Prologue

Defense Build and What Came Before

“Hmm…I haven’t really played many games,” Kaede Honjou said with a sigh, gazing at the box art of a new video game. Her friend Risa Shiromine had insisted she take it. “And I always end up doing whatever Risa says…”

The cover showed several characters holding swords and staves, topped with a colorful logo that read: NewWorld Online.

VRMMO games like this one were all the rage these days. Even Kaede owned the VR console required to play them. Not that she’d used it much. It was collecting dust in her closet.

She only owned it because Risa—again—had talked her into it.

“Sigh… I can never say no to her…”

Kaede was holding a note from Risa that listed all the instructions on how to get started.

“When she looks at me with those puppy-dog eyes, I lose all will to resist.”

Risa had been convinced Kaede would play the game. Not playing would definitely leave Kaede feeling guilty.

“Might as well…! Guess I’ll run through basic setup.”

Kaede dusted off the machine and fired it up.

It wasn’t like she had anything against games.

And if she had someone to play with…

With that in mind, Kaede started the game up.

***

Armed with Risa’s instructions, Kaede got through NewWorld Online’s initial setup easily enough.

“Whew…I guess that’s it.”

She was ready to dive into the virtual world. It had been a while since Kaede last experienced this sensation. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she was in the game. But not in a town or anything; she still had a little setup left to go.

“First…a name? Hmm. Well, I don’t want to just use my real name, so…let me see…”

She thought for a minute and decided to use the English name for the tree she was named after. She typed Maple and hit CONFIRM. The panel hovering in front of her changed, prompting her to choose her starter equipment.

“Greatswords and one-handed swords. Maces and staves. Hmm… I’m not really great at running around, and I don’t want to get hit a lot… Maybe I should pick staves and be a mage?”

She flicked through more options until she found one that seemed perfect for her.

“Great shield and short sword? Not much attack—but the highest defense? Oh! As long as I have super-high defense, I won’t take any damage!”

Convinced by the tutorial text, she finalized her starting gear selection.

Great shields were not a common first choice among most players. Raising defense only negated damage in the very early game, and most people agreed that pouring points into DPS was more worth it.

And not many people picked their starter gear based on the assumption that they were going to get hit a lot. Plus, there were plenty of shields that could be equipped with a one-handed sword or a mace—just not a great shield.

Since those options offered more flexibility, they were far more popular.

“Next, my stat points… I guess I better put them all into Vitality.”

This was a very one-sided build. Put bluntly, she was min-maxing her stats. Great shields already left her with low attack, and putting no points into Strength only exacerbated that shortfall. Plus, since she was ignoring Agility, she wouldn’t receive any speed boosts, meaning she could only move as fast as she did in real life.

And how many people could honestly claim that they naturally moved faster than a charging beast?

“Oh…I can’t adjust my height? I wanted to be taller.”

Kaede was only four-foot-nine. She was slim, cute as a button, and more popular at school than she realized. But however much she might want to change things, discrepancies between a player’s height and build in the real and virtual worlds often detracted from the experience, so she was forced to abandon the idea.

“Okay. I think I’m ready! Let’s do this.”

Her body was enveloped in light.

And when she opened her eyes again, she found herself standing in the middle of a bustling village.

***

Defense Build and First Battle

Kaede—now Maple—looked around, taking in the sights of the game’s first town. She was standing in a square with a fountain and several benches. The square was connected to the main road, which was paved with stone and flanked by brick buildings. There were players walking all around. The sky above was a brilliant, clear blue, and the sunlight made the water in the fountain sparkle.

“Where am I…? Menu time!”

There was a hum, and a transparent blue panel appeared in the air in front of her.

Maple

Lv1

HP 40/40

MP 12/12

[STR 0 <+9>] [VIT 100 <+28>]

[AGI 0]

[DEX 0]

[INT 0]

Head

[None]

Body

[None]

R. Hand [Starter Short Sword]

L. Hand [Starter Great Shield]
Legs [None]

Feet [None]

Accessories

[None]

[None]

[None]

Skills

None

“Hmm…VIT is Vitality, right? I’m pretty sure that’s defense. Have I messed up already?”

Maple hadn’t played a lot of games, but it didn’t take much imagination to realize that a bunch of zeros in her stats was bad.

Looking back at her life in general, she couldn’t really remember any positive zeros.

She went through her skills one by one. Thanks to her weapon, her Strength wasn’t actually zero, but she had no Intelligence, Agility, or Dexterity.

“Ah-ha-ha…that isn’t good. What now? Risa isn’t here to help me…”

She thought about it for several minutes, then decided she would at least try fighting a monster. If that didn’t work out, she could always start over.

“Okay, time to leave town!”

Maple began walking toward the town exit.

Everyone else is moving…really fast, she thought.

When she’d been standing still, she hadn’t realized how big an impact AGI: 0 had.

But she didn’t let it get her down. She kept going until she reached the field outside.

Time for her first battle.

The town’s outskirts weren’t as crowded as the square, but there were still people around. Fighting here would mean someone was bound to see what Maple was up to.

“If this goes badly, I’d rather not have an audience… Let’s walk a little farther.”

Maple kept trudging along until she was deep in a nearby forest. There was no sign of anyone else in the area.

“This looks as good a place as any other… All right, monsters! Come at me!”

It wasn’t clear if it was specifically because of her invitation, but a white rabbit with some sharp horns came running out of the grass. It charged her at fairly high velocity. With no speed boosts at all, could she dodge the bunny’s attack? Absolutely not.

“Hey! Whoops, sorry!”

Even Maple wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. She hastily tried to raise her great shield but didn’t quite make it in time, and the charging bunny nailed her right in the stomach.

“Oof! Wait…that didn’t hurt!”

The bunny’s attack should have scored a critical hit, but instead, it did no damage at all. Confused, it backed away.

“Wow! This is great! It didn’t hurt at all! I guess that’s what VIT: 128 can do for you! Heh-heh-heh. Well, Mr. Bunny? How do you like my abs?”

Maple flexed her torso with a flourish, though she didn’t have much of a six-pack to show off. It was a little on the soft side, even.

The bunny seemed to take her exposed belly as a taunt, or maybe it was programmed to only do one thing—either way, it charged her again.

Maple weathered the hit with her body alone, not even raising her shield.

The bunny charged again and again while Maple simply stood there chuckling. Occasionally, she ran after it, goofing around. She even tried to pet it.

If anyone had seen this happening, they would’ve shared it on the forums immediately.

Playing tag with a monster was odd enough, but the sight of Maple laughing with her hands on her hips as a bunny relentlessly lunged at her—that was post-worthy.

Their battle—if it could be called that—went on for a full hour. Maple was laughing happily the whole time, having too much fun to notice how much time had passed.

“Come on—you can do better!”

But as she taunted the bunny again, she heard a voice in her mind.

“Skill: Absolute Defense acquired.”

“Hmm? What’s this? …Give me a second, Mr. Bunny.” Entirely unconcerned by the charging monster, Maple started checking out her new skill.

Skill: Absolute Defense

Doubles the user’s VIT. Raising STR, AGI, or INT requires 3x more points.

Condition

Be attacked for one hour without taking damage or doing any damage with spells or weapons.

“Uh…seems like my Vitality is two hundred and fifty-six now. Also, this skill sounds amazing! And here I was, just playing with a bunny.”

Maple thought this skill was easy to acquire, but an ordinary great shielder wouldn’t have enough defense. Figuring it would cause problems later, virtually nobody put all their starting points into Vitality. And even if they did, it was unlikely that they would want to spend over an hour messing around with a bunny.

In other words, it was a nigh miraculous series of decisions that had granted her this skill. As a result, Maple was the only player who had it.

But Maple herself remained cheerily oblivious to this fact.

“Okay, thanks for waiting… Mr. Bunny?”

“Squeak…”

Each time the bunny charged, the impact knocked it back to the ground, causing damage. Over its head, there was an HP bar…

…and it had just gone from red…to nothing.

The sound of something shattering rang out right before the rabbit vanished without a trace in a cloud of light particles. It didn’t even leave an item behind.

“Mr. Bunnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

“You are now level two.”

***

“Mr. Bunnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

Maple’s wail echoed through the quiet forest.