Volume 1, Chapter 0 – Prologue

My name is Shirokane Seiji. I’m a second-year university student who absolutely loves VRMMORPGs.

I attend a private university in Tokyo—not super prestigious, but fairly well-known—in the humanities department.

I’m grateful to my parents for giving me the perfect environment to just kick back and enjoy my moratorium.

Now, a lot of people might already be playing it, but I ended up downloading the new VRMMO, Fantasy Annulus Online—aka AnnyOn—a day late.

I got a bit too absorbed in another game and ended up starting the new one late. Today, during a lecture, I was watching HelloTube on my iPone and stumbled upon a first-look gameplay video of AnnyOn.

That was completely on me. I even pre-ordered it, and still Managed to mix up the date by a whole day.

Anyway, that’s why I hurried home and downloaded AnnyOn onto my prized gaming PC.

It seemed to have quite a large file size, and the download took forever.

So I ended up heading out to the convenience store to grab dinner.

I picked up tarako cream pasta from the nearby Heaven Eleven.

It’s super tasty and filling, so yeah, I definitely recommend it.

I also grabbed a pseudo-beer, Genkirin.

With my stomach taken care of, I was ready to dive into the world of AnnyOn. Long live the slacker life!

And then… before I knew it, I was standing in this ridiculously huge, empty space.

Huh? When did I put on the VR headset?

Well, whatever. I must’ve started playing AnnyOn while still tipsy from the Genkirin.

This must be the character creation and tutorial sequence.

“You have awakened, O soul from another world.”

—What’s with this weirdly dressed, bald old guy? Was there even an NPC like this in AnnyOn?

“You have been parted from your former world due to a divine error. Therefore, we shall prepare a new life for you.”

—Hm? Oh, is this the opening scene for AnnyOn?

Right, the setting of AnnyOn is that you, living in the real world, travel back and forth to the parallel world known as the Fantasy Realm.

The thing connecting the real world and the Fantasy Realm is called the Annulus.

Yeah… they really went all-in on the realism, huh.

“The new life granted to you shall be that of the ‘Demon Lord.'”

—Huh? No way. I don’t care if it’s a rare pull, that’s a hard pass.

Yes, in AnnyOn, there are various races besides humans, but Demon Lord is a no-go.

From the info in the videos I’ve seen so far, being the Demon Lord means getting targeted by every other player—it’s basically masochist gameplay and sounds like zero fun.

The video I watched during the day even had titles like ‘Ganging up on the Demon Lord with 100 Friends.’ Please, anything but the Demon Lord.

“Nah, I don’t want the Demon Lord. Just let me do my character creation freely. Besides, the devs don’t have the authority to decide this stuff arbitrarily, right?”

“Huh? Character creation? Devs?”

“Huh? What are you talking about? I’m gonna reroll, you know?”

“Eh? Eh? Eh?”

The old man seems confused, but that’s not my problem.

I snatch the tablet he’s holding and check the settings screen.

—Seriously, shouldn’t the player normally have this from the start?

So, here’s what the old man was trying to set up on his own:

Rеαԁ оn ΚatRеαԁіոgCаfe

▽ ▽ ▽

【Name】: Schwarz

【Race】: Vampire King

【Gender】: Male

【Growth Type】: Fighter

【Class】: Demon Lord

【Level】: 1

【Unique Skills】:

《Bloodsucking: 10》

《Mist Form: 10》

《Bat Transformation: 10》

《Shadow Manipulation: 10》

《Familiar Domination: 10》

《Blood Manipulation: 10》

《Charm: 10》

【Skills】:

《Language Proficiency: 10》

《Martial Arts: 5》

《Physical Enhancement: 5》

《Dark Magic: 10》

《Status Resistance: 10》

《Fire-Attribute Resistance: 10》

《Water-Attribute Resistance: 10》

《Wind Resistance: 10》

《Earth Resistance: 10》

《Dark-Attribute Resistance: 10》

《Curse Resistance: 10》

《Charm Resistance: 10》

▽ ▽ ▽

“Hey, old man. What the hell are you doing? Is this some kind of prank?”

“Huh?”

“Huh, my ass. What is this ridiculous min-maxing? Seriously. I’ll do a proper allocation myself, so just wait a sec.”

Saying that, I glare at the old man and start making corrections to the initial character this garbage dev set up without my consent.

And here’s the result I came up with:

▽ ▽ ▽

【Name】: Fiene Argentata

【Race】: Vampire

Rеaⅾ oո ΚаtRеаdіոɡСаfe

【Gender】: Female

【Growth Type】: All-Rounder

【Class】: Unemployed

【Level】: 1

【Unique Skills】:

《Bloodsucking: 1》

《Mist Form: 1》

《Bat Transformation: 1》

《Shadow Manipulation: 1》

《Familiar Domination: 1》

《Blood Manipulation: 1》

《Charm: 1》

《Lightning: 1》

《Limit Break》

《Dimensional Storage: 1》

《Spirit Summoning》

《Beautiful Looks》

《Luck》

【Skills】:

《Language Proficiency: 10》

《Mana Control: 1》

《Dark Magic: 1》

《Holy Magic: 10》

《Healing Magic: 10》

《Fire Magic: 1》

《Water Magic: 1》

《Wind Magic: 1》

《Earth Magic: 1》

《Status Resistance: 10》

《Fire-Attribute Resistance: 1》

《Water-Attribute Resistance: 1》

《Wind Resistance: 1》

《Earth Resistance: 1》

《Dark-Attribute Resistance: 10》

《Holy Absorption》

《Curse Resistance: 10》

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《Sunlight Absorption》

《Charm Resistance: 10》

▽ ▽ ▽

I’ve decided that my VRMMO characters will always be female.

The main reason is that when I rewatch my gameplay videos, a cute girl looks much better.

Plus, with a female avatar, a surprising number of guys will just throw gifts at you without you even asking—pretty sweet.

Why they even do that when they say 70% of female avatars are actually guys is a total mystery, but my policy is to take what I can get.

A student’s budget isn’t exactly overflowing. Still, it’s weird that I can’t set up my avatar myself, but whatever. Some games are like that.

Huh? But in the AnnyOn videos, there was avatar customization, wasn’t there?

Well, whatever.

By the way, the name Fiene Argentata is what I use for my first test character in games.

“Fiene” is the Italian pronunciation of the English word “Fine,” meaning good, though in Italian it also means “the end.”

“Argentata” is Italian for my surname, Shirokane (silver).

When I start a new game, I usually don’t spend money at first; I wait until there’s plenty of strategy info before creating a new character and spending.

So I’ve gotten pretty attached to naming my first test character “The Good End of Silver.”

For the class, besides Demon Lord, the only options were stuff like Dark General—clearly villainous roles—so I left it as Unemployed.

Getting ganged up on by other players is the last thing I want.

Incidentally, when I changed the class from Demon Lord to Unemployed, the race automatically changed from Vampire King to Vampire.

I could change the race, but I couldn’t go back to Vampire King, and going Human seemed to lower my stats, so I kept it as Vampire.

Skill allocation seems to be point-based, and I was given 250 initial points.

Considering the number of skills available, that seems like quite a lot.

By the way, things classified as Unique Skills cost 10 points just to take, and others cost points equal to their level.

To raise a Unique Skill to level 10, i.e., max, costs an extra point, totaling 10 points.

Looking at the Vampire traits, the inherent racial characteristics are incredibly impressive.

But there were racial restrictions, and some clearly useful skills and resistances were absolutely impossible to learn later.

Moreover, among those, some couldn’t be leveled up at all.

So, I prioritized acquiring those and maxing them out. Vampire-specific abilities will probably level up later anyway, so I left them for later.

Also, a Vampire’s natural enemies being holy priests and other Vampires is probably universal across worlds. So, I decided to perfectly counter that too.

First, I maxed out Dark-Attribute Resistance, Status Resistance, Curse Resistance, and Charm Resistance, and also maxed Holy Magic.

With this, Vampires should be repelled one-sidedly.

And as a countermeasure against holy priests, instead of just maxing Holy Resistance, I allocated another 10 points to Holy Absorption.

This is apparently what they call Overdrive.

With this, holy priests shouldn’t be a problem.

Besides, a Vampire getting healed by taking holy magic—doesn’t that scenario sound kinda moe?

By the way, Sunlight Absorption is the advanced version of Sunlight Resistance.

Sunlight Resistance literally allows you to be active under the sun, and “Overdriving” Sunlight Resistance turns it into Sunlight Absorption.

Then, bathing in sunlight makes you more and more energetic.

Rеаd оո КαtReaⅾiոɡСafе

Yeah… basically photosynthesis.

So, with this, not only can I, as a Vampire, operate without any penalties even during the day, but I’ve also become a mysterious Vampire who can convert sunlight into power.

Seriously, not being able to play unless it’s nighttime in a game? That’s just ridiculous, right?

Combat skills like Martial Arts and Physical Enhancement seem to come bundled with the class, so I removed them.

Well, with Limit Break removing the level cap, I should Manage as I level up gradually.

It would’ve been nice if there were skills that reduced EXP requirements or boosted stat gains per level, but unfortunately, I didn’t find anything like that.

Also, Beautiful Looks is exactly what it sounds like—it makes you look beautiful.

I mean, when rewatching my own videos, a beauty is obviously better, right?

The rest, aside from the skill names, I didn’t really look at carefully; I just allocated the leftover points on a whim. Don’t think too much about it.

“Alright, old man. Settings are done. Thanks for the generous points.”

I tap confirm. A confirmation window pops up.

【 —Are you sure? WARNING: This change will have a significant impact on the world-line.】

Some incomprehensible window appeared, but I tap OK without concern.

【 —Are you sure? WARNING: Once confirmed, this cannot be canceled.】

Yeah, yeah, got it. I tap confirm right away.

【 —Confirmed . Initiating reincarnation of the subject.】

Great, I can finally start AnnyOn.

“Here you go, old man. I’m giving this back.”

Saying that, I toss the tablet back to him.

“Wha—hey, don’t throw it! What if it breaks? Wait, huh? What the hell are you doing on your own—?”

The old man seems annoyed, but I couldn’t care less.

My vision is enveloped in white light.

Translator Note

Hiii~

It’s Yumi here, your favorite translator~

This time, I’ve brought you guys another novel~

A comedy + misunderstanding novel!!!!

Well, the reason I picked this one is because… I’m currently translating two dark

fantasy novels at the same time.

I needed something to refresh my mind.

Also, in this novel,

I’ll use 【 】for UI, screens, and similar things.

Okay~?

So here we are~!!! Enjoy the novel~!!!

Ufu~♡

QC Tsubaki: Gao~ I hate kanji. And why did Author-san write 幻想円環 (Gensou Enkan: Phantasmal Ring/Halo) as Annulus Fantasy using Furigana… Why didn’t Author-san just use Katakana…