– Choose your class. I saw those words against a backdrop of absolute black. What an interesting dream... I should probably stop playing games at work. I tried to turn away from the sign and go back to a peaceful sleep, but it did not work. The inscription shifted along with my gaze. Fine, since they are asking so nicely, I might as well see what kind of classes are there. As soon as I thought it, a massive list of more than a hundred names unfurled before my eyes. After scrolling through it lazily, I chose the Rogue class. My favorite in every game. High damage, stealth, poisons, and the ability to set traps; I really liked the classic features of this class that remain unchanged in most games.
– Select your primary ability. Warning! Your choice determines your entire future development path. A new inscription appeared before me the moment I confirmed my class choice. This time the list was much shorter and consisted of only three positions.
Absolute Invisibility. For one minute, you cannot be detected by any means. One hour cooldown.
Incorporeality. For one minute, you cannot be harmed, but you cannot attack either. Allows passing through solid objects. One hour cooldown.
Grand Combinator. For one minute after activation, each subsequent attack on the same target is amplified by fifty percent. This applies to magic shields and other types of active defenses, including physical ones. One hour cooldown.
I chose the last one. I always loved dealing high damage, and with this skill, the power of each following strike will grow exponentially.
– Select additional skills. You have five skill points. Here I chose Stealth, Traps, Rapid Combo, Flicker, and True Sight. Flicker, when activated, gave a ten percent chance, plus another five for each point invested up to fifty percent, that damage against you would fail to land, basically a passive evasion boost. True Sight helped find hidden enemies and highlighted enemy weak spots. Rapid Combo allowed for three instant strikes and had a five-minute cooldown. It could be activated two more times, increasing the cooldown by half an hour and an hour respectively.
– Allocate attribute points. You have twenty-five attribute points. There were five attributes in total, and an impressive 1 stood next to all of them. I didn't think too much before I put fourteen points into Agility, seven into Strength, and four into Constitution. I left the other two attributes, Magic and Concentration, as they were.
– Character creation successfully completed. Have a good game. After the message disappeared, the world plunged into darkness, and I finally managed to sleep peacefully.
The first thing I saw was a fist flying straight at my face. Ducking to the side on reflex, I lost my balance and tumbled to the ground. Kicks immediately started raining down on me. At least they were not too strong. I tried to curl up and minimize the damage, but my body would not obey, as if I were dead drunk. Voices of people rang out above me, but the language was completely unfamiliar. After a bit, the beating stopped and I was flipped onto my back. A boy of about fourteen with East Asian features leaned over me. He said something incomprehensible again, then turned and walked away, accompanied by two other children, just younger.
I remained lying in my spot, quietly losing my mind. Where was I? And how? I distinctly remember going to bed in my own apartment. Maybe I was kidnapped? But who needs an ordinary small-town police officer whose only achievements are a third place in a local martial arts competition and the fact that he uses a work computer mostly for online games? Exactly, nobody. However, I can think about that later. Now I need to try to get up and look around.
The task turned out to be harder than I expected. Not only did my arms and legs refuse to listen, but my whole body ached. I only managed to stand up when I stopped trying to manually control my movements and just thought about what was needed. But by then I had been cursing and rolling around in the dust for almost a minute. As I finished off my tirade, I realized a few things. First, I am standing on my feet. Second, the voice is clearly not mine, squeaky, with a strong foreign accent. Third, the distance to the ground is as if I am standing deeply hunched over, though I am not.
With dawning dismay, I raised my hands to my face. My restrained frustrations rang out again. My worst fears were confirmed. The hands, and the whole body, did not belong to me. I got isekai'd. I have to say that I used to really like this genre of fiction, but I never imagined myself in the place of the main character.
'Oof, no use crying now, it's time to act. For starters, I should find some kind of shelter and try to tap into the memory of the body I inherited. After all, I am using the brain now, and at least some memories should remain.' Having already understood the principle, I tried to relax as much as possible, then mentally focused on the idea of safety and let instinct take the lead. I took a few steps and broke into a run. Making my way through narrow and dirty streets, I felt like an observer. I felt the pain from the bruises perfectly and could move all body parts easily, but let the muscle memory do its job without intervening. Soon I found myself near a dilapidated building. I scurried inside on autopilot, pushed aside one of the floorboards, and slid into the darkness.
Nothingness reigned for a few seconds. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed tiny rays of light scattered throughout the gloom, slipping through the cracks in the floor above.
A rolled-up mattress occupied the corner, and an unwashed wooden bowl inhabited by chopsticks sat on a makeshift table covered in a rag. While I looked around, the body acted on its own. I discovered a stash by the mattress. Inside, a few bills and change. Slowly working with the rhythm of the body, I turned out my pockets and tossed a handful of coins into the pile.
Setting objectives and letting muscle memory take over can work, but I'd much rather the choice of fine motor skills be usable consciously. I was getting tired of the controller sensitivity being too high and laggy, and I needed to recall the language. With that decided, I unfurled the thin mattress, settled down, and tried to comprehend my new reflexes and memory.
I drifted into a trance, inhale, hold, exhale five seconds. I decided to visualize; I stepped into a room that looked like a library. With every second the image saturated and became clearer in my mind. On the right, books stood in neat rows on shelves. The shelves on the left stood empty. Right in front of me, a whole pile of paper lay in chaos. I sighed, surveying the work to be done, and picked up the first loosely bound manuscript.
I woke to a headache and the dull pain of bruises. My trip into the "library" paid off, though; I have what I need now. My name is Kiyoshi. No last name. Location: A city in the Land of Fire. Before I moved in, this kid was a slum rat, a petty thief who got brutalized for poaching turf. No friends, no family. Perfect. I had already burned the rest of his personality to prevent a gestalt consciousness from emerging.
The world is a total enigma and kind of a haphazard mix of things. It looks like medieval Japan, but the tech is all wrong. They have mid-20th-century tech like radios, yet no central education. Education is a luxury for the elite or facilitated by the temples. Then there are the Shinobi. People call them assassins, but they are basically combat mages. Shooting fire and gusts of wind isn't "stealthy"; it's slap-yo-mama-in-the-face battle magic. Nonetheless, I want in on that.
I got up from the mattress, stretched, and rolled my stiff neck. And then...
– Interface setup complete. Would you like to view your status?
'So it wasn't a dream!'
Clicking on the window before my eyes, I confirmed its reality.
Name: Kiyoshi Level 1 Race: human Class: rogue
Primary Attributes
Strength: 8
Agility: 15
Constitution: 5
Magic: 1
Concentration: 1
Secondary Attributes
HP: 50
Mana: 10
Stamina: 80
Physical Damage: 23 + (weapon damage)
Yeah... Looks like I'm saying goodbye to the thought of becoming a mage, or rather a shinobi. On the other hand, I have received a truly unique chance at a new life, and something tells me it is going to be more interesting than the old one.
Before starting my path in this world, I need to decide what I want. If the system had not appeared, my goal probably would have been to become a shinobi, but since I have a simpler way of growing, which, by the way, is theoretically more promising (you know rogues hard-counter mages),then one of my goals will be max leveling my character. Well, and after I become so cool that I can twist any shinobi into a pretzel, then I can think about gaining political power and influence. Otherwise, they might declare me a dark lord and start sending liberation armies until they run out of steam. A bit grand, but go big or go home.
To start, I should get an idea of local life with my own eyes rather than through the lens of a traumatized, struggling child. Then I'll plan and start making proper cash. A couple of bills and a handful of coins is completely unserious. Besides, I need to test my newly acquired skills. Searching my nook, I found what I was looking for.
Poor Iron Knife Damage: 14–16
The knife is trash, but it's some kind of weapon. I don't intend to fight or even kill anyone, but self-defense is a must.
I left the basement in Stealth. This skill, at its minimum, spent only five units of stamina per minute, and stamina regenerated at exactly the speed of those five units, so I could maintain the skill indefinitely as long as I moved steady. I went along a path that was so familiar to the previous owner of the body that it almost existed as an imprint in his subconscious routine. Along the way, I ran into a small gang consisting of several guys in their teens, laughs echoing through the entire alley. They did not notice me, and I passed safely.
People packed the market square. An ideal place for a pickpocket, only a train platform at rush hour could be better to test stealth as well as the skills of my body, and to make some money. Pushing into the crowd, I began to look for my first sponsor.
"Bingo," I muttered.
A hefty man stood at a stall inspecting an equally hefty fish. I drifted closer and, with a deft movement that came naturally, slipped my hand into his pocket and felt a compact coin purse. With a quick motion, I grabbed the loot and immediately hid it in my sleeve. I exhaled.
However, then the man reached for his pocket and, not finding the purse there, let out a loud howl that made everyone around turn. Without ceasing to swear angrily, he turned his head, looking for the thief. I had to leave as quickly as possible, but the surrounding crowd played a cruel joke on me; I simply got stuck in it. As luck would have it, not a single candidate for the position of criminal existed nearby except me. Then the man's gaze paused on me and... moved on.
'Ha! The invisibility works.'
– Theft successful, you receive: exp, 2,500 ryo.
'Wow, I even get experience for it. Seems I'm going to be here for quite a bit. At least until I hit level two.'
However, it was wishful thinking; my sweet dreams crashed and burned. Diminishing returns sapped my experience gains with each theft, the progress bar budging less each time. If for the first I received about ten percent of the level, then for the second only three, and so on. After the tenth, experience stopped coming altogether. I still hung around the square for a while; I examined the people, how they behave, what they say, and even bought myself some local fruits. Strange looking, but very sweet and juicy. I noted five times I saw similar small thieves. I paid the closest attention to the level of those who fell into my field of vision. And, I must say, I never saw anyone above level nine; I just decided for myself that ten is the threshold for an ordinary person and as soon as I get eleventh, then I can be counted among those who are already beyond human capabilities.
"Hey, look who we have here," a remarkably nasty voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I turned; right behind me stood a thin guy with a forehead and chin entirely covered in red pimples. On either side of him were two others. One was rather short and stocky, and the second was a natural meathead.
I suppose, lost in thought, my feet carried me toward my home base, plus I turned off stealth. 'Aghh, what an idiot! Now I have to fight them, and they're all level four!'
"What do you want?" I inquired, feeling the knife in my pocket.
"He's asking!" the pimply one threw up his hands theatrically. "How much do you already owe us?! Come on, hand over the cash, and I promise I won't kick you too hard."
I heard a rustle behind my back; I glanced sideways and saw that two more slum wolves blocked my escape route. At that moment, I caught myself reaching for the pocket with the money.
'The body is acting up again. Did Kiyoshi really fear them that much?'
Anger began to take hold of me little by little, at these half-baked thugs, at the local authorities for letting these things happen, and at myself, who can't make the body given to me actually mine.
I probably would have just activated stealth and slipped past them. But now... Color drained from the world as I could hear my beating heart. In place of people, I saw silhouettes shimmering with red and yellow weak points. True Sight was now active. And then I activated combo three times in a row, targeting the red spots.
– You receive exp – You receive exp – You receive exp – Your level has increased! Current level 2
Three bodies fell slumped. I turned to the remaining two frozen in shock. Grinning with a smile worthy of a seasoned psycho, I moved toward them. They shuddered and took off. I snorted, then turned on stealth and moved to my dwelling. On the way, I dove into myself, trying to find at least some remorse, but there was none. I was now much more interested in the question of where to invest my five new points and what skill to get.
No, I had not turned into a heartless bastard. I just suddenly felt that specifically these lives did not hold much value for me. Something like farming mobs in a game. After all, life is now a game, and I liked it.
'Enough philosophizing. The basement is nearby. I need to upgrade my stats, choose a skill, and go to bed. I'm tired after all I've done today.'
I put three points out of five into Agility and two into Strength. For the skill point, I took Blink, which allowed me to instantly move ten meters through space. It could be activated two times in a row, after which there was a five-minute cooldown. I threw all the loot into the stash, had dinner with products bought at the market, and, undressing, fell into sleep almost instantly.