I wake up.

"Ack!" I hear someone yelp from the other side of the room. Which room? Where am I again?

"Do you always wake up like that? A- at least you're okay. You kind of showed up and fainted on the floor. I thought you were claimed by the mist or something." Stutters the boy while scratching his head.

Ho, right, I remember now.

"How did you even get in? The door was locked pretty tight..." he continues

I stretch a little before getting up. This is very uncomfortable, not the metal floor. That's fine, it's my body that feels all wrong.

"Ha, well, I was about to be taken by the mist, so I came here to try to hide from it. I uh... got kicked out of my house, so to speak." I half lie.

"T-that's terrible! Who would even-" He stops mid-sentence

"They were ordered to weren't they? I'm really sorry! But as long as no one tells me to let you out, you can stay here! I don't mind!" he says, having already made his own conclusions from what little I told him.

Wrong conclusions. But convenient ones.

I turn my head towards him. He's the protagonist I've chosen for this story. The guy that I first talked to for 5 seconds before shoving a menu down his throat. Although I have to wonder...

"Are you sure you're okay with me being there? I did send someone to kill you after all." I ask

"It's nice that you're trying to take responsibilities for this. But we both know you're not really to blame. If you were ordered to, then that's how things must go. If anything, I'm glad I got warned in advance. Some people aren't that lucky." He answers rather dejectedly.

He's making a lot of assumptions here that I don't quite understand. But it's a different culture and who am I to tell him he's wrong.

I wonder if people are just used to people doing stuff like I did? Showing up and telling them to kill someone, or telling them they are about to be hunted? That makes me feel pretty unoriginal if that's the case. I should spend more time researching the place I land on before straight up jumping to a gimmick next time.

"Ha, you were also talking in your sleep a litte. Who is $^ù')$*à if you don't mind me asking?" he asks in a way that I very much mind.

Ugh, I talk in my sleep too? That's embarrassing.

"Ho, uh. Her. Don't worry about it. She was just an old acquaintance of mine. I can't even remember her name anymore. That's fine, though, I'd rather remember her as a person than by name. That's what she used to say, anyway." I say while stretching some more. It's been a while since I've slept at all now that I think about it.

"Her name? But I just said-" I interrupt him before he can continue.

"Nope, her name sounds like a garbled mess to me. Can't remember her name, can't hear it. Don't worry about it, it's fine."

After that. The day eventually came, and he left to whatever his workplace is. It's nice of him to let me live here. But I also don't know what's standard etiquette around here. Maybe letting strangers into your home is a normal thing to do? I'll have to ask him a few things when he gets back. But before that...

[INVENTORY]

ERROR LOG : #2381 > ERROR LOG : #2382 > ERROR LOG : #2383 > ERROR LOG : #2384

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

ERROR LOG : #2385 > ERROR LOG : #2386 > ERROR LOG : #2387 > ERROR LOG : #2388

ERROR LOG : #2388

>The amount of data is beyond what the current intelligence stat can currently process. Any new data will be blocked.

>The data stream is still being processed despite being blocked.

>Increasing intelligence until the data stream is back to an acceptable level.

>Intelligence is going beyond what the previously enabled threshold allowed.

>Resetting all stats and stopping all active skills.

>ERROR LOG : #2388 dropped in [INVENTORY]

Yeaaaah, I think I see what went wrong here, let me just change something real quick.

Drawbacks Cannot be used to find a menu in another universe. WARNING : Your perception stat will become extremely unstable if you use it to track your own menu. The same effect occurred if the menu was once yours but given to someone else.

Okay, listen. In my defense, when you give your menu to someone else? It's no longer yours at all. Whatever tidbits of soul that you left on there? Absorbed by the new menu owner. There should be nothing left there that traces it back to you once the transfer is done. So excuse me for thinking that there would be no side effects.

But hey I did learn something new today at least! That's how you learn. By making mistakes and having an existential crisis. That last part isn't strictly necessary, but it helps.

I'll have to put my stats back in place and see if nothing else broke, though. That's going to be a massive chore. I really should clear that inventory too. I can't really take anything physical through dimensions, you know? I can only take my soul with me. Thankfully, error logs are literally just written stuff etched into my soul. So it can make the trip with me. It's the same thing with skills.

Skills are like muscle memory, but for your soul. However, there are a lot of limitations. Let's say you use magic in one world and you use mana for that, do you know what will happen once you go to another universe? You won't be able to cast magic. Because mana doesn't exist in that universe.

Needless to say, learning stuff that only works in one universe isn't that viable for someone like me. So I have to do stuff using the only thing that will be here no matter where I go. My soul.

Of course, messing with your soul to do stuff tends to have side effects, but as long as you're careful it's usually fine. Worst case scenario, you lose your mind for a couple of months. But my menu has a bunch of failsafes to fix that if it goes VERY wrong.

However, I still want to use skills in moderation. Not just for my own wellbeing, but because it feels like cheating at times. Sometimes you do have to cheat a little until you get your bearings. But as long as you're not using it to make your life TOO easy, then it's fine by me.

Even if I'm saying that, I'm going to take it easy for the following days. As I've said before, the story I'm setting up here isn't really my own, I'm just a spectator. So if I do a few funky things to keep myself alive, then I think that's fine.

I should visit the antagonist soon. I wonder if she made any progress with her menu?