“Hey! Hey! Wake up sleepy head, if you don’t I’ll make sex at you” (???)

I hear an eerie voice, and immediately jump.

“Woah there” (Gachachacha)

Gachachacha takes a few step back as I jump. Ah, so I'm back here. No, I'm not back there, this isn't the white space is it. It's more like a white palace.

“It’s you again, what do you want?” (Blade)

“No need to be in such a rush, calm yourself. How are you doing? You seem to be doing pretty well, already level 10. You're quite fast."

"Did you bring over here for these shenanigans? Come on, out with it what do you want."(Blade)

"Geez, No need to be so uptight. You see every first night of an otherworlders stay they end up at this palace for an interview of sorts.” (Gachachacha)

“For what?” (Blade)

“For fun, like everything else they do. They’re trying to add some spice to their never ending and boring lives.” (Gachachacha)

“And why exactly do I have to do this?” (Blade)

“Because if you don’t you’ll be stuck here forever and starve to death.” (Gachachacha)

Sigh, I get up and begin walking down the white road in front of me. After who knows how long, I ended up in front of a massive white door. As I approached the it slowly opened up beckoning me in. As I walk inside the massive doors behind me close, and I find a single white bridge leading to a circular platform hovering over a deep dark abyss with seemingly no end in sight.

The room is filled with countless floating flames, and it appears that above me there is an amphitheater of sorts. I suppose this is a theater for the gods huh.

“Welcome, Demon Blade” (???)

A loud voice echoes throughout the room. As I look up I find a massive floating man appears before me upon the lowest seat of the theater.

“I am the God of Entertainment, Enmu, I welcome you to the Palace of the Gods!” (Enmu)

A bunch of massive floating trumpets appear out of nowhere and began playing music. Soon enough each seat began to be filled by a different, and equally massive god. There were Gods who looked like Humans and wore white robes, there were those who were beasts, those who were part beast and part human, and those who were just lumps of flesh. There was a God who looked like a Tengu, a God that looked like a Minotaur, a God in the shape of a Slime, and a God in the shape of a Demon. There were so many Gods I could hardly count them all.

As each God appeared they would strike a pose and music would begin playing. At times they would introduce themselves in a grandiose manner. And at times they some would proceed with a short speech

As I watched this act go on I could help but make a remark

“This really is just a game to you isn’t it?” (Blade)

Which the God of Entertainment unhesitatingly replied

“Of course” (Enmu)

Tch, didn’t even bother denying it. I guess a God's free to do what he wishes after all aren't Gods supposed to be the most powerful beings? Whatever, it’s not like I can do anything to them, or can I?

The HUD of the Gacha Phone is still active, and I try and take out one of my pistols, but it seems I can’t access my inventory right now.

I check my pocket’s but I can’t find anything useful. I suppose I really can’t do anything huh. Even if I were in top form, I still wouldn't be able to do anything to them, let alone killing them I can't even reach them. I sighed.

“Let’s get this over with” (Blade)

“Very well, I Enmu will act as representative for the other gods and I will ask you some questions. Ahem,.Demon Blade, do you wish to be a Demon King?” (Enmu)

“No” (Blade)

All the god’s begin chattering...

“Oh? Then Blade, why did you use the Demon Race Card we gave you?” (Enmu)

“Because it’s stronger.” (Blade)

“You’re not afraid of being hunted down? I’m sure you understand the disadvantages of being a Demon, no?” (Enmu)

“Of course, but as long as I’m not seen in my Demon Form I’ll be fine, right? Isn’t that why you gave me Humanification?” (Blade)

“Yes, but even then there was still the possibility of being seen through ,even with Humanification. I’m sure you considered that, so then why?” (Enmu)

“I told you, because it’s stronger.” (Blade)

Enmu furrowed his brows.

“Is that also the reason you killed those other Otherworlders? For the sake of strength?” (Enmu)

“Sort of” (Blade)

“Sort of is vague, what do you mean?” (Enmu)

“Well after confirming my theory I was incentivized to kill the others for a head start. But-” (Blade)

“And you killed those innocent bystanders for that head start?” (Enmu)

“Hey hey hey! You didn’t let me finish what I was saying. Besides they weren’t innocent bystanders, well I suppose they were innocent but by no means were they bystanders. They were, no I should say to me they were simply a threat, a threat that I eliminated as soon as possible. The head start was sort of like the icing on top of the cake.” (Blade)

“What threat could they have poised?” (Enmu)

“What threat? You of all people should understand exactly how powerful they would have become. In just a day my strength drastically changed. Even if they couldn't rely on previous experiences and formal training like I have, I doubt there would be anyone that could really be a threat to them. The only ones who would be able to threaten us are people just like us, other Otherwolders. And that’s exactly why.”(Blade)

“Did you even think about talking it over, negotiating? How are you so sure they would have been a threat? Yes, they might they could have become a threat later on, yes, they could easily become one of the most powerful beings in this world, yes, they potentially have the ability to kill you, but did it you ever think that they could have possibly been one of your greatest allies!” (Enmu)

“That was a possibility...But it was only a possibility. And now that deed is done, that possibility is at most an improbability. You see from the information present when I made my choice there were only two possible scenarios that would occur should I let them live. They would either join me, or oppose me. Both of these events, naturally were only simple possibilities. But one possibility posed a risk, and that's one too many.” (Blade)

“Why only those two choices? There were surely other possibilities, no? Is it because you knew they wouldn’t accept your methods? You who killed both their friends and their enemies, yet feigned to be their savior.” (Enmu)

Ah, so they were watching. He must be referring to what happened with the Goblins..

“I suppose so. I suppose that might have also been a reason.” (Blade)

“You suppose?” (Enmu)

“Well there were probably several other reasons I killed them, but I’ve already told you the main reason. If I let them live they’d be strong, and that strength may potentially get in my way. There's no reason for me to keep repeating myself.” (Blade)

“Then tell me, what are you planning? They wouldn’t become a potential danger unless you were planning something. Are you planning some sort of atrocity you knew they wouldn’t let go.” (Enmu)

“An atrocity? Possibly, I’m sure if I committed one I’d get a bunch of levels, no? So I suppose I should say yes, yes I killed them because I might just commit an atrocity.” (Blade)

“That’s such a shallow reason, you killed them because of a possibility, a maybe. Is this what I’m getting.” (Enmu)

“Yes” (Blade)

“Are you even Human?” (Enmu)

“Now? No. Before? Barely.” (Blade)

“What is you’re trying to do exactly, what is it.” (Enmu)

Ah, those oh so familiar words. I wonder how many times I've heard that repeated, how many times have I heard that meaningless question. What I want is-

“Strength, the greatest, most powerful strength.” (Blade)

The Gods quickly began chattering, and Enmu looked back. They whispered a few things into his ear before he turned back to look at me.

“To what end?” (Enmu)

“To what end? There simply is no end. Strength is not a means to a conclusion, but the conclusion in and of itself.” (Blade)

“What!? Do you not seek glory, fame, women? Do you not seek the pleasures of life, the pleasures of sin? How could Strength ever be the end, when Strength has always remained a means.” (Enmu)

“How? Who knows really. Even I don’t exactly understand. Maybe it’s out of bad habit, or maybe because it’s all I have left. What I seek is this oh so accursed strength, and this strength alone.” (Blade)

“Is that really what you want?” (???)

“Gremharl” (Enmu)

“The path of a warrior is one filled with an endless amount of blood, death, trickery. But those warriors who fearlessly charge forth into the hellfire of war are not back solely by their everlasting conviction to tread this corpsed ridden path of ours. Whether our path was forged for others or for oneself, whether our path was built from love, or hate, or honorably, warriors charge forth in earnest! But what of you? I see neither love, nor hate, nor emotion in your eyes, only death! You tread this honorable path with such a weak resolve, an empty drive for strength! I won’t have you belittle this sacred path of strength! What is it you truly wish your you accursed calamity!” (Gremharl)

All the Gods looked towards Gremharl. I recall when he appeared he was on of the Gods who introduced himself. Gremharl, the God of War. I see I suppose to him this path of mine is one of a warrior.

“God of War, you sure are making a lot of assumptions here..” (Blade)

“Assumptions?” (Gremharl)

“Just think about it for a moment, there are naturally more than just a warriors path. I who lack the passion of love, or hate, or the honor to fight for a king could never walk such a road. I’ve been raised, and trained to always be a killer.” (Blade)

“But what drives you! Even killers have a goal in mind. They kill for pleasure, for fame, for vengeance, for a cost. But I see no such things in you. You lack the very thing that makes humans human! You’re worse than even beasts who follow their instincts, for no beast would kill on a whim! You’re a madman!” (Gremharl)

“Of course I am. And you know just because you’ve yet to see a man kill without reason, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.” (Blade)

“But just because I haven’t seen it doesn’t mean that it does! What could you possibly know! I’ve lived millions of years, I’ve seen far more than you could have ever. All men act with a purpose, a purpose just beyond surviving. In the world there are those who could abandon their lives for the greater good, those who could abandon all else to indulge in sin. There is no man who doesn’t follow their hearts, or man who is not held captive by his emotions.” (Gremharl)

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

“Then what about me? What about me? At time’s I’ve killed killed not to live, nor to protect. At times I’ve killed without rhyme or reason.” (Blade)

“What!?” (Gremharl)

“God of War, you brought up some good points you know. There are no emotions in these eyes of mine, you’re absolutely right. There’s nothing out there driving me to seek this goal of mine either, you’re right. Because, you see I’ve long lost those things years ago. No, no that’s not exactly right. I suppose I should say, those things were stolen from me 14 years ago.” (Blade)

“They were taken from you?That’s impossible! And even if it was there’s no one around that could possibly control you, at least not without my knowing.” (Gremharl)

“Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying anyone’s controlling me to do the things I’m doing. Well not anymore at least. I’m sure I’m a pretty rare case, so I’m not surprised you’ve never seen something like this before. In my world, out of all the millions of people there were only about a twenty thousand test subjects, and more than 97% of which have long since perished. The chance that one of those few individuals could possibly be picked to come here are so small that you’d have better luck winning the lottery while simultaneously being struck by a bolt of lightning twice. So let me tell you a nice little story.” (Blade)

The Gods quietly looked at each other. It look as if they wanted to say anything, but I just continued on.

“Once upon a time there was a race called Humans. They were incredible and in only a hundred or so years they managed to go farther than any other species ever had. But this rapid developed led them to rapidly reach their physical limits. You see Humans of this time relied rather heavily on machines, and these machines were reached what was considered at the time an unsurpassable limit. This was predicted to cause Humanities rapid development and most technological advancements to come to a halt, or slow down by a large margin.” (Blade)

This was a time where scientist were frantically trying improve technology, and break past this limit. Their goal was to advance Quantum Computing and get a better grasp of this peculiar world to make practical Quantum Computers. But doing this was easier said than done.

Quantum Computers already existed, but they possessed all sorts of limitations and flaws that were proving incredibly difficult to fix. It was predicted to take a few decades before we’re able to fix all of the issues.

“However there was one Scientist, Wernher von Braunstein who asked a question: 'Is this really the right way to go about things?’ Everyone was so busy trying to get past the limit and enter a new world that would usher a new world of possibilities that no one bother to ask, are we using what we have effectively? Our technology back then was optimized after years of hard work, but he decided to check to see if it was truly optimized. And after a mere five years of research he found an alternative. With the same amount of space he managed to make computers nearly a thousand times faster.” (Blade)

I wasn’t even born when this discovery was made, but it was so great that this story was mentioned every single year of my life. It came to the point that I could tell it by heart.

“The international focus shifted from breaking the limit to optimizing all existing computers and whatever else we had. And after only a few years of collaborative research we managed to improve the processing speed from a thousand times faster to hundreds of thousands of times faster. Though it was stated that at the Quantum Level that we were working on before was about 100 million times faster than your standard computer,but it’s not like we required that much speed for most things anyway. And instead of stagnating, technology made leaps and bounds that surpassed those hundred years of development. In just ten years the world had evolved,technology from the year before was drastically different from the year after it. And so were a few other things.” (Blade)

I look up at the Gods, they seem to be enjoying the story.

“You see, with this technology, scientists managed to perfect a certain technology they’ve been working on for years called, Nanomachines. They were so excited that they were able to make this technology a reality that only a year of frantic researching and testing they already released it to the public. But you see that was a fatal mistake. It turns out that these Nanomachines didn’t exactly work as well with Humans as they did the test subjects in the labs. The end result was a total of a hundred or so victims. Naturally the government covered it up, but they couldn’t just tell the public this amazing technology was fatal to humans now could they. So they began using Humans in experiments. At first It started off with volunteers, but after a few dozen tests the extreme death rate became apparent and frightened off would be volunteers.” (Blade)

And besides the amount of volunteers that the government could pick were limited anyway. Of course they could experiment on criminals, but with all the advances in technology the crime rate dropped to an all time low and there were only so many criminals out there. And besides wouldn’t it be weird if a packed jail house was suddenly empty? Anyway..

“Since there were no one they could test voluntarily at that point they turned to the orphanages. And after thousands of sacrifices they managed to fix the problem, and soon enough Nanomachines were so Human-Friendly.” (Blade)

Those thousands or so sacrifices were the 1st batch of Human Test Subjects, and they were the unluckiest. The death rate for those subjects was 99%. Only a handful of people actually survived. Of course anyone who survived ended up being a test subject for even more experiments

“But you see after the first Human experimentations ended they found some rather interesting results. You see by using nanomachines they found that our Brains aren’t working as efficiently was we thought. So the government secretly allowed Human experimentation on orphans again, and they began to start rewiring our brains. After years this experimentation escalated and escalated until it reached the 9th batch. Some of the more deadly experiments were over by then, but you see the 4th World War was just getting started. So the government issued an order to ramp up experiments and executed a Super Human Program in an attempt to create super soldiers. And you see I was a part of that program.” (Blade)

I point a finger to my head

“You see there’s always been a little voice in my head since the program, telling me to get stronger, and stronger, and stronger. And whenever a situation arises where I need to fight, regardless of my emotions my body screamed at me telling me to kill. They pumped a bunch of nanomachines into my brain to rework it, as well as all sorts of of antidepressants and inhibitors. I was fed steroids over and over, and I frequently lost limbs. Sometimes the parts that were put back in weren’t even mine. Whenever they deemed a part of me was too weak they would take it out and replace it with a part they created in the lab. We were like dolls you see, broken broken dolls.” (Blade)

“Did you escape?” (Enmu)

“Of course, a certain group caught wind of the experiments and raided the lab. As soon as the raid was over, they took in the survivors, and with their help I got my revenge. I killed the President of the United Federation, I went over and massacred a bunch of people in China, I set off a bomb in Russia. I can keep on going ,but that’s pointless there were just too many people involved with the experiments. But you see even while I was killing for revenge I didn’t feel a single thing. I was simply fulfilling the wish of the me before, the me who stands before you. ” (Blade)

All the Gods, remained silent after hearing my story. They simply looked at each other, and after a minute or so of silence.

“I see, well Blade we’ll send you off then. Would you like to say anything before we send you off?” (Enmu)

“Say something? Well, I suppose I should thank you guys.” (Blade)

“Thank us?” (Enmu)

“You guys reset everyone to a blank slate of sorts right? That way we're on the same playing field. I know my body better than anyone else, so I can tell the leftover nanomachines in my brain are gone, and so are some of the effects of the drugs, and I suppose I can feel emotion if that’s what this is. Though it’s not like that will change much anyway.” (Blade)

Enmu smiled wearily, before extending his hand. The door behind me began opening and I turned around and walked away. As I exit the room I notice that Gachachacha is up front walking beside a girl. She looks oddly familiar

“Oh you’re done already that was quite fast.” (Gachachacha)

“Oh, hey it’s been a while. I didn’t introduce myself before though I didn’t really have a name back then. My name is Mary nice to meet you.” (Mary)

Mary introduces herself. Wait from before!?

“Did the other guys with us finish? Well I’ll see you later, possibly.” (Mary)

Mary slowly walks into the room behind me. I quickly turn around and look at her. This girl, I killed her! How is she still alive. I snapped her neck, her heart should have stopped. How is she still alive!?

Do I kill her? I don’t any weapons on me, I still can’t access my inventory. Do I snap her neck again? No, that didn’t work before I need to crush her heart to be sure. Am I able to pierce through her body in my current condition? Shit, I need to kill her now!

If I don’t kill her she might be able to kill me later on. She doesn’t seem to be hostile to me yet. Does she not know I killed the two others? What’s going on. Damn I’m out of time.

The doors in front of me close, and I’m left there with Gachachacha.

“What’s going on here? I thought I killed her.” (Blade)

“Kukuku, I can’t give you any hints. Now off you go” (Gachachacha)

I suddenly wake up

“Aw Fuck Me!” (Blade)

“Umm….” (Claire)

“Ahh….” (Blade)

I turn to the right, and notice a young girl standing by the door.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think we should wait before we do….that….um….” (Claire)

She turned beet red, and quickly runs away. I wonder why she was here?

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

Woot! Double Release. I had this one mostly done, and I woke up and decided, let's see if we can upload this. It's short anyway so I decided why not. I'm not sure If I entirely got what I was trying to get across but whatever. Anyway tell me if there are any errors, and I hope you enjoy.