Those Scrubs Without Even a Ranking #1 Trophy

"Ha, fuck. Feels like I'm almost there."

I had no idea how many hours I'd been slamming my head against this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wall. I'd already burned through what felt like a truckload of extra challenge tickets… On paper, if everything went according to calculation, I should hit the score I wanted. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Luck just refused to cooperate.

"Deadline's today. This is genuinely fucking miserable…"

So I was going to lose to that bastard again. Just thinking about the assholes who'd mock me for placing second made my blood boil. Who the hell was that guy, that he could snatch first place with those absurd scores every single Deadly Battle?

"Ha. I finally found a tactic that could theoretically beat him. And I'm still not getting first because of bad luck?"

Truth was, taking first didn't come with any real reward. Most of the prizes were completely identical. The only difference was a trophy that did absolutely nothing — except it had a 1 on it instead of a 2.

…And the problem was, I wanted that thing so fucking badly.

"God, these units are all 4-Star and up. Why won't they just listen?"

Grinding my teeth, I kept challenging and re-challenging right up until the Deadly Battle deadline. Until the pattern I wanted hit the character I wanted at the timing I wanted. Until that character moved exactly the way I'd commanded.

Of course, that situation had happened before. The problem was that what I needed wasn't some middling score you could hit with just that. After setting it up, nearly every attack had to crit — only then would I even approach the target I was aiming for.

"Wait — wait. Did it proc?"

And after pouring everything into the Deadly Battle — no sleep, no food — the miracle finally arrived nearly ten hours in. A chain of critical hits like something out of a fever dream. From here on, there were no weird patterns left. As long as the game didn't actively screw me, I was fine.

"Dodge left here… Are you fucking kidding me?"

But this piece-of-shit disabled game didn't give a damn about the opportunity I'd clawed together with my bare hands. It immediately deployed the ultimate sabotage: a character simply refusing to obey my commands. Look, if their star rank were low, I'd understand… They were all 4-Star and above.

"Fine. It's not perfect, but this is still within projections. Even if I have to cut the damage a little here…"

I could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still hold. Looking at the first-place score I'd checked on the way in, a bit of wasted cost was acceptable. This was a relative competition — I didn't need to hit this tactic's absolute ceiling.

"If I move her here… Please, just listen this once."

Fortunately, the support character moved the way I wanted this time, dying in place of the main DPS who should have eaten that pattern and gone down. She'd already applied the last buff she needed to put out before dying, so she was effectively a spent unit — pure meat-shield play.

"Please…"

O almighty god of critical hits. Deliver me just this once. For fuck's sake, just save me…!

"Ha. Borderline."

The boss's HP was left hanging by the thinnest of threads. My elapsed time was still shorter than the first-place clear record, sure. But I'd already dumped every skill I had, so now I had to finish it off with basic attacks that barely scratched.

One last prayer. I wasn't asking for much. Just be faster than that first-place bastard. Even by 0.1 seconds — that was enough to take the top spot. How many vacation days had I burned for this? I was not going to end this as a loser.

The problem was that prayer was the only thing I had left.

"Please, please, please, please."

The instant HP hit zero, the clear cutscene played, and the surviving characters celebrated their victory. But kids, the fact that we killed that thing isn't what matters right now. We have to kill the first-place bastard.

"What's the score?"

The remaining time I'd glimpsed right before death was hard to read. It was almost identical to the first-place guy's clear time I'd calculated. If the Olympics had video review, this game had score review. If I'd cleared faster, my score would be higher.

"What's the goddamn score. This loading is taking forever."

I mashed the next button in a frenzy. At last, the score record I wanted revealed itself. I compared it digit by digit against the first-place score I'd practically memorized. Since the final second matched, the leading digits were all identical.

But the trailing digits were what mattered. Feeling like I was checking lottery numbers, I compared the score one digit at a time. Same number. Same number. Same number — until the first digit that differed.

I screamed, victory already locked in.

"Yes…!"

I was 320 points higher. In time, that was a 0.1-second gap — probably the difference of a single critical hit on a basic attack. Had that last prayer actually worked?

"Hell yeah! Bartender! This is the fucking peak!"

When I returned to the Deadly Battle lobby, a message floated up.

And since the Deadly Battle period was about to end, the score record locked in within minutes with no further ranking changes. In other words, first place was stamped and sealed. I came, I did it, I conquered!

At last, I was no longer a defeated idiot — I was a victorious idiot. Ha. I wanted nothing more than to watch the pathetic backpedaling from every asshole who'd mocked me…

"I'll just sleep a little first."

The moment the Deadly Battle ended and the tension snapped, the consciousness I'd been forcing upright started to blur. Right. I'd won, so first order of business was a deep, glorious sleep. The gloating could wait until I woke up.

Grinning to myself, I lay down on the bed — never once imagining that I was about to become a body that couldn't even gloat about ranking first.

"Have I finally lost it…?"

Days of nothing but gaming — was I hallucinating now? I'd been sleeping so well, and then I woke up… Where did the soft bed go? Why was I getting up off a hard slab of stone? And why was my voice so high? Was I coming down with something?

"Well, after gaming like that… Just a little more sleep."

Probably just leftover fatigue. If I slept a bit more, the cold might not go away, but at least the hallucination of my house turning into a fountain would vanish. Still half-asleep, I thought that and lay back down…

"…"

Only after sleeping until my head was completely clear did I realize this was no hallucination. And given that pinching my cheek hard enough to tear it still didn't wake me up, it didn't seem like a dream either…

"Ah, shit… My cheek hurts."

Alright. Let's sort this out. Until I fell asleep, I'd been playing Princess Fourmi. And as a result, I'd broken the ranking #1 record in a Deadly Battle for the first time. Then I'd been so exhausted I passed out, and when I woke up, I was at a fountain whose design looked vaguely familiar.

…Right. The Central Plaza in Princess Fourmi looked exactly like this. This place was so unreal that it made perfect sense I'd thought I was seeing things half-asleep the moment I woke up here.

"Ah — ahem. I thought my voice sounded weird. Of course."

The higher pitch, the unfamiliar sensation of this body — what was moving right now was not my original body. I brought my face to the water pooled in the fountain, and even through the blurry reflection, there was no room for doubt.

I had become Jasmine — a character from Princess Fourmi.

…Of all people.

Being stuck in a woman's body was already not ideal. But in this world, the only man who existed was the protagonist anyway, so I could concede that much. The real question was: why Jasmine, of all characters? They transmigrate me and don't even give me a bonus…

Princess Fourmi was a multi-character game where almost every unit had at least one niche you could exploit. And out of all of them, they'd stuck me in Jasmine — the one character widely judged to have virtually no use, bottom-of-the-barrel trash among trash?

"…At least the art wasn't lying."

Useless, but top-tier looks — a beautiful girl with a chest so large your eyes went there automatically. Jasmine was so widely agreed to be gorgeous that people joked her appearance alone balanced her performance. On top of that, the famous NSFW artist Siu had handled the commission, giving her a body so lewd it was hard to believe this was a game rated for fifteen-year-olds. The nickname Yasmin — Sex-min — made perfect sense. Just looking at her made you want to get some.

And even though she started extremely hostile, the way she gradually came to rely on the protagonist was a genuinely heart-fluttering story arc. She was the kind of succubus who drained a newbie's resources at least once before getting benched in storage — garbage performance and all.

…I'd fallen for it too.

Why this girl, of all people.

I wasn't asking for a character so strong that not having her meant ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you weren't even human. There were plenty of units with decent performance lying around. What, was I supposed to sell my body to the enemies to stop them?

I'd said it as a joke, but even that was impossible in this world. In this insane setting, across friend and foe alike, there was only one man: the protagonist. Who was I supposed to seduce? If that guy got obsessed with me and wasted his resources, he'd just die.

"Ha…"

Even while I was wallowing like this, there was no one around. This fountain was supposed to be noisy at all hours — the fact that it was quiet brought one specific timing to mind. Just in case, I checked the clothes I was wearing again, and the odds that this was that moment shot way up.

Jasmine belonged to the Queen's Royal Guard. The Royal Guard's default setting was maid uniforms while they protected the Queen, so she should have been wearing one. But at the tutorial, the Queen entrusts the protagonist to the Royal Guard and then vanishes without a trace. With the Queen missing and the nation in freefall, the Queen's Royal Guard would naturally be sealing off and controlling this area. Even with orders on the books, if the Queen was gone, finding the Queen came first — that was what a Queen's Royal Guard did.

…They were a pack of idiots, but they at least had that much common sense.

"Fuck. Look at this outfit."

In the end, they never find the Queen, and the Queen-less Queen's Royal Guard follows her final order and serves their new master — the protagonist. But for Jasmine, whose bond with the Queen ran deep and who had lived her whole life looking only at her, that conclusion was incomprehensible. She still helped the protagonist because it was the Queen's last command, but unlike her comrades, she wore a shabby outfit and openly treated him with hostility.

Right. That shabby outfit was what I was wearing right now… And the problem was that this "outfit" was an utterly ridiculous garment known as the virgin-killing sweater.

…You call this clothes?