Chapter 1
“Today’s take is... 800 silver. Pretty good for around here, I guess.”
At the forest on the outskirts of town, a young man muttered with a yawn.
In one hand, the young man held a bulging sack of gold.
It was the result of spending the day taking down monsters in the forest without eating until dusk.
“Still, I’m beat.”
Still, as he imagined how he’d spend the money he’d earned, the young man smiled.
To take a breather, the young man casually sliced through a nearby tree with his bare hand in one clean swipe, then sat down on the stump.
“Maybe it’s time I spent some of my savings and hired a personal maid for the house?” Or “Maybe I could run a casino and become an entertainer.” The young man let his thoughts wander to ways of spending money that would be utterly out of reach if he lived an ordinary life in this world.
Koji Kagami.
He wasn’t born into some distinguished noble family, but was an ordinary young man born in an ordinary village, the kind you could find anywhere.
His parents had died when he was very young, but he’d been born to an ordinary couple who ran a clothing shop.
The amount in the young man’s possession was 800 silver.
A man who’d made, in a single day, an amount that might take half a year to earn running a clothing shop was now carelessly swinging around a sack containing 800 silver.
That was because 800 silver was hardly a significant amount compared to Kagami’s total wealth.
Including the money he had deposited, Kagami’s total fortune exceeded 5,480 gold.
In a world where an average person was said to spend 50 gold over their entire life, he possessed a vast fortune.
Having risen from the son of a mere clothing shop owner to become a tycoon, Kagami...
'Life’s so easy, it’s easy-peasy lemon squeezy!'
...was all he could say.
Why was he able to earn so much money?
Kagami had realized something.
Defeating monsters earned you money.
The creatures known as 【Monsters】 were said to have come into existence at the same time the concept of Status spread throughout the world.
No one knew the truth, but that was the common belief, and monsters caused all manner of harm to people.
However, monsters dropped money when defeated.
For monsters designated for extermination by the town, they also paid out bonus rewards.
Kagami had realized this at the tender age of two.
It all began when a Green Slime, famed as the weakest monster, wandered into the village and happened to encounter Kagami.
Knowing monsters were dangerous, Kagami didn’t fight it directly. Instead, he hurled stones and sticks he found on the ground at it over and over, defeating the Green Slime without a scratch.
At the same time, Kagami had gotten his hands on 80 bronze, the currency of that world.
The currency was gold, silver, and bronze: one gold was worth 10,000 silver, and one silver was worth 10,000 bronze.
Eighty bronze was enough to buy about two pieces of candy—the treat his parents let him have once a week.
To be blunt, it was cheap candy, but to Kagami at the time, candy was the most valuable food in the world, and 80 bronze, enough to buy two pieces, looked like a fortune.
Maybe that was why, from then on, Kagami thought making money was “easy.”
However, fighting monsters to earn money meant constantly being face-to-face with death.
“Paaaaaapaaaaaah!”
“My... my son!”
Countless people had been killed by monsters.
There must have been as many as the stars in the sky who had been killed by even the so-called weakest monster, the Green Slime.
In fact, Kagami had just come across a parent and child who were about to be killed by a Green Slime.
At first, Kagami had defeated the Green Slime by throwing things at it, but if he’d tried to punch it barehanded, he would have been killed.
Even the weakest monster was dangerous enough to kill someone unused to fighting.
Green Slimes were poisonous. If a weak person challenged one in close combat and suffered even a small wound, they would lose their life.
What would happen if several of them attacked at once? They would certainly be a threat.
From what Kagami could tell, the parent and child being attacked a short distance away had little experience fighting monsters.
If either of them could fight, it would obviously be the parent, but the way the parent was cowering suggested they had lived their whole life without ever fighting a monster.
But that was nothing unusual. In this world, it was perfectly normal to live without ever coming into contact with monsters. That was because the odds of dying without being able to defeat one were exceptionally high.
Even as they stood there, the parent and child were about to die after being charged by the Green Slime.
The impact would be like being struck by an iron ball, and the poison would make it a double whammy—certain death.
But that was 【only if their Level was 1】.
Level was a numerical representation of a person’s growth, bestowed by the god of this world.
In proportion to that number, people were granted not only physical abilities, but also useful Skills and magic suited to the role bestowed upon them by God and their living circumstances.
A Green Slime’s charge, which felt like being hit by an iron ball, would feel like being struck by a snowball if you were Level 5. But Kagami quickly dismissed the possibility that the parent and child had reached that level.
That was because their Status Windows displayed the role of Villager.
There were eight roles known for their abilities: Warrior, Martial Artist, Priest, Mage, Thief, Merchant, Hunter, and Shaman.
There were three roles with special powers, also known as divine revelations: Royalty, Hero, and Sage.
And then there was the role with the largest population, the weakest and most powerless role, whose people worked to develop towns through farming, running inns, and more...the Villager.
For a Villager, who had no power to fight, to take up monster hunting was practically suicide.
That was how weak Villagers were. Even if they leveled up, they couldn’t expect to grow much stronger.
In other words, few people would commit the suicidal act of gaining practical experience fighting monsters, so it was normal for Villagers to be between Level 1 and Level 4. Some asked stronger people for help to raise their levels, but even then, Level 10 was the limit.
“...Guess I have no choice.”
Even if the parent had a high level, they could still easily be killed if they had no idea how to fight.
Having made that judgment instantly, Kagami stuck a finger up his nostril and picked around thoroughly. Then he rolled the tiny bit of booger he produced into a ball and flicked it away with a light snap of his finger.
The Green Slime suddenly burst apart the very next moment.
Faced with such an incomprehensible phenomenon, the parent and child could do nothing but stand there with their mouths hanging open.
They simply stared in a daze at the Green Slime’s shattered fragments and the 80 bronze it had dropped, which had rolled across the ground.
“Hey... you two okay? You’re okay, right? Good, you’re fine.”
Then, as the parent and child stood there in that state, a young man appeared before them at an unhurried pace, scratching his short black hair. He looked obviously weak and unimpressive, somewhere in his early twenties—not handsome, not ugly, as utterly ordinary as could be, with the air of 【THE Villager】 about him. His name was Kagami.
“Y-you... did you defeat it? How?”
“I just picked my nose and flicked it.”
Watching Kagami pick up the 80 bronze from the ground while saying something incomprehensible, the parent and child broke into cold sweats and thought the same thing in unison: 'B-boogers?'
Was this young man’s booger-flicking power that strong?
Or was his booger something unbelievably terrifying?
Perhaps because they had just witnessed such an unreasonable sight, the parent and child entertained these pointless thoughts.
“Here, kid. Take this.”
At that moment, Kagami tossed the 80 bronze he had picked up to the boy.
“You can get 80 bronze just for beating a Green Slime, you know? Isn’t that amazing?”
“Huh... no, I don’t think so at all.”
“Well... yeah. That’s the normal way to think.”
Hearing the boy’s reply—he had been afraid of monsters just from seeing a Green Slime—Kagami only said that with a disappointed look, then turned on his heel and started walking toward town.
“Huh...? W-wait, whaaat?!”
The parent and child watched Kagami walk away, then happened to catch sight of the Status Window displayed around him and stared in astonishment.
The information displayed in a Status Window could be freely set by each individual.
Most people basically hid the parameters shown on their Status.
By chance, however, Kagami had displayed two things granted by God: his role and level.
“Ah... crap. I forgot to close it after opening it earlier.”
Realizing this partway through, Kagami hurriedly closed his Status Window.
But it was too late. Two pieces of information that normally shouldn’t have been surprising were burned into the minds of the parent and child.
Those two things alone made their jaws drop as if they were about to come unhinged, and their eyes bulged as if they were about to pop out in shock.
What was written there was―—――
Koji Kagami
Role: Villager
LV: 999