Another potential story.

Came up with this stupid idea this evening, so here's chapter 1 I guess. Let me know what you think! Also I've decided to write this extra sentence just to spite the 140 charaters. 

I Reincarnated in a Town Building Game

I was minding my own business, riding on a bus and playing ‘Fortress Realms’ on my phone to kill some time on my way to high school, when suddenly an out-of-control fuel truck rammed into our bus exploding and vaporizing everyone in a flash.

“Argh!” I shout and jolt upward, snapping open my eyes.

“Huh?” I look around, confused, and bewildered. There is no bus, no fuel truck. No fuel melting the flesh off my bone. I’m lying in the middle of an even, grassy field. I look at my arms and legs. Is this even my body? I’m barely clothed, and even those are rags—brown, itchy shorts, and a shirt that stinks of drink and vomit. Homeless people look more respectable than this!

“Ugh,” I barely contain a rising urge to puke. Wait! Grassy field? I was in the middle of a megacity! There ain’t no grassy field in a ten-mile radius!

I get up and make a more detailed appraisal of my surroundings. Indeed, it appears I’m not in the city anymore. What happened? How did I get here? An even grass field, surrounded by an incredibly unnatural, yet highly convenient square mountain valley on all sides, save for one gap, which would be appropriately easy to defend during a siege. One corner of the valley is overgrown with oak trees. On the edge of the mountains in another corner, I can see the orange tint of a small iron deposit. In another corner—a stone deposit.

“Oh. My. God.” I barely utter. “This is the default starting village type from ‘Fortress Realms’!”

“Welcome, My Lord!” I hear a young girl’s voice coming from behind. I turn around but don’t see anyone.

“I’m sorry, My Lord, you can’t see me yet.”

“That is unfortunate,” I say. After getting blown up and zapped into a mobile game, an invisible voice doesn’t seem all that crazy. Maybe I’ll wake up soon? Ah, of course—it’s a dream! Things make much more sense now.

“What kind of village would you like to create, My Lord?” the voice asks me.

“What kind? There’s more than one?”

“Of course, My Lord!” the voice exclaimed. “Are you ready to choose?”

“Sure, what are the options?”

In the game version, I played there was only one faction—human. The game was not exactly deep in either lore, worldbuilding or game mechanics.

Suddenly a square tab appears in front of my eyes with seven square images with possible choices for a faction. The images show how each faction’s structures would look. Under the image, there’s a faction’s name. I know of a couple of games with a similar town choice aesthetic. Nearly every single time the differences were purely cosmetic. At first glance, it looks to be the case here.

Humans.

Elves.

Dark Elves.

Dwarves.

Orcs.

Lizardmen.

Beastkin.

“Might as well,” I murmur and press on the Beastkin icon in my tab.

“Thank you,” the voice says as the tab closes and another one appears in its place. This time the black tab has a single, elongated white square. “Please enter your name!”

“Just saying it won’t do?” I ask, feeling that this is getting too finicky for a dream.

“There might (and will) come a time where your name will appear in written form. I am truly sorry for the inconvenience, My Lord!”

“Ah, not at all! Don’t worry!” I hastily say to the voice. I don’t want to appear like some snobbish asshole that can’t be bothered to lower himself to write his own name. Still, my regular name is too boring for this military/fantasy setting. I need something cool. But something that wouldn’t stand out too much. Sephiroth? Nah, probably taken already. Izanagi? Too pretentious. Ah, whatever! I type in the name and press enter.

“Pleased to meet you, Bob!” I hear the same female voice I heard before, but now I also see the face and the body of the owner of the voice. A petite girl in a short green skirt and a tight blouse. The gentle wagging of her bright-orange tail mirrors the excitement I see in her emerald eyes. Her fluffy orange ears twitch once and I admire how they seamlessly merge with the girl’s shoulder-length orange hair.

“I’m Eris!” the catgirl introduces herself with a smile.