This is very much a proof of concept at the moment. I saw no Tokyo Ghoul stories with any of the elements from the Gamer, and I thought I would take the opportunity to be the first to fit in that category (as far as I know). I will be continuing it, and with longer chapters, however it will be with probably very sporadic and random updates. This is a project for my free time, and I have a lot of them that need more attention than this right now. Hope you enjoy, and also any constructive criticism would be wonderful.

Thanks


Edit - Fixed bold issue early on, between two of the screens. In case anyone gets a notification about that, sorry. No new chapter yet, but there will be one in a couple days at most - almost done writing the first draft.


Opening the door to his apartment, Kaneki breathed a sigh of relief. Finally away from the hospital and its droning beeping machines, he took the opportunity to go to bed and sleep the rest of the day away, and maybe then he'd feel up for going back to college with his friend Hide.

Or he would have done, were there not a few issues first.

[Quest Complete]

[Details -]

Safely get home from the hospital

[Reward] – 100XP, a sense of safety

[Congratulations! You have Leveled Up]

Just a couple of issues.

"Status" he spoke out loud.

To no surprise of his, a screen opened.

Name – Kaneki Ken

Species - ?

Title – The Gamer

Lvl – 2

XP – 0 (200 to next Level Up)

HP – 100

MP - 100

Str – 5

Vit - 5

Dex - 5

Int - 5

Wis - 5

Lck - 1

SP – 5

Yes. Kaneki, on top of being recently out of surgery, was now what most people would call Clinically insane. Wonderful. Just what he wanted this week.

Not to mention the annoyance of having his Species hidden to him. Come on, what was the Game's problem? It was painfully obvious that Kaneki was human – just look at him! Possibly one of the most unthreatening human beings imaginable, in his signature blue hoodie and black slacks. His hair helped make him look as non-threatening as possible, framing his head in such a way to make him look more like flies could hurt him than the other way around. He knew he was a bit more on the nerdy side than most, but come on, he was still human!

Besides that, he had few real grievances. Everything could easily be explained by using game logic – something Kaneki himself had little experience with, but knew the basics of anyhow.

Was there a way to verify that this was all real? Maybe. Games tended to have a few screens to go through, and whilst stats were important, there were a lot of others as well. The first thing that came to mind? Well…

"Inventory"

And as expected, another screen appeared. This time, instead of numbers and letters, it had various empty boxes. Honestly, it was about what he expected. In addition to this, he could see all of his clothes currently on him a small, almost mannequin like figure on the right.

Judging by how it was laid out, Kaneki could only assume that he was able to quickly swap clothes using this system. Would it be useful to him at all? Well… apart from saving a few minutes whenever he had to change clothes, it wouldn't be much use at all. It was a neat feature at least.

Now, to test it.

Kaneki quickly reached to the screen and grabbed his hoodie's image, and pulled it away from his torso and into his inventory. Only when it settled into a box did he realise that the item of clothing in question was no longer on his person, revealing a rather plain white T-shirt underneath.

"Huh… So that proves I'm not insane, right? Yeah right. Doesn't change the fact that no one would believe me."

Quickly throwing the hoodie back on using the inventory screen, Kaneki took a moment more to ponder the possibilities. In games, there had to be ways to configure settings – or so he'd been told. He remembered vaguely someone someday talking to him about computers needing good parts to let games run looking the best, which implied there was a choice aspect somewhere in how good the game looked. There might not be that exact option available, this being real life and Kaneki being decidedly not a computer, but it was still worth checking out for the sake of being thorough.

DING

For using logic and memory to piece together details of your strange power, +1 to Int

…So using logic and… well, intellect, could raise his stats? That was a roundabout way of giving out free stats to anyone. But how far did it extend? Could that then be applied to the other stats? Say, by lifting a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time? Or running for extended periods of time? This all seemed very cheap in Kaneki's opinion.

DING

For determining and applying the rules of the game to certain areas, +1 to Wis

This was getting old fast, time to check the options menu.

Options

Subtitles Off/On

Sound Effects Off/On

Interface – Off/On

That was a very small options list. Actually slightly smaller than the young man assumed there would be, although he wasn't sure how much there was supposed to be in an options menu like this.

Swiftly turning off sound effects and turning the interface on, Kaneki noticed no real changes straight away. Then again, the interface could be anything – he couldn't quite remember what the word even meant in the context of games, so honestly it could have been replacing peoples faces with pictures of horses and he would assume normality at this point.

What other things were in games? Pause menu's? How would that even work in real life? And would it even be worth using? There were probably other things too but with Kaneki's limited knowledge of games yet again limiting him, there was not much more he could think of. Maybe Hide would know?

Regardless, today was supposed to be a day of rest, and Kaneki resigned himself to slowly working out how the system worked as it came. Besides, its not like he'd really need it anytime soon, right?

He really hoped so, but with a Luc stat of a measly one, he had the idea that not everything would be going so well.

Actually… there was one more thing he needed to check. Kaneki would have left it alone if it weren't for the idea suddenly forming in his head and creating a burning curiosity to know more.

"Skills" he said out loud once more. If anyone heard his voice from his apartment, people might think he was insane.

He actually expected a little more out of this one – after all, a skills menu was meant to show everything he could do, right? However, he was met by a measly two skills, both of which showed nothing about his life or his previous skills in life. There were a few that were greyed out and filled with question marks instead of words, so they went ignored for the most part.

[Gamer's Mind (Passive) LVL MAX]

Recognises the reality as a game and keeps the user calm.

Allows the user to calmly and logically think things through.

Keeps the mind calm.

Immunity to mental disorder.

Immunity to Psychological Status Effects.

[Gamer's Body (Passive) LVL MAX]

Grants a body that allows the user to live in the real world as if it is a game.

The user receives no physical damage from attacks, only pain and a loss of HP.

Sleeping in a bed restores HP, MP and cures all Status Effects.

And reading that just made Kaneki feel worse again. He realised that he should have been panicking vaguely in the back of his mind, but he paid it no attention, and now to know that he was right? Just how much was this Game supposed to mess with him?

Regardless, he now had a proper way to test that this was all real. He would only feel pain right? Meaning that if he got a knife and pricked his hand or something, he should see his HP go down, right? Or at least, it would heal up awfully fast.

Hopefully he wasn't insane.

Walking briskly to the kitchen, Kaneki grabbed a knife – one he remembered being somewhat sharp but not likely to accidentally cut something off – and held it over his arm. If the logic held, he should be fine.

"Am I really doing this…?"

It was out of character for Kaneki to be doing something like this and to be completely calm about the entire situation too. Maybe this is the kind of thing the game meant by Gamers Mind earlier.

Well, standing around wasn't going to do anything. With that thought in mind, he grated his arm with the blade enough to draw blood and…

Well, he can't have put much strength into it, because he didn't bleed at all. One more time, he paid careful attention to how much pressure he was putting on his arm.

Still nothing.

Well…. Checking the ability again confirmed that he should be slightly injured and in some pain, but this was neither of those. He felt the sharp end of the blade pressed into his skin and yet it wouldn't cut at all. This was past the description of the ability – this was something completely different.

One of the greyed out abilities? It must be. That was the only explanation for it. The only question was – how much information did he need about it before the Game decided to fill it in for him? It seemed a bit unfair to have some kind of effect hidden from him just because the Game decided to hide it.

Regardless, this wasn't working at all. There had to be something else he could do, something to prove the idea of him being in a game.

Breaking bones was out of the question until he proved for sure he wasn't going to have any lasting effects from it. He obviously couldn't cut himself it seemed, and apart from that there seemed to be not much he could do.

Damn. Seemed like a bust then.

Glancing at the food Hide left by his door – and really, how was it not stolen before he got home? This wasn't exactly the safest neighbourhood when it came to petty crime – Kaneki went to go put it away. As much as he might not be eating right now, it was still polite to try, if only at a later time. After a silent apology to his friends wallet, the young man went to his room to watch TV, and maybe decide where to put his newly gained SP.

It seemed like his Lck was once again getting the better of him, as this was the exact moment that the friend in question called his cell phone. He debated whether or not it would be a good idea to ignore Hide, but decided against it. After all, it was likely to do with him being recently discharged, and apart from a small amount of hunger, there was nothing actually wrong with him.

Holding the phone straight to his ear, however, was a mistake.

"KANEKI!" He yelled out straight away, making the boy in question wince slightly before moving the phone away from his ear slightly.

"Hide… do you really have to be so loud? I only got out of the hospital today."

"Hehehe… well maybe you should have called me earlier. I was all alone while you've been in the hospital, praying for your health! Makes me wonder what you really think of me, supposed best friend…." He said with a dramatic sigh. Really, Kaneki could hear the acting a mile away, but it never failed to catch him off guard.

Or at least, he used to.

"I was tired Hide, and I have a lot of catching up to do for college. Thank you for checking up on me though. It means a lot."

"Bleh bleh, don't get sappy on me Kaneki. You know I'm always gonna badger you when somethings wrong. Speaking of, are you ok? You seem off."

Really? Then again, it didn't surprise him with everything on his mind. Not to mention the whole Gamers Mind thing. There was no telling how much that affected his subconscious actions.

"It's nothing Hide." It was almost too easy to lie to Hide, despite him never having any real need to before. "I'm just thinking about how much I need to do now that I'm out of the hospital. Anyway, how have things been since the accident?"

It was silent for a moment – just long enough to let Kaneki know that Hide had no chance of believing him – before responding.

"Things have been good! When are you coming back anyway? Can't skip forever."

"Yeah yeah I know Hide, I should be fine attend again tomorrow."

That wasn't a lie at least. He had nothing going on tomorrow that needed him to skip college, and although being told to take it easy, that was more about exercise than anything else. Actually, did that even matter with the Gamer's Body? Probably best not to rely on that for now, but still, it was something to keep in mind.

"That's great! I actually have to go borrow some stuff off an upperclassman tomorrow, wanna come? Give us a chance to catch up and all."

A moment of silence, this time from Kaneki. It had nothing to do with anything said to him – no, that was innocent in and of itself. It was the menu that appeared once Hide finished speaking, alongside one that Kaneki realised he had been ignoring almost since he turned off the sound effects.

[Quest Gained]

[Details -]

Find out what you are

[Reward] – 1000XP, Ability to see Racial Abilities, Access to Racial Stat Bonuses,

Access to Racial Title, Access to Relationship Menu,

Low Tier Skill Book (Random)

5000

[Failure/Refusal] – Death, Dismemberment, the End of everyone you know

Y/N

[Quest Gained]

[Details -]

Go with Hide Tomorrow

[Reward] – 3000XP, 5 ? Points

20000

[Failure/Refusal] – Hide dies, Hide Relationship Bonuses lost forever

? Relationship Bonuses lost forever

Y/N

"Sure Hide. I'd love to."