Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Ding!
The moment I chose my gender, the status window flashed brightly alongside an explosive sound.
Was it trying to congratulate me for finally deciding to move forward?
“……”
Yeah, no way.
The more I thought about it, the less likely that seemed.
That tiny floating window in the corner was clearly—
< A penalty has been applied due to the sins of your previous life! As punishment for insulting Orthodox Fantasy, you will be unable to use Mana or Aura. >
—completely hostile toward me.
Anyway, if this really was a world ruled by people who used Mana and Aura…
Then it would probably be a brutally unforgiving place for someone like me, who couldn’t use either.
Restrictions on Mana and Aura.
That was one hell of a heavy penalty.
Could something like that even be overcome in the first place?
It felt like being the only person in a world where guns were legal… except I wasn’t allowed to use one.
“Cough…”
Tension naturally crept over me.
Cold sweat ran down my back.
Not literally, since I didn’t actually have a body right now.
Still, the situation was terrifying enough to make me feel it.
For now, I had no choice but to use this game-like window somehow and offset the penalty as much as possible.
It was the only thing I could rely on.
“I need to look through the options carefully.”
I had to make the best possible decision.
The first step mattered the most.
A good beginning was half the battle.
I recalled all those sayings from my previous life.
Ding!
A new section appeared before me as I steeled my resolve once more.
< You may spend 200 points to determine your adult height! >
Ding!
< Any remaining points will be converted into stat points! >
My adult height?
Wait, so I wasn’t becoming an adult immediately?
I frowned slightly before shaking my head.
If that world truly existed and wasn’t simply part of a game, then this system probably made sense.
Unfair or not, I couldn’t exactly complain.
Still, my ears perked up at the mention of height.
Two hundred points for adult height…
Wait a second.
“Whoa!?”
The moment I decided in my head to invest every point into height, limbs suddenly formed from my transparent body, and I felt my entire figure stretching upward.
Not long after—
I found myself staring from a height I had never experienced before.
Had spending all 200 points made me 200 centimeters tall?
The system was surprisingly straightforward.
“Hahahaha!”
Laughter burst out of me before I could stop it.
I could live with a better physique than in my previous life?
Being short for a heavyweight fighter had always frustrated me.
If only I were five centimeters taller.
If only my reach were a little longer.
Those regrets had followed me my entire career.
“You’re dead.”
Honestly, this turned out way better than expected.
With a body like this and my techniques, maybe even that champion—
…Wait.
“Where did it go?”
I shook my head up and down and looked again, wondering if I’d seen wrong.
The excitement that had filled me moments ago suddenly crashed straight to the bottom.
Becoming a two-meter giant was great and all—
But something extremely important for a man was missing.
“W-What the hell is this…?”
The emptiness between my legs felt horrifyingly cold.
Which made sense.
There was literally nothing there.
I definitely chose male, didn’t I?
Thinking I’d made a mistake, I checked my gender again.
Male.
Definitely male.
Then why the hell was my crotch empty?
Was it because I was in spirit form?
“Should I just ignore it?”
That thought lasted only for a moment.
What if I ignored it and ended up reincarnating as a eunuch?
That would be an absolute disaster.
< Insufficient points! >
< Insufficient points! >
< Insufficient points! >
The warning window suddenly flashed wildly the moment I mentally acknowledged the necessity of “manly pride.”
Not enough points?
Wait.
Don’t tell me—
Feeling nervous, I reduced my height to 190 centimeters and recovered 10 points.
Then, while wishing once again for my “pride” to return—
Something suddenly sprouted between my legs.
“…Fuck.”
Its length was an incredibly honest ten centimeters.
“Are you kidding me?”
The words escaped automatically.
If my height increased, shouldn’t that thing naturally increase too?
I had to invest points into that separately?
The whole thing was so absurd I couldn’t even process it properly.
“WHY IS THIS THE ONLY THING THAT WORKS LIKE THIS!?”
I screamed at the white walls surrounding me.
Naturally, no answer came back.
“God daaamn it!”
Swallowing my frustration, I forced my eyes back toward the window.
First things first.
Calm down.
Making impulsive decisions based on emotion was a terrible idea.
“……”
Come to think of it, the system said leftover points could be invested into stats.
Stats.
Probably actual physical abilities.
No matter how tall someone was, those definitely couldn’t be ignored.
What was the point of being two meters tall if I ended up naturally weak?
I wouldn’t even be able to use my size properly.
At worst, I could end up sickly and die young.
A larger body naturally became slower too, so I’d probably need stats to compensate for that…
“What exactly am I supposed to do with only 200 points?”
The more I thought about it, the stingier this system felt.
Height, stats, and even preserving my manhood—
Trying to secure all three made the point limit feel ridiculously tight.
Investing in one thing was manageable.
But balancing everything evenly?
That was another story.
Naturally, I fell into deep thought.
Height.
A man’s pride.
Stats.
Which one should take priority?
Wait.
Was there a back button too?
Since this was a one-time opportunity, careless decisions were forbidden.
Carefulness was mandatory.
Before touching the stat window, I first checked whether it was possible to return to previous choices.
< Welcome to the Orthodox Fantasy World! >
“Oh?”
The annoying little window actually moved the way I wanted.
For the first time, it felt slightly less hateful.
Anyway, now that I’d confirmed it was safe, there was no reason to hesitate.
Time to test everything out.
Ding!
I moved on to the next menu to check the stat screen.
Apparently, simply thinking “move on” was enough to advance.
At least that part was convenient.
Gender — Male
Strength: 10
Vitality: 8
Agility: 6
Intelligence: 5
Wisdom: 5
Charm: 5
Dexterity: 5
Stat Points: 0
Thanks to the simple layout, all my worries about incomprehensible fantasy language or overly complicated systems vanished instantly.
It was disappointing that there were no extra features like skills or passives, but at least it was easy to read.
These were probably my stats once I became an adult.
The problem was, I had no comparison point.
Were these high stats?
Low stats?
I couldn’t tell at all.
So I decided to assume this was the average ability level of a man in that world.
Still, the fact that I had zero remaining stat points bothered me immensely.
Why was that?
As I thought about it, I remembered setting my height to 190 centimeters and my “pride” to 10 centimeters.
Which meant I had already used all 200 points.
In other words—
The system gave no free stat points whatsoever.
At the same time, I realized one depressing truth.
A huge body and overwhelming physical power couldn’t coexist.
Wasn’t that exactly the same as my previous life?
For now, I lowered both my height and “equipment” as much as possible and dumped everything into stats.
If I didn’t like the results, I could just change it back.
Stat Points: 50
After checking, the minimum possible height was 150 centimeters.
And in exchange, I gained a massive 50 stat points.
I tried maxing out Strength.
Then Vitality.
I discovered Intelligence and Wisdom only became efficient when leveled together.
Increasing Charm visibly refined my facial features.
As for Dexterity, it turned out to represent hand skills and fine motor control.
After quite a while, I finally organized the information in my head.
No matter how I looked at it, the most straightforward stats were Strength and Vitality.
Agility came next.
Intelligence and Wisdom had poor efficiency because both needed investment together.
Charm wasn’t something I cared about in the first place.
Dexterity made me think, “Do I really need this?”
Of course, higher Dexterity would improve things like swordsmanship, cooking, weaving cloth, and basically every task requiring fine hand control.
But as someone who spent his previous life fighting heavyweights with a smaller frame, what I always lacked wasn’t technique.
It was raw physical specs.
And it wasn’t like my memories and experience as a top heavyweight contender were going anywhere.
At least in combat, I felt confident I could compensate for low Dexterity.
Anyway.
Height and manhood were nice and all, but stats were undeniably more important.
Not just for survival either.
It felt fundamentally different from simply becoming taller.
Like changing species entirely.
To put it simply—
It felt like evolving from a human into a gorilla.
Or if I dumped everything into pure strength, maybe even a bear.
That feeling became especially obvious when all points went into Strength and Vitality.
Without any prior training, I could do dozens of one-finger push-ups effortlessly.
That pretty much said it all.
Still…
Completely giving up height was hard.
Reach had tormented me my entire life.
The thought of becoming even shorter than before wasn’t exactly appealing.
In the end, I compromised with a height of 175 centimeters and a “pride” length of 15 centimeters.
About the same height as my previous life.
That should be acceptable.
I invested the remaining ten points however I liked.
Gender — Male
Strength: 13
Vitality: 11
Agility: 9
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 5
Charm: 5
Dexterity: 5
The moment I looked at the stats, only one thought came to mind.
This wasn’t enough.
Not even close.
Wasn’t this basically just a healthy normal person?
And from what little I understood, this world probably had things like Orcs and Demonfolk too.
A world filled with monsters like that—
Someone only slightly above average could die mysteriously at any moment.
Worse, because of the penalty preventing Mana and Aura usage, I probably couldn’t even hope to become stronger later through training.
Aside from ordinary physical exercise, the stats in front of me were likely my absolute limit.
“Hmmm…”
Then maybe—
Should I just live as an absurdly strong little eunuch?
At least my body could become as powerful as a tiger or bear that way.
…No.
That still felt wrong somehow.
Even dumping everything into stats probably wouldn’t solve every problem.
There were clear limits to brute force alone.
Reach differences mattered.
Fighting multiple armed opponents mattered too.
Even if I became as strong as a tiger, what would I do against an elephant or an ogre?
And who knew how lacking male hormones might affect the body?
I didn’t even know how much appearance mattered in that world.
“Haa… what am I supposed to do…”
A sigh escaped me naturally.
To gain one thing, I had to sacrifice two others.
…Wait.
Come to think of it—
What about women?
Women didn’t need that thing in the first place, right?
If this was purely about survival rather than male pride, there was no reason to completely ignore the possibility.
Maybe the stat difference between men and women wasn’t even that large.
And if I could secure the points that would’ve been spent down there—
Wouldn’t that theoretically make me much stronger?
“……”
…Maybe that would be better than becoming some absurdly overpowered little eunuch.
After finishing my thoughts, I reluctantly switched the selection window.