Interface | A Log Horizon Quest

Name: 'Mask'
Race: Fox-Ear
Class: Kannagi
Subclass: N/A
Level: 4
EXP: 450/500

Skills:
Healing Prayer
Purification Barrier

Equipment:
Novice Robes - The simple robes of a novice Kannagi.
Novice Staff - The simple staff of a novice Kannagi.

Inventory:
100 Gold - The basic unit of exchange.
EXP Potion - A gift from the gods, allowing novice adventurers to gather power quickly.

 

AN: Fair warning- I haven't read the LN yet, so there might be deviations from canon.

---

> Hey, cut me some slack- I can't walk you through everything, right?

You frown and glare at the screen. "So you want me to play a game with you, but won't even bother giving me any advice on how to play... Some friend you are." You wouldn't actually say that to Ichiro's face, of course. You've never been great with people- part of why you fell in with the nerds and gamers, rather than the popular crowd- but you weren't so clueless to insult one of the few friends you actually had.

Instead, you think for a moment, before typing a quick response.

> Yeah, I understand. I just don't play MMOs much, and I've never tried Elder Tale before, so I figured I'd ask and see what sort of build would work out best.

There. Hopefully, that'd both make you look thoughtful and get you some advice so you don't look like the biggest noob ever from the start.

> Don't worry about it, just pick something that seems fun. It's not like you're stuck with one character forever- if you don't like the way your first choice plays, you can always just make an alt.

You minimize the chat with a sigh. No help from the 'pro'- not that Ichiro's actually a pro, but he has been playing this game off and on for the last couple of years. Apparently, a new expansion was going to role out tonight, and so Ichiro had wheedled you into making a character to play with him. You sort of suspect that his old guilds had kicked him out for irregular activity- That, or they just fell apart.

Still, you're not going to complain too much, if it meant that you'd have someone who knew what they were doing show you the ropes and help you level up.

The character creation menu took a moment to load back up from where you had it minimized. There were apparently eight races. You'd considered waiting until the update dropped, to see if there were any new races included, buuut... Fuck that. You're having a hard enough time deciding between the options you have right now, adding more into the mix would just be begging for you to never select anything.

You could probably just search for a guide on the internet, if you wanted to research. You don't actually want to research. You get enough of that from school.

First up, you select a race and gender, and modify the standard avatar to something you prefer. It's not like race and such usually matter a lot in this sort of thing anyway, right? You heard someone joking about that once. Or that might have just been gender that didn't matter? You're not sure, you don't do RPGs much. Eh, you suppose even if you fuck it up horribly, you can just blame it on Ichiro not helping and just roll a new character.

Choose Race, Gender, and Appearance:
[] Human - Plain vanilla race, nothing out of the ordinary.
[] Elf - It's like a human, but with pointy ears and shit.
[] Dwarf - Also like a human, but short, hairy, and buff.
[] Half-Alv - Is this a typo for half-elf? Looks like a human.
[] Werecat - Nekomimi-? Oh. This must be the furry option.
[] Wolf Fang - That's closer to what you expected, honestly.
[] Fox Ear - It's a person. They've got fox ears. Enough said.
[] Race of Ritual - Do the other races not have tattoos or something?

[] Male - You're a dude, so it's normal, right?
[] Female - You're a dude, so it's normal, right?

[] (Add appearance here) (Will be used for Charsheet)

That's most of the fiddly bits wrapped up. Now you just need to select a class. There are four groups of classes, each with three subclasses- And, if you understood Ichiro right when he pitched the game to you earlier, there are almost a hundred subclasses to choose from later on, just to make things even more complicated. Doing the math quickly in your head, given 12 classes and 90-something subclasses that aren't class restricted, that's... Like a thousand builds, even before you get into skills and equipment.

...

Whatever happened to just 'Mage, Fighter, Rogue'?

At least you've only got 12 options to choose from now.

[] Choose a Warrior class. No sense in complicating things too much- Just get in there and stab 'em with the pointy end.
- [] Guardian sounds tough.
- [] Samurai are cool.
- [] Monks punch good.
[] Choose a Weapon-based class. If the class is gear dependent, you can probably lean on Ichiro for something good.
- [] Assassin seems okay.
- [] Swashbuckler could work.
- [] Bard... Eh, maybe.
[] Choose a Healer class. Good in a team, but if Ichiro flakes on you... Would that mean you'd have to be social? Ew.
- [] Cleric.
- [] Druid.
- [] Kanna-who?
[] Choose a Mage class. These are the ones that let you blow things up, right? You'd be squishy... But explosions.
- [] Sorcerers explode things.
- [] Summoners do monsters.
- [] Enchanters... Enchantment?

You grin, and finalize your selection. Now there's only one thing left to do- Give your creation a name.
[] ???

 

Ichiro had told you to create a character you'd have fun playing as, but as someone who'd never played a MMO before, you honestly have no idea what that'd be.

Still, it was a role-playing sort of game, right? People made characters, and worked together to create stories about their characters. Escapism.

Maybe that was the trick. Even if you couldn't deal with people yourself, you could create a character to deal with people for you. It's a bit like you're tricking people... But are you really? It's not like your character is actually you. People should be able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality, and if they can't, that's their own problem.

It's with this in mind that you start building a character. A Kitsune, a trickster- You're sure the other players would understand that symbolism, right? And since you're probably going to have to stare at your character on the screen for hours while you play, you make her a cute little shrine maiden with blue hair and bright yellow eyes.

It's not like your mask has to look like you, right? That would defeat the purpose of a mask.

You don't have any really good names for a fox-girl shrine maiden, so after a moment of thought you just enter 'Mask' into the name field. If you have to throw this character away and make a new one later, it'd be a shame to have wasted a lot of time and effort coming up with a good name for them.

The game starts you up in a boot camp, with an imposing NPC named 'Major Colonel' shouting orders at you and running you through the tutorial. The basic tutorial questline isn't complicated- It teaches you how to use the menu, how to attack, and how to use special abilities. On the note of special abilities, you have two- 'Healing Prayer', a health recovery spell, and 'Purification Barrier', a spell that negated 5% of damage received.

Your character is pretty weak in a fight, but you manage to defeat the enemies in the tutorial quest without much trouble. Well, that only made sense- Games can be difficult, but they were designed to be beaten, and besides, it was just a tutorial anyway.

At the end of the tutorial, you get directed to a room with five gates- Each linking, apparently, to one of the five 'Starter Cities', where you'd start the actual game.

Well, it's not like the choice mattered that much, given each of the cities had a gate that linked it to the others. You've heard a bit about each from Ichiro, so you think you'll just go ahead and start off in:
[] Akihabara. The most popular Adventurer city. It must be popular for a reason, right?
[] Shibuya. This city was created as a sort of pressure valve for Akihabara, to reduce lag. It seems like it was hastily thrown together? There's no guild hall or chapel, even.
[] Susukino. This city is also the capital of the Ezzo Empire, so there are some special 'Courtly Intrigue' questlines available.
[] Minami. This city is supposed to be a trading hub, so there are a bunch of 'Merchant Nobles' that give special questlines.
[] Nakasu. This city is part of the Ninetails Dominion, which is full of magical ruins and 'Archeology' questlines.

 

Out of all the 'Adventurer Cities', Akihabara is the most popular. Most of the large guilds use it as their base of operations, and every day tens, or even hundreds of thousands of players make their way through the city. Compared to the real-world population density of modern Japan that's not much, but it's enough that you'd be willing to actually acknowledge it as a city's worth of people in real life.

In some ways, it seems like Akihabara became popular because it was popular. People craved human contact, so they went to where they could find it- And more people gradually accumulated. This was the gravity of society, and even a recluse like yourself couldn't deny it's pull.

You stepped through the gate, and-

Black fire wreaths your vision as characters stream through your vision to fast to make out the details​

Your room is gone.

You're standing in the brightly lit ruin of a modern city, buildings of concrete and steel covered in moss and trees, as if the gods of nature had looked on Man's world and stretched out their hands to take it back. The wind blows from behind you, and something blue whips across your face. You raise your hand to brush whatever it was out of your hair, and it is not your hand.

You collapse onto your ass, staring at your hand, and hear a splash. You're sitting in a shallow pool of water.

Slowly, knowing what you expect to see but suddenly terrified by the thought, you lean forwards.

You look in the pool.

A girl that could be either your character or your sister looks back, eyes wide and staring.

You can hear voices raised in the distance.

[] Freak out
[] Go to the voices.
[] Hide yourself.

AN: Update's on the extremely brief side, I've been a bit busy today.

 

You can't let anyone see you. Not now. Not like this.

The buildings around you are ruined, windows and doors long since shattered and gone, plants growing wherever they can survive- But they still have walls, a way to separate yourself from the rest of the world.

You enter a relatively intact building, and make your way up as high as you can go- As far out of the way as possible, to minimize the chance that anyone could just stumble across you by chance.

The roof and top two floors collapsed at some point, leaving a massive pile of gravel and wood on the floor beneath them. A few small trees grow in the rubble, and when you check, the floor beneath them seems to have started rotting away itself. In time, you're sure that this floor too will collapse- and then the floor beneath would be exposed to the elements and begin rotting until it was unable to support the weight, followed by the floor beneath it, until eventually the trees had dropped to the ground.

The trees weren't at rock bottom yet, though.

You'd never thought you would be so envious of plants.

Safe from the prying glares of other people, you looked at your hand again. It was all wrong- Well manicured, long fingered, soft, the sort of hand you would see on a commercial presenting some product or other. It was nothing like the bony, knobbly hand you were used to. But still- it moved at your thoughts, twisting back and forth, clenching into a dainty fist.

Your eyes drift downwards, and you flush before moving your hand into your robes. You don't really need to- You can already feel the difference- but an exploratory touch confirmed things beyond a shadow of a doubt.

You were a girl now.

What kind of fucking ero-manga shit was this?

Leaning back, you gathered your thoughts.

You'd been playing Elder Tale- then, when you came to Akihabara, you found yourself in a strange place.

This, then, must be Akihabara.

For a moment, you think that this might be why Akihabara was so popular- Some rumor that occasionally people who played here would become their character- But that was ridiculous. Well, except that it had happened, of course. But if such a rumor had existed, you'd have heard of it- Ichiro would have told you about it, would probably have even tried to use the ero-logic of the rumor to sell you on playing. He was just that sort of guy.

Crap.

Had Ichiro been caught up in whatever this was, too?

You weren't sure whether you wanted him here or not. If he was here, he would help you, surely- But you weren't sure if you were comfortable being around him as a girl.

Crap, you weren't sure you were comfortable around anyone as a girl. You'd seen how the ero-logic worked- One minute you get turned into a girl, the next minute everyone and their uncle wanted to plow you.

Well, it was probably like that for girls all the time though, right? But you were pretty sure that ero-logic didn't apply in most situations. Normal girls were safe from ero-world problems.

... Does that mean that you'd be safe, if everyone thought you were a normal girl?

No, you were just being silly. There wasn't any risk of... This and that.

Still, you had already decided that you were going to put up a false persona, to hide who you were. This was just one more potential reason to do so, if perhaps a silly one.

Still, before you tried to deal with people, you should probably decide on what sort of person you would pretend to be-
[] A studious girl.
[] An ojou-chan.
[] A tsundere.
[] A genki girl.
[] Write in?

AN: Planned a longer update but I've got stuff to do so cutting it a bit short

 

You've never been particularly good in school.

It's not that you were stupid. You just didn't like the place. From the first day you'd gone to school as a young child, your classmates had singled you out and excluded you. No, that wasn't right. You hadn't understood why at the time, but over the years you think you've figured it out- You had singled yourself out because instead of reaching out with your own hands, you'd been content to sit and wait for them to come and join you instead.

By the time you had figured out what you did wrong, the bonds of friendship had already been forged in every group- And you were left standing on the sidelines, a stranger who occasionally attempted to join the game, until you eventually stopped trying.

But now... This was different. It was weird. And it was an opportunity.

If you had been trapped in the game, then maybe the other players had as well- All of you thrust together into a new world, put face to face with new people you had never met, and allowed to mingle and form groups. It was the first day of school again.

But this time, you knew what you were doing- sort of- and had a plan.

If the person you had been before was an arrogant loner who didn't apply himself and had no friends, then in order to cover the weakness of your character your 「MASK」 would have to be the opposite- The kind of studious, hard-working girl who made good grades and good friends.

---

Talking to people is haaaaaard.

You spare a moment for that idle thought as you try to find your way through the Adventurer City of Akihabara. At some point, squinting your eyes to deal with the sunlight, you managed to bring up... Some sort of menu that identified people, with names and titles. The ones with super high levels and names that don't sound like they got pulled from a fantasy novel are obviously players, but that doesn't help when most of them are either in shouting matches just short of coming to blows, or are slumped around the place, eyes staring out as if they thought they might find some answer in the heavens above.

You look up once just to make sure. There are no answers, only blue.

A few of the players seem to have handled the sudden turn of events better than the rest of the crowds, but they all walk through the town with a definite purpose. It's difficult to bring yourself to interrupt them, even though you curse yourself internally for your weakness.

That said, you can't just sit around and do nothing. You need to talk to someone, before you lose your nerve completely.

[] Stop one of the people who are walking with a purpose. They're probably busy, but if you can persuade them to help, well, you've already seen that they react to problems by doing productive things, right?
[] Interrupt one of the arguments. This isn't the best time for fighting, you think- And even if people have that sort of angry energy, wouldn't it make more sense to fight monsters, instead of each other?
[] Cheer up one of the listless loungers. These people are eyesores, like you were. You can't leave them to just rot, not after you just decided to remake yourself in this new world. Can't you just fix them, too?
[] You can't talk to a real person. But maybe... Talking to an NPC should be like an easy mode, right? There are a few people around who you're pretty sure are NPCs, you can practice talking on them.