My name is…my name was Toby Sampson. I say it was because I’m looking at a mirror and what I see is a completely different person. He’s a skinny guy like every JoJo in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventurer after Part 6, has blonde hair so spiky it looks kind of conical, a black vest over a gray shirt, blue jeans with a kind of teal sheen to them, very big black sneakers to hide how the socks weren’t covering the heels and maroon eyes so vibrant they almost masked how dead the eyeballs looked.

  He’s…I’m Cooro Rippel. It’s funny how even knowing this probably wasn’t a dream and I recognize the face as a weak underling…I’m not at all stressed–this must be a side effect of being reborn as a character who backs up a bully making fun of the protagonist constantly.

  But enough about him, let’s talk about the person under the rough exterior. I was just a 9 to 5 laborer cleaning refrigerators so they could be resold in hardware stores, thirty years old, never been in a relationship, and most of my money not spent on food or rent was spent on 25 dollar prepaid cards–the cheapest cards in a store. I used prepaid cards instead of a credit card because I didn’t trust VPNs hiding my credit card number from hackers. That might seem a little paranoid when all I used them for was to play a video game: Rainbow Ashes.

  The game goes you play a male or female protagonist–both siblings so still in the story no matter who you chose–going to a school that makes you go through dungeons in order to survive one day a month where a rainbow looms overhead with malevolent shades of the seven colors releasing a horde of monsters that can kill friends and loved ones if you don’t act fast and aren’t strong enough to handle them. The game ends when you find the Seven Deadly Sins bosses plus another boss who is usually different with each run through.

  Like many RPG’s where you play a highschool student there’s love interests, events you can join, and different endings that still can’t compare to the good things reality can give. Well this game is my reality–the one where I’m a trash character who is doomed to follow a bully that always gets corrupted by the essence of a deadly sin either killing me for power or making me fight the protagonist resulting in my death. Most would be stressed about their imminent death, but not me after checking my phone to see it was still August 31st.

  With the first day of school not until tomorrow. It was also the first year because Cooro never lives to see the second year. Ergo, I have time to turn this lap dog into a hellhound.

  I grabbed whatever cash Cooro had, including the ones hidden under eight floor boards even he probably didn’t know about since in-game worlds money is found in random spots. The currency was a solid gold rectangular block with a man sitting on jagged rocks near a beach. He had a circle around his head covered in black hair stretching down his back with no shirt on. He was the currency Temperance, the third highest out of seven of the currency in this world–and he was going to help me buy equipment and enter a dungeon.

  I walked form Cooro’s shabby apartment to the weapon shop and man did it smell like beach and other chemical solvents used to erase blood and visceral. The lore says the rainbow purge has been happening since the day the protagonist(s) was born–which leads to the twist they were reborn from a celestial being tasked with saving the world from the Rainbow Purge–and the last one was three days ago with the next one happening on the 30th of September.

  By the time it happens I’ll be strong enough to handle it myself and know where it will happen saving countless lives, but first I’ll need to befriend all the main protagonists so they’ll trust me enough to come along and grow defeating them together.

  From the sock I grabbed a pouch of silver coins and a small silver shield with a strap to fit over my arm. I approached the beautiful woman with a long brown ponytail and hazel eyes wearing a black suit dropping it on the counter. She stared so hard into my eyes it was as if she was shooting laser beams.

  “For your first purchase in being a dungeon explorer your not getting a main weapon, potions or armor?” She asked with eyes furrowing trying to make sense of my purchase.

  “Yes.” I replied; first words I said to any character since being reborn into this world.

  She kept her gaze on me for a full minute, didn’t feel any tension since I knew which purchases offered me additional items, then she sighed and entered the price in her cash register.

  “Four Temperance please.”

  I handed her four of the eight gold bars I found under my floorboards. I reached for my stuff only for her to slide a gold coin with a red ring on it to my purchase.

  “Although it’s not my place to question the customers’ purchase, please take this token of Humility. You can exchange it for one rusty sword.”

  I picked up the coin, flipped it, catch it before clutching it, and turned back to the store clerk with a wink.

  “Thank you. This really helps me.”

  Before walking away I saw her face flush red; a standard trope in anime when someone whose wryly to their tsudere generosity.

  Strapping the shield to my right arm and slinging the pouch to my left side I repeated in my head the days I needed to come back to this store to buy more things that would give me a Humility Coin. What most including her is the owner will exchange five of these coins for a rare weapon.

  Getting everything needed, I headed to the dungeon.

  If my life was created for a webcomic I would like it to be as cheap as it can, something like only drawing five adventurers in a line with me in the back. One had a white robe, another was a magenta pigtailed barbarian, a blonde scrutty haired green armored elf, someone who looked like Lancer From Fate/Stay night but with black hair instead of blue and a red cloak with a grimoire black haired man. They looked like the perfect multitude for a party but the one in the front left them to the guard at the entrance.

  While waiting I was tempted to talk to the pigtail girl even if we’re in a line and she was with the white mage. I was weak and scary looking right now unlike in my previous life where I just wasn’t the kind of guy they were looking for. Over a hundred thousand women in the city and they didn’t want someone hard working, funny and honest. In video games I always strived to get the best possible ending and in this one it will be a harem; not being too clueless to understand feelings or too gutless to pick none.

  I approached the man behind a counter. He looked like a 90s cartoon Asian with rectangular brown tinted sunglasses, forest green light armor and two blue rings on his middle finger and the one next to his thumb. His eyes flitted from the direction the crowd hurried to me.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be heading into a dungeon, and underdressed? What, you get expelled and want to make a living doing this kid?”

  He was brunt and prying at the same time. Instead of giving a diligent response I took out two Temperance blocks and slid them toward him. He hardly reacted but his opinion of me must’ve changed–or he was just happy to take money from someone who looked like he was going to die.

  “Go on ahead, but don’t think I’ll be surprised when you can’t even make it past the first floor.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  I met his eyes giving his body a shiver as he hunched his shoulders and stood up. I walked on the rune circle under an altar that would take me to the dungeon and soon found myself encompassed by hardened clay walls.

  A rat maze-esque dungeon supposed to be inspired by the minotaurs’ labyrinth. At least this would be a labyrinth if I didn’t know all the paths to the secret room. I took a right veering left after taking three steps, left, right, and finally a walk to a wall with three prisms adjacent to each other. When reaching a wall in a tunnel there will be prisms, but these ones were different; behind them was a secret treasure.

  I pressed the left twice, right once, and center three times…and a door slid open revealing a secret basement. I walked down those stairs having to watch my feet very meticulously so I didn’t fall unlike the game where I just walked into complete darkness and teleported to the room I was looking for. I eventually came to a door with a man meditating with a line of dots barely a gap apart going from his forehead to his crotch where his breasts had a multitude of different weapons embedded inside his body. Cute design not in the game.

  I pushed open the door to find a spring with an altar in the middle holstering a small red ball that appeared like it was covered in a Nerd shell. Without wasting a moment admiring what a secret room looked like in 3rd dimension I picked up the ball shoving it in my mouth like those pills my mother told me to ‘swallow;not chew’.

  I read enough light novels to know when the main character stuffed a pill that permanently increases their stats its supposed to feel like being on Cloud 9, but all I felt was a bit of joint pain and the ball touching my teeth. That being said, my Dexterity was increased just a little by this. It was nice knowing I was stronger without having to kill a monster first, but I had a lot more to do before challenging the boss of this dungeon.

  First I ran back up the stairs to get out of the secret room–second I tried finding the second floor before encountering any monsters. I found a circle with luminescent white bulb inside like the transport device in Pokemon Sapphire/Ruby. I didn’t step on it. Instead I used a coin to chisel away the lines that keep monsters from getting to the transporter. As it goes they enter but can’t reach the transporter which has two entrances. They’ll be so caught up chasing me back and forth but can’t do anything about the second entrance. This will be important later.

  After setting up my technicality, I went looking for the monsters. Although monsters roam around more than they did in the game, I could smell their rancid breaches wafting between turns. I eventually came face-to-face with a goblin. It was an impish creature with dark green skin, boils on its head, yellow sclera’s with no pupils, a pelt around its crotch with a bony knife sticking out of the pelt.

  Without hesitation I kicked sand towards it the moment it noticed me. It was blinded by the course seed grains getting in its eyes allowing me ample time to walk around it. I turned the corners before I heard its infuriated yowl. Admittedly, I was a little terrified what it was going to do since it wasn’t as trapped to its mechanics unlike its game self. But I ventured left down a corner to a black wolf with two talon spikes protruding from its nape.

  The sand trick wouldn’t work on this foe. The only way to handle it was like a house dog who did something it wasn’t supposed to and that was by kicking its flank while roaring “Bad Boy!” which is what I did to the feral creature. It whimpered–lord knows why–but only for two turns before unleashing a guttural snarl. In the game I would antagonize every monster before killing them, but for now I would return to the transport room with them furiously looking for me.

  When I got there I collapsed on my knees and flipped a coin hearing the sounds of goblins and wolves alike reverberating through the maze.

  And then–thunderous footsteps stampeded towards my direction. When they finally arrived it was as funny as a murder of crows migrating together only to hit against a panel of glass. There they were a mingled herd of goblins and wolves with the goblins riding the wolves and they were all filled with blood in their eyes. Normally goblin-riders aren’t seen in this dungeon since its a beginners’ level, but infuriating a monster in this game and not fighting them can lead to all kinds of bizarre scenario’s, and that’s speaking of what I’ve seen on a video game screen.

  The goblins were raising their knives up and down and the wolves were letting spittle fly out of their mouths from their veracious hunger; I just got up and sauntered right away from the clamor.

  I was back at the entrance to the secret room when the monsters finally tried turning around to chase after me, but they were following too slow, practically stumbling over their own paws and lopping into each other like a rickety fence. I repeated the pattern that opened the secret door and was making my way back down. Shrouded by darkness I had to be careful where I stepped.

  That was the only different part in my rinse and repeat strategy to get one of my stats to the max. Although only after reaching the door did I begin to worry this might not work. I took a deep breath, hoped and inwardly prayed it would work; I didn’t want to end up weak and powerless like I was in my previous life by that chaotic bitch who took everything from me.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  I pushed it open feeling an adrenaline rush from my mind remembering those agonizing final moments seeing her sneering face. To my great relief the ball was there again. In my last life luck like this was found only in my dreams, but here I could make my own luck–and not be killed by someone using a dating app to lure me into her and her boyfriends’ trap to force me to send my bank information than slice open my abdomen for my most profitable organs.

  Time to swallow my pill.

  Trekking back and forth from the secret room to the safe zone and back to the secret room was a breeze. The game’s glitch was it never expected players to search for the secret room while a horde of monsters were chasing you so it resets when they all come after you to the teleport room.

  After rinsing and repeating until my one stat reached its maximum limit I decided to put an end to this outroar. I walked on the other end of the path with the longest length following the second entrance and I whistled.

  They all came scampering from the other side; I casually unbuttoned the flap of my pouch. Soon a flurry of goblins riding wolves came rushing towards me. I waited for a minute until there were at least six in a line with two next to each other.

  What skill did I raise to make me so confident I could handle this many at the same time? Why Dexterity of course. With a quick motion of my hand I threw two coins at the line of monsters. The coins went right through the eyes of the wolves in the very front, going through the back of their heads, and penetrated the eyes of the wolves behind them. What happened next was absolutely beautiful…they were all sent flying all over the place hitting the wall.

  Flying over it or being scraped by the heavy wolves behind them. Without wasting a moment I picked up the nearest loitered knife I could find and started beheading them. I was now in step 4 despite skipping step one behind sent here inside of logging in. Final step will be me surrounded by girls who want me for more than just my money or my profitable organs.

  After finishing off all the goblins and wolves I made my way to the alter that would teleport me to the second floor.

  Once I got there I powerwalked the path that would keep me away from any monsters. My goal was the boss and no monsters or chests with items slash weapons were going to deter me from it. Even though I slaughtered a dozen goblins with a side of wolves my level was still at one.

  There was a cheat in the game that allowed you to earn skill points instead of level and stats; it was a simple matter of seven burpees and seven times falling on my back to activate it.

  It may seem silly to stay at level one when I could have become level twenty near the end of all this, but when I finally enter that school they’ll appraise my stats and I don’t want to stand out. I spent half of my earned SP points–five–for a skill that lets me reset a stat in exchange for SP points. I wasn’t going to use it of course until I finished off the boss.

  Third floor was pretty much like the first and second floor but with traps hidden all around. Four floor had kobalds and two-three goblins on a path. Following the easy route I came upon the transporter to the fifth room slash boss room.

  I was greeted by hills of midnight blue sand with a goblin in robes standing in front of me. He held a wooden staff and grumbled out a few words of incantation. A dark hole materialized in blinding light in front of him before a large gray wolf the size of a griffon appeared before him. With that boss battle cutscene out of the way, I pulled out a coin pressed between my two fingers.

  I glared intently at the goblin shaman, looked him in his beady vile eyes. When he raised his staff once more, I chucked a coin! The coin went right over the wolfs’ head–didn’t even seem to know it was thrown–and hit the goblin shaman’s staff ricocheting off!

  The coin went through the back of the wolf’s skull flying back towards me. I would’ve been impaled if I didn’t let my legs give way lying in the sand. As for the coin, it hit a sand hill behind me ricocheting off heavenwards to one of the stars, hit one because its a game world where coins can do that and crashed towards the goblin shaman!

  He used an incantation to resummon a giant wolf from an incantation circle and immediately it was headshot like a COD game. The goblin flinched seeing the coin which once again hit the staff bouncing off again. The process repeated itself as I lazed around collecting SP.

  I could’ve just stayed down and let this process repeat itself until the system stopped granting XP for my kills, but there was a special bonus for defeating the boss solo in under three minutes. After the tenth time I stood up, waited until the coin tore through the skull of the wolf and exhaled a strong puff of cyclone/my breath. With just one blow the coin headed straight into the head of the goblin shaman; the boss battle was over.

  If I was fighting in the game storyline as one of the protagonists, there would be a scene where the teach who tutorial my way through here would congratulate me and lead me out to see the bully gripping the soon to be healer Reila by the coat for rejecting his advances. He or she pushes him away helping Reila but igniting the seething flames of hatred the bully has for the protagionist–and after he threatens them with plans for revenge, the EXP and rewards finally show up letting you approach Reila to ask her how she’s doing. Depending on your dialogue choices you can earn two affection points with her.

  Now I just got EXP seeing gold light fill up the gauge but my level staying at 1. And after I stared into the abyss of players who want to stay level 1 for SP, a gacha-esque screen you’d see in Manwha of a burly wolf inside a fountain of light appeared. This was the Summon Wolf skill–obviously–which was what is called a secret skill.

  If you defeat a boss in a certain amount of time or in a certain way you can actually have their unique power. I went through the games’ playthrough fifteen times before I acquired this skill followed by another five playthroughs before I acquired the rest of the bosses unique skills.

  Without a teacher to lead me out of the completed boss room I was free to stay around until I wanted to leave; I would use that time to summon my wolf companion in the same realm.

  You’d thing being in the game with no buttons or control I wouldn’t know how to use it, but when thinking very hard on it it was just like a button for it appeared in my head just waiting for me to push it.

  And then–the action was taken and the wolf appeared from a pillar of light. Its appearance resembled a mix between a husky and a saint bernard. It was beige around its pelt with a white belly, pointed ears, and had gray eyes. It was summoned facing me; just looking before licking its chaps three times before whimpering. It must feel hungry being at its lowest level so far.

  Well the body I reincarnated into kept some money lying around but there was a crutch that only allowed me to buy a shield and coins if I wanted that token. That being said, I picked up a few bones on my way to the boss room. First I let her–if I get the monster evolution fruit later it pays to pick a girl summon–sniff my hand since it was summoned creature it couldn’t bite me even if it really wanted to; really she was licking the sweat off my hand anxious to be fed.

  I let it slide into my palm like a card appearing from a magicians’ sleeve offering it to the wolf. It looked suspiciously at the bone probably thinking I was one of those masters that poisoned their pet for fun.

  Soon that fear was gone and it snatched the bone away before running off to play while it ran around while every few minutes leaping up.

  I tiptoed away to the exit. While the companion was out the summoning skill didn’t show up on my stat screen which was good for me as it saved me having to answer the receptionist who scanned the players leaving the area to repeat any achievements. And yes, she’d see me as level 1 but so long as a fellow adventurer wasn’t missing–which they keep track of with an implant that keeps track of someone leaving and entering–what happened in the dungeon was my business alone.

  Leaving the building was as easy as clocking in/out at my old job; sauntered to the nearest pet store. Unlike regular pet stores with dog baths and cats in cages in the back… this one included drake eggs, brought horses into greenland dimensions where they could run free, and of course synthesized smaller monsters into bigger ones keeping food for the rank of companion. Since mine was only rank 1 I got cheap kibble that only offers 15 experience per bag when a thousand was needed to rank up.

  I only bought a bag without a bowl to eat out of. I summoned her outside still clenching her maw on that bone. She was aware of my presence. I threw the bag in the air making a quick slash with a coin to tear open the side letting the food rain out. It rained right into her festering mouth as she swallowed it whole.

  I immediately used my skill to close the portal allowing her to sink back down; her too busy swallowing to notice.

  Pet was fed for the day–it was time I made my way somewhere else. All part of the process: being in a gaggle of houses while the color was orange from the sun going down.

  7:02

  “Cooro!”

  I turned around to see the group I–or rather the original owner of this body–was associated with. But more importantly, Him. In most manga’s and manwha’s there are blonde guys who ridicule the main characters mostly making them feel useless, believe the character is cheating when they finally get stronger, try to find a way to kill him for “embarrassing” him, in the end they either go to prison or are killed by the protagionist–basically this character in a nutshell.

  Instead of talking to him I started unlocking my inner Spongebob standing on my toes before leaping gaily to the left.

  This of course shocked the gaggle of delinquents but I was too busy going south, west, south, west, North, East and finally south to care.

  “Dammit!” The head delinquent roared. “Stop acting like such a reta–”

  Out of nowhere, a heavenly glowing circle appeared in the ground making him forget about how asinine I was acting. His eyes would’ve probably melted from staring too longly into it if I didn’t grip his shoulder.

  “A gate to another world, boss.” I informed him.

  Before I had to explain how I found out about it, I made up something on the spot: “It will close soon. All those who want to possess great power jump in.”

  That stunned expression was replaced by a smirk of greed. He immediately jumped on disappearing into the circle. Whether out of loyalty or the same greed the rest of his lackey’s followed. I was last to enter, but before I went I interlaced my fingers and wiggled them while locked together, and then I moved them down to touch the circle before doing a summersault to get inside. I did this the same reason for the same reason you learn combos in a sport game–to activate the cheat.

  I earned a thousand EXP for this being the way I entered and since I’m still level 1 I get a twenty-five percent bonus. I gained thirteen SP points just for entering another realm.

  Like any isekai story I was brought to a throne room surrounded by knights with a strong, handsome light brown haired king in red robes greeted me and more over the rest of the bully gang I was currently a part of–until the end of this day I should say. I say “this” day because one week in this realm is one day in the realm of the protagonist. I’ll explain more after we get told some lies by the king.

  “Welcome all you brave heroes,” he spoke with a deep voice trying to show how commanding he was of the situation but he needed us more than we needed him. “I am King Pascal and I welcome you to Albert Sky. You are here because our resources are very low and the only way to refill them is to go into a dungeon: Catalyst U.X. Bridge. Now I know you didn’t come here to talk about our kingdoms’ needs without getting something in return, so if you will follow the head maid…”

  He held out his hand imploring us to look in that direction. My eyes were flitting to the king while my head turned to see if there was any tell on his face that would show how nefarious this plan was. His smile curved outwards showing his teeth; as close to a tell as I could get.

  Actually gazing in the direction he asked I was greeted by the head maid, Lucita. Seeing her short with sharp backside icy blue hair and fiery red eyes in a maid uniform. I looked around at my bully friends to see they were getting red and hard practically huddled together to get warmth from how much they wanted to have sex with her.

  She of course only saw us as tools the king uses.

  “Please. Follow. Me.” She ordered in an unemotional tone. She turned around walking slowly like what she was going to do next was concerning to her–and why shouldn’t it be?

  We trekked behind her. Not a second later one of the bully underlings, Rocco, whispered to me something vulgar. “I bet that hot eyes long legged girl is the prize. Do you think she has some friends we can play with?”

  The sad part was he was spot on about her reason for coming and what her “friends” will do, but the only one who will get to experience that will be me. I was a virgin who couldn’t get hard for one month after ejaculating, but here with max Dexterity and a mind imprinted with knowledge of all the girls in this world, I am basically the harem king.

  We arrived at an inn in the shape of a football stadium with a roof over it. I was sitting on a long bench with everyone else in the bully group–the bully I decided to sit beside was Rocco since he was the one I wanted to get away from the least.

  Lucita was standing near the entrance to the cafeteria raising her head and looking longly up as if expecting something and I knew what. She finally turned to our group to speak.

  “In this world men are the ones who rule everyone. It didn’t use to be that way, sure, men like to boast about their accomplishments and go on fun adventurers but women could do everything a man could do; sometimes better than they could that all changed one day when a large monolith we call U.X. Bridge appeared from the ground and stole all materials in our world: cattle, fabric, cooking equipment, linen, and tools.

  “After a month of fearing the monolith and living in nigrescent turmoil, one brave male charged in with nothing but a short sword. Everyone thought the monolith would have him choke on a poisonous gas or burn to death, instead he emerged carrying jewels, linen, pigs, chickens, frying pans and monster stones–our newest form of sustainability with electricity, water and agriculture–and we had it all stored in a dimensional storage.

  “So yeah, men became the superior beings because they have the bravado to tackle a dungeon while women…”

  She snapped her white gloved fingers. A flurry of people came running down the stairs. They entered the reason this place was only known about because the creator put it in ads on porn sites…the maid slave girls.

  There were five of them. One short red haired girl with maroon eyes who looks like an MC’s crush because he got stabbed and reincarnated as a tree. You could tell she was a tomboy from the dirt under her gloves and her smile. Then there was the green haired girl with fringes covering her neck and a swaft of lighter green around her forehead. You could tell she was the shy one because she was touching two fingers together.

  Then there was the dark violet girl with the amber fishlike eyes who had a book between her armpit because she was a bookworm. Lastly the wolf demi-human with silver spiky hair and orange eyes and the blonde tsudere with the long hair reaching from her head to her spine with dark blue eyes. I know all their names, but that should be saved until tonight when I’m allowed to get intimate with them.

  After she allowed us to observe who is essentially our prize, Lucita continued explaining “The five of you will write your names in a box while these maids will do the same. Until tonight you each get fifteen minutes to socialize with each of the maids. Have fun…for tomorrow you are to go into the U.X. Bridge.”

  They were on those maids like a fog getting close to try talking, but it was all yammering when they were talking so close together. They were soon going to be told to wait at a table where tea, cookies and a maid who wants to get to know you will be served.

  I wasn’t going to sit around and for over an hour to do that–I was going to find a shop that would help transform my wolf into a fox. You heard me; turn a wolf into a fox. Fox and wolves both come from the canidae family of mammals.

  They share an ancestry. All I needed was a synthesizer and my wolf will be a fox with better digging, tracking and can eat cattle in the dungeon saving me money. It will also help my summoning skill get a little closer to the next rank.

  While I made my way I noticed there were dozens of brothels and weapon shops all in the same district. Sex was the main motivation for all the development in this world. This realm was an eroge meshed in with an 80% on metacritic video game. The developers thought since games are mostly played by men over 18 who don’t care if they have to spend hours play just for a small achievement they would appreciate their little progress helping them build a harem in an RPG.

  There was also hints that not every girl in this world was raised to satisfy Dungeon explorers, the vacant white eyes and skimpy micro bikini and underwear women in the cages proved it. Right now I could only stare but I intended to buy three very specific slaves when I got stronger–not for their beauty but so they can help me against the bosses.

  I arrived in a store with a multitude of small mutant animals all locked up in cages. A man with short black hair and small rectangular glasses was sweeping the floor. He was wearing a swamp green shirt with a white apron around it and black pants.

  He turned around sweeping in front of me keeping his eyes down until he looked up; had a little jump seeing a stranger standing before him. He closed his eyes and held his chest trying to settle down his heart.

  “Don’t sneak up on an old man like that–I didn’t deal with feral creatures just to die of a heart attack.”

  After that comment the right thing to do was to apologize for the fright, but I just walked in so I couldn’t control what happened and the first thing out of my mouth he wanted to hear more was how much I was going to spend.

  “I want to synthesize a wolf into a fox please.”