Bog Standard Isekai

Brin took a look around at his new... Oh. Oh no. Maybe I'm not ready for this. I've been hyping myself up all year, telling myself that I'm ready for this, that I am ready for the glory and groundbreaking excellence that is Box Stander Isekai and I thought I could do it, I really did. But then I sit down and make a mistake with the first word.

...

No. You know what? I can do this. Deep breaths. Ok. And here we go.

Brin took... No, I wasn't ready that time. This time for sure.

Gray Grayson took a look around at his new world.

Nailed it.

To him, it seemed like a vast and untamed wilderness. Grand oak trees rose into the air, sweeping gracefully into the sky, free and unimpeded. The sturdy moss-covered branches seemed to be able to endure the entire weight of the world while also gracefully bending in the gentle wind. The leaves were so high off the ground that he couldn't say for sure if they were a shape he would expect, but they seemed to glimmer like the sun on the waves of the ocean. The meadow below was green and speckled with light filtering through the trees.

Perhaps to someone more experienced with forests, the lack of underbrush and the lack of deadfall would've been a sign that this forest wasn't untamed at all. The fact that the trees were spaced far enough apart to give them room to grow to their full potential while also near enough to give them the benefit of the congress of roots would've warned Gray that this forest was being managed.

Sadly, Gray wasn't an expert in forests. His parents had pulled him out of the Boy Scouts when they went woke, a day before he was scheduled to leave on his first campout where he would've learned basic wilderness survival skills. Instead, he'd spent that time learning the moves to Barbara's Rhabarberbar, a skill that everyone agreed was much more useful for life in the 21st century.

He was starting to regret that turn of events now, as it became clear that he was wildly unprepared for something like this. All he had were the clothes on his back (a graphic tee of your favorite band or franchise!) and the cardboard box, which he supposed was his home now.

Still, Gray didn't waste any more time on introspection. Instead, he instantly adapted to his new circumstances, because he was just cool like that. (He's just like you!)

He started moving, walking along and hoping to find a game trail or some sign of civilization. As he walked, his eyes moved up to gaze that the trees above him, which... what? You don't want to hear about the trees again? Fair enough.

Sometime later he found a goblin. That was the first word that popped into his head when he saw it--a squat green humanoid, like a little green child and so ugly you wouldn't feel bad about killing it. But on closer inspection, yeah, it still looked like a goblin.

He quickly grabbed his box and hid behind the trunk of a tree before it could see him. Despite the fact that he was twice the thing’s size, he didn't have any weapons unless the cardboard box counted. He didn't think it did.

He could hear the goblin shuffling around in the clearing past the tree, but he didn't dare compromise his cover by checking to glance.

He was a little tempted to try his luck anyway. The goddess had told him he had a Class, which meant this world had a System. If he killed that goblin, he might level up and get a better understanding of what it was all about.

At the same time, where there's one goblin, there might be more. If he attacked this one, it might shout and summon the rest of its tribe. It never occurred to him that the goblins in this area were just wandering around in ones and twos to make it simple for adventurers to isolate and kill them in bite-sized pieces without too much danger.

Stolen novel; please report.

You'll have to forgive him for thinking this way. The problem with Gray was that he still thought he was a real person living in a real world. If Gray had realized that he was just a character in a story, he still wouldn't have attacked that goblin. If he had even the tiniest inkling of the smallness of his life, of the sheer insignificance, of the tiny, paper-thin line between a life full of adventure and the void, of how none of his thoughts were thoughts and that none of his feelings were real, how he only existed at all in the strange and small interplay of imagination between an author and his readers, he certainly would have laid down and wept in horror and despair.

Luckily for Gray, he will never, ever, come to truly comprehend the frailty of his own existence.

(He's just like you.)

Unluckily for Gray, this world was a little more real than I was letting on, because the goblin wasn't alone, and it had seen Gray, and it had already signaled his tribe to come surround him while it shuffled around and tried not to spook him before they were ready.

He saw a goblin creep out from behind a tree in the distance, the another rose from where it had been hiding under a bend in the earth. More and more appeared from hiding until a dozen of the creatures surrounded him. They approached slowly, stone spears ready. They were ready to throw should he start running, but since he was frozen in place they were content to creep closer and closer.

There was only one thing he could do. Gray stood on his box. Luckily, the box held his weight. His Skill said that its sturdiness would scale with his endurance, but he hadn't been sure what that meant in practical terms. Was it strong enough to deflect a spear?

But he didn't have a fighting Skill. He had a Box Standing Skill, and Charisma.

"Hey! Leave me alone!" Gray shouted.

The goblins rocked back as if struck, and one dropped his spear. Wait, that had almost worked. Maybe if he had a more convincing argument? But the goblins weren't waiting around for him to try. They charged him, and weren't even polite enough to run at him one at a time.

One of them slammed into him, trying to tackle him off the box and his obvious source of power, but he didn't budge, held in place by the power of his [Soapbox].

Another goblin kicked the box out from under him. He fought as he was going down, punching and kicking, but goblins grabbed his arms and pinned him to the ground.

The first goblin Gray had seen raised his spear up high, preparing to stab.

Just then, a firm but evocatively curvaceous fist slammed into the goblins skull. Another equally attractive fist cracked the ribs of one of the goblins holding Gray's arm down. Now that he was partly free and the goblins were entirely distracted, he was able to push the other goblin off and get to his feet. He grabbed his box and got one good hit off on a goblin before those fists took care of the rest of them. They were attached, as hands often are, to a person, and this person was the hottest girl Gray had ever seen in his new life. (Sample size of 1, but she was still hot, ok?)

She had silver hair that shined like polished metal and trailed behind her as she fought. She moved with the grace of someone who'd actually trained for this instead of randomly being deposited in a foreign world.

When she was done, four goblins lay dead and broken and the rest fled.

She straightened and smiled even as the goblin blood dripped down the glowing, flawless skin of her fists. He watched one little drip move down her hand. It originated on the firm and smooth callouses on her knuckles and slipped over into the delicate softness of her ring finger, mingling with the slight hairs. It slid down the elegant curves of her finger, to cross the trim little cuticle and traverse the almost crystalline nailbed. She noticed the blood and tried to rub some of it off, covering her hands with wet in a way that only drew attention to their shapeliness. The movement exposed her bare palms, and the pleasantly plump ball of her thumb seemed to tremble shyly in the dappled light.

And if this is weirding you out, let's just pretend we're fixating on something that you have a fetish for, ok?

(It's not that weird)

(I'm just like you)

Gray's gaze moved away from the blood on her hands, briefly rested on her boobs, and then quickly moved to her face. She had violet eyes.

"Hello," she said. "My name is Valeria Vaenvria Valentina Jalapeno. My Class is [Punching Girl] and I'm your State Mandated Girlfriend."

"There's a lot to unpack there. So much, actually, that I feel like I need the [Unboxing] Skill. But let's start at the beginning. Hi, I'm Gray. Thanks for saving me! Great job with those goblins; that was cool AF."

"Thanks! I just wish I'd gotten here a few minutes earlier," said Valeria.

"Why? It seems like you got here just in time. In fact, if the goblins had started stabbing me first rather than going straight for the tackle, then I'd--"

"But they did stab you? A lot?" interrupted Valeria.

Gray looked down. Oh, so they had. In the heat of the moment, he hadn't even noticed. He was just tough like that. But now, it was actually starting to hurt a little. He collapsed on the ground, and the last thing he saw were Valeria's beautiful hands reaching for him.