PLEASE ENTER NAME : LEVEL 3

DAY 23 : G-DAY, THIRDWEEK, AGNI, YEAR 1

CENTRAL 3 : TOWER 2 : OPTIONS

Just like the last eleven days, Civetta sits down in front of me. But this time, it’s not to answer my questions. She wishes to, as she put it, ‘fill in the blanks’. “Alright, so let's just go through the whole thing in standard order. That sound good?”

I nod.

So does she. “First up is race. We settled that last week, so we can skip it.”

I nod.

[ RACE CONFIRMED ]

“See that? Progress already, and we haven’t really even started. Now, let’s move right on to appearance.” Eventually, Civetta breaks the ensuing silence. “So… Is there anything about your appearance you want to change?”

I nod. “No.”

“Really? Because you can. I wasn’t being hypothetical. Or do you mean you’re satisfied with how you look?”

“No.”

“But you don’t want to change?”

“No.”

Someone else pipes in from off to the side. “I don’t think he has a baseline for physical appearance.”

Civetta addresses the new voice. “B-Oneshot, go away. How did you even get here?”

Oneshot shrugs. “Teleported.”

“Don’t know why I asked… You’re not supposed to do that, you know.”

“Correction… I’m not supposed to ‘be able’ to do that. There’s no rule against actually doing it.”

“There would be, if not for the fact that it’s supposed to be impossible.”

“You gonna turn me in, then?”

Civetta’s mouth becomes a line. “Obviously not.”

“If you guys just nutted up and nerfed me, this wouldn’t be a problem.”

“I’m aware.”

“So you wanna make him hot or what?”

Civetta sputters at my unprofessional interference with her job. “Come again?”

“Don’t mind if I-”

“Stop.” She makes a clear effort to straighten herself out. “Please elaborate… Hero.”

Oneshot chuckles. “Oooh, busting out the H-word now? Well then, Admin, PEN here has no grasp on the concept of physical attractiveness, let alone an ideal body type.”

“Yes, I know. So what?”

“So… You should make him hot.”

“You want him to look like you, then?”

Oneshot rolls his eyes. “That works too. But I was thinking more along the lines of Finn. Wasn’t he an amalgamation of guys teenage girls wanted to fuck or whatever?”

“Don’t you think PEN should get a say in this?”

“Sure. Hey, PEN… Do you care one way or another about this?”

I nod in surprise at the sound waves suddenly directed at me. Surprise complete, I nod. “No.”

Oneshot’s sound waves are now directed at Civetta once more. “See?”

Civetta grumbles. “Fine… If it’ll get you to shut up, then fine.”

“Of course it will… About this.”

“Whatever.” At that, Civetta goes through and makes a lot of apparently specific, seemingly random adjustments to sliders in my sprawling system window labeled ‘Appearance’. “Is that better?”

I don’t understand the question, but I do know my answer. “No.”

Civetta turns to oneshot. “See?”

Oneshot turns to me. “Is it worse?”

“No.”

He turns back to Civetta. “See?”

Civetta turns sighingly back to me “Do you wish to confirm this appearance?”

I’m not quite as sure about this answer. But it does edge out the other. “No.”

Oneshot turns back to me as well. “Confirming means you don’t have to deal with this topic anymore.”

I feel a distinct sense of alarm. “I wish to amend my previous answer to ‘yes’.”

Civetta sighs.

[ APPEARANCE CONFIRMED ]

“Now for the big one… Oneshot, don’t you have something else to do?”

Oneshot sighs in imitation of Civetta for some reason, followed by an answer to match my own. “No.”

With a smile that looks to have been run over by whatever a train is, she sighs even louder, seeming to add superfluous exasperation into it for increased efficacy. “That’s what I was afraid of… Whelp… Onto your CLASS and CRAFT then, I guess. We’ll do these one at a time. So for your CLASS, we have Support, Defense, and Attack Lanes to choose from. Of those, which do you like?”

I don’t even have to think about it. “Support.”

“Alright, and for Support’s available archetypes, there’s Healer, Buffer, Controller, Utility-”

Again, I find my answer without needing to hear the rest. “Healer.”

Civetta seems pleased. “Have a calling, do we? I’m glad we found it so fast. Now for your Specialty, we have-”

That’s when Oneshot cuts in. “Hold on just a sec.”

Civetta is clearly annoyed. “Do you wanna be the Admin, then? And I could just sit here and backseat-drive this whole process?”

“That would be lovely. I accept.”

“Oh shut up.” A moment of silence passes before she lets out a much more naturally exasperated sigh than before. “Okay, what?”

“Just… I think I see what’s going on here.” Oneshot turns to me. “Why did you choose Healer?”

I am instantly confused. “It was the first choice.”

Oneshot nods. “And why did you choose ‘Support’ before that?”

“It was the first choice.”

Oneshot looks back at Civetta with victory in his eyes.

Civetta folds her arms. “Oh don’t give me that. How would you decide, then?”

“Alright, how ‘bout this? Was PEN here responsible for anything new being added to The Game?”

She looks away from us both. “Maybe… I didn’t want to railroad his choices.”

“I think we’ve established that he’s gonna be railroaded by whatever we say first. So how about we steer him towards something he’s bound to actually be good at? If worse comes to worse, I’ll help him get a CLASS Respec for something better.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“You’re really just going to volunteer your time away? Since when do you care that much about anyone but yourself?”

“Ouch…”

“Alright, yourself, and me, then.”

“Since whenever I feel like, okay? What’s the stupid CLASS already?”

“It would lock him into a Defense Lane.” She seems to wait for something before giving up and continuing. “Summoner archetype.” Another stretch of silence. “Replication Specialty…”

Oneshot looks at his wrist worriedly. “Come on, I don’t have all day.”

Civetta sarcastically perks up. “Oh? Do you have somewhere to be, then?”

Oneshot clears his throat. “Let me rephrase… I have all day.”

Civetta narrows her eyes before gradually moving her gaze back to me. “Your Subclass would be Dullahan.” She remains silent for an extended moment. “So? What do you think? Do you want to live the rest of your days as sentient armor? Does that sound good?”

I know this answer without thinking this time too. “Yes.”

Civetta groans over Oneshot’s laughter. “Why?”

I nod. “It was the first option presented. Therefore, it was clearly the superior choice.”

Civetta facepalms.

Still chuckling, Oneshot presents me to her like whatever a trophy is. “See?”

Civetta rounds on him. “Oh what do you mean ‘see’? What do you think you accomplished with that?”

“Oh nothing… Except clear proof that PEN here doesn’t have an opinion on any of this, and the only way we’re about to get anywhere is to choose for him and then help out if he changes his mind. At least this way, he’ll have a CLASS that’s hard to respec into.”

Civetta glares at him through the hand still covering her face. “Oh? You’re saying you couldn’t find a Dullahan CLASS Respec?”

“What? Of course not.” Oneshot’s face goes serene. “With enough grinding, all things are possible.” He lowers his palms from one another. “But I could just give him the cash to go buy a respec for any of the default options from any number of system-run stores practically across the street from this building. For what, I might add, might as well be free.”

“Yes, yes, I get it, now shut up for a second.” Civetta turns back to me. “You’re sure you’re fine going the Dullahan route?”

I know the answer instantly. “Yes.”

Civetta groans. “The fact that you’re so sure only makes me more worried… Fine, whatever.”

[ C.L.A.S.S. CONFIRMED — LANE: DEFENSE — ARCHETYPE: SUMMONER — SPECIALTY: REPLICATION — SUBCLASS: DULLAHAN ]

When it happens, I feel instantly different. The feeling isn’t necessarily unpleasant. But it is absolutely, positively distinct from anything I’ve ever felt as my Body starts to hollow itself out.

Civetta and Oneshot’s mouths are hanging open. One in horror. The other in fascination. Whatever it looks like from their perspective, it’s clearly not among the things they expected to see today.

Unfortunately, the only thing I can’t see is myself. I wonder if either of them can see me either as I belatedly remember that I don’t have armor.

Oneshot whistles.

Civetta tries to move on. “Now for your CRAFT… The roles are-”

Hiding his distraction from learning what an armorless dullahan looks like, Oneshot clears his throat again. “So what did he add CRAFTing-wise?”

“Nothing. No options besides the defaults.”

Oneshot blinks. “Oh…”

Civetta turns back to me. “So for our creation roles, we have-”

But Oneshot’s not done. “Then if he doesn’t have a special CRAFT, and he’s going the dullahan route, it’s gotta be armor crafting, right? Or enchanting? Something with armor?”

Civetta rounds on Oneshot, actually angry this time. “Now you’re just dictating his choices.”

“No, I’m saying what’ll synergize the best with his CLASS. If he has that many active armor sets, he’s gonna need to be an armor crafter himself or he’s going to be perpetually broke. Hell, even I’d go broke trying to buy all that for him. I volunteered to help out, not donate all my money.”

Civetta holds her hand up to Oneshot’s mouth. “Wait… What are you talking about?”

Oneshot looks at her hand for an extended moment before biting her middle finger.

She laughs.

He laughs too. Some time later, he comes out of it. “Wait, what were we doing?”

She looks up into the middle distance. “I… Don’t know…”

“Yeah…”

“This is probably why we shouldn’t work together, huh?”

“I never said I wanted to be in your department.”

“Wait… You didn’t?”

Oneshot freezes in place. “No…”

“Oh, ok. I’m fine with it, then.”

Oneshot blinks at that. “…Seriously?”

“Of course.”

“Really? That’s it? Over half a century undermining my efforts and that was your whole problem?”

Civetta hedges. “I mean we just enable each other all the time and I knew if we worked together, it’d get in the way of this sacred duty that I really do believe in and-”

Oneshot flinches. “Oh my god I forgot PEN was here! Shit, we really shouldn’t work together, huh?”

I cease not actively moving. “Hello.”

Civetta jumps at the sudden voice from where I haven’t moved. “AAAH!!!” Stopping to catch her breath, she quickly calms down.

While she’s doing that, Oneshot seems to remember what he was talking about in the first place. “Right, so did you actually read the Skills he added?”

Breath successfully caught, Civetta shakes her head. “No, there were just so many. With his unique background, I would’ve been surprised if The System didn’t find something unique in his knowledge set.”

Oneshot nods. “Thaaat’s what I thought. There were Eleven Skills. Eleven. And they aren’t different either. Well, one is… But the others are just ten different tiers of the same Skill… Body Duplication.”

Civetta splutters. “What?”

Oneshot answers her indignation by not addressing it at all. “As a dullahan, your head stays singular, but you can summon duplicate bodies a number of times depending on which tiers of Summon Armor you have. And each duplicated armor is taken from a piece in your own inventory. Actually, wow… I’m just reading this now. The max for that used to be Sixteen. And that’s only with Summon Armor One through Five. But thanks to PEN here, the new cap is twice that, for each of those ten new Body Duplication Skills he added. In other words, multiply 16 by 2, 10 times, and that’s the new cap. Or in other, other words, 16,384. That’s over 130,000 armor pieces.”

He snorts at a face Civetta is apparently making. “So yeah… I think it’s safe to say that PEN is gonna have a constant need for armor. If he really goes all out, he’s gonna need that many duplicates of the best possible armor he can get. High-level Heroes can go decades between finding anything as good as what they have equipped. So if he’s not CRAFTing it himself, I don’t think even The Eight Kings could finance his full potential.”

“Okay, that’s nice and all, but what if he wants to be a baker?”

Oneshot blinks. “I don’t know, let’s see… Hey PEN, what would you rather be? Not a baker? Or the very best baker ever?”

I’m relieved at the easy question after such a complicated discussion. “Not a baker.”

He nods. “Why?”

I nod back. “It was the first option.”

“Wonderful…” Oneshot does a flourish of some sort as though somehow presenting me to the Admin.

Said Admin grumbles. “Okay, fine…” She turns back to me. “Are you sure… About… Oh, nevermind.”

[ C.R.A.F.T. CONFIRMED — ROLE: DEVELOPMENT — ART: SMITH — FORM: HEAVY ARMOR — TRADE: MEDIEVAL ]

Civetta folds her arms and glares at Oneshot. “Alright, smartass…”

Oneshot blinks at her. “…What?”

Civetta flails in exaggerated indignation. “Oh, don’t you have his whole future planned out? Come on. What’re his STATs gonna be?”

“What’re you talking about? Can’t you just leave those unspent for now?”

Civetta just freezes mid-hand-wavey gesticulation. “Unspent? I guess so, yeah.”

Oneshot shrugs. “Then let’s do that.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I mean… A Hero has to have a CLASS and a CRAFT. But the points can wait until he decides where to put them. Even if he just picks the first option for everything, that, at least, can be entirely his decision.”

Civetta relaxes. “Wow… Surprisingly accommodating of you.”

“What? When have I ever not been accommodating?”

Civetta goes into what looks like the footage she showed me last week of an epileptic seizure. Except she’s standing. And there’s no mouth-foam. Really, it’s just the involuntary shaking and eye movement. Eventually calming down, she takes a moment to gather herself.

[ S.T.A.T.S CONFIRMED ]

After her episode, Civetta just sits there. “So..?”

Oneshot just sits there right back. “What?”

“We’re done. You can leave.”

“What? No name?”

Civetta sighs. “He has one… Technically. Anyway, Admins can’t change the name of a Hero. Not ever. Global policy. That’s why they had you do it yourself way back when, remember?”

“So, he’s stuck as ‘Please Enter Name’ forever?”

“What? No. This is Heaven. You can change your name.” She screws up her face for some reason and her sound waves become far more of whatever ‘nasally’ signifies. “At any number of system-run stores practically across the street from this building. For what, I might add, might as well be free.”

Oneshot balks. “Seriously?”

Civetta just stares at him. “How do you not know that?”

“You saw me set my name. There was a special prompt and everything. And I was making a point. What, am I gonna talk all that shit and then just go and change it? No. Not in a million years. So why would I know it’s an option?”

Civetta smirks knowingly. “So defensive…”

“Oh, shut up. Anyway, I teleported here for something else.”

“You weren’t just here to tell me how to do my job?”

“No, of course not. I didn’t even know you were doing this today. I just have opinions. But that shouldn’t surprise anyone.”

I raise a suddenly hollow metal arm. “I am surprised.”

Oneshot looks at me for a moment, and then back to Civetta. “Bad example.”

Civetta rolls her eyes. “Okay… why are you here, then?”

Oneshot alternately hugs, kisses and squeezes Civetta.

She reciprocates while generally sinking into the embrace.

Eventually, they release each other and Oneshot backs up. “That was it. Just wanted to say ‘hi’. See you at home.” He turns back to me. “See ya, PEN.” And then he teleports away before either of us can say another word.