As if the brick-and-mortar structure had been directly carved out from the original building, Greg’s apartment silently and suddenly appeared in the area in front of him. It was about the size of a large garage. On three sides was a brick wall. The wall facing him had white paint finish. The grainy type of paint that looked like someone had vomited and spread it all over the wall—the type that nobody liked.

Greg walked to the front door and turned the doorknob. Slightly nervous, he took a moment to breathe all the way in, and as he pushed the door open, his windpipe constricted. Along the entryway was a small kitchen. He passed a small closet and came into the living room. In this space was a TV, black leather couch, a diamond-patterned Indian rug, and taking up half of the space on the left side of the room, a boxing bag hanging from the ceiling.

The apartment was sectioned into a U-shape, with the entryway and kitchen at one tip and his bedroom as the other. Walking into his bedroom, there was but one thing—his beloved inflatable mattress. It was cheap and not the most comfortable, but when you had just came home from a sixteen-hour shift, bruises on your hips and face and too exhausted to even take time to shower, it was like lying on soft clouds shipped straight from heaven.

Greg, for a while, just sat still and looked around.

It was all so familiar yet so distant. It had been a lifetime since he was last here. The technology was even stranger. From the microwave, mini fridge, to the TV and its remote. None of them worked, obviously—where was he to get electricity in here?

Eyeing up the boxing bag appraisingly, Greg sauntered over and, without connecting his punches to the bag, sent out a few light jabs.

His body was completely out of sync with itself.

Whatever Greg had in mind didn’t convert in any way. He was uncoordinated and sloppy—two things he hated to be. Despite the strange absence of outside temperature in the void, Greg took off his overcoat and tank top, revealing a lean, chiseled physique with defined abdominals and clear-cut v-taper. Several blue veins ran down his forearms and the back of his hands.

Greg was confused. He still retained the body from his previous life but not the muscle memory? Greg chalked up the difference between his body and what it could actually do as a disconnect between his body and soul. A shocker it was to Greg. Souls existed. He heard many theories from members of the clergy and on the few occasions he decided to visit the church, just to see what business an otherworld religion was up to.

At this point, Greg was very convinced that God existed. What was happening to him was as much a sign as anything else. But if one day, a man named ‘Morpheus’ called him from the cellphone in the living room, Greg would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed.

For the next few hours, Greg went through the motions and slowly regained his boxing skills. Afterwards, he pulled out a few magazines from the closet, read through those, went back into the closet, and ate an MRE left in the case of a power outage—which happened very often. Apparently, it was just him. His neighbors would never experience this. Eventually, he was yawning and feeling drowsy, so he headed off to his bedroom and fell asleep.

When Greg woke up, he got dressed and headed back to the shop. Pithias was there as always. This time, he was smoking on his pipe.

“Hey Pithias, what do you do when you’re not in here?” Greg asked in a tone of curiosity.

Pithias looked at Greg with a deadpan expression. In response, Greg just wanted to let out a big sigh. But he held himself back.

“Can you open up the inventory screen please?”

Pithias nodded. “Of course, son.”

Greg looked at everything there was and after a few minutes, he came to a final decision.

“I’ll take everything except Node Detection.”

Pithias blew out smoke and smiled for a brief instant. Greg saw this but didn’t say anything. It was too small an expression for him to call it out.

[Acknowledged]

[1125 Credits Deducted]

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

[Remaining Credits: 213]

[Perk: Danger Sense (1) - Acquired]

[Perk: Deep Sleep (1) - Acquired]

[Perk: Enchanting Clothes (1) - Acquired]

[Perk: Against All Odds (Legendary) - Acquired]

[Perk: Speaker of Souls – Acquired]

Greg made his purchase, left, and then spent the next days mourning and being sad.

The faces of those he killed haunted him. Venting his emotions through boxing, he was able to keep his mind off the building trauma for the time being.

If he wasn’t boxing, he would either be reading or laying on the ground, completely still as he rewound and played on repeat all the memories of his past life. It was a quiet existence, and cathartic in a way.

Much time passed this way and, eventually, Greg hit the maximum time limit.

He received the notification when he was boxing.

[Maximum Time Limit (1 Week) reached]

[Selecting random world…]

[World Found!]

[Selected World: #P22BBC5511]

[Reincarnating in 3…2…1]

“Wait!”—

Greg didn’t have even a single moment to gather himself before he disappeared from where he stood.

***

Snow fell.

Travelling through a pine forest in single-file formation, grey mountains visible in the distance, a band of twenty men trudged through knee-deep snow. The group was of varying ages. From burly veterans with greying, wiry beards, scarred faces and eyes that had seen death and experienced deep hardship, to naïve-looking youths struggling to carry even the armour on their shoulders and legs.

Despite wearing thick pelts to stave off the cold, it was worn in such a way that allowed all of them to show the green emblem that was engraved upon their chest pieces. The engraving was of two green ferns, joined together in the shape of a circle.

Hiking over uneven terrain, up steep inclines and down sketchy, winding paths, the men only heard the sounds of their breathing, footsteps, and the howling of the wind. It was difficult to see far in the snowy conditions. Past a certain distance, all that could be seen was a hazy white hue.

The party, however, had a [Scout]. Drawing in cold air and breathing out thin clouds on each exhale, Stanley was on constant alert. Despite the repeated assurance from some of the older soldiers and Captain Briggs announcing just earlier that they were only an hour away from home—information that elicited sighs of relief from the greenhorns of the platoon, Stanley included—he simply couldn’t shake off the feeling.

More than anything else, all he wanted to do right now was to be at home with his mother and eat some warm stew cooked by her. But he knew just as well as everybody else that as soon as they got through the small parade of starry-eyed children that never failed to show up near the entrance, he was to grab a mop and bucket and clean the barrack’s floor until it shone, and he could eat breakfast on it.

It was punishment for staring at Captain Brigg’s daughter. Even till this very moment, he was unable to find any resemblance between the rugged and unkempt Captain Brigs and his daughter. It was like they weren’t even related. At the time, nobody else had been looking, so he thought it was fine if he did. But Stanley was really frustrated. Like, Briggs wasn’t even looking in his direction and—

Stanley wobbled like a diving board as he froze in place and squinted his eyes.

Retreating from an open field and into a distant tree line was a suspicious-looking, hooded person. Stanley didn’t know who it was, but he couldn’t think of anything else but one word stuck out like a sore thumb in his mind: bandit.

“Captain, north-west!” Stanley yelled, grabbing the platoon’s attention.

Captain Briggs’ tall and broad-shouldered frame came to an immediate stop.

“Halt!” He ordered in a natural voice of authority, his voice carrying across the nearby forest in due haste. He then looked north-west, his eyes attempting to peer through the white fog.

“There’s a…” Stanley’s words trailed off when the green-hooded person suddenly turned around and made eye contact with him.

Stanley’s breath froze. How did they spot him?

“They—they spotted us! It’s just one person, but I think it could be a bandit!”

The dimly glowing blue tattoo outlining his right eye grew in brightness.

It temporarily grew beyond its original design as Stanley pushed the [Farsight] ability to its extreme.

His right eye zoomed in even further and he saw their appearance in greater detail. But as soon as Stanley caught a glimpse of their face, the person turned translucent and ran off.

“They just turned almost invisible! And they’re running away!” Stanley shouted in urgency, hoping that Briggs would take action as soon as possible.

Hearing those words, the greenhorns stiffened and looked in the direction of Stanley’s gaze.

Captain Briggs frowned as he assessed the situation. After a few moments of tense silence, he shook his head in disapproval. “It’ll be a long and winding goose chase if we go after some distant person in the snow who can turn themselves close to invisible. But if you want to go after them Stanley, oh, please, be my guest. I’m sure my daughter and I will be very pleased if—by coincidence—you never return from your first mission.”

Stanley’s expression turned sour. He then heard a few snickers that nobody tried to hide. After saying those words, Briggs noticed a look of approval from some of the older veterans.

Half of his men had families to come home to, and he didn’t want to waste their time on a single person, and potentially force them to camp out in the harsh and unforgiving wilderness for a night. He wouldn’t make any new friends by doing so. He would instead create enemies who disdained his command.

But Briggs wasn’t lousy or carefree. He ordered the platoon to stay in place for a few minutes while Stanley scouted out the rest of the open field. He didn’t want to unknowingly walk into an obvious trap like an idiot. He still didn’t know the rest of the story.

He had a plethora of unanswered questions. He was lost in his thoughts when he heard an annoyingly loud shout from the baby-faced Stanley. Really, he had to teach the boy how to keep his voice at a tolerable level.

“What did you say?” Briggs asked, having not heard Stanley the first time.

With a bewildered look on his face, Stanley pointed to the open field and said, “I…I think there’s a baby there.”