🙡 Prologue 🙣

Judgment

“What’s in the box?!" the odd host asked the audience. Savaged and torn corpses, shattered pieces of what once were souls and whatever else indulged in his reverie.

“THE FUTURE OF OUR CONTESTANT!”

A suit-dressed, upright standing demonic fly shouted. At least 7 separate appendages were pointing toward the big box in the center.

“Truly exciting, isn't it? To choose to go ALL IN, and spend all your points on this SINGLE box! Are you ready?!”

The man, both halves of him—split in the middle by some kind of a traffic accident—wobbled a bit… Enough of a confirmation for the bizarre host of this eerie show.

I don’t know how long I was here, it felt as If I’d just come to this strange place. And yet, it also felt as if I had been here for a very, very long time.

“And what is inside…? My Devil! It’s THE mythically rare pick! Immortality! I haven’t seen this in EONS!" the excited fly yelled to the unmoved crowd. "Not that time passes here, haha! Pardon me, just an inside joke!” he giggled to himself as an aside itself nobody else could understand, spluttered from his lips.

A big sign, with letters saying “LAUGHTER” lit up, and I felt an irresistible urge to laugh. An echo of a memory, helping me to make the cackling sound, together with countless other beings in the audience, resulting in a cacophony of moans and noise. And yet, seemingly satisfied by the howling of the damned, the being raised its tentacle hand, silencing everyone while grinning.

Directions and scale were hard to describe in this place. The stage was like a small planet, but instead of a beautiful star-filled sky, there was an auditorium filled with countless shadows, corpses, and blobs, in various stages of decay.

“It was a truly interesting choice, to bet all available points on a “skill” chest with demigod-level skills... And to think it paid off!”

Fireworks went off around the now dissolving opened chest.

“I’m sure you are very happy! To be born as an immortal digestive parasite!”

After a few seconds, the mouth of the poor corpse opened in surprise. His brain being separated in two, most likely making thinking more difficult, even after death.

“Oh, why the surprise! You used all your points for a single skill chest, and didn’t save any for the body one! So you got the body of whatever happened to be conceived just now!”

“It happened to be a very interesting being, called Krefuix in its world. A worm-type thing that attaches itself close to the anus, to feed on the nutrients of the host!”

As it spoke, a small flatworm-like thing appeared on the top of one of its tentacles.

A few words behind, only now did the bisected-gentleman seemingly get the situation—and he was not happy. He tried to express his disagreement by screaming something, and by moving his arms towards the insectoid host… only for them to pass straight through. Not only that, the uncoordinated momentum split the poor man completely in half. Again. Now, two completely separated parts laid on the floor.

“My, oh my! It seems our hero is not happy with the result! How sad! And yet, we have to go on to the next contestant! Have fun in your next life, and see you again soon! Oh, wait, you are immortal... Well then, have fun! See you after the heat death of your universe! I hope you find a nice ass to live in!”

“Well then, crystals and smart liquids, time for the next conte—... Wait, what? It’s meatbags turn again? Fine, meatbags! Time for the next contestant!”

Suddenly, the gravity stopped working the way I thought it would, and I felt the pull towards the center, accelerating towards it before hitting the platform, just next to the sharply dressed fly.

“Oh my, it seems our next contestant… underestimated the GRAVITY of the situation! HAHA!”

A hundred broken laughters could be heard from the audience once again, best described as if aliens tried to replicate laughter after reading its description in a dictionary.

The insectoid put one of his tentacles on my arm… and it felt as If I could think again! Again, filled with lust for life, I greedily grasped for air... Except I couldn’t breathe. And this body... felt wrong... My skin... My...

“What the... Where am I? Last thing I remember, I was on a boat... and now I’m here?!”

“Haha! Welcome to the entrance to hell, you cute damned soul! Who is the bad boy? You, you are!”

“... Hell?! Wait, what?! Why?”

“Why? You lived a terrible life of course! Fortunately for you, hell is full right now, so as a very special occasion for those that weren’t the WORST, you get a chance to reincarnate! How lucky!”

“Not only that... You are surprisingly well preserved. Still able to think, mostly no brain damage, something must have separated your soul before the body died... Nyahaha, but those points... Oh well, such is life. And I’ve seen most of them, so you know I know.”

Seeing that my face was not showing any signs of understanding, the being continued.

“It seems we need to explain the rules of our show again. Using the points you got for the “virtue” of your previous life, you can buy one of those amazing Life-Boxes! Each box contains many possible settings for your life! Some only have complete sets, others only single aspects—skills, races, gender and so on!

You can pick any loot box you want, but what you get from it depends purely on your luck!”

“Luck?! That doesn’t seem very fair. Also... show? And a loot-box?”

“Are you deaf my boy? I know you can’t remember much from your previous life, because that’s how it works, but still! It was the same in your world, wasn’t it? Whoever gets born with what face, to which parents, in which country... To paraphrase one of the people you were jealous of—god does not play with dice, because god IS the die! I would know, I’ve met them!”

Its body wiggled energetically, amused by its own joke.

“And of course, all lives are a show! The universes you come from have all been created for entertainment of beings far beyond your, or my understanding. And adding some... “surprise mechanics”... makes things more fun, giving a greater sense of accomplishment, doesn’t it?! But that doesn’t matter, does it? Let’s see your points!”

In a very theatrical move, he moved his tentacle from my arm, towards a cloud of smoke a few meters away. As it cleared, it showed a big flip-counter.

“It’s time to see... THE SCORE!”

As it spoke, one of its many eyes moved up, while many tentacles relaxed and contracted. The high of experiencing someone's life, while part of it was still attentive to the current... situation.

“Yeah, you might have pirated a copy of WinRAR, and you never played support in LoL or Dota... Yes, no good! It seems most of your life is worth only… 50 points! Barely enough for a single small chest!”

“What?! What about my career? My life as a doctor! What about all those puppies I adopted from the shelter?” I asked, hearing it was not impressed by the number of points.

“Ha! Indeed, you were a good cosmetic surgeon… so long as people paid you! No sin in that, but that’s no virtue either!”

“And don’t even bother asking about those puppies—they would have been adopted anyways! They were puppies! In the middle of coronavirus lockdowns!”

“Lies! I helped many poor people get treatments, even accepting lower prices for ugly people and kids! It might have been only looks, but have their lives not become better thanks to that?!”

“You mean, become lives of lust and pride!? For every person that turned their life for the better thanks to self confidence, there was one that was now bullied for being one of those uglier than them!”

“And... What is the average?” I asked, hoping against all odds the net worth of my life was not that bad.

“Of people going to hell? About 100!”

I fell on my knees, under the weight of reality and my worthlessness.

One of its eyes again moved back. “Though.. It seems your life did have some effect on the world, aside from wasting perfectly fine oxygen, and increasing the amount of plastic in the ocean—which you didn’t recycle properly!—and you never rated novels you were reading for free 5 stars! And that browser history... uff! Except… IT’S A PRANK, BRO!”

Fireworks exploded! Confetti spurting all around.

“One thing that turns your worthless life into being worth something, even if you are still a bad person that would be going to hell! Yes!”

“The weird Bob! The small kid, son of the woman owning the grocery shop you would go to every day... Seeing him coming back from school every day, ridiculed by his classmates, you befriended him! Bought him candy, and gave advice... And eventually agreed to fix his deformed nose for nearly no money, finally letting him breathe free! Not to mention making him... Well, not handsome, but at least average! The kindness you showed him, together with the suggestion to learn gardening, gave humanity another 200 years before its collapse!”

“Wait wha—Did I really do that? I can’t remember.”

...wait, I shouldn’t have said that, what if it's a mistake, and he takes away any points it might have given me...

“Yes, you did! That man, fueled by his anger and resentment, was about to study Robotics instead, and, to fulfill his life's dream, tried to create robo-catgirls!”

“... and how exactly is that terrible?”

“He was too reckless! He advanced their AI enough that they would rebel against humanity, which, as they claimed, didn’t recognise their master as real Japanese even after he changed his name to Keisuke Ashiro, and then started a war against each other, over who is the best girl, which would have eventually ended with complete destruction of earth!”

This revelation made me unable to think. Not that I could think much anyways, but still… Really, the greatest thing, the pinnacle of my life, was helping someone just after graduating university? Nothing else I did mattered?

“Nope! Audience, please give a big 'Awwww' to our contestant!”

A lament of a million sinners could be heard, whether it was for my past, or for their own, I don’t know... nor do I have time to care.

“As a reward you shall be given an option to spend all your points to roll one of the very special complete-packages! A secret chest, only available to a selected few, “The arc of saints' dreams”! Any set in there is guaranteed to be worth at least 100 000 points, not to mention they tend to be especially strong.”

I was suspicious. No idea why, as I could barely think in this situation, and I could barely understand what was going on. But I certainly did not want to become an ass insect... Still I had to ask.

“What is the catch?”

“... You really think a literal devil in front of the gates of hell would answer this question honestly?”

“...Yes?”

“Bwahaha! Well, it's not as if you won’t accept it even if I tell you! The catch is far more likely than being a powerful hero... you might become a world ending monster, having to fight against the world! Otherworldly devourers, behemoths, lotus and krakens... Who knows what you might get! Since you saved one world, here you might get the opportunity to grow powerful enough to destroy another!”

Destroying the world… sounded quite appealing in a way. Especially if my new home would also be filled with humans. But then, it does sound like a lot of work… doesn't it? But you know what they say, if you do something, do it well! Yeah, I’m laughing about this, while also imagining the terrible and disgusting monsters I could become. No, no, no. Definitely not for me. Though, ruling the world doesn’t seem that bad of a proposition...

“Can you show me what I can get for 100 points? Full packages only, please.” A wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

“Well, here are the standard chests available for you! You can see what they contain, and how likely it is to win when you touch them!—A drop rate, as kids these days say.. And our Earth Agents.”

A handful of chests appeared. “Only three?”

“Only three.”

I came closer to the first one—a desolate thing, all of them were. This one had remnants of blue paint on it. Touching it revealed to me a possibility of being born as one of a variety of flying insects... Even the rarest draw, one in a million chance, would make me some kind of bird. Definitely not for me. Unless I want to bet on being a good insect for a week, dying, and getting another chance at reincarnation...

“Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that if I was you,” the demon said.

“Moving up from beings without consciousness, to conscious ones is a laborious process that usually takes multiple reincarnations to work out. Not to mention, the next time you might just end up in hell, if we finally solve our... occupancy problem. The new meat grinders are supposed to be installed very soon!”

I tried the second and third chests, similarly ramshackled, and filled with similarly poor options. One was apparently dug out from the ground, with bits of earth still on it, making it obvious that there were just some more stereotypical bugs available, with the best option being some kind of mole creature, while the final one was more like a box-shaped cloud than a real physical object. While the most interesting, as it was filled with many spiritual creatures, the information that was sent to my brain told me they were equivalent in power and position to the other options.

And while I was looking around, positioned so that it was always merely an arm stretch away, a beautiful chest laid. White, with golden and crystal ornaments, about my size, engravings of animals and plants on its sides, with a peaceful sculpture of an old, good-natured looking man on top, sleeping peacefully. The only one I was not allowed to look into.

So, I’m given about as much choice as a starving mouse in front of a trap with a piece of cheese on it.

“I accept.”

The sculpture of the man stirred, then trembled, then opened its eyes in horror; the sweat itself being carved into the stone by an invisible sculptor.

The presenter just smiled—as much as monsters can, that is—and I suddenly lost my footing, as I was being devoured by the gigantic mouth of whatever was making up this stage, before hearing the name of my new race.

⛧

And then, there was brimstone and fire.