Jeff continues, “For now I’ll just assume you agree with ‘Vampire Lord’?”

“As long as I don’t have to speak funny.”

He sighs, “Once you’ve decided on your base race and class you can actually try it out here, make sure everything works as advertised. This does not lock you in in any way, you could still back out and, for example, become a deva.”

“That sounds suspiciously fair.”

“As Eva should’ve explained to you earlier", he reminds me, "we need the ‘enlightenment’ from souls to keep the universe running. Honestly, I’d like to see Deteoh at least get this final chance; doing everything in my power to give you what you need and want is in my best interest. But really, by explaining that you can still back out until the next alarm hits I’m actually worsening my chances.”

“Ok, I get it, you try your best to do the right thing in a system that stacks all odds against you.”

He fixes his glasses again, “Pretty much.”

Jeff seems a bit lost in thought.

The clock is ticking so I need to get him back on track, "So what should we do about the race? I understood earlier that you’ve some kind of plan that would maximize our chances to save that world.”

“Right but that didn’t account for the expensive ‘Vampire Lord’ extra race”, he tells me.

He hesitates for a moment, “Give me a second, I need to check some numbers to account for that change.”

He checks his smartphone and mumbles, “Why is upload only at 31.2%? Don’t tell me the guys down in the lab are abusing the lines for private stuff again.”

“The more I hear the more you seem like a normal company and not some sort of divine guides to the afterlife.”

He shrugs, “Sorry to ruin that image. Please refrain from telling that to anyone outside though.”

He scribbles some numbers and symbols on a sheet, I don’t get what any of that means.

After a while he finishes his calculations, “Hmmm, so I think we can keep the wizard class at least but I’ll need to check for a different race. That takes at least the bigger headache off the table. Choosing from almost 800 races is easier than from over 3000 classes. Well, quote-unquote 'easier'.”

“That sounds like a ton of classes… why wizard specifically?”

He explains, “Wizards can use several elements at once but only at rank 1. Think of it as a versatile generalist in contrast to for example a Hydromancer that only learns water magic but goes up to rank 4. With the restriction from being a ‘Lost One’ that wouldn’t help you anyway, your spell ranks are fixed at 1.”

“Sounds good so far, I would like to go with magic anyway. But wouldn’t something like a summoner be better? Or are they not workable in real life?”

Jeff hesitates for a moment, “That one is a bit more complicated. By itself summoning is strong. The problem is the ‘cost’ you have to pay. There are a couple of general types of ‘cost’ skills can have. Regular attacks are simple, just pay some MP or SP and then the attack goes off, fire and forget style. Other skills require ‘concentration’, you can only have one concentration effect active at the same time, and as the name implies, your concentration can be broken. The final major type is ‘upkeep’ skills. Those also use MP and SP but instead of a one-time cost, they reserve some of your maximum values, effectively lowering them while upkeep skills are active. Summons are costly upkeep skills. Very costly. With the 20% penalty from being a ‘Lost One’ it is very possible that you won’t have enough max MP to call the most basic summon until level 4 or 5; way too risky if you ask me. You should pick up summons skills later if you want them.”

Does that mean that classes are just guidelines or can we multiclass? “So I can gain like a second class down the line?”

He checks over his notes, “If my research is correct the limit is 10 classes. But adding an additional class has some requirements, not exactly sure what those are though. All I say is make every class count.”

“Got it, so wizard first and summons later. Any other special classes I should look out for?”

He tells me, “That would entirely depend on the actual situation down there. Considering the layout of the world something with enhanced mobility like flight or teleportation will be needed, ‘space magic’ covering the latter.”

He appears lost in thought. “As for base race…”

creak

Eva is back, seemingly in a hurry, “Gzeph, problems, big ones, your boss wants to talk to you immediately.”

Jeff is exasperated, “What is his problem this month? Did another girl dump him?”

“Stop joking and get moving. He already lectured me for talking with Bruce ‘despite it not being my place’.", Eva includes mocking air quotes, "What an arrogant prick.”

He facepalms, “Got it, Eva. Can you finish this here for me? Already got vampire lord as extra race and wizard as the base class. Only base race left right now. I’ve authorized the full package. When someone complains about that forward them to me, I attached a note for that to the case, I take full responsibility for this.”

Eva is speechless, “I… Are you sure about this? If your boss finds out he’ll kill you.”

“Yes, it... it must be done.”, he says in a desperate tone.

She is surprised, “And here I thought I was the chaotic one.”

Jeff checks his smartphone again, “Good, also try to stall as much as you can, file upload is slow. It's unlikely he’ll get all the info he needs if the upload rate stays that low, but he’ll need as much help as he can get.”

door slam

And off he goes.

“Just so we’re on the same page, I’ve not agreed yet.”, I tell Eva, “I just told him that my condition was that I get some kind of immortality out of the deal.”

She thinks about it for a moment, “That is a very steep price but considering what you are up against - not too unreasonable. Though if we factor in how much longevity costs, this severely limits how much we can invest for proper firepower and other extras. Hope you understand that.”

“Well, I wasn’t getting a 100% success rate anyway, so might as well make it worth the risk.”

She agrees, “Point taken.”

Thinking about it it is kinda strange how both avoided naming 'the boss', “Say, Eva, why do you dance around saying his boss’s name? You mentioned even the big boss by his first name.”

“Oh, that is easy", she explains, "I refuse to acknowledge that jerk’s existence, he just causes unending trouble for everyone. Once he’s demoted – and trust me that is only a matter of time – he’ll no longer be ‘the boss’, he’ll just be ‘the’ and eventually disappear from my memory completely. If I knew his name that name would forever be stained by those memories, I don’t want to grant him even that little bit.”

“Good luck with that.”

She sits down behind her desk, ”Did Gzeph mention anything about what he originally planned?”

“Only the wizard class which I’m already getting.”

“Let me quickly check what the planet’s scenario is", she checks the notes Jeff left behind. “Ok, so let me give you one piece of advice in advance. Your goal is not to beat a demon lord. Your goal is to destroy the artifact. I’ll be blunt I doubt we can create anything that has a reasonable chance to beat a proper demon lord. But sneaking in and destroying an artifact? Wait, no, that is hard too. Most artifacts either have a select few ways they can even be damaged, like you need a specific legendary sword or the power of friendship or some nonsense. Alternatively they 'only' have a bulk of HP and defense stats that rivals a planet.”

“So what else should I focus on?”

Eva shakes her head, “I honestly don't know. We don't know enough about what is going on."

She thinks for a moment, "in my opinion you’d be best served to choose something that lets you get through the low-level hell and then gather a competent party. And then... well, you have a long enough lifespan to figure something out, hopefully.”

“Jeff said that for late game flight might be needed.”

She hampers my enthusiasm, “I can already tell you that any flight-capable race is too costly for what we have left.”

“Hmmm… considering a vampire’s need to feed some stealth can’t hurt. Is that in the budget?”

She thinks it over, “As good a strategy as any other when we basically know nothing. Let me quickly check what your options are with our restrictions.”

Eva turns towards the computer and gets to work. Half focusing on the screen in front of her and half on Jeff's pile of paper.

clack clack clack

She stops, “Oh, that’s good info here. There’s a way down the line to add a second subrace as long as it has the same main race.”

“Meaning?”

Eva explains, “For example, if you are a ‘Mountain Dwarf’ you can later also add ‘Paragon’ since they both count as dwarves.”

More power is always good, “That sounds interesting; how is that done?”

She just shrugs, “That it doesn’t say.”

“Pity.”

She continues her research, “Now let me check what I can get you for now to get you started on your adventure.”

Eva searches through the options presented on her monitor, “Phantom? No wait, sorry, morph races are above what we can afford.”

“Morph?”

She explains, “Shapechanger, default form looks vaguely humanoid but they can assume different forms.”

“Too bad they are too expensive, this sounds kinda useful.”

She offers, “Goblin, earth weakness, stealth, stamina boost.”

“Nope, no goblins, please. I want to be the slayer, not the slain”

She accepts my decision, “Ok, that reduces the list by quite a few entries. How about Oathbreaker human, comes with ice weakness, stealth, hard worker.”

“Oathbreaker sounds like something I should avoid when I want to lay low but might be better than nothing.”

She is unhappy with her tools, “Dark Elf is too expensive – why can’t I filter this stupid list by cost!?”

“Welcome to the future where still nothing works.”

She continues her search, “Cat Folk, water weakness, low profile, natural claws.”

“What’s the difference between ‘low profile’ and ‘stealth’?”

She explains, “Low profile lowers the chance of being noticed if other people are around. Stealth prevents you from being noticed in dim light areas.”

“Ok, I like cats but being one is not what I imagine spending eternity as.”

Eva continues, “Next option is Tainted human, dark magic, low profile, weakness to all elements, resistance to all physical types.”

“Too many weaknesses, hard pass. Thinking about it, low profile wouldn’t help anyway, so exclude those completely.”

She complies, “Got it. How about Shadow Elf, light weakness, stealth, dark magic.”

“Also an option.”

Her next offer, “Then I have Silver Elf comes with fire weakness, stealth and cure magic.”

“Stealth and cure magic sounds perfect. But can you even heal undead? I thought this would hurt them.”

She thinks for a moment, “From what I know of that system undead can be healed or harmed, it's the healer’s choice which of the two happens.”

“Also what makes them ‘silver’ elves?”

She puts it bluntly, “Hair color.”

“That’s all?”

She nods, "Yes."

“OK, I’m sold, I wanna try that. Jeff said I could test this body before finalizing my choice?”

I feel like I got swept up in their enthusiasm...

Eva twirls her hair, “That would require a certain level of authorization – wait that is already covered by Gzeph’s auth code. Well, if he told you about it, it should be fine.”

She grabs what looks like a character sheet and fills in the race, extra race and class we decided on, “Here, do NOT sign it yet. Your signature finalizes the whole orientation process and starts the transmigration procedure. As Gzeph said earlier we’re just running out the clock so he can hopefully finish the file upload with all the info we can’t tell you in time."

She looks a bit dejected but continues, "Look, I’d really prefer it if you stuck with this option as it is really the last chance that world gets but I don’t want to cheat you. If you change your mind you only have to check the right box on the other sheet”, she hands me the document she worked on way back in the beginning, “and put your signature below. But if the clock runs out – and we have about 7 hours left – this character sheet is what counts now. I’d say 'no pressure' but that would be a lie.”

I sigh, “I appreciate the honesty.”

“So to test the body just take the character sheet and step into the capsule you slept in before I woke you up. It will sting a bit though”, she points to said capsule.

I double-check the character sheet and notice gender is set to female and age to 16, “Why a 16 year old girl?”.

Eva is confused, “Uh, isn’t that what you agreed on with Gzeph? That was what it said on the computer.”

“No, we never talked about that.”

She apologizes, “Oh, sorry. Then they are probably still the default values. Just put your finger on the respective field and the relevant options will come up.”

I do as instructed and change the age to 18.

My curiosity gets the better of me and I check what the other options for gender are. None, female, male – self-explanatory. ‘Both’ – this is just asking for a bump in the age rating. ‘Chibi’ – reminds me of a marketing ploy gone wrong.

The last two options are a garbled mess and look like ḙ̸̢̜̮͇́̀͂͗͊̿͆r̸̲̳̣̊̓̆̓̓̈́ŕ̸̯͂̇̇͘ọ̶͉̦̱̳̥͓̭̼̏̀́̓̎̒̈́͌̑̀͜͜͝ͅͅr̴̡̨̢̥̞̘̎̓͐̄̄̄̓̈́̃̒͌̊̓̉̚͘3̴̢̛̺͚̻͎̦̙͎̉͆̆͋̽̅̚͝0̶̠̰̣̳̮͔͐̂͘3̴̲͓̪͇̻̀̊͌͛͘:̶̡̬̣̭͙̗͚͓̫͍̑̾͊̕ş̸̢̛̗͇̫̖̝͚̻͇̱̝̠͈̬̬̋͂̎̌̒͂̓̔͆̉͐͘ͅç̸̧͔̝̜͉̠̦̘̲̮̰̲͓̥̝͂͆͗̒̓̓̾̑͒̚͘͝ŕ̴̹̲̠͔̦̥̹͒̾́̑͗͆̀̚͘͘͠i̶͚̪̋̏̐́̈́ṗ̵̟̮͖͕̒̚͠ţ̸̲̗̈́̓͒̏̇̑̃͌̓̔̕͝͝l̶̛͖̥̭̇̒̇̓̏̇̃̅͊̔̽͘̚̕͠a̸̫̱̝͕̟̟̫͇̳̼̥̻̳͇͂̉̌̆̈́͐̀̀̊͋̈́͜ç̷̬̱̝̻̰͉̹͔̹̮͖̘̟̗̞͌̐̈́̆̑̈́͑k̸̨͕̼̖̬͕̤͈̰̑̈̀͐͛̄̋͌̍͆͘ì̶͓̱͙̈́̿͊̿n̴̢̢̛͈̩̟̰̦͓̺͚͖͔̘̤̠̹̂̌͊̾́̔̽ͅg̵̡̢͈̣̺͕͙̫̦͙̬̙̗͇͝ͅc̶̤̈́͂́͊̑̈́̈́͂͌o̴̡̝̠̮͉̖̤̪̥͐̎͛̓̈́͋͆̓͑͛͒͂̓̃̽̇̏ḟ̸͇͉̱̘͕̖̓̌̾̓̎̋̑̐͝͝f̶̨̮̮͔̲̠̹͎̮͕̦͓̈́̔̓̊̒͘͝ͅê̴̩̬̮͖̺̮̝͎̞̰̗̏́̈e̵̳̫͎̬̥̰̲̝̳͎̩̙͙̪̣͛̅̈́̑̃͛́͆̚̚ and d̵̼̱̽͌̊e̶̛͙͚͛̒̇̕̚͠m̵̮̰͔̗̝̭̅́̍̓̆ö̵̗́͜n̸̳̳͔̬̐̈́̿̐̾̂́̾ļ̸̧̜͓̮̪̦̇̎̃̏ǫ̷̲͎̘̤͉̞̗̦̈͌͐r̸̥̮͎̮̽̔͆̂̌͋̄͠d̵̹͆̑́́̃̉̂̉͜ć̶͔̜̫̕͝ả̵̮̊̓́̚s̵̡̺̖͖̤͕̬̔͛͗͒̃ͅt̵̘̠͖̣̠̿͆̾͗̾͜͠l̷̢̠͍̠̘̦͒̐̆͗̽ë̷̹̻̥̭̈́̐͠ͅĭ̷̼̤̫̲̐̽͐̌̽̽̕n̶̡͖͉͇̜̒̌̋t̵̨̡̥̓̋̔͐̔͒̚̕͝h̴͉͝ẽ̵̡̛͈̤̹́͛͌̒̚͠n̷̨͈̘̭̥͉̅̈̐̾̔͊͜ͅͅò̵̙̪̣̪̬̯̈́r̷̰̭͙͕̩̰̩͓̼̅̍̉̾t̷̙͓̝͔̠̔͐h̴̻̦͐̆͋̇̉͜

Wait, did they just change?

While they continue to change randomly, I carefully choose male, and question Eva, “What’s up with the last two gender options?”

Eva tells me, “Ignore those, Graham just hasn’t gotten around to fixing that.”

“And Graham is?”

She explains, “Our sole IT guy. Overworked, underappreciated. In game terms, he's responsible for the 'game balance'.”

“Didn’t you say you oversee several trillion worlds? And you only have ONE IT guy handling all of that? That is nuts.”

She shrugs, “Tell that to management. Graham has filed a ton of requests for additional help, all denied. I don’t even want to imagine what will happen when he retires in two centuries.”

“Somehow I get the feeling, not Deteoh needs saving from the demon artifact but the universe needs saving from its management.”

She offers me, “Hey, if you want to nothing stops you from tackling that afterwards.”

“I'll think about that when I'm bored.”

I notice the name field is blank as well but can’t be changed, “And what’s wrong with the name field?”

She answers, “That will be automatically filled in when your final body is prepared for transmigration. The system will make sure the name is not out of place and fits to your new relatives if any. Circumstances like that. Don’t need another IIXX_SL4Y3R_XXII Smith situation. It… wasn’t pretty.”