Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 1 - Chapter 4

Spring of the Seventh Year

Critical

Certain popular game franchises label particular dice rolls as critical hits or desperate attacks, depending on who is attacking.

For 2D6 this would be boxcars; 1D100 might ask for 01~05, while 1D20 requires a perfect 20, and so on. These elusive perfect rolls are almost always guaranteed successes for any kind of action.

In combat, a critical hit represents a particularly devastating attack. For example, some games allow untold bloodlust by offering an opportunity for the player to roll again if they manage a 10 or higher from rolling 2D6. Some absolute heretics go so far as to lower this threshold and spend the entire campaign clobbering enemies with critical hits.

Good news. In the spring of my seventh year, I first witnessed what one might call “magic.”

I had splurged my accumulated experience to crank up my Wood Whittling skill to VI: Expert, and my baby sister had endured through the winter because of it. That alone would have made for a splendid spring, but the season came with yet another wonderful event.

Magic was the epitome of high fantasy, and appeared in far more than just tabletop campaigns. It could heal wounds, smite foes, soothe nature, and concoct elixirs. While there existed an endless variety of systems and implementations, magic was always a significant factor in every setting. I myself had played the role of mage countless times.

I had been a boy chasing after his friend-turned-adventurer using his middling aptitude for spellcasting. I had been a cursed swordsman abandoned by his village due to his heretical roots, adventuring to pay the bills. I had been a researcher who began his journey in his forties in search of a way to lengthen the minuscule lifespan of his man-made partner.

Throughout myriad systems sprawled across an untold number of sessions, magic consistently played a part—good and bad. I had known that magic existed in this world thanks to my stats page, but alas, this campaign was sprinkled with harsh reality checks here and there. It was quite the rarity to be capable of using magic at all.

Today was a religious holiday where a plow was driven through the tender soil to celebrate the melting of snow and to pray for a peaceful year. A small feast of dried meats and other leftovers from the winter was held in the town square. It was at this glorified excuse to drink that I first laid my eyes on magic.

Frankly, it was nothing spectacular. The many caravans of Rhine were up and operational again, and one had heard of a local festival. They’d opened up a handful of stalls in the hopes of turning a profit, no matter how meager.

An old scribe-cum-mage was traveling alongside them and had pulled some powder out of a small sack—when boom, fireworks appeared in the sky. The vivid colors paled in the midday sky, but the sounds of their pops and bursting lights were enough to make the heart dance.

Local magistrates often funded these sorts of spectacles; magicians made their living through these and sundry other pursuits. I had waited with bated breath. Is this going to be how I unlock my magical abilities?

Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. What once had been good news now prompted little but despair. Amidst the crowd of children clamoring for an encore, I asked the old spellcaster how I could learn to use magic. He then asked me, “Let’s see here now... Young man, how many moons are in the sky?”

I joined the chorus of children around me and simply answered, “One.”

Ah, crap, wait. I recalled that I’d noticed quite a few magic-related skills that wouldn’t even let me read the flavor text; among them, many had names with lunar implications. Do mages see a second moon—no, maybe there are even more than that?

However, no explanation of moons or what-have-you followed, and the old man simply patted my head with a sympathetic smile. The other kids found his behavior strange and relented, but I was too stubborn to give in so easily.

Considering that he was in the middle of his job, I must have been quite the nuisance from his perspective. Thinking about it rationally, my actions were quite embarrassing. Perhaps my mental state was being influenced by my childish body, but at any rate my excitement had tossed all self-control and consideration to the wayside.

However, it seemed he was a personage of upstanding character. “Well, give me a minute here,” the man said. “I can’t just leave my work unattended.” And surely enough, he returned to speak with me after the fireworks show had ended.

Now out of powder, the old man pulled out a flask of water and a handkerchief to clean his hands. After a brief moment he produced a worn old pipe from his breast pocket and stuffed it with tobacco with a practiced hand.

“Young man,” he resumed, “that was just an idle cantrip—hardly real magic. Either way, it isn’t something you can learn in a day.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

The tip of his finger burst into a small flame, which he used to light the leaves in his pipe. He smiled. “Can you tell which one this is? Real wizardry, or simple hedge magic?”

The humility to admit one’s ignorance is the first step on the path to sagacity. I could press my luck with one of my many hypotheses, but I chose to stash away the personal theories and shook my head.

“Hedge magic utilizes the laws of nature; true magic bends them.” The axiom and following explanation he offered me was rather abstract, so allow me to reinterpret this into my own words. Essentially, hedge magic was the art of using the mana flowing through one’s own body as the trigger for a pseudo-chemical reaction. Magic used the same mana to instead bend or wholly overwrite fundamental laws of nature—say, for example, the notion that a force exists pulling things downwards.

A flame like the one flickering on the elderly gentleman’s fingertip could either be a chemical reaction of combustion or the very concept of burning itself. Fire made with a cantrip was liable to burn the pipe alongside the tobacco within, all while consuming nearby oxygen to fuel itself. The magical element was front-loaded: mana was the initial primer that caused the phenomenon, and the ember would silently run its course and fade away.

On the other hand, a magical flame could be contrived to only burn the tobacco leaves if the old man had willed it. It wouldn’t affect the pipe, nor would it need oxygen to fuel it. However, once the mana poured into the spell was exhausted, it would disappear without leaving a trace—including the telltale signs of a normal fire. Even if the tobacco was in the middle of burning, it would spontaneously stop. This also meant a flame made of true magic could stay ablaze in pouring rain on a planet without oxygen. It followed the specifications of its spell until it ran out of mana or the caster manually stopped it.

While they appeared to be similar at first glance, the two phenomena were on entirely separate levels. To give an example, a fireball cast by a hedge mage could be put out by stopping, dropping, and rolling. But a magician’s work would continue to burn you even if you buried yourself in mud. Honestly, it was quite the terrifying power.

As I reveled in awe, the old man continued on to the next topic. That is to say, he began speaking on what was needed to use magic. According to him, neither technique could be used by throwing mana around at random.

All living things contained mana, and while the volume differed per species and individual predisposition, no form of life existed without it. Variance in magical ability was dictated by one’s capacities for mana storage and output. Basically, these were like the size of a water tank and the size of the hose connected to it, respectively.

The final point dividing those who could use magic from those who couldn’t was the “vision” required to handle spells. Magicians had special eyes that could see the structure of the world, and their magic was akin to purposefully skipping a stitch while knitting a sweater.

That must be why he asked how many moons I could see, I finally realized.

Some received their powers of perception at birth; others came to see later in life through some episode or another. Mensch magicians usually tended to be the latter. In the kind, persuasive tone adults use to ease excited children, he added, “There exists a means to artificially induce this process, but it is extremely rare.”

It was easy to see why. Bluntly put, magic and magecraft both benefited from being exclusive trades. If every farm boy could cast spells, the value of magic would plummet. Naturally, the nobility who utilized its power and the influence of magicians and mages would follow suit. There was no merit to allowing magical education to proliferate.

As a result, the magical community had come to the consensus that it would be better to keep their secrets hidden to all but those who were worthy of them. Further, the technical aspects of the art seemed seriously challenging. If one were to awaken their third eye for mana and begin firing off spells or cantrips willy-nilly, they might cause an inextinguishable fire or let off a series of explosions. It would be a minor tragedy if this burned down a house or two, but in the worst case, this sort of incident had the potential to wipe out an entire canton. Wanting to keep these details confidential was more than reasonable.

Those who made use of magic were bound to their craft by covenant. It made sense that I wouldn’t unlock the necessary prerequisites just by coming into contact with magic once.

Well, to be precise, I could awaken to my powers of my own volition. The first magician in history must have done exactly that, and I had found a few traits and unlocked skills that would likely have allowed me to utilize magic...but they were too inefficient for my liking.

Not only did these spells have a low chance of success, but they came packed with steep mana costs and wild variability in accuracy and damage. As I’ve stated in the past, I am a devout believer in fixed values, owing to the fact that Lady Luck has shunned me for years. It was a shame, but I couldn’t justify shelling out the experience to purchase something so volatile. If a low roll gave decent results and the effects improved with increasing numbers, I would have considered it, but the options available weren’t tailored for my type of luck. If only there had been a Luck stat for me to pour my points into...

In any case, there was only one thing I could do to learn magic properly: save money. In the long term, I could either choose to apprentice under a magician or to enroll in the Empire’s official magic training institution in the imperial capital. Both options cost a ludicrous sum of cash that my family couldn’t afford even if we sold every square inch of our farmland.

“So I won’t be able to learn it...?” I asked.

“That’s how it is, young man. I’m sorry... I’m a little too old to be taking on apprentices at my age,” he said with a puff of his pipe. He scanned his eyes around the area for a moment and, with a sympathetic smile, he once again reached into his breast pocket. “Hm, I spoke a little too much today... Do you think you can keep this a secret?”

I nodded vigorously at the old man’s playful question. I’m sure I looked like a proper seven-year-old without any acting on my part.

“Very good. In exchange, you can have this. I won’t be needing it anymore.” The man pulled out a weathered old ring. Its color was an indescribable mixture of grays somewhere in between silver and lead, and lacked any sort of embellishment to its name. Despite its plain appearance, my young hands felt it to be quite heavy, and it was large enough to easily slip off my thumb.

“If the opportunity ever arises, this ring will lend you its power,” he said.

“Thanks, mister,” I replied. “But why would you give me something so...”

“Trashy?”

This time my head was vigorously shaking from side to side. I’ll admit that the thought had run through my mind, but I couldn’t help but feel like there was more to it than met the eye. After all, the old fellow was the spitting image of a wizard. How could a gift from him be anything less than a key item?

“Something so valuable,” I corrected.

The old man cackled with a cough of smoke at my appraisal. “That there is something I used in my youth. That’s all it is—there’s hardly any value to an old ring like that.”

No, I’m pretty sure this is going to be a vital unique item, I thought. This was simply how TRPGs operated: the old gentleman in front of me would turn out to be some unparalleled sage, his ring crafted a millennium ago with lost techniques, and so on, and so on. Some time in the future, I was sure to meet someone with more technical expertise who would look at the ring and exclaim, “Could it be?!” Trust me on this one.

“Well, the path of magic is an unpredictable one. Perhaps you’ll snag on a peculiar turn of fate and find yourself on it. Take care, little one,” he said with a playful smile. After patting me on the head, he pulled out some more powder and shooed me along to return to his work.

And so, with both good and bad news bouncing around my head, I received a priceless treasure in the spring of my seventh year.

[Tips] There are races that need a catalyst to utilize magic and races that do not, with mensch falling into the former category. Furthermore, a chemical catalyst can be used to increase the efficiency or output of a cantrip’s reaction.

In truth, I had already seen miracles in action long before I had laid eyes on magic. Needless to say, I’d witnessed the miracle that had healed my sister this past winter, but the bishop also commonly threw a handful around during festivals.

I personally thought myself more pious than most, and had every intention of revering higher beings regardless of any additional benefits that my worship might come with. I’m sure any of my fellow Japanese countrymen could relate—even those who weren’t explicitly faithful bowed their heads when passing under a torii gate and took good care of any charms in their possession.

I had every intention of revering the gods of this world. I swear I did...

“Ugh... The clients from the Upper Realm are so...”

Until, at the age of five, I’d received a signal—or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a divine prophecy—from the Harvest Goddess during Sunday mass. At the time, I couldn’t help but be overcome with the strange feeling that I was being subcontracted to pray, and I’d been uncertain about dipping into the faith section of my skill tree ever since.

Later on, I asked the bishop to teach me more about the religions of the world and learned that most people were polytheistic, accepting that the world was crawling with gods. Unlike the sects of Earth, the people here simply worshipped whichever deity or deities held power in their region. Considering how overt higher presences were, I couldn’t blame them. Instead of relying on word of mouth to spread their influence, the divine directly meddled in mortal affairs, so it would be stranger if the religious environment were the same as back home.

The gods protected their worshippers in exchange for faith and used the rest of their energy to compete amongst themselves. They had reportedly come into direct conflict in the early days of history, but nowadays fought proxy wars through their mortal subjects in a bid for supremacy.

As a result, some gods aligned themselves into pantheons similar to the ancient Greeks’ (those of the Empire were a good example), others purported to be the omniscient and omnipotent one-true-God, and others still were parts of nature that gained divinity through human devotion. The religious landscape was as colorful and diverse as it was utterly chaotic. I’m sure that this world had seen its fair share of water-walking, bread-making, prophecy-delivering sages in its time.

Still, as godly as they were, the upper beings in this world were only of this world. That is to say, they were no Bodhisattva or Shiva, and were restricted to the planet as opposed to governing over all of space and time. The flavor text on some of the higher-level faith skills explained that their time spent ruling over this world was but training to earn the right to give birth to a new world later on.

In essence, the “outsourcing” that the future Buddha had spoken about was spot-on. Realizing that even the gods couldn’t get away from this sort of bureaucracy brought a tear to my eye.

My faith-based skills had been unlocked following my prophetic message, but the blatant preferential treatment tempered my enthusiasm. I mean, think about it: I would be like a new hire related to the CEO. That’s awkward on both sides.

Of course, I understood that religious skills would come in handy. Miracles were akin to sacrament, using one’s privilege as a devout believer to bring about divine change upon the world. It required no mana and only grew more powerful with one’s zealousness. On top of that, the action itself was technically exercising a god’s power, so (accuracy and resistances aside) there was no risk of failure. I didn’t have any qualms over its efficiency.

But...I couldn’t wipe away the awkward feeling in my heart. The religious tolerance and corporate experience I’d acquired in my past life didn’t mesh well with the actions of a fervent worshipper. Besides, the fact that the faith-based skills were all a bit cheaper than what they seemed to be worth carried the strong scent of bait for some yet unrevealed divine scheme. Despite their power, this only lowered their value in my mind.

All this fishiness threatened the ever-crucial faith that allowed me to utilize these skills in the first place. I could pump all the experience in the world into these abilities, but there was no telling what would happen to me if my mental state degraded the slightest degree. The gods were terrifying. With how much they intervened in day-to-day matters, incurring their wrath was a serious concern. Both the church’s bookshelf and the bishop himself were full of stories about heavenly judgment, after all.

At any rate, there wasn’t any sort of “Learning magic will lock you out of miracles!” mechanic present. There was a part of me that felt like it wouldn’t be so bad to kiss up to the gods, but as I watched the bishop scatter dust and pray it into flowers during the spring festivities, I felt a conflicting bitterness wash over me.

[Tips] Faith skills are activated by the gods. As a result, it is impossible to use them to act against divine will. Fraudulent activity, harming innocents, or engaging in unwarranted religious warfare are only some of the actions disallowed by the gods.

A child’s stamina is a bottomless well. The way my brothers ran out of the house to play after our grueling hours of work only reinforced that idea. Their childlike wonder was radiant. It reminded me of the blinding sight of school kids frolicking about during PE, passing periods, and after school until the sun went down. My previous body had grown creaky from years of desk work and driving. For an old man who could barely run ten minutes to catch a train, their play was alien to me.

“Come on, Erich!” my brothers called. “What are you doing?! Let’s go already!”

Well, I’m in a child’s body now, so I should be able to keep up with them. Still, all of this activity was mentally exhausting. I wanted to relax after a hard day of work.

“I’m gonna be the leader today!” Michael exclaimed. “I’ll be the swordsman! The, um, uhh...the dullahan, Emil!”

“Whoa, awesome!” Hans said. “Then I’ll be our scout, the wandering Sir Carsten!”

“Hey, wait! I’m the oldest, so I’m supposed to choose first!” Heinz shouted. “Ah fine, then I’ll be Nicolaus, the flame of heaven!”

“Whaaat?! But now we have two front liners!” Michael protested.

“Yeah, we don’t need two swordsmen!” Hans concurred.

“Shut up! I don’t know anything about mages!” the eldest retorted.

My fatigue did little more than a gentle breeze to dissuade my band of brothers from venturing out into the forest yet again. With my homemade weapons (which of course were mere wooden playthings) in hand, they were ready to set off and play adventurer.

From early spring to the beginning of summer, each farm had a different timeline for their work. Naturally, this led to many children playing with their brothers and sisters during this season. Unlike the leisurely summer, it was nigh impossible to gather up all of the neighborhood children for a game, so our options were quite limited.

The evergreen choice was a good old-fashioned game of pretend. I’m sure everyone has played the part of their favorite hero at a park or schoolyard once in their life. This truism held steady in this world, with the only difference being that TV and manga characters were substituted for the folk heroes passed down through song and legend.

Although I mentioned before that adventurers were mere handymen, they had historically been the protectors of mankind during divine conflict in the age of gods. In a time when monstrous beasts roamed the land and the peoples of the planet had little space to call their own, powerful heroes emerged, journeying to strike down those who threatened innocent lives—and the first adventurers were born.

The modern Adventurer’s Association had been founded in their image. Apparently, that was why adventurers were permitted to cross borders freely in an era where globalization was a chuckle-worthy joke at best. The organization spanned several states and continents to prepare for the day that a mythical threat once again presented itself.

Of course, each nation would throw its own military forces at an issue like that, so the Association’s reason for existing had long since become moot.

No matter the reality of the situation, children were fond of the legendary adventurers. My second brother Michael had donned the mask of Emil, the legendary dullahan who’d slain a tremendous, venom-spewing moth. My third brother Hans had taken the alias of Sir Carsten, the famed knight who traveled the world despite being cursed by the gods. He’d eventually won their forgiveness and gained the awesome power to work miracles.

Lastly, my eldest brother Heinz had taken inspiration from the tale of a dragonslayer who wielded a holy sword bathed in eternal fire to win dragon head after dragon head. Each and every one of them was an immortal legend, but having two swordsmen and a scout front-loaded the party so hard that I wanted to burst out into a team composition rant.

It might have worked with five players, but with only four of us, one front guard with a skill to draw multiple units’ worth of aggro would suffice. One each of a middle guard, healer, and mage would round out the party nicely from there. Team composition is important, dammit!

An adventure tailored for a party was bound to include suitably powerful enemies. It would be absurd to challenge them with a team that had more holes than substance. The hilarious possibility that a mageless party could fail to track traces of magic—or worse yet, that they would be too illiterate to find the main quest line to begin with—loomed over us.

“Um...” I piped up, “I guess I’ll be Saint Raymond.”

“You’re always picking priests and mages,” Hans pointed out. “Ain’t that kinda boring?”

I wonder why! Snark aside, I wasn’t very pleased with how Hans made light of the rear guard. What, would you like to try fighting incorporeal enemies without any form of magic? I’ll have you know that the futility of trying to beat down a specter with a sword is quite taxing on the spirit.

“Let him do what he wants, Hans,” Michael said. “All right, onwards men! The fairy coin awaits!!!”

“Yeah!!!” the other two cried in unison.

In the end, this was all a game of pretend. We weren’t swordsmen hunting foul beasts; we were children hunting an old man’s fairy tale. There was no need for me to quibble about balance or composition here. Of course, I would be moments away from flipping a table if this were a real game.

My brothers wielded their toy swords and unstrung crossbow and marched forward into the forest. I picked up the ever-unpopular staff (which remained unused in spite of how much effort I put into making it look cool) and hurried after them.

Our goal, as always, was the fairy coin. It was a paltry prize for a party of such venerable heroes, but it seemed that my brothers found it more exciting to chase after a treasure that might exist than to hunt for monsters that we would never encounter. Depending on the season, fairies sometimes danced in the corner of one’s vision here, so the coin of legend was all the more alluring.

That being said, fairies only appeared in stories as sources of trouble. If this coin really was imbued with their power, who was to say whether it was blessed or cursed?

I chased after my three chanting brothers as they advanced into the woods. The way they marched in what could be loosely defined as a single file line and carried backpacks full of my wooden weapons put a genuine smile on my face. Doesn’t everyone have an adventure like this as a kid?

Adventurers certainly didn’t have the greatest reputation, but I questioned whether it was truly impossible to have a fun journey with a party full of dream-chasing companions. Perhaps we would even be blessed with the chance to leave our names in history like the heroes my brothers and I now mimicked. As I considered the possibilities, the brilliant stories of the adventurers I’d lived through drifted to mind.

...Maybe adventuring isn’t so bad. It’s not like I’ve tried it myself. Who knows, maybe the adults tell us all the bad stories to keep their kids from becoming professional drifters.

As we set out on our childish quest, it finally dawned on me. No matter how many lectures I received, the ambition and passion that the word “adventure” ignited would never subside.

[Tips] The Adventurer’s Association is a collective organization that guarantees the identities of the grassroots people it serves. Though it technically transcends nations, in practice the branches of each state are mostly autonomous and only serve to relay work from within their country’s borders. The various branches have minimal communication with one another.