defeat Members: [0/100]
Reward: $12,000 USDFailure to complete mission will result in disciplinary action.(See Contract Clause B-3: "You Can or You Lose your Woody.")]
Anansi winced. "Yup. Knew it was too quiet."
He had seen this type of systems before. And man does his system play dirty. One part awesome, one part loan shark. From the task on that Anansi guessed what his systems does. Every week without fail, it tossed him a shiny new "opportunity." Either rake in the dough—or get his—
"Elephant Gun"
—Taken away.
At least the Ryōzanpaku System gave him a breather. Missions on that side had more generous time limits, though the tradeoff usually involved fist fights, exploding wildlife, or getting stabbed by someone's ancestor's ghost.
Still, this week was manageable. Maybe.