It doesn't feel real. Not because I don't believe it, I very much remember the sudden pain that accompanied the bright lights. I would be shocked if I hadn't died. No, what has me surprised is just how mundane my current surroundings are. When I thought of the afterlife, I imagined something like pearly gates or golden gilded towers. Maybe atop strangely solid clouds that are adrift in an endless sky. Surely the afterlife would look grand in some fashion, even if I ended up in hell. Surely the underworld would look grand in its own right. Right?
Clearly reality isn’t quite so extravagant. Looking around, it's astounding just how mundane everything is. I’m in what looks to be an office meeting room. The walls are covered in aged and yellowing wallpaper that is several decades out of style. To top it all off, as soon as I “awoke” here, I found myself sitting in one of those rolling office chairs around a large old wooden table facing an unkempt looking man in a stained button up and tan slacks. He’s been speaking at me for a while now, though I’m having a hard time telling how much time has passed. It doesn’t help that as he’s speaking my life keeps flashing before my eyes, various enjoyable and unfavorable memories being shown from a third person perspective. I keep trying to focus on what he’s saying, it must be important but I’m just not getting anything to register in my mind, it’s almost like it’s another language though I know he isn’t. As I try for the umpteenth time to pull my thoughts together and focus I see that the man is currently pointing to a projector image of what appears to be my life information displayed rather neatly in diagrams and graphs. Intuitive and simple, surprisingly.
"James Halverson, can you understand what I’m saying?” He looks at me, seeming to just now understand that I haven’t been following him at all.
I shake my head slowly, my mind still trying to take in the absurdity of it all. I don’t think I ever got the concept of reeling before, but I do now.
"Let’s start over then, it’s best that you understand everything from the beginning.” His voice is stern and unwavering, but thankfully not without some compassion which I take solace in. I nod and finally find my mind willing to work with me and focus.
“You are dead. I’m sure you are feeling very lost and confused. This place is likely not what you were expecting…” He quickly glances down at his dossier… my dossier? The dossier about me. Before looking back up and giving a faint smile.
“It looks like you were raised … Catholic, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is not Heaven or Hell, at least not as you would be familiar with. Welcome to the Office. It’s kind of a staging ground to help souls like yours move on. Some who have passed through before you have called this place Hell, others Limbo and so on, but we like to keep it simple and ... clear. Thus, the Office."
Subconsciously my head tilts as I try to wrap my mind around this new information. Then it clicks, something he said there was more surprising than the rest. "Souls like me? What does that mean? I don’t think I’m particularly different or strange compared to all the others."
"Well throughout your life, you made a point in life of rejecting all religions which means that none of those gods may have claim over you, but more importantly you fit the criteria for what we do here. Our main responsibility in the office is providing the souls who pass through here the chance to be reborn and live a completely different life and in a completely different reality."
That is true, I suppose. My mom was super big into church but I never could get behind it. I don’t remember really rejecting it as strongly as this guy is making it sound like but maybe there's some spiritual aspect of rejection that I did unintentionally. That last bit sounded particularly interesting though. "So it's like reincarnation? Isn’t that a Buddhist belief?"
The man continues, "It’s exactly like reincarnation but no it’s not unique to the Buddhists, our agency actually predates the concept of reincarnation on your planet. Hopefully that was a satisfactory answer because we need to get moving onto the important part of this. I’d ask if you were interested in being one of our clients and reincarnating but frankly you don’t have much of a choice so we will skip that. The next thing however is determining what your new life will be.”
Wow this guy likes to drop lots of world shattering info in a relatively short time. Ignoring … most of that, I am a bit surprised. “I get to choose? I expected you to just send me off without a choice and if I’m lucky maybe some information so getting to chose sounds great.”
“Yeah, as I said, the choice will be yours. Now every manager has a different way of doing it, but I prefer the illusion of choice. Though don’t think too hard on that, trying to understand whether choice actually exists at all or not is a topic for another day."
I’m still reeling at this point, though I have much more awareness and control thankfully. There’s so much to take in and accept in such a short time. "Ok so what are my choices?, I guess?" Seems like the most logical thing to ask.
"Well," the manager pauses for a moment as if thinking, "Normally we have a pretty long list but since you are pretty late to the game, so to speak, there aren't many choices left. Upper management has been wanting us to have more diversity in reincarnations as of late since the whole genre has gotten pretty popular. I'll give you the updated list."
After a moment, he hands me a long piece of paper with a printed list that has lots of crossed out items and notations. I glance through it and recognize several of the reincarnation types.
At the top, were a bunch of options crossed out with a red pen with notes to the side. I even recognized a few of them as common tropes in anime.
- Summoned Hero to kill the Demon King “I swear all of these are thinly disguised Z*lda stories”
- Villainess who isn't actually evil anymore “Overdone”
- Lazy Lord who suddenly is overpowered and not lazy “next manager who picks this will die”
- Side character from a book, royalty “Boring”
- Side character from a book, commoner “Basically the same as royalty version but with more steps”
- Character in an ultra-difficult video game with a tower “No more until all the current ones finish, I can't keep up!”
Moving down the list, it began to switch from the crossed out tropes and slowly started to transition into availability slots. Though once again, most were taken. Reaching the very bottom of the very long list, I found the remaining options to have gotten so absurd I wasn’t sure whether or not it was genuine or not.
- Spider (1/1) “Needs a second season.”
- Slime (1/1)
- Vending Machine (1/1)
- Tree (1/1)
- Grass(1/1)
- Rock(2/2)
- Hat(1/1)
Turning to the last page of the list, I finally found the last available options.
- Sentient Dust Speck (0/1)
- Old Abandoned Envelope (0/1)
- Flickering Light Ray (0/1)
- Candle Stub (0/2)
- Slight Summer Breeze (0/1)
- Ooze (0/1) Unavailable
- Mundane Door Knob (0/1)
"This is it? Seriously?" I was still having a hard time believing that I had died and was going to be reincarnated and now this guy wants me to choose between being reborn as an “old abandoned envelope” and a “mundane door knob?” Are you kidding me?? The only decent one in there, ooze, is "unavailable" and I'm supposed to pick between the rest of these utterly ridiculous options?
"Yeah, as I said you kinda are late to the game. All the other options have been taken or are locked for various reasons." I searched his face for a hint of humor or smugness that would indicate this was just an elaborate joke but it was fruitless. He stared at me with that same business only stoic face.
"There are no other options? Not even just a regular human being?" I opted for my last option of pleading, surely there was something else.
"Heavens no, that one was banned fairly recently. It was either too OP or boring. No in between and everyone kept choosing it. Upper management had to put a stop to it or... well nevermind. Would it help if I showed you some projections of what your potential is in each life?"
"Is there any potential? These all sound awful. Like I thought a tree and a vending machine sounded bad, but these are unbelievable. And why are they all such ordinary useless items? Most of them don’t even seem to let me keep my sentience! That hardly seems fair."
"How about this, if you’d rather not pick I have another option. I'll roll a dice to decide for you in exchange for giving you a starting skill bonus to give you a bit of a head start. Who knows you may even become as famous as R*muru."
I don't even want to know. "I’m starting to think Hell might actually be a more fitting name than the Office." I grumble more to myself than the manager. "Alright fine, roll the dice already, let’s get this over with." Part of me hopes that I will get the candle stub or something, quickly die, and move onto a different afterlife. I’d rather not choose that myself though, let fate pick my misfortune.
He raises his hand in a cup shape and turns it in a rather melodramatic fashion to allow the die to roll on to the table with a soft clatter. I am positive he didn't have a die in his hand before raising his arm. Twenty four hours ago that alone would have blown my mind, now I just focus on the dice roll that determines my fate and my next life.
This is so stupid.
"Look, it's not all bad!" Unexpectedly the manager seemed to be trying to cheer me up but I was still in disbelief. "Here, take this skill bead. It's a starter gift of sorts that will help you make the best of your reincarnation."
"Alright sure," I reach out to take it from his outstretched hand and examine it in the light of the flickering fluorescent tubes above. "Am I supposed to eat it or what?" It looked like a glass marble with almost a faint shifting aurora of colors inside.
"Sure, most people prefer to crush it in their hands but any method is fine. I can't even be sure what skill you'll get, but I know the bead's magic ensures that you get the skill perfectly suited for your needs."
At this point I just feel numb and accept what I'm told. I don't think I can handle much more world shattering revelations right now. I pop the bead into my mouth and feel it crunch between my molars before dissipating into nothingness like cotton candy. Didn’t even have decency to taste like cotton candy either.
"I don't feel any different. Is that normal?"
"Of course. It'll be apparent later. Are you ready to move onto your next exhilarating adventure?"
With a dry look of disbelief, I ask "Adventure? As a speck of dust? So far that has been the most unbelievable thing you've said."
"We shall see." With a wry grin, the manager touches my forehead with his index finger and mumbles some words I don't quite understand. Another language perhaps? I don’t think I’ve heard it before. My vision begins to fade and I realize I can't feel my toes. Have I been able to feel them at all since arriving here? I'm not sure. I'm dead after all so maybe this isn't the time to panic about not having toes.
As I'm fading out, I hear the sound of a door opening and a new voice speaking. "Manager Kim, you could've at least told him the truth."
The audio starts sounding more and more muted, just before it's completely gone I manage to catch his response.
“It’s alright. Can you send in the next…”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Everything fades away now, all of my senses gone. I can’t hear anything. My mind is telling me that I’m falling but I have no way to verify that idea. As my existence continues, adrift from any sense of time, slowly even the blackness drains leaving a complete and empty void. Somehow I recognize the distinction, but I don’t understand what’s happening. Did the process fail?
As if in answer to my question a blue info screen appears in the darkness. [Reincarnation successful. Soul Transfer Complete. System booting]
Oh. Thanks.
[System online. Loading skills for form: Dust Speck... None found.]
[Loading skills for profession: null... None found.]
[Loading external skills... 1 skill found.]
[Reincarnator's Blessing. Passive. Increase experience gain by 5%. Increase luck by 1. Improve relevance of skills upon leveling up.]
[Loading progression skills... 2 skills found]
[Meditative Trance. Active. Voluntarily enter a state of meditation for a predetermined time. Gain 1 experience points for every day spent in meditation. If the trance is not ended early, experience points gained will be multiplied in proportion to time spent in meditation.]
[Assimilation. Passive. Upon direct contact with objects of similar or lesser size, the object will be assimilated into the main body.]
[Reincarnation complete.]
...
Year 0, Day 1
I still can't see anything. My mind no longer seems to be telling me that I’m falling, and my anxiety has abated slightly but I can't notice any other change. I wait for several minutes and nothing happens. Not only does nothing happen, I have absolutely no sensation. It’s like being adrift in the empty void. This must be the life of a dust speck.
I notice that if I think about my skills, the blue screen reappears and shows me the relevant information. Taking a look through my skills, I see that Mediation might be my only hope to remain sane. I suppose if I have to pass the time, I might as well gain experience for it. Though, only one experience point a day? That doesn't sound like much, I wonder how much it takes to reach the next level.
[Reincarnator: James Halverson
Form: Dust Speck LVL 1
Size: 1 μm
XP: 0
Next Level: 300 XP]
Oh. That's good to know. So let's try meditating for a year then. I've got nothing better to do.
Activate Meditative Trance for 365 day
I feel my mind fading as it did before and I slowly enter what feels like sleep.
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Year 1, Day 1
[Meditative Trance ended. Calculating experience.]
Surprisingly I come to consciousness rather quickly with no grogginess. Must be a perk of not having a brain. Wait, do I have a brain? How am I thinking then? The system cuts off my thought process having finished the calculation. A set of alerts pop up in the void.
[748 experience gained. Reincarnator has leveled up.]
[Skill acquired - Weak Attractive Force. Passive. 5% more likely to attract smaller or equal sized objects that are less than 10 μm away when active.]
So this should help me get larger in combination with my Assimilation skill. I wonder if anything happened while I was out. There doesn’t seem to be any way to tell though. I try to search through my mind for any indication of awareness of what’s around me but as before, nothing.
A new alert pops up, replacing the previous two.
[Merged with 1 piece of dust, size increased.]
Looks like I bumped into another dust piece, so that’s something at least. I check my base stats to see how much more experience is needed for my next level. Hopefully leveling up again will improve my abilities some or at least give me a skill that will help make this life more interesting.
[Reincarnator: James Halverson
Form: Dust Speck LVL 2
Size: 2 μm
XP: 448
Next Level: 900 XP]
448? I thought I had gained 748 XP. What’s the deal?
A moment passes before a new window shows up.
[Experience Points used to level up are not counted towards later levels.]
That makes sense. Wait, are you sentient, system? Can you hear me and answer my questions? What happens if I keep leveling up? Can you give me anything to look forward to?
[At level 20, the reincarnator will receive the option to evolve based on current circumstances and the makeup of your core.]
So I might be able to become a dust bunny... Yay. Hopefully in that case I can hop around and get some kind of vision. Jokes aside, whatever future options await, I won’t know until I reach it. For now this is my only hope, so let's take it one step at a time. I'm tempted to try and calculate out how long it would take, but I want to keep track of any possible changes as I level up.
Since I gained a little over double the XP compared to the days spent, it's probably fair to assume that spending at least a year doubles the XP gained. I'm not sure how that would change if I spend less than a year but I can try and figure that out later.
Activate Weak Attractive Force
Activate Meditative Trance for 365 days
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Year 2, Day 2
Sunlight streams into my eyes as I stretch and wake up for a new day at work… yeah I wish. The world is still void and empty until a bombardment of system messages show up.
[Meditative Trance ended. Calculating experience.]
[748 experience points gained. Reincarnator has leveled up.]
[Weak Attractive Force has improved by 1%. Range improved by 1 μm.]
[Merged with 5 pieces of dust, size increased. Now large enough to assimilate pollen grains.]
[Acquired skill - Core Membrane. Passive. Prevents unspecified materials from coming into contact with the core. Only one type of material may be chosen at any given time.]
Interesting. Lots to take in here. I'm really curious about the skill, it seems to imply that what I absorb into my core affects future options. The problem is I don't know what I can currently assimilate or how each will affect me.
[Current materials of equal size or lower: Bacteria, Viruses, Dust, Clay, and Red Blood Cells]
So no info about how they will affect me?
No response. I know for a fact that I’m larger than atoms and other things that were way smaller than a dust speck, why aren't they on the list?
[Weak Attractive Force is not currently strong enough to counteract nuclear, electromagnetic, or atomic forces.]
Right. That actually makes sense. So it must be possible for me to break those kinds of bonds in the future. Or at least, theoretically possible if I go along the correct path. Let's check my stats for the moment and leave those thoughts for later.
[Reincarnator: James Halverson
Form: Dust Speck LVL 2
Size: 7 μm
XP: 296
Next Level: 1800 XP]
Okay so I'll need around two years of meditation this time to reach level 3. I get a feeling reaching level 20 is going to take forever. Luckily I don’t seem to notice the time pass.
I want to think through my new membrane skill first. Since I can only allow one kind of material through if I want it active, I should consider my options. Bacteria and Viruses both sound like a quick method to turn my life into a game of Plague Inc. I don't think I want that much death and suffering on my conscience.
Blood cells might be a good option towards a more organism like life or I may also fall down the path of like necromancy or medicine and despite how good those stories are, it's overdone and I'm really not interested in either. Regardless I run the risk of not even encountering any blood before I reach level 20. I don't know what kind of world or environment I'm in and, based on my recent luck, odds are, I'm trapped under a bed or on a glass in the back of a cupboard. That leaves Dust or Clay and honestly they both sound about the same and I couldn't say how either will affect me.
It doesn't say I need to turn it on, right? Maybe I’ll just leave it up to fate then and handle the Membrane skill when I’m larger and have more evidence where I’m going or at least where I’m trying to go. That feels true to the theme so far and I can't think of a better idea so let's leave it alone for now. I don’t have anything else to do in that case so Into the darkness I go.
Activate Meditative Trance for 2 years
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[Reincarnator: James Halverson
Form: Dust Speck LVL 2
Size: 7 μm
XP: 296
Next Level: 1800 XP]
Skills
Reincarnator's Blessing. Passive. Increase experience gain by 5%. Increase luck by 1. Improve relevance of skills upon leveling up.
Meditative Trance. Active. Voluntarily enter a state of meditation for a predetermined time. Gain 1 experience points for every day spent in meditation. If the trance is not ended early, experience points gained will be multiplied in proportion to time spent in meditation.
Assimilation. Passive. Upon direct contact with objects of similar or lesser size, the object will be assimilated into the main body.
Weak Attractive Force II. Passive. 6% more likely to attract smaller or equal sized objects that are less than 11 μm away when active.
Core Membrane. Passive. Prevents unspecified materials from coming into contact with the core. Only one type of material may be chosen at any given time.