Massaging my temples, I looked at the literal portal to hell and to the bratty goddess and, for a moment, I thought that maybe hell might’ve been the better choice between the 2. But alas, I didn’t want to meet satan himself this early into my life, so I choose the only viable option and accepted becoming her champion, albeit begrudgingly.
“Alright, alright brat, I’ll become your champion or whatever.” I said while raising my hands up above my head... and yes, I was still lying down.
And no, I was not getting up.
“Finally!” She said with glee, and with a snap of her fingers the portal was gone.
“Now we can start talking about your duties as my champion!
But before that, you are no longer allowed to call me a brat, or bad mouth me!” She said while pointing a finger at me, and the only thing I could say was.
“Nuh uh.”
“...What?”
“Nuh uh. That’s not happening, I’ll call you a brat as long as you continue being an entitled brat.” I told after lying down on the ground once again, not even looking at her, but even though I wasn’t looking at her, I could feel that she was getting angry.
“BUT YOU SAID YOU’D BECOME MY CHAMPION!” She yelled.
“Yes, I said that. But I never said I’d respect you. Like what I said, we humans are only willing to work with others who respect us, but I do not respect you because, you guessed it, you do not respect me. And the moment you threatened me with literally sending me to hell, you lost the small amount of respect I had for you.”
“B-but... if you do not respect me, I’ll send you to—” But I cut her off before she could finish her sentence.
“Hell? Yeah, that’s not going to work a second time. Do you seriously expect me to allow you to add another condition to our deal after I’ve accepted becoming your champion? Nah, that’s final. If you want me to start respecting you, start respecting me first, and start giving me actual incentives to want to work with you.”
After that a moment of silence overtook the white void, and she just shut up, and stood there.
Then I turned my head away.
I kind of felt bad, because she looked like a child and, being an adult, I did not enjoy making children feel bad.
But at the same time, she was a literal goddess, so she should know better than to just threaten people to do her bidding.
I mean, her parents thought about their children using force on others to do their bidding, and tried to stop them by making rules, but they apparently forgot threats.
...Man, gods are really intelligent! Oh, how I wish I knew of their intelligence prior to my demise, I totally wouldn’t have abandoned my religion and became an atheist instantly!
Totally not!
After a few minutes of silence, I looked to my side and just saw Rae on the ground, lying like I was.
...
..
.
“Ahh... I can’t believe I am doing this.” I muttered and started getting up and realizing that I was getting up Rae turned towards me.
“What are you doing?” She asked, confusion clear on her face.
“Well, you were talking about what my role as a champion was, right brat? So, continue. If I am stuck with you for the rest of my life, I’d at least like to know what I am supposed to do.” I said, and I saw her eyes gain a bit of brilliance, which diminished greatly the moment I called her a brat.
...
..
.
“Look Rae, I am taking the first step to build some kind of relationship between us, okay? So, just take a step too and continue what you were saying, instead of just lying there like a rock.” I told her, trying to get her to get moving because, while I still didn’t like her, my heart really didn’t let me see a sad child and not help.
And thankfully, after a few more seconds of silence, she spoke up.
“Stop calling me a brat.”
“...Seriously? That’s what you are sad about after everything?” I said, baffled.
She turned her head towards me, still lying down, and said with a resolute voice.
“Yes.”
“...Auhg... Alright, alright. I’ll stop calling you a brat, but if you ever threaten me with hell again, I am calling you a brat.”
Thinking for a few moments she got up and told me that was acceptable, and as we just stood there, I once again took the first step and asked.
“So... what’s this whole champion thing all about? I remember hearing things about conquest and galaxy and the great game but...?”
“Its basically that. A game made by our parents to entertain us. They basically just created a universe with a single galaxy, and we decided to leave it alone for 19 billion years, after which we’d come back, choose one of the sapient species that had developed in the galaxy, and guide them in our conquest of the rest!
But my sibling started a few thousand years ago, before the start date we decided and didn’t tell me, so there is kinda... no other sapient races left in the galaxy that haven’t already been chosen, and I don’t know how to make a sapient race from zero up so... yeah, you’ll basically need to build a whole civilization from ground up, but don’t worry! I’ll give you powers to help you develop, and I’ll be there too!
Following you every step of the way!” She started talking a bit awkwardly at first, but then she finished off excitedly, which, hopefully, meant she was actually willing to cooperate with me.
But there was a teeny tansy problem in the shape of me not knowing jack shit about nation building.
“Don’t worry about it! This great goddess Rae has ways of helping you!” She said with her chest high after I told her about my problem.
“Then, o great goddess, how do we start this... great game your parents have built?” I said a bit mockingly.
“Huhu~~Well, simple really. I just need to choose a planet or moon to put you on, and voila! We are in! But we have a teeny meeny problem before that...” She said sheepishly, and I immediately got worried... mostly because she did not realize my clear mocking from before. But there was still quite a bit of worry from the teeny meeny part too.
“Ugh... what is it?” I asked while massaging my temples.
“Well... you see, there is a soft cap to how many of us can use the same race, we put it there so the champions wouldn’t have to worry too much about convincing their people to wage war against other champions and that cap is—”
“Let me guess, 1 or 2? And let me take another crazy guess and say that there are already enough gods who rule humans?”
“Well, there are a few more gods who have humans as their primary race, but yes, I can’t make another human race to join the game.” She finished, and I just looked at her exasperated.
“Well... can I be a space elf?”
“Maxed out.”
“Dwarf?”
“Maxed.”
“Terrans?”
“They are just humans. Maxed.”
“Ugh... white goblins?”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Humans have many phenotypes, so you saying only white goblins is weird... but no, goblins are maxed out too.”
“Fuck me... are there any other human looking races that are not maxed out?”
“Nearly every god chooses bipedal species because... as you see, we look quite human like, but yeah, there are no more ‘human-like’ species left, so I was just planning on making my own.” As she said something about making her own human-like species, my heart skipped a beat, and I must have made such a bad face that she felt the need to make a comment.
“HEY!” I lied, she just started yelling at me again. I’ve fooled you and will do so again.
“I am quite good at making new races!”
“Says the b—small girl that said she couldn’t make sapient races from zero.”
“I’d like to see you try to make one!”
“No thanks. Anyways, what’s your plan on making a new race? Just another organ or something and voila?”
She grumbled for a bit, but soon Rae continued talking.
“No, that wouldn’t work, I need to make a race that at least looks different from humans. So, they can’t be confused. And there is no need to worry about their sapience as I’ll be just modifying a human body to fit my criteria.”
“Cool so how do get a human— oh... that’s... me?” I said kind of weirded out because a naked me suddenly appeared on the ground.
“Yup, that’s you.” She said and crouched down to my body, and with a touch of a finger, the skin on my body was cut horizontally, and all my skin facing upwards got lifted up.
“Urgh... I don’t feel so good after seeing that... god my stomach...” I became immediately ill because the dumbass, who shall go unnamed, thought it’d be a good idea to dissect my own body in front of me.
What a great idea! Surely, she must be the genius of the century!
“Oh, quit it, it isn’t even you real body, just a clone I created now.”
“I am just going to... turn around... please don’t make noises with it or I might actually puke.” I said and went quite a bit away from where my body was being operated on, sat down, and didn’t look back.
Then she started talking to herself while changing my body to be a new race.
“Won’t need these, this has to be a different colour, this is just... redundant, why does a human body have an appendix again? Where should I put... eh, forget it, just fuse it with this... change the... oh yeah, these need to be a different colour too. Should I change the blood? Nah, iron is good enough. And... oops, almost forgot that.”
...
..
.
“Now it should be... done?” After a few more moments, she called out to me, and I readied myself to see what she had done to my beautiful body and...
“What the fuck is this?” I asked her questioningly after I saw what she had done with my body.
“Your new race!” She responded with happiness.
On the ground was a... creature larger than me, and I was large! I was around 185, but whatever this was, was at least 2 metres tall. It had dark blue skin and... on a cursory glance from an uneducated person, nearly all the organs, muscles, and bones looked the same. Well, not the face bones, they looked sharper and... while I could see this being a human face, it definitely wouldn’t be the face of a person you’d see every day.
It almost looked like someone had crushed a human face with a hammer and rebuilt the face... though it was still somewhat good looking which was... weird to say the least.
Oh, and it had long yellow hair, akin to that of Rae, and golden eyes, also it had claws. Very, very small claws, probably just there to replace the fingernails but claws, nonetheless.
“So... what’s the name of this species?”
“Didn’t give it one.”
“And why is that?
“Couldn’t think of one. And we won’t need one for quite some time as there won’t be any intelligent members of your race for quite some time.”
“...Fair. Can you go over everything you did to my body?”
“Well, I removed some redundancies and just improved your body’s efficiency overhaul, and do note that, this is not the body the rest of your species will have from birth.”
“Wait... you made my people go through life cycle like bugs? Do they have to make a cocoon around themselves or something?”
“No, nothing like that, this body is just a tier 2 body instead of a tier 1 body. Your species, like the rest of species, is a tier 1 species from birth. I just upgraded your body, so you’d be able to use mana from the moment you touched your new world.”
“Wait—you never talked about there being magic!” I asked, surprized. Which... maybe was my mistake because a goddess was offering to send me to another world, of course there was fucking magic!
“Oh, yeah... kinda forgot about that didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you kinda did.”
“Wait, let me just clarify a few more things about the systems I’ll give you access to, what are tiers, and how the great game works, that’s fine by you, right?”
“Yup, totally fine by me. I mean, better than learning about them on the ground.”
“Right. Now this is going to be a bit of an info dumb but stay with me—wait, I need quickly do something.” She said and pointed her hands towards me.
“Huh? What do you—” Then she snapped her fingers and my body suddenly changed from that of a human to... whatever the blue thing on the ground was.
“OH GOD.” I said in disbelief looking at my new hands and body, and it hit me then, that I’d no longer be a human.
“Okay, firstly, say aloud ‘system’... I said say ‘sys—”
“C-can you give me like... an hour to get used to this body? This is... this is not something I deal with every day, you know?” I said, my voice coming out a bit shaken even though I didn’t intend it to.
“O-oh... okay, I’ll just... wait then.”
After a considerable amount of time, I got in peace with my new body and asked Rae to explain to me the magic in this new world.
“Okay, first of all, say ‘system’”
Muttering aloud, I was met with a dark blue window, like the skin colour of my new body.
System Window:
Name: Damian Tier: 2
Hp:100/100 HpR: 1
Mp: 100/100 MpR: 1
Skills: Mana Sense, Mana Manipulation
Emperor Skills: Homunculi Creation, Absolute Order
Blessings: Chosen Of The Goddess Rae
Party Members: 0
“W-what is this?! Does every being in this new world have a system like this?” I asked while inspecting the system.
“No, they do not. Only the chosen of my siblings, and you... and your ‘Party Members’ who will act like advisors to you, but you will have to summon them yourself, or uplift a person from your empire to be one.”
“Oh... okay.”
“Now, just go through the system window and just... click on things. Mentally, or with your finger.”
Going through the window, I could only actually click on my... 2 different skill sections and blessings.
Firstly, I clicked on Mana sense.
Mana Sense: What do you think their descriptions would be dumbass?
“...Wha—”
*Pfft—*
Turning my head towards Rae, I saw for a moment that she was laughing, at the moment she saw that I turned my head, she looked away.
So... she was writing these things. Great. Oh, how fun a time I am going to have with this!
Then I moved on to Mana Manipulation.
Mana Manipulation: What do you think their descriptions would be dumbass?
*Pfft—*
Then I turned my head to the side once again, and she turned her head away again.
“Can you... not please?”
“Oh... okay, I won’t.” She said, but I felt that she was going to do it again.
Then I moved onto the thing that caught my attention the most, Homunculi Creation.
Homunculi Creation: Turns organic matter into Homunculi, simple, is it not?
“...How much organic matter does the skill need to turn something into Homunculi?”
“Oh? Just click on the skill.”
Doing as she said, I was met with another window, and there was only 1 thing on it, Homunculi Brute.
Tier 1
Homunculi – Cost: 100 kg – Description: A basic Homunculi that can only do menial tasks and follow basic orders. Costs 100 kg of organic matter to produce and is around 80 kg. Consumes 2600 calories a day.
“Huh... this is... quite great but... I can’t make a civilization with only this now, can I?” I questioned Rae.
“Nope, you cannot, for that I have another system for you. The 2 are related, but you are looking at your personal system right now.”
“Oh, okay then.”
The I moved my hand to the final skill, Absolute Order.
Absolute Order: Forces any Homunculi or Citizen of your empire who hears it to follow your orders, no matter if they are willing or not. Exciting, is it not? Fufufufu~~
...
*Pfftt—*
“Rae, this is not funny.” I told her, slowly turning my head while holding my temples, which remained mostly the same thankfully.
“O-oh...”
“Rae, I understand you are seeking to entertain yourself in this... game, but... can you not give me skills that are only useful for slavery? Or about forcing people to do things even though they are not willing to do it?
I understand where you are coming from but... please don’t?”
“Oh, umm...”
“Rae.” I said her name and looked her dead in the eyes, not moving or blinking for a moment.
She might be a goddess, but in the small time I had known her, it had became clear to me that she was but a child, whose parents, instead of doing actual parenting, made galaxies for their children to go fight each other.
Great parental figures btw.
“Okay, I will not do it again.” She said.
“...I will trust you, Rae.” I said. Did I actually trust her? Nope, not even an ounce of trust could be found in me for her. But hey, a man can hope, could he not?
Turning my attention to the blessings, I chose the Chosen Of The Goddess Rae.
Chosen Of The Goddess Rae: I, Rae, have chosen you to be my champion in The Great Game! You should be honoured mortal!
...What an honour it is... to be threatened by eternal torture that is.
“Now, about the other system...” I started speaking and Rae just told me how to access it by cutting me.
“Just think of the personal system for the one you are looking at right now, and empire system for the other one. Or say it out loud.”
Well, that’s simple enough.
“Empire System!” I said loud and clear, and the system appeared in front of me, this time a dark red instead of a dark blue.
Empire System:
Level 0 Experience: 0/100
Population: 1
Empire Stockpile +
Research +
Research Points: 0
Quests:
Main Quest - Galactic Conquest – Win The Great Game and Conquer the Galaxy! – Rewards: Heaven or Draconic reincarnation + memory wipe.
First Of Many – Create a Homunculi. – Rewards: 10 Exp + 1 Research Point
“...Ha...hahaha!” I suddenly started laughing the moment I saw the reward for completing the main quest... was this brat kidding me?
You are supposed to use the carrot first, and then the stick. You can’t beat a man with the stick and make him get his carrot himself!
That’s not how the game is supposed to go!
“Is this enough of an incentive to make you want to work for me?” She then had the audacity to ask. I wanted to get up and punch her in the face. But that would not be the wise choice.
“A bit...” I lied through my teeth.
Honestly, my emotions were in a conflict.
On one hand, I wanted to attribute her stupidity and actions to the fact that she was a child... but did she really deserve it?
Because, on the other hand, she was a literal goddess. These feelings of mine may not even be real, and she might be manipulating my mind like a toy to make me see her as but a child. Toying with me, and the rest of the galaxy and billions or trillions of people.
Because, to them, we are just that, toys. Toys to be played with in their Great Game.