"Watch where you're going, jackass!", the truck driver screamed at the teen, laying in the street directly in front of his grill.

He only laid there for a few seconds before getting up and dusting himself off. "It's just Jack, actually. Jack Mejov", Jack said, lying about his last name.

"Get out of the road!" the truck driver yelled again, even angrier.

It was the fourth time Jack had tried this in the last three years. The fourth truck, the fourth city. Every time he thought he had the chance, he took it. What was the point of being human when there were countless fantasy worlds people had dreamed up and written about? He wanted to get there. Where things were interesting.

There were so many other races! Elves that walk silently and have magic, dwarves that don't get depressed when there's no sun for months, trolls that regenerate from everything, and thousands if not millions more. Most he didn't know about, but he knew that there was more than he could ever learn about. What few fantasy races he did know about, he knew pretty well.

Jack had walked down the road at least a block. Two blocks? Three? He was lost in thought and wasn't paying attention. What got him to snap out of it was a vehicle screeching, which was music to his ears.

"Watch where you're going, asshole!" screamed a truck driver about a block away, straight down the road that Jack was at the corner of.

"You had a stop! I'm trying to back out of my driveway, dick!" screamed the driver of the car that was almost jack knifed in between the truck's driver door and back wheels. If the car had gone further back, it would have been wedged between the diesel's tractor and trailer.

The truck driver kept yelling at the other driver, but his truck lurched forward and started quickly gaining momentum, with the driver leaning out of the window and not looking in front of him.

"This is my chance!" Jack thought loudly to himself, and he didn't waste a single precious moment.

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"I'd appreciate you just filling out the paperwork if you're done drooling on yourself", said a bored, but authoritative-sounding male voice.

Jack looked around. He was sitting on the right-hand side of a loveseat made of glossy dark brown leather, in a small room dimly lit by small lamps on tall stands, one in each corner. It was carpeted, and a highly detailed green rug was hidden partially under a rounded but comfortable looking chair that might not have been confused for somewhere a librarian or king should sit. Sitting in that chair, facing Jack, was an older-looking man with powerful facial features.

"Uh, yeah..." he took a minute to get a hold of his senses. He looked down at the clipboard he held in his left hand and white feather quill he held in his right. He looked back at the other man. "Wait, it worked? I get to reincarnate into a different world?!" Jack was ecstatic.

"Uh huh", the man said, not showing interest in the question.

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"What races do I get to pick from? Can I be a game-breaking mage? Do I get a cool sword? How about a harem? Can I have all the bitches? Like, all of them? Oh man my hair's gonna be crazy! I get a pet dragon too, right?" Jack asked all these questions and more, exploiting the fact that he didn't have lungs anymore.

"No."

Jack was confused. "No? No to what question?"

"All of them. Fill out the questionnaire."

He looked down at the paperwork he was told to fill out twice now. Maybe the cool stuff was already filled in, and he didn't need to ask? But as Jack looked and read, things were indeed already filled in, with no options given. Just a pre-printed answer, as if someone used a stamp and didn't pay attention enough to make sure it was actually on the line it was expected to be on.

"A dungeon core? That's my new race?"

"Fill out the paperwork."

"Can I be a human again instead?" Jack asked.

"Sure, if the point cost is compatible. All we have to do is calculate the objective value of humanity. Once the very last mortal forgets the very last thing about humanity, we can compact its history and adjust it for versatility, endurance, relevance, and other factors. Then we assign it a point value. If it's the same or less than your current assignment, then you can be human instead."

"Uh, how long would that take? I mean how long would I have to wait here for that?"

"You'd be waiting here in real time. Are you ready?"

"I'll uh, I'll just fill out the paperwork some more."

He continued filling out some things, but he was looking for questions he didn't see with even more focus. "Monster progression? Okay, I see it has options for 'special events', 'elemental potency', 'achievements', and 'passive dungeon core advancement'. What do those mean?"

"There are only a few bubbles to fill in, and boxes to put a checkmark in. You've done that before, right? Just do that." The man, if that's actually what he was, was sounding more annoyed than tired now.

Jack read more, skipping over that question for now. On the next page was something else that was equally confusing. "Dungeon Core skill or element affinity bonus? What kinds of options are there? I don't see anything listed."

The man blinked a few times, looking like he was trying to keep himself awake, but without the intent to succeed. "Tell you what. I'll go get someone that can answer all of your questions for you. Would that help?" the man asked.

"Yes please", Jack answered.

The other man got up from his chair, and left the room. When the door closed, it did so loudly, but didn't seem like it was slammed. Jack sat there patiently, waiting for the man to come back. After an hour, he decided to just skip that question too and just fill out the other options.

However long it was after that, Jack just laid down uncomfortably on the seat too big for one person to sit on, but not long enough for anyone to lay down on. Eventually he was awakened.

"Got all those questions filled out?", asked the man.

"Oh, uh, I just got a couple more. So, it says here that the dungeon chest is a 'standard wooden treasure chest' but 'wood' isn't just wood. It's like, a kind of wood. What kind of wood is it?"

"Pine."

"Pine?!" Jack asked incredulously.

"It is now that you asked. Actually, I apologize. That's a typo. It's supposed to say balsa."

"You didn't look at the paper."

"No, I didn't."

Jack could see that arguing wasn't going to get him any help. "Uh, here it says that I can choose a copy of any single thing on my entire previous world to act as a dungeon treasure? Surely that can't be right. Like, it's not like I can choose The Elephant's Foot from the Chernobyl Accident and stuff it in my treasure chest!"

"If that's what you want, then fine."

"Wait, what? That would make the chest light on fire and melt!"

"The chest is invulnerable to whatever is in it and nothing inside can be detected in any way at all until the chest is opened."

Jack was getting really uncomfortable now. "But how is anyone-" he was cut off mid-sentence.

"If you don't have any more questions, then", the man yawned. "I wish you luck on-" the man might have finished his sentence, but Jack wasn't around anymore to tell one way or the other. Instead, he was standing, or at least he felt like he was, in the middle of what looked like a church that had been long abandoned. He only heard a single frog in the distance.