Moving slowly toward the monsters, I survey the area one more time. The town's high stone wall is at my back, mostly grassy fields ahead, with a distant copse of trees that doesn't look thick enough for a proper forest, and a narrow stream cutting across the land a little way beyond the monsters.

There are a bunch of other new players in the field already, wielding their assorted weapons with wildly varying levels of skill. As for the monsters themselves, they aren't anything immediately recognizable. They look kind of like spiky creeper bush plants. Blue-green, with a multitude of vine-like appendages jutting up off of their gnarled bodies. The body comes up to my knees, the spikes extending almost up the top of my head. They hop around similarly to classic slimes, but otherwise, there isn't that much resemblance.

As I approach the nearest spiky monster, I'm wishing I had a bow. But no items and no money means I'm going to have to start from nothing. May as well give it a shot.

I step in, swinging my foot out directly into the body of the spike monster. It gives a solid feeling as I punt the thing, but it swipes out with its waves of thorns faster than I expected, using its reach to land the attack before it goes flying. I raise an arm to block, but that hardly helps. The blow lands hard, raking all across my forearm. There's a stab of pain as it scores deep tracks into my flesh, blood pouring from the wounds immediately. Quickly backstepping, I'm already losing feeling in that arm.

While it isn't too distinct, I get a powerful feeling of my health depleting rapidly. There's no bar or exact value I can look at, but it definitely feels like I lost about a third. And it must be the bleeding, because it's still ticking slowly down. Well... shit. I really am a squishy glass cannon.

Of course, judging by how the now very angry monster is bouncing aggressively back toward me, I might be missing the 'cannon' part without a weapon. Time for the ever-useful plan B.

I turn tail and run.

After a few backward glances, the monster is following further than I expected. I make it most of the way back to the gate before it loses interest. That's a pretty long leash range, have to keep that in mind.

Once I'm safe, I drop back to a walk. Alright, looks like I might have run into a bit of a problem. I'm an archer without a bow. How do I get a bow?

No wait, I have a more pressing matter. How do I keep myself from bleeding out? It's slow, but if the bleeding doesn't stop, I'll die from this injury. Unless bleed damage leaves you at 1 HP in this game. And that's not mentioning that despite the pain reduction, it's pretty painful.

Guess that's part of having no armor and four points of Vitality...

Holding my burning arm up to my chest, I run the short way back over to the gate. Lots of players are coming and going. “Excuse me, can anyone heal me?” I call into the crowd. Sure enough, a passing healer walks over. It's a woman in a fancy, classic white priest robe. I can't help but smile; you can always count on healers in MMOs.

“Sure, I can help you out,” he says. I can tell by the voice. Doesn't matter, so I push that thought out of my head. I hold my arm out for her and she extends a glowing hand. With a little flash of light around me, my arm tingles, and I feel my health regenerating rapidly. I'm good as new in a matter of seconds, the bleeding wound closing about the same time my health reaches full.

I clench my fist a few times, then bow my head slightly, “Thanks a lot.” I smile with my thanks.

“No problem, no problem,” she laughs and waves a hand in a very non-feminine way. She's about to continue on, but I raise my voice one more time.

“U-umm, I'm sorry, but could I ask for some advice?”

“Advice? What kind?” she arches a brow.

“Is there any way I can make some money without fighting monsters?” When I ask, she eyes my clothes for a moment.

“Ahh, are you a crafter? Or just a non-combat player? There's plenty of stuff in the fields to gather and sell. Watch out for monsters out there though, they can get seriously strong. If you head back into the city, there are shops and bars where you might find work.”

I glance back and forth between the two directions she pointed, and decide to go with the safer option to start. After all, I don't even fare well against starter mobs without any gear. “I'll do that, thanks again.”

“You're welcome, have fun.” We share smiles as she heads off for real this time.

Alright, into the city I go, I guess. Following her instructions, I pass the gates, continuing straight ahead onto the wide main thoroughfare, lined with shops on each side. They have placards of all types, and I randomly wander into one that looks like a potion shop.

“Welcome,” the man behind the counter calls when I enter. “Anything you're looking for?”

“Umm... work?” I ask anxiously. Never imagined I'd have to get a job in a video game, but it's no big deal, not like the real world. It's just for some starting money for my equipment.

“Sorry, no need. Try a different shop.”

“Oh, alright.” I quickly flee the building after he denies me.

I pop into a half dozen more shops along the main road before a woman in some kind of magical rune store actually says yes.

“I have to go on a stock run in a bit, so you could watch the shop while I'm gone. Here, I'll show you how to work the register.” She takes some time to show me, before heading out the door with a wave and a promise to be back soon.

Hands on my hips, I stand behind the counter in the empty shop. “Not how I thought my day would go,” I say aloud. As much for my stream as myself. Then I look around the magic shop, and a thought finally clicks.

“I have magic.” I could've farmed with my magic. I facepalm with a long groan, before straightening up again. This is fine. I'm already doing this, so I may as well get my bow first. It'll give me a chance to familiarize myself with the town more. No need to rush things, I only just started playing, there will be plenty of time for fighting monsters later.

After standing for a little while longer, I pull up the main menu to check the time. 7:30 am. Have to remember to log out and eat something before it kicks me from the game this time. At least I should have a few more hours before that. Do I have anything to eat though?

When the bell on the door jingles to announce a new customer arriving, I jolt and swipe away the menu. I've never actually worked as a cashier or anything before... probably. So I'm pretty nervous.

The customer is obviously some sort of mage, decked out in downright majestic purple wizard robes. Little magical light particles float around him too. He even has a classic pointed wizard hat to complete the look. No beard though, he's in his twenties and not really old enough to pull off the wizened thing.

I follow him with my eyes, moving through the shop efficiently, practically on auto-pilot as he grabs up specific things from the shelves one after another. He doesn't even stop to examine them. Then it's right up to the front. He dumps them on the counter between us.

“W-welcome,” I squeak. Crap, I forgot to say that when he came in. There's a pause, and he looks at me like he's seeing me for the first time. Well, he is seeing me for the first time, but that's besides the point. It's probably that he comes to this shop a lot and has never seen me here before. He doesn't comment on that though.

All he says is, “Sup.” Not exactly a wizardly greeting... He doesn't seem to notice or care as he waves a hand in the air between us. I don't see his menu, but he taps through it for a few moments before a bag of money materializes in his hand. He passes it to me and I set it down in the till like the lady, Sasha, showed me earlier.

Glancing down at the cost, magically floating in the air over the edge of the counter, I compare it to the amount listed above the till. They're the same, and the floating numbers glow green to show as much, but I check it anyway since I've never done this before.

With that confirmed, I hit the button on the counter to finalize the sale. The bag of money magically vanishes into the till's storage, and I get a few notices about the transfer of the items, floating up from my side of the counter. It's interesting that they go so far for the realism in VR. Old MMOs just popped up menus to buy things through. There was no real, physical exchange of goods.

Of course, that meant you could just stand all the 'shop keeper' NPCs next to each other since there weren't any actual 'shops.' Just a single person magically carrying ten billion items on their person to sell.

Personally, I'd say I prefer the realism. The slightly more cumbersome transactions are easily made up for by the immersion of having actual shop buildings, items on display, and interactions with the person you buy things from. Better than them being an anthropomorphic vending machine, at least in my book.

This wizard... probably disagrees. At least that's my guess when he sweeps the items into his inventory and leaves the store without another word. Not even a backward glance.

I spend a while standing around. People come in from time to time to buy stuff and I ring them up without issue. There are a handful that ask about certain items. All I can really do for them is apologize and say that I'm new and don't know. If they want more information, they can come back when Sasha returns.

One does try haggling on the price of an item, but there's nothing I can do there, even if I wanted to. The counter will only accept the already set prices, I literally can't sell things unless the amount placed in the till covers the full cost.

Between serving customers, I pull up the Skill list and start reading through things more carefully than I did before. I'll need to know more for when I'm selecting others later, and there are a ton of different Skills.

Like a half hour later, Sasha comes back. She thanks me for the help, pays me, and I head back out. Nice, a job well done. I search around until I spot a weapon store, only to find that their cheapest bow is two hundred fifty gold. five times what Sasha paid me. And that's without arrows or anything.

Alright, this is fine. It'll take time, but I'll get there. I consider going out to farm again, but that probably wouldn't give me downtime to read up on Skills like a job in the city would.

I hop between a number of different shops until I find another place, at a restaurant this time. The pay's better, but there's a lot more work and a lot less downtime, and I end up running all around serving people.

So much for that reading time...

I still haven't eaten myself, a fact which the smell of food reminds me of rather painfully. Not that I'm not used to it from real life. But not here. As Mei, I deserve not to go hungry.

As soon as I'm done working, I buy some food myself. It's cheap, but still eats into my weapon funds a bit. At least my stomach won't feel like it's digesting itself anymore.

What I didn't think of: It's delicious. I have no idea what it is, but it has meat and vegetables and all sorts of incredible flavors from food that doesn't exist back on earth. When was the last time I ate a decent meal?

I wolf the whole thing down far faster than I probably should with people watching me. The best I can do is keep myself from crying as I do.

Thankfully, there aren't any comments from the chat. It's still just Kirma watching for now and who knows if he's actually watching or not?

I stand outside after, kind of dazed in the afterglow of that meal. “...I... should work some more...” I mutter to myself, and start walking. After a few minutes in the street, I finally manage to turn my thoughts back to looking for another job, and go in and out of a few places.

The more I walk though, the more my eyes wander from the shops to the crowd. All different, with a huge variety of clothing and weapons, and those are just the ones who don't bother to unequip their stuff. Plenty more, most even, look to have more comfortable and less adventurer-styled outfits on while they stroll around town.

In fact, the strangest part is that with so many people criss-crossing every bit of road around me, I'm starting to wonder which ones are real people. I can't tell at a glance since there are no obvious indications, like floating icons over people's heads like some games have - or just all the NPCs being an obviously distinct race.

Since VRMMOs tend to have the UI significantly toned down compared to older screen-based ones, that's a common theme, like making the NPCs robots so they don't need big intrusive UI elements to call it out. There's nothing like that in this game though.

The vast majority of people around are human, so maybe NPCs are only human and heavily outnumber the players? Still, plenty of the wandering humans are armed, so they must be players too. So even that doesn't make it clear...

As I watch the crowd, it's impossible to miss how much of it is watching me back. Being an albino pink catgirl, amid a crowd of extremely realistic humans makes me stick out like a sore thumb.

I keep going for now, walking into the next shop. This one is an accessory store, and I do end up behind the counter this time while the shopkeeper rushes off on some errand. Was that an NPC? Just working a shop doesn't say much since I've been doing it. There are a bunch of crafting Skills too, so player owned stores could easily be a possibility too. At least, as long as players are allowed to buy buildings. I've seen a few hawking wares in plazas or along streets I've walked through, but they don't have the same kind of display space as a shop does... For now, all I can do is shrug and turn my attention to the work.

There really aren't that many customers here. The few that come drop a lot of money on the little pieces of jewelry though. At least it gives me more reading time.

A shockingly beautiful woman with fiery red hair comes in the front door, so I wave away my menu and greet her, making a point not to stare. She's in attractive, loose fitting clothes, all sky blues and lavender purples, with her vibrant hair cascading down her back. Standing tall, with an extremely confident air about her too, that sets her looks off even further. Then I see the little floating light as it circles. She's a streamer?

“Why, hello there,” she calls back after I speak, and I'm surprised that she's an actual woman, having (despite the game's warning) met a fair number of men playing female characters today. “Are you a streamer too?” she points at my own camera. “What kind of stream do you run, working in a shop like this?” She's already asking questions as she ignores the goods and comes right up to the counter to talk to me.

“W-well, yes,” I stammer, already thrown off balance by how outgoing she is, paired with her overflowing charisma. “It's, umm, nothing much. Just me playing, I guess.”

For some reason, she pauses, just for a moment, to look over the empty shop. Then it's right back to me. “You've got the cutest character,” she laughs, her camera swiveling and zooming in closer, right up toward my face. “Say hi!”

“H-hi...” I'm still anxious, I have no idea how many people this woman has watching. With looks like hers, I'd bet it's a lot.

“I love your ears by the way. You don't see too many unique races.”

“I noticed,” I comment, trying to latch onto that point of conversation, “why is that anyway?”

“Humans get the best Affinities,” she sighs. So it's not an NPC thing? “Probably supposed to offset the other races getting other stuff, but Affinities are just so important, it's not even remotely balanced. You know?”

“Oh?” I didn't see that on the wiki. I didn't think to check through the race section though, so I don't know what races there are to choose from in the first place. Doesn't really matter since I made my character without any of that knowledge anyway...

I'm not at all surprised most people make their characters with what is considered the 'best' race. There were a decent number of elves and a few giants around town, so the tradeoffs for them might not be so bad.

“Yeah, pretty much,” the woman sighs. “It generated a gorgeous Estrelle for me, but they say their Affinities are garbage. I couldn't make myself choose it.”

“Mm,” I can only offer a consoling mumble, having no idea what sort of race that is. Still, gorgeous compared to her current one? That's hard to even imagine with her current looks. Sure, the average here is clearly better than in the real world, but she's still celebrity level stunning compared to others on the street.

Besides all that, what was that about 'generating' that other race? Does it show you how each race will look for you before you choose one? “Couldn't you just keep rerolling until you get good Affinities though?” I think to ask shortly after.

She waves a dismissive hand while shaking her head sadly. “I would have lost that perfect character model by rerolling anyway.” Oh, duh. “Besides, you know how it tells you what you get, but not how strong it is?” I didn't, but that fits with everything else I've seen, now that she mentions it. “Even if I did get Affinities I wanted, the actual bonuses for Estrelles are supposed to be really bad.”

“Oh, so that's how it is...” I hum, still considering my earlier thoughts. The game's been out for a while and they haven't rebalanced the races? No, that's a bit too hard to believe. With the game's ridiculous information-hiding, players only have hearsay to go on. So it really depends on the devs. If they're good, there's something they players have overlooked. But if they're bad...

“So, why'd you make a cat-kin?” The sudden question me tears me from my thoughts as the red haired woman leans in closer, elbows on the counter.

“W-well, I umm, uhh,” I stammer, and as soon as I turn my distracted thoughts back on topic, I start to blush. I have no idea what excuse I could even attempt to make up. Even though I don't remember choosing my race, there's only one possible reason.

I end up squinting my eyes nearly closed, ears lying flat, and telling the truth, my voice a whisper. “I wanted to be cute...”

The woman squeals, only to cut short. I open my eyes a bit again to see, in time for her to wave her hand and tap at something. A little mote of golden light floating around her. Then she practically coughs out, “Oh my god for real?” and covers her mouth with a hand.

“Mm?”

She has this incredulous look when I make the questioning sound, not understanding what she's talking about. “You literally have a cute trigger!” A what? Finally facepalming, she makes a swipe at her menu to make it visible to me. With her hand pointing at the popup, my eyes scan over the golden text.

Cute Buff

Your Aura is being increased by Mei's Minor Cute Trigger Personal Affinity.

What the... 'Minor Cute Trigger?' I have a Trigger ability from... being cute? When the website said Triggers could be anything, I didn't realize they meant it like... like that! Oh god my face is on fire. Why would it give me such an embarrassing ability?!

“Wait, why are you so surprised?” The lady asks when she sees my reaction. I have to cover my face with my hands to answer.

“Long story. I didn't actually see my Affinities when I made my character, so I didn't know what all of them were.”

“And you still went through with it?” She sounds genuinely dumbfounded. “You're sure you want to play that character?” That game dev asked the same thing, didn't he...?

“W-well yeah,” I remove my hands, but still can't meet her gaze and look aside, my cheeks burning hot. “I really like the way she came out. And I know what all my affinities are now. The other two show on my sheet, so this was the only one I was missing.”

“Mm, that's not too bad then, I guess. She swipes across her menu, nodding at something only visible to her. “Just being cute lets you give a powerful Aura buff. That is pretty awesome. Looks like the game had you pegged too, gave you an affinity for exactly what you wanted to do.” She giggles at me, but just as my cheeks begin to heat again, my attention is diverted by a weird flurry of little flashing notifications.

She catches the movement and makes a small gesture for me to go ahead, so I pull up my stream chat, and my eyes go wide. I have like a dozen people here now, and the viewer list is indicating that some of them have been around for a while too. I must have missed them joining in the commotion of the city earlier. But it's the messages that just came during that exchange that really catch my eye.

' SHE DIDN'T SEE HER AFFINITIES?!'

' Oh my lord...'

' You really need to go to a seer!'

' Torezo!'

' No meddling!'

' =_='

' =_='

' =_='

' =_='

' This is my personal account.'

' And it's perfectly reasonable advice if someone doesn't know.'

' Still...'

' tf is happening on this stream?'

' Just keep playing however you like, Mei.'

My eye twitches as I watch the comments roll in. “Ummm... what does DC stand for?” I ask as they continue to bicker.

“Probably Dana Corp. They make Planes of Oblivion.” Of course they do. “Why? Something on your stream?”

“U-uhh...” How the hell do I explain this? “Some people arguing, and I keep seeing DC. Must be referring to the game makers.” My eyes trail down the viewer list. Almost everyone has that [DC] tag as part of their usernames, clearly indicating that they're employees of the game company. Pretty much the whole viewer list.

Watching my stream.

That support guy wasn't kidding.

I cough into my hand. “W-well, anyway, umm...” I wave away the stream chat, attempting to banish those thoughts with the gesture. What were we even talking about? “I don't think I got your name,” I deflect.

“Kelly. You know you can get basic player info by looking for it, right, Mei?” She adds my name which I haven't given her, to make her point. “To be fair, proper introductions are still the way to go, you know, RP and all if you care about that,” she adds with a careless shrug. “I just figure you don't know, being new,” and gestures at my clothes. Then with a thought, she adds one more thing. “That, and having to stare at people to get their name makes things awkward.”

I blink a few times as I take all that in. How do I...? Frowning a little, I focus on Kelly, squinting and mentally telling the game I want to know about her, and surprisingly enough, her name pops up above her head with green health bar right beneath it. There's also the word 'Leader' too. Like a party leader? “Ahh, I got it.” She is right about the staring bit...

“Yup, just like that,” she nods. Then she reaches across the counter to pat me on the head-

I swear, my entire body jolts from the shock. How long has it been since another human being touched me?

Kelly snaps her hand back. “A-ahh, I'm sorry,” she starts apologizing.

“N-no, I, umm, sorry, I-” I flail for the words, but can't get anything out, my ears and tail spazzing as I fight to avoid a full breakdown. Before long, I'm just opening and closing my mouth repeatedly without even saying anything anymore. Making a kind of gasping noise.

“It's fine, it's fine,” she waves her hands to calm me.

Breathe, I need to breathe. I grip the counter and make myself take big breaths in and out. It takes a minute to push down the sudden, abject panic, but I do it.

Kelly stands there, looking extremely concerned the entire time. I'm usually better than this. I'm fine when I'm someone else. Someone that isn't him. I guess the unexpected human contact was enough screw that up.

Finally, I shake it off. “I'm sorry, I kind of freaked out there. Just a me thing, it wasn't your fault,” I assure her.

“It looked like you had a panic attack...” she comments. “Are you sure you're alright, Mei?”

“I... Yeah,” I lie. “I'm feeling better now.” I don't think she believes me. But it's not a lie, I do feel better now that I'm not panicking. And I didn't break down this time either, I got through it all on my own!

“Well, you might want to log off and get some rest anyway. Maybe eat something. How long have you been playing?” She puts on a concerned older sister tone that immediately reminds me of Fara.

“Umm, a few hours?” I swipe to open the main menu. It's about noon, so more like seven hours.

“Here, here's my stream link. Log out, lie down, relax. Have a snack or watch TV or something.”

“But what about the shop?” I ask. “I haven't finished working yet.” Just as Kelly is considering that, bright text appears across my vision.

Force Logout in 30

The number starts to tick down. Huh? “Umm.” Blinking stupidly, I wave up the chat.

' Go get something to eat, Mei.'

So that's how it is...

“Actually, it looks like I'm getting forcibly logged out now anyway,” I sigh, and swish a hand through the shortcut to stop my stream. It's nothing but the devs anyway...

Kelly is surprised too. “Well... That's fine. Take a break, Mei. I'll tell the shop owner for you. Send me a message sometime, alright?”

“Yeah... sure.” I try to smile as the last seconds of the timer start to tick down, but thinking about going back there, all I want to do is cry. I do manage to keep it together until my vision goes dark.

I'm back in my room again. I slide the thing off my head onto the bed, gritting my teeth. I'm such a miserable fuck that I can't even be not me properly. Why do I exist? Why do I even bother?

They told me to eat. My stomach is growling for food, but I already know there's nothing here. I should just lie here until it all ends, that would be so much easier than living...