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"Speech"
'Thoughts'
『System』
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The day so far had been very uneventful, but it had been very productive at least. After having bought himself a new set of clothes, Katsuo had also managed to find himself a nice yet relatively cheap hotel for him to stay at for the time being.
Even though it was relatively cheap in comparison to the average amount of that hotel rooms cost each night, he definitely needed to find a way to get money since the amount the system gave him wasn't going to last forever. Especially since he needed to buy other things.
Speaking of which, he had realised that despite his situation of essentially becoming a video game character, he still needed basic needs such as food to survive. He hadn't eaten anything yet and was honestly starving at this point, so he went out to find something to eat.
Katsuo could now be seen walking through the streets, looking around to see just what places he could get a bite to eat. His clothing now consisting of a pair of sleek black pants with black running shoes, along with wearing a new white t-shirt with an open black leather long-sleeved jacket with silver outlines over the top.
"Should I just eat some ramen or something?" Katsuo thought to himself as he stopped in front of what looked to be a simple and peaceful ramen restaurant. He wasn't craving anything fancy, he never really was into fancy food. Plus, he needed to watch his spending. "Ramen? Such a simple and straight forward name..."
Katsuo couldn't help but sweatdrop when he saw the words on the yellow overhead over the restaurant door, all it read was 'Ramen'. If that wasn't sign enough that the restaurant was a place to eat ramen, then he wasn't sure what else it would be.
"Well, let's go." Katsuo shrugged before walking in, he could already see quite a number of people inside eating, so the place must be pretty popular with how many people he could see. That number only increased once he went inside. "Oh, damn."
Katsuo walked on over towards what looked to be a white slot machine, he wasn't surprised though, he was used to seeing these things. They had things similar in cafeterias in his old school, you would put money in and choose what you wanted to eat, then it'd dispense a chip, or ticket for you to show so you can collect your food.
"Let's see... Pork Ramen, sounds good to me." Katsuo smiled as he placed in the coins into the machine, it was only seven-hundred yen too. Once he slotted the money, he pressed the button as a small white chip dropped down into the tray. 'Really reminds me of school, to think a new world would be so similar.'
Katsuo chuckled a bit as he looked at the small chip in his hand.
"Excuse me."
"Oh, sorry."
Katsuo took notice of a blonde girl walk in beside him, seemingly waiting for him to finish up. He gave a quick apology, to which the girl nodded at him, before making his way over towards the eating area, taking a seat at one of the empty spaces before handing the chip over towards the chefs.
"A bowl of pork ramen, won't take long!" The chef nodded at the order as Katsuo gave a small smile and nodded back.
'Maybe I should get a phone, it would be pretty important...' A phone was pretty much a complete necessity in the modern world, though it could be pretty expensive depending on the phone you bought. 'There are definitely places that give free internet, and I can just charge the phone in my room. I do need to learn some stuff about this new world, and the internet is a perfect place for it...'
While this world seemed to just be a parallel version of his old world, there had to be at least some differences. Plus, just having a phone in general would be good for him in the long-run. Yeah, he should probably go and buy one later today or tomorrow.
"Mm?" Katsuo blinked when someone took a seat beside him. Turning his head slightly, he saw that it was the blonde girl from before. She had just handed over her own order to the chef. "I didn't get to give a proper apology. Sorry about for, I was a bit lost in my thoughts."
The blonde girl turned her head to him as soon as she heard him speak, allowing him to get a proper look at the girl. She was quite the beauty, though she had a bit of a cold look to her. She had long blonde hair along with a pair of red eyes.
"It's fine." The girl responded in a rather strong and firm tone, her expression not at all changing. Katsuo wasn't put off by her though, if anything, he was rather amused. He had met a number of weird people before. "Koizumi."
"Hm? Ah, Tenomaki Katsuo. A pleasure to meet you."
"Here's your order!" The chef soon came back with Katsuo's food, placing his bowl of ramen down in front of him. Katsuo gave the chef a thankful nod before looking down at the bowel, and inside he could see a beautiful sea of noodles and broth, along with pieces of cooked pork and vegetables.
"Itadakimasu." Katsuo quickly gave his words before breaking apart a pair of chopsticks and dug into his bowl, and literally immediately, he was amazed by the flavour of the ramen. 'Damn, this is some good stuff! No wonder this restaurant seems to be so popular!'
"Here's your order, miss! A medium-hot pork double with extra vegetables garlic oil." The chef soon came back with another bowl that he placed in front of Koizumi, Katsuo stopping his eating for a second upon seeing the sheer size of the ramen bowl.
'Holy shit!' Katsuo felt his face twitch a bit when he saw the literal mountain of sprouts and pork beside him. He glanced at the girl who ordered it, and what he saw was her tying her hair up with a red ribbon. 'Her expression, why does it look like she's about to get into a fight with that ramen bowl?'
He honestly wasn't that far off, he soon became a witness of a great ramen murder as the girl began digging in and eating the ramen as if she was a damn vacuum! The sheer amount of food going in her mouth and down to her stomach was insane!
'This girl really likes her ramen...'
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After finishing up with his meal, Katsuo gave his thanks to the chef before leaving the restaurant. He'd definitely have to pay a visit to the place again in the near future, the ramen was pretty cheap and was really good to boot. It also helped that ramen was one of his all-time favourite foods.
Now, Katsuo was making his way towards the shops to see if there was a place that he could get his hands on a new phone. He obviously didn't end up having his old phone from back home travel across the dimensional barriers with him, so he needed a new one.
"Hm?" Katsuo stopped walking just as he was about to walk past an alleyway. He blinked when he saw someone appear from an intersection within the alleyway, a woman in her late twenties or so, seemingly out of breath. He narrowed his eyes at this, was she running from something. "Are you oka-!"
Katsuo widened his eyes when the woman seemed to reach out to him, but was suddenly silenced when a strange black appendage suddenly reached out and grabbed her by the neck. Before the woman could even make a sound, she was pulled back into where she came.
"The shit...?!"
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『New Quest Available - A Taste of the Supernatural』
Objective: Destroy the stray devil that has been luring and killing innocents in the alleyways of Tokyo
Rewards:
● 12,000 Currency
● 1,000 EXP
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"An extermination quest, huh? I've been wanting to test out these new powers." Katsuo muttered to himself before rushing into the alleyway. He quickly turned the corner once he reached the intersection, he narrowed his eyes though when he heard the sound of muffled screaming.
Katsuo continued running deeper into the alley before coming to a stop once he reached what appeared to be a relatively large open space that was surrounded by the cement walls of the surrounding skyscrapers, it was somewhat dark as well as there some shaded areas here.
'The fuck is that?' Katsuo twitched a bit when he saw what looked to be a massive spider-like creature, though if you looked closely, you could see that the creature had the upper body of a human atop of its black arachnid bottom. 'Fuck, that's gross. Thank god for Gamer's Mind...'
Katsuo scoffed a bit in disgusts when he saw that the creature was feasting on a dead corpse, no doubt the fresh corpse of that woman he had seen just before. Soon enough, the creature seemed to notice his presence as it stopped eating and turned to face him.
He really couldn't help but spit, especially when he could see the flesh bits and blood running down the mouth of the human-half of the creature. While the creature had a arachnid bottom, the top was a shirtless woman with long black hair and large sharp teeth.
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『Stray Devil - Lizvrera』
● Level: 10
● Race: Devil (Reincarnated)
● Health Points: 420/420
● Mana Points: 400/400
Attributes:
● Strength -『45<+0>』
● Agility -『50 <+0>』
● Endurance -『32 <+0>』
● Intellect -『20 <+0>』
● Luck -『5 <+0>』
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'This is a stray devil? Reincarnated? That sounds awfully familiar, didn't Yuji tell me something about something similar when he was telling me about his favourite anime?' Katsuo couldn't help but recall upon seeing the information displayed. 'Whatever, thought for another time. She ain't that powerful at least.'
Despite this creature being much larger, higher level, and apparently an actual devil, a reincarnated one that is, whatever that meant. Katsuo still had much higher stats compared to her, so she shouldn't be that much of a problem for him to deal with.
"Oh~, fresh new meat? Such a handsome one too~!" The stray devil seemed to gain a rather disgusting expression of ecstasy as she scanned Katsuo up and down, sending a small shiver down his damn spine. "I'm sure you'll taste quite amazing~!"
"..." Katsuo didn't respond, instead opting to narrow his eyes as he got into a prepared stance. He then quickly began rushing towards the enemy, making sure to keep his eyes trained on the devil's every move. 'I don't know what this devil has up their sleeve, I better stay cautious...'
Just as he was thinking that, the stray suddenly began firing out webs from her mouth in an attempt to hit him. Katsuo easily dodged them though, not slowing down his speed as he quickly approached where the stray devil was standing.
Katsuo glanced back to see that the webs were slowly melting through the concrete that they landed. 'Corrosive webs?'
"Wh-What?! How are you so fast?!" The stray exclaimed in shock as the seemingly weak human displayed agility far beyond anything a normal human should be capable of. "You're an exorcist or a magician, there's no other explanation!"
『-24』
Katsuo continued to ignore the stray as he grabbed one of her legs before swing her to the side, his strength easily allowing him to launch her into the side of the cement wall a few meters away, doing a small bit of damage from the collision. He quickly ran after her though, he wasn't going to give her any chances of fighting back.
"D-Damn you!" The stray quickly recovered before leaping over him, landing behind him just as he arrived in the area she had crashed into. He didn't panic though as he quickly kicked off of the building, giving him a boost of speed as he quickly arrived where the stray landed. "Wha-AAAAHHHhhhh~!"
The stray wasn't even able to react before Katsuo landed a powerful punch directly into the front of the spider-half of the stray, causing her to screech in utter agony. The force behind his punch being so great that it sent the massive stray flying and crashing into the opposite wall.
『-312』
'That's how much a single full-force punch did?!' Katsuo surprised even himself, and while he knew that he'd probably do quite a lot of damage considering the strength difference between them, he wasn't expecting it to be so much. 'How much damage do my fist do on average? I wonder...'
"H-Hold on... we can talk about this!" The stray seemed to start begging instantly once she realised the difference between them. After that single hit, she already looked worse for wears as she struggled to even stand back up, blood even coming out from her mouth as a few of her legs seemed to have been broken from the crash. She was on her last legs, no pun intended.
"Sorry, no can do." Katsuo scoffed before leaping towards her and spinning in the air before sending a punch down towards the stray, his punch landing straight into her human-half's stomach. Once his fist made contact, she reeled back in agony as she threw up a mouthful of blood.
『-308』
Katsuo landed behind her as he stood back up calmly before turning, her saw her body flip over before crashing to the ground, completely limp as her human eyes became blank and her mouth was left wide open. Blood running down from the corners of her mouth.
If this was his normal self and he didn't have Gamer's Mind, he'd definitely throw up merely by the sight of everything that was around him. Just the sight of this woman, and not to mention the corpse of that woman from before. Shaking his head, Katsuo went to his thoughts to distract himself.
'So, I do around three hundred damage for each full-force punch? So, does that mean my damage output is around three times whatever my strength value is? That might be the case...'
.
『Quest Completed - A Taste of the Supernatural』
Objective: Destroy the stray devil that has been luring and killing innocents in the alleyways of Tokyo
Rewards:
● 12,000 Currency
● 1,000 EXP
.
『You killed Stray Devil - Lizvrera』
『Earned 28,200 EXP』
『Leveled Up - 2』
『Leveled Up - 3』
『Leveled Up - 4』
『...』
『...』
『Leveled Up - 9』
"Damn, eight whole levels just from killing this stray?" Katsuo was very much pleased to see just how much experienced he gained. This fight wasn't that hard at all either, and it was all thanks to his new powers. "A whole lot of experience, five damn times..."
Katsuo did recall that he now gained five times experience from battles, so that was probably the big reason as to why he had gained so much experience from this one fight. The stray was level ten, and just from defeating it, he had almost jumped all the way up to the same level.
On top of that too, the quest had given him quite a good bit of money as well. If he kept getting these quests, and as long as he could complete them, then that pretty solved his money problem. This quest proved to be pretty easy, and he had gotten not only levels, but one point two million yen as well.
Moving on though, he had some attribute points he wanted to allocate. After gaining those levels, he was given a total of forty attribute points for him to distribute. He was good in the physical strength department, so he decided to allocate most of the points into Intellect and Luck.
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Attributes:
● Strength -『104 <+0>』
● Agility -『104 <+0>』
● Endurance -『104 <+0>』
● Intellect -『20 <+0>』
● Luck -『20 <+0>』
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"Now, what to do with this body..." Katsuo closed down his menu before turning his attention towards the corpse of the stray devil. A frown present on his face as he looked at the dead body. "I have no way of getting rid of it, should I just leave it? There's no way I can carry it out without being seen, no fucking way...'
Katsuo then looked towards the dead body of the woman that was being eaten, he grimaced when he noticed that that half of her head had been chewed off. This woman really didn't deserve such a death, she was innocent as far as he knew.
"Wait, system. Can I put bodies into my inventory?" While it may seem rather disrespectful, he really didn't just want to leave these dead bodies in this alleyway for some poor civilian to stumble upon them. 'Since they're not alive, it should be okay, right?'
『As long as the bodies are no longer among the living and/or re-animated』
"Okay, good! I'll give this woman a proper burial later..." Katsuo sighed as he gave a silent prayer to the dead woman. "About this stray devil though...I'll think of something."