Skill [Reincarnate] has been blocked from activating. Attempting to activate.
I jolted awake, though whether I was even asleep was questionable. I certainly wasn’t in the forest or in our small hut. I thought back to the last thing I remembered, the fight. A cold sweat broke over me as I glanced at my surroundings.
I was seated before a low, wooden table. The tiled floor beneath me only contained a hexagonal pattern that continued in every observable direction. There was nothing. This was just like so many of those stories I had read about… Wait, I read books that I didn’t have?
Skill [Reincarnate] has been blocked from activating. Attempting to activate.
“Confused yet?” said a voice, echoing in both a deep masculine sound and a higher pitched feminine sound.
On the other side of the table from me was what I could only describe as a figure. It was completely white in color, with only the fact that the infinite floor beneath it had lines which made the figure stand out. It was vaguely human in appearance, in that it had a head and the four respective limbs. Its hands lacked fingers and its feet lacked toes, instead just unnervingly ending in rounded nubs. Most unnerving though was the complete lack of a face on the head. No eyes, nose, mouth, or ears. It cradled its head in one hand, resting its elbow on the table. It definitely wasn’t there a moment ago. I couldn’t answer due to the shock.
“Oh! Would you prefer a drink first? This should work.”
It waved a hand over the table and a pair of cups appeared, holding some sort of steaming liquid. I peered at the one in front of me.
“Hot chocolate?” I asked.
“What? Do you not want it? Wasn’t it your favorite hot beverage?”
I picked up the cup and sipped. It was really good, but not quite to the level mom would make. Wait…
I felt the figure smirk, though the non-existent face and lack of outward change made the feeling confusing. It lifted its own cup to the absent mouth and drank. The liquid went somewhere, but words finally came to me.
“Who are you?”
“That’s not the real question you have.”
“It’s the one I’m starting with.”
“You know the answer already. Though your understanding is a little off.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’m not any sort of deity. Just a bored creator.”
“That sounds a lot like a god to me.”
“It would, though again you’re wrong. It would be more accurate to say I stole you away from your gods.”
This figure, this being, was capable of stealing from divinity. What was I caught up in?
“For what purpose?” I asked.
“I said I was bored.”
“So you stole me. Why?”
“You have some promise to entertain me for a while. Take this for example.”
It gestured to the side where a large screen, that again hadn’t been there previously, sat. It flickered on and I saw myself and the strong primitive fighting. I watched as I fell and the man jumped on me, strangling me. There was a blur of motion as Clara tackled the man in her wolf form off of me before completely ripping his throat out. Anna was kneeling next to me, repeatedly shouting my name.
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The scene cut out, then cut back into me laying on a bed in our hut. All three girls stood around me, crying. I didn’t know how Trillia could do that, but that's besides the point.
“Your throat was so damaged that they couldn’t do anything to get you breathing normally. Ruptured blood vessels filled your lungs with your own blood. You both suffocated and drowned to death. It was quite amusing really,” the figure laughed as it explained.
I stared in horror at the agony on the faces of my companions. A rage built within me, and I turned to the figure.
“Shut up!”
I launched myself over the table and grabbed the figure by its neck.
“That won’t work here.”
The figure simply disappeared from my grasp and reappeared a short distance away. I stood to run at the figure and it swept a hand through the air. My legs buckled as I crashed to the tiled floor under the weight that pressed down on me. I felt my bones creak as they were crushed.
“Note that I said here,” the figure continued, stepping closer.
It waved a hand again and I was flipped onto my back. I stared into the blank face with every ounce of hatred I could manage as my ribs started completely breaking. I coughed out blood as my internals were scrambled by the jagged edges. I was going to die again. My eyes grew heavy and unfocused.
“So. Here’s what you’re going to do.”
My focus returned and I found myself seated again at the table, completely unharmed. I patted my unbroken chest.
“What…?” I murmured.
“This is my place. I can do whatever I want here. However I want.”
I returned my gaze to the figure.
“Who are you?”
It shrugged.
“I don’t care what you call me.”
Out of curiosity I tried analyzing the figure through the system.
Error. [Error] is unreadable by [Error] under [Error] [Error].
“Of course you can’t read me.”
“You hear her. Interesting,” I said, “Clearly you made her then?”
“I make everything. I am a creator.”
The figure waved a hand and something like an orb of water appeared. The orb hovered in plain sight just above the table.
“Take this universe for example,” it mentioned, gesturing at the orb, “It is much like the one you came from, or the one we’re going to have fun in.”
“Fun how?”
“As I said, I’m bored. I’ve given you control over a universe just like this. You noticed, right?”
“Catalyst,” I said, after a moment’s thought.
“Yes. You understand the basics then. You will have control to shape it as you see fit. Well, in between your incarnations at least. That is your [Creator] and [Editor] skills. [Editor] will work in a limited capacity during your incarnations. [Reincarnate] is self explanatory at this point.”
“And [Unlimited]?”
I again felt the expression that should have appeared on the face that did not exist. It was a smile, but it left me unnerved. Almost as though it was viewing me as a piece of meat to devour.
“How can you fulfill the entire reason I took you if you’re completely bound?”
And so the plot against me reveals itself.
“As I said, I’m bored. But you have the potential to erase that for a time. As such, I’m giving you control over this universe. The game will end when I get bored again.”
“And what happens at that point?”
The figure placed its hands on either side of the universe orb. It then slammed them together, crushing the orb.
“And then I move on to my next fun thing.”
“So let me get this straight. I’m supposed to just entertain you for a while? Then you plan to just destroy everything when you’re done? Why go through all this complexity?”
“Oh, I’m going to limit myself to within your system. That way we can have a lot of fun! I’m going to love killing you over and over. Ruining your plans and reducing your creations to dust. Except for using [Unlimited] myself, I’m only going to use your changes. After all, what fun is it to play a game of entirely my own creation?”
There it is. The one out that existed. If he was only going to use [Unlimited], then I just needed to defeat him. A tall order.
“Now go make your changes now that you know what we’re doing.”
Skill [Reincarnate] is activating. Skill [Creator] detected. Would you like to use skill [Creator] before skill [Reincarnate] activates?
Yes.