Cereal
I have made hats.
So many hats.
[Iron bowler hat - A bowler hat made out of iron.
The Iron Mafia Grows! Wait, we're not making a mafia?] x 203.
It was a great fortune when I-
I-
Me, Cereal, genius engineer-
Stfu-
Okay fine maybe I had some help with it-
I literally told you-
OKAYFINESOMAYBEYOUDIDTELLMEHOW-
But essentially, I made the first iron bowler hat, and because the original crafting price was 3 iron chunks, which was reduced into 1 because of my resource efficient modifier, and further increased to be able to make 2 bowler hats at the price of 1 because of my automation modifier, I could essentially get 2 iron chunks for the price of 1…
…If the dice rolled well.
Because unfortunately, all good things don't last forever and I lost a lot of iron because sometimes my insecure prices modifier decided to make 1 iron into 10, negating a part of my duplication process, and repeat that by about a dozen times, I had to go grab more iron at one point because I ran out because the insecure prices modifier got high rolls all the time.
Fortunately, it also worked the other way around, because I remember a couple of times where I got up to like 6 hats at once because the insecure prices modifier went below 1x.
Good times.
Good shit.
Good shi- yeah, whatever.
…Wait a minute, Jaeger?
Ye?
…Do the hats resize to fit the head of the wearer?
…
…Shit.
Hats that don't fit on someone's head are the mortal enemies of humanity. This cannot go uncalled for.
Uhhhh
Wait lemme call up Skryb for this. I vaguely remember this one time where I was on super copium that Skryb gave me an IOU thinking I'd forget.
Wait, really?
I hope so lmao.
This sounds super contrived, but if Skryb declines the request for equal sized- Uh, how do I describe it?
Uh… IDK lmao. Comfy hats?
Yeah, sure, comfy hats.
If Skryb doesn't give in to our request of letting our iron bowler hats mold into the wearer's head or something… For comfy hats…
…Uhh….
…I'll tell him to eat shit and fall off his horse.
Ooh, yeah.
That'll certainly put fear into the hearts of some 900 year old supervillain.
Yeah it will-
Wait.
Only 900 years? Didn't you vaguely say something while we were crafting those hats about how Skryb was essentially top dog in the universe or something? I thought there'd be like… More zeroes to his lifespan.
Idk. I'm not too familiar with the history. All I know is that we didn't exist at one point, and then we didn't. And that was like, not that long ago in earth terms.
…The conspiracy grows. Maybe one day, I'll figure out what that actually means.
Probably not lmao.
Yeah, sure, I'll agree with the guy who's essentially high all the time.
Eat shit and fall off your horse.
Just, like, get those nice, comfortable hats for our boys. Mkay?
I got this. When have I ever failed?
The Rumbling? Chapter 139? Not finding AoE despite having 700 years to do so?
…Okay fine I set myself up for that.
Yeah, you really did.
…
Oh, he's gone already…
Well, I guess I should go up and gather my hillichurl boys… And mitachurls… And samachurls…
…And slimes…
…Wow, I did go on a recruiting spree.
Uh, where to place them though… Maybe close to the huge tree in Windrise for now…
Jaeger
Jaeger was nervously fiddling his fingers around, ready to speak to Skryb, CEO of Fair and Balanced Incorporated, strongest gamer in the universe, person who spoke in bold font, and a guy with some a personality disorder, although that last one applied to most people with more than 200 years on their lives, including himself.
The movies lied to him when they said people could be sane after living for a few hundred years. Just 50 years in, he was already running out of interesting things to do and had to make brand new interests to keep himself occupied.
Now that he thinks about it, he thinks he heard Paradise and Aodare theorize that it's because the human mind wasn't really prepared for the whole living for a hundred years thing or something like that. And because most gamers were human, everyone ended up going too fast in experiencing everything, and all of the quick ones ended up in a rut once they got tired of experiencing the same thing, but in a different form after a few hundred times… Although, they weren't sure what the heck gamer's mind did in that scenario though.
Ah, but he's getting off topic.
Skryb was a samurai shogun dragon glowy robot thing with a lot of black and red which made it seem like he was also overcompensating for something. Except when he was flying straight towards you with the intent to harm, which was when it definitely did its job at being scary.
Sometimes, he has to remind himself why he works for this guy. He's sort of an asshole… Not in the same league as the 'cartoonishly evil batshit insane' gamers that sometimes appeared, but still an asshole.
…Probably has to do with the fact he lost a bet with him that forced him to be a servant for eternity.
Either way, Jaeger ended up calling Skryb regardless of his thoughts about him.
"Heeeeey! Skryb, my good ol' CEO friend! The One Who Knows No Imperfections, God of The Universe, Master of Forbidden Arts, Man Who Speaks In Bold Font, Deus Ex Machina, Conquer of Worlds, and Destroyer of All Life!" Jaeger said, completely bullshitting through his teeth about Skryb's various titles he's arbitrarily saying.
Skryb does not reply.
Jaeger starts sweating, wondering if it's better to hang up the phone now.
"You wish for… Special cosmetics, yes?" Skryb finally asked, his voice artificially deepened.
Jaeger mentally breathes a sigh of relief. Skryb's in his edgy phase right now. He can deal with this, he's been edgy for a good 400 years, he's practically a professional in dealing with edgy people. Now, how does he describe this to convince Skryb of his cause…
"Uh, yes, my lord," Jaeger said, also deepening his voice to match Skryb's, "My… Client, wishes for… Hats that may magically fit themselves onto the wearer's heads. I plead of you to assist in this endeavor, and give my client a modifier that would allow his… Goods, to do this. I believe this will be most interesting to you and the most beneficial to the customers watching due to the fact that… Uh… Nobody likes hats that don't fit."
And he completely avoided saying the word Cereal! Man, he's getting good at this 'negotiating with a dark lord' thing!
Skryb said nothing for a few moments before saying, "Wow, you've really killed the vibe, Jaeger. You should've just gone with your usual speech pattern with a stupid request like this. It probably would've worked better."
S H I T.
"But," Skryb continued, interrupting Jaeger about to say something, "Having hats that don't fit is a travesty, I say this as a person that wears a huge fucking samurai helmet on my head all the time, I'll allow it."
Wait.
That actually worked?
"Uh…" He blanked, "Thanks?"
"No problem. By the way, your IOU has now expired. Why would you just sit on that for 123 years only to spend it on this?"
…Wait.
FUCK. WHY DIDN'T I ASK HIM TO FIND AN AOE WORLD FOR ME WITH IT?! AHJIUHFAWUIHWAUIYFHGAWY.
…At least I got the hats. Cereal owes me for this…
Cereal
"THANK YOU FOR [Hitting the bell!] MY GOOD [Boys and Gals!]" I said to my goons around me, "BECAUSE YOU [TOOK THE DEAL] AND FOLLOWED ME HERE, YOU ARE ALL [good special boys and girls] AND GET TO BE THE FIRST TO GET MY [Cool TF2 Hat]! YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SAY [I was there dood!]"
Shit-shit-shit where is my hat thing Jaeger you are-
Modifier obtained.
[Skryb's Comfy Hats - When someone wears a cosmetic item created by you, the cosmetic will automatically resize to fit their head comfortably.]
I GOT IT BOYS
JAEGER YOU ARE RIGHT ON TIME!
I pulled out one of the iron bowler hats out of my inventory, "THIS IS A [Public Device] THAT WILL LET [Those $4.99 humans] KNOW THAT YOU ARE PART OF [Fair and Balanced Incorporated] AND TO NOT BE [Liberated]!"
I tossed the iron bowler hat to one of the hillichurls in the crowd saying, "NOW TRY IT ON MY [FREEDOM TROOPS]!"
The hillichurl looked at me, looked at the undersized hat in his hands, and put it on anyway.
And everyone was amazed at how it had just suddenly changed to fit the hillichurls head.
"Ooh!"
"Shiny hats grow big!"
"Fit nice!"
Man, I was thinking to myself 'huh, these hats do look a bit small' when I was making them, but it's way better for the hats to become bigger to fit than to become smaller.
5head.
5head indeed.
"SO!" I continued after everyone was finished with their initial marveling, " I GOT [Two Hundred and Twenty Two] MORE OF THESE [Hot Singles near You!]! WHO WANTS TO [Get in Line or You're insane!]"
Everyone got in line.
This, my good friends, is what we call a big win.
Venti
Using the winds as his eyes, he's been sneakily observing Cereal's actions and there's only a few thoughts he can muster towards it.
One, this guy is either insane or a genius to unite the hillichurls and slimes to himself.
Two, this is eerily familiar to the abyss order gathering the hillichurls except… Cereal seemed a lot nicer than the abyss mages of Khaenri'ah.
Three, this guy makes nice iron bowler hats.
If Venti recalls properly, bowler hats were popularized by the aristocrats a few hundred years ago when they started wearing it to differentiate themselves from the commoner's hats.
Obviously, when people caught wind of this, people began to wear bowler hats anyways.
Pretty hilarious, Venti thinks, and it definitely had his seal of approval if he were anywhere close to being awake during that time.
Well, anyways, with this random robot handing them out to actual hillichurls and slimes, the aristocrats must be rolling in their graves right now, having their 'superior' hats be stolen by monsters.
Hm… Maybe he could find a way to get one of those, just for giggles.
I mean, what Celestia doesn't know doesn't hurt… Probably.
…Hopefully.
…Actually, maybe put a pin on that. He probably shouldn't do that now.
Cereal
After going through some 150 hats later…
You have leveled up to level 20. [Exp: 27/479]
Int: 20 to 30 [+1 per level]
Wis: 20 to 30 [5 Mp per Wis] [+1 per level] [Mp: 150]
End: 60 to 110 [50 Sp per End] [+5 per level] [Sp: 5,500]
You have gained 50 stat points.
Vit: 55 to 105 [25 Hp per Vit] [Hp: 2,625]
You have gained new abilities:
[X-Ray - Grants you X-ray vision. What does it go through? You decide. Costs 1% of your Sp every second when in use.]
[Foresight - When observing an object that is able to be crafted by your class, observe will tell you at what tier that object is craftable at.]
[Iron Wall - Locks your body into place, and you are unable to be moved for a short duration. Costs 10% of your Sp to use.]
You have unlocked the 2nd tier of crafting. Next tier is at level 40.
You have gained access to co-op dungeons.
I have hatified everyone. The hillichurls, the mitachurls, even the slimes.
And looking at everyone, finally with some sort of indicator that they're part of FaBI…
So cool.
You know what's cooler? co-op dungeons. You gotta try them Asap.
Also, here.
Quest obtained: Co-op dungeon.
Description: Your first co-op dungeon!
Objective: Complete 1 co-op dungeon.
Objective 2: Do it without getting hit.
Rewards: 300 Exp, 1 gacha token.
Reward 2: 150 Exp, 1 gacha token.
Arigato gozaimasu or some weeb shit like that.
Thank you for becoming a huge loser to eventually end up as my system for my sake. I promise I won't let this mistake go to waste.
…
Objective 2 has been removed.
OH COME ON DUDE.
DO NOT DISOBEY THE MAN WITH THE KEYS.
OKAY I'M SORRY. I WON'T DO IT AGAIN.
YOU'RE LYING THROUGH YOUR TEETH-
LYING MY ASS I'M JUST TRYING TO GET BY-
GET BY WITHOUT INSULTING ME-
Co-op dungeon entered.
"Sonovila, Great Future Hero of Japan in a society filled with Heroes, sure to save people without even tiring himself, bringing peace to the world. Ranahva, General of the Eastern Front of a planet far from prying eyes bravely leading her people against the brutal march of barbarians who dare go against him. Cereal, one who is cursed with a dark spirit inside of him, just as I, I feel a great kinship towards you… And I, The Master of Earth, Great Teacher of The Forbidden Arts, Supreme Queen of Bahamut, Traveler Between Worlds, The Defier of Death, Lord of All Elves, The Envy Of Demons, Controller of Strings, And The Hero Player… Athenia! All of you are but candles in my presence! Feel extremely blessed to be within my presence!"
Athenia was…
How do I say this…
It's because of the modifiers on her.
Yeah, but still… I'm a chuunibyou enjoyer, but…
I mean, isn't this a bit much? Like, I enjoyed characters like Fischl, Megumin, and Rikka, but like there's a point where it's like…
Eh.
I elbowed Sonovila, a monk that was in My Hero Academia, "[OUTSTANDING WORK!] THIS [Hot Mom] SURE IS A [Fischl Main], HUH?"
Sonovila awkwardly looked at me, trying to decode my words, "Uh… Yeah. I kind of feel bad for her, though…"
Ranahva scoffed, "She should just talk less and that'll fix the problem."
Athenia scoffed, "Hmph! You should all show respect to a queen like myself! If you continue your belittling, I believe the God Above God within me may respond in a way you may not like…"
Hehe, 'god above god'.
I laughed out loud anyways, despite my best attempts not to, "[ZOOOO WEEEE MAAAAMAAAA!] MY GOOD [SUPREME T-SHIRT] AREN'T WE [Alone on a late night?] GOD ONLY [knows] HOW MANY [Companions] YOU [Keep in bed] HAHEEHAHAHEA!"
Athenia winced at my comment, before returning her haughty gaze, "If you do not believe me, then fine! Let us start exploring this vile den of beasts and be on our way, then!"
Ranahva sighed, "God, I hate it here."
"You know," Sonovila mentioned while walking to the next group of enemies, "I didn't pull for a lot of the world modifiers, but looking at you, Athenia and Ranahva, I really should've. I mean, becoming an actual general of a big army and a princess? Those modifiers are really versatile!"
"Why, I give you a token of my appreciation, Sonovila! Of course, I am sure you will be fine without the marvelous gifts of Fair and Balanced Incorporated." Athenia said, smiling.
Ranahva side eyed Athenia, "What she said, but less chuuni."
Cereal laughed uncontrollably, when asked about his laughter, he did not elaborate.
Cereal
"HEY HEY HEY DOES ANYONE WANT TO [Beg, Steal, And Barter] WITH ME?!" Cereal asked after defeating the Kobold Candle Master.
Sonovila raised his hand, "I have, uh, this thing that I'm willing to let go of if someone has something as good."
And then he pulls out a huge floating metal machine.
[Food Materializer - Mythic - When material is inserted into the Food Materializer, the machine will create a food dish that the user of the machine wants. The amount of food created is the same as the amount of materials that is inserted. Quality of said materials is also irrelevant. Also, it floats.
The laws of physics mean nothing.]
HOLY SHIT THIS COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING!
Oh, wow, yeah, you should probably try to get that.
Cereal immediately dashed to Sonovila, "I [WANT IT WANT IT WANT IT!] PLEASE, ALLOW THIS [Broken Spirit] TO TRADE FOR IT!"
Sonovila shrugged, "What do you want to give for it?"
Uh…
Desperately searching throughout my inventory, I eventually thought of something.
Jaeger. If I, theoretically, lost this summoning stone somehow…
…Well, if you, hypothetically, somehow lost the summoning stone to summon me without using it… I would be obliged to replace it, right?
That's what I thought.
So I pulled out Jaeger's summoning stone.
[Summoning Stone (Jaeger) - Divine - A summoning stone that temporarily summons Jaeger to aid you
If you don't fight, you can't win.]
"[THIS] FOR [THAT]! [all [for [one]]] WILL YOU TAKE THE DEAL?" Cereal asked, getting uncomfortably close to Sonovila's face.
Sonovila takes one look at the summoning stone, "Yep, I'll take it. We have a deal."
Cereal greedily took the machine and shoved the summoning stone towards Sonovila, "WE'VE ACHIEVED A DEAL, [Enemy of Chorus.]! THANK YOU FOR [Being an IDIOT!]. MAY [Skryb] HELP YOU [Against your futile struggle against the main protagonist of Freeloading Souls]." Cereal mysteriously said, not elaborating on his choice of words.
Sonovila raised his eyebrow, "That modifier sucks, huh?"
Cereal nodded, "Yes, it does."
"Wha- I thought you couldn't talk normally?!"
"WHAT?! YOU THINK YOU'VE [HEARD, SEEN, FEEL, TASTE, SMELLED] IT?! I DIDN'T SEE A THING! [Actually, I think it was speaking to you!]"
Cereal took a heavy hit from the final boss of the dungeon, which was an extremely large naga simply called 'NagaBig"
And by heavy hit, he literally went flying across the room, depleting him of at least half his health.
He was the tank of the party.
There was no healer at the party.
Everyone started panicking.
"Shit! Tank's down!"
"Where's the healer?!"
"WE HAVE NO HEALER!"
"This is the most horrendous group of neanderthals I've ever had the displeasure of adventuring with. Are you all truly this-"
"SHADDAP YOU-"
Cereal interrupted them all, shouting, "OH TODOS USTEDES CALLARÍAN!?"
Sonovila briefly stopped attacking as he gaped at Cereal's rising body, "He speaks Spanish?!"
Sonovila only barely dodged the boss's attack in the nick of time while Ranahva shouted, "Pay attention, idiots!"
Cereal jumped right back into the fight with a vengeance, shouting, "ICH BRAUCHE DICH WIRKLICH TOT!"
Athenia raised an eyebrow, "How is he… Agh! Nevermind! Just keep attacking the vile beast!"
Cereal, meanwhile, was ungracefully attacking the naga with his cane, doing more damage than half his team combined, remarking, "それは大きなダメージです！待って、なぜ私は外国語を話すのですか？！"
"What language was that?!"
"HÅLL KÄPTEN OCH FORTSÄTT KÄMPA!"
Eventually, after a rather ungraceful 48 seconds, the group finally managed to defeat NagaBig, their final words being, "I've been defeated… By fools…"
"哇，他們是對的，但他們不必那樣說" Cereal said, looting the dead body.
Ranahva rested their hands on Cereal's, saying, "Follow my previous advice, and please shut the fuck up."
Cereal simply raised the middle finger in response, "Fuck you."
Ranahva physically recoiled at the unexpected comeback, "Why are you talking normally NOW?!"
Cereal raised his hands in mock surprise, "QUEL?! JE N'AI RIEN ENTENDU! VOUS DEVEZ DEVENIR FOU!"
Sonovila sighed, "Yeah, this has been great and all, but I'm out of here."
Athenia scoffed in response, "My royal retinue will not hear a word of you all. I hope you all are forgotten in the history books."
Co-Op Dungeon completed. Exiting dungeon.
Cereal
What the fuck just happened in there?
I don't know man.
Quest: Co-op dungeon completed.
All objectives completed.
Rewards: 450 Exp, 2 gacha tokens.
Cereal: [Exp: 477/479]
There was a chuunibyou girl, some monk dude that I made some weird shit saying for, and by the way, that food materializer is going to be a total game changer from now on, and some kind of… General?
Honestly, what kind of modifiers were those guys getting, getting those high-up positions so early?
World modifiers are kinda crazy sometimes if you're lucky enough… Or unlucky depending on how you feel.
…I'll just take your word for it.
But seriously, what the fuck was up with my language settings? I just spoke like, 6 different languages when I got below the half health mark.
We call that a pog.
Only Ymir knows, huh? Well, that's something to take note of, then…
Yeah yeah, now, I think we're missing something!
What are we- Ooohhh yeah…
Hey, Jaeger.
Hm? Yeah, Cereal?
I seemed to misplaced your summoning stone somewhere! Could you perhaps help me find it?
Oh, yeah, sure! And… Oh! Would you look at that! My summoning stone I gave to you isn't on this world at all!
Oh? Really? That's weird, I don't remember summoning you!
Yeah, me neither! But don't worry, I cleared it up with Skryb when he first let me give the stone to you that if you somehow lost it, I could just give you a replace ment.
Oh really? How convenient!
Yep! So…
Item obtained.
[Summoning Stone (Jaeger) - Divine - A summoning stone that temporarily summons Jaeger to aid you
If you don't fight, you can't win.]
Here you go!
Thank you!
…
…
LMMMMMMAAAAOOOOOOOOOO
HAHHWAHDAHDAHHAHAHEAHAHAHAHEAHEAHEHAEHAEHAEHA.
Ah, but actually, pretty good deal all round there. Sonovila got rid of a garbage item he was never going to use, and ended up with a get out of jail free card. Meanwhile, we've got an item that will literally change the course of the future. At no cost for ourselves!
Yeah, that's a win-win for us both!
Ah, anyways, you wanna use those gacha tokens now?
Ooh! You wanna do a ritual or something? Those are always fun! Uh… What's a good ritual anyways?
Idk lol. I just use them without thinking.
Yeah, and that's why 139 exists.
Fuck you.
Anyways…
Taking out the token from my inventory into my hands, I speak out loud and clearly to the surrounding area,
"No! I don't want that! Mikasa finding another man...?! I want her to think about me and no one else for the rest of my life! Even after I die... I want to be at the front of her mind for a while! Ten years at least!"
hOLY SHIT I ACTUALLY SAID THAT WITHOUT THE BROKEN SPEECH?!
BRUH.
Immediately capitalizing on my luck, I use the tokens and…
[Summoning Stone (Zavvox) - Divine - A summoning stone that temporarily summons Zavvox to aid you.
I am the end of all things.]
[Decay Stone - Epic - When broke, a wave of decay spreads around the area, destroying anything it comes in contact with. Throwing is recommended.
All I want to do is destroy.]
IT'S ALL GOOD!
WHO BLESSED YOUR LUCK DUDE?!
YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Ella Musk
…Huh, did this group of hillichurls always wear… Iron bowler hats?
Maybe it's just a thing they found.
Either way, judging from their demeanor, they might be friendly enough to speak with!
AN:
"I have no favorite child."
*Continues to have Zavvox appear randomly in a lot of my fics.*
He'll be a surprise tool for later on, I promise.
Anyways, I got like, 6 or so comments from this one dude on my other fic, Aura Liberation Gamer, with the same comment saying "I HATE IDIOT MCS" Or something along those lines.
Obviously, he was being toxic, but I was thinking about 'okay, so which part of Moroes made him think that way'
And I wouldn't dare read my fics, so I was just left pondering about the state of ALA and I kind of came to a realization with all of my fics.
I'm literally doing the 'half the plot is leveling up' thing that people warn gamer fic writers about. Although the plot is somewhat going forward, it's bogged down by a lot of 'hey, you get a quest for this thing you're doing' and while in a 10,000 word chapter, that might be fine because it's going to be a small portion of the chapter, but I'm a guy who writes like 3k words a chapter.
And I'm also overly obsessing over the date of when the chapters take place when most of the time, even I don't think about it when reading other gamer fics.
So, not only is my chapters filled with a bunch of level up filler, it's also being bogged down by my over obsession with time in my chapters, with like 10 chapters in, it's barely been a week since the whole isekai thing started.
And now that I think of it, it might have to do with my previous writing in MHA where the players were in somewhat close proximity to each other, so they were always doing something so I had a vague idea of at what point of the timeline they were in so I could scale them okay to the related plot and to each other.
But the fandoms I'm doing the pvp fics right now don't really have that kind of timeline because I've decided to drop the players a lot further from each other, but I'm still obsessing over time, even though it's probably more healthier to the story to just arbitrarily decide when something takes place, whether 1 day or a week or more from the previous chapter.
Such a simple concept had gone over my head lmao. I don't know how I didn't see it until now.
Thank you, random toxic commenter. You became a toxic commenter who hates idiot MCs for my sake. I promise I won't let this error go to waste.
Anyways, one reason why I do these ANs is that I think it would've been nice if I stumbled upon them while reading fics and could sorta take notes in the back of my head. So maybe other people might find this somewhat interesting or useful, or people might just skim and skip.
And I just like ANs because they're a nice way to kind of leave what kind of mood the author was in while writing a chapter.
Anyways, feel free to leave a review or something if you have any thoughts about this or anything. I find them useful for thinking, even if it's as toxic as 'I hate how this guy thinks.'
[None of what I just said above applies to this chapter because I realized it after writing most of it.]
[Also, Cereal's gacha luck is because I thought it would be funny lol.]
[Thank you google translate.]