Snap.
A large tree groaned and slowly tipped over, crashing to the ground with a resounding thud. It shattered into neat logs and scattered seeds. Leo sighed, bending down to pick them up one by one.
"Man, the early game is brutal without a Magnet Ring," he grumbled. "Manual looting is such a pain."
He swung his axe again to demolish the remaining stump. Once the area in front of his farmhouse was clear, Leo wiped the sweat from his brow with satisfaction. He pulled out his phone, navigated to the Crafting menu, and used the wood he'd just gathered to build his first Chest.
In this world, a single chest could store 36 different types of items, with a stack limit of 999 per slot. It was magic.
However, Leo couldn't help but complain about the cost. This chest, barely waist-high, required 50 pieces of wood. A fully grown tree plus its stump only yielded around twenty pieces. That meant crafting a single box required chopping down two whole trees.
Chopping a tree and its stump took 15 swings. Each swing consumed 2 Stamina. That meant crafting one chest burned 60 Stamina.
He currently had a max pool of 270. If he did nothing but chop wood, he'd pass out after making four boxes.
"But I have to make them," Leo reasoned. "The backpack is a joke. Twelve slots? Five are already taken by tools. If I don't store my junk, I can't loot anything."
He dumped the wood and tree seeds into the chest, keeping only his Hoe. Then, he turned to the freshly cleared patch of dirt. He tilled the soil, planted his single packet of Parsnip seeds—which magically covered the whole area—and watered them.
By the time he finished, the sun was high in the sky. It was noon, and his energy bar was dangerously low.
The plot was roughly equivalent to a 5x5 grid in the game. With his pathetic beginner stamina, this was his limit.
"Alright, that's enough manual labor. Time to explore the town and see what the Community Center looks like in 4K resolution."
He stashed everything but the Hoe. You never knew when you'd spot an "Artifact Spot"—those little wiggling worms in the dirt. Digging those up was crucial for finding artifacts, which several villagers required as unlock conditions.
"Let's go!"
Walking the path to town again, Leo felt none of the fear from his morning arrival. This was his turf now. He'd walked this digital path a thousand times.
"Ooh, a Leek."
Leo spotted the green stalk poking out of the grass and snatched it up.
"Free energy."
It wasn't much, but in the early game, every calorie counted.
He arrived at the familiar junction and instinctively walked toward a gap in the fence—a shortcut ingrained in his gamer DNA. He bypassed two houses and stopped in front of a trash can.
"Hello? Anyone home?"
He peered through the window first. The house was empty. Not just uninhabited, but unfinished—a clean shell without furniture.
Confirming the coast was clear, Leo flipped the trash can lid.
Empty. Clean enough to drink from.
"Right," Leo muttered. "No villagers means no trash. The game logic of 'respawning garbage' doesn't apply here. I guess I really shouldn't be rummaging through bins if there's no loot."
He checked his phone. There was definitely an unlock condition on the Social tab: Rummage through trash cans every day for a month.
"Who the hell requires that...?" Leo wondered, his hand already opening the next neighbor's bin out of sheer muscle memory.
He reached Pierre's General Store—or rather, the building that would be the store. Peering through the glass, he saw empty shelves and a vacant counter.
"This is bad," Leo frowned. "Once I harvest those Parsnips, I'm out of seeds. If there's no shop, am I stuck chopping weeds for Mixed Seeds like a caveman?"
He sighed and walked to the right of the store, looking up at the stone steps leading to the Mountain area. In the game, this was a two-second transition screen. Here, it was a literal hike up a hundred-meter incline.
Huff... huff...
"Holy crap... I made it."
Leo, a certified office drone whose only exercise was typing, collapsed at the top. He had practically crawled up the last few steps on all fours.
"This is weird," he panted. "Swinging an axe drains my 'Stamina Bar,' but I don't feel physically tired. Walking up stairs doesn't touch the bar, but it nearly gives me a heart attack. The systems are separate."
After catching his breath, he continued north.
Looped with vines and crumbling with age, the massive Community Center loomed before him. It was in even worse shape than his farmhouse. The roof had holes, and nature was reclaiming the stone walls.
Leo pushed the heavy double doors. They groaned but opened easily.
"Meow?"
Leo froze. "Did I just hear a cat?"
He stepped inside. The main hall was a wreck. Dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight piercing through the ruined roof. The floor was rotted in places, and drafts whistled through the cracks.
There was no cat.
But in the center of the room, lying on the dusty floor, was a Scroll.
In the game, this was the Golden Scroll written in Junimo. He would need to visit the Wizard in the Cindersap Forest to translate it, unlocking the "Bundles" questline. The alternative was selling his soul to JojaMart and paying cash to fix the town.
Leo was a completionist. He had never done a Joja run in his life.
"I definitely heard a meow," Leo whispered.
He walked toward the scroll and stopped. Next to it, clearly stamped in the thick layer of dust, were several paw prints. They trailed away toward a hole in the skirting board.
"Wait... was that the Orange Cat? Chen? But I haven't met the unlock conditions for her yet. How did she get in?"
Leo picked up the scroll. The symbols were gibberish to his eyes. He tossed it into his backpack. He'd deal with the Wizard once he cleared a path to the forest—likely a few days of chopping wood.
Pondering the mystery of the phantom cat, Leo turned and left the building. His mind was racing with possibilities. If Chen can appear here, does that mean I can go to Gensokyo? And if I go there, does my 'farmer immortality' still work?
As the heavy doors closed behind him, a small head with twitching black ears poked out from the hole in the wall.
A black cat with two tails blinked its large, intelligent eyes. Seeing that the scroll was gone, it let out a satisfied purr.
Lady Yukari told me to leave the letter, say hello to the landlord, and invite him to solve Gensokyo's Food Crisis. Mission accomplished! Time to play!
The cat darted out, ready to explore the mountain.
Suddenly, space itself tore open. A gap in reality, tied together with red ribbons and lined with creepy eyeballs, appeared in mid-air. It swallowed the yelping cat whole and vanished, leaving the Community Center silent once more.