Men Against The Unknown

When I woke up, I found myself in a strange place. There's nothing but pitch black around me. Though I know for sure... I'm not alone in here.

I can sense a presence of someone, or something.

"It" is reaching to me now.

No sound of footsteps.

(So "It" doesn't have legs, or maybe "It" doesn't need that to come here.)

No sound of breathing either.

(So "It" doesn't breath, or maybe "It" doesn't need to do that.)

I just knew "It" is getting closer to me.

And then it stopped.

I knew "It" is in front of me. I can sense that.

I tried to reach it by my right hand, but too scared of "something bad might happen" so I stopped immediately and stayed still.

"It" stopped, right in front of me, not too far nor too close. I can feel that.

"(Listen and never forget my words.)"

And then "It"... he talked. This is definitely a man's voice, a young adult man's voice to be exact. So for now I'll consider "It" a "he". His tone is somewhat indifferent.

But I didn't hear those word by my ears... but by my mind.

(So this must be what they called "Telepathy".)

The strangest part is I wasn't surprised by that. Maybe because his voice is also reassuring that I feel calmed. Who and what is he anyway?

Considering where I am now, I shouldn't think too much for now and listen to what he says first.

"(You, must get stronger------)

He continued speaking with the same tone, but I couldn't properly heard what he said after that. The reasons is his voice got replaced by a strange noise.

"Hey---"

I tried to speak out but then my mouth got freezed immediately. What the hell just happened? And get stronger to do what exactly?

Ignoring my situation, he continues.

"(You, must reach the final floor------)"

That strange noise happened again, burrying his words. The word "Floor" makes me think I'm currently in a building or similar.

I guess his words means I must get stronger to reach the final floor of this place.

(But stronger at what? Physicallly, mentally or both?)

"(You, must live------)

It happened for the third time. I began to get used to it. The way he said "must live" gave me a long-lasting impact. I believed all his words so far are meant to be orders.

At that moment, I knew I must listen to his next words.

"(When the time comes, I will answer and------)"

"And what?" is what I really want to ask but can't, my mouth just can't do its job. His words got blurred as usual.

"(My work here is done. Soon you will know what to do next.)"

Right after that, the pitch black in this place switched to white. And then there are numerous thin long blue lines appearing everywhere, crossing each other to form numerous squares. Those lines are also shining like some sort of LED light.

The place is brighter now so I can finally see my body… and the first thing I do is...

"Hey, where are you?"

I looked around and even above but saw no one. I saw the roof and 6 walls forming a hexagon room. The floor is the same as the roof, just flat. That's all I can describe about this place.

I can no longer sense his presence. He's gone for sure.

Not letting me grasp the situation, a hologram clock appeared from thin air, right in front of me, showing 01:00:00.

1 hour. I believe I have 1 hour left before anything new happens.

The clock is quite big, almost my size.

Its outline color is blue, the number is also blue, the rest is white.

Considering all the blue things in this room, I will call this place "Blue room". But since there is no door nor window, this place is more like a closed box than a room.

My instinct told me to touch the clock so I reach out my right hand to it.

When my index finger touched the middle of the clock, another hologram appeared, with blue color of course.

This time it is a small window, with a message written in. The texts are not in blue but black color so this is new to me.

The content is:

<<These are the Orders from the Almighty One:

1. You must get stronger…

2. You must reach the final floor…

3. You must live…

To see this message again, close your eyes and say "Order"…

To get stronger, close your eyes and say "Soul System"…

To get your equipments and items, close your eyes and say "Soul Shop"…

His Orders are absolute, the Tower is your trials…>>

… When I finished reading them all in my mind, the clock starts counting down with a background music. It sounds nice and scary at the same time.

My guess was right. Something definitely will happen after the countdown.

The unknown guy is refered as the "Almighty One" according to this.

Also, those "…" are so suspicous. There must be a reason thoes dots appear in every lines except the first one, but for now it's not important as the final line.

His Orders are absolute… So this means I must obey his orders. Since these orders are quite acceptable, I'll go along with it until I have a reason to not to.

The Tower is your trials… I'll take that as this whole place is a tower, and I'm currently in one of its floors. By "trials" does that means there's more than just "reach the final floor"?

The countdown sound urges me to hurry. I don't think I'm in the right situation to question every little things. If his first order is to get stronger then I'll check the Soul System and the Soul Shop first.

I close my eyes and say the magical word.

"Soul System."

I heard a "Ting!" sound then open my eyes and saw a new hologram window with the title 'Soul System" next to the first window.

The content is:

<<SOUL SYSTEM

Information about yourself…

Name: ??? …

Age: 25

Gender: Male

…

STRENGTH: 9 (+)

It decides your output damage…

SUSTAIN: 9 (+)

It decides your receving damage…

SPEED: 9 (+)

It decides your action speed…

SENSE: 1 (+)

Decide your understanding about this world…

SOUL: 2 (+)

Decide your understanding about yourself…

Put your Ability Point to the stat you wish to enhance…

Currently available: 1 AP>>

Quite easy to understand, except the information about me and those dots again.

But thanks to the name being "???", I came to realize one thing. The question I should have asked in the very beginning:

"Who am I?"

… According to the Soul System I'm a man, which is quite obvious when I looked at a certain part in my body. By the way, I'm naked and I feel no shame or whasoever. My age is 25, my body surely belongs to a 25 years old guy. The problem is I have no memory of what my name is. A name is what a person have when their parents named them…

"Who are my parents anyway?"

Another question rised up. Those are things a person will know, unless they have amnesia… So I AM having amnesia. Poor me.

And then another question as important as well…

"Why am I here?"

I knew I shouldn't be here, but have no way to explain myself.

… No. There is one way. The "Sense" and "Soul" stat.

If their short description lines are true, then I can know more about this world and myself by putting point to them. Understand this world means I will know how to live or survive here. But should I try to know about myself right now?

I only have 1 AP at the moment. I could put it into 1 of the first 3 stats to get stronger, which is even better consider the first order, what could happen after the 1 hour countdown (now is 56 minutes left) and the fact that I don't know how to get more AP. Can I get more AP in the first place?

This "1 AP" is my most valuable resource right now ( I mean I'm naked, what else could I have), it could decide a lot on my first step in the journey to the final floor.

When I have 55 minutes left, I decided I will check this again after the countdown finished. There's nothing force me to use that 1 AP right now. The "Order" and "Soul System" windows dissappeared not long after that. I believe these hologram windows will close when not needed.

I move on to the next thing. I closed my eyes again and say the word. A new hologram window appeared with the ting sound, this time, it's the "Soul Shop":

<<SOUL SHOP

Choose your equipment and item here…

You can only choose 2 weapons, 1 armor set and 1 item…

Currently available weapons:

SWORD (???)

Just a sword…

SPEAR (???)

Just a spear…

HAMMER (???)

Just a hammer…

BOW (???)

Just a bow…

STAFF (???)

Just a staff…

Currently available armor set:

POOR WARRIOR'S ARMOR SET (???)

For poor warrior…

POOR LANCER'S ARMOR SET (???)

For poor lancer…

POOR BANDIT'S CHAINMAIL (???)

For poor bandit doing bandit things because of being poor.

POOR ARCHER'S CHAINMAIL (???)

For poor archer…

POOR WIZARD'S ROPE (???)

For poor wizard…

Currently available items:

None>>>

I looked through all of them. No picture so I don't know what they actually look like, nor much information about them. Pick of faith I guess. It's written that I can pick 1 items and yet there's no item available?

… And what is wrong with that bandit stuffs. Is that supposed to be a joke?

Whatever, my instinct once again told me to pick the sword so I'll do it. I click on the sword area and then…

Falling down from the sky… no, from the tall flat roof, is a wooden treasure chest.

It landed right in front of me. The landing sound is ear killing. If I was two steps ahead it could have landed on me… that's scary, I immediately think "What if I die?".

I'm not in the mood to check what would happen if I die, so I come to the chest and open it. Inside the big fat treasure chest is just a single sword, as expected.

The sword is a very simple double-edged sword, quite light when I hold it in my right hand. I don't know much about sword and stuffs so I can't say what it's made of but just "metal".

I tried to swing it left and right, tried to slash and thrust. I also tried to cut my index finger to see how sharp it is and found out that it's definitely not "Just a sword". Just a very light touch of its blade is enough to cut though my skin, if I put more force then my finger will be gone. I think I like it. It's enough for me now so I won't choose the second one.

At that moment, I finally understand that his "get stronger" order and this weapon are meant that along my journey to the final floor, I might have to fight, to battle or to kill something… or someone.

I also checked the treasure chest and found nothing special. I tried to push it to see how heavy it is, but surprisingly, it doesn't move at all! I pushed it very hard and a wooden treasure chest shouldn't be a problem to me. I'm either too weak or it's an immovable object. I'm more inclined to the latter.

With the sword in my right hand, I tried attack the chest but can't damage it at all. So weird but I'm not surprised. This palce isn't supposed to be normal, comapring to my place… What was my place, or my world anyway? Damn, I'm starting to hate amnesia. Sometimes I know, sometimes I don't, I'm just following my instinct.

Since there's no point to ask myself about this whole situation, I get back to the Soul Shop window to pick my armor set. The window stays where it appered, doesn't move with me. I'll remember this. I'm gonna use a sword so I should pick the warrior's one.

The same thing happens again, but this time, the new wooden treasure chest landed right above the old one, crushed it to oblivion with heavy sound, all the pieces became light particles and vanished. So to destroy a chest, you use another chest.

The new chest sits at the exact position as the old one was, right in front of me… or should I say in front of the Soul Shop window. I wonder what would happen if I picked the sword and armor set at the same time. Will the the latter chest crush the former chest just like what happened, and will the content be safe? I can't test it right now so I can't tell.

I opened the new chest and take out my armor set. It comes with 2 gaunlets cover from my fingers to half the arms, 2 shoulder pads, 1 chest plate and 2 greaves cover from my fingertoes to the knees. Overall, the armor set is plain, light, made from the same silver grey colored metal as my sword, and so poorly-made that even an amnesiac like me can tell.

I gotta use what I have so I just put them on my body and when I picked up the sword, another hologram window appeared with the content"

<<Achivement unlocked: A humble begin.

From poor warrior to what?>>

… Very funny. I know why I unlocked this "Achievement". I'm only curious what could it benefit me in my journey to the last floor? This place is so weird…

I have no trouble moving in this armor set, its weight is bearable to me. I tried to swing the sword and still feel fine, just a litlte bit slower. To test how tough this armor set is, I hit the left gaunlet with the sword and it only left a small scratch. I hit harder and the gaunlet is still doing okay. I can fight with these… If I do have to fight.

I checked the clock and saw 35 minutes left.

With nothing better to do, I continue to train myself (Thrusting, slashing sword, running, jumping) for what could happen after the countdown finished.

While training, I recalled what I can still remember but no result. Every time I tried to recall anything about myself, my head just went back to focus on the self-training. This amnesia thing is more like a mental block than just me losing my memories. The fact that I feel and even know that I'm acting like myself is the strongest proof.

I can put 1 AP to the Soul stat to know more about me, but I still think it's not the best idea right now.

… That "Almighty One" guy must know the asnwer. If not then it doesn't make any sense.

At 5 minutes left, I stopped training and moved to the clock. With all those working my body is not tired at all. I don't feel hungry nor thirsty, I do want to sleep but it's not much of a deal. Another weird thing about this place… or is it me that weird?

At 3 minutes left, I opened the Soul System window to decide which stats should I invest my 1 AP.

The power-oriented stats like Strength, Sustain and Speed are all at 9 so even with 1 more, it shouldn't make any different to my overall power.

Then come Sense and Soul stats.

Like I said before, Soul is not the best thing to invest right now, but what about Sense?

I will know more about this whole situation or "the world" as it stated. Definitely a good stat to invest in.

Though for some reasons, or just my instinct, I feel that I should save this for later. I'll decided again when the time is right.

And just like that, the Soul System window disappear immediately. My guess was right again.

At 1 minute left, I adjusted my pose and held the sword tightly. I'm ready for whatever's about to happens.

If it's a battle against anything, I will fight, I will survive, and I will get stronger.

Not because of his orders but for myself.

I want to know the truth, I need to know the meaning of all of this.

Timeout.

Right after the background music stopped, the clock shined brighter and changed its shape to a door. A blue door.

With the sword in my right hand, I reach out my left hand to the doorknob and open it.

I see nothing from the other side. It's pitch black.

Gathered all my courage, I slowly walked through it with my sword pointing ahead.

When both my feet touched the gound of the other side…

"(Welcome To Your First Tower's Trial, Tenant.)"

… I heard an unsual women's voice inside my head. What will happen now?