So I'm Rouge, So what?

Reincarnations

In the Kingdom of Analeit, there lived a boy named Schlain Zagan Analeit.

As his name suggested, he was a member of the royal family.

He was the child of a concubine of the king and lived as the fourth prince.

But this boy possessed memories of a previous life.

In that life, his name had been Shunsuke Yamada.

I'll be honest: The boy is me.
My last memory from my previous life was of sitting in Classical Japanese class.

At the time, I noticed a crack in the air above the classroom, and that's where everything went black.

Rifts in space weren't a normal occurrence back on Earth.

So whatever happened then is most likely why I died.

Then, inexplicably, I was reborn with memories of my previous life.

Which was how I came to live in this gamelike world where skills and levels are real.

In this world, you actually have a "status."

How can this exist in reality outside of a game? I did wonder about that for a while, but I eventually gave up trying to figure it out.

Instead, I realized it would be more fun to focus on the positives of living in this kind of world. Training would improve my abilities, and it was pretty fun to hone my strength like that.

However, this world has its inconveniences, too.

You can't see anyone's status. The concept exists, yet you have to clear extremely strict conditions if you want to perceive it.

See, there's a skill called Appraisal.

With Appraisal, you can see statuses, but few people possess that skill.

In order to acquire it, just like becoming a judge or an appraiser on Earth, you need a thorough education on how to judge the values of things, powers of observation to figure out the composition of substances, and other such high-level skills. No amateur would be able to manage that.

And even if you could get the Appraisal skill, it's extremely difficult to raise its level, so very few people have it in the first place.

Really, all it actually takes to acquire Appraisal is paying the right amount of skill points.

But even though that's technically possible, you can't get any further once you have it.

Raising the skill level of Appraisal only requires using it.

Every time you use Appraisal, your proficiency rises, and if you reach a certain level of proficiency, the level goes up as well.

However, it's using the skill that's the real problem.

On the one hand, it doesn't require any magical power or energy.

I know what you're thinking: "Couldn't you just use it whenever you want, then?" It's not that simple.

The catch is this: Whenever Appraisal is used, the user gets hit with a headache and a drunken feeling.

The degree seems to vary depending on the individual, but in the worst cases, some people will faint after using it only once, and even more talented users can't Appraise more than two things at once.

Since each use is so rough, using the skill over and over to increase your proficiency would be incredibly punishing.

As a bonus, the Appraisal skill is worthless until it reaches a very high level.