Still, this was not entirely a bad thing.
At the very least, I would not have to work anymore.
"Wait..."
If I did not have some kind of cheat ability, then I would just end up getting exploited by fantasy-world capitalists instead.
Which meant I would still have to work...
And whether I could even survive alone out here in the wilderness was another question entirely.
But then Airi thought of something else.
Reincarnators always came with a system.
That meant he had to have one too, right?
"Come out, System!"
Silence.
The kind of silence that felt like death itself.
"System? You there?"
...
"Alright then..."
"What kind of reincarnation story is this..."
"So even in another world, I'm still just an NPC..."
"If there's no system, then at least I should have a basic status screen, right?"
Otherwise, not even knowing what level of NPC he was would be the truly painful part...
Just then, with a crisp little ding, it was as if some hidden keyword had been triggered.
A glowing screen suddenly appeared before Airi's eyes, forming lines of translucent blue text:
[Name: Airi Nekomiya]
[Current State: (Disappointed) > (Excited)]
Note: Changes according to your current condition.
[Reputation: (0/100)]
Note: Obtained by helping others or completing commissions.
[Adventure Rank: None]
Note: Not a registered adventurer.
[Weapon: None]
Note: Unlocks at Adventure Rank 3-Star.
[Combat Talent: None]
Note: Unlocks at Adventure Rank 2-Star.
[Passive Talent: Unlockable]
Note: Starting Talent.
[Passive Talent II: None]
Note: Unlockable after Combat Talent is unlocked.
[Passive Talent III: None]
Note: Unlockable after Combat Talent is unlocked.
[Vision: None (????)]
(It seems no god has taken notice of you.)
...
"It's here! It's really here!"
"It's a cheat!"
"There's even a status panel. I'm not an ordinary NPC. I'm an NPC with a panel!"
The more he thought about it, the more excited Airi became. He looked down further.
Reputation apparently increased by helping others, but one of the talents looked like it could already be unlocked.
So Airi reached out and tapped it with his finger...
A flash of golden light burst forth.
The lock over the Passive Talent shattered under the golden radiance, then reformed into an icon shaped like a heart with a little paw pad inside it.
Passive Talent:
Animal Affinity
(You possess a strange natural attraction toward animals, making it easier to gain their favor, but only among intelligent animal species.)
There was also a tiny line of text beneath it, so small it was almost invisible:
(The aura around you has a 150% greater effect on female animals, and can more easily stimulate their desire...)
The text was too tiny, and Airi did not bother reading it carefully.
"Golden and shiny. That means it has to be good!"
"So this is some kind of passive talent..."
"With this, I can communicate with animals!"
"But... it doesn't seem all that useful..."
"What, are they going to obediently jump into a pot and let me eat them?"
"I'd probably just get bitten to death instead..."
Then Airi thought of something else.
"I remember some wise master once said there are no useless people, only even more useless martial souls... or something like that."
"Even if this talent seems pointless, maybe if I use it well, it can evolve."
"Maybe I could even become a beast tamer!"
"Then I could found my own Beast Taming Sect..."
"Hehe..."
But after looking farther down the panel, he quickly gave up on that fantasy.
"A Vision??"
That sounded exactly like the game he used to play in his previous life... the one where people possessed external magical organs called Visions.
When a person's wish burned intensely enough, the gods would cast their gaze upon them...
So anyone with a Vision could also be called one of the "ori..."
But it said he did not have one.
As expected, this really was the sort of thing that depended on fate. Some people woke up one day and suddenly had a Vision. Others could go their entire lives without ever being noticed by the gods.
"Wait... don't tell me this is actually Teyvat from Genshin Impact..."
The moment Airi realized that, his dream of becoming a hero, along with his dream of cultivating immortality, shattered completely.
Still, at least he now had a character-style status panel. If he managed to unlock everything, maybe he really could dominate the continent someday.
Just kidding.
More than that, Airi still wanted to lie in bed and do absolutely nothing.
That said, there was one problem.
He had no idea where he was.
He needed to get to an Adventurers' Guild, register as an adventurer, and start taking commissions so he could work for people as a... ahem...
Before he could even begin planning his route, Airi realized that his new life might end up looking suspiciously similar to his old one.
Though with a face like this, maybe he could...
Hehe...
As he walked, Airi spotted a conspicuous tree in the distance.
A few orange fruits hung from its branches, looking strangely familiar.
The kind of fruit veteran players would not even spare a glance, but newbies would climb a tree to pick without hesitation.
I don't need to tell you what level I am, right?
Without wasting any time, Airi had already climbed the tree and picked the fruit.
"That's right. I'm a newbie."
Then he lightly dropped back to the ground.
On all fours, no less.
At this rate, he really was going to turn into a cat...
Still, Airi did not pay it much mind. He peeled the fruit and took a bite.
"If it's poisonous, I'll know the moment I eat it."
A sweet-and-sour taste spread through his mouth.
For a second, it almost felt like green text popped up above his head: +300.
Oh no.
I've played too many games. Now I'm hallucinating.
But both the tree and the fruit felt weirdly familiar, like he had definitely seen them somewhere before...
It was a Fontaine specialty, something with... fruit... in the name.
He had forgotten.
Wait, Fontaine?
Wasn't that his favorite region?
The famous Nation of Justice, full of advanced technology, and the birthplace of that glorious age of absurdly overpowered beings...
Rumor had it even gods from foreign lands could be judged there.
Most importantly, you could swim freely underwater.
Unlike everywhere else, where you had to use Kaeya to make your own road.
Since his respawn point was in Fontaine, then his first destination was settled.
The Court of Fontaine.
Once he got stronger, he could travel across the nations and meet all those characters he liked in the game...
Just imagining it made Airi excited.
But right when he was about to start planning in earnest, something began to feel off.
He did not think he had ever been to this place before...
It was just a tiny bit different from the version in the game.
And there was no map to open.
He had no idea where he was.
He had probably wandered into some unknown area.
"I'll come back and explore this region later!"
It almost felt like he could hear Paimon reminding him.
Relying on instinct, Airi eventually made his way out of the forest.
What opened before him was a vast expanse of sea, a great bridge in the distance, and even farther away, an enormous cube of water floating in the sky.
There were no words to describe how Airi felt in that moment.
All he knew was that his mouth had dropped open as wide as it could.
He followed the beach in the direction his memory told him to go.
Along the way, everything looked familiar...
Like those seals with their innocent little expressions.
As he passed them, he could almost hear them saying:
"Are you going to kill me, friend?"
"No, no, no. I'm not hungry right now. No, wait, that's not it. I don't need materials either... that's not it either."
Looking at such adorably dumb-looking Blubberbeasts, he truly had no idea how he had ever brought himself to attack them in-game.
Even the Armored Crabs were much bigger than they looked in the game.
One pinch from those things felt like it could snap his slim, delicate arms clean in half...
And so Airi skipped and hopped along the beach for quite a while.
Everything here felt familiar.
Whenever he saw a crab, he had an irresistible urge to chase after it.
Part of him kept wanting to catch as many as possible and save them to make Adeptus' Temptation.
Then he remembered he was no longer in the game, and catching crabs would not actually do him any good.
So instead, he just used one like a scoop and flung it away.
As he continued walking, he noticed faint glimmers on the sand.
When he got closer, he saw what it was.
A starfish.
No, not just any starfish.
He knew this thing all too well.
It was a Lumitoile.
He would have recognized it even if it had been burned to ashes.
Airi happily ran around picking them up one after another, completely unaware that danger was quietly approaching...
The faint glow coming off the Lumitoiles was an effect you could never really appreciate in the game.
If he could bring these back to his old world and sell them to anime nerds...
"I'd make an absolute fortune..."
Back then, he had gone all over other people's worlds just to collect Lumitoiles.
And he always got kicked out.
So after being kicked enough times, he came up with a brilliant new strategy.
First, he would queue for a low-level domain to get matched into a newbie's world.
Then he would help them fight monsters, leave the last enemy alive for them to slowly chip away at, and quietly teleport off to his marked spots to grab the stars.
By the time the newbie finished scraping that last enemy to death, Airi would be done collecting too.
That trick had never failed him.
But the farther he walked, the more familiar the road started to feel.
Every time he passed through here in the game, it felt like some monster in the area always chased him down and beat him up...
She held a sword and kept saying something...
"The banquet is not yet over..."
"Please do not leave before it ends..."
Then she would teleport over and freeze him with a single slash.
There was no escaping.
And just as that thought crossed his mind, Airi suddenly felt a chill run down his back.
The next second, his neck turned cold.
That icy touch...
There was no mistake.
It was real.
A blade was pressed against his throat.