Passing out is a funny thing—one moment, everything seems fine enough, and the next, dizziness takes over. The world spins out of control, becoming foggy as a lightheaded feeling washes over you. Cubic black spots scatter throughout your vision. What isn’t blocked by those spots is blurred, and your limbs feel sluggish, hearing distant and muted. That’s how it had felt the first time I experienced it, but this time was much faster—just one quick swoop and done.
When I came to, mind muddled and exhaustion pushing on me heavily, I noticed I was no longer where I had been. The looping terrain was gone, as everything seemed at least a bit different. Beneath my head was the same cold, densely packed soil—not the most comfortable place to pass out.
[Current capacity: 97/100 - Time remaining: 86 seconds]
"Finally woke up, huh? How ya’ doing, kid?" A steady, gentle voice questioned, distinctly female although I would have to check to be absolutely certain. Slowly lifting my groggy head, my pupils darting around nervously, I took in the sight of the woman who may or may not have rescued me. She stood tall—while hard to gauge from my position on the ground, her height had to be at least equal to mine, maybe a bit taller, around six feet. Based on her appearance, I couldn’t tell if she was older than me, making it odd that she called me "kid." Her skin was a pale olive, clear and smooth. Her eyes were a muted blend of gray and blue, and her features were sharp, distinct. Unlike my own hair, which fell nearly to my waist, hers was a short blonde, cut so that it just barely reached her shoulders. I forced my eyes to stay fixed on her face, knowing she’d probably notice if they wandered.
"So? Are you going to say anything? I just saved your damn life. You were just doing some running in-place thing when those vines slammed into you." Her voice, now edged with irritation, cut through my hesitation, clearly expecting an answer as I sat there, mouth slightly agape, studying her face. Blinking myself out of my stupor, I sat up.
"Sorry... just groggy," I mumbled, scratching the back of my neck and avoiding direct eye contact.
"Don’t sweat it, I guess," she replied, extending a hand. Her fingers, caked in dirt, looked much tougher than mine. In her other hand, she clutched a kitchen knife slick with plant matter. I accepted her firm grip and let her pull me up, her strength evident.
"Best get over there then, eh? Feels like the world is ending, so you might as well survive." She gestured behind herself as she spoke, though her eyes lingered on me, still curious.
“You’re not worried about anything? The world is ending and you just admitted it yourself.”
“It already did in a million other ways. Why should this come as a surprise? Better to just accept things as they happen and stay positive.”
“Who are you by the way? Did you kill those vine monsters?”
“Name’s Crystal. And yeah, they die real easy when you stab them. Lucky I was prepping some food.” It wasn’t worth it to wonder why she was cooking at midnight. She looked over her right shoulder, causing me to do the same.
Peering over her shoulder, which took a bit of effort, I spotted a crudely drawn black circle, roughly the size of my apartment—about 400 square feet–but that was just an estimation. Inside the circle, deep within the familiar forest, stood a wide assortment of people considering less than a hundred people were within it (according to the notification.) Everyone was muttering to themselves or whispering quietly to the person next to them, uncertain of what was really going on. They didn’t stand orderly, just clumped up with others they could communicate with. Skin tones ranged from the palest white tint to the deepest red to the darkest brown. Anything you could imagine, anything I could imagine more accurately, nearly every person representing some slightly different race or country. Some were young, small children even, while others were elderly. There was an Indian woman carrying an infant, a British man in just some slim, bright red boxer briefs–which reminded me of the fact that my…imperfections…were on display in front of everyone–and even…Greg. That Greg. Perfect life of mine, am I right? He stood taller than the crowd, around the center, making direct eye contact with me.
Out of all the people here, randomly put here from numerous spots on the globe, he just had to be put there too. It felt like meeting a teacher outside of school. Muscles rippling out of his person, calves the width of my head, wrists at a size equivalent to my flexed biceps, and a neck that hardly was there since it stretched out to all regions beneath his chin and beyond–yeah, I’m one for hyperbole. Truly, nevertheless, he was practically a bodybuilder at a bit over my age. The difference between July and April. His light and tousled brown hair was buzz cut to only be on the top and back of his head, removing the sides and front. Greg’s skin was crisp and dry, tanned poorly enough to the point he looked more or less the same as a child who went to the beach in a tropical region without proper sun protection. His face was wide and butt chin prominent, brown eyes displaying a mischievous manner. A navy blue, fleece sweatshirt with the drawstrings pulled out, the cheap, plastic zipper broken, and sleeves torn halfway to highlight his forearms adorned his upper body. His lower body wasn’t much better, sporting contrasting cyan shorts made of mesh fabric. Then he saw me, and his face split into a grin. His teeth were coffee-stained, a sickening yellow. Carelessly pushing through others near him, he ran up to me, still stupidly smiling. You know, it’s strange enough for all this to be happening, and I gave the system some credit, but it had to be messing with me at this point.
[Current capacity: 99/100 - Time remaining: 23 seconds]
“Looks like my little buddy could use some help... two people, one spot left.” He started.
“Bitch boy, you owe me.” He called merrily and dumbly. His voice was as greasy as his unclean hair as he took a pair of rusty, brass knuckles out from some pocket in his clothing, and slid them snugly around each hand. They fit perfectly like something custom made, however having said that, the metal had to be quite old to be in such a poor condition. I desperately patted my pants pocket, searching for that switchblade that I always carried with me when going out except for when it poofs itself out of existence.
“Die in hell! I’ll kill you, I swear it on my…” I raged, out of control already, and failing to come up with anything in my life to swear it on. Not the best retort, but it was all I came up with at the time. It was wimpy and Greg barely paid attention to what I said. I quickly assumed a practiced fighting stance from some martial arts lessons my parents had made me go to when I was much younger. My body was sideways with my head looking up at Greg, fists raised at an equal height around my chest. I glared at him, my eyebrows pinched together, eyes narrowed, and forehead scrunched up.
“What are you guys fighting about? Just get in the circle, or we’re all gonna die!” A chubby white kid in a blue onesie, no older than ten, cried out, worried for my and Greg’s safety. One of the few that seemed to be from the US, from what I could tell.
“We’re all gonna die, huh? Ain’t none of this real, I’m tellin’ ya! We’re livin’ in some kinda damn Matrix, and all this? It just proves it! Nothin’ matters, nothin’s real anyway!” Some drunk, older white man with a gleaming bald head, a crooked nose, shadowed eyes, and lengthy, snow-white beard covering only some of his wrinkles rasped shakily at the boy in response, followed by a belch and chuckle. Not exactly a good role model, and judging by some resemblance in facial features, probably some grandparent or older guardian or family member of the kid. The man’s hand was grasping the kid’s shoulder anyway. His words weren't exactly that incorrect though, to be honest. Both of them were mostly not paid attention to, especially not by Greg, but a few curious looks followed them, and gave them some encouragement to speak up as well.
"Conspiracy theories, now? We can get through this together if we stay calm, whatever is happening!" An older Indian woman scolded, her voice carrying a thick accent, rich with the cadence of years spent in a different land. The words, sharp and commanding, cut through the din of murmuring voices and frantic whispers, but not without effort. She had to cup her hands around her mouth, amplifying the sound to reach the other side of the gathering, where people stood huddled together in various states of shock and confusion. Her voice wavered slightly, but she held firm, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the crowd, hoping to soothe the growing panic with reason.
Her rebuke fell upon a younger man who stood to the side, his eyes alight with an unsettling enthusiasm, entirely misplaced given the circumstances. He was tall, lanky, and jittery, bouncing on the balls of his feet like an excited child waiting for a long-anticipated ride at a theme park.
“It’s like the isekai shows! This is good!” he shouted, almost breathless with excitement, waving his hands erratically. His voice carried an almost cartoonish sense of glee, an eager tremble betraying how deeply he believed in what he was saying. His eyes, wide and wild, flickered with the anticipation of something grand, some impossible adventure that would lift him from the mundane into the fantastical.
The contrast between the two couldn’t have been more stark—the woman’s controlled, steady tone, full of the wisdom of her years, versus the young man's carefree thrill, rooted in a world of anime and fantasy escapism. The older woman shot him a disapproving look, her lips pursed, as though trying to will the absurdity of his statement out of existence.
“I’ll take that as a yes, Alie Wallie. Well, I wouldn’t care either way.” Alie Wallie. Okay. I wouldn’t happen to be 21 fucking years old or anything even if my social maturity said otherwise. His grin widened even more as he strolled over to me, his fists clenched just as tightly as mine. With a single punch towards the face of the woman next to me, her face crumpled and cracked, bones being somehow pulverized and her face being reformed into a new shape. Her blood was siphoned and splattered out. Still an exaggeration on my part, but one made of uncertainty at what the fuck was going on. Even if not dead, she was likely unconscious in just one blow, and required instant medical treatment; something she would not receive. She had no time to make a sound. Nobody dared to scream out of fear to be the next target. They didn’t dare to run either and lose their position in the “hot-point,” which was their ticket to begin the first game and to survive. Their only option was to back away warily. One woman began to holler something in a foreign language, enraged at Greg and somehow fearless in the face of certain death. Most stayed silent. My eyes went wider than they had just about ever done and they watered involuntarily. The foul smell of immediate decay and decomposition filled my nostrils, forcing me to gag. Then I realized that the smell was just an unwashed Greg. Cruel air currents billowed the scent up my nostrils.
Taking my moment of extreme surprise to his advantage, Greg lifted me up by the neck with his other hand, and tossed me lazily into the circle of people, him leaping after me at the same speed. I flew through the air, my stomach falling somewhere along the way.
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“You will pay me back for this service. Be thankful for my generosity, unlike how you were for toughening you up,” He said, before the world disappeared again, which it seemed to like doing under the control of the system.
[You have been put into a contract between life and death. You must fulfill the terms of the contract made by the stronger party or your life will end instantaneously. This has been officially approved by the guardian deity of ‘Greg Wolf’ and further by–???]
Using some faint reasoning skills trained throughout my school life, I realized that my life was effectively now just in eternal servitude at the whims of the man I hated above all else. The guardian deity I had no ideas about –a being at a point of immortality and near infinite power that could theoretically be reached by mortals. It was surprising that Greg had caught the interest of one already, but I was quickly able to accept it. The ‘???’ part was rather confusing and difficult to determine yet it was easy to explain as the system referring to itself or just a deity powerful enough to conceal its identity effectively. Those were just guesses made in a split second so I wouldn’t trust them fully.
[Enlightened races on your planet have finished attunement with the system. Immigration within your own universe for those capable is now permitted. Multiversal immigration may begin post-path-searches.]
Suddenly, everything felt distinctly different. Not by much, but a tad bit. I was floating, hovering in some dark, empty space. I could feel that there was oxygen here, I could breathe, but I felt something else, something inherent that I just failed to notice before, like watching a movie for a second time and realizing you missed hints of the ending. Slight hints of energy, comparable to faint electricity everywhere. It crackled and spiraled, circling me naturally. I could feel trace amounts of it within my own body as well, surrounding my heart and orbiting it. With a thought, the feeling of the energy spread out and moved to be equally present in my body and with another, it returned to its orbit. Mana, I assumed, but I couldn’t be sure. As I held that thought and was excited at the possibilities of mana usage, where I was now resolved around me. An empty white space instead of an empty black space. Big improvement. As I was forcefully being thrown through the air, I face planted on the massive cushion that was the floor of this space. At least there was a floor this time. Every other direction was still empty though, and an attempt to see further caused me to only see colored fog.
Quite the magical space too. When I vomited my guts out as a reaction to what Greg had done so casually, it vanished before the greenish sludge mixed disgustingly with food particles touched the floor. Why does this all have to happen so fast? Can’t we just have a nice, slow integration? Like, I gotta lose everything, get teleported somewhere, have to fight some monster plants, then get to some circle and witness a deadly assault?
[You have begun the path-search. Stage 1: Find Yourself.]
[Warning: If you fail to find yourself within this stage, you will be unable to continue the path search and will be banished to a temporary realm for the remainder of the path-search.]
[Character Sheet (This may be opened at a thought):
Name: Alaric Ashford
Race: Human
Class: None
Sub-class: None
Profession: None
Sub-profession: None
Tier: Z - Lower
Health: 8/10
Stamina: 4/10
Title: None
Stats:
Intelligence: 3
Strength: 2
Wisdom: 2
Vitality: 2
Stamina: 2
Durability: 3
Dexterity: 4
Luck: 1
Perception: 3
Willpower: 2
Regeneration: 2
Confidence: 1
Note: Stats available are dependant on your Race, Class, and Profession
Titles: None
Note: Only one title may be equipped at a time
Skills: None
Equipment: None
Notice: Your soul is currently being held in the balance by a contract between life and death. Your growth is dependent on the contractor and is capped to not reach beyond that of the contractor.]
No...What was that? I'd just seen murder firsthand but...alright. Not as if I hadn’t been desensitized to violence by gore I’d seen online anyway. I ignored the mostly empty character sheet, a piece of information that summarized my strengths and weaknesses. What I focused on was the notification prior, mentioning finding myself. That was a broad idea–did it want me to find a purpose in life? To figure out who I was as a person? My morals? Personality type?
[Time remaining: 23 hours, 59 minutes, 43 seconds]
At least I had some time to figure out what it meant, a minor reassurance. So, I plopped my ass on the white-cushioned floor. What was my life, really? A mistake, was my first thought. But no, that wasn’t right. I was always hiding myself from the world with barriers and disguising it with self-deprecation. When I was young and oblivious to the horrors of the world, life was great. Not that great, but great, at the same time, if you catch my drift. A childhood with mostly absent parents and being left at school for what felt like days on end after being forgotten about. A childhood where nobody seemed to be like you and despised you for being above them in some area. Getting those good grades early on, excelling, had made it possible for me to receive some level of appreciation from my parents, yet nonetheless ostracized me from every other child in any school I went to. Every school, after every move, after every tear filled plea and plight of mine. Especially when I was hobbyless and friendless already. The antithesis of popularity. At least I hadn’t known the horrors of the rest of the world yet.
My happiest moments were the times in which I was too tired to think and collapsed on the couch. My parents had never had much money, not even enough to buy a proper bed for me, or enough to settle down in a single location instead of moving for work every year or so. Those same parents who belittled me and made me feel horrible at times were the ones I missed the most now as the closest thing I had to love.
The phrase, “There are children starving in Africa right now” has always irked me. It was one of many phrases and ideas I thought about constantly. It simply minimized any ‘1st world problem’ I may have. For me, who has everything compared to someone else, I shouldn’t have any right to complain about anything. And I didn’t really except for when I was in the peak of my angsty teen years and up to now. I did what I had to begrudgingly. This was the type of thing that ingrained itself into my mind as to why I was such a piece of shit. To not be gracious for what I have and instead greedily want what others have. I was white, sure. I didn’t suffer from my race, my skin color that I had no control over. I was straight, true. I didn’t suffer from my sexual orientation, who I was attracted to that I had no control over. I was a man, correct. I didn’t suffer from my gender which I had no control over. I lived in the USA, yes indeed. I didn’t suffer from living in an impoverished nation, one embroiled in war affecting its civilians, or one that treats its citizens like slaves. I was in the middle class, barely, if you can call it that. I didn’t suffer from a lack of food or resources really, despite knowing the fact my life was always under the control of those above me in the economic hierarchy. I was an atheist, sure. I didn’t suffer from practicing a religion others didn’t want me to practice. I just watched from the sidelines, observing others live in terrible conditions and let myself fall into a depression more and more over time. Expecting things to be as good for me as others said they should be. Expecting everything for nothing. But I failed to get what I wanted. I let my grades fall. I let my parents die. I let my world crumble. I let myself be an emo kid into adulthood. I let myself exist but not live. Without a purpose.
What is my purpose? What purpose do I have on this planet, my reason to continue living? At many parts of it, I thought there was none. I certainly had contemplated suicide as a teenager and even occasionally before then. Of course, I didn’t go through with any of those plans, but had I ever found a purpose? Many people have spent their lives trying to figure out a purpose to life in general. No conclusive answer. So why should I have a conclusive answer for myself? I’m practically still a blank slate. So that’s me. I’m nothing, and proud to be nothing. And during this day, today, I’d tried to be that nothing. I’d accepted the world ending and everything I’d ever known disappearing as if it were a common occurrence. But the system wants me to be something. So if I had to be something, some purpose, what would it be? To be an author, an entertainer? Sure, a possibility. I could, if I really wanted to. But did I really want to? Yeah. What else could I do that I had any skill with? I doubted that algebra or history would help me particularly well with live combat. Was my purpose in life to be a shitty author? I hope not. Had I wasted my 21 years of life? Was I back where I started at birth with nothing to say for it? Just a joke with nobody to hear it? Was I talking to myself? That was one of the few questions I could answer with certainty, a yes. Did that mean I was crazy? Would I even know? Maybe. So, to answer who I am as a person? A purpose I’d like to have in my life? It came to me instantaneously.
To be an exactor of vengeance and executioner of Greg Wolf. I had no care for the details of his life beyond what I’d witnessed. His childhood could have been miserable for all I knew, but that didn’t matter. He turned mine into a mirror image of his own suffering. He ruined my life, so it only felt right to take his. He fucking killed my parents. Probably. I mean, I didn’t see it happen, but he was joking about it at school.
As a man in a movie about nukes once said, I want to become death, a destroyer of worlds. If that world is one with Greg as the center of it. The reasons were too many to count. Destroying his world might as well be karma. But what if I was the embodiment of karma? No, that was too much. I wasn’t that powerful. But maybe, just maybe, I could be a replica of it. An agent of change. Or maybe, like every night before, these thoughts were just another series of late-night musings about improving my life that would go nowhere.
[Error: Lack of non-misguided beliefs and memories to create a concrete self.]
[Objective completed early - 18:36:17 remaining]
I’ve been thinking for that much time? Not like I’ve never thought for a while before, b-
[You have been frozen for the remainder of stage 1. Stage 2 initializing.]
Sorry? Excuse me? I’ve been what for the remainder of stage 1? Damn, I keep asking questions that I’ll never get a real answer to.
[Stage 2: Find Your Path - Time remaining: 71:59:51]
My path? The fuck does that mean? Not that easy to go with the flow when you don’t know exactly what the flow is.
I glanced back at the notification for my “Character Sheet,” looking for any clue that might hint at what this “path” could be. I didn’t find much, but a theory began forming in my mind. Was it class selection time already? Taking a short trip down memory lane, I recalled that classes in games were basically...Well, they were tricky to describe. Sort of a collection of skills and a describer of what you do in terms of combat that award you more points to different statistics, or stats for short. Stats being individual points that can improve something about you. A point in strength would bulk up your muscle mass, while a point in intelligence would make you smarter, faster at solving problems, and maybe give you an increased capacity to wield magic. I wasn’t entirely sure if that was how things worked now, but it probably was. I couldn’t be certain if it was the same now, however it probably was. And if so, would it matter to get a class if the system had cursed me enough to end up at the same spot as my worst nightmare manifested as a human being.