...So, I died. Well, that's embarrassing, Glenn thought, his consciousness floating away in a dark sea of emptiness.
It was a bit of a stretch to affirm he was dead, but it did seem like so. As far as he could tell, there was nothing, and he couldn't feel anything, be it the pain of pushing his Mana Heart far and beyond its limits or his actual heart giving up. Wait, weren't those different faces of the same coin? Mana was stored in one's heart, hence the name Mana Heart...right?
Why am I even bothering to think about any of this? Glenn chuckled silently, the only thing he could hear was his thoughts. He was quite comfortable sinking into this dampening silence, his new world made of cozy nothingness. There was no sarcastic entity to mock or laugh at him, no Goddess to ask him to go save the world or whatever that deal with Onnea was, no reason to take revenge. Why bother with finding the truth out about so many things in this bizarre world he couldn't understand, if he was just dead?
Finally, it was only when Glenn died that he could finally put his mind to rest, all his worries dying down with him.
...This is great... The young man smiled happily, somehow trying to make himself more at home in the darkness. Twisting his non-existent body didn't seem to work to make himself feel slightly more comfortable, so he instead chose to peacefully sink deeper into the darkness, trying to stop thinking altogether.
...
...
...I do wonder what was the deal with the Moon Rift and its cult back then...Oh, and who was Diamanes before getting split up into multiple parts? There's also that stuff with the madman I found in the Laboratory with Sahro, uhh, what was his name? Doyle, I think, right? Which makes me remember, that I need to decode that book, uhh, Project Damocles or something. English books aren't really widespread in this world.
Glenn's thoughts stopped, and he sneered at himself.
Glenn, you're dead. This is useless. You don't need to bother yourself with all of that, since all of this is behind you now.
The young man shook his head, trying to get rid of his questions and sink into the darkness that seemed to be so strangely opposite to letting him rest and forget everything. Why couldn't he just forget about this accursed, painful world where everything seemed like it wanted to kill him, eat him, or do both of those at once? It would be considerably easier if he could just get rid of his memories and his struggles with a flick of his fingers.
There's nothing to regret, I'm already dead anyway. Come on, now, the Reaper, whatever, just take me away to hell or paradise, or let me sink in my thoughts. I don't want to be riddled with this...
The young man closed his mouth even though no sound was escaping from it. He slowly passed his tongue over his teeth, an act purely done in his mind since he didn't have a body to do his usual gimmicks.
...Nah, I don't care about the truth. Come on, curiosity literally killed the cat here! Glenn mentally shouted, trying to shut the feelings that were surging from the deepest part of his heart.
The only reason I died was because I wanted to know what would happen if I overachieved with that Soul weapon...the result? I fucking died!
Curiosity is no good.
Nope.
...Damn it, but I really can't help it...What about Howard, what about Liam that was kidnapped by this fucking Baron? Shit, how do I get to eradicate more of the Thorn's Church? And what about my fate being weird, hmm, Guide? Was I supposed to go out like that?!?
Glenn struggled to keep his anger from surging out of an illogical frustration, the darkness surrounding him moving slightly to the beat of his desires. After all, this...annoying frustration he felt, could only be illogical, right?
He was dead. He could only let go of reality and move on since it couldn't matter anyway. Glenn tightly closed his fists as he bit down on his lower lip, trying to repress this stupid bullshit in his heart.
...I wonder what the First King was like. I mean, the guy built King's Rise from the ground up, a city so big I could only explore its furthest extremities... Man... I could see so little of this world, even though...
Glenn's anger died down, opening the floodgates to how he truly felt.
...Even though I still had so much to see! So much of the world, so much to explore, so much new stuff! Magic, monsters...shit, even fucking gods!
The young man cried, his sadness transpiring through his soul.
Fuck me... Why can't I accept my loss?
Glenn chuckled pitifully, the darkness around him squirming and twisting, wrapping around him like a warm blanket.
No, I...I don't want to die. No, fuck no, not before I see everything this world has to give to me!! I don't even care about going back to Earth, for fuck's sake! Glenn screamed as he wrestled with the shadows, struggling to keep them from pulling him into their depths.
Wait, no, I take my words back, I also want to know what happened to Earth! I didn't forget Onnea's fucking teaser, damn it! I swear if I live again, I'll hunt the fucking goddess for answers!
Glenn fought with all he had as he kept on finding more reasons to live, the darkness tugging at his mind madly. Suddenly, the young man stopped fighting, realizing there was something weird.
...A warm blanket? Warm?
He ignored as best he could the darkness' pull, concentrating instead on that weird feeling wrapping around him. Warmth...In a place where he was previously not feeling a thing, that sure was weird to experience. As he wondered about that, a deep, dark green blob of light suddenly appeared in the darkness, a giant ball that seemed to stare at him somehow.
"STOP MOVING. PLEASE." The green ball's voice rang inside Glenn's head, who didn't waste a single second to become as still as a statue to obey the thing's orders. The green blob blinked, a darker shade of green passing over it like an eyelid, before the whole thing dissipated away.
...Alright, that was weird. Any idea what that was, Diamanes? Oh, my bad, I'm alone in death sadly. Wait, not that alone since there was that green giant thing.
Glenn felt his fear of dying melting away, replaced by confusion. He didn't try to resist as the darkness forced him into its embrace, drowning him in a warm and cozy feeling.
Wait, if I'm not dead, then where the hell am I? What the fuck was that green blob?
The young man felt a cold shiver across his back when he suddenly remembered what Rusty had called before he did his little experiment. A fibrous titan that seemed to live in the deepest abysses of the ocean, with holes riddling it filled with dark green, gleaming liquid that worked as eyes.
The same stuff that blob from earlier was made of.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Wait.
Am I inside Bob?
----------------------------------------
"Gasp!" Glenn's eyes flashed open, his heart racing madly in his chest. His Mana was entirely drained, and his whole body felt like it had just gone through a meat grinder. Most importantly, he was covered in a strange, viscous, and thick liquid that tasted a little salty and had a very fishy smell...
"WHAT THE FUCK!!" He blurted out, jumping to his feet hurriedly, missing a step, and falling back on the ground, sliding due to the viscous goo covering him. His blood was rushing in his temples, and he couldn't hear anything clearly, all noises drowned by his heart beating with the sound of a hundred drums.
Glenn wiped the goo off his eyes with a large movement, only covering himself with even more of it, amplifying his disgust.
"GET THIS STUFF OFF ME!!!" He shouted as he stumbled to his feet, grabbing whatever was near in an attempt to help himself stand. Once again, he slipped down, threatening to have his head collide with the ground. In that instant, Glenn wished he had some Mana left to power a quick Gravity Manipulation, or even just a small Mundare, just so he could die again, but honorably this time — not while being covered in a suspiciously thick goo.
As he grabbed at the air, he suddenly felt his hand fill with the perfect item, and he managed to stabilize his body, planting whatever he had grabbed into the ground. His mind calmed down as he stabilized himself, his sight returning alongside his hearing bit by bit. It was as if his whole body was restarting after a hard shutdown, slowly but surely.
Glenn calmed himself, his heart slowing down as he carefully probed around to find something to wipe himself on, finding something that felt like a rough leather fabric. Whatever that was, this would probably do the trick. He first wiped his hands off, before using those now relatively clean hands to get rid of the goo on his face, aiming especially for what was in his eyes.
The young man finally recovered his sight entirely, throwing away the goo on his hands. Glenn squinted, his brows creased as he tried to make something out of the blurry shape in front of him. Thin limbs, long and dirty hair, a blacksmithing apron...
'Oh, crap, I wiped myself on the Smith, didn't I?' Glenn realized, earning a chuckle from the entity in his mind.
'Indeed! Well, if there was one thing I didn't expect, it's you trying to kill us both! I know you have a bit of a suicidal mind, but damn, this would have been quite the story!' Diamanes' words echoed in Glenn's mind, who blinked confusedly in reply.
'What...What do you mean, quite the story? What?'
Before Diamanes could reply, the goo all over Glenn's evaporated away, freeing the young man from the disgusting viscous matter. His ears plugged out, letting him also finally hear what was going on in his surroundings. Somehow, they were quite noisy, with a lot of screams, shouts, curses, and all kinds of particularly loud sounds. Glenn turned his head to the side, finding the lone source of noise in the testing room, a dwarf with a spiky haircut, his face red with anger and his eyes wide with shock.
"—Ron! You absolute moron! What did you just do? Why — no — How?!?" The dwarf ran up to Glenn and tugged at his waist, shaking him violently.
"How did you do that?!? You stupid, fucking, suicidal bastard!" Rusty exploded, poking at Glenn's chest each time he cussed him out, spitting considerable amounts of saliva on the young man's already dirtied clothes. Glenn held his hand out to try and stop the dwarf from talking when he realized he was holding something in said hand.
The first thing he noticed was the sleek knuckle guard that curved over the length of the hilt with flawless steel. It was simple, very sober, and not really what he expected from putting so much Mana into the thing. The handle was long enough to be used with two hands, but not long enough that it couldn't be used with a single one, more of a bastard handle. There was no pommel to act as a counterweight to the long, single-edged blade that seemed sharp enough to slice anything and heavy enough to rip everything in its path.
A bastard sword with a slender design and the knuckle guard so commonly found on rapier.
"...Even though it looks weird, I can't help but kind of like it..." Glenn muttered, deaf to the dwarf's complaints as he looked at his new weapon. There was still the last stage of Adaptation to go through, seemingly to attune your soul with the weapon, but it could probably wait for a bit later, right?
After all, he had just died, he probably deserved the rest.
"...Alright, since you can't hear me...!" Rusty held his breath as he viciously kicked Glenn's shin, managing to get both the young man's attention and a small yelp of pain out of him. The fibrous giant, Bob, was looking at him curiously, his liquid eyes flowing around the many holes riddling his body.
"So, let's clarify a few things..." The dwarf drew a deep breath as he grabbed one of the dummies in the room and laid it on the ground so he could use it as a seat. Glenn rubbed his chin with his teeth clenched, hissing painfully as he did the same, Bob and the Smith continuing to stand and watch silently.
"...You've, somehow, artificially pulled more Mana than what your Mana Heart should contain, managing to create this..." He waved at Glenn's sword with an awed expression, "...thing, but in exchange, your heart exploded."
Glenn froze, his brain not braining for a very, very long second.
Quite the common occurrence ever since he came back to King's Rise, strangely.
"What—Wait, what do you mean by "exploded"?" The young man tilted his head to the side with a worried smile, his eyelids twitching nervously. Rusty shrugged and poked Glenn's chest, right over where his "exploded" heart was supposed to be.
"I mean exactly that. Wait, it wasn't planned? For you to explode your heart like that, I mean?" Rusty frowned and crossed his arms, puzzled. Glenn chuckled in disbelief with bleary eyes as he grabbed at his chest. He understood that, indeed, for an incredibly long time, he had died.
And he somehow came back to life, but that could be ignored for now.
"Why—Why would you think it was planned?!?" Glenn exclaimed in shock. Rusty groaned and shook his head, tiredly rubbing his face up and down.
"Well, because it's well known that an overcharge of Mana will make your heart explode, and since you asked me for someone that could fix that..." The dwarf sighed, hiding his face in both of his hands with an annoyed grunt.
"...I guess you're just stupid. God, help me..." He muttered, loud enough for Glenn to hear. The young man's lips twitched but he remained silent as he turned toward Bob, the giant fibrous being.
"Well, uhm, thanks Bob. I appreciate what you did to me, namely..." Glenn scratched the top of his head, hesitantly continuing, "...Resurrecting me?"
The creature hissed happily, extending a fibrous tendril toward the young man and patting him on the shoulder. Glenn smiled awkwardly, before looking back at his sword. He held it in front of him, playing with its balance and swishing it with a relaxed hand. The way it cut through the air, how it felt as he held the weapon...it just felt perfect. It was as if it had been made with his whole body and the way he used weapons in mind. A more than custom weapon, tailored and made to fit him.
"...I won't ask you if you like it, so let's get over the rest," Rusty grumbled as he stood back up, nodding toward Bob and the Smith. Bob waved a tendril at Glenn, who hesitantly waved back, before transforming back into a green goo and flowing back the way it came from.
'...We shall never forget Bob, the creature of the abyss who could fix someone's heart. Damn.'
'At least you know how to be grateful. We'll have to debrief a few things after this whole stuff is done.' Diamanes commented, Glenn nodding imperceptibly in reply. He wasn't too concentrated on the entity's words, much more interested in what the dwarf said.
"...Can I take a nap before anything? Maybe like a twenty-four, no, forty-eight hours one?" Glenn asked with his hands joined, his sword planted in the ground. His hopeful expression melted away when Rusty didn't even spare him a glance, too busy making space in the room as the Smith pressed his hand on the ground.
"Hgn, no can do, the less time we lose, the better the Synchronization will go. Give a hand, will you?" Rusty struggled as he tried to push a mountain of dummies away, Glenn swiftly came to the rescue and easily pushed them away.
"But I have no Mana left, how am I supposed to do anything?" Glenn protested, more out of confusion than unwillingness. Rusty shrugged and gestured at the Smith.
"It's not going to use a drop of Mana, so no worry about it. You might go into a coma for a slightly longer time, though..." He trailed off at the end, a hint of worriedness appearing in his eyes. Glenn's eyes widened and his eyebrows creased as he leaned forward.
"A coma? What the fuck? I don't want to end up in a—"
Clang!
The Smith, who, at some point, was done with his work, had grabbed Glenn's sword and began smacking it with his black hammer. The young man flinched at each hit the hammer gave to the sword, fearing the weapon would receive a scratch or anything, until the Smith abruptly stopped and grabbed the weapon.
'It's a weapon, it's meant to be damaged.'
'I know, but it's like a very, very expensive thing, and I'd rather it being not worn down when I didn't even get the occasion to try it out on something!'
Glenn's worries died down when the Smith drew a deep breath of air, somehow looking like he was going to throw the sword like a javelin.
"What is he doing?" The young man whispered as he looked at the Smith that was aiming at him. Rusty rubbed his chin, before glancing at Glenn.
"Oh, he's just aiming at you. Don't move."
"What—?"
Ftung!
Glenn looked down at his chest with horrified eyes.
He had come to this world while being skewered to the ground by a spear and swore he would never allow anything to ever put him into such a similar situation.
He never really succeeded in avoiding getting hurt, but if there was something he was going to get skewered with, he never thought it would be with the weapon specifically tailor-made for him.
'My life is starting to look a little too ironical for my taste,' Glenn thought as he blacked out, his consciousness pulled into the sword.