CH 2

[The Beautiful Silver-Haired Girl Yuri-chan Makes Her Debut!]

When the light that filled my vision receded, a view of rows of wooden buildings lining up on stone pavements spread before my eyes.

People equipped with all sorts of gears crowded the street, too. It hit me that I was in a game.

“So this is… ‘Beginning Town’!”

Man~ the latest VR games sure were amazing! Not only the graphics looked realistic, but I could also make out the mix of sounds from the bustling crowd and smell the savory aroma of food from food stalls!

The quality was insane. Just looking around the town may be enough to make you satisfied!

And that’s exactly what I immediately set out to do. But as I was looking here and there curiously, I suddenly heard a voice from behind me.

“He~y, that missy over there! Please wait!”

Huh? Missy? …Not me, I guess.

Thinking that, I ignored the voice, but out of nowhere my shoulder was grabbed! When I turned around in surprise, I found a muscular, swarthy, and baldheaded man looking back at me!

“Eeek, a barbarian?!”

“Who the hell are you callin’ a barbarian! What a rude girl?!”

Mr. Baldhead got mad at me. Wait, did he just call me girl?!

S-speaking of which, my voice came out rather high-pitched there, and I could feel my hair flowing all the way down to my waist… N-no way, could it be?!

“H-hey, Baldhead! What do I look like?!”

“Huh? Well… you look like a silver-haired and scarlet-eyed girl, but why?”

Whaaaaaaat?! I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I am a giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirl?!

I rushed towards a nearby fountain and looked into the water and, lo and behold, I found a perfectly beautiful girl—whose only minus point was her pair of dead eyes—staring back at me!! Since she had just started playing the game, she only had a simple black dress, but it looked amazing paired with her silver hair.

When I timidly touched my cheek, the girl reflected on the surface of the water also touched her white cheek…!

“How the fuck did this happeeeeeeeeeeen!?”

“W-what’s up with you all of a sudden?!”

The baldhead jolted in surprise at me screaming in a girl’s voice.

◆◆◇◆

A few minutes later.

“―Gahahahahahahahahaha! So, you chose Random Edit, and now you became an absolutely gorgeous silver-haired and scarlet-eyed girl?! You really are somethin’, Yuri!”

“Something my ass! Dammit, I knew my rotten luck gonna keep haunting me!”

Next to the baldhead laughing like an idiot, I scratched at my beautiful silver hair!

After my earlier outburst, we sat on the edge of the fountain, and then I told him a rough summary of everything that had happened.

…And then came bursts of laughter. The first one was after I told him I escaped to the game because I was fed up with my shit luck in real life, the second one was after I told him I turned into a girl because I chose Random Edit, and the third one, also the biggest and final one, was after I told him I chose Summoner and bow. He’d split his sides laughing.

Damn bastard, do you find others’ misfortunes that funny?! Is that it?!

“Fuck, laughing on top of others’ misfortunes, are we! Setting aside why I started playing the game and how I ended up looking like this, why did you laugh at me for choosing Summoner and bow?! Summoner and bow are the strongest! That’s what’s written on the strategy guide site!”

“Pffffffffft! Haah~, thanks for the laughs, Yuri. Now, to answer your question, it’s because that is false information written by trolls.”

“Huh?”

“It happens from time to time. Anyone can edit information on strategy guide sites, and some people post false information like that. In fact, Summoner is a weak-ass job, and the bow is a useless weapon, in that it’s extremely difficult to hit your target with it.”

“Huh… huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh?!”

W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-what the heeeeeeeellllllll?! So, not only did I get this look, but I also ended up with a trash job and weapon?!

“Hahahaha! Well, sensible people usually correct it when false information like that got posted, but there’s no way they can notice it instantly. After the false information is posted, it usually takes tens of minutes before it gets corrected. You just unluckily happened to browse the site when it was still up!”

“N-no way… so I’d been played by my bad luck all this time~~~!”

How dare you interfere even with my game life, my outrageously shitty luck?!

I mean, I’d browsed the site more than a couple of times, and every time it was written that Summoner and bow were the strongest! …Just how could it be possible that the time of my browsing and the time the false information was up happened to overlap each time?! Ugyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

I slumped my shoulders in disappointment. Perhaps the baldhead seemed to feel sorry for me as he gently patted my back and said in a determined tone―oh, he must have good news for me!

“Okay, Yuri. As a former beta tester, let me tell you this. Luck is… a trash stat.”

“Trash?!”

“Well, just listen to me for now. Luck affects skill activation probability and rare item drop rate.

Additionally, this game also has a system named ‘Critical Hit’, which triples your damage when hitting the head or the heart, but it has a low activation probability. It’s said that increasing Luck will also increase its activation probability.”

“Hmm~, doesn’t that mean I’ll be invincible if I shoot at the head or the heart with the bow? You said it’s difficult to hit with the bow, but if I raise my Luck, surely I’ll get lucky hits…”

“No, that ain’t gonna happen. The only thing that determines the accuracy of the bow is the proficiency of the player.

…Now for the important question. Yuri, you confident you can hit your target with the bow? You got any experience with archery? And if you did, can you hit a moving enemy?”

H-huh?! There’s…

“No way I can! And I’m a total amateur in archery?! I don’t even know if I can shoot properly without some sort of assist function!”

“Well, there’s your answer. What’s the point of a weapon if you can hit your target with it? This is why the bow is considered the weakest weapon in the game.

And even if you were a genius at archery, it would be pointless if you have 0 Strength. The higher your Strength, the stronger the bows you can use. At 0 Strength, the only bow you can possibly use is the initial bow, which is practically a toy bow!”

A t-tooooooooooooooooooy…! My stat was treated as trash, and my weapon a toy!

T-then, what was the problem with Summoner?!

“And finally, Summoner is… a huge pain in the ass.”

“A pain in the ass?!”

“Sure, a Summoner can summon monsters and control them to fight, but first they’ve gotta beat the monsters and make them their underling. And apparently, if you’ve got helped by other players in the process, you’re guaranteed to fail. But even if you beat the monsters by yourself, the chance of them becoming your underlings is low. To make it worse, Summoners don’t have ‘art’ that can do damage.

For example, if you’re a Swordsman and have a sword-type weapon, you’ll be able to unleash a powerful slashing art called ‘Giga Slash’, but the only arts that Summoners have are the ones to strengthen monsters. Without a monster, Summoners are practically worthless.”

“Eeeeeeeeehhhh… You mean, to gain my first monster underling, I have to first beat a monster one-on-one? And multiple times at that, until one becomes my underling?”

“That’s right. Well, if you have normal stats and are equipped with a normal weapon, you should be able to defeat the rabbits at ‘Beginning Grassland’ somehow. But… having those small fries as underlings is practically the same as not having one, and most importantly, in your case, that may be impossible in the first place…”

Ahhhhhhhh, I’m so sorry baldheeeeeeeead! I’m sorry for putting all my stat points in a trash stat and choosing a useless weapon! My Defense is 0, so even a rabbit is likely able to bite me to death!

Haa… there should be a limit to being unlucky… as I sighed deeply, the baldhead tapped my shoulder.

“Don’t lose hope yet, Yuri! You can just recreate your character! …But well, it’s gonna be a bit of a shame to throw away that avatar. I mean, look at how beautiful it is.

You’ll likely get a sense of incongruity if you overly modify your avatar, but that ain’t gonna happen with the ones made by AI, y’know?! It’s got huge racks and a nice figure, too!”

“I don’t give a shit about those things…! Or rather, why did you call out to me in the first place?”

“Huh?! To hit on you, duh! In this game, your real face is used as the base of the avatar?! Meaning, beautiful girls in this game are also beautiful girls in real life! Just why the hell did you turn out to be a guy, you idiot!”

“I didn’t ask for this, either, you idiot!”

…Taking advantage of the fact that players wouldn’t receive damage inside the town, we began to fight with our bare fists.