I think I've managed to sort out some things. It has been around 10 minutes since I've started sky faring with Ingrid. I already see us leaving the Ash Barrens. Man, it is crazy to see a place you roamed for over 1400 hours in a game to be right underneath you. By this point, I somewhat accepted my dilemma of being sent to the world inside Ash Reaver.
But there was a major part of me that was desperately wishing that I would get out of my schizophrenic episode right now and wake up in the hospital. Ash Reaver really was that dreadful. Unfortunately, the feeling of a soft hand of a woman on my neck is a little too real for it to be a massive daydream. As well as the flashbacks of the beowulf's jaw getting ready to crush my head that continually crept into my mind was undeniably too concrete to be a mere hallucination. Ah crap, it might just give me PTSD.
Despite my pleas to god that what I was currently experiencing was just a grand illusion, I knew I had to mentally prepare myself if I really have transmigrated into a game world.
For starters, I am definitely not me. Well, I was unsure at first. If I didn't take the time to examine my body since I was wearing trash for clothes, I would have never noticed. It was almost frightening how similar this body was to mine. Without the darker complexion and plethora of scars, this guy would have been a complete replica of me.
While I am not happy at the thought of being nearly identical to a run of the mill npc, I suppose I am lucky to not have possessed any of the random throwaway characters or a measly goblin. But, it is still a pretty shitty possession compared to the standards of other transmigrators.
From the look of my dirty clothes, I was definitely one of the npcs that resided in the slums which was practically a death sentence when I had to fight the Demon Lord someday. To understand, I need to elaborate on the setting of Ash Reaver.
Ash Reaver, for being a RPG made by a company known for creating adult games without much substance, had a surprisingly deep lore and an absurd amount of worldbuilding for what was supposed to be a one-off title. Essentially, all people who lived in the slums or a part of the lower class couldn't use magic because they were poisoned.
You might ask why this was possible, but when there are gods and magic shenanigans involved. Things can get messy. Ash Reaver had a particular affinity for Norse mythology, but it borrowed from all sorts of mythologies from all over. Anyways long story short, humanity pissed off Freyr. You know the Norse god responsible for making sure the rain falls. Suffice it to say, he pretty much casted a curse on the rain that specifically screwed over humanity.
While Thor, being able to control the weather and all, was able to mitigate some of the side effects of the curse so that crops could still grow with it; however humans still couldn't drink the rainwater. Unless they wanted all their blood in their body to dry up.
In the first place, most water was unsafe to drink in this world. After all, every living being had to drink water in order to live even demons to a certain extent. So, any relatively smart evildoer would target the water with magic. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of people are dead. This is why Thor and Nuada are so revered. Unlike the other incompetent deities, they actually do their job. Without them, the villains would pollute the air and everyone would be dead because they couldn't breathe!
There were also events such as the sinking of the largest continent, Yhedon which housed most of humanity's aquifers, and the death of Lugia, the ancient deity whose only purpose was to purify water, that contributed to the water problem.
Obviously, the residents of this world adapted to the problem. While they couldn't deal with the issue by simply boiling the water, they could just use some magic bullshit to deal with literal death water or produce clean water themselves.
But therein lies the whole issue. You need to use magic to get clean water! And you know what group of people so high on power that would do anything to maintain control even it means messing up the fucking water of all things? The fucking nobility.
With magic (and sometimes some interference from gods), it's totally obvious that any person could become a ticking time bomb and attempt to usurp the current rulers. So, the nobility made an ingenious observation to prevent such rebellion. Just get rid of the ability for regular people to use magic in general.
The supply of clean water was directly controlled by the church and the nobility. While they had to distribute it out for free or else complete loss of order would occur, it didn't mean that they couldn't use this to fuck over everyone.
All they had to do was spike the available clean water with a truckload of mana. Whenever a normal person would drink this water, their mana circuits would swell and deteriorate overtime rendering them unable to channel mana properly, which in layman terms means no magic. Without magic, most people were regulated into being slaves, farmers, or laborers for the nobility. After all, they needed the protection of the nobility with their copious amounts of troops to protect them from giant and logic-defying monsters, since the bastards took away their only way to fight back.
Unfortunately for me, now I am probably one of those commoner bastards who can't use magic anymore because of those lazy dumbasses! I could go on and on about how royally fucked I am and how this world was utter garbage, but I don't have the luxury to. There is no guarantee whether or not Ingrid would continue to help me beyond what she was doing now, and eventually I needed to be gain the skills to live on my own regardless. So, I have to do all I can and make a plan while I have someone's help instead of doing meaningless harping. Otherwise, I am going to make this a lot more difficult for myself.
If only I possessed the player character or one of the named characters. In Ash Reaver, every character (including npcs and even weapons) had something called traits. Traits were innate modifiers of any character or weapon in Ash Reaver and determine their affinities for certain things. In a nutshell, they were personality traits, physical characteristics, and assured talents of any character that affected them deeply.
For example, consider the the legend-grade trait,
[The One with Hawk-Eyes]: Destined to reach a complete mastery of all ranged weapons. Immense focus is ingrained into this soul. With these eyes, one will be cold and ruthless. Able to turn any object to a deadly projectile with terrifying precision. You get the feeling that this person will stop at nothing to achieve their goal no matter the cost.
Growth Variables and Skill Modulators-
319% DEX increase. 183% SPD increase. 417% WILL increase. +50 ranged weapon mastery. +10 magic mastery. Unlock unique ability [Sure-Hit] and complete access to all ranged weapon skill trees.
Restrictions and Demerits-
Unable to use Thunder or Fire magic. MANA cannot exceed 300. STR capped at 150. -20 Melee Weapon Mastery. 226% Light Damage taken. Guaranteed Fatal Damage from attacks with [Eye Irritation] modifier.
Uncategorized-
Eyes are uniquely sensitive to the presence of mana, apparitions, and living beings.
As you can see this trait is a physical characteristic which influences the character to have a certain affinity for ranged weapons. It also affects their personality, how their stats will grow, gain special abilities for free, what skill trees and magic they can access, what weaknesses they have, and even other stuff. Another thing to note, the way some things are worded are pretty important.
Naturally, all traits aren't this crazy. As suggested earlier, traits are divided into separate tiers and have classifications. The trait I mentioned earlier would have the corporeal classification since it actually is a tangible item. Most people have dull-grade traits which are the lowest and most common traits.
The more higher the grade the trait was, the more absurd and broken it would become. Named characters were essentially guaranteed one high-grade trait (either unique or legend) that was what gave them their niches in the game.
Come to think of it. All the major named characters including the player character are female. Huh. I missed out the chance to become a busty anime girl or even Ingrid. It is bad I sorta have some mixed feelings about it?
I am totally not disappointed.