The menu items seemed to be a mix of FFL and WW, but I guess you couldn’t exactly expect dreams to be consistent. My character name was Satou, as usual. People often call me that by mistake, so it’s what I generally name my test characters. My status and such were standard for a new level 1 character, and my equipment consisted of the protein bar, wallet, cell phone, and other things I’d had on me when I fell asleep.

Typical half-assed dream logic.

As I surveyed my surroundings, I saw one area where the ground cut off completely. Figuring it was a cliff or something, I headed toward it.

Clearly, I was pretty high up: I was standing on the edge of a steep drop-off that went down at least three hundred feet. Similar pillars of high land rose up from all over the wasteland. At the bottom, the same reddish-brown earth stretched as far as the eye could see.

In the distance, I could see some kind of rift, possibly a canyon. I tried to check it on the map, but everything outside my immediate area was blank. Assuming this dream had a “fog of war” system like WW did, I would only be able to see areas I’d explored. A label in the upper left said Valley of Dragons, so maybe that’s what the rift was? I squinted as best I could, but I didn’t see anything that looked like a dragon.

Instead, I saw something very different.

***

It was emerging from the shadows of the nearest cliff, kicking up a cloud of dust as it came. Like a cavalry charge in a fantasy film.

My eyes instinctively fell on the four icons in the bottom-right corner of my vision: one that read Search Entire Map and three that read Meteor Shower. The emergency skills for beginners that I’d come up with after the meeting with Mr. Tubs. Driven by a vague sense of unease, I selected the Search Entire Map icon.

The radar automatically located any enemies, and a cluster of red dots confirmed the approaching group was hostile. Since the radar’s scope was limited, I opened up the bigger map to check their configuration.

The advancing army was a group of high-level enemies. There were so many of them, the map’s entire upper half was flooded with red.

…Isn’t this…a bit over the top? There’s way too many.

The approaching band was labeled Elite Lizardmen. There were around three hundred of them, most about level 50. An unarmed level 1 player like me definitely wouldn’t stand a chance.

When the group was less than two thousand feet from the cliff, their marching suddenly halted. I ducked behind a rock, out of sight, and peered out at them.

They seemed like some kind of mounted army, but it was no ordinary cavalry. I could tell their mounts weren’t horses, but the dust obscured my view too heavily to determine much else.

One of the riders broke away and came closer to my hiding spot, finally giving me a clearer look. The mount wasn’t a horse at all but some kind of velociraptor-like dinosaur, and the armored rider was not a human but a lizardman.

The lizardman was shouting something in a language I didn’t understand, but there was no question that he seemed to have figured out I was here. I guess I could chalk that up to absurd dream logic, too.

He seemed to wait a moment for my reply. When none came, he apparently grew tired of waiting and took up a longbow, aimed it right at me, and drew the bowstring back with a powerful arm. The outline of his body briefly glowed red, but I had no time to worry about that.

The lizardman let his arrow fly, and it cut through the air, whistling straight toward me. Yes, completely straight—it moved in a perfect line, seemingly untouched by gravity. In that instant, I resigned myself to dying in my dream, but the arrow only grazed my cheek as it flew past.

My face felt hot, as if it had been burned. Unconsciously, I put my hand to my cheek and felt something slippery. Looking down, I saw that my fingers were stained red, just as I’d feared.

I touched my tongue to the fresh blood and tasted iron… Is this really a dream…? The question sprang unbidden to my mind.

A thunderous sound like torrential rain interrupted my thoughts. The army was firing on me, their arrows raining down in a perfect arc. I quickly slid into a hollow in the rock—well, I tumbled into it clumsily, to be more accurate.

Before I had a chance to catch my breath, a hail of arrows pierced the ground where my body had been just moments before. The first shafts to land snapped and scattered as the arrows behind them struck home. Eyeing the razor-sharp arrowheads, I shivered as if my back had been doused in cold water.

The arrows accumulated within thirty feet of my hiding place. Those lizardmen were talented marksmen, but I had no time to waste on admiring them.

The only thing on my mind was fear.

Those of you who have been chased by monsters in your dreams will probably understand how I felt.

I had very few options. I could stay there squatting beneath the rock and die, try to run away during a break in the cascade of arrows, or fight back.

I selected one of the three Meteor Shower icons that were still in the corner of my vision. The icon vanished, leaving behind a temporary trace.

But that was all.

“Oh, come on! Are you telling me the command implementation isn’t working yet?”

As if to further fan my panic, another wave of arrows rained down. Slowly but surely, the barrage was whittling away my hiding place. “Just how strong are these arrows, anyway? Are these guys Robin Hood’s merry band or something?”

Cursing, I selected the two remaining Meteor Shower icons. But again, the symbols only disappeared, with no other effect.

One of the arrows finally broke through the rock and grazed my shoulder.

“Damn it! I’m gonna die because of a bug? What kind of sick bad ending is this?” I grumbled, but my anxious complaints soon faded to a weak murmur.

Why? Because I had spotted countless meteorites breaking through the clouds, crashing down.

I stared stupidly at the sight.

Thanks for your patience—we’re finally back to the scene where all this started.

Real name: Ichirou Suzuki.

Character name: Satou.

This is how my life in another world began.

Level Up

Hello, Satou here. Like a typical Japanese worker ant, I’ve always spent my days neck-deep in my work, but I don’t think it ever wore me down so much that I wished I could run away to somewhere else. I was busy, but I felt like my work was worth doing. It’s true, I swear!

The pain I felt right before that dust cloud overtook me seemed to have knocked me out for about two hours. The dust had probably been a consequence of all those meteorites hitting the earth, I figured.

The menu displayed the time in a simple format in the corner of my vision. How convenient.

I strained to move my body, which was half-buried in dirt.

Huh? I can’t get up…

It felt sort of like when you can’t get out of bed on a winter morning. I could move my hands a little, but it was difficult to do much more than sluggishly wiggle my fingers.

CLANK.

The metallic sound shook me out of my half-conscious state. “No way…,” I muttered, but deep down I was already sure what it must be. The lizardman who had fired the first arrow before.

As if to confirm my suspicions, a single red dot came into view on my radar. The lizardman on my still-open map screen was the only enemy left alive. How could he have survived all three of those ridiculous meteor attacks? I didn’t think that was possible. Maybe he had avoided the bulk of the strikes by being closer to me than the others?

“I guess I lose this round, huh?” I grumbled. I was somewhat frustrated, but for the most part the lethargic state of my body seemed to have dragged my mind down into resignation as well.

CLANK.

But when I saw the enemy appear at the top of the cliff, that apathy of a player who’d just lost a strategy game vanished completely. The lizardman was bleeding from all over his body, staining the remains of his tattered blue armor red. He spat out a spear he’d had clenched in his teeth onto the cliff and hauled himself forward.

At that moment, his gaze fell on me and refused to break away. My arms and legs shook pathetically. I’ve had dreams before where I wanted to run away and couldn’t move, but I’ve never dreamed anything that made me tremble so much.

Using the spear as a cane, the warrior shambled toward me, dragging along his broken leg. The thing’s body was absolutely covered in wounds. If I’d reacted a little sooner, I might have been able to catch him by surprise with a body slam and knock him off the edge of the cliff—but it was too late for that now.

Despite his battered state, the lizardman’s eyes were still burning for a fight. He definitely wanted to kill me. He pulled a sword from the scabbard at his waist—and tossed it at my feet. The sudden movement knocked off a piece of his armor and sent it clattering to the ground.

Now that he’d gotten this close to me, the smell of blood was so strong that I nearly gagged. It would have been far too realistic, if not for the HP gauge floating to the right of the lizardman’s head. Underneath was the label Lizardman: Level 50.