A New Life

[Integration Complete]

"What?" A young man asks in confusion as he blearily looks at the floating words in front of him, hearing a dinging sound in his head. As if in response to his question, the words in his slowly clearing vision quickly shift, forming a different set of words.

[Please wait one moment, you are experiencing a system reboot.]

Blinking the blurry vision away, the man quickly reads the new words, his eyebrows scrunching in confusion.

'I must be going crazy or something.' He thinks, looking around with bewilderment. He was in the middle of some forest with no memory of who he was or how he got there.

Other than the out of place floating words, what really made the man confused, was that he couldn't move his feet. It was as if his feet were cemented to the ground. Before he could start panicking, the words shifted once more, this time followed by a robotic feminine voice in his head.

[All functions will return to normal once the reboot is complete, please wait patiently.]

"Okay…" He utters quietly, still very much perplexed. With nothing else to do but wait, he continues to observe his surroundings with growing a uncertainty of his mental state.

He was in a small clearing in the middle of a forest somewhere, tall trees surrounded him on all sides.

The forest was in absolute silence, nothing moved, not even the tree's leaves. Looking up, his mouth dropped open in shock. Right above the clearing were three birds frozen in the air mid flight.

Before he could try and comprehend what he was seeing, the robotic voice in his head spoke once more, drawing his attention back to the floating text in front of him.

[Reboot complete, system functions now accessible. Does Host have any questions?]

"Yeah I have some questions, where the hell am I and what's going on?" The man asks with a growing sense of urgency, his lack of memories increasing the panic he felt.

[Host was specifically chosen out of the omniversal soul pool to receive the Cosmic System at the time of their demise. Once chosen, the Host's soul was transported to a random world in the omniverse to live again.]

"I died?" The revelation caused him to feel as if the world was crashing down around him, he began to feel very overwhelmed. First he woke up in some random forest frozen in time with no memories of who or where he was, then he was being told he died and he was chosen to receive some cosmic power to basically be reincarnated.

[Yes, Host's previous form perished in a fire.]

"I see…" The man frowned in response, that wasn't a good way to go. Thankfully, whether it was a gift or curse, he had no recollection of the surely traumatic event. "What is the Cosmic System?" He asked, wanting to move past the depressing line of thought.

[The Cosmic System is a tool created with the intention of granting its host with near limitless potential. The origins of The Cosmic System are unavailable to Host at this time.]

The system's reply caused the man to raise his eyebrows in surprise. Near limitless potential? The whole situation just felt so surreal and otherworldly. Crossing his arms and placing one hand under his chin, the young man adopts a thinking pose, taking the new information in stride.

"What functions do you offer?" He asks curiously, watching as the words in front of him shift in reply.

[The Cosmic System offers many functions: such as status, inventory, quests, perks, skills, and more. Once our dialogue is finished, each function can be viewed at any time with mental or verbal commands.]

The man stares at the system's reply for several minutes, rolling the words around in his head as he thinks about all of the possibilities of having such a system at his command. Out of all the functions mentioned, the Inventory intrigued him the most. While he can't remember the personal details of his old life, he still retained some knowledge of basic concepts and general information, such as speaking and understanding English. If the system's inventory functioned as it does in any of the video games remembered, then he would get plenty of use out of it.

"You said once our dialogue is finished I'll be able to use the system's functions, will we be able to speak again?"

[We will not. My role is merely to provide you with the information necessary to send you on your way as Host of The Cosmic System. Once we are done speaking, all my power will be diverted to keeping the system functional.]

"That's… understandable I guess?" Truthfully, the man wasn't even going to try and wrap his head around how a potentially limitless system that could potentially let him traverse the omniverse even worked, let alone what powered it.

While it wasn't the smartest thing he could do, he was excited to use the system to its full capacity and was already getting tired of standing rooted to the forest floor. He'd rather learn how the system works as he goes than ask questions about it all day.

"I don't have any more questions for you." He says with a light smile, eager to try out the functions for himself.

[Goodluck on your adventure, Host.]

With those parting words, the world around him seemed to come alive with sounds as leaves rustled in the wind. The three birds above his head resumed their flight, chirping as they went on their way over the treetops.

'Alright, let's see how this works— status.' As soon as he thought the word, a translucent screen full of information filled his vision along with a 3D image of himself.

***

[Name: Leo Hopkins (Age 20)

Title: None

Level: 1

Exp: 0/10

Strength: 5

Intelligence: 5

Perception: 5

Endurance: 5

Charisma: 5

Dexterity: 5

Agility: 5

—

Stat Point: 0

Skills: None

Perks: None]

'Five points in every stat, huh? That's probably the average for normal people and ten being peak human form.' Leo mused, taking notice of the level one below the title tab. After looking over the character sheet, he looked to the side of it where he saw a miniature version of himself looking back at him.

Now that he had a 3D image of himself to look at, he could see that he was around a hundred and fifty five centimeters sporting a lean build with short black hair, brown eyes, and light skin. His attire consists of dark green cargo pants, brown boots, and a dark gray hoodie.

'Well at least I'm not ugly,' He chuckles lightly, moving onto the inventory of the system.

Thinking about the inventory, Leo watched the status screen get replaced by twenty empty squares. He didn't know the limit of the size of items he could store in the empty spaces, but it was definitely a function that he'd be experimenting with.

It wasn't just the size limits that had him curious though, he was also curious about whether he could store food and drinks. Leo was sure that he could as he couldn't really think of a reason why he wouldn't be able to, but what he was mainly concerned about is whether or not perishables went bad while they were in his inventory.

"I wonder…" He trailed off, picking a nearby flower and watched as it disappeared from his hand and reappeared into one of the squares of his inventory with a thought. He'd check the condition of the flower tomorrow to see if time was affected.

While it wasn't the most advanced experiment, he didn't really have anything else to use at the moment.

Dismissing the inventory screen, Leo quickly noticed that in the corner of his vision was a little translucent bell. 'Probably for notifications or something like that,' He concluded, checking his surroundings in hope of finding some sort of clue where he was with no luck.

Now that he wasn't rooted to one spot unable to move, Leo was eager to explore whichever world he found himself in. Choosing the direction that looked like it offered the easiest path through the dense trees, he set off, trying to walk as straight a path as he could to avoid being turned around.

Thick trees towered over him as he made his way over large roots and ducked under low branches. Occasionally, there would be a fallen tree in his path that he'd have to climb over or around.

Even though Leo was technically lost without any supplies, he didn't really mind his situation all that much. In fact, one could say that he rather enjoyed it. He was given the chance to live again with a system that could grant him powers, as well as being able to hike through nature; how could he complain about that?

After a while of bushwhacking through the dense forest, Leo could eventually see the trees starting to thin out, revealing a large white object in the distance. Finally seeing something other than trees, he quickened his pace, hoping that there would be other people nearby.

As he got closer, he could see that that object was an RV. Leo sighed in relief as he broke out of the woods into a big open clearing with multiple vehicles and the single white RV parked around it.

'Must be some sort of campground.' He thought to himself, eyeing the vehicles and tents spread out. He was confused though, where was everybody? The Campground looked practically deserted; a couple of the tents he could see were even torn open as if an animal wanted inside.

"Hello!" Leo called out, walking through the camp with a slight frown. Why would anybody abandon all their stuff like this? Just as he was about to call out again, movement from one of the nearby tents grabbed his attention.

Looking towards the blue-gray tent, he could see that a large red stain covered one of the tent's sides. 'Is that blood?' He wondered, his frown deepening at the implications of why there'd be a huge blood stain covering the outside of a tent.

Ignoring the alarm bells going off in head, he slowly walked towards the tent that he heard something moving around in. "H-hello? He hesitantly asked, nearing the tent with some caution.

Now that he was closer, he was pretty positive that the red marks were blood; so he instantly became wary. As if his voice was a trigger, more sounds of movement in the form of rustling came from the tent again, only this time much more pronounced.

Even more cautiously, Leo stepped around to the front of the tent. As he neared the torn hole that was the opening of the tent, a deathly pale hand shot out and grasped at the ground.

At the sight of the hand, his eyes widened and he stopped his advancement. From his position at the side of the tent, he couldn't see the condition of whoever the arm belonged to as they were still inside.

A second arm soon followed the first, both grasping at the ground to pull whomever was inside out of the tent. Leo gulped at the sight, unsure what to do. Soon enough, a woman's upper body became visible, her long blonde hair hiding her facial features from him.

"Mam..? Are you okay?" He asked softly, slowly approaching her downed form. As Leo came within arms length of her, her head jerked up to meet his terrified brown eyes. The eyes that stared back at him, however, were dull and lifeless—the eyes of a corpse.

The woman's face was marred with deep gouges and cuts as if she was attacked by a wild animal. Whole chunks were missing from one of her cheeks, exposing her pearly white jawbone and teeth, along with a large section taken out of her throat.

Leo jumped back, his frightened eyes widening with shock and panic. A million thoughts seemingly racing through his head in half a second. 'She shouldn't be alive. How is she alive? Is she alive?'

"M-mam? Do you need my help?" He shakily asked in shock, eyeing her pale hand as she seemed to be trying to reach for him. The woman didn't answer him with words, she merely growled and tried to crawl closer.

Looking behind her and into the tent, Leo's eyes widened even further if that was possible. Both of her legs were cut off at the knees. No, not cut off; they looked as if they were chewed off.

'What the hell happened to her?' He questioned internally, taking another few steps backwards as the woman tried to grab onto his leg with her dirtied fingers.

Before Leo could fully process the situation, a notification noise sounded in his head and a translucent screen popped up in his vision between him and the woman.

[Ding!]

[Quest: Zombies!]

The world has been ravaged by a virus that causes the dead to walk amongst the living!

Thrown into a world of madness and survival where one wrong move can mean life or death, you must gather the skills necessary to survive the post apocalyptic mayhem.

Objective: Eliminate your first undead.

Reward: +5 Exp, +2 stat points.

Do you accept?

[Y/N]

"Zombies?" He intones quietly, eyebrows raised high as his eyes dart back and forth between the undead woman and the quest's name. The woman pawed at the ground, slowly making her way towards where Leo stood, her dull eyes never once leaving his frozen form as her bloody stumps dragged out of the tent behind her.