Chapter 2B: The skill named Self-Sacrifice

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  |      Welcome to another world!       |

  |                        |

  |     You have received a welcome bonus!      |

  |         +1 EXP Ticket          |

  |         +1 Growth Ticket         |

  |         +1 Skill Point          |

  |        +1 Ability (Self-Sacrifice)       |

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  Self-sacrifice? That is the first thing that catches my attention. Well, then the rest of the notice. Another world? EXP ticket? Growth Ticket? Skill Point?

  I look at the floating grey window directly in front of my face. It’s actually uncomfortably close. Normally I wouldn’t be able to focus my eyes on it easily but for some reason it’s all in focus.

  Not, easy to focus on. ALL of the screen is in focus, like all at once. It’s as if my eyes are unnecessary. I close my eyes experimentally, but the screen is gone. It appears as if my eyes truly are seeing something. Not something being beamed into my brain.

  I focus on the window once more and sigh.

  Believe it or not being stuck in hospital waiting rooms for hours at a time leads someone to truly dark places… that being mobile games. I played enough of those to guess already what these are.

  Skill points have to be for acquiring skills, like what else could it possibly be used for?

  Growth Ticket, well that’s a bit more vague… maybe boosting growth speed? But wouldn’t that also apply to an EXP ticket?

  That one truly stumps me, an EXP ticket. Obviously thi-

  Wait a moment, what am I doing?

  I look around at the environment around me, the first thing I notice are the trees. They are truly colossal, each trunk looks as large as a normal sized home. Then as my eyes wander up the trunks I notice something else, the sky… is grey?

  Not grey like a cloudy day, I can see clouds in the sky, but it seems as if the sky itself is grey.

  My eyes follow the sky until it meets mountains in the horizon, a splotch of grey with more grey mountains as a backdrop. The top of the trees also look grey… am I color blind?

  I look down at my hands and then my clothes, no everything looks normal. In fact I can still see the red stain from puking up my organs. The front of my shirt is dyed such a dark and deep red. As I rotate my body I can feel the stiffness of it from the sheer amount of dried blood.

  I briefly wonder what kind of atmosphere would make such a dull sky… but I literally just met a god.

  My face instantly flushes with embarrassment. What the hell was I thinking? Was I seriously attempting to kill a god just because they pissed me off? What am I, a child? Letting my emotions completely control me like that.

  That really isn’t like me.

  “God, if you can hear me I really am sorry for… well you know? Sorry and all that” that apology has to be the least I can do.

  It seems I’ve been reborn. Another chance. I won’t take this life for granted, I’ll truly try to enjoy this one. Hopefully it isn’t such a boring and harsh world as the one I came from.

  But looking at the grey pallet doesn’t inspire much hope. You know what they say, with books and covers. I’ll give this world a shot.

  I look down back at the panel and see a small x button in the top right corner. I try to click it with my finger but it just uselessly passes through as if nothing was there.

  Five minutes of desperate experimentation later, I’ve discovered something. This system or whatever it is, can just read my mind? That’s a bit concerning, isn’t it? I value privacy more than almost anything else. I don’t like the fact something can just snoop around in there.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I guess there’s nothing I can do about it, back to the point I was making.

  I can just control the window with my thoughts, if I want it to move away… it does. If I want it to close, it does. You get the point.

  I think about opening the main menu, and then what appears is a bunch of nonsense.

  [Skills] [Inventory] [Shop] [Status] [Chat]

  I mentally “click” on [Skills] and guess what? Nothing, literally nothing. As in a blank window.

  I click on [Inventory] and guess what? I’ll let you take a guess, it’s once again literally nothing. Not even empty item boxes or anything. Not a max weight limit. NOTHING

  I skip over shop and status and click chat next.

  [Error, you do not have access to Chat]

  Wow, amazing. Empty windows and an error. Let me guess, is sit a skill I have to buy? Or perhaps maybe someone just hates me and disabled it?

  Honestly that wouldn’t surprise me all things considered. Whatever who needs communication anyways, it’s overrated at best.

  Wait a second. Wasn’t I supposed to get a skill? Self-Sacrifice or whatever? It sounds like a shitty skill, but I still should’ve gotten it. It literally said so on the first window I saw.

  “Self-Sacrifice” I state out loud… nothing happens.

  Wow, so I got robbed of my one free skill.

  This is an outrage, not even one hour in a new world and I’m already getting robbed.

  Whatever, sounds like a useless skill anyways. I wonder what it does, maybe something only when you die? That would explain the name.

  I mentally click on [Status] and guess what? If you guessed an empty window, you’d be wrong.

  This time something actually useful appears.

  [Status]

  [Name:John Smith]

  [HP:20/25

  [Strength:4]

  [Agility:3]

  [Endurance:14]

  [Intelligence:25]

  [Magic:0]

  [Status Affects:Chemotherapy -5 Strength -5 Agility, Cancer -1HP per day -5 Strength -5 Agility]

  John Smith? Who the fuck is that? That’s not my name, how the fuck can they mess up my name? It’s Anthony, not John. Is that just the default name? John smith? Maybe everyone gets that name?

  No. It can’t be, what kind of lazy bullshit system would that be. Renaming everyone to John Smith makes no sense.

  Whatever, I’ll just keep going by my actual name. Who the fuck cares what this system thinks I’m called.

  Cancer, huh? Literally reborn and I still have it. Surely there has to be a cure here. With a system like this there has to be.

  Magic 0, I guess you don’t start with it? Maybe it’s unlocked later?

  I mentally click on [Shop]

  [Welcome new user, as a reward for being reborn you get one free spin of the skill roulette! You will receive one free skill, any possible skill can be unlocked.]

  [Do you accept?]

  [Yes] [No]

  Yes or no? Why wouldn’t I accept? I’d be stupid not to. Why even give an option to decline? It is a free skill. Who would ever turn this down.

  I click [Yes] without hesitation.

  [1 skill point consumed]

  What? It said it was free, what kind of bullshit is this! How can it suddenly claim a skill point? I didn’t even get a chance to look at the skills. What if it gets wasted on something worthless?

  Wait a second? Aren’t I screwed? I only had one skill point to spend. I have no weapons and now I can’t even buy an offensive ability. How do I even level up? I didn’t see a level on my status page.

  Before me another screen appears, a low-quality polygonal render of a roulette table is shown. None of the the colors seem to mean anything. There isn’t even a number on there. It’s just black and red.

  It lands on black.

  [Congratulations! You have unlocked the S+ rank skill Immortality]

  What? Immortality? Seriously?

  I hurriedly click on [skills] and sure enough it’s there.

  [Skills]

  [Immortality]

  [Can not die unless sacrificed or consumed]

  “Seriously?” I can’t help but state out loud.

  Don’t I win? Isn’t this literally what mankind has always been striving for? What do I even do now? Consumed huh? I guess I could get eaten by a dragon or something, that I can understand but what is sacrificed?

  Does that have to do with self-sacrifice? Maybe it means something different in this world. Surely not just having my heart removed in a circle of my blood would suddenly kill me when nothing else would?

  I click once again on [Shop]

  [Shop]

  [Skills] [Upgrades] [Items][Tickets][Help]

  I see the options available and click on [Items], why not right? I can look at all of them later. Although why is help here? Surely it would be better in the main menu and not in the shop.

  I should have one Growth ticket and one EXP ticket.

  Wait wait wait, did I really just get over that? I’m immortal, like actually immortal. As in unkillable, as in cancer won’t kill me anymore.

  Wait, wouldn’t that mean I just wither away even more? I don’t want to become a grape. It didn’t say anything about eternal youth or hell even just healing.

  Can I disable it? Is that what self-sacrifice is?

  I guess I can think about that terrifying idea later. The shop, I guess I’ll look at the list.

  I’m not even going to bother describing it, it’s literally just amazon. There are even the same brands and everything. The only difference was that you could buy weapons and potions.

  Buy with what exactly you ask? Divine tokens. Do I have any of those? No, obviously not. I would have said something if I did.

  I click on [Help]

  [Help]

  [Do you wish to spend one divine token to request help?]

  [Unavailable] [No]

  I click [No], I couldn’t do anything else. I would be really pissed right now if I didn’t literally just obtain immortality a minute ago. I’m quite the forgiving guy, wouldn’t you say?

  I click on [Tickets]

  [Do you wish to exchange tickets for another type?]

  [Yes] [No]

  I click [No] once again. I still don’t know what a growth ticket even does. I don’t want to get rid of it before even knowing.

  I decide not to even look at the skills until I have another skill point, that would just be too much. Seeing all those abilities that I can’t even have yet.

  I click on [Upgrades]

  [Please select what stat to upgrade]

  [HP:20/25

  [Strength:4]

  [Agility:3]

  [Endurance:14]

  [Intelligence:25]

  [Magic:0]

  I click on [Magic] without hesitation, obviously I would pick magic. Who wouldn’t here? Even if I can’t use it, it starts the path to becoming a wizard. And everyone knows that’s cool as hell.

  [You have no mana core; you cannot upgrade Magic.]

  What? That’s so lame. Seriously? I can’t get magic until I have a core? How do I even get that? What else would I even upgrade? HP? Immortal, no point. Strength? What? Will 5 be really that much better?

  I guess I’ll save the ticket for now.

  This whole thing really killed my mood.