I automatically wake up due to my internal clock. Getting a lot of rest is impossible huh… It’s the crack of dawn, so everyone is most likely all asleep. I decide to just go through my daily morning exercises until one of the maids comes to get me. My morning exercises are those commonly used in Tai Chi, a mixed martial arts exercise routine that gives you a full body workout.

About 3 hours later, someone knocks on the door and lets themselves in. It’s one of the maids from yesterday and her face is completely red with her mouth hanging open the instant she sees me. She nearly drops the bundle of clothes in her hands. Based on her reactions, I decide to tease her a bit.

I walk up to her with a pleasant smile on my face and my arms wrapped under my breasts.

“Good morning, how are you today? It seems you brought me a change of clothes, how sweet of you,” as I say this, I bring my face closer and closer to hers until I stop next to her ear. “I’d like to give you a reward.”

I hear a squeak as she tenses up. The redness spreads all the way to the tips of her ears. I smirk and decide to reward her after all. Such cute reactions deserve to be rewarded. I give her a lingeringly kiss on her cheek. She falls limp and passes out. Maybe… I should’ve held back a little bit… Regardless, she has my change of clothes, so I take them from her as I set her down on the bed. I had hoped to get directions to the baths, but I suppose a bit of exploration is also fine.

I casually walk out of my room and head down the hall. I remember the throne room is to the right of the door, so I decide to head down the left. As I walk down the hallway, I do a bit of peeking inside all of the rooms I pass. Being a gap demon, I can manipulate boundaries, so I open a little gap by tweaking the borders between two spaces, the spaces being the space in front of my eyes and the space behind the door. So far, I’ve passed by the rooms of John and Alicia and a few empty quest rooms. This is a lot more boring than I thought… Doesn’t the king know how to spruce up the place? Where are the trophy rooms, the armories? As I thought, I should’ve gotten another maid to show me around…

“Miss Miyamoto?” I hear a cute voice call out.

I look back and see Ali running up to me as her maid hurries along with her. I give her a two-finger salute in greeting.

“Miss Miyamoto! Good morning, are you headed to the baths?”

“Yeah, it seems I got myself a bit sweaty with my morning workout.”

She finally takes in my state of dress and her face begins to flush.

“Ah, I see. W-we should hurry to the baths then.”

With that said, she runs ahead with her maid following close behind. I’m meeting a lot of fellow comrades… Maybe it’s an ability? Turn girls into blushing messes? What would that even be called? [Seduction Aura] maybe…

As I ponder that, I follow behind Alicia at a casual walking pace. She disappears behind a door, one that leads to the baths presumably. I follow in after I catch up. Wow… The bath is a huge pool of hot water, with marble lining and a lion head that spews out water in the middle. This bath is quite extravagant. I take back what I said earlier, King Fred. You sure do know how to spruce a place up. There’s even an area to wash yourself before getting into the bath. It feels like I’m back in Japan in one of the communal baths. This world might be more advanced than I thought if they have running water. And how are they able to keep the bath water heated? Some type of magic? I will have to ask one of the mages later. I’m certain Mal will be able to answer me.

After slipping out of my bikini, I wash myself quickly and enter the baths. The hot water does wonders to soothe my muscles. As I thought, no matter where it is, hot baths are the best~

As I relax, I notice Alicia doing her utmost to avoid looking at me. This girl is just too cute. Too bad she’s jailbait. She seems to calm down after a moment and pulls her legs up to her chest. With her arms wrapped around them, she has a melancholic expression on her face.

“Miss Miyamoto… how do you feel about being summoned here?”

“Well, I suppose I feel shocked and maybe a little bit annoyed…”

“Really? I feel scared. I don’t know anything about this world and they expect us to become heroes and defeat the [Demon King]… Why was I summoned? I’m just a 16-year-old high school girl. I don’t have any special talents and I’m not like John who’s always wanted to become a hero. I want to help them, but I’m scared I’m going to end up dragging everyone down…”

This kid… She’s a really earnest girl. It makes me want to protect her. I inwardly give myself a self-deprecating grin. Heh, who was it that said she didn’t care about humans? I guess I don’t know myself that well after all.

“Hey, don’t worry Ali. You being the one summoned out of all the others means that you have the potential to be something great. Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m sure you’ll become the best in whatever you pursue,” I say as I give her a reassuring smile.

She smiles back and seems to finally relax. We both soak in the bath as the silence washes over us. Ali’s maid comes and informs us that we were to finish getting dressed and then head to the dining hall where we will be served breakfast. With that said, we both dry off and get dressed. It seems we were given matching outfits. We are both wearing a comfortable tunic and…long…skirt… How the heck am I supposed to fight in these?! You’re supposed to wear pants to fight, pants! I sigh and click my tongue in annoyance. I’ll just have to bother someone until they give me proper fighting clothes to wear. At least Ali seems to like her clothes.

The maid hurries us along to the dining hall, and once we enter, a grand long table is placed in the middle with luxurious chairs all around it. Like the rest of the castle, the room is huge and much too lavish. Everything is once again made of marble and paintings of past kings and queens are hanged all around the hall. At the very end of the room hangs the portrait of King Fred. And right below the portrait is the biggest seat in the room, where the actual King Fred sits.

The maid shows us to the seats closest to him, where John is already seated. He waves enthusiastically. I’m fairly certain I will want to strangle him if I stay too long. The other four from yesterday are also seated close to us. Instead of any grandstanding from the king, we all end up having a normal breakfast. I did learn that despite his stern face, he’s actually a pretty jolly guy. The morning passes by quickly, and the three of us were ushered down the hallway to a room that looks like a study. Only Mal stayed with us while the rest of them went somewhere, probably the training grounds. Mal tells us all to take a seat while she gets a blackboard… ready? There are diagrams drawn all over it, indicating that we’re about to cover a lot of subjects that I’m going to probably not pay that much attention to.

“You three must have a lot of questions about this world and how your role fits. I’m here to answer them.”

She points at an image of a map on the board.

“There are five continents in this world of Ostea. They all correspond with a particular element such as fire or water. This is because the mana lines on that continent is steeped with that particular elemental affinity. The Water Continent, better known as Aquaria is the one we are on now. There are numerous lakes and rivers and nature grows in abundance here. Humans aren’t the only kingdom that exists on this continent, we also share it with the elves. While we stick to the plains, the elves stick to their woodlands. Are there any questions so far?”

John enthusiastically asks, “Are there any monsters or dungeons?!”

Oi, calm down, she’s standing right there, no need to shout. Having sensitive ears is a pain in the ass when there’s overly excited people around.

“Of course, monsters exist. Something to know is that monsters and demons are two different species. Demons are much more intelligent and cunning whilst monsters are more similar to vicious beasts than anything. Monsters exist only in dungeons while demons have their own continent. Before we get to dungeons, I’ll go ahead and detail the rest of the continents.”

With that said, I decide to selectively filter out most of what Mal says. So, there’s the Fire Continent called Igneous that’s home to the demons where everywhere is volcanic. There’s the Earth Continent, Gaea that’s full of mountains and hills that is home to the dwarves and ogres. There’s the Air Continent called Zephyr that’s a literally flying continent home to bird people and pigeons, I mean angels. And then there’s a special continent that is also flying called Anima that is literally pure mana that has all of and none of the affinities. It’s a neutral place where a wide host of people live. It’s also apparently where they use magic to create things that sound suspiciously like modern-ish technology… Now I’m curious but also… how in the world do they get up there with no wings or flying magic? Do they have airships? If so, that’s really OP. Not like I can really say anything about that but still…

Mal interrupts my thoughts when she smacks a ruler against the board near a table that looks like it has stats in it.

“And this here is the most important lesson today. This right here is what we have access to from the [System]. What is the [System]? It’s the underlying principle that governs growth in this world. This [System] allows us to quantify the experiences we gain and the amount of life we have left. It also quantifies our strengths and weaknesses and lists all of our abilities and skills. This [System] is what allows us to challenge monsters and gain strength from them through the accumulation of experience points. For instance, these are stats from an average soldier.”

She points at the board again and now I finally understand what I’m seeing.

Name: Eric Willow

Race: Human

Gender: Male

Age: 25

Lvl: 40

HP: 2,050

MP: 100

SP: 3,025

STR: 125

DEX: 105

CON: 180

INT: 30

WIS: 30

WILL: 100

Classes: [Soldier]

Titles: [Royal Army Soldier]

Skills: [One-handed Sword lv4] [Shield lv4] [Spear lv2] [Archery lv1]

Abilities: [3 Hit Combo] [Shield Bash] [Overhead Slash]

“This status window appears when you think about wanting to see it. No one else can see it but you unless they have a specific ability that allows them to. These stats you see here are quite intuitive. It provides basic information about yourself and then your health, mana, and stamina are displayed. Once you reach 0 in health, you die. If you’re even at 1 health though, there’s still a chance to save you, so remember that. Even as I say that though, being stabbed through the heart or getting a fatal wound will still rapidly bring you to death, so don’t count on the [System] to help with that. We are still humans after all. As for the other stats, [STR] is your strength, a measure of how physically strong you are. [DEX] is dexterity, a measure of how quick and agile you are. [CON] is constitution, a measure of how sturdy and resilient you are. [INT] is intelligence, a measure of your ability to problem-solve and comprehend new information. [WIS] is wisdom, a measure of your common sense and spirituality. [WILL] is willpower, a measure of your mental resistance towards outside forces. These stats ‘level up’ as you gain more experience alongside your ‘level.’ Your level is a representation of how much experience you’ve gained, but it isn’t the best way to gauge someone’s abilities. If someone has a warrior type class that is level 40 compared to someone that is a merchant class at level 40, the warrior will have higher stats. Do any of you have questions about what I’ve said so far?”

This time, Ali raises her hand and asks a question, “How do we know how good we are compared to others? Is a strength of 175 really good or is it average…?”

“That is a good question. Most humans are born with a natural strength of 5 as babies and it can be increased through training and exercise. Most children have a strength of 15 and teenagers have a strength of 20. Normal adults usually have a strength of 40. Soldiers are supposed to have a high strength, so they commonly have strengths of 100-150. There are manuals on common stats that I can bring the next time we meet so you can familiarize yourself. It will most likely increase your wisdom if you can memorize them.”

She pauses for a moment to gather some books from the shelves and hands them to us. A Handbook of Common Stats for Dummies. Ha ha. Very funny. Mal continues her lecture afterwards.

“The next few areas are important to know. The classes are specialized jobs you can pursue that all give their own benefits. The [Soldier] class is a common class that can be taught easily. There are a number of such classes, but there are also unique classes that can only be obtained through fulfilling certain conditions. Those are rare, and most people don’t know exactly what you have to do to obtain them. Unique classes tend to give better benefits, but don’t worry if you never unlock one. After that are titles. Titles give passive bonuses that are very useful. You all will have a [Hero] title that will give you special benefits that no one else has. These can be obtained through accomplishing great feats or joining a faction such as the Royal Army. Then we have skills. Skills are the abilities you gain through using a tool or performing certain actions that require some kind of skilled work. These have levels from 1-10. Having a 6 is standard mastery of a skill while a 4 is adept proficiency at it. A 10 is complete mastery over the skill and allows you to perform with astonishing accuracy and efficiency. Abilities are something that are borne from skills. They generally involve a specialized move that allow more power to be added than a regular attack. It can also be something like an ability to see in the dark or a resistance to a certain condition. Are there any questions before we move on?”

I’m highly curious about something now, “Is there a maximum level or amount of skills and abilities we’re allowed to have? Is there a max of any of the stats?”

“That’s a good question. The maximum level is 1000 right now, though we have reason to believe certain individuals are allowed to surpass that level. The [Demon King] is rumored to have a max level double that. As for stats, there is a max of 1,000 for all of them except for [HP], [MP], and [SP]. Mana is something that is set at birth, so it’s incredibly difficult to increase it, but there are ways. Stamina is something that can be raised to a certain extent, but there is usually a max that your body can take. Health is something that can increase forever though, but it, too has restrictions. There are, however, no restrictions on how many classes, titles, skills, or abilities. With the questions out of the way, I’d like you all to check your own status.”

Check our own status… I feel like mine is going to be something outrageous, but here goes.

Name: Misaki Miyamoto

Race: Gap Demon

Gender: Female

Age: 2746

Lvl: 3000

HP: 60,000

MP: 50,000

SP: 30,000

STR: 3,000

DEX: 3,000

CON: 3,000

INT: 3,000

WIS: 3,000

WILL: 3,000

Classes: [Border Mage] [Gap Demon]

Titles: [Demon Queen] [Demon Sage] [World Power] [Mistress of Boundaries] [Hero] [Boundless] [Army of One] [Genius] [Silver Tongue] [Impervious Body]

Skills: [Border Magic lvMAX] [Boundary Manipulation lvMAX] [Martial Arts lv10] [Evasion lv10] [Engineering lv10] [Leadership lv10] [Persuasion lv10] [Intimidation lv10] [Deception lv10] [Detect Magic lv10] [Detect Spiritual Energy lv10] [Detect Demonic Energy lv10] [Detect Divine Energy lv10] [Flute lv10] [Cooking lv2]

Abilities: [Teleportation] [All-Seeing Eyes] [Barrier Break] [Aura of Inescapable Void]

Wow, it’s a little depressing seeing only four abilities. It’s not my fault I never named any of them… From now on, I’ll name every single special attack I do. But wow, my stats are really quite something. I’ll just do a little tweak and make it so the boundary between the visibility of my status is nonexistent. Now no one will be able to see it but me~ Special abilities can’t beat manipulation of the fabric of reality~ But only with boundaries of course~ Too bad everything has a boundary. Hehe. Man, I’m way too overpowered. This world will be too boring if I use this ability too much, so I’ll try my best to stick to only using my [Teleportation] and [All-Seeing Eyes] abilities and stop using any other aspect of my boundary manipulation.

I’m curious to see what John and Ali have… and maybe even Mal, too. I do a little tweak to the boundary between seeing and not seeing the status window and look over at Ali.

Name: Alicia Gonzalez

Race: Human

Gender: Female

Age: 16

Lvl: 5

HP: 200

MP: 2,000

SP: 100

STR: 30

DEX: 25

CON: 30

INT: 40

WIS: 25

WILL: 20

Classes: N/A

Titles: [Hero]

Skills: [Martial Arts lv1] [Piano lv1] [Cooking lv3] [Acrobatics lv1]

Abilities: N/A

Oh? So she has a few skills after all. Now what about John?

Name: John Wilson

Race: Human

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Lvl: 5

HP: 200

MP: 200

SP: 1,800

STR: 35

DEX: 30

CON: 35

INT: 25

WIS: 20

WILL: 25

Classes: N/A

Titles: [Hero]

Skills: [Boxing lv1] [Cooking lv5] [Tailoring lv3] [Sewing lv3]

Abilities: N/A

[Tailoring] and [Sewing]…? This guy has some interesting qualities about him after all! But wow, his [Cooking] skill is lv5... I think my respect for the kid went up a lot. Hmmm, now I’m really curious about Mal… I glance at her to see if she has some interesting abilities.

Name: Malory Elizabeth

Race: High Human

Gender: Female

Age: 347

Lvl: 468

HP: 14,765

MP: 15,690

SP: 300

STR: 40

DEX: 40

CON: 40

INT: 655

WIS: 570

WILL: 300

Classes: [Archmage] [Elemental Mage] [Gravity Mage]

Titles: [Elementalist] [Royal Court Wizard] [Sage of the Elements] [Destroyer of Armies] [Dragon Slayer]

Skills: [Fire Magic lv6] [Water Magic lv10] [Ice Magic lv8] [Earth Magic lv6] [Wind Magic lv6] [Lightning Magic lv6] [Gravity Magic lv8] [Alchemy lv2] [Enchanting lv2] [Cooking lv2] [Healing lv3] [Detect Magic lv5]

Abilities: [Grand Fireball] [Fire Storm] [Water Lock] [Raindance] [Tidal Wave] [Ice Prison] [Blizzard] [Earthquake] [Rock Barrier] [Whirlwind] [Razor Wind] [Tornado] [Thunder Storm] [Lightning Strike] [Zero Gravity] [Crushing Weight]

Oi, those abilities are really scary. How the hell does she have insane spells like that? Also what is up with those crazy sounding titles? [Destroyer of Armies]? This lady is hardcore. Actually, now that I think about it… isn’t being able to see the abilities and titles of people extreme cheating? I’ll make sure abilities don’t show up next time. Hmmm… I wonder what the [System] allows people to see with those special abilities Mal mentioned…

“Hey Mal, when you said that some people have the ability to see our status, what exactly can they see?”

“Calling me Mal… that’s some nerve,” she sighs. “But as to what the ability grants, it usually only shows level and class. The more advanced ones also show race, health, mana, and stamina. Even abilities can’t show your skills, titles, and abilities. The six stats are also hidden to all but the most powerful [Seeing] abilities.”

I give her my thanks and proceed to tweak my [Sight] so that it excludes most of what she said. Looking at her again, the information is much less complicated.

Name: Malory Elizabeth

Race: High Human

Lvl: 468

HP: 14,765

MP: 15,690

SP: 300

STR: 40

DEX: 40

CON: 40

INT: 655

WIS: 570

WILL: 300

Classes: [Archmage] [Elemental Mage] [Gravity Mage]

“So? Are your stats to your liking? It’s impolite to ask for someone specific stats, but a vague description is acceptable. Usually, just asking for level and class are the only acceptable times to ask for someone’s status, but since I’m your teacher, it would be best if you can give me a slightly more detailed description of your strengths and weaknesses.”

Of course, John jumps at the chance.

“I have really high stamina! And my strength, dexterity, and constitution aren’t bad either! It’s pretty high considering I’m only 17!” he says with a grin and a puffed-out chest.

Mal nods and looks at Ali next.

“I have a really high mana and high intelligence for my age. Everything else is average…”

“That’s only natural. People with the capacity to become a mage generally only have high [INT] and [MP]. That was how I was when I was younger.”

…How much younger though? You’re seriously old for a human. But maybe humans live longer in this world? She then looks at me to hear my evaluation. Eh… I’m going to have to lie through my teeth about this.

“I have above average on all of my stats. I do have a high mana pool though.”

Technically, what I’m saying is true, the magnitude is just off by a bit. Mal seems satisfied though, so I’m home free for this. She tells us that our lesson is down for today and the most important parts of our lessons are done. The rest will be history of this kingdom and the world at large after that. She dismisses us to go eat lunch, even if it will be a late lunch. We are to meet in the training grounds after and all of the information will be provided there.

I’m assuming that that is where we will be choosing our instructors in whatever class we want to pursue. I can’t help but look forward to it. I’ve never felt the need to learn any new skills besides the ones that I have already, but this is a great chance to explore a new field I’ve never touched before. This world won’t be challenging or fun without learning a whole new skillset I’ve never used after all. I head to lunch with that thought in mind with a smirk on my face. If John and Ali were looking at me questioningly, I deemed to not say a word.