Kaede—now Maple—looked around, taking in the sights of the game's first town. She
was standing in a square with a fountain and several benches. The square was
connected to the main road, which was paved with stone and flanked by brick
buildings. There were players walking all around. The sky above was a brilliant, clear
blue, and the sunlight made the water in the fountain sparkle.
"Where am I…? Menu time!"
There was a hum, and a transparent blue panel appeared in the air in front of her.
Maple
Lv1 HP 40/40 MP 12/12
[STR 0 +9 ] [VIT 100 +28 ]
[AGI 0] [DEX 0]
[INT 0]
Equipment
Head [None] Body [None]
R. Hand [Starter Short Sword] L. Hand [Starter Great Shield]
Legs [None] Feet [None]
Accessories [None]
[None]
[None]
Skills
None
"Hmm… VIT is Vitality, right? I'm pretty sure that's defense. Have I messed up already?"
Maple hadn't played a lot of games, but it didn't take much imagination to realize that
a bunch of zeros in her stats was bad.
Looking back at her life in general, she couldn't really remember any positive zeros.
She went through her skills one by one. Thanks to her weapon, her Strength wasn't
actually zero, but she had no Intelligence, Agility, or Dexterity.
"Ah-ha-ha… that isn't good. What now? Risa isn't here to help me…"
She thought about it for several minutes, then decided she would at least try fighting
a monster. If that didn't work out, she could always start over.
"Okay, time to leave town!"
Maple began walking toward the town exit.
Everyone else is moving… really fast, she thought.
When she'd been standing still, she hadn't realized how big an impact AGI: 0 had.
But she didn't let it get her down. She kept going until she reached the field outside.
Time for her first battle.
The town's outskirts weren't as crowded as the square, but there were still people
around. Fighting here would mean someone was bound to see what Maple was up to.
"If this goes badly, I'd rather not have an audience… Let's walk a little farther."
Maple kept trudging along until she was deep in a nearby forest. There was no sign of
anyone else in the area.
"This looks as good a place as any other… All right, monsters! Come at me!"
It wasn't clear if it was specifically because of her invitation, but a white rabbit with
some sharp horns came running out of the grass. It charged her at fairly high velocity.
With no speed boosts at all, could she dodge the bunny's attack? Absolutely not.
"Hey! Whoops, sorry!"
Even Maple wasn't sure what she was apologizing for. She hastily tried to raise her
great shield but didn't quite make it in time, and the charging bunny nailed her right
in the stomach.
"Oof! Wait… that didn't hurt!"
The bunny's attack should have scored a critical hit, but instead, it did no damage at
all. Confused, it backed away.
"Wow! This is great! It didn't hurt at all! I guess that's what VIT: 128 can do for you!
Heh-heh-heh. Well, Mr. Bunny? How do you like my abs?"
Maple flexed her torso with a flourish, though she didn't have much of a six-pack to
show off. It was a little on the soft side, even.
The bunny seemed to take her exposed belly as a taunt, or maybe it was programmed
to only do one thing—either way, it charged her again.
Maple weathered the hit with her body alone, not even raising her shield.
The bunny charged again and again while Maple simply stood there chuckling.
Occasionally, she ran after it, goofing around. She even tried to pet it.
If anyone had seen this happening, they would've shared it on the forums immediately.
Playing tag with a monster was odd enough, but the sight of Maple laughing with her
hands on her hips as a bunny relentlessly lunged at her—that was post-worthy.
Their battle—if it could be called that—went on for a full hour. Maple was laughing
happily the whole time, having too much fun to notice how much time had passed.
"Come on—you can do better!"
But as she taunted the bunny again, she heard a voice in her mind.
"Skill: Absolute Defense acquired."
"Hmm? What's this?… Give me a second, Mr. Bunny." Entirely unconcerned by the
charging monster, Maple started checking out her new skill.
Skill: Absolute Defense
Doubles the user's VIT. Raising STR, AGI, or INT requires 3x more points.
Condition
Be attacked for one hour without taking damage or doing any damage with spells or
weapons.
"Uh… seems like my Vitality is two hundred and fifty-six now. Also, this skill sounds
amazing! And here I was, just playing with a bunny."
Maple thought this skill was easy to acquire, but an ordinary great shielder wouldn't
have enough defense. Figuring it would cause problems later, virtually nobody put all
their starting points into Vitality. And even if they did, it was unlikely that they would
want to spend over an hour messing around with a bunny.
In other words, it was a nigh miraculous series of decisions that had granted her this
skill. As a result, Maple was the only player who had it.
But Maple herself remained cheerily oblivious to this fact.
"Okay, thanks for waiting… Mr. Bunny?"
"Squeak…"
Each time the bunny charged, the impact knocked it back to the ground, causing
damage. Over its head, there was an HP bar…
…and it had just gone from red… to nothing.
The sound of something shattering rang out right before the rabbit vanished without
a trace in a cloud of light particles. It didn't even leave an item behind.
"Mr. Bunnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"
"You are now level two."
* * *
"Mr. Bunnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"
Maple's wail echoed through the quiet forest.
"Awww… why did you have to die? I wasn't even trying to kill you…"
Maple lamented the bunny's demise for a while, but eventually, she recovered enough
to check out the results of her level-up.
"Oh! I got five more points to spend on stats!"
With these points, she could say good-bye to that row of zeros.
"Hmm… but raising anything besides Vitality now seems like a waste."
Once spent, there was no getting these points back. Maple had to make them count.
"Okay! My mind's made up! Vitality it is!"
Maple put all five points into VIT, then set off without a second thought to find another
monster.
Given that monsters found deeper in the forest were both stronger and more
numerous, it was not surprising that Maple didn't have long before she encountered
another one.
"Ewww… so gross…"
A giant centipede had wrapped itself around her ankle. Surely, there was no one alive
who would describe that as anything but gross.
Maple drew the short sword from her hip and stabbed at the monster's body. The
centipede was poisonous and injected venom with each bite, but since every attack had
failed to penetrate Maple's skin, it had been unable to inflict any status effects on her.
Very much unlike the bunny, the centipede was not cute at all. Maple had no interest
in goofing around with this monster.
She had no qualms about defeating it.
Sadly, her DPS was so low, she had to stab it a full ten times before it died.
"Seems like I didn't level up this time…"
Maple considered turning back. She wasn't the type to lose herself in the joys of
grinding, so her main takeaway was that fighting centipedes took an excruciatingly
long time. She wondered if she should try looking for some weaker monsters.
Unfortunately, Maple had already ventured too far into the woods, unknowingly
stumbling into the area where the strongest monsters lived.
And in a stroke of terrible luck—one of these monsters had just found her.
A Giant Bee, wings abuzz, hurtled right at Maple.
"Augh! Don't!" she yelled, raising her great shield in an attempt to ward off the bee's
terrifyingly large stinger.
But with AGI: 0, she was no match for the Giant Bee's speed.
Before she knew it, the bee was on her back, stabbing at her neck—at least that's what
she thought was happening. The flying monster was certainly attacking her, but it was
no match for her defense. Maple took no damage!
The Giant Bee kept trying to sting her anyway.
"Ah-ha-ha! That tickles!"
Maple had recovered from her initial fright and had quickly regained her usual good
cheer.
After several more unsuccessful attempts, the bee must have decided stinging was
pointless. Instead, it tried a different tactic—one that involved spraying venom.
"Hngg…?!"
It didn't hurt much, but Maple definitely felt a mild burn, almost like getting in the bath
with a sunburn.
She checked her status screen and saw that her HP had only gone down by one.
Apparently, this poison was a type of damage Maple couldn't completely nullify. If she
was poisoned like this another thirty-nine times, she would die.
"... Time for a strategic retreat!"
Maple turned and began running away. But the discrepancy in their Agility stats made
this impossible.
The Giant Bee kept spitting out poison, and Maple failed to dodge any of it.
"Agh…"
Maple was now at half health.
"Skill: Poison Resist (S) acquired."
As soon as she heard those words, Maple stopped taking damage. She would normally
have been delighted—but not this time. She was too preoccupied with her mild
annoyance that this Giant Bee had actually succeeded in hurting her. This was the very
first time she took any damage!
"I'm done for…," she lamented as she collapsed on the ground, making a show of feebly
crawling away.
She was acting. Maybe the bee believed her performance, maybe it was just a
coincidence—either way, the bee reacted just as Maple had hoped.
It started really laying on the venom, like it had her on the ropes. As Maple continued
feigning her deteriorating condition, the bee seemed ready to finish her off with one
final spray.
"Skill: Poison Resist (S) has evolved to Poison Resist (M)."
Maple grinned. This had been her goal. A flawless triumph over the only weakness she
had discovered thus far.
Maple stopped moving at all, playing dead. Seeing that she was no longer struggling,
the bee began charging a powerful attack. It moved closer to her face, ready to feed.
"Heh-heh! Gotcha!" Maple cried. She flipped over, sword in hand, and stabbed the bee
right in its open mouth. The soft flesh within its maw offered no resistance as her
blade popped out the back of the monster's head.
Maple twisted her sword, gouging right and left. The HP bar above the bee's head
began slowly shrinking.
The bee frantically stabbed at her with its stinger, but this proved futile.
After a few final shivers, the Giant Bee turned into motes of light.
A silver ring appeared in the space the bee had previously occupied and fell to the
ground.
"Heh-heh-heh… I win!"
"Skill: Giant Killing acquired. You are now level eight."
Maple picked up the ring and decided to investigate it alongside her new skills.
Forest Queen Bee Ring [Rare]
[VIT +6]
Autoheal: 10% of Max HP every ten minutes.
"Ohhhh! This is great! HP recovery! And it's rare? How lucky!"
Considering how Maple still had the MP of a brand-new character and hadn't yet
learned any spells, a recovery item was an enormous boon. It also boosted her Vitality
by six points, which was a nice bonus. And since she had the Absolute Defense skill,
that became a twelve-point boost.
She took off one of the gloves she'd started with and slipped the ring on. The gloves
were just cosmetic items that didn't enhance any stats, so she put it back on over the
ring.
"Risa's note did say that if I got any rare items or skills, I should keep them secret."
The main concern was Player Killers, but of course, it would be very difficult for
anyone to kill Maple now.
"What about these skills…?"
Poison Resist (M)
Nullifies strong poison.
Condition
Sustain strong poison attacks forty times.
"Huh… it didn't seem that strong. But maybe my VIT was reducing the poison damage…"
Her hunch was correct. She would have taken much more damage otherwise.
But without a resist skill, poison attacks did a minimum of one HP.
"Next!"
Giant Killing
If four or more stats (other than HP/MP) are below those of your opponent, double all
stats (except HP/MP).
Condition
Solo kill a monster while four or more of your stats (other than HP/MP) are less than
half the enemy's respective stats.
"I've got four stats at zero, so… that means my stats will be doubled in almost every
fight! And my VIT will be quadrupled!"
Maple was right. Since her other stats were all zero, the only thing this skill did was
double her Vitality. This made it very easy for her to activate and incredibly useful for
her specialized build.
Moreover, the level-up had given her some more stat points to spend.
"Huh, I only got fifteen stat points… I wonder if you only get more on even numbers…"
This time, Maple didn't hesitate. She put every point she had into VIT.
Given the nature of Giant Killing, this was the best move.
Maple's VIT stat was now at a whopping 616.
"Hmm… I'm kinda tired. Maybe I should call it for the day. This took more time than I
expected…"
Maple emerged from the forest as she returned to town, where she wandered the
streets a little bit before finally logging out and returning to the real world.