It took a minute—longer than he'd like—for Thane to wrestle his nausea back into something resembling obedience. The fruit from a chalk board's rectum was technically food, but his stomach wasn't convinced.
Still, priorities. Even if he didn't throw up, his next goal was crystal clear. Well, right after he checked out his newly unlocked status screen. With a flicker of genuine excitement, Thane opened his menu—and was immediately stonewalled by yet another system message.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE:]
[The experimental system personality has failed to adapt properly. Continued dynamic modification may negatively impact your emotional stability. A new menu option labeled Settings has been unlocked. From the Settings screen, you may now customize the system personality, adjust your user interface, enable a heads-up display, modify how notifications appear, and more. You will now be directed to the Settings screen to configure your preferences.]
"Seriously? More hoops before I get to the good stuff?" Thane groaned. "And what do you mean help my emotional stability? You think dialing down the snark makes up for the scythe you've got hovering over my neck?" He huffed. "Defunct, junkyard excuse for a system."
He sighed, shoulders slumping. "Whatever. I guess I'll take what I can get."
The notification blinked away, replaced by a new settings screen that popped up like unwanted spam. Great. Just—great. Thane tapped the first option: System Personality.
He didn't know what he was expecting—but seriously…
[Sarcasm: Low, Medium, High]
[Demeanor: Rude, Stoic, Bubbly]
[Tone: Robotic, Casual, Butler]
The first thing Thane noticed—and immediately resented—was that sarcasm couldn't be turned off. Only dialed down. Low it was, then. The system had already been riding him hard enough without a full-time stand-up act baked in.
Next came Demeanor. He winced just reading the word Rude. He tried not to judge, really—but who picked that? Self-loathing masochists? He skimmed past Bubbly just as fast. The last thing he needed was his life-or-death operating system sounding like it'd just pounded a bag of pixie sticks. That left Stoic. Sensible. Safe. Blessedly boring. Sold.
Finally, tone. He paused. Butler.
A small, treacherous flicker of hope lit in his chest. Would the system now call him sir and offer tea in the middle of boss fights? Would he get his very own Alfred? Probably not. But it was the best option by far—and hey, worst case, he could always switch it later.
Thane finished making his choices and closed the dropdown with a quiet sigh. That left two options: UI and HUD.
He wasn't exactly sure what "UI" would even change, but there was only one way to find out. A cascade of settings burst forth like a floodgate had been yanked open. There were so many that a scroll bar appeared along the side—never a great sign.
"Okay, that's… a lot," he muttered. He'd dig through the chaos later. For now, he skimmed the list, eyes scanning for anything immediately useful—or at least less overwhelming.
Font, text size, bracket Format, color, transparency, placement, condense, kawaii—wait, what? Wow. Just… wow.
Thane blinked at the options, quickly feeling the weight of decision fatigue settle in. There were too many settings to sift through, so he decided to stick with a few basics and save the deeper customization for later.
"Alright. Transparency first, so I'm not blinded every time I open a menu. Placement—definitely a must. Text looks fine, but let's clean up the format. Yeah, that's better. And declutter? I mean, sure. I can always change it back if it's too minimalistic."
Thane meant to skim through the options. He really did. But there was something oddly satisfying about having control over something, anything, after the complete lack of control he'd felt since being run off the road what seemed like forever ago. His focus faltered when he hit the "emoji-only mode" option.
Would I even be able to understand anything? He quickly squashed the temptation to investigate further. The last thing he needed was to unintentionally turn his interface into a cryptic mess. It was like that prank where you change someone's phone language to something they can't read. Nope. Not falling for that.
Thane felt pretty good about his UI changes. It was now legible without blinding him every time he opened a menu. The display wasn't right in his face, and the transparency was enough to still see through and read easily. System messages now simply started with "System:" instead of cluttering things with brackets. It was looking clean.
Let's see what this HUD is about.
System: Sir, your heads-up display—HUD—will assist you in monitoring vital metrics such as health, stamina, and active notifications without requiring the system menu to remain open. It has been designed not to obstruct your vision, though naturally, it may be dismissed at your discretion. One must, after all, see their impending doom clearly.
Thane raised an eyebrow. Wow, I guess the changes to system personality really did work. "Let's get that HUD going," he muttered.
Thane selected HUD, and the system menu closed. A few things came into focus. At the top left of his field of vision were two bars—a red bar on top, and green below. Huh, guess that's health and stamina. To his top right, an envelope icon was flashing.
He focused on the health and stamina bars. They enlarged slightly and followed his eyes when he moved them. He quickly realized that unfocusing would leave the bars in place. Easy enough, he thought, placing the bars at the bottom left of his vision.
A bit small, but—Wait. The bars enlarged and didn't stop. Thane quickly adjusted his intention, resizing them to a more reasonable scale.
Next up, notifications. He absolutely did not want something flashing in his vision. What if it startled him when he was trying to hide from something that wanted him dead? He'd already almost died to a message once—he wasn't risking that again. I wonder...
It didn't take more than a second for the flashing envelope to disappear, replaced by a mostly transparent exclamation mark. That should be good for now. Time for the good stuff.
Not quite sure how to exit the HUD setting, Thane muttered, "Finished." That did the trick. He eagerly opened his status screen—finally—to see what had changed.
Name: Thane Arthur Cook
Age: 27
Level: 1
EXP: -583%
Health: 100%
Stamina: 100%
Stats: Base (Actual)
STR: 11 - (14.3)
DEX: 8 - (10.4)
END: 8 - (10.4)
CHA: 0 - (0)
LUC: 6 - (7.8)
Free points: 2
Skills:
Flail mastery - novice (18%) → apprentice
Identify - novice (43%) → apprentice
Unique combat - novice (18%) → apprentice
Cockroach - available
Magic subtypes:
Physical momentum
"I wonder why I'm still level one when I have 583% of the EXP I need to level up?" Thane muttered aloud, trying a few different commands. "Do I have to do it manually or something? Level up. Confirm level up. Use experience points."
Still confused, he kept experimenting until, finally, when he focused on EXP, an option popped up.
System: Would you like to view your EXP log, sir? Y/N
Thane selected yes and began reading.
EXP LOG:
region boss exp consumed to create momentum magic
-75% exp mythic title
-50% exp legendary title
-50% exp legendary title
-50% exp legendary title
-50% exp legendary title
-25% exp epic title
-25% exp epic title
-25% exp epic title
-10% exp rare title
-10% exp rare title
-10% exp rare title
-1% exp common title
-1% exp common title
-1% exp common title
-200% exp error title
+0% no exp awarded for slaying a monster with a significantly higher-level party member
583% exp needed to reach level 2.
Thane didn't have any words. Not one. The sheer absurdity hit him like a freight train. He felt a wave of anger, followed by the impulse to scream. But instead, he grabbed his flail and stormed out to the courtyard.
He smashed anything in sight, swinging wildly until his stamina hit rock bottom. The exhaustion that followed was unlike anything he'd ever felt. He wanted to cry, but lacked the energy. Sprawled out on the sun-warmed stone floor of the courtyard, he didn't move for what felt like hours. Finally, he gave the air a double-finger salute, his frustration palpable.
Weary from his rampage, Thane finally managed to bring up his status screen again. His eyes locked on the numbers, and a sinking feeling settled in his chest. He was in the hole for 583% EXP. Not only did the system charge him for the EXP he earned from killing the boss, it had drained him for every title he'd earned. To top it off, he didn't even get any EXP when his "party member" killed that centipede monster.
"Great," he grumbled.
But then something caught his eye—two small things that offered a bit of comfort.
Free points: 2
Without hesitation, Thane dumped the two free points into luck, pushing the stat above ten.
System: Congratulations, sir, on reaching ten luck. You are indeed lucky—danger sense has now unlocked and will assuredly save you. Again, congratulations, sir.
Thane smirked. "I don't feel any different," he muttered. But he supposed that was a good thing. It probably meant there wasn't any immediate danger around.
Then, his eyes drifted to the next change.
Flail mastery - novice (20%) → apprentice
Thane sighed. "Well, that's kind of a letdown. Only two percent after swinging away for like a half hour? Stingy." But the more he thought about it, the more it didn't make sense. He'd spent a lot more time swinging his flail now than he had when fighting the centipede. Maybe fighting monsters raised skills faster, or maybe it required deliberate practice—not just wild flail-swinging in anger.