ALL NOVEL The Strongest Solo Gamer with Terrible Social Skills Reincarnates as a Hated NPC in a VRMMO Chapter 8
8 The Night of Determination
Thanks for the refreshing bed-making, stone-cold maid of the Ishizuru household!!!
I stumbled back to my room, my body battered and bruised, and witnessed the ravaged interior of my room, feeling a little dizzy.
How did the canopy bed end up upside down?! The erotic books scattered all over the place are probably Shoma’s collection! They’re torn to shreds, like confetti, all over the room! The covers I caught a glimpse of feature actresses like Kohane, Ran, and Reia in provocative poses… I’m speechless!!
OH, JESUS!!
What’s going on here ――!?
“――Is Shoma in his room?”
“Yes, sis!?”
“Can I talk to you about something… for the future…”
Wait, did I say you could come in!?
Don’t open the door!!
Ran, who had been gazing at the devastated room, closed the door as if her thoughts had come to a halt, and then reopened it after a while.
“…………Shoma? What’s with the state of this room?”
“I, I don’t know! I don’t know anything!!”
I shouted, but Ran’s face remained stern.
“You don’t know? This is your room, isn’t it?! How did you manage to make it this dirty?!?”
“That, that’s…”
I thought it might have been my sister Reia, but I knew that without evidence, naming her would only make things worse.
“……Well, whatever. We can’t talk like this. Let’s go outside for a bit. I’ll go to the courtyard, so come with me”
“Y, yes…”
I didn’t know if I was relieved or what, but I followed Ran’s instructions and went down from my room on the second floor to the courtyard on the first floor. It was 8 pm, and the sky was cloudy. The outside was already dark, with only the faint light from the windows illuminating the surroundings.
“Shoma, how was your first day at the academy?”
Is she trying to make small talk…?
I looked at Ran suspiciously and replied.
“B, b, b, it was nothing! I’m interested in ABYSS, but… that’s it!”
I ended up speaking awkwardly, but I hope you can understand. As someone who’s been a shut-in for years and only plays games, being able to converse with a woman is already an achievement. It’s usually impossible for me to have a smooth conversation with someone I’ve just met.
This is my limit.
Ishizuru Ran looked at me with a tilted head, but still didn’t touch on the main topic.
“……So, you’re only interested in ABYSS. Then, what was with the fight you got into with the 1-C students during the entrance ceremony…?”
“WHOAH!”
I involuntarily let out a burst of laughter.
The information is too fast for me!?
How did you know that?!
Ran answered my question with a calm tone.
“It seems like a 1-D student protested this incident in the staff room. It’s not something you can keep under wraps. I’m not sure if the rumors have already spread throughout the high school, but it’s possible.”
“H-h-huh…”
“Or maybe the school’s newspaper club is involved. They’re the type to sensationalize and spread rumors. You should be careful not to tarnish the reputation of the Ishizuru family.”
“H-h-huh…”
“…”
“What’s wrong?”
Ran stared at me silently, her gaze piercing.
The atmosphere was uncomfortable, and I felt a sense of unease.
“…No, nothing. I was just impressed that you helped the female student. I thought you had finally shown some backbone. But your subsequent actions were unacceptable. You can’t just beg for help in front of everyone, even if it’s against multiple people. You need to be trained from scratch.”
“Wh-what do you mean by ‘trained’…?”
At first, I thought I was being praised, but the next moment, I was scolded harshly. The words that followed were ominous, and I couldn’t help but tremble.
“Tomorrow morning, we’ll have training at 3 am. I’ll fix your body and mind. Let me make it clear: this is not optional. Don’t think you can escape.”
“W-w-wait!!”
My pathetic cry echoed in the night sky.
Was 3 am really early morning?
My doubts lingered.
◆
“Finally, it’s over…!”
At night, in my own room, I struggled to clean up and secure a space to sleep.
I had done a good job today.
…When I thought about it calmly, I realized I hadn’t eaten anything all day. Was it thanks to my Passive Skill, 【Toughness】, that my body was okay? In the game, hunger was represented as a decrease in stamina. Maybe 【Toughness】 was also reducing the effects of hunger.
“Ah…”
I lay down on my bed, exhausted, and let out a sigh.
…I had been thinking about the game all day. Normally, I would think about reality… or my old world, and all sorts of things.
“…What if I couldn’t return to my old world…? What would I do…?”
I muttered to myself, but it didn’t feel real.
It was like I was in a dream.
“I shouldn’t just stay like this… Whether I return or not, I need to make up my mind…”
As I said that, I reached into my pocket and took out a hard object. I gazed at it, lost in thought.
“It’s the Cursed Ring…”
A cursed equipment that appears in treasure chests within ABYSS with a certain probability. The effects vary, but most of them impose bad status effects, making them unwanted items. Once equipped, you can’t remove it unless you use the purification spring or holy water within ABYSS.
The Cursed Ring I obtained had the effect of “Acquired Experience 0.”
Acquired Experience 0… In other words, I wouldn’t gain experience points even if I defeated monsters. I couldn’t level up, and the benefits of stat increases would be lost, making it impossible to get stronger.
Why did I get such an item?
The reason lay in the unique growth system of VRMMO Legasion Sense.
Usually, in RPGs, you gain experience points by defeating monsters. When the experience points reach a certain amount, you level up, and your stats increase based on your character’s inherent values or random values. However, in Legasion Sense, the stat increase values are determined by the monster you defeated last.
The developers likely wanted to adjust the difficulty. They designed the system to prolong gameplay, reducing the gap between high-level and low-level players.
In Legasion Sense, defeating a strong monster yields more growth than defeating a weak one. The system takes into account the balance between players, making it easier to catch up.
But even among those, the Rankers are the ones who aim for the most efficient way to play.
They had a playstyle that ignored small fry battles… and studied level restrictions. As a necessary item for low-level strategies, I set my sights on the cursed equipment’s bad status “Experience Gain 0” at an early stage.
However, the cursed equipment was too random in its drops. It wasn’t just a single curse. If the effect of “Experience Gain 0” didn’t appear, it would be meaningless. Most strategy teams gave up halfway due to incomplete level restrictions.
――But I was different.
I found it. A method to obtain the cursed ring (Curse Ring) in the early stages. Only someone like me would bother to spend an hour searching the abandoned area on the outskirts of the academy, where there were no events, after the entrance ceremony. The cursed ring (Curse Ring) that appeared at that timing had a fixed bad status of “Experience Gain 0”.
When I first found it, I was overjoyed.
It hadn’t been discovered on the bulletin board either.
This was information that only I knew.
……Maybe the developers knew about it, but it was too convenient. If I didn’t take advantage of it, it would be a waste.
――If I wanted to live seriously in this world, I should equip the cursed ring (Curse Ring).
Every 10 floors, a floor boss would appear. If I could defeat them all without hunting small fry, I could become the strongest in this world.
“――ッ”
I couldn’t help but tremble with excitement.
I’ll decide tomorrow.
Tomorrow――if I was still in the form of Shouma.
“I’ll make a vow then. As Shouma, I’ll become the top player of Legacy Sense and show off a performance that won’t shame me!!”