Hiro was coming back from the supermarket with a few plastic bags, distractedly listening to some music in his phone. The wind was comfortable against his skin and his slightly rebellious asian black hair.
He was woken from his daydreaming about his life being a music video as the music ended. He looked around, realizing that he was near a park where some kids were playing, and that's also when he saw the little ball rolling to the street. And of course, the speeding car that was coming to meet it.
"Such a cliche scenario, is it insulting This King?" Said youth grabs his face while looking between his fingers. Suddenly he realized that the car wasn't going to stop. Cursing out loud, he ran as fast as he could to try and save the kid that was going after the ball.
Perhaps it was not to be. In his mind it went all flawlessly, like a plot worthy of a King. But in reality, he barely managed to push the kid away before the car hit him full force. He didn't even managed to let go of the child, his arm still in the motion of pushing the kid.
You might have heard of some cases where a person was still awake in the floor for a few seconds after being in a car accident like this. But that was not the case. Hiro didn't even felt a thing. He was pushing the kid away and suddenly, he knew no more.
As his still open black eyes slowly became dull, Kujisaki Hiro was already dead.
But as life shows as time and again, the end is never how we expect it to be.
When Hiro came to, he was in a vast expanse of darkness. There was black as far as the eye could see. It didn't appear to have any light at all, but he could still see himself perfectly.
"What happened? Who brought This King to this realm of darkness?" He said looking around before crossing his arms.
"Hah, This King is the bane of all darkness! You can't even hope to defeat me with this."
As his slightly mocking voice faded in the darkness, he kept still with his arms crossed while waiting. Slowly, a few veins appeared in his forehead.
"Show yourself already! This King may be patient, but it shouldn't be kept waiting!" As the scream echoed around in the darkness, a few motes of light began appearing and gathering together in front of him.
It tried to take the form of a person, ending in a sort of stick figure made of golden light. "%!S%@#¨)%#%$%&@@#" As it tried to spoke, all that could be heard was some kind of screeching noise, like the grinding of nails in a blackboard. At best it was a mockery of verbal speech.
Hiro clenched his ears as the sound send chills down his spine and he fell to his knees as the feeling of dread and agony overwhelm him as well as the pain. Seeing that, the figure stopped and dissolved back into light, slowly reforming back in a square shape.
As the sound stopped, the youth gradually recovered his senses and panted as he stood up again and looked at the light, some drops of sweat could be seen at his face. There, floating in the darkness, was a square shape made of light, and inside that square, were words.
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"You have died. Your karma will be counted.
Notable feats:
Gave money to the homeless. + 1 Positive Karma
Saved the life of a loved one. + 5 Positive Karma
Inspired someone to be a better person. +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 Positive Karma
Saved the life of a stranger by sacrificing youself. +100 Positive Karma.
Caused the suicide of a loved one. +50 Negative Karma.
Final karma: Positive karma (112) Negative karma (50)"
That doesn't sound right. Hiro wondered the veracity of what he saw. This King is magnanimous and would never cause someone to suicide! And then he sighed. It seems This King has died a cliche death. Is what happens next the legendary transmigration to another world?
As he thought about his death and future life, or after-life at any case, the words written rearranged themselves, making him focus back on it.
"The Karma Shop is available. Reincarnation is ready. Choose the parameters of your next life."
And as the words were read, they faded and opened a game-esque shop, with diverse tabs to see. Firstly it was divided in three categories. Positive Karma, Negative Karma and Neutral Karma. And then were further divided in other categories, but the positive and negative categories were the same.
"Positive Karma tabs: Talents, Features and titles, Powers, Miscellaneous
Negative Karma tabs: Talents, Features and titles, Powers, Miscellaneous
Neutral Karma tab: Powers, Miscellaneous
Karma currency: Positive(112) Negative(50)"
With a rough overview of the tabs, Hiro saw one thing in the Neutral miscellaneous tab that he would absolutely choose.
"Memories of a previous life.
Allows the person to keep his memories of his previous life after being born.
Note: Memories will only be available after four years of life.
Cost: 80 Karma points."
Making his mind, for a King shall always be decisive and righteous, he paid all his 50 Negative Karma points and 30 more Positive Karma points for this.
He stopped for a while and pondered and what should he choose as something worthy of a King of his stature.
There were diverse options. In talents there were cheap things, like "Running" "Jumping" "Playing Soccer" and things like that, most costing 5 to 10 points. But it also had things like "Augmentation Magic", "Elemental Magic" or even "Swordsmanship", "Archery" and other possibly combat-related talents. The cheapest of those were Swordsmanship with a price of 20 points. Magic had a steep price of 30 points and a note in it that said: "Choosing this will automatically reincarnate you in a world with Magic." There were also other talents about Cultivation with a similar note. In his understanding, talents was simply a thing to make progress easier, like getting double the result for half the effort.
In Features and Titles, things like "Touched by the Heavens", "All Seeing Third Eye", "Holy Fire Constitution" and so on were available. The price was steep, with the most cheap costing 40 points, there were also similar notes in the kind of world you would reincarnate if chosen.
Under the Powers tab, there were countless options available, ranging from ten points to a thousand. From "Slippery fingers" to "Matter manipulation" and "Telekinesis". Most of the powers were neutral, but there were a few exclusively for positive and negative karma. Like "Holy Water Manipulation" and "Hell Fire Manipulation". But those were all excessively expensive, with the cheapest costing an astounding 200 points . While the neutral powers had more accessible prices.
As for the miscellaneous tab, it mostly was comfort choices. Like the wealth of the family you would born in, if you wanted a loving family and basically the conditions of your birth and childhood. As a King, he is of course, a Noble, so he bought the "Noble Heritage" without thinking twice for 20 points in the positive tab. The difference between the different miscellaneous tabs was mostly nothing, really. It seemed completely identical in the surface.
Seeing that he just had 62 points left, he thought for a while in what kind of world he would like to reign. For he is a King.