Beginning [1]

"So, Son, what's the next step?" My mother asked, putting the words together slowly and delicately. We sat at the table together, eating. The sun was setting, and the dusk light reflected off my spoon.

I shrugged, taking another bite of the food. It was good, but I couldn't really enjoy it. "I don't know. Why does it even matter?"

"Son…." My mother, Saiko, sighed. She was a Pro-Hero, so she more than anyone knew her words may not make it through.

Still, she tried.

"If your goal is to be a Pro-Hero, then you can go to another Hero School. You know that I didn't go to Yuuei, and I still got here, to being one of the Pros."

I didn't look up, nearly finished with my food.

Honestly, I knew what my mom was trying to say. I hadn't truly failed, not really. Yuuei was the best Hero School in Japan, but it was far from the only one. I could go to Ketsubetsu, Isamu Academy, etc, etc. The options were there.

But that's assuming my final goal was being a Pro-Hero.

And more than anything, that was a means to an end.

More realistically, ahem, I….

I want a girlfriend!

I want to be a Pro-Hero so girls will absolutely adore me! I'd love to have my very own harem one day, that's my honest-to-goodness dream!

And… I failed to get into Yuuei already, so we can see how well that dream's going so far.

I've never even said my dream out loud, and now I'm stuck between my mother's expectations and well… giving up. I mean, to be honest, I still want a girlfriend, that's undeniable. But… being a Pro-Hero does seem like a lot of work, based on that exam alone.

A humongous robot almost squished me flat! If Heroes gotta go through that on a normal basis, I don't know if I want it! No point in dreaming of a girlfriend if I get mashed into grape juice before even graduating.

"Yeah… I'll think about it, Mom."

My mother rose from her spot, taking her plate and putting it into the sink. She walked back and gave me a kiss on the forehead. "Honey, you can do whatever you dream of. You're smart, valuable, and intelligent."

"Uhuh?" I sighed, shaking off my mother's kiss. I wiped her lipstick off my forehead with my napkin. Instead, she just kissed the spot again, replacing it with more lipstick.

"Don't just 'uhuh' your mother's love!" She laughed, not at all serious. She walked away, but before she turned down the hallway, she gave me a thumbs-up. "And you're a good cook!"

"Uh… huh."

She walked back to her room, closing the door behind herself.

Before she closed the door, I glanced above her head, stifling yet another sigh.

[???]

[Lv. ???]

[Saiko Mineta]

I sighed once more, glancing at the… thing staring at me.

[Cooking has leveled up.]

I swiped at the window, flicking my wrist. It disappeared and I rose from my spot, picking up my dishes and beginning to clean up the kitchen. It wasn't much of a problem, besides the blue screens that decided to pop up every now and then.

Some for dishwashing, some for cleaning, things like that.

After everything was all cleaned up, I made my way back to my room and sat at my desk. My hands almost instinctively went to my mouse and keyboard, but I remembered what I was actually trying to do.

"Status," I said, nearly whispering.

[Name: Minoru Mineta]

[Class: The Gamer]

[Title: None Equipped]

[Level: 3]

[HP: 100/100]

[MP: 100/100]

[VIT: 10]

[STR: 10]

[DEX: 10]

[INT: 10]

[WIS: 10]

[LUC: 10]

[Status Points: 10]

This was my new Quirk, the Gamer. I didn't understand it very much, because it, ironically, didn't come with a tutorial.

However, I understood the idea behind it. With the assistance of this Quirk, my life has transformed into a game. More specifically, an RPG.

Ugh, why couldn't it just be a dating sim? In comparison, this is much more lackluster!

Regardless of how overwhelmingly disappointing this is, there is something to be said about it. According to my stats, I'm gonna assume 10 is perfectly average. And because I leveled up two times — the first was from passing a big test yesterday, and the second was from cooking dinner tonight — I had 10 status points.

Effectively, I could double any of the stats I saw before me. If 10 was average, then I'd basically double how special I was in an instant.

And if All Might was the basis at all, it was best if I threw them all in Strength! After all, his crazy strength alone stopped crimes all the time!

But All Might wasn't the basis.

My goal wasn't to become a Pro-Hero, not really. My goal was to be popular, and to get a girlfriend. In that sense, I had no idea which of these stats would assist my goal the most. Too bad there's no Charisma option, it would've made this all so easy.

Hmm… I guess there's one thing that sticks out to me most.

Most girls don't like me because of my height. They like tall, strong, well-defined guys. I just wasn't that.

Well, I wasn't that right now, but with this Quirk, maybe I could be soon! It just depends on what stat would let me do that most effectively….

I moved the status screen to the side, starting my computer and quickly searching for the most informative thing around.

Japan's Hottest Male Pro-Heroes.

While All Might was obviously on the list, he wasn't the number one spot. There were a few Heroes I recognized, but a few I didn't.

As I scrolled through the list, I grabbed one of my Pop-Off Balls and squeezed it in my free hand, humming lowly.

The Skycrawler, Edgeshot, Hawks, and Ingenium were the Pros who stuck out. They all had very different reasons for being hot, but one thing was consistent. They were the first to arrive on the scene, and they were fast enough to help those around them.

Dexterity then, huh?

It's all about speed.

That seems like a good enough reason for me to trust Dexterity!

I threw my status points into Dexterity and confirmed it. I don't know what I expected, but nothing really… happened. Which, I guess, makes sense. It was only ten points, I guess.

Well, something actually did happen. The hand squeezing my Pop-Off Ball sunk into it far more, before bouncing with plenty more umph.

"Huh?"

I took my hand off my mouse and pulled off another ball, making sure I wasn't crazy. Lo and behold, I wasn't. It was definitely squishier and springier than before.

Was that Dexterity's effect in play? It wasn't the craziest idea, especially because Quirks were innately physical in their effects.

So, Dexterity increased the malleability of my Pop-Off Balls. I wonder….

I pushed the two purple spheres against one another, pushing hard. They squished hard against one another, being compressed until they looked more like disks than orbs. Despite the force exerted to push them together, I pulled them apart easily, but they maintained their much smaller shapes. They were more like disks than spheres when they were like this.

I took the purple Quirk-created disk between my fingers before aiming at the middle of my door and throwing it with all my strength. It flew faster than I'd expected it to, hitting the door and sticking to it as it jiggled softly.

I took a separate sphere from my head, not compressing or manipulating it at all. I threw it towards the door, and while it flew fast, it certainly didn't go as fast as the disk did. Furthermore, it hit the ground in front of the door, rather than near where I was aiming.

Which, logically, made sense. The sphere has a larger surface area, so it competes against more drag. The disk flies much easier because it's smaller, and thus, doesn't have to fight against as much drag.

I took the other disk and flung it towards the door as well, where it did the same thing as the first one, landing near the center with a solid whump.

[Due to the special action of throwing something repeatedly, you have received a new skill!]

[Continuously throwing objects has created the skill "Fling" to throw objects farther than before!]

"Eh?"

I spent a moment just staring at the notification. All I did was throw a few of my balls and I received an entirely new skill?

This Quirk is weird.

I yanked another orb from my head before Flinging it towards the door. I didn't squish it down or anything, but it flew just as well, if not better than the disks did. It hit smackdab in the middle of the door, shaking wildly as all the excess energy shook it back and forth.

"Whoa."

I hadn't expected it to be quite so powerful. I pulled up the description of the skill, glancing over it.

[Fling (Active) Lv. 1 | EXP: 1.23% | MP: 10]

Throw an object with impressive power.

50% Increase in Throwing Capabilities when activated.

It made sense, I guess. But sheesh, a 50% boost at level one was impressive. Furthermore, it increased a whole percent after using it just one time, that's pretty good too!

With nothing else to do, I took a few more of my orbs and Flung them. After about 7 more, they stopped flying well and began to hit the area near the door, rather than the door itself.

I let out a low hum and pulled up my status screen. My MP bar was at zero, which I guess made sense. After all, even my own Quirk wasn't free.

[Pop-Off (Active & Passive) Lv. 32 | EXP: 88.92 % | MP: 1 or HP: 1]

An original Quirk from Minoru Mineta. It passively transforms the user's hair into purple, adhesive orbs. These orbs can be pulled off and used for a variety of tasks. The user can pull them off surfaces easily, but others cannot. The user can use MP or HP to supply energy for these orbs to form.

The effectiveness of the creations is dependent on the user's state of mind.

Well, it wasn't free, but it was low costing. Still, it wasn't free, and as such, my MP ran out.

I'm just happy Pop-Off is at a high level. It makes sense, I've been using it since I was young, although, clearly, I hadn't been using it very much. It wasn't even level fifty yet and I had it for literal years already!

But whatever, it's high-leveled, and that's good enough.

As I hummed and waited for my MP to restore, I used HP and pulled off more spheres. They were replaced easily enough, and the only pain I felt was like little pricks on my scalp, so it wasn't that bad overall.

I didn't have school in the morning, so I didn't see much reason to go to sleep just yet. I found a good, healthy rhythm of using HP for Pop-Off and MP for Fling, which kinda eventually let my mind start wondering off to other things.

Like the important things.

Namely, how in the hell am I gonna get girls to like me?!

When I think about why they don't like me, a few ideas come to mind: Pop-Off makes my hair look kinda lame, I'm short, and I'm not very cool.

Fine, fine, I admit it, those things are pretty true. But what is there to do about my Quirk?

It's a mutant-type, so there's not much to do about it. Even my shortness isn't something I can really control, I don't think. I just got really unlucky in the gene-pool too, because Mom is plenty tall!

And as far as how cool I am… well, that may be a decent place to start. Maybe I'll learn some table manners or something, that'll be a decent start. I'll probably have to go pick up some books about it though….

Well, I guess I know my plans for tomorrow!

And so, my journey to being popular began easily enough. Too bad, I had no idea what I'd be getting into just a few days later.