Blue colored on the background, petal-less flowers adornments on each corner of the black outlines, and two lines of white typing on a monitor sized screen. The mail that appeared in front of him with those features wasn’t the most uncommon looking when compared to the quest list one, but caused an even worse effect...

“Lara?”

Toushiro waved his hand in front of her and poked her cheek but, there was no reaction... like a statue, that was the feeling he got from her current state.

‘First it was a mute around me, now paralysis?’

“What’s so important that they had to mute noises and paralyze people...?”

The mobile game he was holding onto until now had also stopped the timer’s countdown.

“No way, right?”

He got up and tried to open the glass doors but it didn’t budge an inch. He tried to turn the TV but it was the same. Opening the faucet. Turning door knobs. Nothing he did caused any sort of reaction from objects or people as if everything became untouchable.

{Have you decided on, “Lara”, as your username?}

Following him around the place like glue was the system message that had changed into this after his initial reaction.

“...No.”

{Decide upon an username: ___. (Max of 13 characters) Warning: It cannot be changed afterwards.}

‘An username, huh... I wonder how much of a game my life will become after this.’

“Toushiro.”

{Have you decided on, “Toushiro”, as your username?}

“Yes.”

{The username has been set as, Toushiro.}

{As a consequence of setting an username, your personal information has been updated.}

{Displaying the user, Toushiro’s personal information...}

{Player’s username: Toushiro.

Level: 0. | Class: None.

Main Title: None. | Sub-Title: None.

(Profile) [Stats] [Skills] [Titles]}

“Huh? How did u end up there?”

Lara who hadn’t even blinked once until now, began to speak like normal as she noticed he was gone from his seat. At the same time, every door and switch started to make clang and click noises across the apartment.

“Wha- what’s happening?”

‘If they went that far to stop people from disturbing the username decision then...’

“No, I just noticed you were spacing out so I pulled a prank on you.”

“Haa, what a mature adult that u are.”

Toushiro nodded as he got up and walked back to the counter.

“Ué, what is it?”

“Don’t mind it, I just wanted to poke your cheeks.”

“Well, that’s fine, but what about the game? Are u tired of it already?”

“No, I think I will play it a lot from now on. It’s just getting late and I’m tired.”

He had turned off his phone and taken hers to the sofa with him, all so she wouldn’t notice the time when it resumed. So after taking the pizza out of the box, putting them into containers and then into the fridge, they washed the plates together.

“By the way, I thought you were going out when I saw the dress.”

“And where would I go on a monday night?”

“I don’t know. You came home with your nails done, you washed your hair and then used that nice perfume you have. It would be hard to not think so.”

“...”

“Why, did I miss something?”

Her hands stopped drying the plates he was piling up so he glanced at her, only to see her eyes wide open and mouth agape. Curiosity took over him and his face approached hers, Lara didn’t seem to mind and even closed her eyes...

“Your temperature seems fine.”

“...Haa.”

After touching her forehead with his own, Toushiro got back on washing the dishes as if nothing happened. Lara, however, said she was going to change clothes to sleep and let him deal with the rest.

“Is this never gonna disappear?”

While wiping the counter clean, he raised his head and glared at the personal information screen floating in front of him. It followed him all the time and didn’t appear to have any buttons for closing.

“I surely don’t have any skills or titles since the mails from before only mentioned that it altered my personal information. But what about stats?”

With one hand wiping, he pressed the [Stats] button and the contents of the floating screen changed like the swipe of a smartphone’s screen.

{Stats:

Strength: 5 [+] [-] | Stamina: 5 [+] [-]

Dexterity: 5 [+] [-] | Sense: 5 [+] [-]

Wisdom: 5 [+] [-] | Luck: 5 [+] [-]

Available Stat Points: 0.

[Profile] (Stats) [Skills] [Titles]}

“Yes!”

He acted as if he had won the lottery, striking a winning pose and all.

“RPG-like stats for the win. Wait, what’s sense for? There’s the usual luck, strength, dexterity and wisdom. Each one for a specialized profession in games, like mages using wisdom and warriors with high strength.”

“Stamina must be similar to vitality, but sense... doesn’t sound familiar at all. Luck also doesn’t sound like a stat anyone would spend points on, even in games where it was important for critical attacks it could be substituted by items at any given time.”

“I can’t how would this-”

Luck: 4 [+] [-]

Available Stat Points: 1.

“This is a lie...”

He pressed the minus button for all stats and then replaced them until the available count became zero again only to be greeted by this.

{Would you like to redefine your stats?}

“Well, no?”

And right away, the numbers went back to the basic five on all stats. After messing around with it for a bit, and pushing away another alert notification, he figured what felt so curious about the stats.

[1x Stats Reorganization Privilege]

One of the choosable rewards of his second quest was related to stats. It was already curious enough that these rewards were squared like buttons but didn’t stick out like them. So when he tried tapping it for once, this is the screen that was shown.

{[Stat Reorganization Privilege (One-time use)]

Class: System Modifier. | Rating: Unique.}

It didn’t give away any important details or functions, and disappeared from even the slight touch of his hands.

“Maybe it’s like a free chance so I can know how useful it is, then should I choose it as my reward?”

“...Better check the others before deciding.”

{[Ten Stat Points Scroll]

Class: System Scroll. | Rating: Unique.}

“How good can ten stat points be?”

{[Full Restore Potion]

Class: Elixir. | Rating: Legendary.}

“That is... not ignorable either.”

{[Lucky Box (Small)]

Class: Gacha. | Rating: Event-Only.}

“What’s gacha? And the rating is weird.”

“The potion and the box are the special choices for sure. Let me search what’s gacha, but elixirs are made anywhere...”

“Wait, the X next to personal information became an O? so just opening it was enough to clear another step, that’s half of them done.”

Done with wiping clean the dishes and the counter, he went into his bedroom, took a pillow and closed his door...

Knock- Knock-

Thud!... Clack-

“What is it?”

‘She tripped...’ “To sleep.”

“To what? What?”

Without waiting for her reply, he walked into her room while letting a chuckle escape.

Unlike his colorless and boring room, hers was certainly the definition of “lively”. With blue paint on the walls, the shelves with not-so-organized books and comics, and there was a big orange pouf beside a tea table at the center that felt comfortable just from the looks alone.

“I can’t believe u made a mess of ur room again.”

“I was tired when I got back too... what were you readi-”

“Wait, don’t go getting touchy with my things.”

Toushiro picked up a sort of book? Magazine? From the table and read the lines circled in pink.

“Are you changing your look?”

“Aah, shut up! I can’t believe this- Why are you taking your clothes off!?”

“It’s uncomfortable to sleep with the shirt on, and your blanket is warmer than mine so I’m taking off the long pants. Ah, don’t worry, I have shorts beneath.”

“I won’t even ask why...”

There were hangers outside the wardrobe with different dresses, cosmetics out of their boxes, and a second hand mirror on top of the desk beside her bed.

‘This is a lot of effort.’

“Lara, what’s gacha?”

“Hell.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind. Sorry, I didn’t hear what u said. Repeat, please?”

A menacing tone of voice... She didn’t stop placing the books on the shelves but her words made a noticeable difference in the mood.

‘Choose your words wisely, me.’

“I don’t know what gacha is, could you tell me about it?”

Click

She turned off the lights. Walked silently towards him, who had already sat down on the bed, and cupped his face between her hands. Just like earlier, she touched his forehead with her own and mustered.

“Time to sleep.”

‘I guess this won’t proceed.’

“Okay, I will sleep.”

“Good.”

After a caress on the cheek he laid down and covered himself with the blanket. She was nice enough to set his pillow properly beneath his head, like a mother, before laying down on the other side with her back to him.

He looked at the ceiling for some time before murmuring.

“How much time did I have remaining on the timer? And I still didn’t find the inventory. Voice commands, please... open inventory. Show inventory? Enter inventory...?”

{Entering the Inventory Space...}

The ceiling vanished without a trace. The feeling of the bed on his back disappeared and instead, the feeling of his body floating started to grow from his legs. Illumination was lighted out of nowhere, in the literal sense, as white walls started to close him like a box.

{...Welcome to the Inventory Space, user.}

‘Bright...?’

‘I can’t speak? My voice isn’t coming out, or I just can’t hear it? Whichever it is, I don’t like this.’

‘...There is nothing?’

White walls. White flooring. White ceiling. And the white light that came out of them gave a feeling of not having a limit, but it was quickly broken by the black outlines that proved that this was indeed a box.

Except for himself in there, it was completely...

‘What’s that?’

It was just then that he saw a piece of paper, maybe the lower half of a page fall from the ceiling. When it touched the floor, a white cube was formed around it and somehow made it... float? To the surface of the cube.

‘It’s not that far but...’

Toushiro tried to take a step forward but as he noticed at first, instead of his legs, there was just a mist beneath his torso. And it was impossible to move like that.

‘Huh, that... paper? Can you come closer? Can I get closer to you?’

Fortunately, after extending his arm towards it, it actually moved. Sliding itself to his side in the same way that a crab would. And when it got within his arm’s reach, he picked up on the paper... or tried to.

{[??? (Lower)]

Class: ???. | Rating: Normal.

Description: Press Use to read.

[Use] [Trash]}

Touching the piece of paper only caused the same screen as the choosable rewards, however... it was ominous.

‘It’s really unreadable.’

From a glance at the writing on the paper he could only see scribbles that didn’t resemble any language in this world, it was similar to a kid’s drawing from how unorganized the words were.

‘This is the first yes or no question I’m getting I guess.’

‘I’m curious about the trash button, does it ask if I’m sure?’

After pondering for a while he shook his head and pressed [Use].

{??? (Lower) has been consumed.}

{Contents of ??? (Lower) were translated as following:

—th that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to the inventory feature.

The place where all contents of a quest reward will be deposited and, if desired, where all your properties can be kept with the utmost security from invaders and thieves. There are no exceptions to the protection of our storage room, otherwise called “Inventory Space”.

The limit of items was made to propagate the desire of expanding through certain methods to our users, and it’s shown through the number of “Slots” that one has. Each slot is a cube that stores a single class of items until a certain amount is reached, which is then called a “Stack”. The amount of items allowed in a stack can vary per class, going from the small number of twenty to the enormous amount of nine hundred-ninety-nine.}

Chapter 4 - Stack that Curiosity