=== STATUS ===
Eberhard Karlheinz von Flensburg Fahrenheit
Sex: Male
Age: 2
Vitality: 12/12
Mana: 6354/6354
Physical Ability: 3
Intelligence: 120
Magic Attribute: None
Unique Magic: [Impact]
Unique Skill: [Persistence Pays Off]
=== END STATUS ===
This is my current status.
First off, my name is stupidly long. Compared to the three kanji I had back in Japan, it's easily more than ten times longer. It's about on par with a certain demon lord's name1, honestly.
Gender and age are obvious just by looking, so I'll skip those. Next is Vitality. Basically HP - my physical stamina. About a year ago I caught a cold that got so bad I nearly died (I was pretty panicked - this world's medical tech isn't anywhere near as advanced as modern Japan's, so the baby death rate here is brutal). My Vitality dropped all the way down to 1 back then, so I figure it probably hits 0 and you die. Thank goodness Mom's a healing-type mage2...
Next, Mana. Yeah - this is the biggest reason I know this world isn't Earth. That, and the Status Screen. Apparently, magic exists in this world.
The feeling is hard to explain since I never had it on Earth. It's kind of like "ki" in a martial arts manga. A while after I was born, I noticed the mana inside me, and from then on I squeezed in every spare moment - except when I was sleeping or... otherwise occupied - to practice controlling it. I started by sensing the mana inside and around me, then moved it around my body, changed its shape, stretched it, squeezed it down - and somewhere in all that, I learned how to handle it. I noticed that when I kept cycling it through my body while squeezing it down, my mana gradually increased. After that, I spent a year and a half straight working on making my mana stronger, and before I knew it, I'd ended up with this insane number.
Once you master the ability to sense mana, you can start sensing the mana filling other people's bodies too. What I learned from that: my old man's around four thousand, Mom's at three thousand five hundred, my big sister's at one hundred, and the maid lady's at eighty-five. Watching my dad train every single day without fail and run practice fights against what look like his men, it seems my family is a real fight-loving bunch - so the maid lady's eighty-five is probably a normal amount of mana. My number is monster-level, and if that made people creeped out and got me kicked out of the family, that'd be a disaster. So the other day, I actually came up with a technique to squeeze my mana down and seal it deep inside my body to hide how much mana I have on the surface. It seems like the kind of skill that'll come in handy down the road, so I'm glad I picked it up now.
Next, Physical Ability. For a 2-year-old, a 3 seems about right. Standing, walking, and once in a while running and tripping - that's my all-out effort right now. Even my 4-year-old sister picks me up like it's nothing.
Also, my dad's the monster on this one too. I can't get an exact number since I can't use Appraisal, but he casually dragged home a giant boar that looked like it weighed at least two tons (yeah, this world really is something else) - so maybe he's around five thousand. Thinking that someday I, the son of that man, might get all buff too (oh man)... considering how skinny I was in my last life, it kind of makes my chest feel warm.
Next, Intelligence. I'm just guessing it's probably IQ. This world probably doesn't have IQ tests, but this Status Screen probably wasn't made by humans either. If it's being shown by some kind of power or event beyond human understanding, it wouldn't be strange for it to use Earth's IQ scale.
And 120 is my IQ from when I measured it a few years ago. It's not exactly high, but I was at least ranked 2nd in my grade at a school meant to get you into a good college, so it's a number where effort can get you decent results. I'm still only two, so depending on how hard I work from here, I can definitely raise it more. Aim for genius! IQ 200!
Next, Magic Attribute. I don't really get this one. It's probably the usual basic four or five attributes you see in fantasy manga - that kind of thing. Fire, water, wind, earth - stuff like that. No matter how much I think about it, it's just guessing, so I'll look into the details by reading books or asking people.
Next, Unique Magic. I don't really get this one either. It's probably magic that only I can use - magic unique to me. But I have no idea how to use it. Even when I shout "[Impact!]" in my head, or actually shout "Impact!" out loud, nothing happens. Although - when I shouted it thinking no one was around, the maid lady was right behind me cleaning, and that was a real shock. Her smile, like she was looking at something cute, was a little embarrassing.
Finally, the Unique Skill [Persistence Pays Off]. I'm betting this is the one and only, ultimate cheat. The reason is that just this [Persistence Pays Off] part - when you tap it, an explanation pops up like it's a link.
=== SKILL DETAIL ===
Unique Skill: [Persistence Pays Off]
Little by little, dust becomes a mountain; countless raindrops pierce stone. Both lines are just saying that effort always pays off, and as long as you keep working, your abilities keep growing.
Growth Limit: None
=== END SKILL DETAIL ===
The fact that my mana is that abnormal is fully explained by this Unique Skill. The description that you grow as much as you work doesn't seem to be a lie.
Cheats are a staple of otherworld reincarnation. You could even call it the standard template. Sure, there are some hard-mode players out there who start with no cheat and as a farmer, but as someone whose last life was already hard mode, I'd like to live it easy and build a harem this time if I can. At the very least, I want this to be a world where effort gets rewarded as much as you put in.
After I died in that accident, as I was rising up to heaven (or rather, to space), I wished: "If it's possible, I want to live a life where my effort actually pays off this time," I don't know if God really exists, but if He or She does, I want to give them my deepest thanks. Now that I've been reincarnated in another world, I think this: this time, I want it to pay off. I'll work hard, put in the effort, get rewarded, and live happily.
I'm still 2. If people in this world live as long as Earthlings, I've got a little over eighty years left. I'll live a life I can be satisfied with. And I'll show up all those people who coast through life without even trying. Doing that will be the least I can offer to my past self, who died without ever being rewarded. Effort, you bastard3 - this time you can't betray me!
Okay, that's about all I know about my own status. If I can, I want to read some books soon and learn more about magic. I mean, come on - I'm a noble, from a fairly high-ranking border count family, so there have to be books about magic around. Mom's apparently a mage too.
Now that that's decided, it's time to take action and go read some books. I toddled out of my room (I'm only 2 and I already have my own room - nobles really are something...), and started exploring toward the study I hadn't seen yet. There's a saying, "Make yourself at home in a stranger's house," but I don't even know my own home beyond the dining room, the salon (the noble version of a living room - super stylish and just huge), and the bathroom. The stairs and stuff are dangerous, so basically I'm not allowed out of my room unless a guardian's with me. I don't even get to go outside except when I'm taking a walk in the garden with Mom (which is also insanely huge - kind of like an English garden and a French garden mashed together).
I want to grow up fast and get my freedom to move around. When you're little, there's nothing to do, and it's just endlessly boring.
Trivia:
- Eberhard hides his true mana on purpose because he fears being seen as a monster and cast out, which means his revealed 6354 is already the sealed, toned-down number.
- The maid's mana of 85 serves as the story's baseline for a normal person, quietly setting the scale that makes the father's 4000 and Eberhard's own figure feel monstrous.
- The Unique Skill's link-like tap-to-open description hints that the Status Screen is an outside system, not something native to this world, which fits Eberhard's guess that it comes from something beyond human understanding.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ A censored reference to a famous demon lord's long name from a Japanese light novel, used here as a joke about how absurdly long the protagonist's new name is.
2 ↩ Affectionate, slightly old-fashioned Japanese baby-talk for "Mom," kept as "Mom" and "Mom" in English to preserve the warm, childish tone.
3 ↩ A playful personification of "effort" as a rival or enemy, which loses some punch in literal English; kept as "Effort, you bastard" to preserve the joking, defiant tone.