Three months had passed. Kaito had finished his time as a high school student and had just started university.
For a while, he held out hope that something extraordinary would happen—some hidden plot, a supernatural event, anything. But no... during those three months, absolutely nothing happened.
This led him to a rather disappointing conclusion: it was simply a normal world. Sure, it had an anime-like aesthetic, but those colorful background characters were completely irrelevant to his life.
"What a scam…"
Kaito thought as he rested his head on his desk, bored in the middle of class. To be reincarnated in a world without cheats, systems, or talkative gods… The ROB (Random Omnipotent Being) who brought him here probably didn't even show up out of embarrassment.
However, that day, something finally changed.
Suddenly, screams erupted.
Kaito, still resting like always, barely turned his head toward the source of the commotion.
"Sh-she's gone! Satou disappeared!"
The rest of the class stared at the screaming girl as if she had lost her mind… but before anyone could say anything else, she too vanished into thin air.
Panic spread throughout the classroom. No one understood what was happening.
And then, silence reigned. Not because everyone had calmed down, but because the classroom… was completely empty.
Kaito looked around. He was no longer in the classroom. Now, he was in a clearing within a forest.
Floating next to him was a blue sphere that radiated a soft light.
He knew what it was—or at least he had a good guess. When he focused on it, an information window appeared before his eyes.
He tried touching it, but his hand simply passed through, as if it weren't physically there.
[Territory Core]
Type: Special Building
Description: The Territory Core is extremely important. Protect it.
Available Abilities:
Lord's Resurrection (3/3)
Unit Summoning
---
"Resurrection and summoning?"
Kaito had played plenty of strategy and conquest games, so he could more or less guess what was going on. But luckily for him, he didn't have to figure it out alone—a message appeared before him, explaining everything.
[Welcome to Gaia!]
[All adults between the ages of 18 and 50 have been summoned to the Lords' Game.
Your task is to expand your territory.
To do this, you must gather resources, level up, summon units, conquer other lands, and more...
Once your server's territory has been fully conquered, it will merge with others. This process will continue until only one Supreme Lord of Gaia remains.]
[At Gaia, we value exploration, so discover the rest on your own!]
After that final line, the message disappeared.
However, Kaito felt he could reopen it mentally... and so he did.
This time, instead of the welcome message, a stat window appeared.
[Name]: Takayama Kaito
[Race]: Human
[Title]: Territory Lord
[Level]: 1 (0/10)
[Base Stats]:
HP: 1000
MP: 10
Strength: 10
Agility: 10
Constitution: 10
[Skills]:
[Stat Points]:
[Skill Points]:
[Gold]:
'Alright.'
Kaito thought. Everything was easy to understand.
Even if he didn't have any skills yet, it was clear that skill points would be used to learn or improve techniques, while stat points would enhance attributes.
What caught his attention was the "Race" section. Probably something that could be changed later.
As for gold, it was likely used for trading or summoning units.
At the top of the window, he noticed four tabs. The first showed his personalinformation.
Curious, he tapped the second one.
It was the server chat.
The interface was simple: a bottom bar for typing and a vertical list of messages.
At the top, it displayed the total number of Lords: exactly one million. Next to it, the server number: Kaito was in Server 26.
Considering Japan had around 57 million people in the summoned age range, that meant about 57 national servers.
As expected, the chat was a mess.
Apparently, each player could only send one message per level. But with a million Lords, even if just 1% wrote something... that was enough to crash the entire thing.
[Sword]: Does anyone know what's going on or where we are?
[Black Cat]: If this is a joke, I'll destroy whoever's responsible.
[Blonde Pigtails]: I'll pay ten million yen to anyone who gets me out of here!
[Emo Boy]: Maybe this is the apocalypse...
[World's Strongest]: Doesn't matter where I am, I'll reach the top!
Kaito read a few messages... and closed the chat. He'd expected to find panicked people, but what he saw was just a parade of lunatics.
Sighing, he switched to the third tab. It was a trading platform.
It was organized by categories: food, blueprints, items, etc. There were search and sell options. Items could be traded for gold or exchanged.
At the moment, of course, it was completely empty.
Finally, he moved to the fourth tab. It had no name, just a tower-shaped icon.
When he tapped it, a diagram appeared showing a massive tower, divided into ten floors that reached into the sky... though it was clear it went even higher.
All the floors were grey, except for the first one, which was glowing. In the center, a countdown:
[135:41:56]
"Exactly the time until Sunday…"
Kaito calculated mentally.
That meant the tower would become available on Sunday. From experience, he figured it must be some kind of dungeon or event with important rewards.
He focused on the small info icon and a floating window appeared.
[Tower of Worlds]
A tower where each floor connects to a different world.
It opens once per week and gives Lords various missions.
Rewards vary depending on performance.
Essential for developing your Territory.
---
After investigating the system a bit more, Kaito closed the window and looked around.
A clearing in the middle of a forest. Around it, a circle about 100 meters in diameter.
The only things there were the Territory Core behind him, and a nearby tower.
He approached the tower and focused to check its info.
[Summoning Tower: Humans]
Tower used to summon human units.
Only the Territory Lord can use it.
Summoned units have loyalty set at 100%.
(You may change the summonable race once after acquiring a unit building.)
Available Units:
[Human Fighter]: 15 gold
Humans specialized in combat.
[Human Worker]: 10 gold
Humans focused on trades like mining, carpentry, etc.
---
"I see…"
Unfortunately for Kaito (and probably everyone else), he didn't have a single gold coin... nor any idea how to get one.
The best he could do was explore the forest a bit.
Unfortunately, other creatures had different plans. As soon as he approached, a wolf lunged at him.
Kaito was alone. Being a rational person, he didn't even try to fight. He just ran.
But of course, a wolf is faster than a person.
It caught up and tackled him to the ground.
With the wolf on top of him, Kaito panicked. The only thing nearby was a branch, which he grabbed and tried to use as a weapon.
It was useless.
The wolf opened its mouth, full of fangs, and bit his arm. The pain was sharp and unbearable.
But while the beast focused on biting, Kaito stabbed the branch into its eye.
The wolf howled in pain and let him go.
Kaito didn't waste time. He jumped on the wolf and pinned it down as best he could.
He remembered seeing in a video that the most effective way to kill a wolf without weapons was to suffocate it. It sounded ridiculous, but due to their anatomy, if you got on top of them, they couldn't do much to escape.
Luckily, it worked.
After nearly three minutes, the wolf stopped moving.
He didn't need to check if it was dead. The wolf's body disintegrated into blue particles.
And right after, a message appeared in front of him.
[You have killed a Wolf!]
[+1 EX, +15 Gold, +1 Wolf Pelt, +1 Wolf Meat]