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TUTORIAL
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️I. Ready Player One
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Imagine this:
You're born with a special power.
Nothing so grand as telepathy or clairvoyance, nor as deadly as breathing fire or bending water — there's barely any difference between you and any other human being. It's a small power, and while it does come with a few other perks, the only thing you need to know right now is that this small power allows you to see people's names, amongst other things.
Now, you're not really anyone distinguished. You go about your ordinary life, using your tiny power for little things: making sure your date doesn't know you forgot their name, saving yourself from accidentally insulting someone with a high status, trivial stuff like that. In the larger scheme of things, you're just some side-character. You're content with this.
And then, one uneventful Wednesday, you're meandering down the hall to your next class when you pass by a guy whose very existence seems to force the rest of the world into his backdrop. You can't help but to notice him; you've never seen anything like it. Everything about him, from his polished shoes to the peculiar gleam in his eyes, screams Lead Character.
Alright, you majestic-looking bastard, you think to yourself. I'll bite.
So you take a peek. With that tiny power of yours, you give him a good, long look, and —
You think, Oh my god.
You think, That's Kira.
You think, Holy shit.
Let's say that you're an ordinary, upright citizen of the law. You don't have a hard-on for justice in general, or Kira in particular. Your only ambition is to lead a long, happy life.
In this situation, what would you do?
The correct answer is that you would mind your own damn business. You'd fade into the backdrop like everyone else and pretend you don't exist, at least until the pretty mass murderer goes on his own merry way. You would continue to be law-abiding for the rest of your life, and do your college best to not die.
Let's say that you have a father.
This shouldn't be too much to ask; most people have had a father at some point in their lives. Some people have had two, or more.
This particular father, however, is the best dad you could have ever asked for.
Papa always smells nice when you hug him, and he never minds it when you make a mess of his spotless designer suits. When he comes home after work, it isn't rare for him to arrive at the doorstep bearing gifts or sweet pastries in hand. He's never missed a birthday, or an anniversary, or a school event. He's rarely late for dinner, and carves time out of every evening to help you with your homework. He listens when you talk and makes you feel like your opinions matter.
And he adores your mother like a pearl in the hand. He courts her as if he's still trying to convince her to marry him, even though they've been married over twenty years. He does daily maintenance on his facial hair so that he always has artful scruff on his face, just because mother thinks it's Handsome. He is so besotted with her that other women don't even enter his eyes.
Your papa is a loving father and a wonderful husband.
But he is also a terrible, terrible man.
As the loyal lieutenant of a major yakuza Family, papa has a rap sheet longer than the Naka River. He is an extortionist, a racketeer, a trafficker, and a murderer. You know for a fact that he has tortured, maimed and killed his fair share of people. Sometimes, the gifts he brings home still have blood on them.
You don't care though. He's still your father and you still love him.
Let's say that several months ago, in an incident with a rival family, your criminal father—covered in blood, gun in hand—was caught by the police and arrested. There was only enough evidence to convict him for some of his crimes, but that was more than enough for him to be sentenced to life in prison.
That in itself is fine. You aren't really worried about how your father will fare behind bars — he's yakuza, after all. And you have visitation rights. Maybe the Family will eventually get him out. Mother surely has some pull, too.
What you are worried about is the very immediate possibility that Kira will execute your father before then. The prison population has been dropping like flies; Kira is bound to get to him sooner or later.
Now, imagine this:
Society is being terrorized by Kira, a god-like figure whose favourite pastime is executing criminals. No one can catch him, and no one knows how he's managing to dole out heart attacks like candy. All popular theories are built around the assumption that he's something other than human, something more.
Your name is Kobayashi Ringo. You're an unambitious, mostly normal second year at To-Oh University. All you really want in life is to not die young, and for your parents to live till a ripe old age. You're so law-abiding that you've never even jay-walked, but your loving father is a dangerous criminal whose name is plastered all over the internet.
One day, in the first week of the new school year, you pass by a first year in the hallways. He's strange and handsome and, as it turns out, he is the god-like figure whose favourite pastime is executing criminals.
In this situation, what do you do?
The correct answer is this:
I, Kobayashi Ringo, am going to suck up to Kira like my life depends on it.
I hope to hell that nepotism really is all that it's cracked up to be.
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️II. Useless Useful Ability: How To Use It
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By now you may be wondering what, exactly, my power is. You may even be asking certain questions. For example—
Q: "Does it show you people's true names?"
A: Yes.
Q: "Does it influence the way you see the world?"
A: In a way.
Q: "Does it show you people's life spans?"
A: Huh? What kind of depressing and pointless ability is that? In what creepy and oddly specific context could it have any practical application?
Well, it's actually a little shameless of me to say that any power is too niche or specific. Although there is a myriad of small things I am capable of doing, in the end, the basis of my power centers around a very specific concept. It's the number one thing that mothers worldwide want to see banished from the face of the Earth. It's broken countless relationships, devastated entire households. It's the reason millions of people are unable to sleep at night.
It's gaming.
More specifically, I interact with the world as if I'm in a video game.
This is not half as fun as it sounds. In fact, Real Life is probably the most boring game in existence, and if I had bought it from a store, I would have returned it the day I bought it and would even have complained to the developers afterwards.
Firstly, it's way too realistic. Everything I do takes exactly the same amount of time and effort as it does for any other person. I'm still tired after eight hours of sleep. A bruise on the knee, something that in a game would only translate to a tiny drop in HP and would be healed almost instantly, takes entire weeks to heal. I actually have to physically learn a skill to add it my skill set, and levelling it up by any degree takes a crazy amount of grinding; by that point, a normal human would have improved just as much. Plus, my minimap only shows me locations in my near vicinity, and then only if I've been there before. I mean, what's the point? I already know it's there.
Secondly, there is a severe lack of key gameplay elements. I don't get any special items, even though I've been begging the system for a health potion for years, and magic is non-existent. Where's my promised MP bar? My glowy spells? I don't even get to have a superpowered attack, like a helicopter kick or an insta-kill punch. Not that I have anywhere to use that kind of ability; there aren't any cool monsters or enemies around, either. Like I said, a truly boring game.
Thirdly, the system's mascot, Kyucchi, is eerie as hell. There's no particular reason why I feel this way; he's usually pleasantly energetic, and it's not like he's physically threatening. His body is just a round white ball with tiny stubby limbs, and his eyes are always squinting with a happy grin. His pink blushing cheeks and little bunny ears are shockingly adorable. In fact, he's so cute that if I didn't know of him and just saw a stuffed doll that looked like him in a store, I would buy that doll on the spot.
And yet… the moment that open-mouthed smile drops at all, it feels like I'm being watched one of the many faces of an Eldritch god. God forbid that he frowns — even the slightest furrow of his brows is chilling to the bone. It's an ominous, oppressive feeling, and if I had to compare it to a mortal experience, it might be something akin to the feeling you might have if there was a huge hand hovering around your throat, just waiting for an excuse to squeeze.
Kyucchi terrifies me on a far more visceral level than Kira does. Kira can just kill me and everyone I love, but this eldritch abomination…
Who knows…?
In any case, this is the kind of power that seems super useful in theory, but in reality isn't all that useful at all. Even though the power to treat life like a game sounds like lots of fun, and all stories using this concept depict it as some kind of overpowered and super useful special ability, the reality is far less interesting.
Having to use it in public requires a lot of subtlety, too, since staring blankly off into the void and wildly flinging your finger about in the empty space in front of your face too often tends to freak people out. In fact, that's the very reason I stopped using the power when I began attending school. I was born with this power, and so I hadn't realized until then that other people didn't have item boxes, or the ability to see character profiles, or hovering screens cluttering the edge of their vision.
My father had acted as if I was a perfectly normal child — or maybe he simply hadn't noticed that I wasn't. My mother, other than telling me to never talk about my power with others, had only ever referred to it when she wanted me to move furniture to another room in the house, or when her purse was too heavy, or when she couldn't be sure if a suspicious stranger was one of my father's enemies or not. And the older brothers who worked under my father… well, they wouldn't say anything that would make me upset if they valued their fingers at all.
It wasn't until I started grade school that I came to the sudden realization that I wasn't normal at all. This came on the heels of a great hubbub about my aforementioned blank stares and finger flinging, as well as my dogged refusal to carry a backpack or play with other children because they were all "low levelled n00bs". I suppose that calling my first grade teacher a "filthy casual" may not have helped.
After many calls to my parents, several instances of time-outs that turned into visits to the principal, careful remarks about how my education may require special attention from a professional, and sharp, scary smiles from my mother, I realized that my power was far more trouble than it was worth. And as it wasn't worth that much in the first place, the decision was easy to make: I would simply ignore the system until it went away. After all, even at age six, I really didn't like troublesome things.
And so my six year old self stubbornly pretended that my power didn't exist until it eventually faded out of existence. In fact, it disappeared so completely that it was like I never had it in the first place, and then I ended up forgetting about the whole thing. (In the end it turned out that the system was just in screensaver mode, but that's a story for another time.)
While I can certify that this technique does not work for your period, important exams, your father's hearing, dates with your boyfriend, and other troublesome life events, it actually did work this one time. In fact, this one success may have engendered my continued use of this terrible coping strategy during the decade or so to follow — another strike against it.
I suppose that I'm being somewhat unfair. It's not like the system is all useless. As I've mentioned, it allows me to look at people's character profiles. That is, I can see some basic info and stats. For example, when I looked at that first year, this is what I saw on his character profile:
Yagami Light
Title: Kira
Class: Cult Leader
Level: 90
Status Effect(s): Protagonist (Passive), God-Complex (Passive), Lady-Killer (Active)
Pretty useful, right? Now I know who Kira is, and that means I can do something to try to keep my father from receiving judicial retribution for his heinous crimes. Even though I haven't a clue what 'something' is yet. Worst case scenario, I'll just order a hit on him, I guess.
It might seem a bit of an overreaction to say that I'm going to order a hit on someone for being Kira when the only proof I have is a single word on an incorporeal screen, but I am quite certain that this 'Yagami Light' really is Kira.
If it was just his title, I might have been able to pass it off as a coincidence. If it was just his class, I might have thought he was a lunatic, but I could still have brushed it off and gone on with my day. But the system doesn't throw around the term 'Protagonist' so easily. Even I don't get to be a Protagonist, status effect or otherwise, and I'm the main character.
Plus, he's level 90. That's the highest level I've seen thus far. Amazingly, it's even higher than my mother's. You don't get to be level 90 by having a weird kink and good speaking skills.
My heart would be fluttering right now, if he wasn't Kira.
At this point, I would like to be able to say something impactful like, "Wow! His stats are maxed out, too!" but I cannot. Even though I said that I can see stats, I couldn't currently tell you what Yagami Light's are. That's because in order to see someone's in-depth information, the system has to recognize the other person as being an acquaintance, and the quickest way to accomplish that requires us to exchange our actual names.
Usually, telling someone my name isn't really an issue, but… it's Kira, after all. Everyone knows that's how he gets you, even though no one knows the mechanics of it. Maybe it'll be listed as one of his Skills and Abilities, but I don't really think my curiosity is worth the personal risk.
As a side note, God-Complex and Lady-Killer are hilarious status effects. I'll reserve further comment just in case Kira can read minds, although I'm not overly worried about it one way or the other. It looks like even Kira isn't exempt from the system's pause mechanics.
That's right, I said pause mechanics.
How long did it take you to get to this point? A bit less than ten minutes? Maybe longer, if you got distracted in between? Personally, it's been around six or seven minutes for me since the moment I opened up Yagami Light's character profile.
For Yagami Light, no time at all has passed. He has been standing exactly in the same place as he was when I began my internal monologue.
That's the second perk of this power: I can pull up my Main Menu at any point and effectively pause the world until I press Resume.
You couldn't actually have expected the world to have waited around for me to finish my monologue, right? Even though it seems like that's exactly what's happening, this is definitely not that. I think.
I don't really know how it works; perhaps I'm being transported to a different dimension where time passes differently, or perhaps time actually does stop for everyone else, or perhaps it's something else entirely. Whichever is the case, there's little to no chance that he can hear my thoughts from here. Probably.
You might be thinking, "Wow! That sounds like a super useful and overpowered ability!"
Well it would be, if I could actually interact with anything while the world is on pause. As it stands, the most I can do is move my own body and wander through the frozen world around me, though I can't go very far from my original position.
I won't lie and say that I didn't try to use this ability to cheat on exams, before I realized that there was no point because most of my classmates were dumber than me. It's really frustrating when you think you've found a method to efficiently slack off but it turns out that just doing it properly takes less effort.
Nowadays, I just use the pause effect to take naps when I have lots of things to do. There's a special bliss reserved for being able to ignore all your responsibilities and sleep as much as you want. Just for that, I'm pretty fond of this ability.
If only I could pull out the bed I keep in my item box, that would be even better. Alas, I can't open my item box or anything else when the Main Menu screen is open, so sometimes I have to lie down on the ground to conk out.
Ah, that's right. I forgot to mention my most useful ability. It's pretty standard as far as video game mechanics go — an inventory.
My inventory doesn't have any weight limitations, and it's my favourite part of the system. Although there are a limited number of slots, I can fit any object into a single slot as long as it's considered a discrete entity, like a suitcase or a shed. I could fit a whole house, even, if I wasn't worried about the plumbing and such.
It's pretty awesome, if I may say so myself. I've never had to carry a heavy grocery bag in my life. I have a change of clothes for whenever it's too warm, and a thick coat for when it's too cold. I can whip out a sleeping bag at any time, or a whole bed if no one is looking. I'm never lacking for entertainment methods. Hunger? Thirst? Cravings? No problem.
That's right, I'm bragging. I bet you're jealous.
What are you gonna do about it? Even if you want to punch me, you can't. Get rekt, LOL.
…Sorry. Old habits.
Anyway, the only real rule with my inventory is that I can't put living creatures into it, particularly humans. The last time I put a human in there, I had to deal with an unhappy Kyucchi.
I have never experienced anything so terrifying in my life. I had nightmares for months afterwards. He's usually happy-go-lucky, but all bets are off once you violate the laws of reality. If you underestimate him just because he's a cute bunny sprite, your gruesome death has nothing to do with me.
I'd keep going on about how scary he is, but I think you've gotten the point by now. Although you really can't understand it completely until you've properly experienced it, like that time when I—
[RESUME]
Ah—Huh? I didn't…
Oh, I must have hit the button with my elbow or something. I was going to use this time to figure out how to deal with Kira, but I wasted it all talking to you.
[LOADING...]
I guess this is fine too. Honestly, it's not like I'll get any ideas just because I have more time. What I really need is more information. I need to get closer to him.
[3… 2…1...]
Game on.
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AN
Raise your hand if you expected all of this fourth wall smashing. (Everyone who raised their hand is a dirty liar...) By the way, if you don't like when Ringo swears, I don't know what to tell you; she was raised surrounded by yakuza, after all.
No excuses and all that. This is fic is just basically me playing around to the fullest, whether with tropes, the fourth wall, or writing style. Prepare for some meta. Level one (chapter two) onwards doesn't have as much second-person references. Also, somehow Ringo got increasingly offensive the more I wrote her. Hey, who let you be such a little shit… hey… I kinda want to beat you up…