Forced First Step
In a small mountain village where ordinary people—Mortals—lived clustered together, an untimely uproar was tearing through the quiet.
A tiny girl who looked, no matter how you squinted, like nothing more than a little kid was thrashing so violently that five or six grown men couldn't hold her down. Instead they were being dragged along by her strength as she screamed and raved like something possessed.
"This fucking piece-of-shit game! Goddamn broken-ass game!!! Fucking trash game!!!! AAAAAARGH!!!!"
Nickname:Yu Hee
Innate Ability:Status Window (Merchant State Window)
Realm:Mortal (10)— Limit Breakthrough Required!
Body:12— Realm Breakthrough Required!
Mind:10— Realm Breakthrough Required!
Resistance:10— Realm Breakthrough Required!
Remaining Stat Points:10
Friend-or-foe identification disabled. Body +20%. Mind −50%.
"You piece-of-shit game, you fucking—! AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!"
Friend-or-foe identification disabled. Body +50%. Mind −100%.
"Why?! Why the fuck!!!!! Does a status window have to pop up even HERE, of all places—AAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!"
Status Abnormality — Maximum Stack!
Friend-or-foe identification disabled. Body +100%. Mind −200%.
Character control has become impossible.
Ding-dong, ding-dong—the status window messages kept chiming up in front of her face like they were mocking her, and the little girl spewing curses and howls at the top of her lungs—Yu Hee, the only daughter of the Yu family, known around the village as Hee-a—felt the heat climb all the way to the crown of her skull until her whole body registered it.
Blood had already been pouring from her nose from the pressure building in her head. Now her eyes were bloodshot and streaming red as well, and to make matters worse, blood was running from her ears and mouth too. The villagers, desperate to calm the rampaging Yu Hee, brought out the low-grade talismans they had carefully stored away—gifts from cultivators—and the moment those charms appeared, Yu Hee's pupils rolled clean over in her head.
It had been meant as a kindness for a village talent who possessed spiritual roots and the makings of a cultivator. But Yu Hee had, out of nowhere, awakened an innate ability called the Status Window, and that awakening had twisted her spiritual roots so thoroughly that the path of cultivation had been shoved impossibly far out of reach. Her body began to move on its own.
You have killed an NPC for the first time!
The Alignment Window has been unlocked.
The closer your alignment drifts toward Good, the more corrections corresponding to the Righteous Path you will receive.
The closer your alignment drifts toward Evil, the more corrections corresponding to the Demonic Path you will receive.
You have won a battle without controlling your character!
Auto-Battle has been unlocked.
During Auto-Battle, victory or defeat is determined probabilistically in proportion to your realm and stats.
And so a little girl carrying memories of a past life from another dimension awakened to her innate ability the way one might awaken a talent—and then went completely berserk. The tiny village became a sea of blood. At the cost of Mortal blood and Mortal lives, the girl was forced to take the first step toward immortality she had wanted all along.