Chapter 1 A Strange day.

You blinked, startled at the window that suddenly appeared in front of your eyes.

–[A few hours later]–

Hunger pangs from your stomach manage to snap you out of your flow. You sigh, feeling annoyed a little at being snapped out of your game but stand up anyways and start walking to the kitchen anyway.

After checking the fridge, you decide to have some cereal instead of a normal meal as you’re too lazy and your mom can’t stop you as she is in America for her job this summer while you are in Japan.

Might as well make the most of the time when you won’t have an adult telling you what to do, after all if your mother was here she wouldn’t allow you to waste so much time gaming … That’s a bit of a lie, she probably will allow you to game as much as you want, just…

You shake your head, snapping yourself out of our thoughts as you pull out the milk from the fridge and take the rest of what you need from the other areas of the kitchen

You place the cereal into the bowl first and then add the milk, like an ordinary person, afterwards you sit on the couch in the living room, turning on the TV for some background noise as you eat your cereal slowly getting lost in the jumbled mess of thoughts that is your mind.

–

With your hunger now settled you place the cutlery into the sink and turn off the tv before going to your room and laying in your bed.

The only thing you do is stare at nothing, for a few moments. You feel … numb. Not like you’ve felt much this past … has it really already been a year?

Suddenly a wave of drowsiness washes over your mind, you try to think of anything that you need to do, and upon coming up with nothing you accept the call, sinking deep into sleep.

–

The hallucination? Window? Screen? Whatever it is, it appeared after you opened your eyes from a nap.

You wave it away and it disappears … somewhere. you look around for a moment, confused over what the hell that was.

Unable to find anything in your surroundings you mumble the contents of the screen in an attempt to remember what it contained.

“status effect add-”

You stare in shock at the screen that has appeared in front of your eyes. “My Status-”

Another screen appears, both of them now block your vision. You read the contents the new screen in attempt to understand what the hell is going on.

“Stats? What is this, a videogame?” You wave both the screens away, restoring your area of vision.

“Whatever this is it’ll probably wear off soon. Quirk that affect other people don’t usually affect them for too long.” Although the lack of knowledge of what this quirk could be doing to you unsettles you, you decide to just ignore it and just game for now, it’s better than messing with this quirk and having it blow up in your face atleast.

You move your body sluggishly from your bed and go to your desk, and boot up your laptop.

Almost without thinking you open the farming game, deciding to just be lazy and relax for the rest of the day.

You can’t help but hum along with the music as it plays from your speakers, the sound design further immersing in this digital world.

Slowly getting warmed up you decide to harvest your crops.

Crop after crop is uprooted and stored in your inventory, although the process is time consuming you don’t mind. You have nothing else to do after-all.

As the final turnip is harvested a golden version of the crop suddenly takes a separate slot in your inventory, your eyes widen in shock. “A mutant? Hell yeah!” you mumble to yourself quietly.

You start walking towards the shop to sell your harvest.

And then suddenly nothing.

The moment stretches into an eternity or was it just a second? The lack of noise and sensation leaves you confused and you can feel the breathe being forced to leave your lungs, leaving you gasping for air that doesn’t exit.

And then, just as suddenly the nothingness melts away and you’re able to breathe again, you collapse to your knees and gasp for air.

“W-What the hell?!”

Bewildered at what just happened and at the bright light overwhelming your eyes your mind is barely able to maintain rational thought.

“H-Hello?” Nobody replies and you are allowed to catch your breath before standing up.

“Hello?” Your eyes adjust to the light as you look around. Forest surrounds you on almost every side as you stand on a dirt road.

“What the fuck?!” This isn’t your room. Or any place near where you lived. Panic surges up inside with a new intensity as you realize that someone teleported you here.

“Is anyone there!” You look around again and again for any signs of an ambush or any person laying in the shadows of the trees.

Though you come up with nothing; No matter how hard you search.

“Was this an accident?” You look around one last time but upon finding no-body you decide to rest your body against the trunk of a tree.

Your mind spins with ideas as it tries to explain your current predicament. if someone teleported you here, was it a deliberate action? Was it malicious or was it an accident? It wouldn’t be the first accident you’ve been in. But teleporting to the middle of nowhere is a first.

You place a hand on your head as you try to calm down. “What the-!” You pull your hand away almost instantly as your head feels the sensation of fabric instead of flesh.

Yellow-ish worn gloves appear instead of your hands, your sight trails down and you realize that not only your hands but your entire outfit is different.

“Wait a minute. Isn’t this the costume of my character?!” Startled at the realization you shoot upwards.

“Am I inside a videogame… is that weird quirk behind this?” The sudden thought leaves you speechless. “Well that means this will probably wear off in a while then. Jeez I almost had a panic attack.”

You laugh dryly and place a hand your head, feeling slightly relived at knowing how your circumstances came to be.

“Might as well see what I can do now. And see how I can leave.” You stand up and look at the now familiar path. “Did I take over where I left off?” Unable to tell which way lead to which area, you go in a random direction.

You decided to ignore your panic and just bathe in the serenity of the world around you, letting nature calm you down as you near your destination.

You focus on the sounds, The chirping of the Birds as they fly overhead, the rustling of leaves as the wind blows gently, and the sound as well as feel of your boots on paved ground all help soothe you as you continue on your path.

Eventually the path leads you to a small town. Familiar people walk around, you stand rooted as the reality of your situation sinks in.

After a few seconds of watching the towns people go on with their day you walk to Micheals store.

The hardy man stands in the back of the shop, you walk directly towards him and he practically beams as he notices you.

“Well if it isn’t Cain. Do you need something or are you here to sell?” Micheal asks, “S-Sell.” He nods, “Show me what you got then.” Your mind blanks. All your turnips were in your inventory in-game-

Wait, wasn’t your inventory your bag?

You take your bag off your back, frowning at the realization that you hadn’t felt it when you were laying down before.

“Something wrong?” “N-Nothing!” You pull out the still-dirty Turnips from your bag and place them on the counter.

Micheals eyes practically glow as he sees the mutant turnip. “Holy crap boy! A golden mutant?!” You nod silently, almost failing to not flinch at the booming voice of the shopkeeper.

He picks the irregular turnip off the table and rubs it, the golden vegetable shines brighter as the dirt flakes off in his hands.

“It’s real!” He announces astonished, before placing it gently back on the table. “I’ll pay you…” The man pauses for a moment, his finger moving to count every crop on the counter. “1600 Gold. Deal?” You nod and he smiles happily.

You wear your bag again and Micheal opens his cash register before handing you the promised amount of gold coins in a sack.

Weirdly enough the money disappears the moment it enters your hand but Micheal seems to not notice as he starts storing the goods you sold him.

Satisfied and with more questions on your mind you begin on the journey back to your home.

–

The sunlight is enough to light up your dingy in-game cabin.

It is … Overwhelming. the Knick-knacks and decoration you thought looked nice all lay in their original places.

A TV with a game console attached sits next to the door to your left, a bookshelf filled to the brim with books, mostly on farming; stands on the left of the far wall.

A small bed is on your right. And the large closet for all your costumes stands next to the bathroom door on the right of the far wall.

A table and two chairs sits in the middle of the room, it has two plates on opposite side and a lit candle in the middle.

And this doesn’t even mention the kitchen or bathroom.

Deciding to de-compress after everything you decide to clean up. You grab a casual long-sleeved outfit from the closet and go to take a shower.

– –

You lay on your bed, your bag supposedly on your back but somehow not interfering with the contact of your back and bed. You decide to ignore that fact as the events of the past hour pop in your mind.

You’ve talked with an NPC today. And he hasn’t even said one of his in-game voice lines. He seems to talk and act like a person.

If he acts like that, then what about everyone else? If they act like normal people how would that affect you? How long are you going to be stuck here? Questions bounce around in your mind. Pointlessly, as you’re unable to come up with an answer for any of them.

Eventually the questions can no longer distract you from your new reality. Deciding to just do what you can for the next few days before the quirk inevitably wears off and allows you to leave you decide to act as you would if this was a game

You get up and go to your closet, switching back to your now clean work clothes, which thank unfortunately don’t have sleeves, making you wear a light long-sleeve under them before leaving your house.

You reach a hand in your bag and manage to grab a bag of seeds.

Time to start grinding.

–[A week later]–

You hum as you uproot your crops to sell at Micheals. You’ve been doing this farmer thing for a week and are mostly satisfied with how your life is going.

The console at home can serve as a great time-killer, either that or just going around and exploring the area around; so boredom wasn’t a problem.

The NPCs truly do seem to be alive. They are also like their in-game personalities, which is fascinating but adds more life to this small town.

Anyways. With your crops now sitting in your weightless bag you carry your spoils to Micheal's shop to secure more money, if only to drink and eat more delicious food from Claire’s restaurant.

The food here is as good as it looks, especially Claire’s. You’ve never tasted food that great before, and it’s cheap!

Although you’ve had many breakdowns about whether you’d be stuck be here for the rest of your life, you think it won’t be so bad even if you truly are stuck here. … Even though you miss Mom. Alot.

You’ve tried talking to the NPCs about the real world but most of them don’t respond at all to that kind of talk…

Your farming has been a pleasant distraction from your chaotic thoughts. You’re mostly sure you’re functioning on the same level as your game character, meaning Money, and Energy as well as other things like that still follow the game rules. It would explain why you’re so much more fit that before, and the fact that your bag is pretty much only tangible when you need to pull something out of it, almost exactly like the game.

Micheal beams at you as you open the door to his store, “Sell?” you nodded blushing slightly as Micheal repeated the only word you said to him for almost the whole week.

You place all your wares on the counter and the shop-keeper counts them before pulling out money from the cash register.

“Th-Thanks.” “Don’t mention it kid, you ever got anything you wanna get rid of, come to me.” The large man puffed out his beer belly, and you can’t help but crack a smile as you look at him, noting in the back of your mind that this is the first time you’ve heard an NPC say their voice line.

You nod at him before leaving back to your house.

–[Night-time]–

You tilled the soil again to increase the size of the farm before adding more seeds to the ground.

“This should be enough.” Your muscles ache slightly from the exertion, and you finally feel drowsy enough to sleep.

You take a warm shower to clean yourself, the rush of warm water hitting you face only seems to amplifies your drowsiness.

You’re barely able to get yourself to wear your casual clothes before collapsing onto the bed, sleeping as soon as your head hit the pillow.