
by isaiahirons
Matt was trained for an apocalypse that would never happen. But then it did. Imbued with the grief and pain of his past, shielded by his sarcasm, and armed with flippin' awesome alchemical munitions, Matt was more than prepared for the end. When the Black Box fell from the heavens and trapped his entire town within nine monster-infested square miles, the system told Matt and his unlikely party that they had six days, and only one way to escape. Six days of kobolds, goblins, dwarves, giant orcs, and gods. Six days to get a stud, a loser, a love interest, and a dungeon master and his grumpy mushroom to work together. But what Matt didn't know was that while he was searching for a way out, the system was searching for Matt. And that the way out was anything but an end. * * * What to expect Author Mechanics: - Not AI generated- Posting 1000-1500 words MWF- Polls- Active in the comments- Pantser writing with a couple high level outline points Story/Tropes: - Character driven- Progression Lite—still fleshing this out- Potential time skips between books- System Apocalypse- Trapped in a Zone, Countdown to Escape- Guns + Crafted Ammo- Slow Burn Romance Rating: Late YA and upWill start posting September 15th, and dump 20k and then once/if I hit RS i'll post daily for as long as I can. Before then MWF.Update: We're live!Bonus Chapters for:- 100 follows- 200 follows- Making the Rising Stars list I'm pumped for this story! Let's go!
Current
9/24/2026
Peak #19
7d
Observed Royal Road ranks are authoritative for lists where the story is active. Other eligible lists retain their Shadow RS ranks.
Overall Rising Stars Shadow RS rank
#72 of 12,418 · 22 below RS #50
By genre
beats 99% of similar stories
beats 72% of similar stories
beats 92% of similar stories
Firing on all cylinders
Traffic and conversion are both strong for a story this size. Readers are finding it and sticking — if Rising Stars is the goal, this is the moment to push.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 20–49 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.
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