Prologue
「And that is why you are here, Ren-san」
「Ugh...I really died?」
Hayashi Ren, an average young man, found a decent job after graduating from college.
He was walking to the station when a middle school girl crossed the street while not paying attention to the truck coming at her.
Ren saved the girl and got hospitalized for a few days, but his life force ran out and he lost his life.
Just when he thought it was the end, Ren found himself standing before a gentleman in butler suit.
The space around them was empty. It was spreading out indefinitely and there was also nothing there but the two people facing each other. The man in butler suit is smiling at Ren.
「Yes, you did die according to your Fate. But your act of kindness before you died wasn't intended by the Gods」
Saying so, the gentleman flipped through a folder of documents on his hands looking for something.
The flipping sounds of the pages resound the empty space.
「Let's see......your last regrets are 'I wanted to make a harem'......」
「Wait wait, why are you reading it out loud ! ? 」
Ignoring Ren, the gentleman kept reading with an amused smile on his face. He was truly amused by Ren's last regrets before his breaths ran out.
「'I want to become the strongest man', 'I want to enjoy women', 'I have yet to throw away my virginity'......」
Ren covered his face with his hands while crouching down in utter embarrassment.
At first he didn't believe that this gentleman is a God, but right now, after he listed all of Ren's last regrets that only Ren himself knows, he finally believed in the fact that this is God.
The gentleman laughed gently at the embarrassed Ren who is crouching covering his face.
「Haha......well, it's fine to have regrets like this, you're a single young man after all」
「That aside, why am I here with you?」
Avoiding the embarrassing topic, Ren pressed for an explanation of why is he being in this empty space.
He expected to be either in hell or heaven, if it was heaven he would do ecchi things to the angel girls.
But this is completely different from what Ren thought when he dropped his last breath.
「Ah that's right. Your act of goodness before you died, it was recorded so you'll be given a second chance」
「A second chance?」
Sensing a familiar plot line rising, Ren felt uneasy at the word 'second chance'.
In the novels Ren read when he was young, the protagonist usually got sent to another world with powerful status to defeat the demon lords.
「That's right. Let's hear your wish first, after that you'll be sent to a new world」
Ren didn't understand the situation very well, but if he was told to state his wish, then he might as well just ask for something incredibly overpowered.
Putting his fist on his chin, Ren started giving the matter some thoughts and arrived at a conclusion.
「I need to confirm this but......do I need to kill demon lords and save the world?」
Ren feels like he needs to get this straight.
Though he indeed wants to become some sort of heroic figures, he doesn't want to be forced to go fight. Ren only wants to fight whenever he deems he needs to. He seeks for a comfortable life, rather than a stiff and tiring one like that of a forced hero.
「Nah...leave that to the heroes...you just go and live your new life」
Hearing that, Ren's face broke into a broad grin. This is what he's been waiting for.
「Then my wish is that I have full access and control over Status......it's kind of like a god in a sense」
Declaring so, Ren felt stupid when he asked for such impossible wish.
Certainly, he was given the choice to pick his desired wish, but the thing he just said is just absurd no matter how you look at it.
An existence that can control everything's status like a Gamemaster of a role-playing game is something the Gods should never allow to exist. Rather, they would get rid of things like that before it spout any disaster.
「OK got it. Status control is it?」
Yet, the gentleman standing in front of him thinks otherwise as he said so casually while jotting down a few lines into the folder of documents he's holding in his hand.
The man nodded and held out towards Ren a piece of paper. It was a contract-like application form.
「W-What? I can actually have that kind of power?」
「Yeah, why not? It would just be more fun for us Gods to watch you. By the way, if you try to mess up the balance of the universe then we'll have to step in. Other than that, just sign here and you're good to go」
The gentleman's smiling expressions did not change one bit as he kept casually declaring absurd things.
'As one would expect of a God', though Ren while accepting the paper and the pen from the gentleman.
As a trained office worker, Ren has some knowledge on handling signed paper, so he looked through the contents and didn't find any strange things that would affect his life later on.
Using the pen, Ren signed the contract and received his God powers.
「Okay, here's how you use your powers......」
The gentleman briefly instructed Ren on how to manage and control his powers. Ren nodded as he soaked in the information.
「Alright......I grasped the nature of it......I think I can do well on my own」
「Good. Then you will now be sending to another world right away. Enjoy!」
「Wai—Hang oooooon ! ! ! 」
The gentleman pushed Ren's shoulder and he literally fell from heaven down to a foreign world.
***
1 Testing
「Ow ow......I swear that guy......」
Rubbing his butt, Ren walked sluggishly on a grassland that seems to spread out endlessly.
When Ren realized, he was falling from a considerable height. Luckily he somehow didn't take any injuries.
It was actually God's magic that sent him down to the world violently, but safely.
While walking, Ren called up the 『Status』 screen like how he was instructed by that God.
「Even though I can change these numbers......looking at it makes me laugh......」
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Staring at the pitiful stats in his own 『Status』, Ren smiled wryly as he feels pathetic. These numbers, if spoke in a game-like sense, are for a level 2 commoner without a class or a job.
Sighing with all the air he had in his lungs, Ren kept walking while once again skimming through the things he can do with this Status window.
♦ ♦ ♦
After a while of walking endlessly, Ren found something like a road. It was pretty poorly paved.
Without knowing any specific destination, Ren shrugged and decided to walk along the road to see if he'll meet any kind of civilization.
Along the way, Ren played with his own 『Status』 and set his stamina to 800.
Since there was not an upper limit of how big the number he could set, Ren had no idea how much should he put in.
Thus he randomly entered 800 as his stamina and kept on walking for 3 hours straight before finding the road without feeling the slightest fatigue.
「I need to see other humans' status so I can know how much is strong......」
Though if he just set everything to an absurd number, he'll easily conquer the world, Ren doesn't really want that yet.
Mostly because if he's too strong he'll run into troubles of breaking everything he touches.
On top of that, Ren is the kind that prefers to stay in the dark and controls things with his puppet strings.
Thus he wants to adjust himself to be decently strong to secure his social standing, then after that he'll use his powers to mess with everyone from where they don't expect.
It's the kind of personality that a common antagonist would have, but that's just how Ren was born.
「Fufu......I want to stay behind and stir this world up......it'll be fun to watch......」
Laughing devilishly, Ren continued walking.
Then, he ran into that.
「Gurororo ! ! 」
It was a strange monster. Its face was that of a bull, but it had no horns. Its body was bulky like a grown man, yet short like a dwarf. It wasn't holding any weapon, but its claws were sharp as knives.
Encountering his first enemy in this new world, Ren shook himself away from the fear and called up its Status.
《Guntonian》
HP: 40/40
MP: 10/10
A kind of humanoid creature born from fragments of Minotaurs' souls.
Strength: 54
Agility: 60
Intelligence: 10
Treating this as an experiment, Ren messed around with the monster's status first.
He turned it's Agility down to 1 and provoked the monster.
The thing's face immediately changed colors and rushed towards Ren.
But its steps were heavy and slow, it was slower than an elementary kid. From afar, he monster looked like it was taking its time to walk, but in fact it was running with all its might as its breath turned rough from fatigue.
「Hahaha...this is actually funny to look at」
Next, Ren turned its Strength down to 0 and restored its Agility.
The monster's body became lighter and it tried to dash forward. But since its strength was 0 it just fell straight onto the ground without being able to do a single thing.
Ren gave the matter some thoughts and decided to experiment more.
He called out his own Status and turned his Intelligence up to 6000. His magical power and magical defense went up accordingly by a huge amount. Ren felt the flow of magic running inside his veins.
After that, he turned the Guntonian's Intelligence up to 5000 to see how much can it damage him.
The moment he touched on the 『Apply』 button on the semi-transparent space window, the monster exploded into dust.
Its status screen left a message of 『Overloaded with magical energy』.
「Oh」
Ren leaked a stupid voice as he realized the number was too big.
Telling himself to be careful with numbers from now on, Ren pulled his stats back down and resumed walking.
♦ ♦ ♦
Sighing in boredom, Ren dragged his feet and kept walking along the road.
He has not encountered any other monster since that Guntonian. Thus he couldn't experiment more on this status system.
Then a rampart came into view.
From where Ren is standing, one can see the top 1/4 of the ramparts. It was built with stone and was reinforced by high level magic, according to Ren's 『Status Management Screen』.
As he sped up his pace in excitement of finally finding civilization, Ren came across an area that seemed like a former battle field.
Monster corpses and weapons were everywhere.
The human corpses were probably taken away immediately already, but their equipment have not been retrieved yet.
If one were to look closely, they'll notice that the blood trails are very new and smelly. The battle just ended recently or at least not too long ago before Ren came.
Thinking of this as a good opportunity, Ren picked up a double-edged sword and inspected it.
Its state was poor. It got chipped here and there, he tip of the blade already got dulled and the blade itself got some cracks that don't seem repairable.
Nodding to himself, Ren looked into the status screen of the sword.
Then he restored the Durability back to 100%. Adjusted the sword's strength and made it lighter with more sharpness. The result:
《Unique • Steel Sword》
Physical damage: A
Magical damage: B-
Piercing: A+
Can invoke fire attribute and continue to burn the wound for a period of time after the moment of damage. The flames coming from its fire attribute can also be used to focus on the tip to increase Piercing up to S-.
The sword did not change shape since Ren didn't make it to, but its power drastically went up. However, all the damage on the blade was gone and there is now a faint scarlet glow wrapping around the sword.
Ren walked up to a nearby boulder, set his Strength to 200 and swung the sword at the boulder.
The huge stone was sliced in half smoothly with burnt marks along its cut-surface.
Nodding in satisfaction, Ren turned off the Fire attribute, picked up a sheath nearby, returned its durability and hung the sword together with the sheath on his waist.
With that being done, Ren continied walking towards the ramparts in front of him.