The morning sunlight peeks through my curtains as my alarm screams for me to start the day. Getting the agonizing ringing to stop, I crawling out of bed, I take a shower and slip into my work uniform before making myself a filling breakfast of eggs and bacon. I take a can of soda from the fridge and down it as I eat my meal. Seeing I was running a tad behind schedule, a rush ensued to get out the door.
It is quite a nice day, with the birds singing and trees rustling in the wind. Leaves are scattered along the pavement carried by the winds. The cool wind is a blessing given the heat of past months. Some children play on the street without much care. Cars do not frequent the streets around my abode, which I count as a gift as a pedestrian.
I like to think of myself as an ordinary sort. I am a 33 years old unmarried man that works as a cashier for a department store chain. Drink is my vice of choice while I despise smoking. I make sure to get home by eight and fall asleep by eleven. I have no health issues to speak of. In my spare time, I read books and manga or watch anime. I am not that choosy in my preferences but I have gravitated to the newfound trend of isekai, or reincarnating into another world. Although I grow frustrated with a majority of them, I still read and watch them as I have nothing else.
Returning to reality, my panic came back to bite me as my thoughts of work distracted me to the honking of a car horn as I crossed yet another street. Realizing too late, I turn to see the front of a moving truck seconds before it crashes into my body. Everything seems to go in slow motion as the impact makes contact and pain ripples throughout my body for a second before all sensation ceases.
I sit for a moment, contemplating my life before recognizing I am somewhere new. An endless dark expanse surrounds me. A freeze for a moment seeing that I stand on nothing seemingly. With the shock of death and this new environment, I fall to the "floor" and remain as still as a statue stunned. I do not exactly know how l remained motionless lost in thought in this void, but it was interrupted by a blue glow. Before me was a floating transparent screen, with blue light containing it.
'Greetings, you have died.' It would flip to new text a few seconds later. 'We apologize for the delay. Reincarnation services have been spread thin.' The appearance of this new stimulus brought a welcome respite from my swirling mind. 'Please type preferred world type.' As someone so infatuated with foreign worlds, I of course typed fantasy. A humming noise emitted from the screen as it processed the input.
'Now search for a world. This may take some time due to the popularity of input.' After perhaps a week or a month (it is quite hard to keep track of time here), a new text appeared. 'World 6C757669746F76 is available to join. Do you wish to join in?' Springing up from the new activity, I quickly confirm it by pressing a button on the screen, accidentally clicking it twice in my excitement.
That excitement turned to horror as the text went from 'Confirmed world selection' to 'Confirmed stats and skills.' It seems my euphoria got the better of me and skipped the character creation screen. My ecstasy evolved into a red hot fury of this poorly designed process. Who designs something to where you can skip character creation on accident and you cannot reverse it? There is not even a screen asking if you are sure of what you selected! This fury was silenced by the surprise of my body fading into blue fragments of light.
The screen only held one message as my body disappeared: 'Good luck. We will watch you closely.'
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