I never really thought about dying all that much.
All I ever really worried about was moving one step forward. To just keep on existing and help bring food to my family's table every night. That didn't really change when I went to uni on a scholarship while juggling multiple part-time jobs, or even when I started working for real after I dropped out.
I was too busy. My parents weren't really around; they died when I was a kid. I had an aunt who sent us money, but she couldn't care less. It was just me, my brother and my sister, so I learned early on that if those two were gonna be gunning for a shot at the moon, the stars, or whatever the hell they wanted in life, I'd have to be prepared for a lot of sacrifices.
I did my best. I worked my ass off, and by the time I died, they were already doing their own stuff. Lyle was a banker. Erin was serving in the Air Force, flying jets and kicking ass.
Honestly, I didn't care about where I'd end up. I've done some bad, I've done some good, but I know I did the best I could.
I just didn't know I'd end up waking in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, a floating blue screen in front of my face and full of game-like bullshit.
Loading system_version 1.0…
Finn Tsukigawa
General Information
Challenge Rating: E
Race: Human
Titles: N/A
Age: 27 16 (new)
Statistics
Remaining SP: 5
STR: E (0)
AGI: E (0)
CON: E (0)
LUK: D (—)
MANA: E (0)
Active Effects
•N/A.
Skills
•N/A.
Abilities
Deus Ex Machina (5/5 pulls left)
- The night is dark and full of terrors. And as a user of the system, you know this far better than most. To help you survive, the system has granted you access to Deus Ex Machina, allowing you to obtain one (1) randomized object, ability, skill, or entity that may help you with your current predicament, with the results being affected by your LUK stat. Deus Ex Machina is non-renewable, but more pulls can be obtained by doing missions.
Inventory
Max Weight: 100kg.
•N/A.
As I looked at the floating blue table under the shade of what seemed like maple, I tried to keep my opinions regarding the situation on the down low. It didn't really matter all that much, considering I was already here. How the hell am I changing that, am I right? But I couldn't really keep it from leaking out.
Honestly, being sent to some place that was definitely some other universe was pretty cool, all things considering. The game system was a nice little addition, and it made things a whole lot simpler if I was being honest.
But that didn't mean I didn't hate it.
The idea of quantifying a person into a set of objective values bothered the shit out of me, especially in fiction. Strength, speed, and durability couldn't be constant values; they vary depending on the condition of a person at a given time. They change according to the environment, they change depending on hunger and physical energy levels, they change depending on mood, for crying out loud. A weightlifter could potentially lift 380 kilograms, but that didn't mean they'd win against a MMA champion.
Stats like this shit didn't really make sense. This wasn't a mess of numbers like most of the systems I've seen, thank god, but without a baseline to gauge the meaning of these values, I'm like a caveman with a fucking iPhone.
I almost don't even wanna open the can of worms that was Deus Ex Machina. Flavor text aside, it was basically toned-down gacha. No big-ass pulls where you can get a fuckton of loot in one go, just five single draws.
For a guy from some fast-food garbage isekai, something like this would probably give them anything from OP equipment to OP bimbos for their harem. I've wasted enough cash whaling to know for sure that I ain't gonna be pulling out SSRs consecutively. It's completely reliant on the luck stat. Which, unlike the other stats, had its values grayed out.
But, well, I wasn't gonna be looking a gift horse right in the mouth if you know what I'm saying. If I can fight and dish out the same output consistently no matter my level of fatigue, it'll make things a whole lot easier.
Plus, the de-aging? Holy shit. I was balding due to stress in my early twenties. I had a full head of hair again, and it was fucking glorious. Shoulder-length, black as sin, and lustrous like a motherfucker.
Fuck the numbers and the dumbass gacha bullshit, I had hair again!
I could probably take over the world or some shit!
I didn't take over the world.
I spawned naked, with nothing to my name.
It turned out I wasn't in the middle of nowhere. I was in the 'verse of devils and big tits. High School DxD. I spawned right in the middle of one of Kuoh Town's many parks, and the police didn't take kindly to some teenager walking around buck-naked. I did manage to make them believe I was a victim of human trafficking though. Not like I did a lot, they came to that conclusion themselves because of the fact I couldn't speak a lick of Japanese and also because it was the most rational explanation for my predicament.
I may have had a Japanese surname, but the best I could do was "rasengan" and "kamehameha".
Like, c'mon. The last person that could actually speak Japanese in my family back on Earth was our grandpa, a Japanese immigrant, and he died way before I was born. I didn't even look that Asian. I looked white as fuck.
I even tried using Deus Ex Machina, rolling three times just to see if it could fix my language problem.
All it did was give me a bottle of low-quality vodka, a Rolex Submariner, and the ability to speak fluent Italian.
I was lucky the police contacted one of those NGOs. They gave me a place to stay while they sorted me out. I would've liked it if they took me back home, considering I didn't wanna deal with the dangerous magical bullshit in this town, but it wasn't like I had anywhere else to go. I didn't have any papers, nor did I have any family in these parts.
I was lucky Azazel showed up when he did.
Still dressed in a bathrobe and a pair of boxers, the fallen angel looked comfy as fuck. Sure, the blonde highlights on the black hair made him look like some college fucker from a doujin, but I had to admit; the guy was well-built. He wasn't big, he was tall and lean, with the type of proportions people from Hollywood would go crazy for.
"Hey, kid." The man called out.
"Yeah?" I looked at the guy, taking my attention off of the book I was reading.
"Wanna go to school?" Azazel asked.
I raised an eyebrow.
"Why? Do you need something done or some shit?" I asked.
I didn't know where he was going with this, but I did owe him for taking me in. As long as it wasn't selling drugs or killing kids or any other heinous shit, I'd be willing to do a lot of things. Although considering what I know of Azazel, I didn't think he'd ask me to do anything illegal.
From the way he shook his head and chuckled though, that probably wasn't it.
"I may have fallen from dear old dad's graces, but I don't think I'm too far gone to ask for something like that." Azazel responded as he swirled the wine from his glass like those rich people I see on TV, smelling that shit like it was new air fresheners.
"So like, you want me to go to school. Like, as a student." I said.
Why?
"You do know I'm technically 27, right?"
"You're also technically 16." Azazel grinned.
"I'd be more mentally mature than most of those kids! It'd be like taking some kid from college back to daycare!" I sputtered indignantly.
Azazel laughed.
"Mentally mature, my ass. I don't think I have to ask you about just why you had your doors locked for an entire hour with one of my photobooks of Aiko-chan, do I?"
"Y-You, I… you fucker." Heat pooled into my cheeks as I tried to make a coherent response.
Fucking hormones. This game system bullshit gave me an entire head of hair, but it also slapped me right back with a fistful of teenage brain juice.
Azazel laughed even harder, and while it was a joke made at my expense, I couldn't help but smile.
Azazel then doubled down with the Aiko thing, which made it even weirder considering Aiko-san was a teacher he hired to teach me Japanese. But I knew he wasn't gonna let up about school, no matter how much he tried to sugarcoat it by changing the subject.
And I was proven right when he brought it up again.
"Do you really not want to go back to school?" The fallen angel asked.
"Why?" I responded.
Personally, I didn't really hate the idea of going back to school. It was just… I was just too old to go back. I wouldn't mind getting into some high school shenanigans, or maybe even get a girlfriend or some shit.
But I knew that I probably didn't have the faculties for that sort of stuff.
People on the internet like to talk shit and say that if they ever found themselves in whatever fandom they're following, they'd kick ass and get bitches faster than the original protagonists. But the main reason why those people get bitches in the first place, the values most people call basic such as kindness, generosity, the idea of helping people just for the sake of it, they were far more difficult to uphold than you'd think they were.
Back in my old life, I never did manage to do that. I did a lot of things I wasn't proud of. Things I deserved to be in prison for. I could talk about how I did it all for my family, but that wasn't an excuse.
I didn't think I deserved a second chance at life like this.
"...I've lived for a really long time." Azazel said, after a brief pause. "I've gone through my fair share of things myself, and it took me a while to get back into the swing of things."
I kept my silence, digesting what he was trying to say in my head.
Was he going to tell me he understood? That he'd gone through worse?
"I'm not gonna get into a pissing contest with you over trauma." Azazel chuckled. "That's a dumb thing to do. Doesn't matter if you drown in a pool or in an ocean, at the end of the day, you're still drowning. But…"
He gingerly placed his glass of Bordeaux on a coaster, leaning forward as he looked at me.
"You can't save yourself if you keep on pushing your head under the water, kid. I'll help hold you up for as long as you need, but at the end of the day, my experiences are my experiences, and your circumstances are yours to deal with. It's up to you to keep on paddling."
The fallen angel smiled, wistfully at that.
AN: Hey, guys. I honestly wouldn't just post something like this since I don't think it fits my standards, but I just couldn't get this plot bunny out of my head. So, here I am.
Feel free to comment and I highly encourage leaving reviews and constructive criticism of all kinds. Next chapter's coming soon.