kscans

Chapter 4 - A Choice at the End of the Line

Utterly pointless—if I had to name this battle, there would be no other fitting description for such a damn fierce fight.

My only means of attack was kicking. I tried picking up some of the rocks lying around and bashing it a few times, but the moment they made contact, they were absorbed into its body, and it declared no damage. I told myself that it was merciful it didn't heal its HP, and I transformed into a machine that did nothing but deliver kicks.

The early-game event boss was generously given pattern changes, and after about an hour of kicking it and chipping away 30% of its HP, its behavior changed.

Specifically, its left arm also grew larger, turning it into an ambidextrous and dexterous stone doll.

"Huh, so they actually prepared a second phase," I thought, impressed, as I, the incarnation of the backstab kick, spent another two hours kicking the stone doll to death.

Honestly, there were more than a few times I considered just giving up and letting myself be turned into mince. It was beyond a matter of patience... but what kept me going was simply the exhilaration of my avatar, which felt no fatigue and could leap around with ease.

—Yes, I saw it through.

After a battle lasting three hours and just under twenty minutes, the pitiful stone doll, which had been kicked thousands of times, finally saw its HP bar disappear.

"—Hh............ugh."

I thought I had kept my composure fairly well, but as I watched the [Chosen Stone Doll] crumble into a silent pile of rocks, I collapsed into a sitting position without even letting out a victory cry.

That was rough. My HP gauge had remained untouched since the face-slide and the initial punch, but if that had gone on any longer, I probably would have started contemplating the meaning of life.

It was a deathmatch smeared with futility, emptiness, and pointlessness...

"...Oh."

Then, with a faint sound, a single window popped up in front of me. Thinking it was the battle results, I peeked at it—

◇ Title Acquired ◇
・'One Who Throws Themselves into Conflict'
・'One Who Possesses an Indomitable Heart'

I had honestly expected experience points or loot, but that was all that was written. The window vanished after a few seconds, and no matter how long I waited, nothing else seemed to happen.

"............Hmm."

It was honestly a bit of a letdown, but I guess getting some titles is better than nothing. I called up the menu to check, and it seems they weren't the type you collect for some kind of bonus, but rather you could set a title of your choice to gain a specific beneficial effect.

'Conflict' gave a slight increase to experience points gained, while 'Indomitable' reduced stamina consumption. But, as they were obtained so early on, their effects were practically negligible.

I set 'One Who Possesses an Indomitable Heart' on a whim and closed the menu, then stood up with a "Well then." There was likely nothing more to gain here. I had noticed that when the stone doll crumbled, the path I came from and the one leading forward had both opened up.

In [Arcadia], one hour is forty minutes in the real world. In this world, which has established some mysterious technology to accelerate consciousness and extend the passage of time, you can experience time at 1.5 times the rate of reality. But since I had spent three hours kicking a rock, over two hours had already passed in the real world.

I'd probably be forgiven for missing dinner, but if I kept this up without eating or drinking, there was a high chance I'd get an earful from my mother. I wanted to find a good stopping point as soon as possible and log out for a break.

"What would have happened if I lost... revived at a city temple? Or maybe the event would have just progressed without me dying."

I walked on, imagining the alternate route that I could no longer verify.

"Actually, if I could lose HP by face-planting, couldn't I have just died by headbutting a wall or something... huh?"

As I muttered such useless thoughts, my view soon opened up. It was the third small chamber, counting from the one where I awoke.

"...This looks like the place."

The mysterious crystal I was sealed in. And the [Chosen Stone Doll] that was strongly suggested to be a losing event. Unlike the previous two chambers, which each had only one distinct object, this place had several "it" objects arranged within it.

The space, a perfect circle, was clearly man-made, unlike the natural cave scenery up to this point. The walls had been smoothed to some extent, and the crystals that still served as a light source were shaped and placed at regular intervals.

And what naturally drew my eye were the five pillars. A large one in the center of the room, and four smaller ones, about waist-high, arranged radially in the back.

As I approached the central one, something immediately happened.

—O awakened one.

"Whoa..."

A voice echoed in my head. It was clearly different from what you'd hear through earphones or headphones, a fantasy phenomenon you could never experience in reality. As I reflexively tensed up, the central pillar began to change.

Countless pale blue lines instantly ran across its pure white surface, which had no patterns and was made of an unknown material. Immediately after, it broke apart into countless pieces, and a ball of light pulsed in the center of the floating debris.

—O one who has shown the will to fight.

—O one who has shown an unbreakable heart.

Oh, are these special lines based on the titles I acquired? As I watched with relative calm, my tension having peaked and subsided during the fierce battle with the stone doll, the flickering light began to pulse faster, its glow intensifying.

Desire, seek, and follow your heart—

The ball of light, which had flashed with particular intensity, split in two. One of the halves, the smaller one, floated down in front of me. It stopped at chest height, pulsating as if asking for something, and my hands naturally moved to receive it.

...No, they really moved on their own. So this part is a forced event, huh.

As I watched the ball of light melt into my chest, a magnificent, fanfare-like sound echoed in my ears.

◇ Blessing of the War God Acquired ◇
・Level System has been unlocked.
・Status System has been unlocked.
・Skill System has been unlocked.

Ah, so the game systems are officially unlocked here. The reason I didn't get any experience points or anything for beating the stone doll was because I hadn't even acquired the concept of a level yet?

And a War God, huh. It feels a bit at odds with the incredibly gentle and graceful, beautiful voice that I could vividly imagine belonging to a pure-hearted beauty.

Its role fulfilled, the dismantled parts reassembled, embracing the remaining light and returning to their original form. With a final gentle glow, as if bidding farewell, the pillar fell completely silent.

"Hmm... and next?"

It was a rather solemn event, but I was still in the middle of a tutorial where I hadn't been given any knowledge, even with the three-hour fierce battle in between. Feeling little sentiment, I bypassed the silent central pillar and faced the remaining four.

I saw that each was engraved with an emblem symbolizing something different. The designs were quite complex, or rather... for someone like me with only a very average aesthetic sense, they were so stylish I could only say "wow," but the motifs were easy to understand.

In short—far left, a sword.

—center left, a heart.

—center right, a wing.

—far right, a castle... is it a castle? Something, a building.

And so, these four pillars were each engraved with their respective emblems. On top of each, which served as a pedestal, rested a glowing crystal. These crystals were also different colors...

"A common trope would be to choose one of these—tch...!?"

As I casually approached the pedestal with the wing emblem, being the closest one, the crystal suddenly began to glow, startling me again. The light enveloped me as I stood frozen with caution—

"............I see."

What the crystal brought was, so to speak, "reference footage." I was made to watch it four times by approaching each pedestal, and after grasping the general idea, I stood there with my hand on my chin, pondering.

I had deliberately shut out information and dived into this game completely blind, but now I had come to learn the general worldview, or rather, the setting of the stage.

To put it simply, there are four factions in this game that players can belong to. And it seems they are all in a state of war.

Well, it's not a bloody war, but rather a kind of sportified conflict. In short, large-scale PvP... but as I'm a latecomer who's three years behind, it'll probably be a long time before I get involved, so let's set that aside for now.

Each of the four factions has a god that governs a different blessing, and the blessing you receive differs depending on which faction, named after its god, you choose.

The symbol of the sword is the Eastern Faction—Istia. The blessing it grants is Conflict.

The symbol of the heart is the Western Faction—Vestol. The blessing it grants is Peace.

The symbol of the wing is the Northern Faction—Nortalia. The blessing it grants is Luck.

The symbol of the castle is the Southern Faction—Sotalm. The blessing it grants is Wealth.

It's too abstract to understand the details of the blessings from just that, but there was also a detailed explanation with a system window attached.

'The Blessing of Conflict' from Istia seems to give an upward correction to skills related to combat, making it heavily combat-oriented. As a bonus, it also gives a bonus to experience points gained in battle, and it seems to offer the benefit of maturing early.

'The Blessing of Peace' from Vestol has a similar skill correction to Istia. However, unlike the Blessing of Conflict, it affects non-combat skills like production. Because it affects the far more numerous non-combat skills, there doesn't seem to be a bonus.

Nortalia's 'Luck,' as the name suggests, gives a positive correction to all phenomena related to the luck parameter. As someone with experience in online games, I can declare with certainty that Nortalia is by far the most popular of the four factions. Would you understand the reason if I said that a fixed value, not a multiplier, is added to all rare drops?

Sotalm of 'Wealth,' I feel this one is the second most popular. As you can imagine from the name, it provides a correction to money-related matters, but the multiplier is insane. Acquisition is doubled, and consumption is reduced to seventy percent. Strong.

No matter which you choose, you can get a pretty broken blessing, but there's a good reason why each one has such an excessive effect or a crazy multiplier. However, that's related to the "war" I mentioned earlier, so it's not relevant to me right now.

—So, which one to choose?

"Nortalia is just too tempting..."

As expected, the lure of the north is strong. In online games, especially MMORPGs, being able to add a fixed value to the drop rate is huge.

Someone who has never played this genre of game might not be able to imagine it, but basically, rare farming in MMOs is a bottomless pit. It's a world where a single-digit drop rate is scoffed at as being easy, where decimals are commonplace, and where it's a daily occurrence for the probability of a rare drop from a rarely-encountered rare enemy to have multiple zeros.

The value added is a whopping "10%"—a plus 10% on all drop rolls.

In middle school, I dedicated nearly two months to a single rare drop in an MMO I was hooked on, and as someone who experienced retiring from the game in anger without ever seeing it, it's very... very tempting, but,

"It's got to be Istia."

There was an attraction in the east that was more than enough to shake off the allure of the other three factions, including Nortalia.

The appeal of Istia? It's not the upward correction for combat skills, nor is it the experience point bonus.

What is it then?—It's the overwhelmingly small number of affiliated players!!

The total number of players belonging to each faction, which can be checked by touching the pedestal, is by far the lowest for Istia!!

I can guess the reason. To put it in extreme terms, MMOs are a game genre where you enjoy the endless process of "self-improvement." It's attractive to have your constantly used combat skills strengthened, but it's meaningless if the self-improvement needed to utilize them stagnates.

MMORPGs are games where a desperate gap that can't be overcome by just "hitting a little harder" is created by the state of your equipment set and enhancements. So, it's only natural that the faction that's advantageous for self-improvement would be popular.

Why would I kick that logic to the curb and choose Istia? Because it has the highest potential for me to be involved in the "war" in the future.

It's not relevant right now, but as someone who is dead serious about getting into [Arcadia], I naturally want to participate in the major event that is the war eventually... but this war, it seems there's a limit to the number of people who can participate in a single event.

Since the rewards for winning the war... or rather, the rewards that can be snatched from other factions, are truly outrageous, every faction should be desperately selecting members to win.

So, to put it simply—lower competition is better, that's what it's about.

"Well, there's a chance it might be even tougher with all the combat fanatics, but..."

When that time comes, I'll deal with it. The early maturity bonus is also appreciated for a latecomer like me. Let's enjoy it.

◇ Will you join the Eastern Faction of Conflict, Istia? ◇

I held my hand over the crystal on the sword pedestal at the far left and slammed the "YES" on the displayed selection window with force.

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I will continue posting today until I reach a good stopping point. If you have time, please join me.