Hero Scout 3 Chapter 3 - Gamble

"Not enough," the woman sighed, raising the white bar of nothing high, "you won't be able to compete with real evil. They are on a completely different level. I'm sorry, but it's too important that we produce real, good-hearted heroes. The fate of the Everything rests on these reincarnated individuals causing the worst possible damage to the land and their people. We need the heroes that oppose such events. I just don't think you can compete-"

"Then what if I help them compete with each other?" Kenji was grasping at straws now. "I'll join the villains, and force them to try harder than the others- no, what if I do the opposite and help the good guys? Think about it, there's no saving like in a video game. One slip up and a good guy goes down the drain, wouldn't it be handy to have some insurance? Unless you're blessing the good guys too?"

"The G.o.ds of the world might...but I am forbidden from altering the state of anything within, merely communicating for monitoring purposes..."

"Perfect! So I could be like your... Protagonist Scout then? I'll find good heroes, train them, protect them and pull them through worthy quests and the like. How's that sound?"

The woman thought deeply, then smiled as brightly as an exploding star. Coincidentally, a supernova filled the dark of Everything with brief light over her shoulder.

"Like a good idea, now if you don't mind, we'll need to hurry this along. If my brother hears of this arrangement he might erase you and me both. So, as I said the first option is to move around your current abilities, deducting them from one place to add to any other," with a swipe of her hand races, backgrounds, cla.s.ses, and more flowed through Kenji's mind.

"You can choose any combination. Choosing a dangerous area to begin will give you up to 500 more points, while you get nothing for safe areas. Difficult races like demons give you many bonus starting points too, seeing as they are considered the enemy of all living things, while bland races such as human will give you nothing. I think you get the idea."

Recovering from having his species being called 'bland' Kenji did what he hoped pa.s.sed for a nod. Without physical form, he wasn't sure the gesture translated. The woman nodded back.

"Human bodies, so intriguing," she said, pointing her middle finger at him. "Just as you thought, this is an amusing position for my central digit."

"Ok, ok. Let's get back on track, you said there's a second way of doing all this?" Kenji already had several combinations all picked out, although they required starting in h.e.l.lishly difficult environments. One starting zone was inside the world's seventh h.e.l.l in fact.

"The second option is this," the woman unveiled a giant spinning wheel. Large as a skysc.r.a.per, scrawled with millions of combinations of species, cla.s.s and environment. A golden arrow was positioned at the top. A depressing number were humans, Kenji having quickly thrown the race out of his calculations seeing how poor both their stats and progression speed was. No, if he wanted to min/max his stats to create a powerfully built, he'd need to be a vampire, demon, elemental or even a minor G.o.d. Although collecting the points necessary to start as a minor G.o.d was the scenario that began him in the seventh circle of h.e.l.l. Not a nice place, even if it was the most efficient to grind XP.

"If you're lucky, you might not only get a good setup without the point cost but a rare attribute, species, or starting zone too. A room filled with runic weaponry. A unique sub-species. A magical power lost to time-"

"That one," Kenji said immediately, throwing his strategies out the window. An unfortunate part of Kenji having been both a prolific gambler and obsessive when it came to anything of a limited edition. This method of gambling his future could not have been any more of a trigger for him.

"are you sure? It's very risky-"

Kenji 'grasped' the wheel, and heaved the whole thing to the side, the colourfully scrawl zipping past faster than a comet, as the wheel made a series of lazy revolutions. The little golden arrow at the top flickered dutifully with each pa.s.sing, slowly the wheel down further, and further.

As he watched the wheel came closer, and closer to ending at the back end of the wheel. There the scrawl became hair-thin with rare attributes, right before a huge swathe of 'Goblin-Slave-Runt' that came directly after.

Kenji sweated a metaphorical storm as the little arrow slowed closer to the tail end of the rare area. 'Goblin-slave-runt' came ever closer into sight, and Kenji sighed in defeat when he estimated that was indeed when where the wheel would land. He'd thrown his second life away just as he had his first-

The golden arrow halted...on what exactly? It appeared the very last line before goblin-slave-runt, but it was so thin it could just be the separating border?

"Did I get the rarest option, or am I a goblin now?" Kenji said, non-existent heart beating a wild rhythm somewhere between joy and sorrow. The woman winked, and everything started to fade.

"You'll have a skill that lets you mark any you deem worthy of being a true 'hero' and giving them a grade. I'll communicate with you as well from time to time, because, without results, I'll have to delete you anyway."

Kenji couldn't talk as his mind's const.i.tution fell apart.

Would he become a powerhouse from the beginning? Stronger than G.o.ds, mightier than knights and more powerful than demons.
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Or was he to be a goblin-slave-runt?

"Remember, the Everything depends on heroes. We need more of them, and rather soon."

The world collapsed to a point, and Kenji once again ceased to be.