Command Menu

Day ten of jumping from one rattling carriage to another.

In this unending, bleak landscape, I took a deep breath of frosty air and gave a long, heavy stretch.

Spreading out to the very edge of my vision were stone-strewn hills, hills, and more hills. The only thing adding a touch of color to the scene was the occasional thicket of snow-capped bramble. If not for the gently meandering road, there was so little variation that I wouldn’t even be able to tell if I was moving forward.

This is the Dragon-Skeleton Isle—shaped as if a dragon had curled into a circle to bite its own tail. At the northern end, in the Dragon-Neck Plains, lies our Holy Kingdom of Vilnia. As the name suggests, most of the nation consists of fertile, flat land perfect for farming. The emerald wheat fields that fill the horizon near the Royal Capital were a truly magnificent sight. Though, after three days of seeing the exact same thing, I finally got bored of it.

While most of the country is suited for agriculture, the edges of the plains offer nothing but barren wastes or rocky uplands. This is especially true along the border—the “backwaters”—which consist of nothing but desolate, unpopulated land.

In the game, you just selected a destination and moved between points, so I never really felt the distance. But seeing it with my own eyes while actually traveling, the lack of villages and towns in the frontier makes perfect sense. Consequently, even though I wanted to go to my destination, “The Starting Village,” I had a hard time finding a carriage headed that way.

I have to say, finding a traveling merchant willing to carry goods to the village was a stroke of luck.

“What! An Alchemist coming to our village? My, oh my, please, by all means, ride in my carriage!”

He had agreed instantly, and now I am in the middle of the final leg of my journey in his kind company. Of course, I had more or less expected this outcome. I had called out to him because this merchant was a character I recognized from the game.

His name is Hans.

In appearance, he’s a stout “Ordinary” middle-aged man with a mustache and a kind face that doesn’t quite fit a merchant. In the game, he traveled between the Capital and the village once a month, acting as an incredibly convenient character who could source items, buy your loot, sell commissioned goods, and even bring rare finds.

In-game, the merchant event always triggered on the first of the month. Since it’s currently the end of January, I had called out to a likely-looking merchant on a hunch, and it turned out to be a direct hit.

However, in the game, Hans always came to the village in a grand, two-horse covered carriage. The real Hans’s carriage is a humble thing, little more than a cart, pulled by a single, scruffy donkey. Because of that, we’re moving at a speed that barely qualifies as “leisurely sightseeing.” On the bright side, the lack of speed means less rattling, which has spared my backside a bit of pain.

Hans’s schedule seems to be the same in this realized world; his next visit to the village won’t be for another month. Since there aren’t many other eccentric carriages willing to travel to such a remote place, I won’t have to worry about pursuers from the Capital for a while. Well, they’re knights, so there’s always a chance they’d chase me on their own horses, but if they were going to do that, they would have caught me long ago. They probably wouldn’t go that far for a small fry who did nothing but spread a few unsettling rumors.

So, I had been riding in the corner of the cart feeling quite relieved… but there was still one minor thing weighing on my mind.

There was actually another passenger.

Like me, it was a woman with her hood pulled low, her features hidden. When I subtly checked with Hans, he replied worriedly:

“She mentioned she wanted to head west. Given her condition, I couldn’t very well turn her away.”

His words made sense. Even from a distance, it was obvious that the woman’s belly was quite large. That was how I knew her gender despite her hidden face. Surely even the Knights wouldn’t be stupid enough to send a heavily pregnant woman after me. So, I don’t think she’s a pursuer, but the fact that she’s pregnant was nagging at the back of my mind. Well, I can’t quite remember why, so it’s probably nothing important.

To check my current location, I turned my gaze once more toward the upper-right area of my vision.

A thin, cloudy winter sky. To a normal person, that’s all there is. But floating in my vision was a semi-transparent rectangular frame.

The Command Menu.

This is the biggest factor that convinced me this world is the same as the game. After my memories returned upon seeing the lunar anomaly, this had appeared in the corner of my eye before I knew it. I had frantically asked Olli and the others to check, but they all just tilted their heads in confusion. No one in town looked twice at me either, so it seems I’m the only one who can see it.

This menu has no physical substance, so I can’t touch it. However, by fixing my gaze on an option for more than a second, I can select a command. There are four categories in total: Transmutation, Items, Allies, and Map. In the game, there were others like Quests, Conversation, Rest, and Settings, but they seem to have been omitted. Perhaps because they are unnecessary commands in reality.

First is the top option, Transmutation. This allows me to perform transmutations directly. It has two sub-menus: Free Transmutation and Recipe Transmutation. Free Transmutation lets me choose any combination and ratio of materials and Magic Stones. Of course, if the combination doesn’t result in a valid product, nothing happens or the materials simply change quality. Naturally, any Magic Stones used are consumed and vanish. Furthermore, if my transmutation rank is too low or my understanding of the ratios and materials is shallow, it ends in failure. It sounds like all downsides, but a product won’t be registered in my Recipes until I successfully create it through Free Transmutation first.

However, once a recipe is created, things become incredibly easy. I simply select the item I want from Recipe Transmutation, and it’s finished instantly. It even shows the required materials and Magic Stones versus my remaining stock, which is beyond convenient.

To give you an idea of how much easier this is: to manually create even a bottom-tier Healing Potion, you’d have to go through several steps. First, you prepare the White-Root Flower and water. Next, you use a Blue Magic Stone to perform to pull the essence from the flower. If you use a White Magic Stone for beforehand, you can identify where the active components are concentrated, increasing the yield. Then, you use a White Magic Stone to the essence and water, and finally use a Green Magic Stone for to finish the product. You can make it without or , but the Quality will drop. Even for one bottle, you have to perform at least two separate transmutations.

But through the menu, I can do it all in one go, creating items in sequence just by moving my eyes. The only reason I was able to finish the massive workload Arnold dumped on me was thanks to this Recipe Transmutation.

While this Transmutation command alone is worth dozens of alchemists, the menu doesn’t end there. The next command, Items, is equally convenient. This allows me to check my current inventory, but its special feature is that the storage space exists in a different dimension. Strangely, I can store a massive amount of goods in a mysterious space that no one else can perceive.

The basic usage is simply touching the object with my hand. Then, when I open the Items command, the object is automatically sucked in and stored. If I open the menu beforehand, I can collect items in rapid succession. To take an item out, I just open the item list and look at the desired object, and it appears in my hand. I can store up to 99 of the same item, and while I haven’t checked the limit of unique items yet, if it follows the game specifications, it should be 999.

While the unlimited storage is a godsend, through trial and error, it seems I can only store items that actually appeared in the game. Regardless, the reason I could pack my luggage and sandwiches in an instant was thanks to this wonderful command.

Third is the Allies command. In the game, this was used to check the status and equipment of yourself and your units, or to change the party formation. Naturally, since I’m currently alone, I’m the only one in the ally column. While seeing a list of my ability scores (Status) is helpful, it feels a step behind Transmutation or Items in terms of raw utility. Or so one might think—but there is a revolutionary benefit to this Status screen as well.

My status used to look like this:

And currently, it looks like this:

My level jumped by 28 all at once! The reason for this is my overflowing Experience points (Exp). In the game, every time you perform a transmutation, you gain a small amount of Exp for that element. Once you reach 100 Exp, your Rank for that element increases by one. The sum of all your element Ranks becomes your Transmutationist Level.

The issue was that I was the only one who had a choice regarding that Exp. See, Exp can be used for something other than just raising your Rank: mastering “Compound Arts.” From Rank 1, you can use basic Arts; from Rank 4, intermediate Magic Arts; and from Rank 7, high-level Thaumaturgy. Compound Arts are special techniques that combine two Arts of the same tier.

When your Rank is about to hit 4 or 7, you can choose to consume 200 Exp to learn a Compound Art instead… and this was the factor that kept all my element Ranks stuck at 3. Unless you choose to either learn a Compound Art or advance to Rank 4, your Exp simply accumulates without being used. Of course, without the Command Menu, it’s impossible to make that choice.

As a result, I had been relegated to a “handyman” who could only use basic, low-level Arts. Presumably, those with divine protection—who can only use one type of element—don’t have the option to learn Compound Arts. Thus, their Exp is consumed automatically, their Ranks rise, and they gain access to higher-level transmutation naturally. I said before that “common sense” dictates only the Protected can use high-level transmutation, but it turns out that was just a cruel twist of the game mechanics. In fact, “Ordinaries,” who are skilled at mana manipulation and can handle all attributes, are the people best suited to be alchemists.

I want to shout this fact to all the Ordinary alchemists in the world who are currently suffering. But then again, without the Allies command, they can’t make the choice anyway… so yeah, no point in saying anything.

In my case, the ten years of drudgery actually turned out to be a blessing. In the game, once your Rank increases, you stop gaining Exp from low-level transmutations. Furthermore, the higher your Rank, the harder it is to gain Exp. But I had spent an eternity repeating basic transmutations while stuck at Rank 3. And I did it across all six attributes. No wonder my Exp had accumulated to such a ridiculous degree. In the game, you have to raise your Ranks to progress through quests, but in this real world, I didn’t have to worry about that. Sure, a higher Rank meant better pay and treatment, but in the end, I’ve become an incredible alchemist capable of performing high-level Thaumaturgy in all six attributes, so I’ll call it a win.

Even at the Royal Alchemy Workshop, alchemists who can use Thaumaturgy are a handful of people at the supervisor level. And naturally, they can only do it for one attribute. As for Compound Arts, there were probably none at all. Compared to them, it’s no exaggeration to say I’m practically omnipotent when it comes to alchemy.

Now, all that’s left is to wield this power without holding back. I’ve decided that I can no longer afford to restrain myself for the sake of a “safe” life.

Closing my Status, I looked at the final command. Instantly, a large world map appeared before my eyes. Looking closely, I could see an icon moving slowly across the map. It was a stylized version of the protagonist—me. My destination was marked with a village icon and the label “The Starting Village.” Much like the game, place names appear on the map once I officially become aware of their existence. Consequently, most other parts of the map are blank, save for famous landmarks.

This fourth command, the Map, is also quite handy as it shows my current position. Based on the remaining distance, it looks like I’ll arrive safely today.

Exhaling deeply, I stretched my arms toward the sky once more. Just then, a soft voice hit my ears.

“Um, how much longer until we arrive?”

“Let’s see. About three hours or so. Is something the matter, young lady?”

Hans, sitting on the driver’s seat, answered the sudden question. To which the pregnant passenger replied quite matter-of-factly:

“Yes, it seems this child is about to be born, so I was wondering what to do.”

At this bombshell, my jaw dropped mid-stretch.