3 Chapter 3 - Gamble (1/2)
”Not enough,” the woman sighed, raising the white bar of nothing high, ”you won't be able to compete with real evil. They are on a completely different level. I'm sorry, but it's too important that we produce real, good-hearted heroes. The fate of the Everything rests on these reincarnated individuals causing the worst possible damage to the land and their people. We need the heroes that oppose such events. I just don't think you can compete-”
”Then what if I help them compete with each other?” Kenji was grasping at straws now. ”I'll join the villains, and force them to try harder than the others- no, what if I do the opposite and help the good guys? Think about it, there's no saving like in a video game. One slip up and a good guy goes down the drain, wouldn't it be handy to have some insurance? Unless you're blessing the good guys too?”
”The gods of the world might...but I am forbidden from altering the state of anything within, merely communicating for monitoring purposes...”
”Perfect! So I could be like your... Protagonist Scout then? I'll find good heroes, train them, protect them and pull them through worthy quests and the like. How's that sound?”
The woman thought deeply, then smiled as brightly as an exploding star. Coincidentally, a supernova filled the dark of Everything with brief light over her shoulder.
”Like a good idea, now if you don't mind, we'll need to hurry this along. If my brother hears of this arrangement he might erase you and me both. So, as I said the first option is to move around your current abilities, deducting them from one place to add to any other,” with a swipe of her hand races, backgrounds, classes, and more flowed through Kenji's mind.
”You can choose any combination. Choosing a dangerous area to begin will give you up to 500 more points, while you get nothing for safe areas. Difficult races like demons give you many bonus starting points too, seeing as they are considered the enemy of all living things, while bland races such as human will give you nothing. I think you get the idea.”
Recovering from having his species being called 'bland' Kenji did what he hoped passed for a nod. Without physical form, he wasn't sure the gesture translated. The woman nodded back.
”Human bodies, so intriguing,” she said, pointing her middle finger at him. ”Just as you thought, this is an amusing position for my central digit.”
”Ok, ok. Let's get back on track, you said there's a second way of doing all this?” Kenji already had several combinations all picked out, although they required starting in hellishly difficult environments. One starting zone was inside the world's seventh hell in fact.
”The second option is this,” the woman unveiled a giant spinning wheel. Large as a skyscraper, scrawled with millions of combinations of species, class and environment. A golden arrow was positioned at the top. A depressing number were humans, Kenji having quickly thrown the race out of his calculations seeing how poor both their stats and progression speed was. No, if he wanted to min/max his stats to create a powerfully built, he'd need to be a vampire, demon, elemental or even a minor god. Although collecting the points necessary to start as a minor god was the scenario that began him in the seventh circle of hell. Not a nice place, even if it was the most efficient to grind XP.
”If you're lucky, you might not only get a good setup without the point cost but a rare attribute, species, or starting zone too. A room filled with runic weaponry. A unique sub-species. A magical power lost to time-”
”That one,” Kenji said immediately, throwing his strategies out the window. An unfortunate part of Kenji having been both a prolific gambler and obsessive when it came to anything of a limited edition. This method of gambling his future could not have been any more of a trigger for him.