In the corner of his field of vision, Homura noticed something strange—an arrow-shaped icon?
"…What the heck is this?" he muttered, rubbing his eyes hard, thinking he might just be seeing things.
"…Nope, not a hallucination." He dropped his hands and sighed softly. "If not for the faint transparency, I'd have thought I'd developed cataracts overnight."
Then a thought struck him—his heart skipped slightly.
"Wait… could this be it? The classic cheat? The isekai 'golden finger'?"
Memories of the countless isekai novels he had read in his previous life surfaced. His pulse quickened in anticipation.
This had to be it.
Trying to calm himself, Homura tentatively whispered into the quiet room, "System? Main God? AI? Say something if you're there…"
Silence.
No robotic voice responded. No sound, no prompt.
Homura sighed in mild disappointment.
"So no system guide, huh? Guess I'll have to figure this out on my own."
He raised his right hand and carefully reached toward the arrow icon.
His finger passed right through without any resistance.
"…Expected, I guess." Homura scratched his cheek and chuckled. "If this were touch-controlled, I'd look pretty insane waving and poking at the air in public… the looks I'd get…"
The mental Image made him shudder involuntarily.
Shaking his head to clear the thought, Homura refocused.
"Alright… if it's not touch, then it has to be… mental control."
He lifted his gaze, locked eyes on the arrow, and concentrated. He imagined his mind as a computer mouse—clicking the icon in his head.
"…!!!"
"Ah. So that's what this is," Homura muttered with a crooked smile. "It's the hide/show button for the system menu… just like the debug feature from the simulation game at work."
Of course.
When he "clicked" the icon, a familiar interface had appeared—a system menu, translucent and floating in front of him.
And not just any system menu.
"Life Simulation!" he breathed, eyes shining. The exact same menu he'd seen back in the office… right before passing out.
"So that's it. My cheat is the Life Simulation System," he murmured, emotions stirring in his chest.
Even among all those dream-like isekai starts, having a system like this made all the difference.
No system meant surviving this new life on 'hard mode'. With the system? Easy mode.
Sure, this wasn't some grand RPG leveling system—it wasn't meant for combat or fantasy powers—but this was the real world, not a fantasy realm. For that, the Life Simulation System was more than enough.
"Two lives combined, I'm technically over forty… I should really calm down."
A small grin tugged at his lips. "But first, let's see exactly what you can do, little system."
His gaze scanned the interface.
In the upper right was a mini-map. Below were six blank hotkey slots and the system menu—just like in the old game.
But there were differences too.
"Figures… the 'Settings' option is locked." He sighed. "Not like it'd let me log out or uninstall myself from reality anyway."
"Let's check the character and skills tabs next."
He opened the Character Status panel.
[Character Name]: Minamiya Homura
[Gender]: Male
[Age]: 16
[Level]: 1 (0/100 EXP)
[Energy]: 100/100
[Location]: Tokyo, Japan
[Occupation]: Student
[Title]: None (Title List)
[Status]: Energetic
"Hah… just as I thought. No stats like Strength or Agility," Homura muttered. "Well, of course not—this is a life sim, not an RPG. If it had stat points, I'd end up superhuman in no time. Then it'd stop being a real-life simulation and turn into fantasy nonsense."
He nodded to himself and opened the Skills tab.
And immediately froze.
"…What the hell? Why are there so many skills? And… skill points?!"
[Innate Skills]:
• Perfect Memory
• ???
[Life Skills]:
• Programming (Lv6)
• Cooking (Lv4)
• Piano (Lv3)
• Guitar (Lv3)
• Manga Drawing (Lv2)
• Writing (Lv2)
• Music Composition (Lv2)
• Dance (Lv1)
[Other Skills]:
• Tai Chi (Lv1)
• Observation (Lv0)
[Skill Points]: 20
Homura stared in stunned silence.
It took him a full minute before he rubbed his eyes again… but the list didn't change.
"…Well, I was expecting some changes after crossing worlds… but this many?"
His mouth twitched helplessly.
Perfect Memory?
"When the hell did I get that kind of talent?" He scratched his head. "Maybe… because my past and present memories merged? Some kind of mental evolution?"
And what about that question mark?
A hidden skill? Something not detected yet?
Then there were the life skills.
Programming made sense—he'd done that for years back home—but the rest? Cooking, piano, guitar, drawing, writing, even dancing… clearly from this body's previous life.
"This guy really dabbled in everything… Jack of all trades, huh?"
Even Tai Chi? Homura chuckled. "Guess the original me learned some self-defense too. Not bad."
Then there was Observation—stuck at Level 0.
"…Learned or not learned? Or does this start at zero by default?"
Finally… twenty unassigned skill points.
His jumbled thoughts slowly settled.
"Deep breath, Homura. Calm down. You're sixteen again… don't lose it like an idiot," he muttered, grinning to himself.
Then something else clicked.
"Wait… this setup… this is the dev version!" he realized.
When testing a game during development, you never made programmers grind like normal players—they used debug versions, often loaded with double XP, faster recovery, extra points.
The Life Simulation game's dev version gave two skill points per level, with a starting bonus of twenty points.
In a normal game, a player could earn a total of 100 points by max level 100—enough to max out ten skills at ten points each.
But here? Homura could instantly max two skills. Every five levels, he could max another. The difficulty level wasn't even in the same league as a normal player's.
"Hah! This is seriously an advantage!"
The thought of his smooth, easy future life made him almost giddy.
Almost.
"Wait… how do I actually learn new skills?"
His grin froze. His body stiffened slightly.
"Please don't tell me I need rare books or hidden teachers or something absurd… that'd turn this dream into a nightmare game real fast."
"…No, it should be fine. There are already so many skills here… learning new ones can't be that difficult, right?"
He shook his head, brushing the dark thought away.
For now, he'd focus on fully understanding the system.