Found this in my saved folders. (Patreon)

So, was going through my saved folders, found this from way long ago. You may notice some similiarities here and there. No particular reason i'm posting this, just thought someone might find it amusing. No actual name for this, i think i was just writing out a muse at the time.

Missing some formatting like line breaks.

***

My head felt like it was splitting in half.

The cold ground welcomed me with open arms as I feel down and started to flail around. The unimaginable pain seeping through every pore of my body, like I was being remade from the inside out.

I don’t know how long I thrashed around – minutes, hours?

It felt like hours but was probably around ten minutes before I finally came to my senses.

For all the imagined pain, there wasn’t any evidence that I had been hurt.

I was tired, cold and confused.

I don’t remember coming here, I don’t know where ‘here’ even was. Some kind of abandoned warehouse? Somewhat cliché, but there were worse places to wake up, at least there was no deathtraps and someone asking if I wanted to play a game.

Closing my eyes, my jumbled thoughts began to settle as I recalled what happened.

My breathing hitched, and panic set in.

“Status…” I hesitantly called out

Name: Shin

Class: Archer

Level: 1

Race: Human

Rank: 1

Alignment: Neutral

HP—50 (1 Per Minute)

SP—50 (1 Per Minute)

MP—50 (.5 Per Minute)

STR: 5

END: 5

DEX: 5

INT: 5

WIS: 5

CHA: 5

LCK: 5

MP Regen = WIS X .10

MP = INT X 10

SP/Health Regen = END X .2

Health = END X 10

SP = END X 10

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

That was real.

I fucked up big time.

Memories were flooding my consciousness. Some of them mine, some of them not.

My previous life had apparently ended, I can only vaguely remember the details and choosing to start a ‘new game’. Some omnipotent transdimensional entity came to me and offered the chance to have a second life operating under this game system.

Why did I choose hard difficulty?

Fuck.

I don’t even remember my old name, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t Japanese as well.

Who the fuck names someone ‘Shin’? That’s like the Japanese equivalent of being named ‘Bob’.

I’m Japanese now, great.

Not that I had anything against the Japanese, it’s just difficult to be flung into an entirely new culture so suddenly, even if I apparently had a ‘new life’ in this place. My sense of self identified as being English still.

Reincarnation?

Something like that, or maybe just being inserted directly into a new world and a new life.

My name was Shin—something.

I don’t even know my ‘new’ family name.

God, my memories were scrambled.

I could try to meditate? Is that even a real thing?

Sitting down on the cold floor, I tried my best to ‘center myself’ and push away some of the many wayward thoughts.

Who am i?

I am Shin, and my previous life is gone.

Where am I?

I can vaguely recall picking a random world to reincarnate to when I decided my options and everything.

I chose hard mode, so the world was random, along with some other options that effected my new ‘character’.

Lets start with what I remember from my previous life and work from there?

No recollections of ‘who’ I was, but there were the broad strokes. I could remember my favorite food, my favorite shows, ect.

What world did it say I was in again?

……Fuck.

Fuck this shit.

Highschool DXD.

Fuck this weeaboo shit.

I fucking hate this goddamn anime.

Don’t get me wrong, the world itself was pretty cool, but fuck the characters. Besides being so fucking annoying, they were so goddamn stupid.

I was fond of anime and stuff in my previous life, I can say that with a clear consciousness, but I hate the over the top and utterly ridiculousness that some anime delved into.

Powering up by boobs? Are you serious?

Its like the RWBY issues jacked up to 10.

The world is more interesting than the characterizations and the plot.

So, stuck in a stupid world with things that could sneeze in my general direction to kill me, and I selected hard mode.

Well, I’m fucked.

Panic later, figure out situation now.

I chose hard mode, I already figured that out.

For my class I chose – Archer.

Always been fond of Archers, even in shooting games I liked being a sniper.

I had no complaints in the class that I chose.

That couldn’t possibly be everything, right? I felt like I was forgetting something important. My gamer senses were tingling, and I had no idea why.

I stared into space for several moments before face palming.

“Inventory”

[Beginner’s Path Chest (Hard Mode)]

[Beginner’s Equipment Chest]

[Beginner’s Skill Chest]

I had three ‘chests’ sitting in my inventory.

Yeah, I had a hammerspace, I’ll fanboy over that later.

I read the descriptions on each of them before opening up.

[Beginner’s Path chest (Hard Mode)] – A randomly selected path from a popular media that the player may choose to embark with on their journey with. Examples include: Elemental Bending(Avatar), Chakra Network(Naruto), Reiatsu(Bleach), ect.

Okay, it makes sense. It’s a starting point that picks a random anime or something from somewhere as if I was born into that world and had the capacity to utilize it’s unique abilities.

Unfortunately, it’s random.

Thank you, previous me.

With my luck I’ll get something utterly stupid, like the power of friendship from MLP.

[Beginner’s equipment Chest]—A set of equipment based on your starting class.

Okay, it was self-explanatory, but I had to make sure. It’s probably like a bow and quiver full of arrows.

[Beginner’s Skill Chest] – A skill that can be utilized by the player’s starting class.

And now I have questions, is it merely a skill that can be used by an ‘archer’ or is it also determined by my level? I really don’t want to start out with a skill that requires I be like level 100 or some dumb shit.

I sighed, hoping that whoever made this ‘game’ at least had common sense.

Lets start with equipment, I guess?

I tapped the chest in my inventory, giving me a prompt.

[Claim] [Dismiss]

Obviously, I’ll want to claim it, but does that mean dismiss the message or the item from my inventory?

Fucking hard mode, not giving me any information.

I hit claim and a new prompt popped up.

Rolling items…..

3…

2…

1…

This is random too? Whatever, not like I would not claim it anyways.

Item Received: [Yew Long Bow (Quality – Uncommon)]

Item Received: [Bottomless Quiver [Fake] (Quality – Uncommon)]

Don’t items usually start at gray or white? Does that mean I rolled higher than base?

Tapping on the items in my invetory gave me more information again.

[Yew Long Bow (Quality – Uncommon)]

A bow crafted from a fallen Yew tree that once housed a Forest Sprite. Causes any arrows fired from it to deal a slight amount of magic damage.

8 + Dexterity/4  Physical damage + 2 Magic damage.

As far as starting equipment goes, that’s not too shabby. Though, I don’t have anything to compare it to, magic items usually don’t start appearing in games until a few levels at a minimum. Well, lets see then quiver then.

[Bottomless Quiver [Fake] (Quality – Uncommon)]

A quiver crafted in an attempt to have an unending supply of arrows, unfortunately the creator wasn’t very skilled. The quiver will copy any arrow under [Rare] quality and create three duplicates every half-hour.

Capacity: 50/75 Iron Arrows.

Huh….this is better than I thought it would be. Not broken, but extremely useful for me at a low level, maybe even beyond. It was only filled with basic iron arrows, a common item so it can be useful once I get the next ‘tier’ of quality which would probably be Steel arrows or something? Or maybe enchanted arrows.

I laid the items next to me as I went for the skill next.

Skill Acquired: [Ice Shot]

Fire an arrow that deals cold damage to the target and explodes into a cone of ice at the point of impact.

Base damage + 50% cold damage.

Cost: 5 Mana.

Nice. I always liked cold abilities next to lightning ones. I’ll need to find out if the cold damage also applies a ‘slow’ to the target as well. Since it specifies ‘cold damage’ then I’m assuming it does, but you never know. I don’t know how my gamer abilities affect reality; it could just be mimicking magic at its base. I could recall that this world has some absurd things to the point where my abilities won’t even bring a second glance.

Thankfully, it looks like there isn’t any level requirement and no absurd stat costs.

I was tempted to start firing off magic ice arrows……really tempted, but cooler heads prevailed. Heh.

I was hesitant to roll the last gift, it was random, and I had no idea if it would hurt me or do something to alter myself in some way. It basically set me at the bottom of a path, like what if it suddenly made me a vampire? I mean, vampires are kinda cool, but I don’t know if I would want to shed my humanity. And I would have to kill myself out of sheer embarrassment if I started to sparkle in the sunlight.

For some reason though I had this anxious feeling inside, like I needed this regardless. My memories were still kinda jumbled, I would need to mentally go over my ‘new’ life that was suddenly shoved into my head after this was over.

“Alright, lets bet my life on a gotcha roll.”

The box opened up.

Acquired: Path of the Magus.

Trait Obtained: Magic Circuits.

A pseudo-nervous system spreading itself through the human body that extends from the soul, allowing for the converting of life force (Od) and the gathering of the world’s life blood (Mana) into magical energy.

Quantity: 24

Quality: Rank—B

Effect (Active): Increases Mana by 30x the number of circuits open.

Effect (Passive): Increases Mana regeneration (WIS X 1.5)

Item Obtained –Book: Introduction to Thaumaturgy.

Item Obtained –Book: Basics of Magecraft, Reinforcement.

Item Obtained –Book: Basics of Magecraft, Gradation Air.

Item Obtained –Book: Basics of Magecraft, Bounded Fields.

Item Obtained –Book: Basics of Magecraft, Structural Grasp.

Item Obtained –Book: Basics of Magecraft, Runes.

Item Obtained –Book: Basics of Magecraft, Elements and Origins.

Item Obtained –Book: Basics of Magecraft, Hypnosis.

I had no chance to comment as I felt something akin to a molten-hot rod shove itself down my spine as the pain spread throughout my body.

My mouth opened, I wanted to scream my throat hoarse, but I couldn’t even muster the effort to produce sound. I dug my nails into my own flesh, writhing on the ground as I felt something flare to life inside me. The pain was excruciating, but thank whatever gods were currently watching me, the feeling only lasted for a few moments.

I was panting hard as the pain finally left me, only leaving an echo of what had just occurred. I slowly climbed off the ground, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Fucking hell….” I cursed.

I’m apparently a Magus now…..

As cool as being a Magus was from Fate, it’s suboptimal when the world is in the equivalent of the Age of Gods.

I looked over the effects of my Circuits again.

The mana boost was more than welcomed, but these circuits were going to fall off down the line if there was no way to upgrade them. The hours I spent scrolling through the type-moon wiki gave me enough insight to know that there was no ‘normal’ way to increase the quality or quantity of circuits. Normal as in an iron clad rule of Magi was that it was impossible, but I had the game with me. I wasn’t limited by the ‘logic’ of any one universe. At worse, I’ll eventually just ignore my circuits all together once I get my INT stat high enough.

Does that make my circuits utterly redundant?

If I recall correctly, almost everyone in this world is born with the capacity to be a magician, talent being the main limiting factor. Well, that and a decent teacher. A kid can’t just play around pretending to be a wizard and accidently cast a spell.

So, I already started with some access to a mana pool by what my status told me, and now I have circuits added on to that.

Regardless, the large increase in my mana pool is welcomed, I don’t have to worry about leveling INT too much in the early levels.

I pulled one of the books out of my inventory, the introduction to Thaumaturgy. It was a decent sized book, if a bit old. There was some ware and tear that led me to believe it wasn’t just created but pulled or copied from somewhere.

An idea popped into my mind as I reached into my own pocket dimension and pulled out another of the books.

Would you like to consume this book and learn this skill? -- Basics of Magecraft, Structural Grasp.

[Accept] [Decline]

I held back a squeal of excitement, quickly pressing ‘accept’.

The knowledge flowed into me, a lot smoother than anything I had experienced before. And it wasn’t like learning in the classroom where my knowledge was diminished by memory recall, everything I just learned was vivid, front and center in my mind.

Interesting….the basics of this spell was to pulse a wave of magical energy into the chosen object and it produced a mental image of what you were looking at, kind of like sonar.

The theory of the spell was clear as day, how Shirou Emiya had done what he did with the basic spell was even more absurd knowing what I do now.

It was also a bit funny that all the basic spells I was going to learn were his bread and butter. Not that I was under any delusions that I was somehow going to copy him. I wasn’t going to master Gradation Air and somehow evolve it into his Tracing, that was basically the result of his Reality Marble. And even then, if I had the chance to acquire a copy of Unlimited Blade Works, I don’t know if I would. His Reality Marble was a reflection of his ‘self’ if I gained it, I would probably be overwritten and become a weird shadow of him.

But, was his use of Structural Grasp an extension of his Reality Marble? Could I somehow evolve this basic spell to something of a similar nature? Being able to look into the history of an object would be exceedingly useful.

I’ll look into that later if it’s viable.

For now, though, I consumed the remainder of the books.

My head hurt slightly, stuffing so much knowledge so quickly into my brain. I’ll have to be careful in the future and take it a bit slower.

There were only two books left in my inventory, the theory of Thaumaturgy, and the book about Elements and Origins.

Neither were skill books, but still extremely useful.

The book on Elements and Origins came with two pages filled out with runes, the knowledge I consumed basically assuring me that they were valid runic sentences.

The instructions were pretty clear; drip some blood on the page and it reveals my origin/element, one page for each.

Should I find out my origin?

From what I recall, knowing your origin causes it to influence you more readily.

I’ll put that on the back burner for now, lets find my element first. It was easy enough to cut myself, I just used one of my iron arrows.

The runic array lit up, distorting and twisting until it rearranged into a single word.

Congratulations on discovering your element!

Gained the following skills: Cold Resistance(Passive), Cold Damage(Passive), Cold Mastery(Passive).

I stared.

Not what I expected, but once again, quite welcomed.

My element is ‘Cold’.

Not ice, not water – Cold.

I tapped my new skills to get a better look at them.

[Cold Resistance(Passive)]: Gain 20% resistance against any cold damage or effects.

[Cold Damage(Passive)]: Deal 20% more damage when dealing Cold damage.

[Cold Mastery(Passive)]: Cold skills and abilities require 20% less mana to use and require less experience to level up.

Nice.

This scales amazingly well with my starting ability and now I have a direction to build myself in. Being ‘cold’ instead of ice opens me up for some interesting uses in the future. It’s broader than just frozen water.

Before I could plan my next course of action, I was greeted with another prompt.

Congratulations on finishing your Character setup!

You will now be fully integrated into your new game.

But first, some final bonuses based on your selections. For selecting hard mode, you will be receiving 10 free stat points. And for selecting the ‘Bad Start’ perk you will receive an uncommon skill, randomly selected.

Rolling…..

3…

2…

1…

Acquired skill: Language Translation (Passive).

All mundane languages are automatically translated into your identified language and all outgoing words are automatically translated to the correct language when you speak to someone.

I blink, staring at the prompts that appeared before me.

A bad start?

Wut.

I barely recall the whole selection process, along with the broad points in my previous life.

It shouldn’t be too bad, right? I mean, the reward was rather lackluster so it shouldn’t affect me too much. It would be bad game design if I just up and died without a chance.

And I only got 10 stat points for hard mode.

That didn’t seem like a fair tradeoff.

Curse my min-maxing past self.

Atleast the skill is useful, there won’t be any language barriers if I travel. And I don’t have to deal with Japanese honorifics, those would get annoying after awhile if I’m not use to them.

Begin final Integration with new game.

3…

2…

1…

Strange feelings rise in my head, like I’m remembering something I forgot.

Atleast I’m not writhing on the floor again, but some things now start to make sense. My vague memories about my new life are now vivid and open.

My mother…..was an escort.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I didn’t particularly look down on people who chose that ‘profession’ but at the same time it was my mother.

She was kind, extremely so. Always trying her best to provide for me.

She died when I was 10.

I….the memories coming to the surface hit me like a truck. I could feel tears starting to form in my eyes.

Dammit.

I don’t care if it wasn’t real, she was my mother and I loved her.

After she passed away, the state picked me up and apparently found my ‘real’ father. One of her previous clients, not all too surprising.

He took me in, if only to avoid any unwanted questions on how I was born.

I was a bastard and he made sure to let me know that.

My stepmother……she was not a nice person and my father didn’t care about me in the slightest. I pretty much grew up distant from any familial love and shunned by my adoptive family.

I had a stepsister, but she too just kinda ignored me.

Ah….so that’s what my family name is, why does it sound so familiar? Whatever, not like I accepted it anyways.

We lived in Kuoh…..fuck.

How far along was canon? I knew the vague details and what-not up to the Trihexia.

Again, the memories started to play through my head. I went to Kuoh Academy. My father apparently had enough weight to throw around so I would at least get a decent education, probably to get me away faster. The man lived and died by his reputation, he just wanted me gone and out of sight, the better I did the better he looked.

I….

Fuck no.

No, no, no, no.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

I’m on the run.

That’s the reason I’m hanging out in this decrepit old warehouse, I’m running away from the ‘devil authorities’.

What. The. Fuck.

This is the most ridiculous……ass pulling plot I’ve ever seen in my life.

Issei…..isn’t really a thing. Apparently, the fallen angels had the common sense to recruit him instead of just murdering him.

One of the females just flashed her tits and he did whatever they asked.

That caused a subtle but extreme change in canon.

I apparently became ‘aware’ of the supernatural, if only vaguely through some convoluted means and no one bothered to alter my memories.

I befriended Rias Gremory and no I didn’t become a devil. If I had to guess, I was probably talentless, and they didn’t want to waste a piece on me.

And….I developed a crush on her?

Wow…

So when she got desperate to get out of her marriage like in the canon where she appeared in Issei’s bedroom…..it was mine instead.

And this time, Grayfia didn’t interrupt.

I fucked Rias Gremory.

Normally, I would be doing a fist pump and congratulating myself. As much as I dislike her character, she was fucking hot.

But it wasn’t that I just had sex with her, it was that I took the virginity of Rias – Heir to the House – Gremory, violating the terms of her marriage contract. Little sister of Lucifer, the strongest devil to ever exist.

Obviously, past me wasn’t aware of her ‘identity’ beyond the basics.

Would I have still stuck my dick in that if I did know?

Probably, I’m fucking 17, my dick makes at least half of my decisions.

But goddamn, this became a shitshow.

It somehow became known, I don’t know how, that Gremory was no longer a virgin.

A large political shitstorm ensued, and all the blame was somehowredirected at me.

WHAT.

Is the game filling in gaps in my knowledge, explaining how I ended up here when I technically shouldn’t have known any of this?

I would have blamed the game for my entire situation, but the stupidity of the characters make this whole thing actually plausible without outside interference.

I disappeared when I shouldn’t have even known that something happened.

And Rias basically played the role of the ‘victim’ pushing the blame onto me as well……fucking hell.

It’s not like we were in love of anything, I had a crush and she probably just found me tolerable for her first time. Still though, the residual feelings I had made it kinda hurt. I was pissed, obviously, but still a small amount of heartbreak. Atleast they couldn’t claim I raped her, me being a baseline human and all.

Riser Phenex wants my head now.

Did this count as me NTRing him? They technically weren’t married yet.

Eat shit Phenex, I fucked your fiancé.

So yeah, devils are after me, Sirzechs Lucifer is no doubt using his influence to build me up as the ‘villain’ in this scenario so his sister escapes unscathed.

The sex wasn’t even that good, I wasn’t a virgin like she was, but I was still relatively inexperienced. But damn if she didn’t have an amazing body. 10/10 would probably fuck again given the chance.

So here I am, a few towns over as I disappeared into the night.

Great.

Is this my bad start? Being fucking hunted by literal Satan?

Atleast there was something good I got out of all this nonsense; I was in Archery club since middle school. So I’m not starting from zero with a bow at least…..yay.

I pulled up my status again to see what changed.

Name: Shin

Class: Archer

Level: 1

Race: Human

Rank: 1

Alignment: Neutral

HP—50 (1 Per Minute)

SP—50 (1 Per Minute)

MP—50 (8 Per Minute)

STR: 5

END: 5

DEX: 5

INT: 5

WIS: 5

CHA: 5

LCK: 5

Unused Stat Points: 10

---------------

Skills:

[Gamer’s Mind (Passive)]

[Gamer’s Body (Passive)]

[Cold Resistance (Passive)]

[Cold Damage (Passive)]

[Cold Mastery (Passive)]

[Language Translation (Passive)]

[Archery Mastery -- Beginner (Passive): 47/50.]

[Ice Shot – Lvl 1/20 (Active) Exp: 1/50]

[Gradation Air –Lvl 1/20 (Active) Exp: 1/50]

[Runecraft –Lvl 1/20 (Active) Exp: 1/50]

[Bounded Fields –Lvl 1/20 (Active) Exp: 1/50]

[Structural Grasp –Lvl 1/20 (Active) Exp: 1/50]

[Reinforcement –Lvl 1/20 (Active) Exp: 1/50]

[Hypnosis –Lvl 1/20 (Active) Exp: 1/50]

Traits:

[Magic Circuits]

Okay, interesting. Gamer’s mind and Gamer’s body, I forgot about them and they weren’t even mentioned. Were they just now added? I guess I’m getting literally no handholding and the game assumes I know what I’m doing.

I could tap them to figure out the information, and I’m happy that everything isn’t just blaring out at me, the interface is as minimalistic as possible.

Gamer’s mind nullifies mental effects and keeps me level-headed; Gamer’s body allows me to exist as a video-game character.

And I didn’t notice this before, but what’s ‘rank’ on my character sheet?

Some kind of prestige system? Thoughts for later, there were more important things to focus on now.

My character sheet became rather bloated, but at the same time not much had changed. All my magecraft spells were at level one, I would need to train them and that’s going to be difficult. To be a magus is to walk with death and all that crap. Magecraft was dangerous, there was a decent chance I accidently hurt myself, and I hadn’t even figured out how to activate my circuits yet.

And then there was the consideration of what to do with my new stat points. I was understandably a bit scared at my current situation. Even if Gamer’s mind is stopping the worse of any anxiety attacks, I’m still human and feel emotions.

Contrary to what people may think, having experienced death once does not make it easier to face a second time. If anything, I’m frightened even more because I know whats going to come.

Fucking devils.

Where the fuck do they get off on holding me accountable to theirlaws and customs. I have nothing to fucking do with them and yet I’m being chased like a goddamn criminal.

I could try going to the church or the Grigori…..but I doubt either would take me in. I’m probably too high profile for how little I could offer in return. No one would want to upset the Lucifer over some no-talent human.

Fuck Rias especially.

I wasn’t in love with her but playing with someone’s heart is a line I don’t accept people crossing. Using me to escape her shitty contract, I hope it didn’t work and she still has to marry Riser and be known as a slut for now on.

Whatever, I’m getting way off topic.

Magic Circuits.

I need to activate them, everyone either hypnotizes themselves or has some kind of mental trigger. Shirou was the hammer of a gun, Rin was getting stabbed in the heart, what resonates with me?

I closed my eyes and sat down, letting my mind wander.

I was….calm, or as close as I could be under the situation.

I tried to think of something soothing, something that could resonate with my soul.

A mental image began to form.

A single drop of water falling onto a still lake, ripples spreading out in all directions.

My eyes suddenly shot open as I felt something burning throughout my body.

My circuits.

It was painful, it knew it would be painful but to experience it was another matter. I would need to learn to ignore this pain. I could even will them to light up through my skin, though I had to stop when I felt my entire body heating up.

It was interesting…..they seemed to conglomerate through both my arms as opposed to Shirou who’s showed up mainly on his left arm.

I smiled as I saw my mana shoot up from 50 to 770. My Ice shot only costing 5 mana, I can spam it for days.

Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about the mana costs of my magecraft yet, each spell is so dependent on what I’m doing that it can’t just give me a set amount. Like if I wanted to reinforce a single part of my body as opposed to the entire thing. This would require quite a bit of testing and I’m short on time, I don’t know how safe I am, they definitely have a magical means of tracking me and I don’t know how thoroughly they’re going to search.

My only boon right now is that they think I’m just a normal human. I should be able to mask myself under a basic bounded field if they’re not trying to brute force any kind of scrying. Not to mention that I technically left devil territory back in Kuoh, the vast majority of Japan still operates under the Shinto Religion. That would probably mean they can’t send any heavy-hitters to just capture me on sight, at most some medium-class devils. Plausible deniability and all that nonsense, who would look twice at a low-level devil just moving around and ‘taking in the sights’.

I also doubt that I’m worth any kind of favor towards the Shinto Faction to locate me. Most likely, they also don’t want this whole thing to spread, the other factions in the world wouldn’t care about me but the devils would lose face.

A manhunt for a little ol’ human.

They would be seen as bullies and they wouldn’t allow their pride to take the hit, especially because I’m so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Just a bug to step on.

What surprised me immediately though was that my circuits were still active, even after getting lost in my own thoughts.

They were much easier to ‘maintain’ then what I had previously assumed.

Should I figure out a way to hypnotize myself so I can activate them easily in combat? It seemed like the most obvious choice.

I would need to think of a phrase that links to my being, something that could resonate with me enough to trigger my circuits through my subconscious.

To do that, I would need to practice my hypnotism later, maybe find some homeless or something. The idea of experimenting on someone doesn’t quite sit well with me….but I suppose I could leave them some money afterwards and it’s not like I would be harming them.

So where do I go from here?

I have a lot of avenues open to me, train my Archery? I would need to get used to an English longbow; I’ve only ever used the Japanese variety in my time at school.

So much to do, so little time.

I don’t have a way to create pocket dimensions filled with monsters either.

It’s just continuous reminders that I picked hard mode.

I really want to kick my other self for doing something so stupid.

Hell, I don’t even have the patented ‘Observe’.

Bullshit.

Is there a GM I can complain to?

I decided my next course of action before falling asleep, it was dark out and I was a bit tired from the immediate stress of the situation I found myself in.

Hypnotism Failed.

Hypnotism Failed.

Hypnotism Failed.

Hypnotism Failed.

Hypnotism Failed.

Hypnotism Successful.

I managed to find a rat when I woke up earlier. Apparently, my hypnotism can work on animals as well, and it’s been great for grinding the levels.

[Hypnosis –Lvl 3/20 (Active) Exp: 27/50]

It’s leveling at a faster pace than I anticipated….I think the nature of the spell is that once I max it out, I have a full and competent understanding of it, as opposed to it being unbeatable. If I max out Runes, I should be able to use them all with a degree of mastery, but I’m not going to suddenly become Bazett.

With that, I looked over to another corner of the warehouse, one of the metal girders was practically frozen solid as I hit it with Ice Shots from various angles.

The ice had been sitting there, not even showing the initial signs of melting for a couple hours now.

I did try breaking a piece off to lick it. For some reason, that did cause it to start ‘sweating’.

Maybe a conscious action on my part is required for it to begin melting? That was my going theory at the moment, but it was going to leave it there for now, I would double check it tomorrow to confirm.

I did manage to set up a rudimentary bounded field before I started to fling around any magic. It’s not going to offer me any decent protection other than masking what little I’m experimenting with here. And it took me an embarrassing long amount of time to wrap my head around how a Bounded Field works.

It’s both extremely simple and confusing at the same time. To separate the inside from the outside. To quite literally create a boundary out of magical energy with an esoteric effect tacked on.

Like all my other spells, I basically just absorbed all the theory from the books, theory is not nearly the same as attempting the spells and utterly understanding it.

I was thinking better, the full weight of my situation finally sunk in and I was in training mode. I decided against moving out of town again, they were looking for a kid on the run, not someone bunkered down under magical protection.

Their first scouts would probably search Kuoh, then move out to the nearest towns. I was a little ahead of them by being one further out from that, so I would give it a week before they clear this small town and move on. Depending on how they treat this whole situation, as little as I matter, there are high-profile people involved so they’re probably trying to clean it up as soon as possible.

There was also the distinct possibility I was overthinking everything, but they’re just so goddamn stupid, it’s hard to accurately predict what they were going to do. I could only look at the situation and assume what a competent person would do.

Anyways, I was finally resting, practicing turning my circuits on and off or throwing a hypnosis at my pet Rat.

I named him Riser.

Logically, I know that he hasn’t done anything to me…..yet, but he’s just so unlikable and now I’m on his radar, so fuck him.

Hypnosis Successful.

Heh, I told the rat that it enjoyed being NTRed.

No idea if that did anything to its psyche, but it made me feel better.

I had nothing better to do right at this moment as my arms were practically jelly. I had been testing my ‘gamer’s body’ and wanted to see the effects. I tried doing pushups until I literally couldn’t move my arms and I managed to gain 1 strength.

It was good to know that I had some bullshit to rely on in the short term. I wanted to get my endurance up, but it didn’t have much room to run around, I tried sprints for about an hour, but I didn’t gain anything even after being winded, I need more space to really push myself in that area.

I also realized I could take the arrows out of my quiver, so it doesn’t get full while replenishing.

Not a world-breaking thing…. but I need the small wins right now.

Perhaps it was obvious in hindsight, but I am understandably not operating at my best.

I’ve noticed the immediate lack of gaining skills upon doing anything.

Like I didn’t gain a ‘sprinting’ skill when I was doing my sprints.

I do remember the original manhwa, I guess what I have is a bit different. Theres no shaping my mana and creating a bazillion spells that obliterate everything in my path. I actually have to research and understand the complexities of my spells.

For the most part, the game is a big leg up in helping me start with theory by eating books.

Holding my hand steady, I channel a bit of mana into my finger and begin to draw a shape in the air.

“Ansuz” I invoked the mystery; the rune ignited and shot a small fireball at an untouched girder.

Neat.

My situation sucks right now, and I hadn’t had the time to appreciate the fact that I could do magic. My inner fanboy is beaming with joy.

And hey, my Runecraft level went up by one, cool. It wasn’t the first time practicing with runes, I finally went over the threshold and got to level two.

I used some runes to help stabilize my bounded field.

Still though, It’s not enough. I’ve been at this since I woke up early in the morning and I’m barely ‘stronger’ than I was before.

And I’m hungry, not having the common sense to bring any kind of food with me. The sun had set already, I was so caught up in my training that I hadn’t realized how fast the hours passed as I continued my makeshift-routine.

My body recovered a bit, my stamina was now about full as I stretched my arms. The feeling of tiredness was starting to dissipate, much quicker than it would have without the game.

I’ll need to actually calculate the amount of time it takes me to recover from physical exertion to really start pushing myself.

But for now, I put every on pause and made my way towards the exit of the warehouse. I didn’t want to leave my little safety blanket, but I still required food and water. Unfortunately, I have very little cash on me, only 50,000 yen. I stole it from my old man before I left. Or well, the game made that part of my backstory.

That whole thing is still a bit wonky, did my life actually happen or did the world get created just now and I was just inserted?

I would like to think that I actually lived this life. Even with half of it being really shitty, I don’t want my mother to have been fake.

Whatever, I was getting sidetracked.

I made my way out of my little hideout, the surroundings were relatively clear as I left the area behind. I didn’t even know the name of the town I was in, the size seemed to be roughly the same as Kuoh, maybe a bit bigger.

I was happy that the weather still allowed for a hoodie without looking too out of place. No one would question someone with a hood covering their face.

Walking the back alleys gave me a bad feeling, my gamer senses were tingling again. I looked around and picked up a loose brick on the ground. As I turned the next corner slowly, at the other end of the small alley was a dog.

It stared at me, its matted fur covered in dirt and some blood. It’s face scarred and a snarl present as it slowly got into a defensive position.

I gulped slightly. I was still practically a base-line human, a wild dog that wanted to go for my throat was a threat and I felt like if I made any sudden moves, it would leap at me. Would I even have time to take my bow out and draw it?

I needed to get a melee weapon ASAP.

I had a brick in my hand and its weight was comforting.

We just stared at one another for another moment for it took a step forward. I took a step back and it charged. It was a four-legged beast, it’s sudden sprint was much faster than I could have managed if I tried to run away.

I threw my brick with everything I had, that extra point of strength coming in handy as it collided with the rabid animal.

It let out a yelp as it got knocked against the nearby wall.

-6 Life.

I received a damage prompt from my attack that I quickly swiped away.

There was enough time for me to take out my bow and knock and arrow.

“Ice Shot” I called out, invoking my skill.

-18 Life.

The dog took the arrow to its side, a large cascade of ice pinned it to the wall as it struggled to move. I didn’t hesitate as I finished it off with another arrow.

The light died from its eyes, its body going limp as I finally relaxed. My heartrate was through the roof, but I could feel my Gamer’s mind calming me down.

I looked at the stats page of my character sheet to see if anything changed.

Level: 1 (10%)

Race: Human

Rank: 1

Alignment: Neutral

HP—50 (1 Per Minute)

SP—50 (1 Per Minute)

MP—45 (8 Per Minute)

STR: 6

END: 5

DEX: 5

INT: 5

WIS: 5

CHA: 5

LCK: 5

Huh, that dog gave me 10% XP, everything considered, that wasn’t too bad.

I also realized that I didn’t have time to activate my circuits in my haste. That would need to become instinct soon. I also wanted to figure out how to turn off these combat prompts, getting these windows in the middle of a fight are distracting.

“….system settings?” I asked aloud.

I was greeted with another window.

Okay, there was the option to turn them off, that was good.

I also had a complete combat log, that was interesting. Apparently, my brick throw was a crit and caused the wolf to stagger.

Why was it only showing damage in the popups then?

Whatever.

I also saw exactly how much experience the dog gave, 10. That meant that my first level required a hundred experience, good to know.

Congratulations of defeating your first enemy!

As a reward, a dungeon will spawn nearby.

I was greeted with another message from my mysterious gaming system.

Any thoughts I had were immediately cut off as I heard a door nearby. One of the backdoors that lead out next to a dumpster slammed open. An eerie glow around the frame.

Yeah, I think I found the dungeon.

I walked towards it, the entrance was covered by a black fog, it almost reminded me of dark souls. I was very close to nopeing the fuck out of there as glowing words appeared above the entrance.

Butcher’s Shop.

Dungeon – Level 1.

That didn’t sound ominous at all.

Was that why the feral dog was sniffing around, did one of these dumpsters have a bunch of discarded meat? And here I thought it was a random encounter.

I looked towards my slain foe again, it’s body still there, bleeding out on the ground.

I should probably hide the evidence; I don’t want people sniffing around for some psycho that kills animals with a bow.

Also, I could salvage the arrows I used, they were still in good condition and quick rune dissolved my ice and burnt away the body easily enough.

Turning again towards the dungeon, I couldn’t let my fear grip me. If I wanted to survive I needed to get stronger, and that meant risking my life.

With my resolve set, I walked through the misty door.

Chapter 2.

The inside was exactly how I had imagened it. The shop had been distorted into some bizarre horror-movie alternative.

Seriously, there was meat hanging in the open, some blood still dripping on the ground.

I doubt that would pass health inspections.

It was also much bigger than it had any right to be and this was just the entrance, er…. Back entrance?

Why did coming in through the back have me arrive at the front?

Video game logic apparently supersedes any other.

I activated my circuits immediately and drew my bow with an arrow ready to fire. The first area seemed empty, but I was genre savvy enough to recognize a jump-scare scene when I see one.

I could hear a faint sound, in the otherwise desolate room, there was the faintest clicking sound.

Yeah….it was coming from inside a cupboard.

There was more blood pooled around at the base…..

Whats with this place and blood?

I was ready to reach out and open the cupboard then froze.

Why was I doing this?

I stood up and walked to the back corner and aimed at the obvious trap.

“Ice Arrow” The magical arrow collided with the flimsy wooden door, shattering it before erupting into a cone of ice.

I heard the squeal of a rat.

A really large rat.

Atleast as big as the dog from before, it’s red beady eyes staring at me with an intense hate as half its body was frozen.

Nope.

“Ice Arrow. Ice Arrow. Ice Arrow. Ice Arrow.”

Ability Spam my way to victory.

It died under my barrage, but I had to be sure. I’ll be honest, I was still scared shitless. I went from a normal person to a world full of magic and I was fighting giant mutant rats. If Gamer’s mind wasn’t affecting me, I would have probably had a nervous breakdown already.

Its corpse started to dissolve, as one would expect of fake creatures conjured up by a dungeon.

It left behind loot though!

Suddenly my wariness disappeared altogether.

Loot, Loot.

Ah….a bit disappointing.

Acquired: 1000 Yen.

It’s useful atleast, I didn’t have a legal way to acquire more money previously.

But, hey, my XP went up to 25%!

Giant Mutant rats are worth more than feral dogs.

I can do this.

Just as I got up, my eye caught something shiny in the corner of the cupboard. A small knife rack…

It was a butcher’s knife, not that unexpected, but score. I put it in my inventory, so I could get more info on it.

[Shoddy Butcher’s Knife(Common)]

Deals 1-3 Physical damage.

I’ll take it.

I had nowhere to keep it on my person, so It just stayed in my inventory for now. It makes me wonder what the stats were on the brick I used earlier, I didn’t even think to keep it.

I broke the first rule of new games, hoard everything.

Well, the first room is cleared out, time to move on. And since this place apparently warps space, I have no idea how large it is.

The next area was the freezer.

A big steel door that was latched shut.

I was ready, bow out and arrows ready, quickly open the door and sweeping the area with my eyes. There were two enemies and grabbed my attention immediately, they were eating two large slabs of meet, of what I assume was beef……hopefully.

And with all the noise I made…..they didn’t even notice me.

Am I not in aggro range?

Debuff Resisted by [Cold Resist]

A sudden prompt popped up, out of the way this time so it didn’t immediately block my vision.

Was the freezer supposed to apply some kind of slow effect? I mean, freezers are usually cold, but not that cold.

Game mechanics, whatever. But hooray for Cold Resist.

Well, time to snipe.

“Ice Arrow. Ice Arrow”

Quickly firing one at each to lock them in place, or that was my intention. But I was greeted by the sound of ice shattering as they continued towards me.

Well…..fuck

I turned around and ran, readying another arrow to quick fire behind me

“Ice Arrow”

And I missed.

I wasn’t used to firing under pressure.

The ice that exploded from it did manage to stall them for a moment as I knocked another arrow.

I kept firing, not knowing if I hit anything. I was sure that It was doing something, even the ice that exploded out did so in a jagged manner, so it may even stab the rats in an area.

There sounded like something scratching.

Were they clawing at the ice?

Fuck.

And any more arrows wouldn’t do anything except making more of a wall.

I decided to set my bow down and channel some mana into my finger to draw a rune in the air.

As carefully as I could, I inscribed an Ansuz infront of me. I had to grab my wrist to stop my hand from accidently shaking as I could physically see the shadow of the monster’s claw through my magically created ice.

Just as they broke through, I finished my drawing.

The sigil shining infront of me as I gave it a flick towards my foes.

It ignited and shot off, burning those mutant rats as they rat at me. That seemed to do the trick as I saw both monsters burn up and turn to ash.

Now that I think about it, their fur had an almost blue tinge. If the ‘environment’ had a freezing effect, chances are that the monsters inside were also resistance to said effect.

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding in. These things were only level one and I’m having to cheese the fight. Honestly….I felt so weak.

I was almost level 2 now, I was curious to see how many stat points I get for leveling, it would help me determine if I should invest my stat points right now. It was temping, I honestly didn’t know how my current stats weighed against monsters my level, I haven’t taken damage yet and I seem to deal enough to take them out.

It seems like I just keep second guessing all my decisions. I finally just resigned myself to saving my points for now, I had no idea how useful each point would be in the future.

I scoured the area after the ‘fight’, the rats dropped some loot again, of them dropped more money while the other dropped food.

A couple links of sausage.

It looked normal……..

With mild disgust, I put it in my inventory so I could check it.

[Sausage Link(Common)]

Food.

Replenishes 2 health every 5 seconds for 30 seconds.

I don’t think the game would lie to me, so I doubt the food was the rat’s…..leftovers. I was hungry, I went into this dungeon without eating when I already hadn’t eaten in a day. I wasn’t really thinking everything through.

I bit the proverbial bullet and consumed the meat.

It tasted…good.

I was pleasantly surprised, it even tasted slightly better than normal food.

And like that my hunger disappeared. I’m pretty sure the game is influencing that as well as hunger doesn’t go away that easily from barely eating.

Well, moving on then.

The freezer was as one would expect in a nightmarish dungeon scenario. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any good loot in the area.

Leaving the freezer, I made my way towards the last room I could see, it looked like an office, or somewhere for the more administrative aspects of running a business.

I was assuming that was where I was supposed to go next if the glowing aura around the door was any indication.

Was this a boss room?

There were only three mobs before, this seems pretty lackluster for a dungeon.