Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 1 - Chapter 1

Summer of the Fifth Year

Dice

A tool intimately familiar to human history, used in matters of gambling since the dawn of time.

TRPGs offer a roleplaying experience in analog form, so dice are essential to add an element of randomness to the affair.

The most common type has six sides, but TRPGs often utilize dice with eight, ten, twelve, or twenty sides. On occasion hundred-sided dice that are effectively spheres that roll forever are used. Other times, four-sided pyramids can fall onto the floor and cause a painful catastrophe later down the road.

A commonplace notation for dice rolls is “xDy,” where D represents dice, the first number the number of dice and the second number the type of dice. Thus, 2D6 is equivalent to rolling two dice that have six sides each.

Among the nations of the western reach of the Central Continent, the Trialist Empire of Rhine was a well-established monarchy with vast holdings that sprawled out toward the center of the continent. The plentiful land was governed by three imperial houses, from which an emperor was chosen by seven electorate houses. This political process had proven stable, as the great country had yet to waver in its five-hundred-year history.

The southern portion of Rhine was known for its history of racial diversity and was home to an administrative district called Heidelberg. Owing to its cooler climate, the South primarily was known for growing grapes used in winemaking. Its thriving olive industry also served as one of the largest sources of vegetable oil for the Empire, and was valued highly as a result.

The western section of this vital—albeit humble—region was defended by the troops quartered in Konigstuhl Fortress. And within one of the several counties that fell under its protection, a similarly commonplace husband and wife were racking their brains in deliberation.

The man’s name was Johannes, and the woman’s was Hanna. The two mensch—a type of humanfolk found all across the Empire—were independent farmers that cast their lot with the Harvest Goddess. They worked grain fields full of rye and had a single olive orchard to their name. One could find hundreds, if not thousands, of middlingly successful families just like them within Rhine’s borders.

The source of the couple’s troubles stemmed from their fourth son, Erich, who was to turn six in the fall. However, it wasn’t as though he was an uncontrollable misfit or short of wits. In fact, he was a wonderful boy whom they were very proud of. He obediently listened to their orders, refrained from the idiotic antics young children are prone to, and even gave honest attempts to sing the hymns during Sabbath worship. There was no shame in calling him their son. The couple wasn’t fretting about his deficiencies—rather, he was too good.

The pair had four sons and a daughter. Their oldest son had turned eight this year, and the twins that had shortly followed their eldest were seven. They’d waited some time to birth Erich, their fourth son, and so he was five. This was the root of their concerns: who were they to send to the magistrate’s private school?

A relatively high standard of living in the commoner class pervaded the country, which meant literacy was encouraged even among farmers. For an independent farmer who wished to earn the graces of their local magistrate or lord, learning the palatial tongue (a derivative of the imperial language which employed classier pronunciation, peculiar phrasing, and some irregular grammar) was a must. On top of that, one was expected to have dabbled in poetry, and the ability to play an instrument or two was a given.

Consequently, it was typical for farming households to eat a steep tuition fee so that their firstborn son could attend their local magistrate’s school. It was common to see poorer farmers strain their meager finances in hopes of securing a future for their children. On the other hand, those with comfortable margins would go so far as to educate their second son in order to produce a backup heir or to start a branch family. It was only natural that Johannes and Hanna planned to send their own son to school.

The question was...which son?

Johannes had recently managed to win the magistrate’s permission to extend his cropland, and had made the large purchase of a workhorse in preparation. His savings were tight; in order to maintain an emergency fund, it was optimal to choose only one of his children.

Normally, he could send off his eldest son without question. Patriarchy prevailed among the short-lived mensch, and more specifically, primogeniture was a fundamental principle of imperial law. And yet, Erich’s blinding talents cast a great shadow over his older brother.

Johannes knew a great disparity in ability was usually to be expected of children three years apart. It was a perfectly logical occurrence, as the older child’s body was more developed and their mind more full of experience. But the inverted disparity between his first son, Heinz, and his fourth, Erich, was simply not something he could ignore.

Whereas Heinz fumbled through hymns meant to extol the divine and could hardly deliver prayer from memory, Erich recited the words perfectly despite his childlike lisp. Not only that, but Erich had even memorized difficult psalms filled with archaic language, earning the favor of their church’s bishop.

Furthermore, while Heinz bloodied his hands at mere vegetable peeling, Erich’s use of his fingers was beyond graceful. When the couple had yielded to his pleas for a pocket knife, he had carved a wooden idol of their goddess before the day’s end. Last month, he had replicated an entire set of board game pieces with no instruction.

On top of all this, Erich was also more mentally gifted. When asked to perform a series of chores, he instantly recognized the most efficient means of grouping the tasks. If there were any that required his full attention, he carefully completed them without a moment of idling. In contrast, Heinz was lazy and his work was often sloppy. When he’d been told to give fodder to the horse, it had ended with him drenching the feeding trough with water.

There were no doubts who was better suited to learn. Still, though it was not absolute, primogeniture was a pervasive principle in the land. To prioritize not even their second, but fourth son would carry serious social implications.

What was more, Heinz was keen on his path to school. As parents, the couple needed to consider how their three older sons would feel if their youngest brother were to overtake them. And so, the prudent Johannes and Hanna spent another day deep in thought as the school’s application deadline approached.

[Tips] Mensch are a humanfolk race found on all continents. Due to the great imbalance between the talented and talentless, they are sometimes called the “race of wise fools” or the “lottery race,” but none can top them in terms of cruelty.

Padding your stats is truly, truly important. After all, bonuses speak louder than dice more often than not.

I was a devout believer in what they called “fixed values.” Well, with my luck being the way that it was, I sort of had to be. Whenever I’d been on the player’s end, I averaged a five from a standard 2D6 roll and had often oh-so-kindly been blessed with a whopping 250 experience points as consolation for a single session’s worth of bungled dice rolls. But if I switched over to be the GM, my average shot up to a jaw-dropping nine. I couldn’t even remember how many times I’d killed my players with unexpected critical hits.

Looking at my record, I thought it was fair for me to focus on the ability to stamp out any semblance of variance as I planned out my ideal build. Since the concept of a mathematical mean clearly did not apply to me, I had always found things like the godly power of a mace’s +1 accuracy bonus particularly reassuring.

There were also schools of powergaming that relied on using an overwhelming fistful of dice to snuff out any variability, but even then, using fixed critical values was the more robust means of slaughter. I suppose I’ll have to avoid luck entirely. What an absolute shame.

As a result, I decided not to try anything strange and took great pains to level my basic stats as soon as my ego took form.

There were ten physical stats that I could manipulate: Strength, Endurance, Immunity, Stamina, Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, Memory, Mana Capacity, and Mana Output. It appeared the system revolved around these ten attributes entangling via complex equations to compute a final result, though I wasn’t sure what the two fantasy-esque stats at the end meant quite yet.

Owing partially to the klutziness of my past self, I’d put a lot of attention into dexterity. I already had some slight confidence in my memory but also put points into improving it further. The advantage of having dexterous hands needs no explanation, and being able to recall more things is never a bad thing.

I’d had some trouble trying to internalize what “intelligence” actually meant, but it essentially boiled down to speed of thought and rationality. The thought of messing with this stat had been a tad terrifying, but after I’d tested the waters with a handful of experience points and confirmed that there weren’t any adverse effects on my consciousness, I began increasing my proficiency in it without hesitation.

Being a not-so-innocent five-year-old with a mental age in my thirties, I had become a bit of a wonder child. Anyone in their thirties could play the part of a child prodigy, but now that I’d boosted myself even higher, I was quite the sight to behold. Despite living out a normal childhood in my past life, I was now well-known as the neighborhood genius. But to be clear, I didn’t carry myself in this way to puff up my own meaningless pride.

Now, I profess myself as a data munchkin and a believer in fixed values, but I would say my most notable characteristic is that I romanticize completed builds. While I don’t wholly ignore how quickly my character comes along, my top priority is always the ideal of a finished product.

Plenty of TRPGs allow players to continue to stack up experience points endlessly, but there always exists a certain final form to be reached. This could be the moment you hit Lv15 or a build that spikes after 200 XP, but regardless, I think there is beauty in arriving at a clear end point.

It’s a magnificent moment when your damage is so utterly broken that you enter combat and instantly deal hundreds of points that can’t be defended against, mitigated, or blocked, or when your defense can soak tens of damage points from any attack that comes your way. The beauty of these completed characters paired with a GM one step from screaming “Can’t you guys hold back a little?!” is nothing short of the pinnacle of art.

That was exactly why I thought now was the time to focus on fundamentals. I wanted to dedicate my growth to whatever final form I pursued in the future—both with regards to my stats and my social standing.

The capacity of each of my physical stats was encapsulated by levels which were computed against the average for my race. And, according to the notes on my stats page, once my ability reached the lower bound of a new level, the evaluation on my screen would change.

Generally, the physical entries ranged from I: Feeble, II: Shaky, III: Weak, and only at Scale IV did someone become Average. After that came V: Good, VI: Superb, VII: Excellent, and finally VIII: Ideal, but above that there lay the upper limit, Scale IX, Divine Favor. The wording of the last level implied that it was a level reserved only for those who were literally loved by the gods.

Attaining that would take an ungodly number of experience points. My first objective was instead going to be raising all of my attributes to V: Good. The road to my tentative goal was long, and the numbers were dizzying. But I was used to being derided as a data munchkin: I was an oddball who would slay a god if I had data to support my efforts. Sniffing out interesting skills to abuse was but a part of my routine.

As I stared holes into the cylindrical skill tree, I found a characteristic in the basics category called Child Prodigy. Its effect was simple: so long as I was a child, it was easier for me to gain experience. This limited-time skill was fated to run its course eventually, but I could sense that this would significantly increase the total experience I earned throughout the course of my lifetime, and poured my savings into it immediately.

It goes without saying that it was a rare trait, and it took several weeks of wood carving and daily chores to save up enough to get my hands on it. But the results were exactly as I had hoped.

After half a year, my Wood Whittling skill had gone from I: Fledgling, past II: Novice, all the way to III: Apprentice, with IV: Craftsman mere steps away. Above that were V: Adept, VI: Expert, VII: Virtuoso, and VIII: Master. The only thing beyond those was IX: Divine, so I was probably close to the average skill level of an artisan in the field.

Child Prodigy was the key factor behind my explosive growth rate. Looking back at my previous experience rates, I likely would have barely made it to III: Apprentice without the skill.

Seeing how the required proficiency level to reach the next rank rose exponentially (the actual numbers were downright disgusting) alongside the ranks of my stats and skills, I understood why a trait like <Child Prodigy> would need to be found in talented children and even some average people.

Regardless, as I mentioned previously, one of my goals was to use Child Prodigy to earn points efficiently and use them to boost all of my stats to be above average. On top of that, I wanted to build up a clearly defined strength. I would love to get at least one Scale IX, like IX: Divine Favor or IX: Divine, but...well, that could be a stretch goal for now.

It was just that, you see, the digits looked funny. The jump from VIII: Ideal and VIII: Master to IX: Divine Favor and IX: Divine was two digits of experience points. If I were to save up enough points to jump from I: Feeble to V: Good in one go, it still wouldn’t be anywhere close to the amount needed for a Scale IX ability. The whole thing reminded me of the masochistic grind of mobile games—especially their endgame content.

For now, I chose to think it over while keeping an eye on my experience inflow rate. I still didn’t know enough about the world to be able to decide on what kind of strategy I wanted to go for. It would be no laughing matter if I went all in on a path that was this world’s equivalent of industrial garbage.

Securing an efficient source of experience was a given. My next priority was to earn the trust of the people around me. There wasn’t any complex scheme behind it: when I eventually found something I wanted to do, the best-case scenario would be for everyone to believe in my ability and help me along. That was true of my parents, the bishop at church, and...

“Erich, what are you doing?”

...Even my siblings. “Oh, Heinz,” I said in greeting. I had been sitting on a stack of firewood beside the barn when my eldest brother called out to me.

He was a large boy who had the same chestnut hair and rugged features as our father. Recently, people had been comparing him to me no matter where he went, so he was in quite the foul mood. I was the youngest child in my past life and the youngest of my brothers in my current one, so I couldn’t fully understand his feelings, but I did still sympathize with him.

Parents make up the better part of every child’s world. Seeing those same parents praise your little brother over you when he wasn’t even a toddler who needed constant attention would be unamusing, to say the least. These children often become disobedient in search of attention and lapse into a downward spiral as their mischief only further worsens their parents’ opinion of them.

It was plain for me to see the painful future he had in store. But I loved my (mentally younger) brother, so with the withered thoughts of a man in his thirties, I aimed to create harmony between us. “I was making this,” I said.

“Whoa!”

I offered my brother a kid-sized wooden sword fashioned out of firewood and wood chips. Using my pocket knife and our horse’s hoof file, I had created a longsword that a green-clad hero might swing around on his adventures, sure to tickle the heart of a young boy. The point of the sword was almost cartoonishly long, but the five-year-old deep in my heart was screaming about how cool it was, so I figured it would be fine.

“You can have it, Heinz!”

“What?!”

I could tell from his expression the moment he laid eyes on the wooden sword that my brother had begun scheming something terrible, but I smiled as I handed it to him all the same. I hadn’t carved it for myself to begin with; the other day, I had seen Heinz staring enviously as another child swung around a toy sword they received from their parents.

“R-Really?” he asked.

“Yup, I wanted to pay you back!” I explained.

When he tilted his head in confusion, I began listing out everything I could think of that he’d done for me. For example, I wasn’t a fan of the tomatoes (strangely, they were already widespread as a food product in this world) that he’d eaten for me. Another time, I’d neglected to raise my strength levels and he’d helped me when I was struggling to draw water from the well (though I think he only wanted to show off). It was easy to find things to be thankful for when we lived together.

“So thanks, Heinz!”

Faced with a smile and my gratitude, my brother was at a loss for words but eventually gave me a sheepish smile in return. I was sure his heart was a great swirl of emotion. He probably felt a good deal of regret for his childish jealousy and the fact that he’d considered acting violently. As for me, all I could hope was that the seeds of friendship were being sown.

“How is it?! Do I look cool?!” he asked, striking a vaguely swordsman-like pose.

“Yeah, super cool!” I replied. Seeing him so happy with what I had made for him was the sweetest bliss I could ask for. Past life aside, Heinz was my family. How could I feel anything but happiness when seeing him enjoy himself?

After all, the only ones who could judge him were those who had never been a child at all.

[Tips] <Child Prodigy> is one of many time-limited skills. There exists a lower-tier counterpart called <Accelerated Learning>. <Early Talent> and <Young Genius> offer effects during childhood and early adulthood, respectively. Another is <Bursting Youth>, which helps preserve adolescent beauty.

Direction is indispensable when trying to think about anything.

The side of the barn had become my haunt. I sat there on a pedestal placed between stacks of firewood, lost in thought. The three-dimensional projection of intermixing cylinders that I called a stats menu was enormous. I had read countless rulebooks from cover to cover, but with so many skills and traits weaving into one another, I still hadn’t been able to grasp the entire thing.

I suppose it was only natural. This chart was jam-packed so that I could choose from every possibility the world had to offer. Thankfully, there were convenient sort and search functions, but it would still take years of research to fully comprehend all of the content.

The main section alone revolved around Body, and Mind, Education, Martial Arts, Sense, and Sociability surrounded it. In turn, each of those was surrounded by a countless number of job categories.

When factoring in the effects and explanations of each ability, the whole system boasted ridiculous complexity and a herculean word count that made it impossible to imagine in terms of page numbers. Trying to convert it into an equivalent number of supplements gave me chills just thinking about the cost. I had nothing but gratitude for the future Buddha who had tossed all this in, free of charge.

My only gripe was that my little number-crunching heart couldn’t help but get distracted at every turn. Of course, I recognized this was a luxurious problem to have, but still.

I’d quickly found a few combinations that made me think, This is busted. I had gotten absurdly worked up just imagining how they would work out in practice. No TRPG player would be able to contain their excitement when faced with an expanding array of diverse possibilities that each can be used to deal with real, practical situations.

However, distractions and practicality went hand in hand as points of concern. If the skills and whatnot were all practical, that led to the risk of using a few points here and a few points there whenever I found something useful. Ultimately, that would give way to a future where I ended up as the proverbial jack-of-all-trades, with not a hint of mastery to my name.

I didn’t have any complaints about the convenient interface or its features, but unfortunately, my blessing wasn’t exactly accommodating. Unlike the character sheets I’d made with pencil and paper or in a spreadsheet, there was no way to delete a skill or trait—respeccing was not an option.

I had made plenty of similar mistakes in my early days. My character would seem fine when I first created them, but would come up short due to my penchant for greedily picking up all sorts of skills. I remembered crying over my pitiful damage during the climactic final battle in such campaigns. I couldn’t let myself end up as a half-finished product, if for no other reason than to honor those characters who continued to languish in their battles in the far reaches of my memory.

Well, I was sure there were compassionate GMs out there (of which I considered myself to be one) who would kindly allow their players to respec if everything was going wrong. Unfortunately, the GM in charge of this world wasn’t soft enough to bend the rules.

I supposed that was the same for reality. If anyone could respec their life, no one would have ever thought to take a long walk off a short cliff. In order to not end up that way myself, I needed to decide on a direction.

What did I want to become? What did I want to achieve? What was my will? My blessing allowed me to become nearly anybody and do nearly anything, but that also meant I could end up being a nobody who had accomplished nothing.

I needed to be cautious. My knowledge of this world amounted to practically zilch. The only things I knew were the names of my canton, Regierungsbezirk (it had shocked me to find a German administrative district in use here), and the local lord and bishop. I knew next to nothing of government or politics, and the same went for topics like geography, climate, and history.

I would have countless opportunities to choose from, but it was undeniably too early for me to decide on my future. If I were to set my plans in stone while ignorant about the world, it would be no joke to find out that my chosen path was actually one of heresy that would have me chased out of civilization. I didn’t want any “Your force field prevents you from staying the night with your companions” sort of issues.

In that case, I needed to prioritize powerful, efficient traits like Child Prodigy while raising my basic attributes. My tentative direction was to be ready for the day that I found out what I want to do.

In my past life, my father had often said to me, “There’s no harm in studying.” His reasoning had been that a medical student graduating from Tokyo University could still take the plunge and become an author, but an uneducated adult would almost certainly fail to become a doctor. That meant it was crucial that I prepare myself for my future dreams by improving myself in a variety of fields.

Honestly, my dad had given me some sagacious advice, if I do say so myself. It’d be too late to become a swordsman as an adult if I neglected to train my body now.

All right, I summarized to myself, first I’ll focus on balancing out my physical training while developing my mind both intellectually and culturally. I’ll also pick up any noteworthy traits, and the rest of my efforts will go to gathering data. Whatever the plan, the mountain of skills and traits left me scratching my head, and a lot of prerequisite conditions were absolute mysteries, so more information was a necessity.

Still, browsing through skills and traits filled me with joy. There was an endless supply of interesting things that caught my eye. There were vocational skills of every sort that seemed strong in a straightforward way. I also found a trait that enhanced my observation so I would be able to tell whether a given article was authentic or not. Whenever I stumbled across an evergreen trait like this, it sent waves through my munchkin blood. The importance of workhorse and fight-ending damage-dealing abilities is well established, but the skills that enriched the journey before a climax are also essential parts of a character’s strength.

However, I noticed at this point that there existed some things that I wasn’t allowed to lay my hands on. For example, there were some traits like Blue Blood that were based on descent, which obviously couldn’t be changed. According to the accompanying explanation, the trait gave extra compensation toward mastering noble mannerisms and a bonus when negotiating with someone of suitable status. It was a powerful trait that made my munchkin mouth water...but while I could fake my pedigree, the true circumstances of my birth were permanent, so it made sense that I couldn’t have it.

There were also those that were too far removed from my own character. For example, from the Mind category, I could go into the Auxiliary subcategory and then further into the Faith subcategory to find a locked Saint trait. Things like Vorarephilia in the Vice category and all alien racial traits were locked off as well.

This was easy to wrap my head around, since I had proven that my stats and traits didn’t directly impact my sense of self when I’d improved my Intellect and Memory. These traits were purely external titles that were distributed upon meeting certain conditions. Of course, that also meant that heartbreak or a spiritual awakening could lead me to acquiring traits that had otherwise been sealed away.

Lastly, it wasn’t possible for me to make large, retroactive changes to my body. The central Body category that anchored all the others around it contained the finest details on my projected height, skeleton structure, and the like. I surmised that my ego had manifested at five years old because it was then that I had finally distributed the bare minimum amount of experience to these sorts of stats. It was likely a fail-safe to prevent me from throwing around experience in a clueless state and dying because of it.

The only things I could manipulate here were the projected values—things like “You’ll grow up to be this tall” or “The fat in your body will be distributed like this.” All this did was cement my future body’s proportions. It wasn’t as if I experienced physical change as soon as I put in experience points.

This was also easy to understand. Imagine if I were to empty my brain and go, “Wee! I wanna be tall and swole!” I could spend all the points I’d earned doing miscellaneous chores on my height and bone structure, and if the results were instantaneous, I would cause a huge scene. The whole canton would be thrown into chaos as people wondered who I was.

Restrictions were unavoidable for qualities that I needed to appear natural in, unlike stats that improved with active training. I felt like every facet of the system had been polished to create a well-balanced experience. I wonder who was in charge of the QA?

Although I’d continued to mull at length on this topic, in the end, I was still a five-year-old child. I could still do anything, so it wasn’t that important to figure it out now.

“Erich, you’re out here daydreaming again?”

I had been in the middle of contemplating how tall I wanted to turn out when my brother, Heinz, came along. I wasn’t daydreaming, I was engrossed in serious thought, thank you very much. On top of that, I had also been practicing carving wooden idols until a short while ago, since I’d heard that they fetched a pretty penny when made well.

My brother had apparently finished his chores, since he looked ready to play. He held what was now his trademark wooden sword in his right hand, and an old pot lid dangled as a shield from his left. I was glad to see he still enjoyed my gift, and thought to myself that I should craft him a proper shield if I ever came across a flat piece of bark.

“Oh,” I said, “hey, Heinz.”

“Come on, let’s go play,” he said. “Michael and Hans are waiting.”

After overcoming his hostility toward me, my brother had begun to invite me to play with him and my second and third brothers, Michael and Hans. Heinz was a bit turbulent and frightening, so the twins had taken his side, but it seemed there was no residual hostility between them and me. Nowadays, we were all nice and chummy.

“Sure,” I agreed, toddling after him with my little legs. “What are we gonna do?”

“Duh, we’re playing adventurer,” he said as he proudly pointed his sword to the sky.

Adventuring was one of the few occupations that was unbound by the rules and regulations of the Trialist Empire. Their compatriots managed guilds in every nation, and they were free to travel as they pleased. At times, they stopped to help local magistrates and lords, and at other times they cleaned up smaller issues around town. Their journey could take them to slay some terrible beast, or they could uncover great treasure in an uncharted or forgotten land. These were the wandering heroes known as adventurers.

A traveling minstrel had sung a saga about them when he visited some time ago, and Heinz had been infatuated with them ever since. The story was as basic as they came, and it was such a familiar dragon-slaying tale that I couldn’t help but feel as though I was getting tired of dragon quests.

The gist of it had been that the princess had been cursed by an evil mage, and the king had offered his daughter’s hand in marriage to anyone who could obtain the evil dragon’s gemstone of healing. An adventurer responded to this quest, only to discover the legendary sacred sword and set off on his journey with divine blessings guiding him.

The saga had been a good old-fashioned classic. The scenario likely would have been torn to shreds for lacking any twists or turns in my previous world, but it was ironically refreshing for a jaded man in his thirties.

I had experience writing and performing similar plotlines when playing with inexperienced GMs or players. As hackneyed as they were, classic stories had possessed an allure that only the classics could provide, and I fondly remembered the fun times they offered.

What was more, the most charming part about TRPGs was that the story couldn’t be completed alone. It was the GM’s responsibility to dictate the general outline, but each PC’s actions were determined by the players. Consequently, what began with a classic synopsis could soon be littered with infinite unconventional moments.

Let’s see, there was that one time when some fool started sweet-talking the dragon and ended up marrying it. Another time, someone asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier to buy the gem than to fight a dragon?” and the dragon replied, “I’ll trade you for the kingdom’s most prized treasure.” That idiot steered the entire session into a giant heist. As I mused that all of the twists I’d enjoyed were variations based around the classics to begin with, I was filled with an overwhelming gratitude for the old-fashioned saga and the minstrel who had sung them.

At any rate, this dragon-slaying adventure had really tickled my brother’s sensibilities, and he was now in the midst of an intense fervor. He had loudly declared that he would one day become an adventurer, and now led me and my brothers as we pretended to be a band of pathfinders. I couldn’t help but grin at these antics.

As a matter of course, Heinz was the swordsman in charge, my second brother was the priest with healing miracles, my third brother was an arcane scholar who had begun to unravel the secrets of magic, and I was a thief. It was the perfect display of our hierarchy as brothers, was it not? The party was well balanced in terms of combat, so maybe my brother was smarter than he let on.

And, since we were all having fun, I decided to hold my tongue; there was no need to slap a starry-eyed child with a harsh reality check. The cold truth was that adventurers were simply drifters who worked any odd job they could find, and Heinz was fated to inherit the house after attending the magistrate’s private school.

A few days ago, my father had sat me down for a talk. He’d said that, should I wish to, I could attend school in my brother’s stead. With my cynical adult mentality, seeing through my father’s thought process had been an easy feat. Basically, he had begun to consider letting his talented fourth son inherit the house.

I had politely declined.

Put bluntly, I found it boring to take over my father’s farm when untold possibilities lay within my reach. It would be difficult to find a new place to call home, but I had no issues with committing to a different path so long as there was any risk of regretting choosing a farmer’s life.

I sympathized with my father, who had desperately worked to build up the life we led. But this was a genuine fantasy world. I couldn’t help but want to explore it.

Regardless, I was his fourth-born son. There would be many restrictions on me even if I were to inherit our farm, and I didn’t want to create friction between me and my brothers now when we were finally getting along. I didn’t have any reason to force my father to carry the burden of such hardship, so I was able to tell him to send my brother to school with a cheery heart.

It was then, as an aside, that I’d learned the truth about the adventurers my brother adored. The ones that slew dragons and dove into dungeons abound with riches were only a small fraction of all adventurers. The reality was that they mainly worked miscellaneous tasks for lords and magistrates when those in power thought it a waste to mobilize their own forces. The powers that be simply had a demand for cheap labor that could be sent out to any corner of the world.

A cold truth, indeed. Thus, I had also been thinking of my brother’s future when I’d declined the offer. To be completely frank, I didn’t need to attend school to find success. It would give everyone in our family greater peace of mind if my brother took the house and lived out a safe, healthy life here on the farm.

“Where are we adventuring today?” I asked.

“Let’s go to the woods out back,” Heinz replied. “The codger next door told me that, a few decades ago, there was a kid who died after hiding a coin blessed by a fairy in some old knothole. Ain’t that some crazy treasure?!”

For now, I wanted to let him enjoy his adventures. Running around a tiny wood with no thought for wages or danger was nice and sound. A fairy coin? I couldn’t ask for anything better. It was miles and miles above being paid pennies to hunt down bandits or beasts, catching rats in a sewer, or cleaning out a drainage ditch.

Still, it wasn’t as if I didn’t have any attachment to adventuring. Many of the avatars I’d lived through carried themselves under that name as they began their journeys: I had been a boy who abandoned his village just because he thought magic swords were cool. I had been a young man who left his covenant behind when the voice of God told him to face the incoming barbarian tribes. I had been a half-demon, coveting honors as I fled from persecution. I had been a necromantic widow, bent on reviving the lover she’d lost on her journey. I had been a robot who romanticized the ruins from which he emerged, delving into its depths using magical machinery.

I recalled each and every one so vividly that I could write replays of them to this day. They were brilliant, blissful memories.

There were some who earned glory. Others had a remarkable number on the Henderson Scale as they found themselves leading a massive bandit organization. Other times still, the combined efforts of the GM and player’s dice led to an untimely death in the first act.

As I lined up these memories, I thought that maybe being an adventurer wasn’t so bad after all. Despite the reality, it wasn’t as if the heroes of sagas didn’t exist at all. I began to run in the footsteps of my dreaming brother, diving into the dream myself.

[Tips] The experience spent on a skill or trait cannot be refunded. God unfortunately does not allow you to alter His blessing with a mechanical pencil.