Chapter 001: Prologue (One)
“Yo! I"m an evil spirit! But I"m not evil!”
……Huh?
That exactly summed up my feelings and emotions at that moment.
There, reclining on his back in a lazy manner, was a young boy, who looked to be no older than ten.
And floating up out of the darkness around him were numerous souls… Souls!?
“Ha ha ha! Everyone must be feeling really confused right now. Don"t worry, that"s totally natural. You guys are human, after all! Oh, but no longer so!”
So saying, he burst out laughing again.
Hey, this isn"t funny at all!
I"m really super confused over here!
“That"s why I"ve prepared some presentation slides for you guys! Look over here!”
I looked towards where the boy was pointing, and saw a white screen materialize.
Wow, he"s prepared for this.
On the first slide, a few black words were displayed on a white background.
—During a school field trip—
Yes, that"s right.
We were on a school trip… I remember being on a bus heading towards the airport.
I nodded, and the slideshow continued.
—Bus met with an accident—
—The entire cla.s.s perished—
—Bad Ending—
That"s all!?
And all explained in a few simple words!
At that moment, all the gathered souls, I guess they"re my cla.s.smates, exclaimed in our hearts.
‘You must be joking!"
“Yep! Wasn"t that simple and easy to understand!? …What? You want more details? You want to see what happened? Oh no, no, definitely not. That"s too graphic. The Motion Picture Rating a.s.sociation would get mad at me. Besides, you"ll see nothing but blurred-out images, you know?”
The Motion Picture Rating a.s.sociation!?
No, wait. Too graphic, blurred-out images, that means I must have died horribly.
All of us did…
It probably wasn"t just a normal traffic accident.
“Hmm? You don"t remember dying? Yep, I helped you to forget those memories. We don"t need those painful memories of suffering, do we? …Even if you remember, why would you want to talk about it?”
Oh, I guess he"s right… Especially if we"d all been burned alive.
But, that boy(?) is an evil spirit, right?
He seems to be able to answer all our questions, even though we"re not voicing them out.
“Why am I called an evil spirit? Hmm, it"s strange, isn"t it? Whenever I feel like it, I help dead people find their new career path, but it seems like they don"t always appreciate my help.”
Career path…?
“Yes, like helping people who die young to transition to another world. Oh, your teacher and the bus driver had lived out most of their lives, so I sent them to be reincarnated. That"s why they"re not here now.”
I looked around and counted the souls. There were 32 of us.
There were 16 guys and 16 girls in my cla.s.s, so it"s true that only us students are here.
Which means that my childhood friends, Haruka and Tomoya, must be here too.
Not that I can identify them in this state.
“Yes!! As about a quarter of you are thinking now, your entire cla.s.s is transitioning to another world! You"re all going to a game-like world, where everyone will gain different statuses and levels! Isn"t that great!?”
You"re getting too excited here, evil spirit!
That"s probably why others call you evil!
And how did he know that a surprising number of students in my cla.s.s enjoy reading light novels?
Of course, that includes me.
“This isn"t reincarnation, so you"ll stay the same age. It"s also not a summoning, so you won"t be subjected to impossible trials or be enslaved! Isn"t that great!?”
Yes, I guess that does happen.
I"ve read stories of people getting summoned out of the blue, told to become a hero, just to be killed in the process.
Anyway, who in their right mind would jump into battle, after being told to do so by a stranger?
Well, I guess maybe they had no other choice, and had to do so to survive.
“You"d like to go to an Otome game world? Hmm, not possible! This isn"t a game, so we don"t have such scenarios in place! You gotta work hard with what you"re born with! The level of hardness is similar to your previous world, so what you desire is definitely within reach! Isn"t that great!?”
No, that"s impossible.
If the next world is like the previous one, then it"s definitely impossible for the girls in my cla.s.s.
Expecting them to have the wiles to seduce beautiful men is asking too much.
“A harem? That"s the same thing! You can have one if you have charm and money!”
Yes. Needless to say, the boys in our cla.s.s are just as bad.
“Are there ways to cheat the system? Nope! I"m just helping you to transition because I feel like doing it! Oh, and because I"m so generous, I"ll leave all of you with the ability to talk, read, and write! …Any more questions? If not, let"s get you ready for the transition!”
With that, the boy waved his arm, and what looked like an application window appeared before me.
At the very top was a display reading ‘150 points". Under that was a list of races and skills, each with its own required number of points.
“You guys are going into a completely different world, so you can"t make the transition as you are now. Because I"m generous, you can choose to edit your profile just a little.”
“At the top is the number of points at your disposal. Everyone has about the same number of points. How many you have depends on your specs and abilities before your deaths, so if you"d trained your body or studied hard, then you have more. Hard work always pays off. Isn"t that such a great phrase!?”
Hmm. Is 150 points good or bad…? It"s hard to tell since I can"t talk to my cla.s.smates around me.
My results at school weren"t bad.
I wasn"t too shabby at sports, either… I wonder how the evil spirit even judged things like that.
But I"ll be glad if I"m considered above average, if not among my cla.s.smates, then at least when compared to the average person in the next world.
I mean, I don"t know if there"ll be any social safety nets in the next world, especially since I"ve never even been there before.
“Well, even the guy with the lowest points here is above average compared to people living in the next world, so I think all of you will do just fine if you work hard!”
If we work hard, huh?
He said that we can"t cheat the system, so that means the life ahead of us won"t be a walk in the park.
I should keep that in mind when selecting my skill set.
“You want skills that aren"t on the list? Well, ok, I did say I"ll help you guys out, so I"ll add them if you want.
……The ability to hijack someone else"s skill? Hmm, alright.
……The ability to copy someone"s skill? OK.
……Gaining 2x EXP? Well, I"ll add 4x and 10x in as well!
……Skin brightening? Huh, you really want that? I guess you can.
……Hero"s essence? You wanna be a hero?”
Oi oi, all you guys are just naming skills off the top of your heads.
And here I was, trying to take this seriously.
The self-proclaimed evil spirit continued to add skills to the list, essentially turning n.o.body down.
Skills that sounded useful came attached with a high price point, those that didn"t came cheaper.
The whole thing seemed quite balanced out…
“Oh, just a note. Skills that require more points that you have are not displayed in your window. If you made a request and it didn"t show up on your list, that"s the reason why!”
It seems like the boy had just added such a skill to the list… So that means there are skills worth more than 150 points.
What I need right now… Is a guide on how to use this window?
The descriptions attached to the skills are just too uninformative.
“Ooh, there are some people who aren"t used to this, I guess. Probably a girl who doesn"t play games. Let"s add a ‘Help" function.”
Oh, there it is. Comes at a cost of 20 points… What? I need to pay to get help? And it doesn"t come cheap at all. Isn"t it only useful at the beginning?
“Alright, that"s about it, I"m guessing? Do pick the ones you want. The window will close in about an hour. Remember, you can"t cheat the system, so make sure to make wise choices!”
Thanks to the requests made by everyone, the list in my window had expanded to many times its original length.
There just seems to be so many… And we can"t cheat the system, he says.
But maybe there are skills that buff us so much that it resembles a cheat?
I mean, ‘Skill Copy" requires 100 points, which is most of what I have.
Am I really going to be OK?