What happened to the investigation on Misaki? I still had more items to give to Gyras to craft. I was going to take the day off and chill with Harwel. I had more adventuring missions to attend to. But... all of that came to a stop. He stole everything from me. My world was shattered. Why not shatter his?

----------------------------------------

Jinda floated weightlessly, surrounded by an inky darkness.The last time he felt like that was when he was in that dreamy state of limbo.

Except, this time, it felt real. He could move around, feeling his surroundings.

Jinda found that he was conscious and at least partially aware of his surroundings.

And after all, present fears were less than horrible imaginings.

The last thing he recalled was that a woman had grabbed him and sent him flying into the abyss.

He couldn’t say for sure, but the hooded figure looked similar to the woman he met in Windport.

The first one who disgraced him.

As he floated around, his eyes eventually adjusted to the dark lighting and the vestiges of sleepy unconsciousness faded from his mind.

Levitating around, he felt something wet touch his elbow.

Flinching in surprise, he jerked his arm away, and came face to face with… a slime?

Wait… Jinda frantically thought. Why are there so many slimes here? Where am I?

Looking around, there were slimes as far as the eye could see, as well as the occasional beanbag, some scraps of metal that vaguely resembled armour, and other junk.

He drifted aimlessly for what seemed like eternity, before something – perhaps a distortion in the fabric of space – opened.

And, In walked… the hooded woman from before.

She removed her hood, and Jinda recoiled in disbelief, his hypothesis becoming a truth.

“You…Windport survivor…” he snarled.

The woman turned to face him once more, her gaze teetering away from the slimes.

She sneered.

If he wasn’t in a predicament, he might’ve found it cute. He might’ve taken her as one of his many women.

But now a deathly fear loomed over him, casting an indomitable shadow.

Wrath had called her nothing but an F-rank.

His instincts said otherwise.

Perhaps Wrath was so stupid he couldn’t read the information right, he thought.

Jinda had not attained the base 5,000 on all stats yet, but his stats verged at a minimum of 4,000.

With Koya’s soul bound, he reached 6,000. That was stronger than that idiotic Wrath for sure.

“Maybe I’ll just kill you right now on the spot,” he hissed, confidence blooming within his chest once more.

The woman was pathetically weak last month. She could not have possibly grown that much stronger in that time frame.

He had spent the entire month endlessly training, torturing his body, and pushed his stats up 500. With armour, it was then increased to 4,000.

This battle was an assured victory for him.

But the woman’s next words disturbed a more rational portion of his mind. He shook away the remnants of reason and let pride, lust and wrath seize his body.

“Who’s killing who?” she asked in a voice both disinterested and heartless.

“I’ll kill you, you WHORE!!”

The woman chuckled mirthlessly. “You will now?””

“Don’t MOCK me, WOMAN!!”

“Really, Mr. Misogynist?”

Although he was shaken to his core, his fragile confidence shattered, fragmented into minuscule shards, He refused to go down like this. To fall down on his sword, like a Roman fool. He transformed into Koya, and made a dive for the woman, attempting to pummel her down.

Instead, he hopelessly fumbled mid-air, unable to control his movement at all.

He clumsily drifted sideways, cursing at the girl.

She drifted gracefully aside once more, mocking him.

“Jinda Zschu. Earth reincarnate. Born in China, evicted for disgusting crimes. Locked up in prison, never to see the light of day again. I, your judge and jury, convict you for murder and illegal human trafficking.”

Now, Jinda was panicked. He lost composure and slipped back to his original form.

How did this woman know so much about his past?!

“W…Who are YOU??!!!”

The woman cocked her head before replying to him.

“Me? I am your judge, your jury and your magistrate. From now on, you will refer to me as ‘Your Honour’. Understood?”

“Fuck off! When I get out of here-”

The woman easily traversed the space and jammed a finger at his solar plexus.

Jinda clutched his abdomen as unbearable waves of agony radiated from it., I should’ve gotten [Pain Resistance].

“I will only repeat myself once more. You will refer to me as ‘Your Honour’. Understood?”

“…Yes, I understand… Your Honour.”

The woman grinned in satisfaction. “Perfect. Now, let the trial begin. You have been charged with murder and illegal human trafficking. How do you plead?”

“…”

“Well?”

“…Not. Guilty, Your… Honour.”

“Well, unfortunately, the jury has found you guilty”, “she said, as a beanbag floated near her. The woman grabbed the beanbag, lounging on it as she continued. “The judge will now decide on your verdict.”

“What? You can’t do that! Where is the justice in this?” Jinda pleaded. From her previous attack, Jinda knew he was helpless in this endless… space.

He couldn’t win.

But he feared death. He didn’t want to die. Yet, the reaper stood at his doorstep, silently knocking.

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“Please, have mercy-”

Once again, Jinda was cut short. A black shadow jolted past his arm, and he felt it disintegrate.

Jinda screamed in pain, as his arm slowly rotted alive. He could feel every muscle, every fibre, every tissue disintegrate in the most painful way possible. His bones crumbled, pink bubbles foaming on what little skin that remained.

Jindas eyes rolled up, revealing the whites of his eyes. He began frothing and hung onto conscience through a thin string – one that could be cut by a butterknife.

The woman spoke again. However, the monotone voice was gone. Instead, it was replaced by a burning rage, hatred seeping into each word like a poisonous gas.

“Mercy? Justice? On you? Oh, I’m sorry. I think you have the wrong person, because all I see is a short statured pig snorting nonsense.”

“I’m not a pig-”

“Oink oink snooooort”

“DON’T FUCKING MAKE FUN OF-”

“OINK OINK SNOORRRTT!!!!”

Jinda shut up.

Instantly.

He knew he couldn’t do anything. All he could think of now was a single word.

Hopelessness. The glacial cold of a looming demise. A chill that cut to the bone. In this moment, he knew he gazed not into a F-rank nobody, but his executioner. The embodiment of Death herself.

“As I was saying,” the woman started, “I have decided on your verdict. A fragment of your soul shall be taken. Afterwards, you will be sentenced to 1,000 years of hell.”

Jinda stared in disbelief, his mouth hanging open.

“I’ll come check up on you after that and decide if you should die or live.”

“Don’t be kidding with me, madam! You can’t possibly sentence me to 1,000 years of torture! I’m from Earth, just like you! We’re the chosen! Together, we could be all-powerful! Please, listen to me, madam!”

“No.”

“But-”

“Listen up piggy. I’ll tell you something you once told me. Only the strong can choose how they die. The weak are allowed to cower in fear and nothing else. Pretty poetic, don’t you think? And just like your past life, you’ll live here, slowly whittling away. Live in this darkness.”

“Yes, madam! Your poetry knows no bounds, -”

“Shut up!” she snarled, before continuing her speech.

“Look at you now. Where is the cockiness from before? Bloodlust? Where? You don’t deserve to live. I’ve changed my mind. You’ll be here for eternity. But before that, I’ll sap your pride away. I’ll make you nothing but the pig you really are”

“WAIT! -”

But the woman had already left, stepping out of a doorframe.

And the blue translucent frame faded away alongside the brief flicker of hope that had ignited within him, leaving Jinda alone in the dark.

He cowered in fear. What was going to happen to him?

His hair grew grey, his skin wrinkled and old. It had felt like more than a thousand years, but nothing happened.

No torture, no ‘soul sapping’.

The silence terrified him even more. He was truly alone, his own company being the cold void and mindless slimes.

The scales of justice rested solely in the hands of the powerful. Jinda, of all people, knew this. And thus, he resignedly accepted his fate.

He was nothing but a shrivelled old man– a husk of his former self, if you will.He should have died long ago, but it seemed his lifeline had frozen at this fragile, weakened state where even breathing burned his lungs with the infernal fires of Hell.

He floated around in a fragile silence again, before a sudden sound startled him making him jolt in surprise, before he screamed in agony as he over-stretched a tendon.

Hello? How long has it been in my chamber? In the real world, I’ve only just stepped outside my storage system. Maybe two or three seconds? Time flows differently there. Much, much slower.

As it dawned upon him, Jinda felt a new wave of futility engulf him. He thought that maybe, just maybe he would be freed from this seemingly [Spatial Magic] powered dimension when the woman died of old age or something.

But if three seconds was a thousand years here, then…

It wouldn’t be far from eternity, wouldn't It?

His old kneecaps, weathered by age, trembled fretfully. He broke out into a cold sweat.

Futility and Despair had been renewed, the dam of stalwart endurance had broken.

He felt a tear fall down his cheek, followed by another, and suddenly there were plenty more.

It hurt just to cry. Every tear felt like molten lava rolling down his face, and he screamed in agony.

He fell into a coughing fit.

It hurts to talk.

It hurts to cough.

It hurts to live.

Please, kill me already.

Jinda floated around for another few hundred years; his body too weak to even move. His eyes stood still in one place. Even moving or darting them around rapidly hurt too much.

Every blink he took was like a needle getting shoved up his eye.

Right! Now, let us commence the skill extraction! Your honoured guest, Greed, will steal one of your skills!

And after that, there was more silence. For ten years, nothing moved.

Then, on the seventeenth year afterwards – two shadowy hands burst out from the dimensional planes, pinning him in the air.

The process was slow. He forcibly lay in that position for over a millennium.

His sockets were being hung, stretched out.

And this unnerving pain couldn’t be resisted. It wasn’t something Jinda could grow accustomed to.

He was suffering. Slowly rotting. And less than a minute had passed back on Travia.

Finally, he was released from the vice-like grip.d

But without the numbing pain distracting him at every waking moment, something felt off.

Something was missing.

A part of him.

And that’s when he realised – he could no longer use [Stockpile] to store any additional overheal.

His skill was removed – or rather – stolen.

Jinda blinked in confusion and roared in agony, ripping his lips in the process. He started coughing again, before his body began convulsing, magnifying the passive pain my thousandfold.

But he didn’t die. He couldn’t. Not even if he wanted to. The laws of this world wouldn’t allow it.

More and more time had passed.

Jinda had no idea where he was. He forgot why he was sent to his distorted realm; only that he had done something very bad.

There was only one thing he remembered clearly: His name.

He was Jinda. He remembered he used to be powerful and respected. But he forgot what he did.

Jinda hung onto that tiny thread of identity with all his might.

If he lost it, he would truly be… nothing. No one. A relic, forgotten, cast away to rot.

Time and time again.

It was silent. He hadn’t heard noise in forever.

Wait, he thought to himself. What is ‘noise”? Who am I? Where is this?

The man floated around, aimlessly. Endlessly. Forever and forever, when suddenly, he heard something.

But by now, the concept of ‘sound’ was foreign to him. The only ‘noise’ he knew was the voice inside his head. The one that constantly yearned for death.

Hey Jinda, missed me? I took a nap and came back. Guess it's time for your real punishment, no?

The man, unable to move and stuck in a painful, vegetative state, seemed bemused. Why had this ‘noise’ been so loud?

Who is Jinda? What ‘noise’ is so angelic yet demonic at the same time?

But soon, that would be yet another distant memory.

The blue balls began slowly waddling their way to him. Before, they would float past him without doing much, but now, they seemed to be gunning for him.

He constantly felt fear. Perhaps that was why he was so comparatively tranquil.

Even when the blue things latched onto him and ate his flesh, nothing changed.

The ‘noise’ that begged for death still screamed.

His battered body still curled up in agony.

Nothing had changed, except he now had friends.

That was until one of the blue balls went inside his mouth, squirming its way around his paralysed body that had stayed immobile for eons jerked upright again.

He tried to yelp, but his voice was muffled as he felt the slimy thing go down his throat.

He couldn’t breathe.

Maybe that was good. Breathing hurt.

But so did this.

No matter what, he was always in pain.

For ever and ever.

However, after the moment of shock, he realised this was no different than before.

He had already reached the maximum calibre of pain. No source could make it worse.

He closed his eyes, bracing for the needle-like pain.

And he listened closely for ‘noise’. He didn’t know who he was, where he was, or why he was there.

Only ‘noise’ identified him and made him whole.

Through layers of pain, he managed to break into a tiny, cheerful grin.

He had heard ‘noise’ again.

Please kill me.

.

.

.

Kill…me?

If he died, would it stop?

It would? Yes…it would. It must.