Inside the dark space, the young man closes the golden scroll and turns his attention to the small star before guessing its purpose.
“If the golden scroll’s words are true, then the Omega symbol used to be the Omega Browser. Since there isn’t anything else within this space, then presumably the star, the golden scroll, and possibly even the space itself all have something to do with the Omega Browser’s original purpose which was to access the internet.”
He pauses for a moment while examining all three things. He finds that he can open and close the scroll but has no control over it otherwise, and he already knows that he can manipulate the star, it’s just that it depletes itself quickly when he does. As for the space itself, he discovers that he can enter and exit it at will but he is unable to find what else he can do with it.
“Alright. For now, I’ll refer to this space as the Omega Browser’s Space because it originates from the Omega symbol and I’ll view the scroll as a user’s manual or… no, it doesn’t explain anything. Maybe a certificate of ownership or a warranty? It doesn’t really do anything as far as I know, but it is inside of the Omega Browser Space which seems to be inside of my mind, so… Screw it. I’ll just consider it as random documentation that came with the Omega Browser and file it away for later.
Now as for the star…”
He looks closely at the star and the small line he had made in the darkness of the Omega Browser Space by manipulating it earlier.
“It might be possible to write with the star, but it loses so much of whatever makes it up even making a small line. If I can write with it, I probably can’t write much… and I don’t know what will happen to it if I do write with it, or if I can erase what I’ve written if I mess up.”
Considering this, he uses his thoughts to try to squeeze the star back together with the tiny line he had made earlier and is happy to discover that the two can be condensed again.
“Okay, so I know I can erase mistakes. Now I just need to figure out how much I can write.”
Focusing on the star, he uses his thoughts to slowly direct it to form letters one after another. He finds that, even though the letters are thin and small, he is barely able to form the entire English alphabet before the star gets so small he begins wondering what would happen if it disappears.
Even more, he finds that he is quickly getting mentally exhausted from the effort of writing even that small amount.
“Well, I’m obviously working with fewer resources than I had hoped…” He grumbles and squeezes the letters and star together until they condense again. After doing so, he hesitates to continue with his testing because his mental fatigue diminishes by a great deal and his thoughts become more clear, but he is still notably more fatigued than when he started.
After a moment, he shakes himself off and reconsiders his task.
“Now I know that the star is definitely a finite resource but I’m still uncertain what it would take to look something up— if that is even possible. But, since I’m working with a finite resource, then I should be more careful with what I attempt to search for. I might even only get one shot at it.”
Considering what he knows about his situation, he realizes that searching for safety and other people using the Omega Browser, even if it’s possible, should be lower on his list of priorities. In fact, given that he was Isekaied, he might be hundreds of miles away from civilization or maybe there isn’t anything he would recognize as ‘civilization’ at all.
“Looking for a way out of my situation is a huge, and possibly fruitless, gamble. So ignore it for now and leave it for later.”
When thinking that the ‘Heavens’ was the party responsible for him being Isekaied, he decides he should probably consider things differently from how he normally would.
“Rather than focusing on getting out of my current situation, I should focus on making my situation beneficial. That means that my first goal should be to survive, but I’ve learned enough in the past that I should be able to manage that without the Omega Browser— and regardless of whether I use the Omega Browser or not, my location is currently irrelevant because it is too dark to see and the grass is hiding literally everything right now but the sky. Then my next obvious step is to get food and water, but I’m right next to the edge of a cliff and I’m not moving anywhere until I can see clearly, so fuck that. I ate just a bit ago anyways and I’ll probably need to boil whatever water I find out here.
So there’s food and water, shelter, and all that jazz, but what does Maslow say next? Isn’t it sex and relationships or something? Fuck, I should have paid more attention in class…”
Smacking the flat of his palm against the top of his head, he remembers. “Self-actualization is the one at the very top while everything in the middle is pretty much untouchable for me right now. So since I probably can’t use the Omega Browser to take care of my immediate needs, I should focus on improving it while I can.
Since I’m not sure if the star is a naturally renewable resource, I should operate under the presumption that it isn’t and that there is probably a way to renew its energy.
It’s pretty clear that the Omega Browser is abnormal and possibly even magical since a power capable of instantaneously sending me away from Earth exists and that power considered the Omega Browser to be worth its attention. I also know that writing with the star uses some part of me that makes me tired. Based on those two things, I should use my first search to find something that can give me more of that thing on the off chance that I cannot get more of it naturally.”
He spends some time thinking about it before checking on the condition of his body outside of the Omega Browser’s Space. He finds that, though his mind is slightly fatigued from the earlier testing of the star, his body is functioning perfectly and seems to be full of energy.
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“So it probably has nothing, or at least very little, to do with my body. That leaves my mind and…” He opens the golden scroll once more and reads through it again. “I was judged to be innocent because I lacked karma or whatever. Judgment makes me think ‘soul’. So, maybe what the Omega rune did to me was alter my soul somehow. If that’s the case, then I should focus my first search on somehow strengthening my soul or making it larger.”
He pauses and asks himself, “Does that even make sense?”
After a moment, he replies, “No, no it doesn’t. But neither does being Isekaied for downloading something on the internet. So soul-strengthening it is.”
“My only problem now is that I am not sure how I should go about strengthening my soul.”
Taking several steps away from the edge of the cliff, he begins pacing back and forth in the grass, making a conscious effort to flatten as much of it as possible with every step he takes.
After a while, he comes up with an idea. “The only things I have heard of that supposedly strengthen the soul are time and music. Since I don’t have time for shit, I should see if I can find music online… is there even an online here?”
He stops pacing while he considers it and ultimately shrugs.
“I will see if I can find soul-strengthening music… should I look for Jazz? Or maybe Blues? Classical music is supposed to make people smarter, but I don’t know if it affects the soul. Hmm…”
Stroking his bare chin, he says, “If it is just music that strengthens the soul, then anything should work... but definitely not Pop. I’d be too annoyed to listen to it if it’s something modern.”
Making up his mind, he uses the star to begin writing out ‘Soul Strengthening Music’ and regrets choosing such a long search phrase as each time he finishes a letter it feels like a massive weight is stacked onto his mind.
Each letter quickly becomes more and more difficult to write until ‘difficult’ turns to ‘painful’.
From the moment he starts writing the second word, his head begins to pound so he decides to take a short break while watching the star to see if it actually can regenerate naturally. Though, whether it is because he didn’t give it enough time or for some other reason, even after five minutes pass, the star remains just as small as he left it after writing just a few letters.
Even worse, he feels as though the pain in his mind isn’t about to subside any time soon.
“Fuck it. I’ll suffer through the pain for now and at best I will have a way to regenerate the star and at worst I will have music and a headache… No, wait. At worst nothing will happen and I will have a headache for no reason.”
Turning his attention once more to the starlit sentence, he forces himself to slowly write each additional letter.
Minutes pass as he grits his teeth in pain and by the time he finishes the second word he begins to wonder if all of this effort is really worth it.
He always enjoyed reading stories and watching anime about main characters who could easily suffer through pain and hardships to accomplish their goals, but when it came to doing it himself, he couldn’t tell for sure if he was being bold or stupid.
“Guess I’ll know if this works, won’t I?” He grunts and prepares himself to write the letters of ‘music’ with the star.
Pausing, he asks himself, “If my assumption is that music is good for the soul, then… shouldn’t I have just written music?”
He stares blankly at the glowing text within his mind, the most important word the only one missing. His mood quickly drops.
Continuing to glare at the glowing letters in front of him, he considers gathering up all the stardust once again and starting over from zero. But, after looking at the result of his pain in front of him, he convinces himself that writing ‘soul strengthening’ before ‘music’ will ensure that the results are better.
So he begins writing again.
The first letter is like a jackhammer straight to the top of his skull and he can’t help but hiss loudly.
The second letter is even worse and forces him to go cross-eyed to combat the pain inside his skull.
Despite his conviction to finish, he is unable to even start the third letter until the pain becomes familiar enough for him to focus his thoughts. But even as he waits, he can’t help but stare at the star while hoping it will regenerate even a tiny bit just so he doesn’t have to put himself through more pain. Unfortunately, even when he gives the star ten minutes, nothing changes that would give him an excuse to change his plans.
“Fuck! This sucks!” He growls and quickly writes down the letter ‘s’ before letting out a pained groan.
After a minute, he says, “Screw this. I’m erasing the first part and just searching for music.”
Turning his attention to the first two words in the sentence, he tries to squeeze them together with his thoughts only to notice that, though they can be moved, they refuse to stop being letters this time around.
“What the hell man? It worked before, what’s different about this time?”
As far as he can tell, nothing is different other than the mental strain and pain involved, but he knows that there was no pain involved in writing down the alphabet and the mental strain was negligible at best.
Thinking about it, he wonders aloud, “Is it different because I actually intend to search for something this time? Does that even matter?”
Without having an opportunity to test it out, he feels a little lost. But, unless he finishes writing what he intends to write, he may never have the opportunity to test it.
“I’d probably never read it, but I really wish this thing came with an owner’s manual right about now.” He grumbles and then forces himself to make a single line for the letter ‘I’.
When he nearly falls over due to the sudden shock to his mind, he decides to sit down before the choice is taken from him.
Not wanting to waste any more time, he clenches his teeth and quickly writes the last letter of ‘music’ and is glad he sat down in advance because he feels as though his entire world starts to churn. The feeling isn’t even limited to a physical sensation as even the Omega Browser’s Space begins distorting and starts rippling as though someone was blowing air bubbles into viscous crude oil.
From the distortions, a nauseating assortment of sounds, shapes, and images begin appearing rapidly within the Omega Browser’s Space and he starts to feel sick as the brilliance of the already heavily-diminished star rapidly dims even further.
He immediately realizes that the appearance of these things is tied to the remaining light within the star so he quickly reaches out and grabs onto one of the images at random before the star’s light can deplete entirely. Hoping he didn’t make the wrong call, he waits in anticipation for something to happen only to be left with a sense of mixed relief and apprehension as everything but the one image he grabbed onto quickly dissipates back into the darkness of the space. Even the starlit text disappeared at some point and the star is so drained that it is practically invisible.
Looking at the image in front of him, he feels a deep sense of chagrin that pokes through his pain and discomfort, and he can’t help but wonder about the state of his subconscious mind.
Glowing brighter than the feeble star ever did in the darkness of the Omega Browser’s Space, a still image of an otherworldly woman with fluffy ears sticking out of the top of her head, slitted, iridescent eyes, and long silver hair has her fingers resting on the strings of a long instrument made from an unknown blue material while a smile equal parts loving and lustful pulls at her lips and eyes.
Just seeing her face makes his heart slam uncontrollably in his chest, but when his eyes travel down and see that she is completely naked and covered in a thin film of sweat, he can’t help but wonder one thing.
“Did I just download someone’s porn?”