I Choose a Commoner Start

Sunlight streamed through gaps in the leaves, scattering across the forest. Yang Yu, a player carrying a sword, avoided the main road and followed narrow paths through the bushes in search of a lone Slime.

The scorching sun burned his skin, while a cool breeze brushed against his face. The fatigue brought on by long hours of travel made everything feel as though he were truly in reality.

With a wave of his hand, a translucent black panel unfolded. Attributes, items, skills, equipment, quests, and achievements lined up before his eyes.

[Attributes

Name: Yang Yu (ID: Rolling Potato) Level: LV1 EXP: 0/20

Race: Human (Commoner) HP: 28/28 MP: 30/30 Stamina: 15/20

Main Class: None

Sub Class: Herbalist Apprentice (LV1)

Personal Attributes: Strength 5, Defense 4, Intelligence 6, Special Defense 2, Agility 12, Charm 3, Endurance 2, Luck 1

Free Attribute Points: 0

Resistance: None

Evaluation: You are Nobita Nobi among the masses. You are useless at everything, but you sure can run fast.]

[Items: Low-Grade Healing Herb ×10.]

[Skills

General: Attack (Unarmed), Defense (Unarmed), Passive—Automatic Translation (Your language is connected to this world.)

Herbalist Apprentice: Passive—Herbalism (Identify low-level herbs), Passive—Farming (Increase yield by 5%)

Skill Points: 0]

[Equipment: Rusty Iron Sword: Attack +3.]

[Quest

You want to become an adventurer, but your parents strongly oppose it. You need to prove your strength and convince them.

Quest Requirement: Defeat one Slime.

Reward: Starting Capital 2000G, 20 Low-Grade Healing Herbs, 200 EXP, three lottery draws (Beginner Benefit: 50% skills, 20% items, 20% trash, 10% equipment)

Penalty for Giving Up: EXP gained -50%.]

[Achievements: None. Reputation: 0]

Nothing put a player more at ease than seeing a game interface.

If the game panel had not displayed his pitiful stats, Yang Yu would have truly believed he had arrived in another world.

A day earlier, after fighting nonstop for seventy-two hours through a hell-difficulty new release from Company A, he had plunged straight into bed.

In his dream, he arrived in a room less than ten square meters wide, crammed full of game consoles from every era.

From old-fashioned Atari consoles to all kinds of modern gaming systems, everything could be found there.

In the center of the room, a bespectacled shut-in girl in slippers and shorts lounged around, eating chips and playing The King of Fighters. When Yang Yu arrived, she introduced herself while kneading the controller and brutally beating up the final boss.

She called herself a god, named Black Spade.

As a firm dialectical materialist, Yang Yu did not believe in gods or anything like that.

Yeah, I must be dreaming. I really can't keep staying up all night so often. Look at how delusional I've become—I actually had such a weird dream.

Just as Yang Yu was considering whether to reduce his weekly all-nighters from four times to three or two, Black Spade handed him a controller.

"Want to play a few rounds of The King of Fighters?"

Since this was a dream and she had voluntarily asked to be beaten, Yang Yu naturally did not hold back. He took the controller and casually picked a character.

Who knew how much time passed.

"KO!!"

The flickering light of the television illuminated Black Spade's expressionless profile. Watching her character fall once more, she put down the controller and fell silent. Even after resorting to the shameless tactic of using Orochi to hide in a corner and spam projectiles, she had still lost to Yang Yu's combos without the slightest room to fight back.

The atmosphere froze in an instant.

Yang Yu had no idea what Black Spade was thinking. After all, including that last round, she had already lost to him a hundred times.

It was kind of embarrassing to keep winning against her.

Yang Yu had considered going easy on her, but consideration was one thing. A real player would never go easy, even against a child. Next time, he would still ruthlessly grind Black Spade into the floor.

Just as Yang Yu was thinking of another way to ease the awkwardness, Black Spade pulled out a cartridge from her shorts. "You're so good at games. Want to try a game I made?"

The cartridge was the kind commonly used by the Famicom. To be honest, Yang Yu did not expect a cartridge with that kind of capacity to hold anything too grand. At best, it could probably reach the level of Hero Fights Deaf Dragon 2.

"Sure. Let me see it."

"This game took me a lot of effort! Don't be too shocked. This game has a huge world setting, and the stage of the story is..." Black Spade inserted the cartridge into the Famicom and fiddled with the wires as she enthusiastically introduced the game.

In summary, it was an ordinary RPG about demon kings and heroes.

The game had three starting options: Hero, Commoner, and Demon Soldier.

Each start represented a different difficulty. Hero was the easiest, Demon Soldier came next, and Commoner was the hardest.

By then, Yang Yu could roughly guess what stories the three routes corresponded to.

The Hero route was the standard story of defeating the Demon King; the Demon Soldier route was the villainous story of becoming the Demon King and conquering the world; the Commoner route was the background-character story of struggling through chaotic times.

Could this cartridge really hold that much content? If it could, then it was either a masterpiece or complete garbage.

Yawning, Yang Yu held the controller and waited for the game to load.

"This game can't be saved, and you only get one life. You're pretty good at games, right? If you've got the guts, pick the hardest start and clear it in one life for me!" Black Spade's smile widened, as though she was still bitter about losing a hundred times.

Yang Yu raised an eyebrow. Once upon a time, he had been a noob who could not even clear a single stage of Super Mario.

But after being tempered by countless games over the years, he had long since transformed into a true hardcore gamer.

Whether it was the Dark Persecution God series or the wave that said, "Sir, times have changed," he could handle them all with ease.

As a streamer specializing in high-difficulty games, he often set small goals for himself to make games even harder for the sake of entertainment, harvesting donations and getting rich overnight. Clearing an RPG blind in one life without saving was practically routine for him.

Chicken out? That did not exist!

"Easy. Commoner it is. Let me tell you, if this game has a Hero, I'll make the Hero the unit used to measure combat power."

The selection screen appeared. Yang Yu moved the cursor to the Commoner option and pressed the button without hesitation. Then, his vision suddenly went black, and he arrived in this world.

At first, he was at a loss, but he quickly accepted reality.

"Everything that bespectacled shut-in girl said was true! This is my very own Sword Art Online!"

Yang Yu's heart raced as he happily opened the door to his room—only for reality to slap him across the face.

He had been born into a family that dealt in medicinal herbs. He was the family's only son, and his father Kari and mother Lisa loved him dearly.

Because they often received injured adventurers, his parents understood full well how dangerous it was to become an adventurer. They did everything they could to stop Yang Yu from setting out on an adventure.

What was he supposed to do now?

[Life is always filled with all kinds of choices. Perhaps one careless choice, like a butterfly in Furolmida State lightly flapping its wings, can stir up a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. It may completely change your life—or completely change the entire world.

Now, you are facing the first choice of your life. You have great ambitions, while your parents believe an ordinary life is best. What do you think is the best thing to do now?

1. Convince your parents.

2. Listen to your mother and don't let her get hurt.

3. Immediately jump onto the table and perform a ridiculous dance.

Time Limit: Five minutes.]

Oh? This game even had text adventure elements.

The first two choices were ordinary enough, asking him to choose between leaving and staying. But what the hell was the last option—immediately jump onto the table and perform a ridiculous dance?

Was this supposed to be a joke? Was it really okay to be this cheeky without getting his legs broken by his parents?

Still, he was so curious. If he picked that option, what kind of plot would come afterward? Maybe he would even obtain some bizarre item useful for clearing the game.

Yang Yu was tempted by the third option, but in the interest of playing it safe, he chose to convince his parents. As a result, he received the quest to defeat a Slime.

The controls felt just like reality, but he still needed time to get used to them. A Slime happened to be the perfect practice target, so he immediately began the quest.

He continued searching beneath the blazing sun. Suddenly, rustling came from the grass not far away, and a flash of blue flickered through the bushes.

When he approached, he saw a round creature about the size of a basketball. Its jelly-like, translucent body shone as blue as the sky under the sunlight.

That was the Slime Yang Yu had been desperately searching for. Opening the panel, he saw the Slime's attributes at a glance.

[Slime

Level: LV5 HP: 190/190 MP: 60/60

Attributes: Strength 37, Defense 146, Intelligence 36, Special Defense 176, Agility 17, Endurance 20

Resistance: Physical 50%

WTF?

Excuse me, I'll be leaving!]