Around ten minutes have passed since I’ve entered the toilet. In that time span, I inspected my own body for signs of my cancer. I noticed that although I have the same face as my pre-reincarnated self, there are still significant differences in terms of my physical appearance.

For example, I observed how I now have bigger muscles despite the fact that I exercised in my original only for the sake of preparing myself for surgery, and even with that, exercise is a big word for what is essentially picking myself up with a medical trapeze bar. In contrast, my reincarnated body has the physique of someone who commutes with public transportation - most likely from what I assume to be the walking I have to do in this world.

Not bad, but my biggest relief has to be from the fact that I don’t seem to show any symptoms associated with pancreatic cancer.

Right then, I fell down on the floor, or the lack thereof due to its ruined condition, crouching whilst hanging on to the wall and crying.

These were tears of relief at my new body’s condition.

Of sorrow at the sight of the roach monsters.

Of disgust at the roach-god.

Of gratitude at being given a new chance at life.

I suppose this is a fresh start for me. A new world, probably without modern technology as it seems. At least they speak English, it seems.

“Maybe I’m a farmer in Medieval England?” I said to myself, looking at my own clothing which consisted of a brown tattered tunic. “Probably not a nobility judging from this, though.”

I washed my face with the murky water and prepared myself to walk out to face this new reality.

A familiar voice reappeared in my head.

[Integration process finished. Total integration failed due to low levels of structural integrity of the superior specimen. Post-integration capabilities will be revealed upon use by the inferior.]

It’s that voice from the void. I jerked away from the wall when the voice spoke.

“Whoever you are.” I said. “Why is this happening to me? What is going on, and what does that mean, post-integration capabilities?”

No response.

“Answer me!” I shouted.

I wiped away my tears, bolstering myself with a level of self-certainty.

After several seconds of silence, the closest line of thinking that could even be considered somewhat rational for me was the following: Am I an experiment of that roach-god?

It only made sense. I mean, there are many theories of reality being a simulation. Maybe this is one of them and the existence of the roach-god was as simple as an administrator. Another theory is–

[Request for inquiry denied. Further possibilities of inquiries have been banned under the mandate of  ℁⤋⺢Ⲵ⹆⏺⣎⡷. Guide will be discontinued from this point on.]

Guide? It was guiding me the whole time? What for? There is something bigger at play here.

A loud crackly thud strikes my eardrums. Someone is knocking at the door of the toilet.

Is it Frederick?

“Oy, whoever you are,” the person behind the door said with a booming voice. “How long you use the shitter for? I’ve been waiting for a fucking year, guy! You wanna make me wait for another?”

I jumped back, my heart lurching at the person’s sudden appearance.

“H-hang on!” I said. “I got a bad case of diarrhea!”

“A case of what?” The person said.

“Diarrhea!” I said. “I’m taking a big dump, basically.”

The person behind the door laughed.

“You what, guy?” The person said. “Nevermind! I’ll just go use the outhouse instead. I can’t believe shit-drinkers like you live ‘round these parts. Erm, enjoy shitting your shit, guy!”

The person walked away. I sighed with relief.

I guess I only have to figure out who exactly I am in this world. Settle down and the likes. It seems that I have history with at least the barkeep, maybe I can start with that.

I picked myself up, or at least tried to. I slipped, grabbing whatever I could to prevent me from slipping. In this case, I grabbed the bucket-toilet.

At that moment, everything went dark.

Where am I?

Am I back to the void?

Where the roach-god is?

A bright light emanated from the ground in front of me. Specifically, a neon white outline starts to form.

At first, it was a flat disc. Followed by a cylinder with no top connecting the disc vertically, and afterwards, a curved and wonky parabola.

“Wait, is this the bucket?” I said.

The outline transformed into the bucket that I had just grabbed. At that moment, I could be or do anything but be perplexed.

I walked a few steps to observe the bucket. Here, it is in a much more pristine condition than it had been as the toilet.

Then, I saw a man sitting down, dressed in blue robes. He is focused on the bucket, holding it and hammering copper plates.

“Hello?” I called out to the man.

He didn’t respond. He seemed too busy to even notice me, or maybe he didn’t hear me at all. It was just him, the ground, and the bucket.

Minutes must have already passed. Then hours. I tried to call out to the man, but nothing happened. He was just busy, hammering away at the bucket before occasionally inspecting the bucket. It was then I realized.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“These must be the powers that the voice talked about.” I thought out loud. “None of this is real. It’s just… the past? The person who made the bucket?”

I tried to touch the man, but I phased through his body.

I decided to sit down near the man instead. I curled up my legs into a position where I can comfortably assert my posture. I watched as the man crafted the bucket.

Days must have passed of me staring at the man working on the bucket. I have not felt thirsty nor hungry, but I sometimes scream my frustrations away at the void and at the man. It was during one of these “internal frustration management sessions” at the man that I saw something that I hadn’t noticed before.

“Wait a minute, something is shining from inside the bucket.”

A dim ray of white light is beaming. I got up from my position and phased through the man to position myself behind him, facing the bucket he is holding.

“To think I missed this all along.” I thought out loud.

Inside the bucket was a hidden platform made from a different material than the copper platings surrounding the bucket. I extended my hand, trying to reach into the bucket and touch the ray of light.

The platform reacted to my touch.

Finally, something is happening!

The light exploded, surrounding - for less than a second - the entire area with the white light.

Did I do something bad?

Turns out, I did do something, but I wasn’t really sure on the good or badness of it. The blue robed craftsman is no longer occupied with tempering the bucket, instead I now see him stuffing pieces of metal into the bucket.

He looks concerned as if hiding a secret that shouldn’t be known by anyone. The craftsman turned to me.

“Wait, you– you see me?” I said.

The craftsman did not respond.

“Man, say something!” I said. “I’ve been watching you crafting a bucket for days now! And you didn’t say anything at–”

“Filthy vagrants!” The craftsman interjected. “You’ll have to go through me to get my family’s savings!”

He pulled out a sword from within his blue robe. The craftsman swung the sword in my direction, causing me to flinch.

“W-wait, what?!” I said.

The sword phased through me, parried by another sword which came from behind me. I bounced away, turning to the direction of the craftsman’s sword.

I saw the person parrying the craftsman’s attack, standing fully armored to the brim with what appears to be rusted and somewhat-torn medieval armor. Their head is covered with a medieval knight’s bascinet. Behind them, there were a dozen more people wearing the same style of armors, each brandishing a different kind of weapon from swords, pikes, bows, and spears. All seem to be hostile towards the craftsman.

“Give us the bucket.” The person in front said. “We know this looks like we’re threatening you, but trust me, we just want to uphold justice… with the gold you have, good sir.”

Their voice seemed to be deep, although I was unsure if it was because of the helmet or otherwise.

The craftsman wiped away their sweat. His veins bulge across his forehead accompanied by a sarcastic grin, showing his yellow teeth.

“You mo–rons!” The craftsman said. “Do you not have any idea who I am? I am the direct descendant of the High-Ranked Groundbreaking Hammerjaw! I am Balico–”

An arrow strikes the craftsman at the chest. The craftsman staggered back at the attack, but the arrow did not seem to hurt him at all.

“We know.” The man in armor said.

The person in armor charged at the craftsman, followed by the rest of their posse of knights or whatever they are.

“Wow, he’s fucked.” I thought out loud.

The craftsman pulled out the arrow from his chest. While holding the bucket, he stood firm. Taking a stance that you would see in martial arts movies. His hands put in both of his sides.

Wait, is he really going to take them on?

With his fists?

Then, his eyes shone with yellow light.

“Hammerjaw’s Law!” The craftsman said. “Law No. 10, Right to Crack the Earth!”

The light got so bright, I had to look away. I felt the surroundings vibrate, tickling me. However, when I looked back at the scene, there was nothing left. Not the craftsman nor the armed knights.

Only the bucket.

I saw another ray of light from within the bucket. The moment I pressed it, however, the bucket vanished.

“Holy…” I said.

What was that? Was that magic? This world have magic or whatever that Law thing was? I mean, I guess it makes sense seeing how I saw a roach-god, then wherever I am now. The reincarnation must be part of a grand magic of this world as well. That craftsman, though, must've been a really strong person to be that confident in facing that many people. I’m sure he wrecked those people with that power seeing how everyone disappeared.

After several seconds, it reappeared accompanied by someone, trying to nail it down into the ground. His face was wincing as if he was in pain whilst covering his nose with a wooden clamp.

“Wait, he seems familiar.” I said. “Aren’t you… Frederick, the barkeep?”

Of course, he did not respond. However, I got closer so I can observe his actions more deeply.

As I got closer, I heard him talking to himself.

“DAMN, THIS SHIT STINKS!” Frederick said. “I SHOULD’A BOUGHT A NEW BUCKET FROM AN ACTUAL COOPER, ‘NSTEAD OF USING A RANDOM ONE I FOUND LIKE THIS, BUT WHATEVER.”

I got it. I am in the toilet of Frederick’s inn. I guess this is how the bucket ended up in the toilet. Frederick found it somewhere after the bucket was left alone near the spot of the fight between the craftsman – or the cooper is the appropriate term perhaps – and the group. I’m still not exactly sure where the blue robed cooper crafted the bucket originally since the void doesn’t tell much in terms of physical locations.

After several minutes, Frederick seemed to have finished. He made a hole in the bucket, but he seemed to have missed the items that were put in there by the cooper. The bucket had been nailed to the ground, the same way I had found it the first time I entered the toilet.

“Huh, that means the gold – or treasure – and everything that the craftsman put is still there!” I thought outloud. “I didn’t see Frederick do anything besides poke a hole and nail it to the ground. Maybe I could give a look at the treasures that the group of people were looking for!”

I hurried to the bucket, wanting to check on the treasures. However, I hadn’t realized the implications of this action given the unknown amount of time that has passed since the bucket was being fought over between the group of knights and the blue-robed cooper.

What was originally a pristine bucket for hauling water has become nothing more than an impromptu toilet.

I should’ve expected it based on Frederick’s reaction.

“Damn, it really is just a place to shit.” I said.

No smell emitted from the miniscule chunks of excrement. I tried reaching into the bucket, only to phase through the object.

“Oh, right.” I said. “Then, now what?”

I pulled back my arm. It was just now me and the bucket, alone in the void. I searched for another ray of light just like before, but I didn’t find any.

I went back to sit to wait until something happened. Hours must have passed before someone appeared and used the bucket to dump their poop into the bucket and flushing it with an invisible stream of water.

I can’t remember how many times I fell asleep, then woken up to the sound of someone doing their best to get their poop out into the bucket. Some had mild cases of diarrhea. Some were too drunk to wipe their ass, thus leaving fragments of greasy slick, slimy ooze of varying colors on the floor. Some just pissed into the bucket. There was one case when someone puked out their insides into the bucket, then took a shit.

Oh, well. People are people.

***

It must’ve been days, maybe two or three, when I thought to myself whilst I was laying down on the void floor.

“Is there no way of speeding things up?” I said.

It was then everything stopped, including the drunk person taking a shit in front of me.

I widened my eyes.

A forward and backward button like a video player popped up.

I laughed, then farted.