A well-known franchise cafe downtown.
"Customer number 26. One americano, as ordered."
"Thank you."
I placed the coffee I received on the table and took out an iPad from my bag.
I was looking into the upcoming Academy entrance exam.
Two schoolgirls in uniforms were chatting at the next table.
"Did you see that?"
"See what?"
"The thing I posted on Insta~"
"Ah. You mean that 'Dark Night' video?"
I ducked my head deeply in embarrassment.
Of all things, it was my story.
It all started from a video that had spread on the internet.
Early dawn.
A dingy alley with flickering neon signs far in the distance.
A figure in a black robe was stabbing someone collapsed on the ground with a dagger.
The inside of the figure's robe was nothing but pitch-black darkness.
The footage was strangely distorted, making it impossible to tell not only the figure's height but even their build, whether male or female.
"S-spare me!"
A muscular bald man.
He lay belly-down on the floor, trembling.
He tried to get up, but his body wouldn't listen.
The figure reached a hand toward his body.
Blue flames flared up from his entire body.
The flames spread like a wildfire, devouring his body, and before long, only ashes remained in that spot.
The figure took a post-it note from within the robe, wrote 'Robber' on it, and carefully placed it on top of the ashes.
He turned toward the camera and raised an index finger to his lips.
A gesture telling them to keep it secret.
As the person presumed to be the camera's owner nodded their head vigorously, the screen shook along with it.
"I won't tell anyone, ever!"
The figure nodded and leisurely vanished into a deeper, darker alley.
Thus, the video ended.
It was the video secretly filmed by the office worker I had saved.
He uploaded the video to the internet, and it spread rapidly.
'I told him not to tell. Ungrateful...'
Insolent bastard.
As this video spread, the hunts I had carried out until now were re-examined, and people began calling me 'Identity Unknown' or 'Dark Night'.
'Identity Unknown' was likely a nickname stemming from my robe, while 'Dark Night' seemed to be taken from some movie due to the aspect of punishing criminals.
I know.
It's cringeworthy.
But this is 'common sense'.
People don't feel the slightest bit of strangeness about the cringeworthy nicknames attached to heroes or villains.
Because this is truly a different world.
A hero-genre game featuring Gates, monsters, heroes, and villains—'Hero Name: ZEUS'.
I had ended up inside the world of this game.
The story of how this happened is a long one.
The point at which I had cleared every branch of 'Hero Name: ZEUS', which I had played without noticing the passage of time.
A message had appeared on the monitor.
----------
Congratulations on your world-first 100% completion.
As a reward, you are given the opportunity to traverse the world directly within 'Hero Name: ZEUS' alongside the actor.
Upon clearing, we grant you one wish ticket that can grant any wish.
(Warning: Saving and loading are impossible, and you have only one life.)
Do you accept?
-------------------------------------------
Thinking it was an Extra Story (side story), I pressed accept, and that was the beginning of this ordeal.
The moment I pressed the button, a blinding light poured out from the monitor.
When I opened my eyes, I was inside the world of the game.
Name: Shin Noda.
Age: 15.
A height of about 180cm and a sharp face.
It was the new body I had obtained in this world.
After a brief bout of reality denial, I acknowledged this as real and decided to check the most important thing.
'Who knows? I might have a cheat skill...'
"Status Window."
------------
◈ Name
Shin Noda
◈ Stats
[Strength 085 D]
[Agility 114 E]
[Intelligence 448 F]
[Luck 003 E]
[Overall E]
◈ Skill
[Psychokinesis 097 F]
------------------------------------