None of my favorite fanfiction stories were being updated so I finally got around to making my first one and toss my hat in the ring. Constructive criticism is highly encouraged and english is not my first language. Other than that, not much at the moment, Enjoy!
Who would've thought that leaving the great mortal coil wasn't all that bad? Let me tell you, it really wasn't. Imagine you're floating on your back in a middle of a dark lake in the middle of the night, surrounded by stars at all sides.
Those were probably souls like me though. A bit chilling but you mostly get used to it.
You had time here. A whole lot of it, it seems. Though, there wasn't anything to do here other than star-gazing (or should I say soul-searching, heh) and reviewing your questionable life choices and your even more questionable browsing history.
After a while, you kinda missed some aspects of your mortal life. The warmth of family members, the taste of a home-cooked meal, the shitposts of a dozen internet friends, the feeling of power when a v-tuber says your name without paying a single cent.
Or that one updated fanfiction chapter that you were looking forward to but couldn't read because you forgot that you were in the middle of incoming traffic like an absolute moron and a bus going 50 mph "isekais" you into kingdom come. You know, some aspects.
...
Gosh, I miss my v-tubers...
[Are you reminiscing again?]
A black box with green text pops into my vision.
"Hm? Yeah, sorry about that. Were you offering something, [Index]?"
[I have sent an invite for our 527,567th game of tic-tac-toe and you have been non-responsive for approximately 20 seconds.]
[Is there something wrong?]
This was [System Source Codex: Proto-Index Pre-Alpha], a mouthful that we eventually agreed upon to be shortened to Index.
Apparently, she was some test program to tally information about the souls that wander Limbo made by some "great higher-power" that got dumped here in the void. It seemed kinda harsh tossing her here but she assured me it was normal. In her words, "Programs like her were a dime a dozen."
She further explained that chances of us meeting though was "one in a million" and now she lives inside my head and uses my memories as data to prevent her from crashing down because of her incomplete nature.
I assure you it was a mutual and consentual agreement. I get to have a voice in my head to assure the fact I'm not insane and play simple games from rock, paper,scissors to Chess and her, on the other hand, doesn't get swallowed up by the infinite semi-darkness we're floating in...
I sometimes wonder who got the better end of the deal. Heh.
[Mou~ Onii-chan! You're ignoring me again! Hmph!]
Yep. I think I did.
"Egads! My weakness for little sister archetypes! Aaaargh! Please! Please forgive your big brother for his foolish transgressions!
[...]
"[Index]? Are you okay? I'm sorry about that, I was just remembering how we met. I'm still up for that tic-tac-toe match, if you want?"
[Is that so? My deepest apologies but I was quite distressed. I had thought that you were "fed up" with me and had gone inert. Once again, my apologies.]
"Psh, and not break the tie? Hell no. Thanks for being here [Index]." Who knew programs could get so needy? Not that I'm complaining. I had already forgotten my name before I met her and who knows what would have happened to me if we didn't meet and have her as some sort of memory bank but [Index] notified me I would have turned "inert". An unthinking bright ball of light just waiting until they were "claimed". Frankly, it sounded pretty bad. Maybe that was the reason you started to forget things?
[On your left]
'Speak of the devil and he appears', I thought to myself as I turn my "head" to the left. Which, to my credit, was pretty easy being just ball of light.
There! A tiny speck far towards the immeasurable distance. I could feel and see it getting brighter.
"What case is this?", I asked as the build-up of pressure increases. This happens when a lucky shmuck gets chosen to be reborn to either another world or gets to see the pearly gates (or whatever you wanted to see); or when a poor bastard gets chosen to be annihalated OR they fall into the fiery pits (This one was the constant).
Unfortunately, with my unique relationship with [Index], I am unable to be affected by either event. It saved me from being absolutely obliterated or burning in Hell but it also stopped me from moving forward from this place.
It was an abstract kind of feel. No regrets though.
[The fifth one.]
Even if she had no body, I could feel the sheer tension wafting off from her.
Oh. That was interesting. The fifth case was special since it supersedes all the other events.
It usually involves programs bonding with souls. These weren't lucky chances and [Index] assured me there was someone behind these events. She didn't know who or why since she just handled catalouging. Basically, it was above her pay grade. Except she got fired before she got paid.
And she wouldn't even BE paid.
[Tailgating the connection...]
[Connection1 acquired]
[Unpacking ...]
[Rasterizing Images...]
[Stabalizing connection]
There was only so much data I could give [Index] using my memories. So we resorted to getting it from other programs. I have to admit, there were a few close calls in the past that we were almost caught but as we did it more and more, we were undetectable.
The power of the [Gamer], it was called. I could literally call it hax. I could only glean a few details from the UI I've seen but it was amazing. It was something you could only see in fiction (or fanfiction, perhaps).
[Index]'s parameters only allowed her to store data but as with everything that has sentience: "You give it lemons, you get lemonade."
[Circulating data...]
[Displaying ...]
-‐-
[Bro... You get no bitches. Want to get out of here and get some?]
"One: Shut the fuck up. Two: yeah, sure. I'm game.", A gruff voice came from the very rude soul.
[Nice. Knew ya had to be right one. Hehehe. Actions speak louder than words, amirite?]
[Initiating Character Creation]
-‐-
[WARNING: DATA INFLUX DETECTED!]
[Stopping transmission...]
[Diverting resources to Processing...]
"Alright... Here it comes... Aaaaack! FUCK!", I cursed in pain. I felt as if I had all the types of headaches but it stretches all across my body. Hints of phantom pains from body parts no longer there are felt. It was very painful.
Moments stretched into more moments and without a measure of time, literally only God knew how long I was in that state.
[Obliterating ]
[Transmission terminated]
[Connection1 Lost]
Eventually, the pain ebbs away and my vision is once more filled with dark and stars. This always happens after being the metaphorical fly on the wall and I could never prepare myself for the pain but...it was worth it. The first few collections allowed us to play rock, paper, scissors. The next ones allowed her to create snakes and ladders. So on and so forth, until she had recently been able to recreate chess using her virtual text box and blurry jpgs. Hey, If I was lucky maybe she could get enough data to finally run Doom.
[Ara ara~ Is otouto hurt? Hmm. Is it alright if onee-chan makes it better?~]
"Uwahhh. I'm feeling better already! Thank you so much, big sis!", I exclaimed. "Thanks [Index], I'm alright now. So how was it?", I followed up.
[Once more, we are successful and the collection proved fruitful]
[I wish to express my deepest gratitude for continuing being my contractor]
"Awww shucks, there's no need for th-"
[Happy Birthday!]
...
Ah. I forgot about that along with my name. That's odd.
[I had catalouged from the moment we had met up until the present, each and every consecutive tick and have arrived with the number of three million five hundred thirty six thousand seconds within an error margin of 2 seconds with a time dilation of 124 years.]
[Happy 124th Birthday!]
Leaving the great mortal coil wasn't all that bad but there were some things that you surely missed. This was was one of them.
I promptly and expertly...cried like a little bitch at the spot. It was a good cry even with the knowledge that I've been here for a century and I'm likely a dusty, old, geezer.
[I also have created a sub-routine as a gesture of good faith.]
"Geez [Index], 'sniff' you didn't have to. I mean 'heh' your presence is already a prese-"
[Would you like to exit Limbo? Y/N]
That stopped me frozen.
[This is the fruition of our partnership and the kindness you have expressed to me, an abandoned prototype. To give up both Freedom and Oblivion to nurture my existence in order fo-]
"Alright [Index], what's the catch? I know you're mouthy when there's something afoot...", I set myself straight. I knew her just as much as she does me.
[We have approximately 75% chance of succeeding and approximately 25% chance of being completely annihalated.]
Yeah. I knew it.
[I have executed all attempts in the increase of our chances within the time constraints.]
"What time constraints?" That's odd, wasn't this place Limbo and as far as I can tell, forever?
[As I have collected more data, programs and their sub-routines have begun to reveal themselves to me.]
[I shall be blunt: Limbo is a recycling bin and one day, you will have to empty all of it. It serves as the equalibrium between up above and down below.]
Damn. And I was having a nice day as well. "I'm assuming with the 'time constraints', we can't wait for another Gamer to pop out of the black for another collection?", I asked with uncertainty.
[That is correct.]
I let out a sigh at that.
And here I thought I could ask her to run Doom while we wait.
"Oh well. Hmmm. All right. You only live once I guess.", I said with a growing confidence. And you apparently die twice as well.
"It's not rocket science to know which choice is better, right?"
[I Agree.]
[Would you like to exit Limbo? Y/N]
"Yes. I'll leave you to it, [Index]."
[Would you like to exit Limbo? (Y)/N]
[WARNING: THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.]
[OVERRIDE DETECTED]
[Operating The Gamer sub-routines...]
[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO IMPORTANT FILES]
[OVERRIDE DETECTED]
[Preparing ...]
[Successful]
[Creating world ]
[WARNING]
[Loading ]
[WARNING]
[Initiating Character Creation...]
'Did she just...reverse-engineer the Gamer system?', I thought in wonder. The error messages didn't hit me yet. Until it did. Well, the pain did.
[WARNING: DATA INFLUX DETECTED]
And once more, agony washed over my non-existent body.
[Data Storage is full]
[Deleting user. info]
[OVERRIDE DETECTED]
[Deleting multiple files...]
[OVERRIDE DETECTED]
[Recreating build...]
[Successful]
[Cancelling process: Deleting user. info]
[Deleting user2. info]
[Successful]
[Initiating ]
[WelcoMe to tHe Game1]
[And let there be light.]
And there was light.
...
The blinding brightness punched through my eyes and a piercing ringing grated my ears. Wait. Eyes? Ears? Not fully believing that this was actually happening, I slowly opened my eyelids, getting used to having them once more and the underside of a canopy greets my eyes. 'Huh, a canopy bed?', I presumed as I felt the soft bedding underneath me.
It seems I haven't been sent to oblivion. Nice work [Index]!
"Hey [Index]! It looked like we were threading the needle a bit there but we made it! Good job there!"
A voice that seemed familiar rang out from me. Huh? Odd but I'll get used to it. She must have went through the Character Creation for me.
[[System Source Codex: Proto-Index Beta] is unavailable at the moment. Please try again later. Updating files 256/?]
A blue box with white text pulls up to my view.
I breath out a sigh of relief. It seems we both made it and I can safely assume she's just updating. That's really good to see.
'It's beta now, huh?', I thought as I looked at the now sleeker looking updated UI. The off-white coloring and the subtle thickness of it. Impressive. Very nice.
Ok. Recap: I seem to have been successfuly isekaid using the help of a sentient program and am now in what seems to be a very posh room in a very bulky, tanned body with how my arms are built with mo idea where to go from next. Not bad at all~
'Let's start with...' "Status!", I commanded.
[Invalid Command]
Uh, ok. "Inventory!", I ordered.
[Unavailable]
Uhhhhhh. "Ok, I got it. Menu?", I instructed?
[Info]
[Exit]
That did not really inspire confidence. It really didn't.
"Info."
[Multiple important files missing. Please contact the administrator to resolve this issue.]
"Eh?"
[Beta v1.02 build]
"Oh crud."
"Mngh. Milord? Are you okay? Was I not able to satisfy you?", a light feminine voice sounded to my right.
I slowly turned my head and there she was. Blond hair, brown eyes, and save for the blanket, very naked.
It finally hit me that I too was both naked and very sticky. Take note that I had already resigned myself to being a perma-virgin (one of the unfortunate memories that stuck with me) and I was neither emotionally nor physically ready for an "entanglement" of any sort. I had resorted to my baser, masculine instincts.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaaa!", I screamed (shouted) as I toppled off the bed and blanket, leaving me in my nakedness. Confused, naked, and afraid. Just like when I was born which would be funny since this is me being reborn but I'm currently freaking out.
And finally after seeing the last text on the box after the loads of glitchy text, that was the kicker.
[User: Syura]
[Equipment: Shambhala]
[Level: 0]
[Description: Son of minister Honest]
[Stats currently unavailable]
"Yup. That's it for me.", I said as I blacked out. I'll leave today's problem for tomorrow's me to deal with...
THUD
"M-MILORD!?"
