A Certain Middle-Aged Man’s VRMMO Activity Log - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The First Day

…It was faster than expected.
The day that I could experience a VRMMO has come.

My name is Tanaka Daichi, and this year I’m turning 38.

Even at this age, I still haven’t stopped gaming. My parents said that it’s irresponsible and that I should stop.
I don’t think it’s really something to get angry about.
After all, I’m definitely someone who’s totally in love with games.

Anyways, games really are amazing.
Because even though I’m 38, when I enter a game, I can travel new lands with all my heart or fly high in the sky.

“Why is that so amazing?” Well, there are people who say that.
But, when you start getting old, your body will inevitably grow weaker.
Whether it’s professional baseball players or Olympic athletes, the majority of these people will retire in their mid-30s.
Although, in your teens, it’s hard to imagine that you will one day grow weak… that’s the reality.
Even I have become an Ossan [TN: middle-aged man]… I don’t like it, but it’s true.

Well then, that was a long introduction, but now we’ll start actually talking about the VRMMO!
First off, the game is called [One More Free Life Online]. It’s a pretty straightforward name, and the goal is simply to for a person to enjoy a new life.
The day before yesterday, the open beta came to a close, and 10 minutes from now is the scheduled official start.

The game’s contents… it’s a standard MMORPG where you level up your skills.
There’s no base levels, so all skill levels come from your character’s growth… so I guess it’s really a skill-type MMORPG.
You choose 10 skills at the beginning. As you get stronger, you can learn other skills “to some extent”.
Once you reach a certain level in a skill, you earn Ex Points which you can consume to learn a new skill… or at least, that’s what the beta testers said.
Because of that, if you just randomly choose your skills at the beginning, you could end up being a jack of all trades, but a master of none.
And therein lies the guarantee of the MMORPG.

Defeating the demon king, such a grand quest doesn’t exist.
The game is designed purely for a person’s enjoyment of a different life.
There are monsters, crafting, and chatting, but it’s up to the player to decide what to do.

Looks like it’s about time to begin!
I hope everyone will forgive them if the MMORPG servers crash on the first day.

… There was no problem logging in. I guess the servers are better than I thought.

Now then, time to make a character!
First of all, character name… well it’s simple, but “Earth” will do, since my name means earth (TN: Daichi = ground).
At any rate that’s just a cool-sounding name that popped into my head.

The character’s outward appearance… well, let’s go with a 19-year-old. Height, about 176cm sounds good.
Black hair and black eyes. I’m a bit picky about that. And also… there’s no need to be too good-looking.
Beautiful women and handsome boys, I always hear about them having perfect symmetry. So, let’s shift a couple things around a bit here.
The nose shouldn’t be too high either… (TN: high noses are considered elegant in many cultures)
Gender is male, of course. Well, that goes without saying. Lying about your gender is definitely a no go.

Although I, the player, am 38 years old, I haven’t grown old in my heart, so I’m picking a young character. In a world where I can move freely as a young man, there’s no need to bring in any of my smelly real life as an Ossan. My heart is totally bored of my real body. Since this is a virtual world, I can let my heart be free and feel young again.

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… Alright, there we go.
Ehh, I look like a generic NPC character in a console game, don’t I?
Well, I’ll just think of it as acting as a foil for the scenery. (TN: “foil” as in, he doesn’t look particularly good, so the scenery, by juxtaposition, feels like it looks even better than it actually does.)
I’ll leave the goal of becoming a beautiful woman or pretty boy to others. I’m not the type of guy that wants to be the main character.

Next is skill selection, or something like that.
I think I’ll main in skills that, based on the news so far, are pretty obscure, or rather, based on beta reviews, totally useless. That way, I can just have a totally carefree time in the game.
You might imagine that a 38-year-old would have work to do every week.
I have today and tomorrow off, but normally I won’t be able to play more than an hour or two a day… in other words, I’ll mostly have to play solo.
If that’s the case, I don’t really want to have any worries or concerns about what’s happening in the game. That’s why I chose pretty useless skills.

Anyways, my skill choices were: Archery, Kicking, Sharp Eyes, Wind Magic, Crafting, Cooking, Woodworking, Medicine, Stealth, and Physical Boost.

Those are the 10.
At a glance, they look pretty bad, huh. From the news, out of those… at least 6 are useless!
Archery, Kicking, Wind Magic, Medicine, Stealth, and Physical Boost.

The problem with Archery is aiming, since there’s no automatic targeting system.
Furthermore, the skill doesn’t perform particularly well even if you put a lot of effort into it.
And even worse, the damage you do is only about 75% of what you could do with a one-handed sword.
It’s kind of a useless skill to choose, huh… for long-range attacks, magic does the job much better.

As for Kicking… if it’s as reported by the beta testers, the skill has no Arts – that is to say, something like a special ability.
For other skills, upon reaching level 10 you get some kind of special technique, but for kicking, well let’s just say that there were people saying “What the hell, I’m at level 30 in Kicking and there isn’t anything special. What a shitty skill.”
(By the way, most skills that involve physical [Striking] get special techniques.)
The truth of the matter is that, aside from already lacking in solo capabilities with the bow skill, not having any close-range combat ability is pretty dangerous for me.

Wind magic… well, at a glance it sounds like its useful, but if you look closer, you’ll see that it’s pretty lacking. Although there’s a pretty decent buff skill that increases your speed, everything else is lacking in both attack power and recovery power.
It falls far behind the other elements in attack power (the elements being Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Light, and Dark, for a total of 6). As for recovery, wind magic is only anywhere from 1/2 to 1/4 as good as water and light recovery skills.

Medicine is the skill for making potions. It’s pretty useful in normal MMOs, but…
In this game you can buy good potions in bulk from NPCs at low prices, so making your own potions only makes you look like an idiot.
Also, since the cooldown timer for using potions is pretty low, there’s no real point in needing to use particularly strong potions.
That’s what the beta testers all strongly agreed to.

Stealth… although being able to become hidden seems to be a great power, the cost is just cruel.
It costs 1% of your max MP per second. If you use it for 10 seconds, the cost increases to 2%; at 20 seconds, 4%, and so on, with the cost jumping up every 10 seconds.
And also, there’s monsters with smell, sound, and heat detection, so against them Stealth is totally useless.

Physical Boost… it improves things like running, weapon attack speed, crafting speed, etc, which is all nice, but…
At the end of the day, you just end up being a jack of all trades, and a master of none. When compared to more specialized skills, it’s far weaker than everything else.
Since it does boost a lot of things, the end result is a character who’s well-balanced but with no particular strengths.
Well, since I just want to do a variety of things, I guess it’s a good choice for me.

Anyways, that’s about it for character creation.
By the way, I haven’t mentioned this game to anyone I know in real life.
No, that’s not say I don’t have friends… it’s just that my friends all like to drink.
In reality, they’re all nice people, but for someone like me who can’t drink, being with them is sometimes like being surrounded by demons.
Why can’t I be someone who can drink endlessly without a care in the world?

It’d be nice to make a new acquaintance in the game, someone that I can enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime playing experience with.
Although I’ll be burdened with a bow and quiver on my back, I’m prepared for something like that. It’s just the fate of playing an MMORPG.
If there are good people out there, to be able to meet them, that would be really fortunate, huh.

As for my playstyle… I guess I’ll try to be a Ranger.
There’s nothing like a “job” within the game, but I’ll have plenty to do between finding treasures hidden in a forest, going hunting, cooking food to eat, making a bow through woodworking, and collecting the cost parts for making arrows. And I can even collect herbs in the forest to make pots. When it’s dangerous, I’ll just use Stealth. And with all of those things, Physical Boost will be helpful.

That’s my dream at least. My dreams have really changed as I’ve grown up, but I’m happy with it.
Well, it’s time to login. I hope I’ll have fun enjoying my new life.

[Welcome to One More Free Life Online!]