Prologue
His days turned like a hamster on a wheel, the same routine repeating without variation. He had no sense that any of it was dull. He simply lived each familiar day in a familiar way.
A civil service post guaranteed him a steady income. He had never dated, and marriage held no particular appeal. There was no family he had to support, and not many friends either.
To anyone else it might have looked like a lonely life, but he was reasonably content with it. If anything, he counted himself lucky that nothing troublesome or exhausting ever came his way. His life was as still as a quiet lake—peaceful, and free of incident.
When work ended he returned to his apartment, settled dinner with a convenience-store meal, and now and then ordered delivery. On weekends he sprawled on the sofa and lost himself in a movie or a drama, read at the library, or took a walk through the park.
He didn't drink, and he didn't smoke. He did, however, play games.
Games were one of the few genuinely stimulating things in his life, and what he loved most were the ones about adventuring through unfamiliar worlds. Following a character's story and wandering a strange land was a real pleasure—even though, in reality, he had never once set foot outside the neighborhood where he lived.
He had recently cleared the game he'd been playing, seen it through to the ending, and today he started a new one. It was a game about freely exploring a fantasy world of swords, magic, other races, and monsters, and it was exactly his taste.
The moment he launched it, a bright BGM swelled and the character selection screen appeared. Not creation. Selection. There was no customization. All he could do was choose from characters that had already been decided, and there were five of them: warrior, rogue, archer, mage, and cleric.
He didn't hesitate. He chose the mage. Whenever he played a game like this, he always played a mage, because he liked area magic. Mowing down trash mobs with a wide-area spell gave him a small, pleasant thrill, and with graphics this good, he had high hopes for the game in more ways than one.
The one regrettable detail was that the mage was a woman.
He gazed at the character in silence. Her name was Ariel. Silver hair, red eyes, and pointed ears—an elf, by the look of her. She was small in both height and frame, young enough that even "pretty girl" felt like a slight stretch.
He hesitated. Cute, yes, but his taste ran a little more toward characters who looked dependable and gallant. Adventuring felt less uneasy that way. It was only a game, and appearance hardly mattered, but that was simply how he was wired.
Can't be helped.
He let out a small sigh and selected Ariel.
Name — Ariel
Class — Mage
Skills — Magic Missile / Shield
Stat Points:10
The stat points granted at the start came to ten, and he could invest them freely to decide where the character's strengths would lie. According to the explanation, putting points into Strength or Intelligence raised Attack, while putting them into Agility or Vitality raised Defense.
He decided to raise Attack. Early on, Attack was the advantageous choice; it would let him push the story straight through and level up along the way. Defense could be tended to later, at his leisure. She was a mage, so Strength was unnecessary, and he invested everything in Intelligence. Intelligence rose, and Attack rose with it, both by the same amount: ten.
He moved to create the character. He wanted to be adventuring through a fantasy world as soon as possible. That was when he saw the Intelligence value change.
Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty. It was climbing at a tremendous speed. Two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred. Attack rose at the very same rate. Two thousand, three thousand, four thousand. There was no end to it. It was absurd, and a little frightening.
Intelligence and Attack, which had kept on rising, finally settled into numbers like these.
Intelligence:9,999,999...
Attack:9,999,999...
He stared at the screen, feeling oddly hollow. A bug, by the look of it. A simple problem—restarting the game would fix it. He moved to force-quit, but at the last moment his hand stopped, and he looked at the screen again.
For some reason, he wanted to try starting the game just like this. It would probably get dull, but his goal had never been raising a character. It was the adventure. With attack power this overwhelming, wouldn't the adventure only be easier?
I'll go with this.
He seized the mouse with grim resolve and went to press the button that would finish character creation. That was when something else caught his eye.
Stat Points:10
"?"
He had already spent the stat points he'd been given. Everything had gone into Intelligence, and the number had changed to zero. So why was it ten again?
He decided not to think too hard about it. The game was bugged anyway. Whatever the cause, if stat points had been handed to him, all he had to do was raise the stats again. This time he put them all into Vitality. As Vitality climbed, Defense climbed with it—and then the same thing happened as before.
One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred. Vitality rose without end, and Defense rose right along with it. A little more used to it by now, he folded his arms and quietly watched the screen.
Vitality, Intelligence, Attack, and Defense had reached infinity. Strength and Agility, however, were still zero. He felt mildly dissatisfied. Now that it had come to this, a compulsion took hold of him: he wanted every number to match. As if the game had noticed, the stat points changed to ten once more.
Good.
Satisfied, he invested in Strength and Agility the same way. And so a character with infinite stats in every attribute was made.
Name — Ariel
Class — Mage
Skills — Magic Missile / Shield
He nodded, thoroughly pleased. A character with infinite stats across the board. Just how strong would she be? At this level, class hardly mattered. Even a cleric could have carved through everything alone.
Which raised a question. Was there really any need to play a mage? Should he switch to a warrior with a more gallant look? The thought occurred to him, but he shook his head. If he went back to the character selection screen, the bug might get fixed, and raising the stats all over again would be a nuisance besides.
I'll go with this.
Once again wearing a look of grim resolve, he moved the mouse and pressed the button to complete character creation.
Click.