Vol 1 Chapter 2 – Childhood: The Summer at Age Five, Part Two

When considering anything, a guiding principle is indispensable.

I was sitting on the chopping block used for splitting firewood beside the barn—my usual spot—as I pondered.

The status, represented by a combination of three-dimensional cylinders projected before my eyes, was truly enormous. With a myriad of interwoven skills and traits, even after devouring countless rulebooks, I still hadn’t fully grasped its entirety.

That’s only natural. This chart is packed with every possibility that exists in this world, so that I can choose at will. Although it conveniently comes with sorting and search functions, mastering all of it would likely take years of study.

Even the core section alone is divided into broad basic categories—《Physical》, 《Mind》, 《Education》, 《Martial Arts》, 《Senses》, 《Social》—arranged around 《Physical》 and further surrounded by countless occupational categories. When you include their effects and explanations, the complexity and volume of text become absurdly massive—so massive that if it were converted into supplemental material, the cost would be staggering. I must be grateful to the bodhisattva who packed it all in for free.

Yet, with such overwhelming volume, even I—a self-proclaimed data maniac—cannot help but be dazzled. It’s an extravagantly luxurious problem, I suppose.

I’ve already found several combinations that made me think, “This must be broken,” and I was getting strangely excited at the thought of seeing how they would actually behave.

With such a wide range of possibilities spread out before me—and the potential to immediately handle any situation—there’s no TRPG player who wouldn’t get excited.

However, the sheer abundance and immediate usability can also be somewhat troublesome.

Immediate usability, that is, can lead to a situation where, by choosing everything that seems convenient in the moment, one ends up as a jack-of-all-trades but master of none.

The interface’s convenience and features are impeccable, but unfortunately, this power is inflexible. Unlike character sheets scribbled on paper or entered into an Excel spreadsheet, skills and traits cannot be deleted—or rebuilt—once assigned.

I made plenty of mistakes when I was a beginner. Even if the initial creation went smoothly, I once tried to sample every available job with each level-up, only to end up dealing pitiful damage in what should have been a glorious climactic battle—and I cried over it.

For the sake of honoring the characters who couldn’t enjoy their endings because of such mishaps, I simply couldn’t allow my progress to remain half-finished.

Well, there are compassionate GMs out there—I intend to be one myself—but if things become utterly unmanageable, there might be some leniency for a rebuild. Unfortunately, the GMs who run this world aren’t exactly lenient and seem to despise any shortcuts.

That’s just like reality. If life could be rebuilt, no one would attempt an action roll to fly off a building.

To avoid that, one must set a clear direction: What will I become? What do I aim for? What shall I achieve?

In a sense, I have been blessed with the ability to become almost anything and do almost anything—but that also means I might end up being nothing and doing nothing.

I must be cautious here. I know almost nothing about this world.

All I really know is the name of the manor and the administrative district to which it belongs—I was especially surprised to learn that a German administrative system had been adopted—and the names of the lord and the district magistrate.

I practically know nothing about the political system, geography, climate, or history.

Even though so many options are presented, it’s still too early to decide on my future.

If I hastily fix a policy now without knowing better—only to later find out that it turns out to be an aberration making it impossible to live properly among humans—it wouldn’t be a laughing matter. I’d rather not end up in a situation where, thanks to some barrier, I can’t share lodgings with everyone.

That being the case, my immediate plan should be to develop a solid foundation while securing efficient, powerful traits—ones like 《Prodigy》—so that when I can envision the person I want to become, I’ll be ready.

This is something my father often told me in my past life: Studying never hurts. Even if you graduate from Tokyo University’s medical school, you might later decide to become a palace carpenter—but the reverse is nearly impossible.

Therefore, to prepare for whatever I might want to do in the future, it is essential to hone myself in multiple areas.

Truly, my father said some wise things. In reality, if one grows up without properly training one’s physical abilities and then decides to aim to become a swordsman, it will be too late.

Alright, then: first, I’ll develop my physical attributes in a balanced way and cultivate my intellect and education. Then I’ll acquire promising traits and devote myself to gathering information.

After all, there are countless traits and skills that make you scratch your head in confusion—“What the heck is this?”—and many have prerequisites that are downright mysterious.

Nevertheless, searching for traits and skills is incredibly fun. There are so many that catch my eye, and I can find as many things as I desire.

Every time I discovered a simple yet powerful occupational skill, or a trait that seemed timeless—like the ability to discern authenticity—my data maniac blood started buzzing with excitement. There’s no need to debate the importance of major and minor damage-dealing skills now, but skills that enrich the journey to the climax are indispensable when defining a character’s strength.

However, I noticed that many skills and traits were not available for acquisition.

For example, traits tied to one’s unchangeable background—such as 《Pure-blooded Noble Blue Blood》—are, unsurprisingly, locked. According to the description, they grant bonuses for comportment and actions befitting a noble, as well as extra points on negotiation checks when dealing with someone of equivalent status. Well, even if you can whitewash your family tree, you can’t change your original background, so that’s to be expected.

Also, traits that are far removed from my own nature—like 《Saintly Virtue: Saint》 from the 《Faith》 subcategory of 《Mind》, or 《Murderous Fetish: Boreaphilia》 from the 《Vice》 category, and even traits associated with entirely different races—are locked and cannot be acquired.

That’s easy to understand. I knew that increasing one’s intellect and memory wouldn’t affect one’s self; these traits are merely external bonuses that, once acquired, become part of you automatically.

Conversely, if my spirit ever breaks or I come to embrace faith later on, I might end up acquiring them.

It also seems that one cannot drastically change one’s body through acquired means. In the human 《Physical》 category at the center of the cylinder array, statuses such as potential height and skeletal structure are detailed—perhaps my self-awareness awakened at age five because the “minimum essential skill points required to be human” had already been allocated there. It’s probably a fail-safe to prevent you from recklessly spending points and ending up dead—after all, you only ever affect your “potential” values.

This is because assigning points to physical stats only cements your future potential—like “this is how tall you’ll eventually grow” or “this is roughly how much you’ll weigh”—and doesn’t immediately change your body.

That, too, is understandable. If I were to, without thinking, exclaim “Yay, I’m going to become a tall, muscular man!” and allocate the skill points I earned through trivial tasks to height and skeletal structure, only to suddenly grow several inches taller, it would cause a major scandal. Who do you think you are, causing such a commotion for the entire manor?

It’s only natural that, aside from stats that increase through training, there are limits imposed on stats that are supposed to develop naturally.

But after all this lengthy discussion, I am still five years old. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, since I can do anything.

“Erich, are you spacing out here again?”

As I was pondering how tall I should be, my older brother Heinz approached. In one hand he carried the wooden sword he’d taken such a liking to—it had already become his trademark—and in his left he dangled an old, battered pot lid from who knows where.

“Ah, onii-chan.”

“Come on, join us. Let’s play. Mikhail and Hans are waiting too.”

Ever since my brother stopped showing any hostility toward me, he’s been inviting me to play like this—along with our second and third older brothers, Mikhail and Hans. They had originally just followed our rather unruly, intimidating eldest brother and didn’t hold any special ill will toward me, so we’ve grown quite close.

“Yeah. What are you doing?”

“Obviously, we’re playing adventurers.”

As I toddled behind my brother on my stubby little legs, he proudly brandished his wooden sword toward the sky and said, “Adventurers are one of the few professions that can be pursued free from the constraints of church law or district law. They roam freely among the various guilds of each realm, solving problems ranging from petty issues to those that trouble district magistrates and lords, slaying bizarre monsters, and gathering treasures from uncharted lands and long-forgotten countries—true heroes.”

Ever since he heard the saga of a wandering bard the other day, my brother has been completely enamored with the idea of becoming an adventurer.

It’s the most common tale—a dragon-slaying quest that even in my past life sparked the phrase “I’m so over dragon-slaying quests.” The storyline goes that an adventurer, answering a royal decree promising the hand of a princess if he retrieved a healing gem from an evil dragon, finds a legendary treasure sword and sets out on his quest with the blessing of the gods.

It’s truly an old-fashioned, classic tale. I’ve also joined in and even organized similar adventures with beginner GMs and players. Even if it’s called clichéd, there is an undeniable charm to the classics that made those times incredibly enjoyable.

Ah, come to think of it—there was that fool who, halfway through, started seducing a dragon and ended up marrying it, and another idiot who, instead of fighting the dragon, thought, “Why not just buy it off?” only to be told by the dragon, “Exchange it for the kingdom’s treasure,” and then turned into a master thief. If sessions with such twists are what make classic tales, then I can’t complain about the bard who sang them.

Anyway, my brother seemed to have been so struck by these dragon-slayer stories that he was all fired up. He boldly declared that he would become an adventurer someday, and now he leads us siblings in our little adventurer role-play—which is truly heartwarming.

But there’s no need to confront a child lost in his dreams with harsh reality. After all, adventurers are nothing more than jack-of-all-trades, and my brother is destined to attend the district magistrate’s private academy as the heir to our family.

A few days ago, my father called me in for a consultation. He said that if I wished, he would send me to the private academy in my brother’s place.

With my mature, thirty-something intellect, it was easy to guess what my father had in mind. In short, he was considering having his last-born—who has a sharp mind—inherit the family.

I politely declined.

To put it bluntly, with endless possibilities ahead, I thought it would be foolish to force myself to inherit the peasant farm. While serving as an official might be challenging, if there’s a chance I might regret sticking with farming, I might as well pursue a different path.

I feel sorry for my father, who has worked so hard to support our family, but this is a rare fantasy world—don’t I want to see all it has to offer?

After all, I’m the fourth son. Even if I were forced to inherit the family, there would be many restrictions, and my father wouldn’t need to shoulder such hardships. Precisely for that reason, I was able to happily insist that my older brother be the one to attend the private academy.

And, as an aside, that’s when I learned the true nature of the adventurer my brother so admires.

Only a few adventurers actually slay dragons and delve into treasure-filled labyrinths. In reality, they are little more than all-purpose laborers to whom lords and district magistrates offload tedious chores.

It seems the world simply accepts adventurers as cheap labor that can be dispatched anywhere.

It was quite a depressing notion.

That’s why, thinking of my brother’s future, I agreed to let him go to the private academy.

To be honest, I have plenty of options even without attending the academy. In that case, it’s more reassuring for the family if our eldest brother properly inherits the household and lives a healthy life.

“Today, where are we adventuring?”

“Let’s go to the woods in the back. I heard from the old man next door that decades ago a kid died with a coin blessed by a fairy hidden in a tree hollow. Isn’t that one heck of a treasure!?”

So, for now, let them fully enjoy being adventurers. An adventure that merely involves running around in a patch of woods—where there’s no risk to wages or life—is perfectly healthy. A fairy coin? That sounds splendid. It’s far better than being sent out to hunt bandits or beasts for a pittance, or playing rat-catcher in the sewers.

Still, I can’t say I don’t yearn to be an adventurer myself. Several avatars of me have set out bearing that title.

There was the boy who, without any pretense, ran away from the village in naive admiration of a magic sword; the young man who left the monastery after hearing the voice of God to stand against barbarians; the half-demon who, persecuted because of his heritage, fled in pursuit of fame; the widow spirit-manipulator who set out to retrieve her fallen companion; and the automaton who, enchanted by the mystery of its own origins buried in ruins, ventured into them with magical devices.

I remember each of those adventures well enough that I could write a replay about them now. They were brilliant, joyful memories.

Some even achieved great success. There was even a case where the “Henderson Scale” became so impressive that he ended up as the leader of a bandit gang, and others who perished in the first session when both the GM’s and the player’s dice exploded.

Looking back on those memories, perhaps the adventurer profession isn’t so bad after all. Regardless of its true nature, heroes of legend do exist.

I chased after my brother, who was lost in his fantasies, and ran off to immerse myself in my own dreams…