Epilogue
Two Reincarnations Later...
In a dome-shaped room, there is only darkness. But in the center stands a lone figure in a deep blue robe with messy brown hair and hazel-colored eyes who extends his arms and a series of orbs were made and are the size of golf balls. Each one became bright white lights before galaxies form in them as the light fades.
'This is my final diary entry.' the figure thought to himself as he inspects each orb, 'I am Eric van Genus. A man that has been reincarnated many, many times which I'm sure you have already know my name from the numerous journal entries by now. As of now, I am in a virtual reality environment and will be my final resting place.'
He stops and take a closer look at one specific orb. The galaxy inside is very small and seem to be fading early.
'If you haven't guessed by now, the only way to stop my reincarnations is to seal myself in a prison. Sound harsh, yes, but makes sense.'
Eric wave his hand over it and the galaxy in the orb is three times the size and isn't flickering out of existence. He smiles and proceed to check the other orbs.
'I have grown tired out of being reincarnated again and again. But there is one thing I would like to put on record. A place that has changed me. Enlighten me even.'
He looks at the side and see a screen that scrolls through many planet types ranging from arid to swamps to many others. He smiles when he comes across an aspen type of planet as he sees forests of orange as far as the eye can see.
'In all my old lives, I was an objectivist. A person that supports individual rights and democracy and never had any faith. A man that believed in evolution is the key to success. But in my last reincarnation, I have learned a much more free-er place.'
He starts to reminisce.
Eric van Genus woke-up in an alleyway in some sort of city. The heat is high where he is at with the sun bearing down at high noon.
"Fuck me!" he speaks in a prepubescent voice. "The hell? Is this my voice?" He look at his hands and see he is a white kid, "Why am I a little kid again? Shouldn't I be a baby again after I died?"
Eric looks around and see that the alleyway he is in looks like it has Arabian styles to them. He notice some artwork that doesn't match the style of the buildings. Paintings of array of colors with flowers all over that looks like it was part of the hippie movement. Eric can hear a bustling noise at the end of the alleyway. He steps out and sees what he can hardly believe.
A city that looks like it is in the Middle-East yet completely different. A large majority of people are in punk attire and some people have animalistic traits such as ears and tails, others have cyberware, and all sorts of punk styles and some bizarre clothing. All sorts of styles include atompunk, steampunk, cyberpunk, solarpunk, desertpunk, elfpunk and more. There are some people in Muslim clothing but are very rare to spot. There are even people that use what looks like magic or psychic powers that they use to cause goods to float, water to appear from thin air and started watering the trees and flowers, conjuring fire to roast some pots and pans of food, and some doing magic tricks on the widen sidewalks. The streets are thinner with autonomous vehicles driving by with the insides looking like carriages despite the tinted windows. Everything seem different yet all the street signs are in Arabic. Above are various drones with some delivering packages while others act like security surveillance.
Eric mutters to himself, "Where the fuck am I?"
Someone dressed in a cowboy outfit says as he passes by, "Awesome toga, kid!"
He looks down and realizes he is wearing a Greek-style toga that is green yet have golden Celtic designs on it.
"Why am I in a toga?" he asks himself. "When did I wear this? Isn't this a bit culturally and possibly racially insulting when I'm wearing Greek in an Arab country? And why am I thinking out loud to myself? I should stop that."
Eric tries to change his outfit with his power, but when he tries, something is wrong. All he can get is some tiny red sparks on his hands and having difficulty using his powers.
'The hell?' Eric is confused, 'I can't use my powers. Did the machine caused some feedbacks that are causing some sort of blockage? At least I think that's what happened. Better get some directions and find out where I am.'
He heads on over towards a flower shop where he meets a woman with green skin, shimmering aquamarine eyes, bright pink hair, and wearing a traditional female Muslim outfit. The flowers there are being weird as if they are keeping track of anyone that walks by. The pots they are in are white and are connected by some sort of USB cord.
Eric speaks in Arabic, "aedhirini?"
Translation: "Excuse me?"
The woman looks at him. "Hello, young man." she surprisingly speaks English and in a British accent that threw Eric off.
"You speak English?"
"Why yes. And I do love that toga you're wearing."
He looks down at his outfit, "Thanks, but I have no idea where I got this." He looks back at the woman, "Can you tell me where I am? The name of this city to be specific."
"Lost? You're in Herat! The capital of Punkistan!" she says proudly.
"Thanks...?" Eric is now even more confused, 'Punkistan? The fuck? Okay, I know that Herat is a city in Afghanistan, but Punkistan?'
"Are you hunky-dory?" the woman is concern about Eric.
"Oh, uh, I'm alright. Just a bit confused on where I am at. If you'll excuse me, I have to go." Eric runs off and tries to piece together where he is at.
"Make sure you stick close to your parents!"
Eric heads on over to the nearest library and studies up on the history of this world to find out what has happened. He even brush up on the government of Punkistan to find out what kind of government this nation has. From what he has discovered, there was some sort of event that happened on the summer of 2024. He also discovered about the Grey Blob Crisis, The Collapse, and the Rise of Punkers. People that are given special modifications that include cyberware, bioware and other things that give them superhuman abilities. He even learn about the fall of many nations not just Afghanistan. North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and even powerful countries have fallen including the United States, China, and Russian Federation. From the ashes arise some new superpowers such as the Mutapa Federation in the southern parts of Africa and even the Horn of Africa. The United Commonwealths of America are also a new superpower yet are united in name only.
In his discovery of the text about Punkistan's government, he learn that the type of government they have is democratic semi-anarchism.
"Semi-anarchism?" Eric questions, "The hell is that?"
Back in the chamber, Eric is making sure that all the orbs in this dome room are evenly spaced.
'To tell you the truth, I was against any form of anarchy. The fact is that the only known other anarchies I knew were anarcho-communism and anarcho-capitalism. Yet the more I read, the more I was intrigued that such a government, semi-anarchism, have made the country prosperous with green technology, transhumanism, and prize freedom over a lot of other things.'
He stops and noticed that one of the orbs have gone black.
'It even accepts ideas of religions working together through something called, Omnism. A belief that all religions can unite and not try to stuff them down their throats over who is the better profit or savior or who has the true gods.'
Eric takes the orb and shakes it close to his ear to hear something that is left.
'I thought something like that was impossible in my first life. Or in any life for that matter. Yet this new country did it and it continues to thrive. They even believe in Isekai as a religion as well.'
He hears something still rattling in the orb which means something is still there and surviving. He taps the orb onto one of the other orbs and place the old orb into a small box with five other dead orbs. The orb with the transferred stuff gets put back onto the wall. He smiles and continues his work.
'The place I discovered even support mandatory education, scientific research, and individual freedoms. To be honest, I would never thought that something like that would be possible in the world I was in in my past life. I actually spent my next life as a teacher. A history teacher. But before that, I have traveled across the world to see what it was like after a social-economic apocalypse and semi-nanite apocalypse.'
He stops and notice one of the orbs has a mix of five galaxies in one. He raises an eyebrow and check it.
'Although I was surprised that Punkers were everywhere that took out all the old gangs and criminal enterprises and replace them with their own bizarre enterprises. But I did enjoy traveling to see what the world without the usual superpowers were like. Yet I couldn't get into certain countries that support communism and fascism such as the remnant of the People's Republic of China that is now a rump-state when I last checked, and this one country made by the Wagner Group in one part of former Russia. Sadly, I couldn't use my powers. Only a few sparks and tiny bits so I had to think my way out of certain situations.'
He chuckles a little about certain situations before returning the orb and continues.
'It was actually pretty fun to think on my feet again like in my first life. I enjoyed so much of my last life. My students made pictures of me, invited to some social gatherings, and even participate in many communal activities. Including taking part in Greek plays in the amphitheater at the town center of a new town that was made.' He sighs in contempt, 'That was one of the most peaceful lives I ever had to lived. Even more so that the Pokemon one. A place of freedom. A place where religions actually worked together for the greater good of humankind's spirituality. For someone that hated high evolved beings, I found a new enlightenment through peace and understanding.'
He stops and heads towards the center of the room. He look into the boxes of dead orbs and see five dozen of them. Eric is sad to see some of his creations didn't come to full bloom. The orbs that had galaxies are lifeless and he is unable to get them back to life no matter how hard he has tried. Yet there are some sparks to them. Embers of what was once there is now only tiny dims that are hard to see. He put the box away yet becomes serene.
'I have also learn that no matter what, life will always be interesting no matter how many times you have reincarnated. That was something I did not expect to find in Punkistan. Should've learned that earlier before I decided to just bulldoze everything. Remnant was a special case, however. Yet maybe it would've been better under a different philosophy. A philosophy that isn't what I had originally. The philosophy I have seen is far better than what I had. People of different anarchistic ideas working together, same with different forms of democracies, laws being voted and vetoed by the public. Instead of taking advantage of one's altruism, they only accept volunteers and there are libraries of everything ranging from books to tools to whatever. And in Punkistan, people have turned waste into a resource with all the new inventions that were made during and after the COVID pandemic.'
Eric looks up and does a contempt sigh.
'Now, I could be at peace. Free from my endless reincarnations in this virtual space with my body as an energy source. Turns out my corpse has enough energy to power a fucking universe for centillions of years. That is...ridiculous. But I have to admit, my body has absorbed a great deal of power and in my last reincarnation, I couldn't use it. My only regrets is that I wished I had been reincarnated into that world earlier and use that philosophy to create a better world. Better than the ones I have left behind. And my other...'
He looks to his right and he sees images and faces of all of his friends and companions of all of his lives. From his last life to the first.
'My other regret is that I never get to share this new enlightenment with all those I cared about. Those are my only regrets.'
Eric pulls up a hologram that says, 'Shards'. On this list is a list of the number of shards with pictures of each one. He scrolls over and had red X's on many that are now declared deceased. He close the hologram and lies down in a position like he is in a coffin.
'Now, I am going to rest here in this virtual reality. Sleep here until the very end and then the cycle continues. But I will have adventures of my children being broadcast throughout all of space till that time. I'm so tired now. Goodnight... And goodnight to you, my Shards. My children. I will count on the day you will come to me and I would be happy to see you all in this space.'
AN: DONE! I am finally done after everything that has been going on. I know some of you are pissed from the last chapter (even though I said to hold onto your thoughts until after the epilogue). But hey, it was one hell of a journey. So yeah, democratic semi-anarchism. That was the enlightenment I was talking about. If you have seen my Team Fortress 2 fanfic in chapter 2, then you have a good idea what it is about. If not, give it a read. And sugoijack9, there are way, WAY worse fanfictions that my own. I do not wanna go into details about them, but trust me when I say that and some of them actually got deleted by the authors. They've been around since before I took up writing on this site. And yes, it is a reference to my new story, Punk'd Up and yes it is canon but I'm keeping Eric away from that story. And this is also a set-up for another work I'm planning with the main character's family name being Shard. Think DevilArtemis meets SMG4, so expect some wackiness.
And for those that don't get Acai, he is suppose to be someone that is like Frank Fontaine from BioShock. Although, more like Sofia Lamb in the sequel. Or a mix of both if you think about it. Because Frank Fontaine wants complete power while Sofia Lamb believes in utilitarian yet she is so fanatical in her beliefs that she became totalitarian by her hubris while also believing in collectivism. Frank Fontaine was an egoist. So imagine Acai being authoritarian and an egoist but if you combine those two, you get personalistic dictatorship. Basically, this is more like a RWBY version of BioShock (yet without all the good stuff in it) combined with Isekai. With some of the other stuff added to it like sprinkles. Not the greatest, but you gotta admit that it was a fun little journey for those that actually enjoy the small stuff and bing read out of boredom.
And that is it. Till then, see ya!