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“Hmhmm… I see, so that’s the world setting here.” Kou muttered to himself while looking at a small window, which was replaying the game’s opening cinematic from the archives.

He began sifting through the information he gathered from the prologue.

Many eons ago, there was a large war between humans and demons, at the end of which humans reigned victorious and established a large empire governing the entire continent.

But eventually a shadow loomed over that powerful empire as well, threatening its authority. A revolution brewed amongst the people of the empire, and eventually they overthrew the emperor. Three decades passed since then.

Since the emperor was gone, the government structure across the entire continent fell apart, leading to an epoch where everyone wanted to be the next ruler.

The people who at first banded together for the revolution quickly grew at odds with each other, their personal goals differing. Constant warring plagued the world, with no ruler to govern over everyone.

Some people wanted to lead the people who had lost their way. Some people wanted to flaunt their power. Some people wanted to be the keepers of a new order. Some people wanted to satisfy their ambitions. Some people wanted to spread their own faith and beliefs.

But in the end they all believed they were the right choice to govern, so every day dozens of new countries were born, but at the same time dozens of countries fell. It was a fractured world.

Eventually many of those attempting to get power destroyed each other, and with no one left to war, the world saw a few years of respite. The players would drop into the game during those years of peace.

And that was the essence of the story.

Kou was sitting on a wall in his starting area, that run-down stone shrine or tomb inside a forest. He continued muttering to himself, voicing his thoughts about that story.

“So basically… doesn’t this kinda mean that overthrowing the emperor was a mistake all along?”

That conclusion took a bit of hindsight to reach, but he really felt like the world used to be far more peaceful back when the emperor was the only ruler. After that he began rubbing his temples as if restraining a headache, grumbling to himself.

There was one more thing he noticed from all of that.

The game was a skill-based MMO, which often meant a heavy emphasis on PvP, but the setting of the world made it clear that fights between guilds, something known as GvG, would also be a major highlight.

The government of the world was largely unstable.

The map also had some set areas delimited in it, as well as many others meant for guilds to take, which were still blank.

Considering how much the backstory highlighted small feudal lords warring against each other, there was no other possible explanation.

“So basically… they’re trying to make players form countries amongst themselves and try conquering each other.”

That was a rather complex mechanic, and even though Japanese players often showed aversion to fighting each other in ways that could potentially demean each other, Kou could already imagine there would be some major and exciting battles.

And… he was not opposed to it. All things considered, he already knew what he would aim for.

He would not proactively try to fight other players as much as he could, but he was quite enticed by the idea of having his own country, or at least becoming the lord of a castle.

That would require amassing strength and gathering allies.

And luckily enough, in an ironic twist, his inability to logout meant he could completely forget about the real world and just play as much as he wanted. Kou had been despairing at his fate not too long ago, but now that he had a firm goal in sight, his eyes were brimming with life.

But getting back to reality…

He had managed to recover from the triple whammy of not being able to logout, the fact he was not in the starting city, and that his character was a girl, but he had a new problem.

“So I know what I want to do… but exactly how do I start…”

Since he had nothing else to do, he was testing out his physical abilities by running and jumping from wall to wall on the ruins, while thinking of his future plans.

He had expected to spawn in a city, but instead he had been thrown into a forest where he could hardly tell one direction from another.

In cities he could always try talking to NPCs to figure out things, but he had no one like that here.

Unable to think of anything, he decided to check the official forums to gather some information, but that was merely an attempt to escape reality and did not help his situation at all.

Maybe if the sun was visible… But even that wish was denied, the forest too dense for the sun to shine through.

“…Is there even a way out of this?”

After a while of wondering what to do, Kou’s ears picked up a faint sound.

“Was that… a cry?”

Out of the blue, he heard a desperate voice in the distance.

But that made Kou grin very happily, regardless of the desperate nature of the voice.

“That doesn’t really matter… It’ll definitely be way better than just loitering around here without a clue on what to do.”

The voice sounded troubled, but Kou was rejoiced by it, as he jumped off the ruin’s roof and began running to the direction the voice came from.

«Skill Dash has gained 1 point (1/100)»

A message appeared on the edge of his view. At the same time his body accelerated noticeably, as the perspective of his view seemed to get pulled back a little.

His body felt light.

Even though many things had changed in his body, including the length of his limbs, his body moved exactly as he wished. And even if he moved awkwardly he felt like he could regain his balance more easily than he did in his real world body.

He did not know if that was thanks to the game’s systems assisting him, or some other cause.

«Skill Dash has gained 1 point (2/100)»

Now he felt like the trees around him were passing by faster, giving him an exhilarating feeling of speed which he relished.

“Found it!”

Eventually he saw a middle-aged man being attacked by a monster under the shade of a tree. Kou’s character seemed to have good hearing, as he could hear the man’s screams clearly.

“S̲h̲i̲t̲, this isn’t what I…?!”

The man continued to curse. He had probably accidentally wandered into the territory of some wild and aggressive animal.

The monster chasing him, an enormous grizzly bear and likely three times the size of Kou, was not too far behind. The man had already fallen on his rear and desperately tried to push himself further away from the monster.

Even in such a dire situation the man continued to tightly hold onto a basket filled with some type of plants, they seemed to be indispensable to him, for one reason or another.

Soon after the bear swung its arm at the man.

Seeing the bear’s terrible claws approaching, the man sensed his impending doom and averted his face, tightly closing his eyes…

“It’s still too soon to give uppp!!”

Without slowing down at all, Kou leaped into the air, twisting his body and landing a kick that carried all his momentum into the bear’s leg.

That was enough to slightly alter its movement, the claws merely tearing through the ground next to the man.

“Are you alright?!”
“Ye…ah… Wait, you’re a girl?!”

The man exclaims in shock after looking up at his savior, which also reminds Kou that his character is a girl now.

But this was not the time to entertain such idle thoughts. Kou glared at the monster in front of him and used the Examine command, which was forcibly given to all players.

The enemy’s name was Grizzly Bear, just like its appearance suggested.

Using Examine also made the name float above the monster’s head, and it had a stark red color. Kou assumed that that was an indicator that the enemy was much stronger than he was at that moment.

That would make anyone despair in any MMORPG with levels, but…

“…I can probably handle this.”
“S-stop… just forget about me and run!”
“You say that but I don’t even know where I should go… I don’t want to lose the only source of information I’ve gotten!”

The kick earlier made the bear shift focus to Kou, so now it carefully circled around him.

Kou kept his eyes glued to the bear as he raised a hand and uttered a short chant.

“Shadow Light-Weapon..!”

As soon as Kou finished, a pitch black dagger appeared in mid-air, which he caught before it fell.

That was the Skill he wanted to learn after getting 30 points into Shadow Magic. The ability to condensate shadows into a light-weight weapon.

There was another reason why he was so intent in getting that ability too, the attack power of weapons made by it scaled with the caster’s Magic stat.

He took the dagger and practiced various ways to hold it, giving it swings too, and eventually settled on a backhand grip.

At the same time, the Grizzly Bear was done circling around cautiously, and charged ahead like a bullet toward Kou.

“…It’s fast.”

Bears in real life could run at speeds of around 60 km/h, and considering the size of the monster, getting hit by it would feel like a hit from a small car.

That was likely too much damage for a player with starting stats.

“But… compared to the Master… this is nothing!!”

The monster raised its front leg, which was thick like a log, imparting onto it a lot of momentum.

But Kou was not intimidated, dashing ahead into the bear before it could swing its arm.

The dagger in his hand easily passed through fur and dug itself into the bear’s throat, only transferring a small amount of resistance to Kou’s hand.

“…Haaaahhhhhhhh!!”

He continued moving forward, using all the weight available in the body of a small girl, pushing the dagger to slice down from the bear’s throat to its stomach in one straight line.

His entire body rotated once through that attack, and then he landed, his feet drawing wide arcs on the ground as he stabilized himself and quickly turned to look at the bear again.

“Grr…gh…kh..?”

A visual effect highlighting the damaged area illuminated the streak along the bear’s body. The bear looked down at it in a daze, letting out a stifled groan.

It was a Critical hit.

No matter what the bear did now, that wound was clearly lethal, so irrelevant of how much HP it had left, it collapsed and died, its body quickly turning to particles of light.

Only those light particles remained whenever a unit was defeated.

“Phew… I guess that’s that then. Now how’s that guy doing?”

Kou turned around to the man, who he assumed was a merchant NPC. He was looking at Kou, his mouth open wide.

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Dash:
A Passive Skill that activates whenever a player is running at full speed, the system aiding with moving faster. It only works when weapons are sheathed.