*You have levelled up*

*You have levelled up*

*You have levelled up*

*You have levelled up*

*You have levelled up*

*The player has learned the command "Open Menu"*

*Open character menu with the command "Open Menu"*

*Nightmare System Stage 1-Level 2 will continue next time the player sleeps*

*Items acquired: Gun of the Clairvoyant, Phone of the Clairvoyant*

h.e.l.l opened his eyes in his room. He felt completely rested, and nothing seemed to be out of ordinary but the dream he just had.

"What the f.u.c.k?!" He yelled.

"What happened?" His brother yelled back.

"Nothing, go to your school!" h.e.l.l said after a few moments, looking at the time. He worked some freelance jobs by himself online to provide for his brother and himself. They were doing good as they didn't have to worry about rent or bills. They were paid by the rent of the second apartment left to them after their parents pa.s.sed away. He had a not-so-bad life. The only problem he had was his constant nightmares, and they had suddenly turned into something incomprehensible. He was sure he was losing his mind.

He got out of the bed, wanting to prepare breakfast as he heard something fall on the floor. He turned around to pick it up and saw the gun from his dream. He couldn't move, his heart was palpitating and he was scared out of his wits. Did that mean what happened was basically real? He looked around in his bed and surely enough, also found the phone. He shot one of the chip-looking bullets the gun had and the phone came online again, showing him that specific place of the room from a close third person view. It was an old flip-phone, however seeming to be quite a new model. "Nightmare System." He mumbled to himself, reading the print on the phone, under the claw design. He sat on the bed for around 15 minutes to himself, sobbing. Did that mean he would pave his way to stronger and worse enemies as he continued winning? How would he even survive? He didn't want to die. Dying in dreams was vastly different to losing one's life for good, after all. He didn't want this. He remembered there would be a punishment if he didn't do so but didn't know what it was and he would risk it. He was already used to having headaches as well. If it was a small inconvenience, he would take it. He didn't think what took place would become the reality for himself. He hid the gun in one of the drawers under his desk and decided to forget it, for now, his stomach was rumbling, he went to prepare himself breakfast.

He made himself his breakfast special with mushrooms, sausages, fermented sausages, bacon, green pepper and some spices. It was delicious as usual. He wanted to wash up and went to the bathroom. He looked at the mirror. His dark brown hair and blue eyes seemed resolute, serious, differing from his usual chatty and easy-going demeanour. He had barely graduated from college and had to find a stable job. There were many around but he didn't warm up to any of them. He always moved according to his feelings, and they usually turned out to be correct. He brushed his teeth and washed his face, leaving for work, to his room in front of the computer. He had a few jobs lined up today as well, they'd take at least 9-10 hours to complete, he thought to himself, spending the day with working. He got anxious more and more as he felt sleepier by the second. He didn't want to sleep at first, but knew it was impossible to simply not sleep, he would have to do so eventually, he laid on the bed and closed his eyes slowly.

[Nightmare System Stage 1-Level 2]

*The player will partic.i.p.ate, or fail.*

*The punishment wheel will be spun for failure.*

"I won't partic.i.p.ate." h.e.l.l said.

*Are you sure?* He saw a message board on his face in the same void he was in before. "Yes."

*Player has rejected the Nightmare System. Wheel of Punishment will now be implemented.*

A gargantuan wheel with hundreds of things written on it suddenly appeared out of nowhere. h.e.l.l saw even death was one of the options, but there was also a smaller, completely black wheel in front of him as well. He didn't know its purpose, what it did. The voice was silent as the wheel suddenly started turning. It pa.s.sed death, losing various body parts and slight headaches. It seemed wheel did contain slight inconveniences, as well as things such as even torture and loss of mental capacity. The wheel turned, and turned, and finally slowed down. h.e.l.l saw death was one of the options it was very likely to stop at. The worst he had seen were all closely lined up.

"I choose to partic.i.p.ate!" h.e.l.l suddenly yelled, he didn't want the wheel to stop in any of those things, this was a thoroughly bad idea but he didn't know what to do. He could only bow his head and beg. "Player wants to partic.i.p.ate!" he yelled again, the arrow on the wheel was about to stop.

*Player has decided to partic.i.p.ate after taking on the wheel of punishment. The rewards will be doubled.*

"What?! No! Take the wheel away!" h.e.l.l was saying as he suddenly felt his dinner before sleeping coming up rapidly as he vomited all his dinner away. Glaring at the wheel, he saw it stopped at "vomiting." He felt betrayed, he still had to partic.i.p.ate after surviving the wheel. Double rewards somehow raised his gamer's appet.i.te, but he would simply die if there were any mishaps. Even just slipping on stone and falling on his head could kill him while trying to outrun some monster, he really didn't think all of them would be small enough to chew to death, using pity tactics to kill him.

*Enemy is being chosen, defeat the boss and clear the level.*

*Enemy is chosen, prepare to face the King of The Imps.*

h.e.l.l had nothing to say. He would have to keep surviving. The scenery slowly changed again and he found himself in a warring environment, wearing some futuristic armour in a place he had never seen before.

"Giddy-up Private h.e.l.lebore! A moment of carelessness will cost you your life." A man with a cigar in his mouth said. He reminded h.e.l.l some character he just couldn't figure out. "Yes, sir." He replied, again according to the scenario. He would have a scenario downloaded into his brain just as he began dreaming these nightmares. It would be as if remembering a second life he had. He aimed his sniper and started shooting at the goblin-like creatures ahead. There were all types including gigantic ones slowly closing on himself. Although the creature looked slow, his movements covered a wide area, the gap between them was being closed by the second even though he was running away. He couldn't do it. He wasn't gonna be able to run from the creature. The creature was heavily injured coming thus far, but there were ten more like him moving this way. He couldn't even outrun or kill one of them. He took out the grenade on his chest and pulled the grenade, throwing right under the giant's foot. The explosion didn't cripple or hurt him, but it caused him to stop and hold his hurt foot, letting him open the gap between himself and the giant, hiding behind one of the broken-down houses. He slowly peeked out and looked at the giant. Starting to slow down with the acc.u.mulated damage, the giant showed signs of stopping. He then swiped at one side with his huge arm and swept around 10 soldiers away, crus.h.i.+ng them with the immense weight of his arm. h.e.l.l didn't want the soldiers to die, there were around 30 left, and no matter how many they kill, those goblins didn't stop coming out from the lair ahead.

h.e.l.l thought he'd give it a shot now that the monster was dying and aimed at its right eye. He stabilized his breathing and focused on taking the shot with all his being. He pulled the trigger rapidly two times. Both shots managed to get to the giant's eye, met by a deafening scream from the creature. Moments later it fell down on a soldier and crushed him as well. "Unlucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d." h.e.l.l was mumbling as he was cut off by the sound from the system.

*You have levelled up*

*Open character menu with the command "Open Menu"*

"Holy s.h.i.+t!" he suddenly remembered he never checked the menu. "Open Menu!" He yelled, instantly seeing detailed information about himself turned into stats on a nigh-transparent screen in front him. He looked for his stats. He wanted to make sure.

Player: Man of Cursed Spirit

Age: 21

Occupation: Cursed Hunter

Stats

----------

Strength : 10

Defence : 10

Dexterity : 11

Mana : 0

Vitality : 10

Stamina : 10

Unused Stat Points: 35

"Dexterity!" He exclaimed, pressing on the stat until all points were used up.

Stats

----------

Strength : 10

Defence : 10

Dexterity : 46

Mana : 0

Vitality : 10

Stamina : 10

Unused Stat Points: 0

"Good." He said. Trying out his new speed, he tried to rush ahead. He felt his body was a lot lighter and his actions seemed to be a lot more precise, not wasting any energy while moving. He knew those giants right now could never catch up to him, which was his biggest problems as they were closing in. He still wouldn't be able to use the rifle however as it was too heavy, and his pistols against those beasts would barely qualify as pea shooters. He grabbed a glaive from one of the bodies that lay everywhere. It looked to be a st.u.r.dy glaive, the material it was made from was like no other, the metal was glowing at times. He went out in the field and giants started heading toward him as soon as they saw him coming. He started shooting at the giant and one of the shots took his eye out, but he started protecting his face with his hand after the first shot, there was no going through that hand with these bullets.

The giant closed in on him and suddenly swung a fist, trying to kill him, yelling something in a foreign language h.e.l.l had never even heard before. He dodged the fist in ease and stabbed with the glaive. The weapon went in and out quickly, he tried to sever the arteries on the giant's wrist. He didn't know if it was the artery but, nonetheless, an odd, green blood started gus.h.i.+ng out, from where he stabbed, albeit not as fast as he had hoped. h.e.l.l then realized he was smiling at this point. He was actually enjoying this. He remembered that's how it was when his nightmares were just nightmares as well, when the worst possible outcome was some pain until he "died." He felt the adrenaline rus.h.i.+ng up and wanted to slash through the Achilles' heel to make them immobile, the soldiers would help finish to finish them off then. h.e.l.l wasn't sure if a giant's anatomy would be that much similar to a human's, but he gave it a shot. He lunged through the gap between the giant's legs and went for it. As long as he was faster than them, these enemies were just huge chunks of HP, waiting to be slowly killed. He slashed with the glaive two times in speed and he was sprayed with some green blood, followed by the scream of the giant as it failed to stay up, coming cras.h.i.+ng down.

"Success!" h.e.l.l yelled in victory and wanted to go for his throat just after he fell, finis.h.i.+ng him off. However just as he began running away, a punch was coming cras.h.i.+ng down at him, only slightly hitting him with the side of the fist, but it was enough to send h.e.l.l flying, receiving immense damage. "Open Menu" he willed it and looked at his HP.

HP: 30/100

He would be dead if that was a direct hit. He was ever so lucky. He felt the blood rus.h.i.+ng up his mouth as he puked some. Feeling better moments after, he heard the system again.

*Player's injuries will be stabilized until after his death. Lost limbs cannot be restored until the end of the nightmare.*

"Good enough." h.e.l.l said. He rushed at the giant on the floor with his glaive again, dodging the swings of two giants as another one arrived. The giant on the ground couldn't even turn his head properly as his throat was slashed, the glaive drawing a perfect arc in the air. Even though the giants were stupid, they knew what that enemy had done so they started stomping the ground instead to avoid such a fate. It worked well enough, they managed to keep h.e.l.l at bay. The giant on the ground was still dying after 30 seconds had pa.s.sed, it seemed it would take a few more minutes at this rate, so he had to keep those giants busy. If the remaining 9 were all gathered here, along with the small goblins, they'd definitely die. h.e.l.l, thus wanted to rush at their lair, drawing the attention of everyone. "Go, Private, Go!" His captain yelled behind him. "We'll take out as many as we can!" Engaging the goblins and giants alike. The second giant that followed after the first was quite feeling it now after tons of damage was done to him by the soldiers on the ground. Even if it was like being poked by a needle to him, being poked thousands of times still damaged them significantly, the soldiers were relentless.

h.e.l.l was dodging and running, barely killing a goblin or two when he could. It wasn't so hard killing those goblins, but there seemed to be hundreds of them on the battlefield. He was nearly out of breath after running and dodging for minutes to no end which seemed as if hours to him.

*You have levelled up.*

h.e.l.l suddenly heard the voice again. The giant on the ground must have perished, he thought. And seeing the other giant attacking the soldiers now in a pitiful state just as the first one, he rushed at him. He wanted more levels so he could deal with these creatures. "Fall back!" He yelled when he got close to the soldiers and performed the same feat which was incredible to the soldiers. After the giant went down, it was easy to kill him. He slashed his throat multiple times this time until the giant was dead.

*You have levelled up*

*You have levelled up*

"8 left. Awesome!" He yelled as he opened his menu and pushed his Dexterity to 76. He wanted even more speed and precision in his attacks, it was the only way for him to survive in this environment. The commander repeated the order right after h.e.l.lebore, and the soldiers started retreating while keeping the fire concentrated at the back. h.e.l.l needed a place to rest before going out again, his stamina wasn't endless and he was not an athlete. He was already breathless, he felt his chest burning as he started resting. 5 minutes, he was thinking, would be enough to get back on his feet.

"Commander!" A soldier yelled. "Some of the goblins found us!" Another soldier yelled after, and an agonizing scream followed. "They got Mike!"

h.e.l.l didn't bother with goblins. They would be taken care of, there were still 28 armed soldiers there even if another had died. He had to rest to fight against giants. He had to do something about those stomping of theirs, he would be useless otherwise. He asked to see the commander after the fighting outside stopped and the footsteps of the giants were getting closer now because of the commotion.

"What do you need, Private?" The commander asked.

"How many grenades do we have?"

"Around 15."

"Can I take them?"

"Do so." The commander said as he gave his grenade up and ordered the soldiers to bring theirs and drop them. There were a total of 16 grenades. "It may be enough." h.e.l.l thought, placing them on his suit.