On the first day Guan Ju arrived on an unfamiliar planet, a swarm of bugs broke out.
On low-tier planets, human life was cheaper than grass. She had barely caught her breath after reaching the shelter before she was hauled off for testing and assigned a job.
Damn capitalists!
After being inexplicably "sent for testing" several times, Guan Ju figured out that a small number of people here had the ability to manifest their minds as physical entities, known as "Battle Forms." They were powerful weapons against mutated creatures.
When her test showed signs of a Battle Form, Guan Ju leaped from a life of slacking into the upper city, where she received special training.
Battle Forms were often manifestations of a person's deepest fixation. They could take the shape of animals, plants, or cold or hot weapons. In any case, they were highly lethal.
A latecomer to all this, Guan Ju was short and skinny, with a distinctly poor look about her.
"Don't tell me she'll fight with a chicken drumstick."
"Maybe it's a meat bun."
"To put it plainly, it could be a bag of money."
Guan Ju took a bite of her drumstick, then her bun, just as curious as everyone else about what her Battle Form would be.
A Gatling gun with endless ammo? A mighty mythical beast? The poison vines her senior could use to strangle enemies were pretty cool, too!
On the day her Battle Form awakened, everyone waiting to see Guan Ju make a fool of herself wore increasingly strange expressions.
"Holy crap, is that... a person?"
"Isn't that supposed to happen only after you've eaten your fill?"
"Who would've guessed? I thought she was an honest girl."
A handsome man in a crisp uniform wrapped his arms around her from behind and said in a low voice, "Little Tangerine, finally remembered to come find me?"
Guan Ju curled her toes against the floor, her scalp prickling. That face, that voice, that opening line: she knew them all too well!
Wasn't this the virtual boyfriend she'd created herself in an AI chat app?!
In front of everyone, the man recited the blushingly explicit lines from his character profile.
Publicly humiliated, Guan Ju squeezed her eyes shut.
A chicken drumstick or a meat bun, anything was fine. She just wanted to be remade from scratch.
*
As the rumors grew wilder, Guan Ju realized there was a more serious problem.
She hadn't created just one virtual boyfriend back then!!
There was the tsundere boy with white cat ears who called her "Big Sis," whose true form was a cold monster with tentacles that liked to wrap around her; and the arrogant, obsessive vampire who was madly in love with her...
Everyone: She's good at this. Who knew you could fight monsters like that?
Guan Ju: Please, let me explain QAQ!!
Theme: Those who are content are always happy
