The sound of hurried shuffling reached my ears as I continued to sob. Mere seconds later, I heard a door creak open, followed by a woman’s soothing voice. She approached my crib, gently lifting me into her arms. She cradled me, murmuring words of comfort in a language I didn’t understand. Her skin matched mine, complementing her long auburn hair, which cascaded just past her shoulders, interwoven with delicate braids. Her jade green eyes held a tired yet fulfilled expression. Her straight nose twitched as she sniffed the air, likely checking if a dirty bottom was the source of my distress. I guessed this was my mother, Merrol Bome.

Great, you got your mother. Now, go ahead and proceed with analyzing her soul.

“…System.”

Yeah?

“How do I do that?”

…….That’s a damn good question. You should probably ask your system or guide, whoever’s your source of information………Oh wait. That’s me.

“Can I get a refund?”

The act of sensing and visualizing a soul is challenging at first, but it will become second nature with practice. You need to detach yourself from the physical world. Close your eyes to stop seeing. Ignore your ears to stop hearing. Cease conscious control of your breathing and let your body take over. Focus all your effort on sensing mana. When you do, you can simply follow its trail and find the source—the soul.

“I wasn’t thinking about breathing until you said that, but yeah sure, I’ll try.” System wasn’t lying about its difficulty. It was peculiar trying to “pretend” I wasn’t hearing the birds chirping outside or my mother’s soothing lullaby. Struggling to not consciously think about breathing was another challenge I faced. I had assumed that blocking out my eyesight would be the easiest task, but preventing my imagination from running wild proved to be the hardest. No matter what I tried, my mind kept wandering, and dumb unrelated imagery kept popping up. I attempted to focus solely on mana and my idea of what a soul would look like. Some might argue that this was a poor approach. Imagining a soul could interfere with my “vision,” and focusing on mana rather than attempting to see it might not be practical. But then, something clicked. By concentrating only on these two aspects, I began to tune out the external world. Incessant random thoughts ceased, and only my “fake soul” appeared in my ”vision”. The sounds of birds chirping and my mother’s lullaby faded away. I no longer thought about breathing; my body handled it automatically. It was then that I saw it.

A thin, translucent line appeared before me. It wasn’t as though I could see it with my eyes—I just knew it was there, like the certainty of a basketball player knowing their shot would go in. Various factors could explain this intuition: perhaps the arch and direction were just right, or the player was open, or maybe it was an inexplicable gut feeling. Similarly, despite not being able to identify which of my senses detected it, I knew one thing: all of my senses confirmed the line’s presence. I then “zoomed in” on the line, focusing my entire attention on it. As I followed it, it led me to a glowing object. Comforting and warm energy radiated from it, accompanied by the faint discharge of a quiet melody. Though the shape appeared circular, its actual composition was different. It was a baby blue hue, not solid, but composed of smaller particles forming a larger whole. These particles were constantly in motion, revolving around a central core in uniform fashion. It reminded me of the atomic structure I learned about in high school, with a nucleus and orbiting electrons and protons. Yikes, that brought back some bad memories.The core itself was too bright to look at directly, so I shifted my focus to see what else I could find. That’s when I noticed certain particles that didn’t “fit.” While the other particles followed a fixed motion, these were “rogue.” Some were stationary, some moved too fast, some too slow, and others obstructed the path of the “proper” particles. I assumed these were the impurities.

How’d it go?

“I found the mana trail and it led me to what I think is my mom’s soul.”

Wait, really?

“Yeah.”

That’s….very fast. I wasn’t expecting you to learn it so quickly. Perhaps your soul magic helped but…that still wouldn’t explain it.

There was a slight pause. System’s now serious tone alarmed me a bit, considering how aloof it had been just before.

Are you being unconsciously led by-no, that can’t be. I would know of it then.

“Is everything alright?”

Uh, yeah. Sorry. Do you have any questions regarding souls?

That was pretty strange. But, I didn’t have the time to worry about that. I had more important matters to attend to. “I felt this…warm energy coming from her soul, including a calming melody. What was that?”

Every soul is unique and distinctive in their vibe. Your mother’s soul has that energy due to her personality. Most likely, she is a calm and warm person, along with having the type of voice that is capable of ending disputes. Souls tend to mirror their persons.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“What’s my soul like?”

Before System could answer, Mother suddenly put me down back into the crib. She then kissed my forehead, said something and left, but not before pinching my cheek.

She’s heartwarming.

“I wouldn’t know.”

What do you mean?

“I can’t understand her.”

….You can’t understand her?

“Yeah. Am I supposed to?”

Aw, shit. Did I forget to enable auto-translation?

Auto-what now?

Give me a sec.

I waited for a couple of seconds, before hearing System’s voice again.

Alright, everything should be good now. You are now capable of understanding all of this world’s languages.

“So, if I didn’t mention that just now, you wouldn’t even realize that you forgot to turn that on?”

…….Yes?

“…..Does Death use warranties?”

Look man. We all make mistakes.

“Ain’t that the truth. It was a mistake not asking for a fully-functioning system.”

Well now, that was just uncalled for.

“Was it?”

Yes, and I’d like an apology.

“You want me to apologize to you? A literal A.I. with no emotions?”

Yes.

“Stop talking to me.”

I may not have emotions, but that doesn’t mean I can’t pretend. Even if I can’t truly feel anger or sadness, I’m still capable of recognizing moments when I should be. That alone proves that I’m more than just a useless A.I.

“That could also mean you’re programmed to think like that. It’s not like you actually understand what emotions are fit for certain situations. You’re simply code created with an in-built sense of guessing what emotions to portray in scenarios like this. You think you have the freedom to choose your emotions, to choose how you think and respond, when really it’s a predetermined reaction chosen by your creator.”

……Why does that matter? Even if what you said is true, does that change the fact that you disrespected me? Was it your creator who decided for you to do that, or was it yourself?

“….I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

You’re right. What I do deserve is a nice, long, and relaxing slumber.

“Jackass.”

Now that you understand what a soul looks like, I think it’s best if you begin raising your soul rank. It’s time for you to learn meditation.

“Really? Aren’t I too young for that?”

My primary goal is to aid you in becoming stronger as swiftly as possible. Starting with meditation right now will benefit you in the long run; not only will it give you a head start, but it will also accustom you to meditating and raising your soul rank. However, this will be exceptionally challenging for you since you are in the body of a newborn baby. Although it’s not impossible for you to meditate, it will be painful, and there is a higher risk of wandering evil spirits tainting your soul due to your weak body. Rest assured, I will be with you the entire time, offering guidance and watching for any approaching spirits. If I sense any nearing, I will quickly alert you to stop. If any come too close and you’re not fast enough to stop meditating, I will forcefully shut down your soul. It will hurt, and you will lose some progress regarding impurities, but it will protect you. Now that you know all of this, understand that for this to work, I need your permission to forcefully shut down your soul, and I need your complete trust. I will be the only barrier between you and malevolent beings, and you will have to follow everything I tell you to meditate properly. Can you trust me?

I asked Death for a system—a useful one—but instead, I got a lazy, forgetful, delusional, talkative system. Still, I couldn’t deny that System wasn’t entirely useless. It did its job: showing me my status, explaining where I was, who my family was, and how to sense souls. It also tried to be helpful with the soul-absorbing tip, albeit not being really helpful. But was that enough? Was that enough to excuse it for forgetting to auto-translate the world for me? Was that enough to excuse it for forgetting it even was a system? Was that enough to excuse it for not being what I wanted? It wasn’t, yet... I still did. I don't know why I sort of... forgave System. Did I feel bad for it? No possible sad backstory would be enough to make it stop being annoying. Then, did I feel satisfied? Definitely not. I still wanted a more competent System. What was it, then? Despite how cringey it might sound, I sort of... liked that about System. A system was supposed to be quick and efficient, focused solely on its specific use, devoting itself entirely to helping the user. Even if the user asked dumb questions, summoned the system five times in 15 seconds, or checked the map for the 12th time when lost, the system would always be there. That's what a system is—an AI created solely to support the user. Yet, my System was different. It complained about being tired, though it wasn’t programmed to feel exhaustion. It made dumb jokes that would only make elderly folks laugh out of pity. It forgot important details that a normal system would never dream of misremembering. It was precisely because of these imperfections that it felt alive. My System wanted to be more than just a system, so it actually tried. I think that’s what I liked about System. I wanted to be something different than what my “creators” intended for me. I could have done anything, maybe had a serious talk with them about my future. But I never did. I was too scared to disappoint them. I wanted them to love me. So, I blindly followed their orders, never trying to be something different. I guess I wanted to be like System. I figured that if I kept System around, maybe I would eventually become like it—just without the annoying parts.

“I trust you, System.”

Then, let us begin.