【Save 0 Loaded.】

None of the inertia from the fall transferred either, so the rules are the fairly similar to a game. Everything where it was and in its place at the time of the save.

I sigh with a smile on my face. The nostalgic feeling of starting a game for the very first time where everything feels new and fresh. I guess if I wanted to count all the time I've been alive then I haven't been able to play a videogame in almost two decades. 

Eighteen huh, I only made it to twenty-six last time. Come to think of it, it was practically the day of my birthday then too, when I went to the beach. 

Grabbing the pants folded in my drawer I ignore the miasmic aura that seeps out of that nightmare memory. I finish dressing myself, still with a grin decorating my face. 

In the mirror I get myself more accustomed and familiar with my looks. Unironically, I'm fucking movie star handsome. It's a night and day difference between the face I could hardly stand to see when brushing my teeth, to this damn near perfectly symmetrical specimen that I call my face now. Shoulder-long wavy almost curled bark brown hair that matches with my eye color.

As much as I like the idea of admiring my new self endlessly, it's time to get going. I have plans for today after all. I have to finish dealing with the lizardthings that were sighted with Japhy. Then I have to train a little with dad, but after that I get to chill with my friends and eat some food made by the best cook in the village, Clara's mom. The excuse being, it's my birthday today. So of course it's technically a bit of a party. 

Heh. Even though I've been reincarnated, I'm overjoyed at that, but it is jarring considering the disparity of my two lives. Too much isekai anime and manga had me thinking I'd just plop in at the start and get used to it I guess. The real deal... It's way different. It doesn't feel special like some big event with a goddess guiding me, it's more like I woke up from a long dream.

Interrupting my thoughts is a faint twinkling sound, following right after is a flash of golden light emanating from my left hand. I turn over my arm to peer at it.

The illuminated sigil that marks one as a Neurovant was now showing on my left arm. I have seen different versions of it before on my friends and some of the adventurers I spoke with in Linktown. There were some patterns that were so common that people could tell what kinds of neurograms the Neurovant had from it. 

Circular patterns tend to mean the neurograms were for straight up damage and penetration, most adventurers with that kind of kit end up focusing on monster slaying contracts. Blocky or square patterns usually mean more defensive or reinforcing neurograms, adventurers with these tend to be rough and tumble kinds of people which filters them towards vault mapping and resource gathering contracts. Triangular shapes ultimately mean more supportive or utility-esque neurograms. The people with them end up capable of strange stuff at times like walking on water, allowing tools and items to hover next to them to be grabbed as needed, or even shaping metal without needing to heat it up first. 

Overall the sigil was essentially a status symbol, having one or not was your ticket to a good life or one of hardship. And now I have mine. It didn't fit any pattern I'd seen before but that just means one thing, it's a rare sigil. ln the case of those types, it's always a toss up but generally the uniqueness is a sign at least one of the neurograms is super rare or even that the person has more neurograms than average. Generally the average Neurovant has only three or four. 

Wait, neuro what?

"Syn... Neo... Nex?"

That, that doesn't sound like something all that familiar now that I'm actually comparing this to other stuff I saw in my past life. I almost want to say it's like a video game, my power sure seems that way, but that is separate from this Syneonex and Neurovant business. Hm, the Syneonex is what's considered as the being or guide used to understand facets of this world, including the neurograms. Basically the magic system, and neurograms are essentially skills.

And ronto is like mana, rontodox, almost sounds like a medicine too. Sounds insane but it's the magic of this world, at least according to what I remember from what I've read in the past.

Man, I just keep getting ahead of myself in my mind, that whole deal with neurograms and stuff doesn't matter right now because I can't even see what I got right now. I have to get back to Linktown to ask the guild for an appraisal. And as excited as I am to get started with that, I'm not exactly feeling myself. It might be better to just take the time to relax and get to know the people I've surrounded myself with so far in this life. 

The way I've thought of them up to this point, I can't really say that's stayed the same. It's time to find out.

I leave my father's house right as the sun hits the tip of the roof and glistens in the distance. Dad's not home yet, he's probably still out patrolling, his is the night to dusk shift after all. 

It's not much of a walk to the hunting shack. Even though this whole place oughta be familiar to me it ends up looking a lot more alien just cause' of my memories from my old life. The trees look an awful lot more jagged than I what I recall from living in California. Of course those were way taller, these I can see the top without even tilting my head up. 

The hunting shack itself is just a plain wooden building with a couple of nails and steel frames to reinforce it. There was only a couple of peek holes around the side facing the woods and on the door itself to see outside of it.

I grab at the handle to pull open the door. Inside is a relatively wiry dude who's hunching over the work bench. That's Japhy working on his spear, he's an okay dude but mostly too confident to be a hunter. 

"Tsk, why didn't you knock before coming in?"

"I didn't think it mattered, so what's up?"

"Huh? Nothing it's just this damn bolt keeps getting fidgety."

"You're just now doing something about it?"

A flash of every time Japhy nearly got killed from his spear not activating the rune on the attachment bolted onto it because of the loose bolt plays in my head. It is a really easy fix but he keeps pushing it off, I guess now he finally realized it too.

"Yes."

He says begrudgingly while giving me a scowl. Japhy turns back to continue messing with the spear's bolt. I sigh and approach to get a look for it myself. 

I notice him spin the bolt over and over again, getting more frustrated with every turn of the screw driver in his hand. This fucking dumbass stripped the hole on the shaft, I see there's a bit more angst in my thoughts about him. Normally, I'd just leave it at that.

"Yo, let me try something."

I put my hand on his shoulder to get him to stop making the situation worse. He turns to see me with a pissed off look, but my own concerned face softens him up.

"Fine go ahead, I can't get it to tighten anyway."

"Can you hand me that extra bit of wood from the supply chest? I'll check how bad the damage is on this."

I wipe off the wooden shavings from around the bolt.

"Alright. Hey, by the way, why're you talking kinda funny?"

"What do you mean by that."

I retort as I take out the bolt holding a part of the spear's attachment, it came out with no resistance. He really went all out and practically left a smooth hole in the wooden shaft.

"What I mean is you normally don't say much of anything at all. You know like a hello, or good morning."

Japhy says as he places a block of wood on the workbench. He isn't wrong to say that, but it's not like I'm mute. Well I guess with how much I act like a brooding loner, hearing me suddenly talk like we're old friends comes out weird. Even though that is actually the case. I've known him my whole life.

"Maybe I just wanted to today. Is it a problem if I'm feeling a bit chatty?"

"Eh, hm, well no. Anyway what did you need the wood for?"

Unsheathing the blade from my belt, I carve out a piece of the wood to make a sort of plug to fill in the hole in the shaft. From there I use the screw driver to move the plug a bit to the side as I try to force the bolt back in.

"Careful!"

Japhy blurts as I gingerly put the bolt in place and start fastening it with the screw driver. After a couple of loops the bolt was firmly in place on the spear. I hand it over to Japhy.

"There, was there anything else you needed before we head out?"

"I still wanna try and swing it around a bit to make sure it won't come loose again. What about you?"

"Uh, I'll probably just stick with my light bow and axe. How many exactly are we dealing with again?"

I can't honestly say I recall the amount of lizardthings that were sighted by yesterday's patrol. It's even possible I wasn't paying attention when they said it. A lot was on my mind at the time, well Japhy can tell me about it.

"About a dozen or so, it's a nest that somehow the damn monsters managed to set up without triggering the alarms or getting pushed out by the repellant."

That's not a usual occurrence from what I recall so either someone didn't patrol well enough or there's a rontovault that could be forming nearby that disabled part of the repellant field.

"You think it's because of a rontovault?"

"I sure as shit hope not."

"Yeah, me too."

I can still remember the four occasions I went into a rontovault. The first time was removing bodies from fallen adventurers, it's a usual freelance contract since it's only done on cleared rontovaults. But even that time it wasn't completely 'cleared'.

Picking up my axe from the weapon rack, I inspect the weight of the weapon and then fasten it over my belt as a sidearm. From there I grab my bow and make sure the string isn't too worn down. Luckily for me it's been restrung recently, probably Dad's doing since he knew I was going out here today. He's probably still patrolling the adjacent area to where me and Japhy are headed in case there were stragglers. 

Given the level of danger we're heading into, it only makes sense to do this. Save. 

【Save 1 Completed.】

Not that I think, I'll need it but may as well make use of it.

It's bit unfortunate but there's no time to ease back into things, I'll once again get to experience what it means to survive in this world. Except now I'm a man in earnest. Heh, let's just see how far I can go from here. I'm also lazy, so I don't feel like getting dressed for the umpteenth time if it all goes to hell more than once.