Chapter 3.2

“A protagonist <Buff>?”

“Yes. Various abilities to make it easier to lead the story.”

As someone who’s only experienced debuffs in life, this was an undeniably tempting offer.

But I knew better than to accept without checking the details.

“What kind of <Buff> are we talking about?”

“Well, that’s, um, depends on how the story unfolds… Ah! And I can also give you the blessing of <Coincidence>, right? It gets criticized for being too convenient, but these days, everyone does it…”

At that point, I was convinced I had to pick this story.

But by feigning a bit more indecision, I managed to get a few more things.

A special item <Chekhov’s Gun> to eliminate unnecessary plot points.

The blessing <Character Buffet> to draw in helpful characters, and…

“Does this story have a <Status Window>?”

“You want one?”

“Ah, I don’t think I can remember everything….”

“Sure, then it exists. Let’s say it’s there. I’ll talk to the author.”

“…Okay, fine. I’ll do it.”

“You sure? No backing out.”

Up until then, I believed I had made a smart, protagonist-like choice, maximizing my benefits.

‘With all this, I should be able to revive even a dead story, right?’

Little did I know that in the world of stories, some setups simply don’t allow for resuscitation.

“It’s just some necessary registration procedures. It’ll be quick.”

The girl, whether she was a part-time employee or the owner of the rental shop, was busy typing something into a bulky CRT monitor.

‘So, I’m about to enter this story.’

While I had been staring at the manuscript with only a title and author’s name and no other content, a question came to mind.

“Why don’t these books have any content written in them?”

I had been curious about it for a while. I had convinced myself that such a penalty must exist for entering a story.

“Nah, it’s not that they don’t have content—you just can’t see it. Who ever reads their own story?”

A reasonable answer. I was nodding in agreement when a thought suddenly struck me a moment too late.

‘Oh? Does that mean…?’

Before I could ask what her ability to read all these books meant about her identity, she briskly beckoned me over.

“Phew, all done. Now, sit here.”

She guided me to an old black leather chair where she had been sitting. I sank into it like a plush sofa one might find in a corporate executive’s office in a drama.

“Now, look here and don’t take your eyes off.”

She undid the necklace she was wearing and began to swing it in front of my eyes. I followed the sun-shaped pendant with my eyes, moving them left and right.

“Now, your eyes will slowly start to close.”

She moved the pendant slower and slower, speaking in a hypnotist’s drawl.

‘Ugh, I’m not usually susceptible to hypnosis.’

I could recall such a thing being popular back then in the past, but I never found myself actually getting hypnotized. Eventually, I closed my eyes while thinking about all kinds of things before… falling asleep…

Surprisingly, this time my eyes genuinely started to close.

Soon, the scene she described unfolded before my eyes.

“You are now seventeen-year-old Edith Dayton, standing in a field wearing black. Around you, your relatives are also in black, shedding tears. Today is your mother’s funeral….”

***

When I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by a sea of black.

Muffled weeping and sniffling sounds filled the air.

I was in the front row, with a clear view of the elegant wooden coffin laid deep within a dug pit.

“Our gracious and heavenly Father Marsh, watching over us, the beloved of the deceased have gathered here. Grant them the blessing of oblivion….”

A priest in robes was offering a prayer.

“Elizabeth Dayton was a dutiful wife in life, a mother who sacrificed everything for her children, and a woman who fulfilled her role….”

The death of a mother I had never seen felt unreal.

It should have felt unreal.

But all sorts of background information started flooding into my mind.

Mom loved gardening but was too frail to go outside, often scolding me gently when I brought wildflowers for her, saying they too had their own lives, her hands soothing my feverish forehead…

And the last words she left me the night before she died.

<Edith, can you promise me something? You must live differently than me. Please.>

Tears were streaming down my face before I knew it.

‘Wow, this is incredible.’

It felt just like getting completely absorbed in a book, forgetting my own identity outside of it.

But I still remembered my previous life and everything that happened in the rental shop.

‘Status window.’

I muttered to myself as a test, and sure enough, a translucent window appeared before my eyes.

It was a space visible only to me, invisible to anyone else.

The basic information was listed at the top of the status window.

The girl said I was seventeen, and the level was also 17. It seemed like a system where the base level increases by one each year.

But more important than this information was obviously…

‘Skills.’