My life was unremarkable and my death was ordinary. Grew up in a small town and moved to the city as soon as I finished school. Snagged a mediocre job as a desk pilot and prepared to keep my soul to the grindstone until I was dead inside or retired, or both.
Weekends were spent lounging around my apartment reading or gaming. Friends were online only. I was a modern day hermit and I liked it that way. My favourite games were colony managers and my favourite books were gamelit. I had a special place in my heart for dungeoncore and slice of life. The first because the thought of designing death mazes kept me going at work and the latter so I could pretend I had one.
Most bright young things, freshly graduated from high school have hopes and dreams. They have stars in their eyes and a ten year plan to go to university and get married and have 2.5 kids and a dog named Bif. My ten year plan was to plod through work just enough to keep me in e-books and discount games and then repeat until death. I might get a fern.
My death was pretty average. Death by car wreck when some bright young thing decided that the commute home would be the perfect time to get coked up and play speed racer. I’d say that it was a tragedy that my life was cut short so young, but it’s not as if I was using it for anything. Average life, average death, and what was shaping up to be a pretty quiet afterlife, considering I seem to be just disembodied thoughts floating in darkness at the moment.
This is nice.
I’m not sure how long I hung in the darkness. It was peaceful, the quiet cycling of my thoughts. I had no body so no bodily discomfort or distractions. Then there were words hanging in the darkness with me.
Soul upload complete!
Omg! I’m getting reincarnated to a system world! YES!
This was the reincarnation jackpot. I'd be reborn in a world of magic and adventure, and probably open sewers and slavery, but.. you know.. magic!
Commencing top level scan....
Eldritch contamination not detected...
Abyssal contamination not detected...
Outsider contamination not detected...
Scan complete! Deactivating soul destruction protocols.
Um...yeah, let’s not destroy any souls today.
Commencing deep level scan....
...
...
Oh crap, not out of the woods yet.
...
...
...
Scan complete!
Alert! Compatible thought form detected!
Alert! Bleed through knowledge detected!
Alert! High tedium tolerance detected!
Alert! High antisocial tendencies detected!
Bit rude.
Soul meets requirements for REQ-37.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Assigning Soul to REQ-37.
Running Genius Loci..Interrupt/[email protected]
...
Error! Stream breach, deploying Aeg..Interrupt/[email protected]
....
What the hell?
override.@!\Run Dungeon Core Activation
.....
Yay?
A cold lump formed in my belly and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Which was a neat trick since I had neither at the moment. My soul was simulating heebie-jeebies to let me know just how deeply unsettled it was by someone running interrupts on our reincarnation.
I should be happy, right? Reincarnating as a murder maze is the afterlife jackpot... right?
Initiating remote core formation....
Core deposit successful, opening link.
The darkness nearby twisted and elongated into infinity before snapping into an impossibly shaped hole that led somewhere else. Faint smatterings of sensation drifted outward from the hole. It was dark on the other side as well, but it was a darkness that was caused by the mere absence of light. It made it very clear that the not-darkness around me was not caused just by the absence of light. The not-darkness was an absence of any framework where things like darkness and light could exist.
Installing core management system...
Installing mana management system...
Installing F.A.E. Dungeon Store, for all your dungeon needs...
Downloading blueprint library...
...
Installing blueprint library...
That sounds... odd? Adverts in my reincarnation?
Core setup complete!
Loading soul...
Any further prompts were lost on me as what was left of my being was squeezed to a point and then shoved through that impossible hole in the not-darkness. There was a wrenching sensation of disconnecting from something greater than myself and then I got to experience what it’s like to be poured into a container.
Neat! Now I know what being a glass of milk feels like.
With a snapping sensation the impossible hole closed behind me and left me to take stock of my new body. I couldn’t tell how big I was as I lacked anything to give scale, but my new body was a pleasing sphere of clear crystal. The spherical perception thing was a bit disorienting at first, I could “see” in all directions. It was definitely more perception than “seeing” though as the space I was in was completely dark. I took stock of my surroundings and realized that I was actually moving through a tunnel. The walls were of some kind of stone and the light level was increasing. Faintly at first, but with growing clarity I could see that the stone was a dark hue with lighter speckles. I kept drifting towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
Seems a bit backwards. You’d think I would have had the tunnel and the light bit before I was reincarnated, not after. Maybe I’m being born? Are dungeon cores born? Just how traumatic would that be for a new mother, “Congratulations, it’s a rock!"..:
My idle thoughts were cut short as I saw the end of the tunnel near. The light grew in intensity until I exited the tunnel into the glare. My vision adjusted slowly, which was odd as I don’t exactly have biology that needed to adjust. As I took in my surroundings I could only think one thing.
What the fu...