NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Crawling
'So I finally died huh?'
Although I was a bit shocked and a bit afraid, dying was something I had already prepared for, for a long time by now. Honestly, I was surprised I even made it to 19.
I don't know what exactly I expected from the afterlife, but whatever it was, with my luck I would probably get lost on the way there and drift off into endless nothingness.
You know, just like this one actually.
...That was a bit of a lie, instead of being endless nothingness it looked more like endless everything, like a distorted endless chaotic kaleidoscope.
I am pretty sure none of the religions I knew about described an afterlife like this one. What the fuck happened then? Did I slip on a banana peel while driving down the highway to hell and end up out of bounds or something?
I wasn't what people would call religious, but I did believe in the existence of god or godlike beings out of pure belief that they existed solely to make my life miserable. I do wonder that if gods were actually real which one I manage to piss off so hard they took personal offence to me living?
Or was I just born on top of a broken mirror under a ladder with the doctor delivering me being a black cat holding an umbrella indoors and wearing an upside-down horseshoe?
I was a pretty cautious person, but when the universe itself wants you dead even caution can help you little.
How did I die you ask?
While I was buying groceries, a very rare occurrence considering how little I left my house usually, a truck of all things rammed through the front of the front of the store before managing to hit only me, I wasn't even lucky enough to die from the impact, I died of bleeding and suffocation afterwards.
So, yeah, that was pretty fucked up. Probably one of the most painful deaths I could have had of drowning from the blood accumulating in my lungs.
3/10, wouldn't reccomend.
But, damn. So that was it huh?
I have to say, that was one hell of a shitty life. I tried to make the best but life is not fair, neither is fate. Sometimes, your best will just be equivalent to someone's horrible.
Did I regret the life I lived? I definitely did.
Humans were weak creatures, I was a weak creature.
There is little you can do when the big wheel of fate decides that today is the day it absolutely robs you of everything you hold dear, and there is scant you can do to struggle.
But I got over that. I have learned to cope with the whims of fate, when life decides to give you the worst it can give you, the only thing you can do is persevere until the wheel of fortune turns again.
...Speaking of, still waiting on that turn on good luck.
Still, is this really it? Is this all there is to my life? Or my death? Just wandering the infinite kaleidoscope forever until I run out of thoughts and become a non-entity?
...Fuck, that's terrifying. Is it still too late for me to start praying to some god of sorts?
Might as well, because unlike before, I have literally nothing to lose.
I placed together what I assumed were my hands(I was kinda more like a shapeless blob right now floating in the kaleidoscope right now but that was another can of worms) and prayed to... something? Whoever would listen anyway.
Please.
There weren't enough words to describe what I felt while I prayed. I couldn't string together the words I wanted to beg or scream with. I wanted to curse everything, the world around me, the gods that may or may not exist, yet at the same time, I was tired.
Over time you learn helplessness.
At some point, the only thing left that you can blame your bad luck for is yourself.
The cosmos is cold and unfeeling, it looks at your misery with nothing but apathy. It's up to you to try and carve a place for yourself in the world with what it gives you.
Just as I was about to give up and let my thoughts wander until even my ego vanished I heard, no, felt something. A rumbling, spinning and grinding of thousands of gears forming into a thought-like speech inserted into my head.
[SUCH KARMA UNREALIZED]
...What?
I know I prayed but I didn't think anyone would answe- I mean, yes?
[DO YOU DESIRE ANOTHER CHANCE?]
Yes, yes a thousand times, I want to live. I cannot be satisfied leaving behind a life like that. I want to experience life for real, I don't want to leave life with such regrets.
Whatever chance is given to me I'll take. Whatever opportunity you hand me, I'll grasp it. Just give me something, a chance.
[AFFIRMATION. REGISTERING USER...]
The grinding of countless gears in my head dimmed down as instead a translucent panel replaced the noise with visual data. I waited patiently as the window of me gave me feedback again.
[CALIBRATING ACCORDING TO USER...]
[THE GACHA SYSTEM IS ONLINE]
The what?
Wait- Gacha? Well, that's not what I expected but again, I will take anything. But... Gacha huh?
While I complained about my luck, statistically, or on paper, my luck wasn't terrible. It was more like some force from beyond was actively fucking with my life with how unlucky I was. After all, if my luck was so bad I wouldn't have had an FGO addiction.
Still, my life gets dictated by luck again? Fine.
Give me all you got.
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You have been another chance at life.
The gacha will now decide your fate.
You have received 3 Random Gacha Tickets.
____________________________
Uh, I don't want to impose or ask for more than I am already receiving but could I get an explanation, please?
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Explanation: Random Ticket
Tickets allow you to roll the corresponding gacha they align with, in the case of the Random Gacha ticket, it allows you to roll the Random gacha containing anything in the vast infinity ranging from practical skills to items and abilities.
Once all tickets have been spent, your new life will begin.
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I see.
I really don't have a choice, do I? Well, might as well. If I am lucky enough to get a second chance with an apparently Reality Bending System that can grant me a new life, maybe I will get lucky enough to get something half decent before being chucked into the warp of forty thousand hammers or something, never really saw 40k, just know about how shit it is from general media.
Alright, let's do this!
I hyped myself up, this would decide my new life after all.
Roll it!
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Rolling Random Gacha Ticket...
A Rare Ability!
[Rare - Pearl Jam]
|Rarity: Rare| |Class: Trump, Recovery|
Allows you to imbue Pearl Jam into your cooking and improve it drastically. Depending on the quality of the food, its ingredients and your power, the food you cook gain additional effects such as healing and curing illnesses and much more.
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Wow, holy shit that was actually great! There is no one who wouldn't appreciate superpower foods. Sure, it gives me no combat ability but I have watched JoJo before and know how Pearl Jam works. It can cure basically any illness even ones that aren't conventionally curable like Cancer or something like Bronchitis or damaged lungs, infections, black death it could cure any conventional disease.
...Oh how I needed something like this before dying. That surely would have been very helpful with my fucked up lungs in my first life. Pneumonia is not fun.
Anyway, I am perfectly satisfied with a roll like this. Thank you system. Now I need the other two to give me useable things to protect myself with, because just like how people would appreciate a healing food maker, they would appreciate him in their hands even more.
I do not want to be turned into a slave just because I can cook good food.
So, please give me another.
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Rolling Random Gacha Ticket...
An Uncommon Trait!
[Uncommon - Enhanced Vitality]
|Rarity: Uncommon|
Your vitality is beyond the norm, you recover from ailments and wounds faster than what most consider normal. In addition, your life force has been enhanced, giving you an increased lifespan.
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That's not bad, while it isn't exactly great for combat purposes, it seems useful for general life, especially if I end up in a hive city having an enhanced vitality should help me not instantly contract 902381 diseases from taking a sip from the wrong source of water or accidentally getting poked by a nail.
Alright, the last one, please, give me something I can use to protect myself.
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Rolling Random Gacha Ticket...
An Uncommon Ability!
[Uncommon - Sand Veil]
|Rarity: Uncommon| |Class: Emitter|
Allows you to create a fierce protective Sand Veil around yourself. Inside the sand veil, you are harder to perceive and Earthen abilities are stronger. You are completely unaffected by the sand veil.
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Well, it's not exactly great but for my purposes, it is definitely a stellar ability. It gives me a free get-out jail card against any mundane combatant. It's quite hard to pursue someone when I suddenly shit out a localized sandstorm.
I mean, yup, this does seem pretty good. Not the best but I can live with just about anything really, I was good at surviving and making do with what I had. Not to sound arrogant, but as long as the odds were above 0% I could live with them.
After all 3 of my tickets were spent I was greeted with yet another notification.
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All tickets have been spent, roll to decide your fate.
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Right after those words, somehow, in the middle of the endless infinite kaleidoscopic void, I was stuck in with no up or down I now held a dice in my hands, the dice itself looked like it was weaved from the cosmos and had the texture of perfect glass, in addition, a pitch black table I couldn't discern the material of appeared in front of me.
...Isn't this a bit daunting? I know I was doing essentially the same with the normal gacha but the seemingly all-powerful system saying outright that this roll of the d20 in my hands would decide my next life was a bit unnerving.
But, I trust the system to not fuck me over.
After all, if it wanted to fuck me over, it already would have. So, I will put my trust in it.
I grabbed the die with a heavy heart and rolled it.
3.
Fuck.
Nevermind then, struggle is back on the menu boys.
Please don't tell me this means I am getting booted to 40k or something. Even with a gacha like the ones I have read before I have absolutely zero confidence in surviving in that hellhole.
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You have rolled a 3. Registering...
You get one advantage Random Gacha Ticket as compensation.
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Praise the system! At least it's not throwing me into the lion's den without at least throwing me a pocket knife. Using the system's magnanimity I rolled the ticket while crossing my currently nonexistent fingers.
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Rolling Random Gacha Ticket
Rare Ability - [Contract Enforcement]
|Rarity: Rare| |Class: Alteration|
"Beware the Fae"
Allows you to enforce the clauses and conditions of any contract you make. The conditions of the contract must be set while Contract Enforcement is active, with contract enforcement you can forcefully activate the clauses of a contract on your contract and force your target to comply, this however goes both ways.
or
Rare Familiar - [Cloud Elemental]
|Rarity: Rare|
A solitary elemental formed in the rainy skies. As an elemental born of the sky, she can conjure and exert control over wind, clouds and lightning.
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Well, this was a pretty clear-cut decision, wasn't it? I wasn't smart enough to fae deal with enough people and circumvent the side effects it may have, or have my ability revealed and people refuse to make deals with me. I was no mastermind.
On the other hand, the Cloud Elemental was even better than a Rare offensive ability for me, after all, I was some schmuck, I knew how to throw a punch but not how to fight. Having an independent entity able to protect me and have such a useful ability set to go along with that was a blessing and a half.
The moment I picked the Cloud Elemental yet another panel appeared in front of me.
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Initialization complete.
Finding the appropriate world to initiate transfer...
Success!
World: Draconic x Deus(Highschool DxD)
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I looked at the system with a complicated expression.
Well, that seemed both good and bad. Good because it wasn't any grimdark/death world I knew of. Bad because I have no idea what the frick Draconic x Deus meant. It does say high school next to it though, do I end up in high school again? Man, I just graduated too.
Well, no use ruminating, I will find out what the hell that means soon enough anyway.
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Initiating transfer...
Good Luck
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"ROAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!"
The last thing I saw in the void was the screen in front of me before a roar that seemingly shook the entire void pierced my ears, and then my view distorted and warped before going black.
♢—•♧•—♤—•♡•—♤—•♧•—♢
~Yuta Yukimura~
I felt a slight disorientating sensation as in one second I was a spirit floating through whatever afterlife that was, to now suddenly being alive and breathing.
My hands wandered my body, patting myself down in relief, I really missed having a body in whatever timeframe I spent just floating around in the void.
I opened and eyes and looked at the morning sky, the fresh morning air, the scent of dew, the cool breeze.
I was alive.
Screech!
That was before my ears picked up the sound of wheels sliding forcefully against the asphalt. I barely had a moment to turn my head.
Honk! Honk!
Before coming face to face with a truck so close to my face that I could probably count the dents on the bumper.
That was the last thing I saw before-
-Thud!
I felt a very heavy force impact my body, making it ragdoll through the air, I couldn't even register the pain through the disbelief.
Et tu brutus?
A/N: It starts off with a bang, or a crash really. Yuta is of the unlucky sort but rather ironically he rolled better than Hakari on his start except the very end. I adjusted the system a little to fit with DxD better, and this time I finally got to use the familiar part of the gacha that I couldn't fit into the MHA gacha.
I am still using the same custom-coded Python Script and an Ability list I gathered myself with over 1500+ possible pulls from the gacha from various fiction and my own imagination.
Considering how volatile and chaotic the world he is going to is Yuta will need all of the luck he can get and then some. May RNGesus bless his journey.
I hope you guys like this one. It's pretty fun to write.