Kicking a black stone, Jessica the Racist Human Stone Kicker watched it soar into the open sky.

  Moments after cresting the horizon, a squawk could be heard in the far distance.

  As many moments after that, a deafening crash came from the same direction.

  Then what sounded like an avalanche.

  Finally, that same disembodied voice yelled in her ear again, overlaid on itself four times over, three of which, for lack of a single digit, would’ve said the exact same thing.

  “BINGBONG!!! YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 50!!! THROUGH GREAT STRIFE AND LONG STRUGGLE, YOU HAVE GROWN STRONGER!!! AS A STONE KICKER, YOU GAIN 100 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE TO ATTRIBUTES INSTEAD OF THE USUAL 1!!! YOU ALSO GET 100% ADVANCEMENT TO THE CULTIVATION STAGE OF YOUR CHOICE!!! FUCK BITCHES!!! GET MONEY!!! CHEW BUBBLEGUM!!!”

  “BINGBONG!!! YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 51!!! THROUGH GREAT STRIFE AND LONG STRUGGLE, YOU HAVE GROWN STRONGER!!! AS A STONE KICKER, YOU GAIN 100 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE TO ATTRIBUTES INSTEAD OF THE USUAL 1!!! YOU ALSO GET 100% ADVANCEMENT TO THE CULTIVATION STAGE OF YOUR CHOICE!!! FUCK BITCHES!!! GET MONEY!!! CHEW BUBBLEGUM!!!”

  And so on until…

  “BINGBONG!!! YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 52!!! THROUGH GREAT STRIFE AND LONG STRUGGLE, YOU HAVE GROWN STRONGER!!! AS A STONE KICKER, YOU GAIN 100 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE TO ATTRIBUTES INSTEAD OF THE USUAL 1!!! YOU ALSO GET 100% ADVANCEMENT TO THE CULTIVATION STAGE OF YOUR CHOICE!!! FUCK BITCHES!!! GET MONEY!!! CHEW BUBBLEGUM!!!”

  “FEAT ACCOMPLISHED!!! KILL TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD!!!”

  What the fuck just happened?

  Distracted by the question of what the fuck just happened, Jessica tripped over a pipe.

  She fell to the ground. And fell. And flailed for purchase. And fell. And braced herself. And fell. And shut her eyes. And fell.

  Opening them again, I find myself standing in a familiar rising tunnel of prismatic light.

  [ ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED - MONSTER KILLER: TOOK A MONSTER FROM FULL TO 0 HP WITH NO ASSISTANCE — REWARD: TARGETING A MONSTER NOW DISPLAYS ITS HEALTH BAR — XP: 32 ]

  Groaning in remembrance of my most recent death, I break out into a cold sweat.

  [ PRIMARY WEAPON EQUIPPED: STEEL LONGSWORD — DAMAGE: 11 PHY ]

  Adrenaline dissipating almost as soon as it rushed, I let out a pressurized sigh of relief at the sheathed sword at my waist. Apparently, my only weapon came back on respawn instead of staying where I threw it at that spider.

  With a wave of exhaustion filling the adrenaline-left vacuum, I vacate the respawn point and trudge straight over to the same bench as last time. Only to discover, to my horror, that it’s already full.

  Mentally unprepared for anything else, I just stand there. And wait. And stare.

  Whether from sheer awkwardness or urgent appointment, the guy on the left happens to get up only ten minutes or so into my blank stare.

  Wasting no time, I practically butt-tackle the newly vacant cushioned sit space before anyone else has even the slightest chance of taking what is, after all, my seat.

  Mentally celebrating the minor victory, I look smugly around at the passing crowd.

  Most are on their way to or from here or there. In other words, minding their own business.

  But I still spot a few distinctly tired-looking people eyeing me disdainfully after I took what they clearly thought was their seat.

  As I sit here, I simultaneously hope for, and against, telepathy being a thing. On the one hand, I’d highly prefer not to have to worry about thought crime. On the other hand… Gotta be faster than that, bitches!

  A deep voice comes from right next to me. “Hi there. I’m… That is… My name is Pliskin. Iroquois Pliskin.”

  Literally jumping with my ass, mechanically crane my neck to rediscover that there is, in fact, someone else on this bench… I really don’t want to talk right now.

  But he’s just sitting there. God this is awkward… Fuck it.

  I smile as non-awkwardly as I can manage, even knowing in my heart it’s no use. “Hi Ear… Uh, koy..?”

  I instantly abandon all hope of pronouncing the guy’s first name. “Hi, Pliskin.”

  Pliskin visibly deflates.

  Is he bummed I gave up on pronouncing it? “Hey look… Sorry man, I just haven’t heard a name like that before. Where does it come from?”

  He sighs. “Oh, never mind. Just a dumb joke that fell flat. My real name’s Mich.”

  “Mkay… Just ‘Mich’?”

  “Just ‘Jessie’?”

  “That’s… Fair, I guess…” Hold on a fucking sec… “Wait, no. Who told you my name?”

  My eyes are drawn suspiciously towards the nearby mayor’s office.

  Following my gaze, Mich seems to read my mind before vehemently shaking his head. “No, no, nothing like that. I take it you’re new?”

  Feeling more like myself at this moment than any other in the last week or so, I roll my eyes. “No, I’m just stupid.”

  Why do I feel like I’m talking to Thomas?

  But Mich just blows right past my snark. “Could you do me a favor..? Try to target me.”

  Now what in the fuck is that supposed to-

  [ HERO TARGETED: MICH ]

  I flinch back at the sudden appearance of a neon blue outline around the guy.

  If the popup isn’t answer enough, his name is also not only glowing in my instinctual recognition of its importance, but also literally as it floats above his head.

  I just stare at it. “Oh… That definitely would’ve been good to know earlier…”

  Dangling my legs off the bench, I stare whimsically up into the clear blue sky. “Huh… Guess I really am just stupid…”

  “I think we both know that’s not true.”

  “And how would you know that? I could be stupid… You don’t know.”

  Mich shrugs. “Just a hunch, I guess.”

  I slump into my half of the bench. “Oh, whatever… Sorry for biting your head off about it… I’m a little on-edge right now. I know you’re just trying to be nice.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Alright, cards on the table. As you’ve clearly guessed, there’s a lot I don’t know. And I’d like to know more. Hell, I’d even like to know what to ask. But I don’t even know what’s possible, so expectations are kinda off the table, you know?”

  “Well… Do YOU know about the seminar they run next to the Quest Hall-”

  Did it get warmer? “NO.”

  “No… You don’t know or-”

  Why is it so hot? “NO CLASSROOMS. NEVER AGAIN. Never again classrooms…”

  Thankfully, Mich moves right past the outburst that, after all, surprised me as much as anyone. “Well, if you don’t know something, and you don’t know enough to be specific, there’s nothing wrong with being vague.”

  I stare blankly until I cool down. “Hm… Vague questions, huh? Okay, here’s one. Got any tips?”

  Mich chuckles, but does seem to take the time to really think it through before still only kind of answering. “How about I answer your question with another question..? I saw you walk over from the Spawnpoint. So you just came back to life again, right?”

  “You could say that…”

  “Then is it safe to assume that you’ve experienced a serious injury? In Heaven, I mean?”

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  I wince at the thought of a pancake. “You could say that…”

  “Was it painful?”

  “You could say that…”

  “Did you know about the System setting for Pain Intensity?”

  “You could say th… What?”

  “It means how severe-”

  I hold out a forestalling hand as the slider appears in my view at the thought.

  [ PAIN INTENSITY: 20% ]

  The default is only twenty? So that’s why those big-ass spider bites only stung. And probably why I was able to function at all with crushed legs… But just how low can this go?

  [ PAIN INTENSITY: 0% ]

  Oh. But how does that even..?

  In a kind of fascinated trance, I draw my longsword and grip the blade with my other hand.

  Not giving myself time to chicken out, I hold my breath and slide it along the edge.

  In the first experiment that’s gone how I wanted this whole week, I feel pressure from the blade slicing a wide gash across the whole of my palm.

  [ HP: 219/256 ]

  I definitely feel something happen, but it doesn’t hurt at all. It just kinda ‘itches’. “Well, I’ll be damned…”

  After several seconds of it just sort of looking like serious injury, I just stare in fascination at the now-tingling wound slooowly closing over as my HP inches back to full. This is so weird.

  Mich winces in sympathy pain as he watches me suddenly get really into cutting. “Oh no… Don’t do that.”

  I look up at him with a wry grin. “Guess that hurt you more than me, huh?”

  “No… No, I’d say that pretty thoroughly hurt you more than… Wait, did you just turn your pain off?”

  I beam at him. “Sure did.”

  Mich groans. “That’s not what I was going for. I was thinking more along the lines of 5% instead of 20. Even 1% would be, literally, infinitely better. You really shouldn’t turn it all the way off. Pain is important. It’s how our bodies tell us if something’s wrong. Not feeling any is dangerous. Especially in the long term. You could die from a severely painful infection you didn’t even know you had.”

  I fold my arms with a snort. “I just got eaten by spiders. Before that, everything below my knees was crushed flat. And now I’m here. Perfectly fine and safe and whole. Well, I did get more XP Debt… But you’ll have to forgive me for not worrying so much about the whole infection issue.”

  Mich sighs. “I guess this is Heaven. Or something…”

  Well that was easy… All for the best though. I’m not turning pain back on, no matter how ‘useful’ it is.

  In the interest of not having to defend my life choices, I throw a grappling hook at the third to last word he just said, and swing the subject in a decidedly less controversial direction. “So what’s your take on that, anyway? Was there a religion that actually talked about…”

  I gesture all around, pausing to point at a tiny ice bear so far away that it’s actually the size of a country. Just laying over there, asleep in the crook of an even taller mountain nearly breaching the lowest line of clouds in front of the barrier.

  Staring at it for some amount of time, I belatedly remember to finish my sentence. “…This?”

  Mich blinks at the bear as though seeing it for the first time. “Huh… Yeah, I’m not sure that anyone on Earth was quite right about…”

  He gestures around to everything as well. “This… But I can recognize bits and pieces here and there.”

  He looks over at the shining respawn point. “I can kind of see the similarities between that, and the idea of something like pearly gates. Even if spawncampers don’t make the best allegory for Saint Peter…”

  I involuntarily put my thigh in an iron grip. “You saw him too?”

  “Who, Peter?”

  “What? No, the spawncamper.”

  “Spawncampers. Decidedly plural. In fact, mine were a rather large group. But you’re saying you only saw one? By himself? How’d that go?”

  Eager for any invitation to bitch about Oneshot, I turn to Mich and spill all the tea.

  He just sits there, listening to the whole thing before following up. “And how does that make you feel?”

  I suddenly can’t focus on anything besides my feet dangling over the edge of our shared bench. “I dunno… I guess I feel bad for the guy who died?”

  “I’m willing to venture a guess and say you don’t know how killing works here?”

  “I mean… You kill someone and they die…” Trailing off after that, I really don’t know much now that I think about it.

  “You’re technically right. But it’s also not. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re immortal.”

  I look flatly at him. And then to the light show of a respawn point I just walked out of. Again. “Yeah, I think I got that.”

  “Then it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that so is everyone else. Even still, there are no System rewards for attacking someone. Quite the opposite, in fact. I don’t entirely understand the nuances myself. But the long and the short of it is that if you attack someone first and then either you kill them or they kill you, they get one of your items.”

  “What? How is that supposed to be fair?”

  “Whoever attacks first loses. Sounds pretty fair to me.”

  “Then what item do they lose?”

  “I think it’s random?” He shrugs. “Or maybe not. I haven’t actually killed anyone here. In Heaven, I mean. But it’s a hard and fast rule that respawn times being what they are, it’s the instigator who always loses in the end. So if your instakilling spawncamper did instakill you back there, I imagine you’d have a pretty sweet souvenir to show for it. As, undoubtedly, does the guy he actually instakilled. You shouldn’t blame yourself for that, by the way.”

  I narrow my eyes at his terminology before correcting the actual misunderstanding. “Oh, I don’t. I couldn’t do anything about the guy. He was clearly working on some crazy bullshit that I still can’t really comprehend. And that happened before I even knew punching did damage… Or really about damage numbers at all.”

  I shake my head. “Not that I’m any kind of expert now, but I at least know enough not to blame myself for being unable to stop him. I do still feel bad for that one guy though… He got taken out for basically just showing up and falling over. He didn’t deserve that. Every death I’ve had, I earned the old fashion way. With honest, stupid incompetence. I mean-”

  Mich seems more and more nonplussed about something the longer I ramble. Finally, he interrupts my aimless word vomit. “Wait, something doesn’t add up. How’d he get past your blanket?”

  I look from the brown tarp thing I never bothered unequipping, then back up at Mich. “What about it?”

  “Back when you first arrived and it was all white and glowing and granting invincibility and whatnot.”

  “Yyyeah… I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking ab-.”

  With a flutter, an angelic equivalent to the brown sack I’m wearing drapes itself around Mich’s shoulders. “Like this. When you first arrived, that Old Blanket you’re wearing should’ve looked like this.”

  I blink at the glowey-tarp. “I never had that…”

  “Never?”

  “Nope. I think I’d remember…” I gesture to the sparkly thing. “That.”

  I shake my head. “I spawned in wearing exactly what I have on now. Minus the longsword, of course. And plus some other, distinctly non-irridescent clothes. That other guy Oneshot asshole killed? His blanket-thingie wasn’t glowing either, by the way. Just as brown and useless as mine always was.”

  Mich is looking at me wide-eyed now. “That’s… You know, I haven’t been here all that long myself. But from everything I know about what’s supposed to happen, that… Isn’t.”

  I realize something as I read through my own blanket’s description. “Hold on. Why is yours still white? You had it unequipped. I just saw you equip it. Doesn’t that turn it off?”

  “Sure does But it just so happens that for my bonus starting item, I chose a Mythic-rarity Mod Stone. I also ill-advisedly used it on the blanket before I unequipped it the first time. So it’s rechargeable now.”

  “Oh. How do you go about getting one of those, then? I’d love a ghost blanket of my own.”

  “Sorry kid, I don’t think you can if the charge is already spent. Even if you can afford a Mythic Mod Stone. Which you can’t. Not if you’re a new arrival. Neither can I, by the way. Which is why, despite my new Ghost Blanket, it was a fairly ill-advised investment with the alternative being instant wealth beyond my wildest dreams as recently as a week ago.”

  It’s long after the fact, but I feel suddenly robbed of the opportunity.

  Yeah, he has a point about selling shit or whatever, but how many of those recharging blankets can possibly even exist with that sort of requirement? Seems like just the sort of thing that Sonic the Admin should fix as a routine part of her job…

  Instantly losing all hope of that, I slump in my seat. “Well ain’t that some bullshit… Also, what was that about a bonus item? I didn’t get anything like that. Not besides the $100 anyway…”

  Mich blows out a puff of air. “You just keep getting screwed out of stuff, don’t you? So I take it you didn’t see a hoard of items all laid out in a grid right before the part where you spawned onto that hill?”

  Rocking back and forth, I freeze mid-rock. “I do remember. The items… There were so many…”

  Head in hands, I ineffectually scream. “I thought they were part of the tutorial! I didn’t know I could actually KEEP one!”

  I’m getting some concerned looks from people passing by.

  I pointedly ignore them, gradually transitioning my scream to more of a grumble. “I thought I was supposed to study all the different items in the game. Right there and then. But I was so sick of the whole character creation loop… So I bailed.”

  Mich winces again in sympathy buyer’s remorse. “Wow… I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  “It’s alright…” My grumble becomes a mumble. “Bet there was a fucking katana in there, too…”

  “Katana? Are you looking for one, then?”

  I nod. “It’s a CLASS thing. All my Skills really need something like a katana to shine. The longsword is technically close enough to work, but it’s really not for me.

  “So it’s a katana or nothing?”

  “I have a longsword, don’t I? But yeah, if I have the choice. I just like them. Call it an affinity. Or a dream. Or whatever…”

  Mich nods in approval. “That’s as good a reason as any. Best one I can think of as a matter of fact. Follow your passion and you’ll never go wrong.”

  Connecting a few dots, I realize something important. Very important. So important in fact, that I absolutely have to talk about it right now.

  Instead, I cut through traffic and barrel onto the first conversational subramp that my panicked mind can conjure as I sarcastically throw Mich a suspicious side-eye. “I mean… Pedophilia?”

  Mich rolls his eyes. “Oh, shut up.”

  I puff myself up a little too proudly. “It’s what I do.”

  And I do feel better. Well… Existentially worse.

  But compared to talking about that with him, I’d rather brute force past the leg trauma and go give this whole dungeon thing another shot right now. “Whelp, I’ve got a ten-hour walk to run in two hours. Not gonna kill that fucker just sitting here.”

  No judgment to Bench-Guy if he wants to stay on the bench. What else should you do here but whatever you want? For example…

  I leap to my feet. “Whelp… Have a good one, man.”

  With that, I take off through the town entrance before he has a chance to reply.

  I can still hear him calling after me once I pass the arches. “REMEMBER TO USE YOUR BLESSINGS!!!”

  My mouth twitches upwards as I refuse to break stride. Should I turn around and ask what the fuck he’s talking about? What, and backpedal on a half-decent exit? Blessings do sound useful…

  But the moment I think the word, all my questions are answered.

  [ MOVEMENT BLESSING: VAULT ]

  [ POWER BLESSING: DASH ]

  In a flash, I leap diagonally forward.

  Thankfully, I don’t slam into the tree until I’m out of the town’s sightlines.

  But not even that dulls my mood. Midway through that conversation, I thought of another question. One I didn’t ask.

  Shouldn’t my Crimson Tide have rolled in by now?

  But I didn’t have time to contemplate that unfortunate metaphor before it was forgotten in favor of a realization that overwhelmed all else. The thing made me bail on the conversation rather than talk about it with some random guy on a bench. The true reason for my smile.

  I haven’t had to pee since I got here.