"Look at that damn nerd playing all by himself again."
After graduating elementary school and entering middle school, those were the words he started to hear.
Even for a young Harold, interpersonal relationships were too much of a pain. It was not like he hated them, per se, but putting in effort to maintain them was stressful.
And because of his personality, he was ostracized throughout middle school. He felt lonely, but was still mostly satisfied.
The turning point in his past life came during high school, when the indifference turned into mild bullying.
Dumping of little pieces of paper on his head or desk, sticking out their legs to trip him up, occasionally doodling on his table; he still didn't know who carried out those acts but it never pissed him off.
Okay, maybe he got angry a little, but the damage was never too large to make him feel the urge to do something about it so he kept quiet, unaware of what it was doing to his self-confidence.
From merely being lazy, it turned into him creating a solid shell that separated him from the world. His parents noticed it but they too were on the opposite side of the shell.
Even after he regained consciousness in his current world, he was only slightly regretful about it and never really thought anything about it.
'I guess it was not that much of a big deal.' Was his thought before his excitement about the new, game-like world.
Gamer. That word meant something to Harold. He forgot after his initial shock of not having an OP skill but the blow given to him woke him up.
'How could I forget?' Harold narrowed his eyes and cleared his head and, in his mind, he went through all of his skills, stats, and condition.
After double checking within a split second, he did the same for his opponents and grinned.
'A conquest. A challenge. A mountain. That is the true identity of a game. And a gamer is one who derives pleasure from conquering them.' Harold was afraid. The wolves had a high chance of killing him.
'But isn't a true gamer someone who delights in it? The fear of losing. Rejoicing in that is what makes a great gamer.'
Those words said by a familiar person popped in his head, though he couldn't recall where he had heard them.
'I underestimated them.' Harold acknowledged. 'I got a little too cocky and forgot to check the boss's skills.'
'I'm in a serious pinch. I'm definitely scared. The challenge is overwhelming. I may lose my life. But…' Harold lifted his head to the ceiling and laughed.
'… this isn't an impossible game!'
The skill, [Ghostly Manipulation], was a skill that allowed Harold to interfere with objects without touching them.
It manifested for him as a pair of invisible, near intangible arms, that could split into smaller portions. By making them numerous and weaving them together, he could form a shield. By making a single large hand, he could pick up stuff and throw them around.
'How about I try something different?' Harold touched the ground and leaped into the air.
Concentrating, he split the invisible hands into tiny, thread-like parts and wove them into the shape of a dagger. Two of them.
"[Concentration]." Harold activated his skill and felt his stats rise across the board and grabbed the daggers and used a smaller part to pull himself to the ground.
"Awooo!" the wolves howled and countless wind blades soared into the air.
"Haa!" Harold used [Ghostly Manipulation] in tandem with [Flicker], turning him into an unpredictable streak as he dodged every single one of the blades.
'I may have lost my skill, [Slash], but I definitely did not lose my memory of it.' Harold recalled the familiar energy pathway of the skill and brought his phantom blades on the neck of a wolf.
[Slash]!
A canine's head spun in the air in slow motion as Harold rapidly changed targets.
'The only one I need to be wary of is the Alpha. And that is the weakness of this pack.' Monsters tended to obey the rule of the strong which meant the leader was the strongest.
'In other words, there isn't a single enemy stronger than this guy.' Harold leapt and carried the heart of another wolf and dodged the Alpha's strike with one fluid motion.
Magic and the Alpha's skill, those were the only two things that could threaten Harold's life.
One by one, the wolves around the Alpha fell, driving him into a frenzy as the entire pack howled and increased the intensity of their attacks.
"You know! The thing about moving in groups is that… your attacks become to repetitive!" Harold yelled as he raised a wolf and it was torn apart the next second by the Alpha.
'Poor guy.' It was nothing more than hypocrisy as he kicked into the air and pointed his hands at the remaining wolves.
[You have learnt the spell, Fireball.]
That message came in just as Harold released his largest fireball to date, measuring up to five meters in size.
KA-BOOM! The forest shook as multiple trees caught fire, turning it from a creepy wood into a blazing prairie.
'I finally learnt a spell.' Spells were quite different from skills and could not be bought directly with skill points. Instead, they had to be mastered little by little.
'Just another way this game-like world imitates reality.' Harold shook his head and floated in the air and took a look at his MP.
[MP: 200/300]
'Okay! Looks like my plan worked.' Harold smiled a little at his status. If he had been injured even once, his MP would be lower than it currently is.
'Let's see how many of them were killed by that attack.' Harold peered through the smoke and saw that out of the initial 38, only 9 was remaining, including the Alpha.
"Guess I should test out my new spell."
[Spell – Fireball
Description: Creates a ball of flames, dealing 200 damage upon explosion.
Cost: 20MP
Cooldown: 3 seconds.
]
'Finally!' Harold made a fist and raised it up. 'My very first spell!'
"AWOO!" The Alpha yelled, drawing Harold's attention to the fight.
"Don't worry, I'm coming."