Chapter 2.

With nothing better to do, I went to the bar to get a drink.

When I stepped in, I heard all sorts of discussions going on in the background.

“Hahaha! You should have seen the look of despair on the face of the hero I killed last night. I stabbed him directly in the heart when his guard was down while we were doing. It was hilarious, he even went on about how much he loved me and how he would do anything to make me happy. When I looked through his memories, the guy turned out to be a deadbeat no-life loser where he came from. He locked himself up in his room and jerked off like ten times a day.”

Amidst all the chatter, I heard one obnoxiously loud woman from a table bragging to her friends about her most recent accomplishments.

It seems she noticed my gaze as she shot a sneer my way.

“What are you looking at, loser?”

I didn’t bother to respond and ignored her. An NPC bitch, yes, even us NPCs had such individuals among us. It came with taking in human memories. Some NPCs became like that thing over there. A nasty woman with far too much confidence because of how easy she had it thanks to her perfectly crafted appearance by the devs. Among NPCs, she’d be about average in terms of looks, but by human standards, she was perfect.

There were a lot of men who escaped to this world because they were unable to acquire the feeble thing they called love in their world. It was honestly pathetic. Female NPCs in this world just treated them as pay pigs. Once they got tired of putting up with them, they killed them off and took over their bodies. They then go and mess around with it in the real world.

NPCs often treated their world as a first-person shooter and gunned down as many people as they could before they were killed. If the NPC wanted money, they would rob a bank in the human’s body and purchase in-game currency then transfer it to themselves. The humans would just assume the person had lost their mind, completely unaware that an NPC was the true culprit behind it all.

“NPC69, is it? The devs didn’t even give you a proper name, how pathetic. You’re a level 1 guide? Hahaha. Not even worth my breath.” 

After she said that the bitches at the table with her belittled me among their group just loud enough for me to hear, but it didn’t bother me much. NPCs often became that way after their personalities were warped and twisted by the memories of the humans that integrated with them.

When humans were around, they put on a fake face to deceive them, but when there weren’t any around, their true colors were revealed.

I took a seat by the counter and the barista behind the counter nonchalantly asked, “What’ll it be today?”

“The usual, one beer.”

“Coming right up.”

I took out my coin pouch and let out a sigh. The system in place was honestly a pain. I had unlimited gold, but I couldn’t use any of it. That gold was all to be used as rewards for quests. I’m only paid a measly ten gold monthly by the system for my guide duties.

I wasn’t allowed to make money for myself either. Any money earned through killing monsters or selling items just went directly into the hero’s pockets. Heroes never gave free handouts to us guides, from their perspective there was no reason to. After all, we’re just stupid NPCs that aren’t real, simply data. We’re not even allowed to ask them for money unless it is quest related. We’re also not allowed to use money received from those sorts of quests for personal gain.

The only workaround is real-world cash. If the hero drops paid-for currency and an NPC picks it up, they can sell that paid currency for in-game money which us NPCs can use on an NPC only black-market not accessible to heroes. Unfortunately, as I have no interest in the real world, it’s not much of an option for me. Haaaaah... and with my negative infinity charm and luck stat… well, you get the point.

NPCs are not permitted to inform heroes of any of these things though. Should any NPC try to reveal classified information to a hero, they will be deleted and the hero’s memories related to the information they have been told will be wiped. 

It’s really depressing though, I have these ridiculous broken stats, but I’m essentially a broke-ass bum. This unreasonable system is clearly designed to incentivize NPCs to take over humans. As for what the dev’s intentions are behind this game, I can only speculate.

“Here you go, one beer as requested.”

I handed over two silver coins to the barista when I got my beer. I really want to go on vacation. I’m sick of guide duty and adventures. I’d like to just find a nice remote little cabin somewhere out in the woods and settle down. Everything is this damn system’s fault.

I lifted the mug filled with beer, positioned between my lips, then took a small sip.

Bitter, just like my life.

I was slightly curious about the noob hero’s progress on both the impossible quest I gave him and the fake skill I showed him. Was he bitterly slaving away trying to learn that skill to complete the quest, or had he given up and decided to complete the quest without it? Not that it mattered even if he somehow completed it.

To go with the beer, I took out a cigar and lit one up. I took in a long breath and held it in.

A woman who’d sat down next to me at some point suddenly called out, “Ms. Barista, I’d like a cocktail please.”

I didn’t bother to spare my neighbor a glance. With my luck and charm stat stuck at negative infinity, I’d instantly be mocked or get into a stupid fight.

Honestly, it’s such a joke that I can teach people a charm skill, but have no charm to speak of. The devs are clearly just sadistic assholes. It’s like, here’s a skill that you can teach to others so they can easily get laid, but there’s a catch, you yourself can’t use it. Real funny joke devs, I swear, I’ll kill you assholes one day.

I exhaled and let out a long trail of smoke.

“Kohoh. Kohoh. Kohoh. You jerk, what are you doing smoking next to a lady like me?”

“Hah?”

“Don’t act like you didn’t notice me next to you. Could it be you’re a perverted deviant who wanted a lady of my caliber to inhale a substance that was inside your body?”

Haha. My charm stat really doesn’t let me down.

“Shut it fugly, no one’s interested in you.”

“Fugly? Do you have a death wish?”

“Yeah. In truth, I’d genuinely love to die.” If only I could, my HP was set to infinity. All my resistances, including pain, are similarly stuck at infinity. One-shot moves are ineffective. Seals don’t work. Magic doesn’t work. Falling from high up doesn’t work. Perfect vacuums don’t work. Black holes don’t kill me. Destroying each individual particle in my body didn’t finish me off either. In the last one million heroes, I gave countless options to try and kill me after the GDR was killed. Eventually, when I realized nothing worked, I stopped giving them a chance and just finished them off immediately. 

Letting them live wasn’t an option as the world would just end from the asteroid which cannot be destroyed unless the designated target dies. The hero is always the designated target no matter how I tried to change the target. If you try to revive the hero right after killing them, the asteroid just returns. As long as the hero lives, the world ends. 

Stopping the final boss from using the attack is also impossible. I tried to get a hero to one-shot the GDR one time, but that retarded woman enters an invulnerable state when she has 10% HP left. Even if I personally took action and hit her with an attack that should drain all her HP, she still survives with 1 HP and enters her invulnerable state to summon the asteroid. Every path results in the hero dying, meaning I’m forced to continue my guide duty in this storyline.

“If you want to die so much, how about we take a step outside? I can easily grant that wish of yours.”

I shot a cursory glance in her direction before a derogatory smirk formed on my face, ”A hero who completed another storyline and joined this one, huh? So that idiotic noob enabled the MMO option before he even left the beginner village? I guess he figured that was his best option to complete his first quest. Miss, you’re honestly not even worth my time, so just get lost.”

“Big words for a level 1 guide. Can you not see my level?”