Suddenly my computer mouse stopped clicking, and it took me a moment to realise that was because it had turned back into the other kind of mouse. You know, the grosser, less useful type of mouse.
“So, buddy… how’s it going?” Daemon asked, after watching me suddenly jerk my hand away from him and then wipe it thoroughly on the leg of my pants.
“Good, I think, all things considered. You know, I can’t imagine that many dead people adjust to this new reality as well as me, do they?”
“You’d be surprised. There’s something about shifting between realities that stops people caring about the reality they left behind. The bosses call it isekaitis.”
“Right. Bosses?”
Daemon shrugged, his tiny hands upturned. “You know, the bosses. The big cheeses, if you’ll excuse the pun.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “It’s mice that like cheese, isn’t it?”
“Cows.”
“No, they make the cheese.”
I furrowed my brow. “Why would they make it if they don’t like it?”
Daemon stared back at me, his eyes narrowing. “Fair point. Anyway, you say it’s going well — how many stories have you read so far, as part of your research?” Daemon asked.
“One.”
“One? Don’t you think you oughta, you know, read more than one?”
“No, I reckon I’ve got the gist. People do things, numbers go up. That’s the essence of it, right?”
“I’d like to think there’s a little more nuance to it than…” Daemon trailed off, suddenly looking at a spot behind my right ear.
“...What?” I asked.
“You got something behind your ear.”
I felt around at the patch the mouse was staring at. “I can’t feel anything.”
In response, the mouse suddenly hopped onto my arm, ran up to my shoulder, and prodded around behind my ear. After a moment, a whole string of notifications appeared in front of my eyes.
Class leveled up!
You are now Class: Level 3 LitRPG Author
At level 3, you unlock:
(1) Specialist skill slot
Class leveled up!
You are now Class: Level 4 LitRPG Author
At level 4, you unlock:
[ACCESS] Achievements
Class leveled up!
You are now Class: Level 5 LitRPG Author
At level 5, you unlock:
[ACCESS] Story Ratings (Requires story launch)
“Oh, what?” I exclaimed. “Where did those come from?”
Daemon hurried back down my arm and onto the desk once more, apparently about as keen to be off me as I was. “Let me guess — you let a lot of them pile up without dismissing any of them?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s a bug in the System. One of a few; it’s known to happen. But it should be sorted now. You get anything good?”
Before I could reply, the mouse figure suddenly stood up, alert.
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“Sorry,” he said, “got to go; there’s someone who just got reincarnated as a firefighter class but he doesn’t speak very good English.”
I stared blankly back at Daemon in response, not quite understanding what the problem was.
“He thinks he’s supposed to fight with fire, not fight the fire.”
“Ah.”
“...Yeah. See ya!” With that, there was another pop, and Daemon turned back into a fully functional piece of IT equipment once more.
Alone again, I returned my attention to the notifications that Daemon had brought up for me. There was quite the gain in levels there, and a lot to unpack, though also nothing that I could action right now. The new specialism slot was all well and good, but Market Research had been the only skill I’d been able to find so far. As for the other two, access to both Achievements and Story Ratings sounded like a good thing, sure, but I didn’t quite know what to do with that just yet.
The plan of attack, then, was to focus on one thing at a time. The most obvious thing to start with, it seemed to me, was finding another skill to slot in as a specialism. I searched my brain for things that this could be. From what I knew of authors from popular media, the job seemed to revolve around three things: being gloomy, talking about writing but not actually doing it, and drinking far too much coffee. I wasn’t quite sure if any of these would constitute a skill, per se, but there was a coffee machine in this room, after all.
While we’re on the subject…
I’d been in this room for a good few days, by this point, and eaten my way through the mini fridge. Yet whenever I opened the door, more food seemed to have reappeared in it. Could it have been replenished while I slept? Yes, perhaps; I was no stranger to sleeping and the very occasional nap. But was I ruling out magic as a potential cause? No I was not.
Funnily enough, the quality of the food had increased when I opened the fridge this time around. No longer was there damp, floppy and slightly stale sandwiches in there. No, now there were only semi-damp, floppy, and not at all stale sandwiches in there. The only thing that had changed in this time was that I had leveled up — and hadn’t Daemon said that a person’s level is essentially their worth here? I couldn’t help but wonder how good the food would get by the time I was level, say, twenty billion.
Three cups of coffee later, I had not unlocked any new skill, which was a disappointment. I did need a rather long trip to the cramped toilet, however, so to call it entirely unproductive would be misleading.
Once my bladder was empty and my stomach settled, I sat back at the writing desk and thought about what might actually be a relevant skill to add as a specialism. After much deliberation — about twenty seconds, if you must know — I settled on starting to brainstorm some characters for my new story.
I created a man called Jacob — or Jake to his friends — due to my research suggesting that 78% of litRPG protagonists use one of these two names. I wrote that he worked as a marketing PR consultant for a multinational company, and lived a distinctively average life — one that certainly shouldn’t make him anything remarkable once he gets isekai-ed into another reality. But then random chance intervenes to give him a unique and overpowered ability, the nature of which is still to be decided.
Character Depth unlocked!
+100 Class XP
Achievement unlocked!
Achievement: Create the Perfect Character
+1,000 Character Depth XP
Character Depth increased to level 2!
Character Depth increased to level 3!
Character Depth increased to level 4!
Character Depth increased to level 5!
Woah. Only a few minutes into having access to achievements and I’d already unlocked one. Based on the evidence presented to me, I was forced to determine that I was a savant, built for this role in life more than anyone else. And that XP! Achievements were certainly worth getting.
I couldn’t help but wonder though about the seemingly inconsistent XP requirements for leveling up. They were almost as if they were pulled from thin air, with no real bearing on my actual progression. I shook my head; it was of no consequence, and I certainly appreciated the serotonin boost I received each time.
I realised at that moment that there were more notifications to come — something that a little scratching around the back of my right ear seemed to resolve.
Class: Level 5 LitRPG Author
Specialisms: Market Research (Level 5), [Slot Available]
Would you like to assign a specialist skill now? (Y / N)
Once again, I pressed Y with no real in-world reason that I should know how to do so.
Please select skill from list below:
- Character Depth (Level 5)
And again there was very little reason for this to be presented in list format, but I went along with it anyway.
Class: Level 5 LitRPG Author
Specialisms: Market Research (Level 5), Character Depth (Level 5)
Once again, a whole wave of knowledge washed over me. Suddenly I knew my character, Jacob, inside and out. I knew his every foible — not that he had any, of course — as well as his every ethical and political opinion — not that he had any, of course. And, what’s more, the nature of his overpowered ability revealed itself for me.
Ready?
Jacob Protagonist was going to become… a magic user.
But not just any magic user, oh no. Jacob was going to become the ultimate magic user, one that would be feared across the land in his fictional world. He was going to combine it with a weapon. Maybe it’d be a sword, maybe it would be a bow, maybe it would be a humble dagger — that part was still up the air. All I knew was that it was perfect, and readers were going to [BLEEP] themselves over it.
Suddenly something gripped me like I’d never experience before. Something that made me desperate to start putting proverbial pen to page. It was… enthusiasm.