Whoa. It’s really, really dark… Where am I?... I was lying on my back in some pitch black place. How the heck did I get here?.. Wasn’t I just in that white place? Didn’t I die? Did I die twice? That doesn’t make sense, how could you die if you’re already dead? And what was the old guy doing there?
Okay okay. Woah… Slow down, think this through. Maybe I hadn’t even died in the first place, maybe I had dreamed up the whole white void thing. I mean, that definitely wasn’t heaven. A white void was exactly what I would expect to find inside my mind. The semi had probably gone right over me and given me a severe concussion. I was probably sleeping away the brain damage in a hospital bed right now. Yeah. That would explain everything. Alright. Now's not the time to be comatose. I recalled the ancient art of waking up from a dream that was 100% certain to work every time. And pinched myself in the cheek.
……….
……
…
Wait. Where's my hand? Actually… Where's my face? I was shocked. My art of waking up had been defeated. It felt like my hand had just passed through where my head should have been. That definitely wasn't normal. I still felt like I had my arms and head… Probably. I could feel the floor beneath me, but I couldn’t feel my body. This was getting pretty freaky. I mean, what if they had amputated all my limbs! I don’t have the money to pay for an operation like that! I’ll be in debt for the rest of my life! Robot arms would be pretty sick though…
Okay, remember what your swim instructor taught you. Even if your arms and limbs have been amputated, and you won’t ever be able to swim again, don’t panic. Listen to the sound of your breath… Oh no! First my waking up technique, now my swim instructor’s secret art has been defeated too! I had no breath to listen to. Whatever had happened to me, apparently it had left me without lungs.
I went back to the stuck-in-a-dream theory, because how else did this make any sense? Where else could something as bizarre as this happen? And with my rotten luck, it had to be sleep paralysis or something. But now that I knew that, I was more curious than panicked. And so I started exploring this body my whacked out brain had cooked up for me.
I felt strange, like I was made of water. I could feel the cool ground beneath my back, but I couldn’t sense my own body. My sense of smell was also not working, that or the place I was in was completely devoid of scent. It was also dead quiet, but again, not sure if it was because I’d lost hearing or not. I couldn’t figure out how to open my mouth, so I put taste on hold for the moment. The weirdest part was that I literally couldn’t touch my own body, my hands just passed through my body parts. That's what it felt like anyway.
I was definitely alive though, 'cause’ I had a heartbeat. It was so strong that I could hear it in my ears as long as I was quiet. This body is definitely not normal.
I strained and stretched and after some experimentation, I managed to stand up. It was pretty difficult, since I wasn’t able to see- and I could only feel where my body made contact with the ground. I fell over more times than I’d like to admit before I got the hang of it. My only reference for whether I was actually standing or not was my equilibrium, and feeling the ground only touch my feet. After what felt like way too long, I even relearned how to walk. It felt more like gliding than walking -as if I was on roller skates- just sliding over the ground without disturbing it.
I bumped into a wall after what was probably three paces or so. What is this stuff? Given that it was too dark to see it, I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was. It felt cold and slick like stone, but it was way too even and smooth to be natural. Suddenly a bunch of words were plastered to the outside of my eyeballs.
|Answer: The surface is made of [venite], a rare mineral that is exceedingly light compared to its durability. It is rare, and found only on mountain peaks.|
“Gaaaahhh!!” I had been thoroughly jumpscared. “What the heck just happened!?” At least the bright words tangoing across my vision confirmed that I hadn’t lost my sight too. More text popped into my line of sight.
|Answer: This message is the effect of the special skill [Query].|
“Sorry, what? What the heck kind of dream is this!?”
|Answer: [User] is not asleep.|
“That’s what a dream computer would say.” I responded, unconvinced. There was no reply. “How can you be so sure that you aren’t just a product of my imagination?”
|Answer: Analysis shows [User] has subpar imagination, intelligence and-|
“Sheesh! We just met! You didn’t have to roast me that hard!” I said, shaking my head so I didn’t have to read the rest of the insult. So if I’m not dreaming, then where am I? I was right back to square one.
|Answer: Data suggests User is located in a sarcophagus.|
It can answer questions I ask in my head? Its reply surprised me even more. A sarcophagus? How the hell did that happen? That means I’m either about to trip over some moldy bones or find out that I’ve been buried alive. My mind was spinning with nothing but questions, and it seemed like I wouldn’t like many of the answers. What kind of sarcophagus is this anyway? Why is it big enough to stand up in?
|Answer: The sarcophagus is standard size|
…
“So does that mean I’m just really short?”
…
|Answer: User’s height is approximately 20% of an average [human]|
Yeah, that's pretty short alright. I’m never getting picked first for basketball ever again. I wandered around the sarcophagus while I digested all the new information. I had been stabbed. Then hit by a semi truck. I probably died from it. Then I woke up in a sarcophagus. I was really short and strangely numb. I definitely didn’t feel like a normal human…
After a lot of head scratching, I realized what all the pieces of the puzzle meant. Any way you look at it, that had happened. But that’s impossible right? I’m a cool-headed, atheist type. I know that sort of stuff isn’t real. You might see it all the time in anime or manga, but that doesn’t mean it actually happens. It could still be a dream right? I shouldn’t immediately accept the word of a disembodied AI chatbot.
But still…
Am I in one of those reincarnation stories?
There were just too many questions and not enough answers, I’d get nowhere thinking about it all day. I decided that instead of dwelling on all the weirdness, I should focus on getting out of this death box.
But how the hell do I do that?
|Answer: Data suggests that the most direct route to exiting the sarcophagus is to remove its lid.|
“REALLY? I never would have thought of that. And how exactly, am I supposed to move a giant stone lid when I’m only 10 inches tall?”
|Answer: The User is physically capable of reaching and removing the lid.|
“Are you sure? I don’t think I could be that tall on a good day.”
|Answer: Analysis shows that [User] can stretch to 0.75 meters tall.|
That’s… probably enough to reach the lid of a coffin. I mean, it’s not like there's any reason not to try.
So I tried making myself taller. That sounds strange when I say it like that, but I basically just tried standing on my tippy-toes while keeping my heels planted. Like how when you and another kid would stand back-to-back to compare heights, and you tried to somehow make the top of your head taller without cheating. Somehow, I felt my body mass shift. I know I just said that I couldn’t feel my own body, but this was different. I was getting skinnier as my body was getting stretched upwards. I got taller and taller and I felt like I might actually be able to reach the roof. Then I lost balance and fell flat on my face.
I felt a dull pain spread from where I hit the ground, and travel through the rest of my body. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would -faceplanting on rock and all- it kinda felt like the total pain had been stretched out and shared across my body. This body is weird…
I brushed it aside for now and tried again. I stretched and thinned and after a few tries, I felt my head bonk on the roof.
“Hah! I did it! … What now?”
|Answer: The next step of removing the lid is to adhere to it.| I guess that's worth a shot. I pictured myself sticking to the surface, and summoned my inner Spider-Man. It was like when you charged a balloon with static electricity and stuck it to your hair, except I was the balloon. I was surprised by how naturally such a weird thing came to me, like it was second nature. I pushed the ceiling sideways as best I could, and the room was bathed in a dull blue glow. It was coming from the crack between the lid and the box, which was leaking the light and spitting small purple sparks. I closed my eyes and pushed harder. I heard a sound like breaking glass, and the glow went away.
At least l know I haven’t lost all my senses.
Then the ceiling started to move. I moved with it, straining to push it away. Cracks of normal, less mystical light poured in, and after a minute or two of work, the lid fell away.
Huh. I actually did that. I thought about my newfound abilities to grow taller and stick to surfaces, and realized what all of it must mean. I mean, what else could it be? At this point, it’s obvious that I’m not a human in this dream, and given how small I was, how stretchy and squishy and numb, my mind could only have conjured one creature. It's something you see all the time in video games and books. Actually, this entire situation was remarkably similar to an anime I had watched recently. “I must be…. A SLIME!”
I looked down to see my blue and translucent jelly form, but saw only a pitch black haze. It was like my body was a 3D area of darkness in a featureless human-like shape. My arms and legs were a bit stubby, and I no longer had fingers or toes. If you looked at me from a distance I probably would have looked like a tiny human silhouette. I ran my hands across my face, and there was only a bump for a nose and some eyes. No ears or mouth to speak of.
“Huh. That's not a slime.” I know that was stating the obvious, but I felt like it needed to be said. Words flashed across my vision.
|Notice: User has not been reincarnated as a [Slime]. User has been reincarnated as a unique species, [Living Shadow]|
“So this dream is definitely one of those reincarnation stories then, but I thought I left my edge lord phase behind years ago, why am I a shadow?”
No answer. “Again, why am I a shadow? I’m not some moody emo tween anymore.”
…
I guess even all-knowing dream robots can’t comprehend the teenage mind. I looked around the newly lit up corpse container. It was big–at least to me. It was at least 15 paces across and 5 paces wide, it looked like a tomb for a giant. Looking around, I realized why I hadn’t stumbled across any remains; my dream had thankfully not made any dead bodies to fill the coffin. The stone box was completely empty besides a neatly folded sheet of black fabric towards the opposite end and a sword in the middle. This dream is wack. I moved over to the blade and touched it. It was still in its sheath, but it looked kind of like a japanese katana. The difference was that it had a straight edge instead of the normal curved one. The sheath was a fancy, shiny black with a nice dark blue and gold trim.
|Use special skill: [Query]? Yes No |
What? Skill? Didn’t you mention that earlier? Let's say yes. At this point I was just going with the flow in this hallucination. The sword was suddenly outlined in a yellow light, and a screen popped up in front of me.
Unique Item Name: Arashitsuki
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Item type: Chokuto type sword
Attributes:
Perfect edge(Epic)
Magic bane(Epic)
Magic charge(Rare)
Infinity(ERROR)
Quality: Unique
Lvl: ERROR
Materials: ERROR
“Whoa! A stat page!... Why is there a stat page?”
|Answer: The special skill, [Query] converts important data into the most easily recognizable format for the User.|
“That ‘skill’ sounds useful, but is the ‘most easily recognizable format’ for me really a stat screen from a video game?”
|Answer: Yes.|
Meh. Can’t really argue there. “But why are there so many error messages? Don’t tell me you need an update or something.”
|Answer: The [ERROR] message occurs when the answer is unable to be calculated|
“What about me? Can you make a data screen on me?”
|Answer: Yes.|
|Use special skill, [Query]? Yes No | I pictured yes in my mind again, and another stat page popped up in front of me.
Individual Name: Aisurukage
Race: Small Living shadow
[Stats]
Str: 1 Def: 1 Spd: 1
Mp: 1 Int: 32 Wis: 17
Class: none
Lvl: 1
Health: 10/10
[Skills]
Hoard(special)
Query(special)
Potential(special)
Immaterial(general)
Unified body(general)
Adhesive(general)
Mana: 10/10
Titles: none
Wait. In these types of stories, isn’t the main character supposed to start out super strong? But it's my dream, so strength 1 probably means I’m the number one strongest. Yeah. That totally makes sense. How else would I have been able to move that super heavy stone lid?
|Answer: The lid of the sarcophagus was constructed of venite, and thus weighed approximately 2.5 kilograms.|
“SHHH! Stop ruining my power fantasy! I don’t need your creepy mind reading to interrupt my daydreaming!” Sometimes the main character's abilities were what made him overpowered. So maybe these other skills will be as useful as Query is. I wanted to test them out, but before that I wanted to get out of this box. I made my way over to the edge of the box and stretched my arm, barely managing to get a grip on the edge. I sucked the rest of my body up behind me and very gracefully pulled myself up. I looked out to what I expected to be a morgue or graveyard, yet the scene before me made one thing perfectly clear.
There's no way in hell this is a dream.
This was straight out of a fantasy movie, but it was way too cool for my five brain cells to have possibly created it by themselves. I’ve never had a coherent dream in my life, let alone one this vivid and amazing. It was simply too real, and coupled with all the intricate details about my body and the AI chatbot, any hope that I was still alive in a hospital bed somewhere shattered. It looks like I really have been reincarnated.
My first impression was that I was in a forest. Towering trees made a beautiful leafy canopy overhead that looked like it had sunlight shining through it. There were smaller cherry trees everywhere and a pond not too far away. I half expected to see a unicorn trotting in the distance, but when I looked closer I saw that behind all the scenery was a rocky wall, and a few small gaps in the canopy showed that the wall didn’t just extend around the sides. It’s definitely a fully furnished magic forest, but how is it inside a cave? If I had a jaw to drop, you would have been able to park a car in my mouth.
I inched forward slowly, head-thing turning slowly from side to side, letting the mystical forest vibe seep into my soul.
I slipped off the edge of the sarcophagus and tumbled down the grassy hill it was on, but the grass was so soft and warm it didn’t even hurt. I kind of even enjoyed tumbling down the hill.
I finally stopped barrel rolling at the very edge of the crystal blue pond. I sat up and looked out at the deep blue water.
For once in my life, no witty comments came to mind. I looked down at my reflection, into a dark silhouette with two glowing eyes, and reality caught up to me.
No tears rolled down my shadowy face, but my body shook with quiet sobs. What’s going to happen to me? What did happen to me!? What about my life? My school and my friends!? Will I ever be able to see them again? Will I ever be able to go home? Grandpa, what should I do?
That last thought felt like a slap across the face, and I remembered that I would never see grandpa again, even if I did make it home. I remembered that I had already unenrolled from my school in America, and that I hadn’t really had any friends since I was little anyway. The life I had known up until now hadn’t been very wonderful, and going to stay with aunt Hana probably wouldn’t have changed that. I had spent the entire plane ride–hell, the entire time since grandpa died–trying not to think about that.
I sat there at the bank of a perfect pond, in an enchanted forest, thinking about my life, and wondering why I didn’t care about leaving it behind as much as I thought I would.
It was a long time before I picked myself up.
I’ve decided. If I really did get another shot at this, then this time I’m going to live a life I wouldn’t give up for the world. I’m going to make this a life to remember.
First things first though, I needed to figure out where I was.
“What is this place? Narnia?” The expected reply danced across my vision.
|Answer: Observation of location has allowed access to its data; current location is named [Hero’s rest].|
“Wow, gold star to whoever came up with that name, but I don’t see any heroes. Are they at the bottom of the pond?” I glanced around, looking around the forest for ‘resting places’, until I recalled where I had just come from. Was that really the ‘rest’? There didn’t seem to be many heroes in that stone box. Besides, what kind of magic hero sarcophagus can be so easily broken into?
|Answer: Analysis of the sarcophagus shows that it was designed to prevent intrusions from external sources, not extrusions from internal sources.| I nodded as if I understood, and started walking around.
The cave forest was pretty freaking big, with the roof being probably 50 feet off the ground. The pond was directly in the middle of the cave, and if we pretend the sarcophagus is to its south, then the waterfall and creek that feed the pond are to its east. To its pretend west is a thick grove of cherry trees, and on the north end of the forest cave is… a really big door. Like, an absurdly large door. I get that I’m pretty short right now, but this stone gateway had to be at least 40 feet tall. It was carved with a lot of detail, small and intricate designs covered the entire thing. I’m sure that it tells some sort of story if you look closely, but honestly that sounds like a lot of work and thinking.
I didn’t even try to open it, and instead went over to the cherry grove. The trees were in full pink bloom, and yet were also ripe with fruit. It was definitely weird to see cherry trees in such high fantasy scenery, but I decided to roll with the punches, and accept the strange reality for what it was.
I creeped over to a branch that had bent low to the ground and plucked one of the cherries, which was surprisingly difficult to do with no fingers. Some words flashed across my vision.
|Query: Use special skill, [Hoard]? Yes No |
Hoard? What’s that? Does it let me eat it? No Answer.
Sigh. Sure, let's give it a whirl. Suddenly the cherries fell into my hand and disappeared, almost like I had become a three-dimensional hole.
“What did that even do? I don’t feel any different.”
|Answer: Special skill, [Hoard] allows you to store any object with lower Quanta density than you in a pocket dimension. This allows for full appraisal by [Query], and thus access to data on the subject. Additionally, you can manipulate and combine certain subjects while they are stored in this skill.|
That’s it, my brain melted. Information overload has reached critical stages, I have to reboot my brain cells now.
“Wha- What?! Quanta density? Subject data? What’s next, a flux capacitor?” I thought I got reincarnated into a fantasy world, not Star Wars.
“Could you maybe explain it a little more clearly?”
|Notice: Adjusting language parameters, [Layman] settings temporarily activated.| A little loading wheel popped into the corner of my vision, then a ding noise played in my head. Immediately after, a new message appeared. |Answer: The requests you made while reincarnating have been turned into special powers that you can use. One of them is [Hoard]. This power allows you to store any object weaker than you, (which isn’t much). Then it takes that object and lets you learn everything about it. Finally, it puts that object into a special space created by the ability, where you can combine it with other things and manipulate it.|
I guess when I was in the white place I did ask to “not let go” and “keep my life”. Maybe that was the request Query was talking about?
“Thanks for explaining it better, but could you maybe do without the condescending tone?” I sighed, and reminded myself that even though Query could hold a conversation, it was still essentially a robot. I need some friends. When I leave this place, that’s the first thing I’m going to do. I’m going up to every stranger and asking them to be friends. It sounded perfectly reasonable at the time, given that I only had floating text bubbles to keep me company. That other ability, Hoard, sounds like a cheat level superpower though. It sounded like an inventory from a video game, but for real life!
“So can I turn those cherries into a jam or something?”
|Answer: Yes. Query: Would you like to proceed? Yes No |
Fast forward five minutes, and I had enough cherry jam in my Hoard space to stock a grocery aisle. I didn’t really have a reason to do this, but any kind of productiveness felt better than doing nothing. More importantly, it helped me procrastinate facing reality.
___
Once I had enough cherry products to run a bakery, I started experimenting with the skills I saw on my stat page. It was a bit tricky to figure out at first, but once I learned how to activate one of them without asking for help, the rest came easy. Again, it was like second nature to me, and Query kindly explained what each one of them did.
I had six skills; Query, Hoard, Unified body, Immaterial, Adhesive, and Potential.
Unified body was active all the time, and it meant that my whole body was basically just a single object, no individual cells or organs. That was why when I faceplanted, my whole body hurt. It was also what let me stretch earlier. It made it so that whenever I touched another body part, they would fuse together, almost like they were moving through each other. That was what made it impossible for me to feel my own body.
Immaterial seemed to be super versatile, because it let any section of my body become… well… immaterial. Solid objects would just pass right through me, and combining it with the shape shifting of the Unified body let me squeeze through the tiniest of cracks. When I pressed myself to the ground, I literally just looked like a shadow without an owner.
Adhesive was pretty straightforward, it let me stick to surfaces. That was what let me grab the roof of the sarcophagus without any fingers.
Is it just me, or are these skills (besides Query and Hoard) pretty average? It’s not looking like I’m going to be the standard isekai hero, huh?
“Hey, robot computer thing, what does that other skill, ‘potential’ do?”
|Notice: Accessing data on special skill [Potential] has resulted in access denial. To access data, an increase of User’s quanta density is required.|
“It’s locking you out? Something that important definitely has to be crazy powerful,” I sat down on a nearby rock, and thought over what Query had said. “What’s quanta density? And how am I supposed to increase it?”
|Answer: quanta is the subatomic energy that constructs the building blocks of atoms, and therefore everything else. quanta permeates all space, and any amount of quanta can exist at a given location. User’s memories indicate it is a similar concept to [magic]. Quanta fuels skills and spells, allowing reality manipulation. User can be allocated increased quanta density by training, surviving dangerous situations, using skills, and earning titles. These actions increase user’s stats over ti-|
I tried to read the whole thing, I did! But I felt like I was right back in science class, getting lectured on how molecules work. I only managed to make it to the park where it explained how to increase my quanta density before my eyes glazed over. I had Query explain it to me a few more times to make sure I understood, and one thing became pretty clear. quanta was literally just magic. I could get stronger and access the ‘Potential’ skill by gaining more magic. It seemed straightforward enough, so I’m not sure why Query needed to make it sound so complicated. With that out of the way, time to focus on the elephant in the room.
If I really want to make the most of my second chance, if I want to do something exciting and leave no regrets, then I need to find a way out of this cave!
Don’t get me wrong, this place is beautiful, with food and water and peace, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before I got bored out of my mind and went insane. If this place had a TV and a Playstation I would be fine for at least 4 months, without them I would be lucky to last 4 days. I spent what felt like hours searching the cave from top to bottom for a way out, and only two real options presented themselves.
First, the door. That really didn’t seem very realistic, because even though I could use Immaterial to slip through cracks, the giant door was completely airtight. Query confirmed it. There was no way I was squeezing past it, and pushing it open was out of the question. The other option was the cave that the waterfall came from, halfway up the cave wall. But there was no telling where it went, and I had no way of easily getting up to it.
I spent a very long time trying anything and everything to get up to that crevice. I stretched as far as I possibly could, and didn’t even come close. I tried climbing, but the walls were just too slick with water for Adhesive to work. I tried to make a makeshift catapult out of one of the nearby cherry trees, but instead ended up breaking off all the branches. I made a ladder out of the broken branches, but it couldn’t even hold my 10 inch shadow body before it broke. I’m not a handyman okay! Besides, I didn’t have any rope to tie the sticks together, I’m surprised I even managed to stand them up in a ladder shape.
This sucks, I don’t even know if that waterfall goes anywhere. I was feeling pretty discouraged right now. I walked back over to the door, wondering if maybe I had missed something, maybe there was some other way to get up to the waterfall. I sat down right against the giant cool stone doorway, and leaned my head back, thinking.
Creeaaakk.
I suddenly lost my back rest, and my head banged against the floor. Ow.
I sat back up and looked around. “Wait. Seriously!? This whole time, the door opened that easily!?”
I just spent hours trying to get up to that waterfall for nothing! The giant, 12 meter stone door had swung wide open with barely a push. How the hell had I not noticed that when I was checking for cracks to squeeze through? I quelled my self directed rage with thoughts of unicorns and butterflies. Before I collected myself and stood up.
What could possibly be behind such massive doors? I stared out beyond the stone gateway.
Pitch black nothingness stared back.