Allen got up, gathered the noodle packs off the ground, and shoved them back into the glowing box in his front disappeared one by one.
He just tried it out since he doesn't have a bag, well to his surprise it works.
He started walking, mostly because sitting still with a floating light screen and a pile of instant noodles wasn't doing anything for his nerves.
The ground under his bare feet wasn't the wood floor of his living room. It was dirt, then grass, then roots thick enough to trip an old man twice his current age.
Trees rose up around him, tall, packed close together, leaves so thick overhead that the sunlight only made it through in thin broken pieces.
A smell of wet leaves and something rotting somewhere nearby that he didn't want to think too hard about. Because it might be just a rat.
'Rat corpses really stink, how do people manage to eat them..?"
Five minutes in, he stopped walking and just stood there.
"I'm in a damn jungle," he said. "I fell asleep on my living room floor and now I'm in a jungler."
He turned in a slow circle, half expecting to see a road, a house, anything that looked like the world he knew.
There was nothing.
Just green in every direction and the sound of something moving in the brush that he decided not to investigate. He just run, didn't care what it is.
That was when the second screen showed up.
This one was different. Where GGS had come in soft and gold, easy on the eyes like warm light through a window, this one was blue, sharp, almost cold to look at.
Allen actually jumped back a step.
"What the fuck?? What is this now?"
The screen didn't answer him. It just started filling with text on its own, one line at a time, whether he asked for it or not.
[You are no longer in your original world.]
"No shit sherlock," he muttered, but the screen kept going, ignoring him completely.
You have arrived in Ashveil.]
He tried again anyway, out of habit. "Okay, and where the hell is Ashveil? Can you at least answer me, screen?"
Nothing. No response to the question at all, not even a correction like GGS would've given him. It just moved to the next line like he hadn't said a word.
[Ashveil is home to twokinds of people. Those born in this world, and those who arrived from other worlds, as you have.]
Author: Did anyone notice the leaning word?
[Those who arrived from other worlds carry a System, as you do now.]
[Those born in Ashveil do not carry a System.]
Allen frowned at that. "Okay. So what, they're like robots or something? Background people?"
Again, nothing.
The blue screen wasn't having a conversation with him, it was just talking at him, one line after another, and he was starting to get the feeling it wasn't going to stop just because he had questions.
[This does not mean they lack awareness. Those born in Ashveil have their own will. Their own choices. Their own minds.]
[They are not lesser for having no System. They are simply different.]
He stood there in the middle of the jungle, an old man's mind sitting inside a teenager's body, reading a message from a floating blue screen that refused to talk back to him no matter how many times he opened his mouth.
Author: So what if you did?
"Great," he said finally, dropping down onto a fallen log nearby, rubbing his face with both hands. "So I got one system that argues with me about spaghetti, and now a second one that won't even tell me if I'm about to get eaten by whatever the hell is making that noise over there."
The jungle answered him with another rustle in the bushes, closer this time.
Allen went very still.
"Yeah," he whispered. "Great start to my... new life?"
The blue screen wasn't done with him though.
[System also provides communication functions.]
[All Chat: available anywhere, usable by anyone. Free.]
[Friend Chat: private one-on-one messaging. Free.]
[Group Chat: for multiple people, including guild use. Free.]
Allen raised an eyebrow at that last one. "What does guild even mean, dude?"
The screen, of course, didn't answer.
"Probably a gang," he said to himself, nodding slowly like that settled it. "Some kind of gang thing. Group of people running around together?"
[System also provides a Supermarket.]
[Players may sell items they wish to part with, and purchase items offered by others.]
Author: I think calling them players would be much more appropriate... What do you guys think?
[An Auction function is also available.]
"Well I don't know what that is either but sure, whatever, keep going," Allen muttered, waving a hand at the screen like that would speed it up.
[System Privilege Levels:]
[Level 0: No privilege.]
[Level 1: Change your own name.]
[Level 2: View a map within a certain radius.]
[Level 3: Hide or change all of your own information.]
[Level 4: View information of others, including real-time location, limited to those with privilege equal to or below your own.]
[Level 5: Inventory with no limit and no time restriction.]
[Additional privileges exist beyond Level 5. System encouraged players to explore the System further to familiarize themselves with its full functions.]
"Not interested," Allen said flatly, and meant it. He had enough trouble understanding what a group chat was, he wasn't about to go digging through menus like some teenager with a new phone.
The screen didn't seem to care about his opinion on the matter either way.
[Privilege levels can be upgraded using Contribution Points, or received directly as mission rewards.]
[Each mission carries its own reward based on difficulty. You can get Contribution Point in mission, not always tho.]
[Any mission may be refused.]
Allen let out a slow breath and looked up at the thin strips of sky he could see through the trees.
"So let me get this straight," he said. "I got a talking spaghetti machine, a silent blue billboard that won't shut up, a jungle full of God knows what, and apparently a job board now too."
Neither screen responded to that.
"Yeah," he said, standing back up and brushing off his pants. "That sounds about right for my luck."
Meaning terrible.