Volume 1, Chapter 3 – A Girl with Nothing, Starting as a Pauper

“Two Bilu of cheap liquor, muddling through the days… my life is basically over.”

A middle-aged man with a flushed face and unsteady steps, looking very much like a wage slave, staggered through the alley.

“You can’t even bear to fork over a hundred, so what the hell are you doing here? Go back home and drink your mommy’s milk instead!”

From the dilapidated building next door, a pale young man suddenly tumbled backward out of the stairwell. Right after him came a “sturdy” middle-aged woman, hands on her hips, jabbing a finger at him as she cursed nonstop.

From the look of it, she still wanted to stomp him a couple more times. Her tigress nature was on full display.

“Don’t hit me, don’t hit me! No, wait, no, don’t use your feet either!”

The young man flailed in a panic, but in the end he was no match for the “burly” middle-aged woman and could only flee in defeat.

“Scram! You took advantage of me and you’ve still got the nerve to bitch and moan? Don’t let me catch you again next time!”

A slipper flew out and struck the back of the young man’s head with perfect accuracy.

The passersby on the street were long used to this kind of thing, because this district was just that sort of bizarre place, mixed with the trivial messes of everyday life.

Ailan Cluster No. 1886, Twinmoon City, an ordinary trade city in the eastern part of Canyon Continent.

In an alley in the old city district, Anran sat on a battered stool and looked up at the sky.

Lines crisscrossed overhead.

Electrical wires, clotheslines, support ropes, ropes of unknown purpose. They carved the somewhat dim sky into countless irregular patches.

A bird screeched as it flew past. Right after that, a stone came flying out of some window. It missed the bird and landed on the awning below.

Seriously, what the hell? Why was everyone around here so ridiculously boring?

Even more infuriating was this: how the hell had I turned into a girl?

Becoming a girl would have been one thing. Being an absurdly overpowered pirate princess would actually have been pretty nice. But how had I become a boss who only existed in a trailer in less than two minutes?

I hadn’t even gotten to fight before I got forcibly killed off by the narrator. How the hell was I supposed to play that?

Then, thanks to the game’s bullshit plot setup, the soul of Her Highness Pirate Princess Anran, a total cheat-class character, was reborn here for unknown reasons.

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As a poor girl making a living selling cakes in the old city.

A three-no girl with no father, no mother, and no money.

Mr. Narrator had said: The organization has already made its decision. You will be the final boss of Night of the Stars Version 2.0.

Revenge from the other shore.

Being designated like that didn’t feel good at all.

Anran: Give me a chance!

Mr. Narrator: How am I supposed to give you a chance?

Anran: I had no choice before. Now I want to be a good person.

Mr. Narrator: No.

Anran: ++, don’t push me!

Mr. Narrator: Work hard. This is only Version 0.9 right now. You still have a long time ahead of you.

“…”

After running through that imaginary conversation in her head, Anran felt utterly despairing.

She would probably only live to see Version 2.0.

No, that wasn’t right. But Anran quickly pulled herself together again.

The Mr. Narrator who had shown up so often in the trailer had never actually appeared again. All of that was just Anran’s own wild speculation after a huge flood of information suddenly surged into her mind.

Although the original setting said that this NPC was the final boss of Version 2.0, wouldn’t it be fine as long as she simply didn’t go down that path?

She could choose to become a chef. There was no way a chef could become the final boss of Night of the Stars, right?

Come on, this wasn’t some gourmet anime.

There seemed to be quite a lot of room to maneuver.

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In the end, life still held hope. It wasn’t as gloomy as the sky above.

June 1st. There were still five days until the official launch of Night of the Stars on June 6th.

Five days later, the world of Night of the Stars would usher in a “drastic upheaval.” The butterfly effect brought by the players would slowly push this world in an utterly unpredictable direction.

No NPC knew this. They wouldn’t even find the players’ arrival strange. No one except Anran.

“I might be like a prophet.”

Thinking that way, Anran felt pretty awesome again.

Because inside her head was a complete rise-to-power route for the great boss “Anran,” along with a large amount of hidden resources left behind by the former pirate princess “Anran” and all of her knowledge.

This was the cheat the game had thrown in for free.

But unfortunately, she couldn’t use any of it for the time being.

The opportunity for Anran’s rise wasn’t in Twinmoon City, and it wasn’t even on 1886 ¹ Ailan Cluster No. 1886 . Poor as she was, forget buying a ticket to another planet; she couldn’t even afford a high-speed train.

So she could only scrape by selling cakes.

A flag was stuck into the pushcart in front of her, bearing five neatly written words:

An’s Pastry Stall!

A cake seller, in other words.

When Anran had first understood her current identity, she had truly broken out in a cold sweat.

She had been dirt poor in the real world, so why was she still this poor after transmigrating into a game? She had only gotten to live the rich life for a few minutes and hadn’t experienced a single thing yet.

Could poverty be some kind of talent? Or maybe an incurable terminal illness?

Damn poverty. It had limited her power.

Anran let out a gloomy sigh.

She opened her status panel.

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Even as an NPC, she was special in every possible sense.

Because Anran had a status panel that only players were supposed to have:

Name: Anran

Age: 16

Race: Human

Gender: Female

Level: 1

HP: 30/30

Stamina: 36/36

Primary Class: None

Secondary Class: None

Six Stats: Strength 3, Agility 4, Endurance 3, Intelligence 5, Spirit 3, Charm 4

(The average starting player stat is 5.)

[Other than having normal intelligence, this pauper is good for absolutely nothing.]

Why was that description so infuriating?!

I feel personally attacked!

Free Attribute Points: 0

Skill Points: 0

Talent: Nimble Hands: increases the efficiency of manual work by 10%

Skills: None

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Reputation: 5

Equipment Slot: Other than the clothes she was wearing, she had no equipment with any stats at all.

Of course, if the kitchen knife resting on the chopping board atop the pushcart also counted as equipment, then all of the above would be invalid, because the kitchen knife added 3 attack.

Standard blank-slate stats, a pauper’s panel. It was even worse than that of a newly spawned beginner player, because beginner players at least got a basic starter outfit from the system, while Anran had absolutely nothing.

A pauper start.

Thinking about it carefully, although it was rough, it was still much better than those hell-difficulty starts.

No class, no equipment, no money. Just a three-no girl.

Anran yawned and gripped the kitchen knife on the chopping board. Her attack power rose a little.

Her gaze swept over the people walking back and forth through the alley.

These were all living, breathing NPCs.

Would killing NPCs give experience?

Anran sank into thought.

The narrowed-eyed Anran was currently entertaining some very dangerous thoughts.

The “strong” middle-aged woman who had just come out of the stairwell had thick skin and solid flesh. One look told you she wouldn’t be easy to deal with.

As for the drunken wage slave who was about to disappear into the distance, a backstab should take him down easily enough, but he was a bit too far away.

Then there was the unknown person whose stones couldn’t hit a bird no matter how hard he tried. Getting into his residence would already be difficult.

In the end, Anran gave up on the dangerous idea. This was a lawful society, and there was even a surveillance camera mounted at the mouth of the alley.

Beside the camera hung a huge banner:

“Welcome to Twinmoon City!”