Vol 1 Chapter 3 – The Skill 【Edit】 Is Way Too Plain【Vol 1: The Hero Awakens】 

Chirp-chirp-chirp…

Somewhere, I can hear birds calling.

What tickles my nose is the smell of damp soil and crushed grass.

What I feel against my back is the rough, hard texture of the ground.

(…What…?)

I slowly force my heavy eyelids open.

What filters in is gentle sunlight spilling through gaps in the trees.

“…Uh… nn…”

I wrench my creaking body upright.

My whole body feels heavy as lead, and every joint aches.

My head is the worst—like a dull hangover pounding that slows my thinking.

(Where… am I…?)

As far as I can see, it’s trees, trees, trees.

Deep in a thick, overgrown forest.

Nothing like the grimy ceiling of the cheap apartment I used to live in.

“…So it wasn’t a dream.”

Through my hazy head, I replay what happened right before I blacked out.

Misaki’s betrayal.

Despair.

And that grotesque goblin crawling out of my PC monitor.

Then, finally, me getting sucked into the darkness inside the screen….

Rustle…

A nearby bush shook—unnaturally.

My heart jolted.

(No way… a goblin!?)

Goosebumps rippled across my whole body.

I don’t have a weapon. I don’t have any way to fight.

If I run into that monster again, I’ll get killed for real this time—without being able to do anything.

I held my breath and glared at the bush.

With a rustle-rustle, what popped out was— a round, palm-sized slime.

A blue, semi-transparent body, wobbling as it quivered.

One of the weakest monsters in Arks Ende.

(A slime… okay. Thank god…)

A relieved breath slipped out.

Thank god it wasn’t a goblin.

But the relief barely lasted before a different problem smacked me in the face.

Grrrrrr…

My stomach roared, loud and unapologetic.

A brutal wave of hunger.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t eaten anything since my late-night shift yesterday.

And with how awful I’d been feeling, of course this would happen.

(I’m starving… and my throat’s bone-dry…)

In this massive forest, I’ve got no food and no water.

No phone. No wallet. Nothing.

No joke—if this keeps up, I’m going to die out here.

(What am I supposed to do… seriously…?)

Betrayed by Misaki, thrown into another world… and I’m going to finish it off by starving to death?

How far does my bad luck go?

Just as I was about to slump back down to the ground again, it happened.

Ping.

A sudden electronic sound rang out right in front of me.

“—!?”

I jerked my head up.

Floating there was a semi-transparent blue window.

Like an image being projected directly into midair.

(What is this…!?)

A few lines of text were displayed inside it.

It was a screen I’d stared at until I was sick of it—back when I used games to run from reality.

(This is Arks Ende’s status screen… isn’t it…!?)

Why would this—

No, I’m in the world of Arks Ende in the first place.

If a status screen pops up, it’s not that weird.

…Everything about this is weird, but at this point, I don’t have a choice but to accept it.

I reach out with trembling fingers to touch the window.

But my finger just slices through empty air.

(Do I have to think it…? Status, open.)

The moment I chant that in my head, the window switches to a detailed display.

――――――――――――――――――――

【Status】

Name: Hiiragi Fuyuya

Race: Human (Human)

Level: 1

HP: 30 / 30

MP: 10 / 10

Strength: 5

Endurance: 4

Agility: 6

Magic: 2

Dexterity: 7

Luck: 3

【Skills】

Unique Skill: 【Edit (Editto)】

【Titles】

None

――――――――――――――――――――

“………Huh?”

I went completely speechless at what I was seeing.

(Level… 1!?)

Are you kidding me?

I mean, if you quantified my dead-end freeter life, maybe it would look like this, but still—this is too low.

HP 30, MP 10.

Strength 5.

How am I supposed to survive with stats this pathetic?

At this rate, not only a goblin—if that slime from earlier so much as body-checks me, I’m dead.

(No—wait… I should have a skill.)

Right. In the game, every character had skills.

If I have a powerful enough skill, even this hopeless situation could—

I focus on the skill section, like I’m praying.

――――――――――――――――――――

【Unique Skill】

《Edit (Editto)》

Allows fine adjustments to information contained within spell formulas.

――――――――――――――――――――

“……….”

I looked at the skill name and its description three separate times.

Fine adjustments… to spell formula information.

(…Huh? What even is this skill…)

My mind goes blank.

Fine adjustments to spell formulas?

So, what—like… fixing typos?

Correcting a misspelling in a magic circle? A skill for that kind of tiny, boring work?

(Useless…!!)

I scream inside my own head.

They called it a Unique Skill, so I expected something insane—and I’m the idiot for believing it.

What the hell is 【Edit】!?

This doesn’t help in a fight. Not even a little!

Why is my Unique Skill basically proofreading!?

(That’s it…? Just this skill…? What about magic…?)

I check the status screen again, top to bottom.

But there’s nothing in the skill section besides 【Edit】.

It’s over.

It’s completely over.

Weak, Level 1 starter stats.

A plain, zero-combat skill.

There’s no way I survive no matter how hard I struggle.

(No—wait… I have knowledge…!)

Right.

I know everything about the world of Arks Ende.

Where the hidden items are, how to get powerful gear, efficient leveling routes.

If I have that knowledge, then…!

But that faint light of hope gets swallowed by the dark almost immediately.

(Even with knowledge, I can’t do anything…)

I look around at the trees.

The terrain of this forest matches my memory perfectly.

This is the “Forest of Beginnings.”

In the game, it’s the tutorial area—the first place the player visits.

But “tutorial” doesn’t mean “safe.”

At Level 1, in your starting state, you can die normally just from getting tangled up with random monsters.

In a game, you can reset.

But this is reality. If you die, that’s it.

(The first village… 《Sera Village》 should be about half a day’s walk east from here.)

I have the knowledge.

But I can’t picture myself making it there.

No food, no water.

And if I run into a monster on the way, it’s game over.

(Yeah—there should be a spring with healing effects near here…!)

My game knowledge points to a possibility.

But to get there, I’d have to pass through an area where goblins show up constantly.

With my current stats, can I even get away from a goblin?

No. My agility is only 6. I don’t know a goblin’s stats, but there’s no way I’m faster.

(Damn it…!)

Even if I know what to do, I don’t have the bare minimum “power” to actually do it.

Even if I know where the strongest weapon is, I can’t beat the dragon guarding it.

Even if I know a boss’s weak point, I can’t even land a hit in the first place.

That was my hopeless reality right now.

Betrayed by Misaki, I lost everything.

Thrown into another world, I tasted the fear of an unfair death.

And now, what I’ve been given is garbage-tier ability and a situation that’s completely, utterly hopeless.

“…Ha. My life really is game over, isn’t it…”

A dry laugh echoed emptily through the quiet forest.

Fine. Whatever happens, happens.

Resignation starts to take over my heart.

I weakly glanced back at the status screen in front of me.

It displayed reality, mercilessly.

Level 1.

Skill 【Edit】.

(Is it really just this…? Did I miss something…?)

With my mind sunk in disappointment, I stare blankly at the screen.

And my gaze gets pulled to a tiny line of text at the very bottom of the window.

Letters so small I hadn’t noticed them before.

“Hm…? What’s this tiny text…?”

I squint and try to read it.

And what was written there was the one set of words that would become my only light—my only way to survive in this hopeless world.