It happened all of a sudden, with no warning at all. I was just minding my own business at home, relaxing after a stressful day when, as far as I know, reality collapsed.

That, by itself, wouldn’t have been so bad. I mean, sure whatever, as long as I’m dead I couldn’t care less. Literally couldn’t.

But no! My stupid ass just had to survive the fucking end of the world! And now… Well, now I’m not sure what’s happening. There’s simply nothing.

And before you start imagining darkness, let me stop you right there. I mean nothing, as in what you see through a closed eye if you close just one. When you close both you see darkness, the absence of light, but when looking through one eye your brain completely filters out the feed from the other one. That’s what I see, what I feel. Anyway, I digress.

I suppose this is the famed Void, with capital V, from all those stories. Or is this perhaps the infamous fetus arc? Please don’t be. I don’t have the mental capacity to survive that while remaining sane. Or at least as sane as I am right now. Nobody’s really sane.

And so, I float, through the Void, without doing much. Please note that float is used here metaphorically, because I have no idea what actually happens in the Void, if it actually exists at all. I’ll be using similar figurative speech a lot, I expect, so do please keep that in mind.

So, as I was saying, time passes and nothing much happens. Or at least, that’s what I’d have you believe. In reality, I spent this whole time trying to practise the famed meditation thingy, to try and access magic. Which did not pay off at all. Ok, maybe a bit in that it helped me to pass the time without going completely crazy. But other than that, small, itsy-bitsy detail? Nothing.

Right then, so what happens now? If my very relevant popular fantasy fiction knowledge is indeed relevant, then there are two options. Either I meet some kind of god-like entity that’ll reincarnate me, with or without a quest, or I meet the System. Whether or not it reincarnates me is questionable.

And lo and behold, as if summoned by my words, which may very well be true if the stories are to be believed, a system window appears before me. And before I show you it, I just realized that technically the System is a god-like entity, so I suppose there was only one option after all. Anyway.

Thank you for calling System support. How may we help you?

Ok, what the fuck is this? Who is pranking me? Is this you Loki? Or some other prankster god? There’s no way that the flipping System has a damn customer support!

This is the Systems automatic distress signal response for creatures stranded in the Void. As far as the System is aware, no one is pranking you. No, this is the System support system. Refer to previous. The ‘flipping’ System does indeed have a ‘damn’ customer support.

…

Ok, fine. This may as well be happening. So, what now? Are you going to rescue me? Or perhaps just give me access to the System and leave it to my own abilities?

According to extensive research conducted {right now} the better option to preserve your sanity would be to ‘rescue’ you. This mostly involves placing you into a proper real physical universe.

And what if I said I didn’t want that?

There is, of course, also the option of simply giving you System access and leaving you here, though we wouldn’t recommend this for your sake. And, before you ask, yes we can also just leave you here without doing anything, though we recommend this even less than the previous option.

Hmm, okay. Let me think.

I can throw the option of remaining here without any changes right out. There’s no way I’m going to subject myself to that torture again.

What about remaining here, but with the System? Would that improve my situation at all? Actually, how does the System even work? I assume it has some stats and levels, skills and perhaps even achievements or traits or some such. But would I be able to make use of those features? Maybe I could learn a couple of skills, but says that they would be useful at all in the Void. What if only true Void born creatures can gain those skills?

And also… Why the fuck am I thinking about this so much? This isn’t consistent with my character traits at all. Ok, the decision is made, I’m getting reincarnated.

Can I choose what I’m going to be reincarnated as?

No.

Is all I hear from the System before I’m in a whirlwind of reality bending powers once again. Hmm, maybe some of that will rub of on me and I’ll start with a special skill or affinity. Ooh, I forgot to ask if I’m gonna get a special ability for being the specialist little guy and getting reincarnated. Oh well, might as well surprise me.

The mind-bending merry-go-round lasts for a while, maybe even as long as I’d been in the Void, before I’m spit out somewhere that feels a tad bit more familiar.

Ah, reality! How much I’ve missed you.

That being said, it was still a pretty alien landscape. Not completely alien. Like, I could recognize almost everything. The grass was green and vaguely blade shaped and most other stuff resembled the same things from Earth. Just different enough for it to be noticeable.

Oh yeah, and remember how I said that I could recognize almost everything, like 5 seconds ago? Yeah well, I also couldn’t quite recognize something else. Don’t get me wrong, I was familiar with what it was, I could tell you what it was, but I definitely couldn’t tell you that I saw such a thing back on Earth.

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I am, of course, talking about the big, giant, huge, extremely big and a bunch of other adjectives for something not small… Cloud. Ok, it only looked like a cloud, at least on first glance. But, upon closer examination, you’d see some tendrils separating from the main mass and brushing against the landscape. And then, if you looked really closely, you’d see that the ‘cloud’ was actually made of flesh. And had eyes. Many eyes. Thousands of eyes. And that when those tendrils came back to its body, they briefly entered something that I guess is this eldritch abomination’s mouth.

And there were multiple of them. Ok System, what kind of hellscape have you put me into?

First time System user detected.

Initializing integration.

Welcome, user, to the world of Ur’Fugd’Mat (pronounced: you’re fucked mate)

This is the System, your personal path to power and fulfilment. As you’re using the System for the first time and are a member of an endangered species on Ur’Fugd’Mat you will receive some bonuses.

Preparing deep scan.

Uh oh. I do not like the sound of that at all. And of course, this world is named that. Why wouldn’t it? Let’s just hope those bonuses are worth it. Speaking of, I really hope that I’m endangered because I’m the only human here and there is some different species here and not because those strange fleshy creatures hunted us almost to extinction.

And also, what is this deep scan? Can I opt out?

Starting deep scan.

I guess not. Oh, and here it comes.

The next moment I’m assaulted by the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Like, that shit is real. Also, it’s very hard to describe due to, you know… Being extremely traumatic and my brain locking the experience away.

Once I recover, a new message greets me.

Previous life detected.

Skills detected.

Void passage detected.

Traits detected.

Previous System interaction detected.

Nothing worthwhile detected.

Incorporating skills.

Due to possessing various skills in your past life you get to keep some of them. Only the ones you were truly proficient in will carry over. If a skill wouldn’t carry over, there is a chance of it being combined with a similar one to achieve the threshold.

You’ve gained the following skills:

Silent step – level 0

Fortified mind – level 0

Languages – level 0

General knowledge – level 0

Incorporating traits.

Due to your passage through the Void you’ve been changed. While you didn’t observe anything there, some of the ‘Voidness’ of the Void stuck to you.

You’ve gained the following effects:

Passive eldritch Cognito-hazards have no effect on you.

Active eldritch Cognito-hazards have greatly reduced effect on you.

Various other insignificant effects merged into: Void brushed

Congratulations user!!

You’ll have a much easier time levelling these skills and those traits have been slightly boosted. As a last bonus, you’ll also receive the knowledge of the current biggest immediate threat to you as a part of your {General knowledge} skill.

I barely manage to read through all of that before my still reeling mind is once again assaulted by the infusion of new knowledge.

Level Up!

Fortified mind – level 0 -> 5

General knowledge – level 0 -> 5

Uh, at least I got something out of that. And also, ouchie. And this time I’m not talking about the pain. Because while yes, it was painful, the knowledge it came with is actually kind of worse.

Turns out, my biggest immediate threat are actually those flesh clouds. Shocker, I know!

But what are they? Well, turns out we’re cousins! Sort of.

They are actually a type of eldritch horror that has mostly adapted to living in reality and only uses the Void when migrating. And they are world killers.

Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to survive. Not unless something drastically changes in the near future. Or this world is much larger than an average one. Yeah, they can make a world lifeless in less than a decade.

Anyway, if that’s all I’d like to finally do this. System.

Name: N/A

Age: 0

Level: 0

Body: peak mortal

Mind: enhanced

Soul: {in flux}

Traits:

Void brushed

Cognito-hazard resistance

Skills:

Silent step – level 0

Fortified mind – level 5

Languages – level 0

General knowledge – level 5

Aha! There you are! Let’s see…

No name. Makes sense. Even if I could remember it, I would still have liked the option of changing it. Or perhaps I can change it whenever? That be cool. And also make more sense.

I am kinda sorta insulted that the System considers me to be basically a new born, but what can you do. At least it isn’t restricting my access to the System just because technically I’m a child. That is if it has such protections in place.

Once again, it makes sense that I’m level 0, haven’t killed anything yet after all. And maybe even if I had it probably would have reset due to the whole reincarnation process. Though I don’t see an experience bar or anything. Strange, but whatever.

And then there are the stats. On one hand, I’m kind of glad that there isn’t a dozen of them, but on the other hand this seems somewhat underwhelming. And I also have the sinking feeling that I won’t be able to put any stat points into them, what with them being described with words instead of numbers. Eh, I’ll figure it out when the time comes.

Traits and skills. Well, there’s not much to add for those. The System messages more or less explained that already.

What concerns me more that there isn’t a really clear progression path here. Sure, there skills that can probably reach supernatural levels if levelled high enough and traits which can likely be upgraded. I should also be able to gain more of those, though I’m not sure how.

But there isn’t a class entry in my whole status page. Or profession or anything of that kind. Are you telling me that the only way to specialize is through skills and traits and that I won’t get some magical power ups for reaching arbitrary thresholds? To be honest, that sounds kinda unfair, System, mate.

Ah, whatever. Let me just try one last thing before I actually go into this new world and likely die.

Can I get a description of my skills, please?

Silent step – A movement skill created through the combination of various other skills like walking and running. It has a focus on being and silent, and a slight focus on being stealthy.

Fortified mind – An enhancement skill created through the combination of various other skills with foci on preventing breakdown, emotional acting, treating various types of traumas, and others. It enhances your mind overall, without a particular focus.

Languages – A knowledge skill created through the combination of various other more specific skills, mainly English and German. Increases your comprehension rate of all languages.

General knowledge – A knowledge skill created through the combination of thousand of skills that couldn’t achieve a significant level of their own, yet were too big to ignore. Increases your memory retention and learning rate overall.

Okay the, fuck you too, System! You didn’t have to put that flavour text into the mind and knowledge skills! Ah, whatever. At least I’ll have an easier time adapting to this environment. At least I hope that all those mind enhancement skills will help with that.

That done with, let’s see what awaits me in this hellhole of a death world.