The world around Jyuuk slowly changed with every time his eyes blinked. First, everyone in the room was gone, then trees began to grow around him, and different plants began sprouting up to his knees while the white marble room disappeared.
Jyuuk's monkey tail swung side to side, and the unknown sensations as it touched the grass and flowers made him shudder slightly. But he was excited. Jyuuk would be able to travel this new world and find animals that he himself never could have dreamt of, amongst those which he had always hoped to exist in the real world.
But first, he would need to try and figure out some of the game mechanics. It seemed like Prime Industries tried to keep everything as realistic as possible, so most mechanics would probably be quite realistic.
Of course, there would also be less realistic mechanics, including classic game mechanics like a Status. Apparently, there wasn't an inventory, but Jyuuk was sure there were ways to get around that.
For now, he did the thing that was explained to him before and thought about opening his status.
[Jyuuk]
[Race - Monkey Beastperson][Job - None][Level - 1]
[HP - 100][MP - 100]
[STR - 10][END - 10][AGI - 10][INT - 10][WIS - 10]
[Titles]
-None
[Skills]
-None
The Monkey Beastperson looked at the information in front of him and nodded in response. It seemed like they went with a relatively classic stat point system. Jyuuk nodded and grabbed the object that he felt in his pocket, a small leather book.
He opened it up and read through the basic information about the area he was in. It seemed like a few minutes further south, there was going to be a village that would act as a good starting point in his adventure.
Excited by his new, unknown surroundings, Jyuuk stepped through the bushes and the tall trees that seemed to come from a tropic environment.
While he was walking, he could already hear the immense diversity in fauna. There seemed to be a dozen different birds in his close vicinity, and in the distance, Jyuuk could hear the cries of some wildcat. It was similar to that of a Tiger, but at the same time had characteristics belonging to a smaller animal. The cry definitely didn't belong to that of a cub, though, but to an adult specimen.
This cry alone made Jyuuk hesitate to go to the town and instead want to run to the source of the sound to figure out what kind of animal it was. But he knew that he wouldn't be able to do anything like this, and would need to find out basic information about how things worked in the area before doing anything else.
It was also a bad idea to walk around outside a town without any way to defend himself.
Jyuuk continued walking for around half an hour until he began to hear the sounds of a bustling town. Through the thick foliage, he began to see what seemed to be other people walking around, which made him speed up to run there excitedly.
Soon enough, he was faced with a thick wall made of trees and other plants that were grown into each other, but the thing that he noticed first was the enormous tree that was growing in the center of the town, reaching high into the sky. Its trunk was big enough that there were houses built against its bark and on its branches.
This sight alone was one that made Jyuuk extremely excited and filled him with joy.
Just thinking about all the animals and plants that he could discover made Jyuuk's heart nearly skip a beat.
Jyuuk walked up to one of the gates that made up the only entrances to the town hidden in the center of this jungle.
"Good morning. First time here?" The Guard standing next to it asked Jyuuk as he approached. Compared to Jyuuk, the Guard truly was gigantic. He seemed to be above two meters tall and was like a mountain of a man. He reminded Jyuuk of that old man he just met, Eisen, but different to him, the Guard had a big, round belly.
He was wearing thin leather armor and his completely exposed arms and shoulders were covered in thick fur, while he had round ears on the top of his head.
Just judging from these physical characteristics, he seemed to be a Bear Beastperson.
Jyuuk nodded and slightly bowed in response to the Guard's question. "Yes, I found myself near here, surrounded by nothing but trees, but I do not know how I got there." He responded, and the Bear Beastperson scratched the back of his head in a seemingly troubled and worried manner.
"Are you alright? Hurt anywhere?" He asked and seemed to look Jyuuk up and down, then relaxed when he shook his head.
"No, my body seems to be alright. Although, I have lost my memories, so I can not tell you much about me."
"Lost Memories? That doesn't sound good. I'll show you to the town's appraiser, he might be able to figure out where you're from." The guard looked left and right as if looking for someone and then began to wave when another man in the distance caught his eye.
The man came running up and asked what was wrong. He was wearing the same leather armor as the guard but seemed to be a Boar Beastperson, with thick tusks coming right from the edges of his mouth.
"Take my post for a bit, I have to bring this man to Askee's. Won't take too long, I'll come back once everything has been figured out."
"Askee's? Why you think he's a criminal or somethin'?" The other man asked suspiciously at the Bear Beastperson's request.
"No, that's not it. Seems to have lost his memories."
"Ah, got it. Well, don't take too long, my shift's almost over."
"Thanks, see you later."
And like that, Jyuuk followed the Bear into town. It was bustling with all kinds of people, most of which were some kind of variation of Beastperson. But there were also the occasional classic fantasy races which Jyuuk knew oh so well. Dwarves, Elves, and Jyuuk even saw a Gnome amongst the crowd.
All of this only hyped Jyuuk up more. He grew up playing games with fantasy settings, so actually being inside of one seemed like a dream to him.
He looked left and right with a bright smile until the Guard stopped in front of the entrance of a house that was apparently carved into one of the Giant Tree's roots. One thing that Jyuuk noticed was that the architecture seemed somewhat like a mixture of Eastern and Western architecture. It was hard to explain since he didn't know much about this, but it reminded him of the older buildings in both the new town where he lived in the United States, as well as the ones in his hometown in Japan. It felt somewhat nostalgic to him in a sense, but that feeling quickly faded again when he stopped paying attention to it.
The bear quickly slid the wood sliding door to the side and stepped into the house.
There were a few wooden desks lined up with thin walls in between them to give some kind of privacy to clients.
And at the end of the room, opposite to the door, was a larger desk with an elderly woman sitting at it. She seemed to be the boss of this place.
She seemed to be a Bird-type Beastperson, and judging from the types of feathers that grew on parts of her skin as well as the characteristics of her eyes, she seemed to be an Owl Beastperson. But since Jyuuk couldn't be 100% sure, he didn't ask and just followed the Bear through the room.
When she looked up from some paperwork she was doing, she smiled gently and stood up to greet her visitors.
"Ah, Brak, nice to see you again. How are you today?" She asked and the Bear, Brak, slightly bowed forward to greet her. It seemed like this area had some eastern behavioral characteristics, which really made Jyuuk glad to a degree. He never really got used to shaking other's hands or hugging others when seeing them basically every day.
"Good morning, Miss Askee. This young man came up to the Gate not too long ago, and it seems like he lost his Memories. I thought that maybe you could help him?" Brak asked with a smile. His large build seemed rather threatening to Jyuuk at first, but he seemed quite nice and gentle.
Askee turned over to look at Jyuuk and walked around the desk. "Oh, you poor kid! You lost your memories? That doesn't sound good at all! Here, take a seat, I'll do what I can." She said and pulled forward one of the two chairs in front of the desk, motioning at Jyuuk to sit down on one of them while she sat down on the other.
"Thank you. I really appreciate your help." Jyuuk responded and sat down. Immediately afterward, Askee grabbed Jyuuk's left hand and placed both of her's around it. A few seconds later, he felt a deep shudder form all around his body, as if an arctic wind blew through the room.
"Oh, what is this? This… This is not normal…" Askee instantly let go of Jyuuk's hands and jumped up onto her feet.
"Miss Askee? Is everything alright?" Brak stepped forward and looked at Jyuuk with a concerned frown.
"I'm not sure… But I think this young man's Experience has been stolen. He is Level 1 and has not a single skill. And the only history I was able to find was that he woke up in the forest and walked to this town."
"Wait, he doesn't have a skill at all? Not even his Racial Skill?"
"Not even his Racial skill! There is only one explanation for this… his experience was stolen!"
"Stolen Experience? Isn't that just some legend?" Brak asked with shock completely drawn all over his face, but Askee only shook her head. "No, it's not just a legend. I've heard about a similar case before! It's the only explanation I have for something like this!" The old woman yelled out and looked back and forth between Jyuuk and Brak.
"Th-then what do we do about this? Does he just have to start ranking up skills again?"
Askee shook her head with a worried expression, while Jyuuk was just sitting on the chair in confusion. "No, I don't believe so. I think a skilled magician of some sorts may be able to be of help with this. Please, go meet my sister. She may only be a researcher, but she should help if you tell her I told you to meet her. She knows you too, Brak, so it won't be a big problem."
Jyuuk stood up with a frown on his face. What was this all about? He had no idea at all what was going on! Stolen Experience? That was absolutely new to him, but he figured it had to do with the story of the game, so he just went along with it, thanking Askee for her immense help and doing the same for Brak, even though he seemed to still want to help Jyuuk until the end. He really seemed like a good guy.
They hurried out of the building and Brak nearly started to sprint, or at least that's what it felt like to Jyuuk. This probably had something to do with his agility stat being so low. Once he knew how the stat system worked, he would figure out the best plan going forward that worked out with his general plan for his gameplay experience.
Not too long after this thought, both of them reached a small hut with some smoke flowing out of the chimney. Brak knocked on the front door, and it slowly creaked open.