Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

You have slept in your own bed! HP and SP restored 100%. Gained “Well Rested” buff!

When he woke up to a blue screen in front of his face proclaiming him well rested, Mutou Yuugi was about 95% sure he was still dreaming. He’d fallen asleep gaming the night before, as usual, but even then his television was on the wall at the foot of his bed, not the side. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, wondering if that’d make the screen go away. When he opened them again, it was still there, like it was taunting him. He frowned, poking at the box. It felt solid, rippling slightly with rainbow static where his finger touched it, not unlike the LCD screen.

Further experimentation had to wait though, as he was startled out of his inspection by his mom shouting for him. “Yuugi! You need to wake up or you’ll be late!” A loud PING! sounded off, another box popping up by the first one. This new box was light grey rather than blue, and written mostly in bold text. It was also much larger than the first, containing much more text.

Baffled, Yuugi hesitantly pressed the large O to accept the “quest”, jumping back with a yelp when the box suddenly disappeared. He shook his head, glancing at the clock and scrambling out of bed like the devil himself was on his heels. He didn’t have time to worry about the box now, he had to go! Hastily he swiped his hand through the still-present blue box, barely registering it rippling out of existence as he hurriedly tripped over himself trying to pull on his school uniform. Not having time to put his contacts in, he just quickly ran a brush through his mess of curls and grabbed his glasses, hopping on one foot as he tried to pull on his sock at the same time. A couple quick swipes of deodorant later, and he was good to go. Maybe a bit more disheveled than he’d like, but ready nonetheless. Not that it mattered, his classmates bullied him anyway and the teachers already thought him a no good slacker.

He skidded downstairs, almost slipping on the rug and faceplanting down the stairs before overcorrecting on the banister. “Bye Mom gotta go love you!” he shouted, snatching up a few of last night’s tempura from the counter and stuffing it in his mouth. He pulled his bento out of the fridge and pulled on his shoes, bursting out the side door to take the alley shortcut.

He made it to class with seconds to spare, wheezing slightly as he slunk to his seat. Nobody really paid him any attention, getting their last bit of socializing in before the teacher came in to start homeroom, and he was grateful for it. He’d just plopped down in his seat when another PING! sounded.

Since there was no way he was still asleep with all that adrenaline in his system, Yuugi had no choice but to accept this nonsense as a new part of his reality. He’d fiddle with it a bit later, but he had to pay attention now. He’d mess with it at lunch or something, because there’s no way he’d be able to ignore it until he got home again.

--

After what felt like a million, agonizingly slow years, lunch rolled around. Everyone else in class 3-B ran outside, almost knocking over poor Yamada-sensei in their haste to leave the room while the weather was still good. Yuugi just rolled his eyes at their exuberance, choosing instead to stare out the window until he was sure everyone was gone. As soon as the last of them left the room, teacher included, he zoned back into reality. “Okay.....time to fiddle. I know there’s quests, so—” before he could go any further, a dark window edged in blue popped up in front of him. On the top were several tabs, the currently open one labeled “Quest Log”, fittingly enough. The others weren’t labeled, though they did have a few strange icons that he’d look at later.

On the left of the window, greyed out, was the word “Schoolboy”. Vaguely, Yuugi remembered that the quest he’d completed (and he still wasn’t thinking about that, no sir) had been called the same thing. He tapped it, raising an eyebrow when the black window suddenly filled with text. It was the same text he’d seen before, when the quest had first shown up, though instead of the buttons to accept or refuse it just said COMPLETED in big, bold English letters. He frowned, rubbing his eyes under his glasses as he felt a headache coming on. His English was good, but not that good. Time for another test.

“Um.....Options?” he tried, smiling slightly when another window popped up. This one was entirely blue, and much smaller than the quest window it was overlaid on. There were three choices, each again in English.

The “Audio” and “Graphics” options were greyed out, so he chose the top one, “Gameplay”. The window rippled slightly, expanding a bit to show the new options. A lot of it was nonsense to him, but he did see the language option towards the bottom. He selected it, scanning the list and smiling when he noticed Japanese was next on the list under English. He selected it quickly and breathed a sigh of relief as the menus rippled, becoming something he could read much easier. He accepted the changes, before backing out into the gameplay options again. Now that he could read them, he saw that there really weren’t that many. He did turn on the minimap and HUD out of curiosity, but left everything else as it was.

He backed out of the menu again, eyes almost immediately catching the new additions to his point of view. In the top right corner, a tiny map of the third floor of the school was shown, with a blue triangle in one of the rooms. He glanced at the map, eyes widening when it expanded, solidifying a bit. Now that it was bigger, he could see that the map was zoomed into his classroom (or, what he assumed was his classroom), and he figured that the triangle was supposed to represent him. He stopped focusing on the map, letting it go back to normal, and instead looked at the new bars towards the bottom of his field of view. One was red, probably a HP bar, and next to it was another, made of small, grey orbs. Below that was a green bar, probably stamina or MP, though he was leaning towards stamina. Because honestly, weird game powers or not, this was still real life and magic didn’t exist. He nodded firmly, choosing to believe that until it was proven otherwise.

Yuugi decided to let the HUD and the map stay for now, as they weren’t exactly intrusive. It was a little weird to be sure, but he got used to it easily enough. Next on his list was figuring out exactly how much of a game his life had apparently become. But first..... “Stats,” he thought firmly, grinning when another window popped up. That was handy, it’d suck if he had to go around shouting out things like “Inventory” around other people.

He shook his head, focusing on the status screen. On it was a tiny, 3D model of himself, and he shook his head in disgust. Did his hair really look that unkempt? No wonder Anzu avoided being seen with him! He sighed, choosing to ignore the Mini-Yuugi for now as to avoid a self-loathing spiral. He focused instead on the text below the Mini-Yuugi, facepalming at his terrible stats.

Annoyed, Yuugi felt his eye twitch involuntarily as he read the description. “What the hell is this? And whaddya mean ‘Victim’?!” he groused, glaring at the screen. This thing made him out to be some kind of depressed moron! Sure he only had one friend and he preferred to play video games than do homework, but that didn’t mean his life was that bad! He rolled his eyes, but stabbed a finger at the titles anyway. He poked the one labeled “Victim” first, wanting to know how the hell to get rid of it.

Yuugi growled again, pressing the “Unequip” button so fast his finger almost bent on the semi-physical screen. A confirmation screen popped up, but he ignored it, slamming the accept button. His shoulders slumped as an aura of something enveloped him, but honestly it was a small price to pay, in his opinion. Just to make sure, he glanced at the still-open “Status” screen, relaxing when he noticed that the titles no longer included “Victim”. Maybe that meant he’d be singled out less, though honestly he strongly doubted it. Sure, he knew logically that it was super unlikely that everyone hated him and wanted to see him suffer personally, but anxiety was a hell of a bitch to deal with.

That done, he turned his attention back to the forgotten quest window. He only had about half an hour until everyone started coming back in, and he did want to eat at some point. He pushed the next tab, this one with a strange looking sigil of some sort on it. When the tab expanded, he saw it was labelled “Skills”. This one had more tabs on the left, each with their own labels. The top one said “Attack”, the next said “Defense”, and below that one were “Utility” and “Passive”.

The “Attack” tab was already selected, and in the middle he could see a skill tree with only one icon, the rest of the branches leading to nothing. The icon was greyed out and had the image of a tiny man performing some sort of martial arts move. Assuming it was some sort of physical attack skill, Yuugi ignored it. While it would be nice to be able to defend himself, it was rather useless to him if he didn’t want to fight. He wasn’t stupid, he knew he was small and relatively weak. He wouldn’t last a second in a physical fight, and there wasn’t any point in spending points on skills he’d never use. As he was about to hit the “Defense” tab, however, another ping sounded.

For thinking about a problem logically, +1 WIS!

That’s.......concerning. He could earn points just by doing actions in real life? Once he shook off the implications of everything in his life being watched over like one big cosmic joke, it was actually pretty cool. It meant he wouldn’t have to rely solely on spending points to get higher levels in his stats, which was nice. He sighed, pushing the “Defense” tab. This one had more skills unlocked, though they were still greyed out. He frowned, wondering if there was a tutorial somewhere. Another familiar ping, and a new window popped up next to him. This one automatically closed out all the other windows, which was fine by him. It was getting a little crowded, and he’d almost started feeling like some sort of sci-fi character. He shook his head, focusing on the new window.

Welcome to the Game!