1 Jump Chain's Are Dangerous Traps
"T-this! I never wanted this! I made this as a joke, who took it seriously!!" A man cried alone to himself.
The surroundings around this man were the markings of a classic fantasy town that one might read about in novels. All kinds of people passed the streets, including races of demi-humans who were treated as slaves. This was the country of Melromarc, a country saturated with a culture of acceptance of slavery. Of course, the man here was not a native of this world, his name was Roman and he was a transmigrator. Roman knew about this world very little, after all, he had only seen the first season of the anime Rising of the Shield Hero.
Roman had been filling out a jump-chain document for fun only 30 minutes before he ended up here. Unfortunately, he died due to a heart attack shortly after he finished and appeared in this world.
That's right. He appeared here, he wasn't summoned by anyone from Melromarc like what happened in the story. He just appeared here with his body living again. Not only that, but he had all the choices and purchases he made in the jump-chain he completed prior. But this did not make him happy. He was instead filled with an immense feeling like that of missing out on investing in Bitcoin when it was less than a cent.
He had unfortunately decided to make a 'unique' build that was different from others. He invested in a 'custom legendary weapon' unaffiliated from the rest of the world. It's just when he was designing the weapon, it seemed that most of the good options were already taken! In the end, he made his legendary weapon a 'Key and Lock'. It was a good joke at the moment, but now that he was here and was the 'Key Hero' he was no longer laughing.
It was great that he was now in an interesting fantasy world, but he was in a similar situation to Naofumi with his Legendary Shield. He was stuck using his Key and Lock as 'weapons'. Even if the addition of his other purchases didn't make up for his foolishness.
Let's take a look at his purchases from the jump-chain document before his appearance here:
{
Jumpchain classic allowance of 1000CP to spend:
Race: Human (Free)
Drop-In: Local (Gain basic knowledge about the world and the System) (Free)
Location: Melromarc (Free)
General Perks:
- Level Uncapper (-100CP) - You can now keep leveling to level 999 and you can perform a 'class up' without visiting a dragon's hourglass.
-Magic Affinity (-100CP each, first time free for human) X3 (Space, Earth, Water)
Items:
Legendary Weapon (-600CP) - Key Hero, Fiat Ability: Key to Knowledge (General learning speed tripled)
Unique Weapon Materials (-50CP) x4 (Sunstone, Starmetal, Abyss Soul, Wither Bone)
Drawbacks:
Lone Wolf (+100CP) - Your party system doesn't work.
}
As you can see, Roman didn't care too much when he was creating this set to be optimized and min-maxed. He had only thought of a funny image of a man waving a key around to fight like he was holding a dagger and thought it was a pathetic sight for a 'Hero'. After all, what kind of joke would it be if someone had to fight with a Key, it was meant as a joke.
But now it seems he had unknowingly become a part of a circus and he was the clown.
"C-come on. It should still be manageable." Roman said, getting a hold of himself.
'Status' he said in his mind.
{
Name: Roman
Class: Key Hero LV1 (0/300)
Equipment: Key (Legendary)
Skills: None
Magic: None
HP: 100
MP: 100
Attack Power: 12
STR: 10
DEF: 11
M.DEF: 8
AGI: 12
STA: 10
INT: 10
}
"Oh, there goes my hope for overpowered stats. 10 is an average human, right?" Roman questioned himself.
'How am I, an average human, supposed to fight monsters without a party?!!' Roman grumbled in his mind.
Roman stood up and began walking the streets of the area with a lifeless expression in his eyes. He felt overwhelmed by the sudden change, in fact, all he wanted to do, was find a room to curl up and cry. He was only keeping himself together with his slight confidence in being a 'superior' anime watcher who knew the plot of the future.
After all, anyone who suddenly appeared in a fantasy world and adapted like it was nothing, clearly has a few screws loose in their mind. Only thirty minutes ago he had been safe and cozy inside his apartment, where he could work from home and laze around reading and watching anime. Now, he was completely out of his element. He needed something to grab onto, some kind of hope so that he wouldn't fall into the endless troubles of this new world.
Slavers existed here, wars existed here, evil gods, dragons, and unknown horrors. Who knows what might happen to him, death was not the worst thing to fear since magic was involved. What if someone manipulated his soul? Trapped him and made him into a weapon like they do in Skyrim. Was it possible for people to trap souls in this world?
All kinds of fears and questions filled his head because he felt insecure about his incomplete knowledge of the world. He had only watched up to the end of season one of the anime and now he was angry at himself for not reading up to the latest manga release.
Then, after another 30 minutes of Roman thinking over every possible thing he could, he remembered that he had purchased four 'unique' materials for a legendary weapon from the jump chain. As soon as he thought of this, he felt around in his pockets and found four tiny fragments of the unique materials. These materials were only slightly bigger than his fingernail in size, and yet they were just enough to activate a new form of his key.
He quickly hid himself away between a narrow ally of two buildings and pulled them out to give them a look. Of the four materials, the ones that most stuck out to him were the 'Starmetal' and the 'Wither Bone Shard'. The Starmetal glittered like silver stars upon a black background, while the wither bone was like TV static, giving him a tingling feeling as he touched it.
'Will it work?' Roman questioned in his mind.
He pulled out the tiny 'Legendary Key' that was about the size of his hand and fed the 'Wither Bone' to it.
[Unique material obtained 'Wither Bone'.]
[Legendary Weapon Key special feature activated due to Unique class of material.]
[Should Unique Material be used for [Key] or [Lock]]
[Notice: [Lock] LV requirements not met for this material]
[Should Unique Material be used for [Key] activation? ]
[Yes/No]
'This is?' Roman asked himself in his mind while raising his eyebrows.
Slowly, his heart started to beat with expectation again. Maybe he wouldn't be without his cheat after all. From what he understood, his Legendary Weapon has some sort of special feature that would let him get a one-time use effect if he selected [Key] or he would unlock a new form of his Key by choosing the [Lock] option. Of course, if he selected [Key] then the material could not be added again since it was unique.
'This could be exactly what I need.' Roman thought.
Since he had already fed the unique material to the Key and couldn't get it back, he decided to choose [Key] to get the most out of it.
*Woosh*
*Click*
*Creak*
The Key in his hand hummed as an illusory golden Key and a door appeared in front of him in the ally. His eyes widened as he quickly looked back behind him to see if anyone had heard or could see his commotion, but it seemed like nobody else except him could see the door in front of him.
[Actived [Key] with unique material 'Wither Bone'.]
[Dimensional Plane linked.]
[Doorway opened.]
[Entering plane.]
"Wait. What?" Roman muttered before he was jerked forward and pulled through the open door.
"Ahh!" He screamed as he was pulled through a hyperspace tunnel-like space, before arriving in a very hot area.
He tumbled as he was thrown out of the door before it closed.
"Oh, come on! How could it have gotten worse?!" Roman screamed, this time he was even more terrified.
*Hiss*
The sound of the sweat forming on his forehead hitting the red rock below him sizzled due to the shear intensity of the heat. It was as if he was in an oven being cooked alive.
A familiar-looking area from a popular game of Minecraft was laid out before him. Lakes of lava filled the dark cave dimension with no sky, with light far down below. Glowstone stalactites lit up the area in front of him.
It would seem, he was now in the Nether.
