Riley proudly strode back to where the crime took place, and spotted the lady anxiously speaking to a police officer. Clearing his throat, Riley approached them.

“Hey! Sorry to interrupt, but I believe this belongs to her.”

As he finished his sentence, Riley handed over the purse. He glanced at the cop.

“Before you arrest me, I retrieved it from the two purse snatchers. I immediately gave chase after hearing her scream for help.”

“Thank you so much!”

“That’s brave of you to endanger yourself for a stranger's belongings.”

“I'm sure anyone would’ve done the same.”

Riley smiled as the woman joyously clutched her purse in her arms.

“However, you should've left this matter to the police. From her testimony, it seems that the two thugs had weapons with them. They weren’t any ordinary purse snatchers. You could've gotten seriously hurt.”

Riley shrugged.

“My body just sorta moved on its own with the adrenaline rush. Don’t worry, I managed to overpower them. If you’re quick, you might still be able to catch them over there.”

Riley pointed towards the direction he had come from. The policeman tipped his hat, and bid them farewell.

“If what you say is true, then I would be seriously impressed. I'll head over there to investigate. Once again, thank you, young man.”

The cop started walking towards where Riley pointed, speaking inaudibly into the radio attached to his left breast.

The lady proceeded to thank Riley profusely . She even offered a reward, but Riley refused. After all, the system was offering a much better reward.

“Quest Completed! Gained +1 charisma, ‘Vigilante’ class, and ‘Crime Fighter’ title!”

“New class obtained! Check the class menu for more information.”

“New title obtained! Check the status screen to equip your new title!”

'Sweet! Time to check them out at home!'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heading home, Riley went into his room and slumped onto his chair.

'Alright, time to test out my new class.'

"But first. Menu!"

Before his very eyes, a window he had never expected to see in real life, appeared. A system all-too familiar, yet it still took him by surprise. Something so common, yet astonishing at the same time. Riley couldn’t believe his eyes. It was… a system menu.

“What the heck?”

It was a regular window, showing a two-by-four grid with icons and words within each grid. There were words such as Status, Skills, Inventory, Class, Achievements, Quests, Help and Options.

Riley had already explored several of the menu options: Status, Skills, and Inventory — and from these options, he'd already felt that his powers were beyond extraordinary. Now, he realised that he had barely scratched the surface of his newfound abilities.

Just like any PC gamer, Riley’s first instinct was to enter the Options menu. He was welcomed with a variety of toggles, sliders, and checkboxes. There were many different tabs such as Sound, Video, Interface, and Gameplay.

He selected the "Sound" tab first. Here, he saw several minor settings, such as master volume, ambience, sound effects, music, and dialogue. There was a peculiar setting below these sliders, which was a checkbox: “Play music according to the user’s environment”. Riley ticked it, and clicked on “Apply Changes”.

Immediately, he started hearing a peaceful, somber music playing. It was a… peculiar feeling. The sound felt like it wasn’t coming from outside, but instead seemed to be playing from within his head.

‘It sounds just like that background track from “Undertale”, what was it called…. “Home”, that's it! The song that plays in Uriel’s home. Does this mean the song changes according to the situation I’m in? That’s pretty dope!’

Moving on to the next tab, “Video”, he could see several options, though most of them were left unchecked. He could customise the things he saw in real life, ranging from battle effects, the coloring of his environment, and more. After testing some of the options, Riley decided it was best to leave them as is, as most of them felt really weird and trippy.

Next was the Interface tab, where he could customise his Heads-Up Display (HUD), the windows that assisted him in understanding his stats. Not many settings were available, except for customising how he could summon his HUD, and the color or border type according to his preference.

Finally, the last tab was Gameplay, where there were several buttons for his Control settings. He saw that one of the settings, Skills, was set to Tutorial mode. There were several other ways he could cast his skills, such as through gestures, or muttering the incantations needed, but after weighing the options, Riley thought the current "Tutorial" method was the best.

Several other options were available, many of them notifications, which Riley deemed fine to leave on as they weren't causing too much clutter in his HUD yet. One particular new setting Riley turned on was “Show skill level increase after combat” to ensure he did not get distracted in the heat of battle.

After exploring the Settings tab, Riley decided to go to the next Tab, called Help.

‘Alright, time to read the guide I guess, since life doesn’t start with a tutorial.’

“Welcome, he who wields the Gift of the Roleplayer. This guide is aimed to equip you with the knowledge to explore your abilities to its full extent. Please note that this ability is still in beta, and it may or may not expand depending on your experience, as deemed by the Developer.”

The guide covered his abilities to an extent, and some skills that he already discovered. Nevertheless, Riley read on to better understand each ability, just in case he missed any aspect of it out.

“Although the ‘Gift of the Roleplayer’ may seem to be a gamer-like manifestation, the power boils down to one main advantage; the ability to grow and evolve faster than the average human. The ability provides the wielder several aspects to raise their attributes quickly, through repetitive action, leveling up, quests, and more. Using this strength, the Roleplayer will be able to increase their potential exponentially faster than the average human.”

The first feature covered was his leveling system. Here, the guide detailed that normal humans leveled up differently; their attributes increased based on their experience in the real world, where an average human would level up once a year, and plateau once it reached the cap of 50. His experience, on the other hand, scale off a fixed formula of an incremental 10% increase, and rewarded him with 3 stat points per level.

As for attributes, an average human’s stats would average around 20-30 points. As the stat increased, improving it would slowly become harder and harder. That’s where his abilities came in handy; they removed the traditional limit innate to humans, and allowed Riley to easily increase his stats through levelling up, or as a form of quest reward. An early nerf from the “Developer” included placing a limit on gaining stat points from repetitive tasks at 5 points every 10 levels. That meant that he would have to reach level 10 before being able to gain stat points from repetitive actions again. The guide emphasised that this limit could be subject to future changes.

'That reminds me. I still have no idea what Luck does.'

Riley scrolled past the descriptions of stats he was already familiar with, and jumped straight to luck.

“Luck is an attribute that affects every aspect of your life, yet remains unnoticeable. Potential to land critical hits, dodge attacks, getting additional EXP — luck’s reach are endless. Having high enough luck may potentially tilt the world to your favor; anything is possible.”

Riley leaned back and fell deep in thought as he read it. His other attributes could be improved through repetitive action, but how would he even begin to train his Luck? Going to a casino?

Luck as a stat was fairly rare, due to the vagueness associated with the concept of "luck". And even if it was implemented into a game, their effects wouldn't be as extensive as this. Generally, Luck would provide either a higher critical hit or dodge chance.

‘Should I try upgrading my luck then? The description makes it out to be the best stat, although it seems like a bad idea to rely on a stat that is inconsistent with its effects, compared to the other stats that have actual, quantifiable outputs.

‘Then again, I really need to think about what sort of character I’d like to create.”

Riley figured that deciding what sort of character he would pursue was definitely going to be tough. Without a skill reset, how he distributed his stats completely defined who he was and how combat would play out going forward.

In games, you could rely on other party members to complement your weaknesses, but in real life, he doubted that anyone else would have “special” powers. Besides, in games, you could always make a new character as a last resort.

After learning that he would only be able to gain 5 stat points from repetitive actions every 10 levels, he would have to think long and hard about what he wanted.

‘Alright, time to check out the help guide for my class sys-'.

Crash.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Patch 9.0

- Regular weekly update

- New Class ‘Vigilante’ Unlocked!

- New title ‘Crime Fighter’ Unlocked!

Name: Riley Petesgeralt

Age: 16

Job: The Roleplayer

Class: Vigilante

Level: 5

HP: 250

MP: 220

EXP: 3/149

Strength: 27

Dexterity: 23

Vitality: 25

Intelligence: 29

Wisdom: 22

Charisma: 26 (+1)

Luck: 20

Skills:

Roleplayer’s Mind

Virtual Body

Analyze (Level 4)

Blunt Weapon Proficiency (Level 4)

Physical Endurance (Level 1)

The Cinderella Effect (Level 1)

Dodge Step (Level 1)

Counter Flip (Level 1)

Leg Sweep (Level 1)

Power Punch (Level 2)

Extreme Agility (Level 1)

Sense Danger (Level 2)

Trash Talk (Level 1)

Power Swing (Level 3)

Quick Draw (Level 1)