Hmm, I wonder if these words will be able to convince you to stop what you’re doing, before it’s too late or maybe, your path is already set, and there’s nothing anyone could do to change it.
Headed towards disaster, with absolutely nothing that could save you, what a hopeless fate, and to me at least, made all the more tragic, given how I used to believe the right words, the right circumstances could change anything.
Over the years though, it has become oh so clear, that no one is truly convinced of anything they aren’t already willing to do.
There is no right argument, circumstance or magical combination of words, which can make someone believe you, just like there is no way to sell something to a person who is unwilling to buy.
The truly unfortunate part though, is how it’s impossible to know who is willing to change, when no one truly knows what they want or what they’re capable of becoming.
Our desires, little more than a raging fire, which can shift or burn out at any moment.
A pair of shining eyes, or just a bit of temptation capable of changing our lives in unimaginable ways.
Just… believe me, when I tell you that the fate awaiting you if you keep reading my journals is more than just unpleasant.
A threat made in the clearest of terms, yet for some reason, even that won’t be enough to convince some.
Will it be enough to convince you?
In the end, we all make choices, the true consequences of them may be something we will never know, and yet we bear them all the same.
Dwelling on the past, on the choices we made, the idea of what if things had gone differently nothing more, than a form of self torture, given we always make the best choices we’re capable of making or perhaps that’s just an excuse I tell myself to make the corpses haunting my dreams just a little easier to bear.
Decide for yourself, just remember, even the most noble of us are ultimately responsible for harm, let alone those of us, who live our lives for ourselves, and disregard the suffering occurring every single day.
Suffering, even the weakest of us could do something, anything, about, at least if we were willing to pay the price, but why do that, when instead we can pretend everything is perfectly fine?
Which brings us back to you… Believe you’re a good person if you want to, it’s even possible you living for yourself might be the best thing you could do with your life.
Just keep in mind, your intentions don’t matter, your hands are covered in just as much blood as any murderers, and maybe most importantly of all, there truly is no way to know what is good or what ultimately serves the path of evil.
All there is, is what you want, and what you can delude yourself into believing.
The random musings of the Destroyer of Worlds
____________________________________________
Things have not been going well for the Nelka empire, mana levels have been dropping across the entire world with no end in sight, and monsters have begun migrating from higher elevations to lower ones.
A disaster causing the entire balance of ecosystems to be uprooted, and driving entire swarms of monsters into civilized lands.
A trend that’s only getting worse as the mana levels continue to drop, and that’s not even all!
Someone torched a third of the crystal forest, wiping out an incalculable amount of resources, filled it with radiation, and somehow made an elder dryad that towered hundreds of feet in the air completely disappear!
“And now this!” A stone fist slams into the poster.
Regional ALERT!!!
A 500,000+ credit bounty, has formed
Target: Necromancer
District: The Salvos Mountain Range
Local Zone: The Crystal Dome
Type: Elimination
Client: The Path of Light
Details:
A Necromancer has been pinged in the Salvos mountain range, by an oracle, it’s expected to be at least a 10-15 tier entity, but given the existence of shrouding, it’s possible that they’re significantly higher tier or in the company of other necromancers or undead who are, particularly given the Salvos Mountain Range is a tier 20 zone.
At this point the hunters association is just looking for people to help narrow down the location of the lair, before any attempts at claiming this bounty are made with the corporation, and support of local government.
REMINDER!
Attacking an entrenched foe with no real intel can, and will only result in death!
Meaning!
You find the dead walking around in those mountains, you turn your ass right around, and report it!
We will even be guaranteeing a share of the group raid to whoever first locates the Necromancer, which is practically guaranteed to be higher than the bounty itself, after all tier 10+ cores can quickly add up to more credits than some of you have ever seen in your entire lives, and necromancers typically have a LOT of minions… which equals more cores, and more money for all of us!
Happy hunting 🙂
“Emzar, is it possible this necromancer is responsible for the mana drain?” Emzar winces “It’s rather unlikely my liege, at least if they truly are anywhere close to tier fifteen, but… like the notice says the details are still a bit up in the air, and it’s more than possible for the undead to cause a mana drain.”
King Salvatore, a massive seven foot tall, Nelka, with rippling muscles, and composed entirely of a pure emerald stone, crumples the bounty notice.
“If this is the work of a necromancer, how bad could it be?”
“Worst case, millions of undead in the mountain range, potentially an invasion from one of the undead empires, someone could also be performing some dark ritual that is stripping our planet of mana or they have risen something far, faaar, above tier twenty five, and if any of these are the case then the situation is a bit beyond what we can handle. On a positive note though, with an oracle already involved, if it’s any of these, outside help should arrive long before we have consider anything like,” He hesitates before the next words rush from his mouth.
“Abandoning any settlements.”
Salvatore stands, his crown filled with gems sways on his head, and his golden embroidered robes press against his body as he begins to pace.
Emzar collapses onto their knees, while the king’s voice rings through the chamber.
“Outside help? Abandoning, what we have spent centuries building? Next you will be saying that we should align ourselves with the lizards!” The king gives a dark chuckle, his laugh sounding like a bag of rocks grinding against each other, he then stares down at Emzar.
“Rise Emzar, always so dramatic, as if I would remove your head, just for giving me a bit of bad news.”
Emzar nervously shuffles to his feet “Of course not my liege, you’re the picture of restraint.” The king stares at him coldly, and Emzar quickly keeps speaking.
“It’s also possible that the notice is exactly what it sounds like. Some necromancer, simply power leveling in the mountains, and they’ll run off once the bounty hunters start coming in.”
Salvatore plops back into his throne with a huff “It’s possible, but with the mana drain, and other unnatural occurrences, what are the odds we would be so lucky?”
The sound of boots marching fills the room, as the door to the chamber swings open, and a stone golem covered in metal plates marches in, before dropping to their knees with a scroll held in one of their hands.
“Urgent report from the crystal forest my liege, a portal has been located.”
“Well now, this is interesting, what could they have found?” Emzar plucks the scroll from the soldier’s hand, before handing it to the king.
An air survey managed to locate the origin of the blast, a small hill covered in gouges, and scars, almost as if something large had torn it apart.
After an investigation with the aid of some local earth mages, a chamber was unearthed, a chamber with a portal, and what seems to be plant matter from a dryad covering most of it.
The portal itself seems to lead to a location that resembles the crystal forest, and is the suspected location of the missing dryad elder.
At this point it seems like whoever is on the other side of the portal is responsible for the blast.
Now, why they caused such destruction, can’t be definitively determined, but the interesting nature of the portal itself does bear some intriguing implications that could explain why they may have been trying to destroy the portal.
The portal itself is shielded, blocking all or at least most from being able to cross over, but the interesting thing is how the shield is powered, and what function the portal seems to be playing.
It functions off the idea of the displacement of pressure, how higher pressures of something will naturally try to normalize, when it’s introduced to a lower density.
In this case, the difference is in mana, which is being funneled through the portal powering the shield, but mostly just passing right through to this lower mana environment.
A suspected to be a completely non magical realm, given the nature of the weapon used, which left no mana signature… leaving the question of who made the portal unknown, but it’s suspected that this portal, and probably others, are responsible for the decrease in mana density.
If this is the case there is no way to know at what level the mana will normalize at, but if it truly connects to a non mana infused world, complete destabilization of local environments is likely.
Awaiting further instructions.
The king crumples the scroll, as he ponders “It’s probably not the undead, well, unless they’re trying out some new form of attack, before hitting a higher tier world, but if it was them why would they have a random low tier necromancer running around?” The king starts to tap his desk “Which means, we all know who’s responsible, it’s the lizards, their precious ‘honor’ apparently not so important, once we started crushing them.
It’s funny how quickly ideals fade once one feels weak, and how quickly one will turn to cowardly attacks that will result in an unimaginable amount of innocents dying, but.” He smiles a wolfish grin, his mouth producing a grinding sound with the expression “At least, now we know, and have an excuse to start hitting them even harder, what more could I ask for?”
____________________________________________
Imagination or clarity of thought really does seem to be a factor that influences so many features of my undead.
Apparently capable of changing everything from the weapons they’re formed with, the clothes they wear, to even physical features, and with everything I didn’t consider either being left to random chance or simply something that remains incorporeal.
Take my one of my first experiments, a ghost floating in front of me, whose entire body is covered in black plate mail with a gold trim that trails along the edges of all of their armor, they’re holding a metal spear as long as their six foot body, and their face is covered by an enclosed helmet that has a golden plume on the top of it, yet.
Tier One Human Ghost – Spirit, shade, ghost, the dead just minus the fleshy bits, these specters are something the living fear above all else, above the ghouls, zombies, skeletons, and even the monstrosities… for these beings remind them of what awaits them. The source of this chapter is novelping . com.
The endless void of death or it could also be their ability to fade through materials that are of a lower tier then they are, resulting in the ability to completely bypass armor, weapons, floors, walls, and ceilings.
When fortifications are made meaningless, and death or something ripping out one’s dangly bits can happen at any time.
Fear is the only natural response, and there’s certainly no such thing as safety when the dead walk among you.
They’re still only a basic, classless tier one ghost, but they look like a full-blown death knight.
It looks SOOOO much better than even the classed ghosts, at least when I first raised them… The Arcane mage being the prime example, their face is literally nothing more than a hazy mist while their clothes lack any kind of depth, more just faded splashes of color, which makes sense for ghosts, but in comparison to the new undead it’s like night, and day!
Still, even with all of that I didn’t actually quite expect the two arcane mages I raised next to come out so defined?
The first, being an arcane mage wearing black slacks, dress shoes, sporting an eight pack, biceps the size of my head, a face that a model would be jealous of, and teeth that sparkle.
So you know me, if I hated food, had some plastic surgery, lived to work out, wasn’t poor… ehh you get the idea.
While to be frank, the other ghost is just a smokin hot elf lady, who has a startling resemblance to a certain iconic elf, armor included, which doesn’t really go with the whole mage thing, but hey who was it exactly that decided mages shouldn’t wear armor?
Besides, it was for science!
And sure looks aren’t the most important thing in the world, but who knows how these details will influence how they grow.
The three mages have slowly been expanding the platform, with the ghosts pausing to meditate around every fifteen minutes or so when they burn through their surplus mana.
Not the best rate, but then again they’re still pretty low tier, and it’s not like I’m much better.
My mana slowly trickles up, after being used up in my last experiment, which could lead to some interesting answers.
Tier One Ghost Body Cultivator – Abilities can take years to master, years for them to fully tier up, and reveal their true potential.
Leading to a reality filled with tier twenties who have abilities that aren’t even remotely close to their tier… One can’t help, but wonder, if this is truly what the system intends, for beings to just swallow whatever resources they can, in order to grow in power.
Cultivators live to challenge this idea, their entire being focused on the development of abilities, and pushing the limits on what they can become.
Of course this ghost is a bald buff old guy covered in robes, who is also just meditating?
After being told to follow his class, but worst case, if nothing happens after a bit of time, I will just shove crystals into him, until he hits tier five, and then the answers will flow.
Meanwhile, my meditation is going rather well at least, until someone finds their way back to the land of the living.
“I don’t want to mine, I just want to sleep forever, and drink wine an-” Lin waves her hand at the ghost bothering her
“What? no, I’m not going to move, I was here first! You move!” The muscular ghost then begins spraying his mana next to Lin, and some of it splashes onto her.
“Hey, I’m sleeping here!” She rolls to her feet glaring at the ghost “You?! I don’t remember you, and you’re definitely worth remembering.” Her eyes slowly go up, and down.
“Good morning Lin.” She turns, her eyes turning into burning blue flames, before she storms towards me, holding her finger in front of her body as if it’s a weapon.
“YOU! lying non noble ass, who is going to be responsible for me people trying to kill me!
And…” She then makes eye contact with the death knight “You.” her voice becoming much more meek.
“I also don’t remember, and I’d like to keep it that way…”
I then stand, and face Lin “Oh look, you’re awake, and not at all being dramatic.” Lin’s face somehow becomes even more outraged, and I can see a glow pulsing beneath her cheeks.
“I’m not being dramatic, you were literally meditating in front of a wall covered in blood! If anything, I’m not freaking out enough!”
“What?” I turn “Oh right, that’s just the blood elemental, they’re helping to keep everything anchored, but you freaking out does make a bit more sense now.”
Lin covers her face with her hands “Why do you have a blood elemental, necromancer doesn’t equal blood mage!”
I sigh “Well, in this case it does, among other things… and whatever happened to the Lin who said that death is something that can strike down a person at any point, that it’s a part of life, and that one shouldn’t live in fear?”
“There is a significant difference between a one it ten billionth of a chance that a meteor will crash into the planet extinguishing all life in a blaze of glory, and! Being a wanted fugitive that’s literally already being tracked down by beasts, while bounty hunters egg them on, pushing them onwards to find us, and carve out our cores!”
A smile grows across my face “It kind of feels like we stitched places, while there certainly is a difference.” I point down to our friend below, who we can still clearly see through the empty ring that makes up most of the platform.
“At any moment something like that or worse, could make its way up here, and end all of us. Should we obsess over that, should that very real risk consume our every thought?”
“No Morthes, but there is a difference between facing reality, and pretending that the worst isn’t going to happen.”
And there goes my good mood… “I know what you mean Lin, I spent years of my life doing my best to pretend, granted the stakes were lower. Well, a bit lower, a branch eventually falling through my tent impaling or crushing me, is certainly less high risk than bounty hunters coming after me, yet both could very easily result in the same fate… Most days, I did my best to fill my life with distractions, to not think, to be empty, for every sound, every noise, any voice, could be someone or something coming along to make my life harder. I understand the situation we are in, but that terror, that hopelessness isn’t something that’s going to help us.”
Lin takes a deep breath and leans against a wall “And what is going to help us then, Tom?”
“Honestly? I don’t really know, all I can do is keep pushing forward, and try to make a life for myself. My fate may have been sealed when I became a necromancer, making me little more than a walking bounty board to those who value money more than a person’s life, but I haven’t given up, and am trying.”
She hesitates, before holding up one of her fingers “First of all you lied to me, own that.”
I hesitate for a few moments Lin’s face getting more tense with every second that passes.
“I’m sure there are a number of things that I potentially misrepresented, or mislead you on… so if you could be just a bit more specific.” Lin rolls her eyes before muttering “Asshole.”
“All I can say is that I’m sorry, and will try not to lie to you in the future.”
She scoffs “You don’t even know what you lied about! Which means you have probably been lying your ass off! Do better than try, and what do you mean that your fate was sealed? That sounds an awful lot like someone dodging responsibility for the choices that they made, one of which literally resulted in a bounty being placed on my head!”
“That actually has a pretty easy answer, my world was just recently introduced to mana, and I was basically shanghaied into becoming a necromancer, after being told that it was my ‘ideal’ class, without really being made aware of the whole bounty bit.”
She stares at me “You really need to work on your lies, because this one is just pathetic.” She waves her arms around the room “Some of these cores alone would take centuries of significant mana exposure to form. So do you want to try again, maybe with the truth this time?”
I give a dark chuckle “Well, this is a twist, how exactly does someone prove that they’re an alien? This isn’t my planet, and I arrived here after ironically enough, being chased by a bunch of undead.”
She holds her fingers to the temple of her head “Start from the beginning.”
“Short answer a few days ago, I woke up with the system asking for me to confirm my class. The next day an alien made a global announcement welcoming us to the system, and then made my way to a graveyard where I was chased through a portal.”
She stares at me “I feel like you’re leaving some things out.” I smile, and she sighs “Tell me about the alien.”
“There’s really not too much to say, it just said a bit about how the earth belongs to them now, oh, and it was a lizard with horns covered in metal plates, who if memory serves, said something about a Nelka empire.”
“That could be anyone.” Her head then slowly drifts up in thought.
“Show me your map.”
“Sure, just let me figure out how.”
‘Tap’
‘Tap’
‘Tap’
“I have almost got it.”
‘Tap’
‘Tap’
‘Tap’
“If you need help, you could always just ask.”
Show map!
Reveal map!
System map!
Show me the places that I have bloody been map!
Umm… status map?
A map slowly starts to form in front of me, a glowing 3d sketch that starts with the platform, and slowly starts to stretch onward.
The cave?
Grotto?
It even comes with a little figure that represents the crystal golem, and after a bit of time it sketches my entire journey, which really isn’t all that long.
I ran out of a portal, did a bit of running, was kicked down a hole, more running, and then ran into the first tunnel I saw, but something happens once the map finishes filling in the portal room.
The map sputters for a moment, before a glowing spiral shoots above the map, and connects to a little orb of light, before once again tracking my path. You are reading on novelping . com, the official source.
“I can tell by the wonder written across your face that you finally figured it out, but you know, that I still can’t see it right?”
“Righhhht.” share status map
“Hmm, so maybe you’re not lying about everything because you’re definitely not from here, and… for your map to have so much empty space, you either would have to have been raised trapped in some tower, and you don’t quite look like a princess or you truly are new to the system. Which means, you’re just a stupid barbarian, ughh.” She drops to the floor, and is holding her head, between her knees.
“Well that’s rude.” She glares up at me “But not entirely inaccurate.”
She then props her head up with one of her hands “At least we can always make a run for the portal, and try to disappear into your world or you could always change your class, not that it would do much for the bounties at this point.”
“I mean… I don’t think portals are an option.”
“Let me guess, this is one of those many little unimportant details that you skipped over.”
“To be fair, even without those details with the goblins watching over it I don’t think it would have been an option regardless, but I’m pretty sure the lizard person or maybe it was the system itself? That said that the portals will be one way for a couple of months.”
She then utters “What goblins?” in a defeated tone, before laying out on the floor, and mumbling “You are entirely too cheerful, for someone that probably has a host of people coming to kill you.”
“To be fair, people wanting me dead isn’t really anything new.” She scoffs “Why doesn’t that surprise me”
My eyes narrow at her “It should, given I am practically a paragon of humanity!
And oh so very humble, and amazing.” Her eyes dig into me almost as if they’re peeling away my skin, and I hesitate before saying “But really… my society has always been a place where a significant amount of people believe that it’s better to be dead than poor, and for years I was pretty much at the bottom of the pole.”
“Well that’s real touching, that’s just life… if you’re not making someone else money, then what good are you?” She then sits up, and looks around “But where does that leave us?”
My voice takes on a booming tone that resonates throughout the room “Surrounded by death, and trapped somewhere underground, but… in a sense free, free to live our lives however we like, and what is freedom worth?”
She rolls her eyes “Oh, am I free to go then?” In response I shrug “Yeah, just you know make sure to mind the golem, and whatever hellish creatures inhabit this mountain on the way out.”
She pauses for a second, before shaking her head “What we are, is surrounded by wealth, and while planetary teleportation certainly isn’t cheap on the market, it’s definitely possible.” She gives me a flat stare “This is the point you try, and convince me to not just leave your ass, while I make my own way to some undead empire, where hopefully they still don’t string me up.”
“And here I thought we were bonding… if that’s what you want, go for it. The thing is neither of us really need each other, I’m more than capable of making more miners, just like you’re more than capable of earning however much transportation will cost on the market place. The thing is, how long will it take you to earn enough on your own, and more importantly what’s awaiting me, us in some unknown undead empire? How long do you think it will take, before you’re underneath someone’s thumb, working in some mine for scraps. How many months, years, or even days do you think it will take, until you find yourself in this exact same position? Wanting to run, worried about hunters, of being killed, And… that’s being optimistic, assuming that you will have the chance to start a new life at all.”
She grimaces “What exactly are you proposing then or are you just being a dick?”
“Freedom, even if it isn’t a life filled with luxury, although I’m starting to believe that there isn’t anything that I can’t create. What I want is to build something in this vast universe, a place that we can call our own, without any expectations, where people are free to live their lives how they want to, while working together to achieve more than we ever could alone. A real, actual better world or at least a place where things could actually be better, something that I could only imagine before, but now have the actual chance of building, of being a part of.”
Lin’s finger scrolls through the air “Oh right, just join the cult of Morthes, oh fearless leader.”
“I mean, it’s not… it’s really just the idea of living inside of a community that tries to uplift, rather than it being every man for themselves.”
She laughs, as she wipes the screen away “Yeah right, and exactly what would be your place in this community?”
“The same as anyone else, just a person living their life.”
“Oh how very noble of you, and totally not at all singing the exact same platitudes that are used to trap people in cults. I’m sure that all you want is a society where people look out for more than just themselves, how selfless.” Her eyes practically roll to the back of her head, and I start to get a bit annoyed.
“One doesn’t need to be selfless, in order to not want to take advantage of others, and what I want just isn’t anything spectacular, food, water, shelter, entertainment, safety, and love. Everything, but the last two now being easily achieved, given I can literally make the first two, as for shelter this crystal dome could pretty easily be made far more comfortable with a bit of magic, even with the golem or potential bounty hunters, making any place not surrounded by death, and that has a bit of land up for grabs significantly better. As for entertainment? I imagine magic will be quite interesting, and that an interconnected multiverse? Has all kinds of interesting distractions.”
All expression slowly drains from her face, and she suddenly seems oh so tired, as she looks at me.
“That’s kind of rich coming from you isn’t it, as if all of those things don’t come at a price?” My eyes narrow at Lin in confusion “I am really not sure what you mean…” And Lin glares at me “You know exactly what I mean, your class is that of a necromancer, the core of your very being if not concerned with control, is consumed by the thirst for power.”
I pause tilting my head, before slowly starting to speak “I’m really not sure where you’re coming from… Do you really believe that the lives that most people live are worthless or powerless? Like sure, most people work their entire lives away, just in order to get the bare minimum, but it doesn’t have to be that way, and to me the greatest thing that a person can accomplish is being happy, while making the lives of the people around them better. And if power or control is what I wanted, why wouldn’t I just raise a legion of the undead, strip mine this place, until I’m standing on top of a shining castle made of diamonds, but what would any of that really worth?”
Lins face in a word is skeptical “I am pretty sure that a castle made of diamonds would be worth quite a bit, but that’s no-”
“Maybe in terms of raw value, but if you were hungry you couldn’t eat it, like sure it could be used as shelter, but so could a million other things that cost a fraction of the same amount, and as for its beauty? Over time, the most beautiful things become perfectly mundane in nature, something that once had the power to take our breath away, slowly fades away, becoming something that we don’t even notice. A castle made of diamonds might be worth something to an empire, but even then it would be worth nothing more than pride or ego, and how much is that worth when people sleep in the same streets, where such a wonder resides?”
Lin rolls her eyes “You’re really not getting the point, and there is nothing wrong with pride or living a comfortable life.”
I grab one of the mana cores “There’s nothing wrong with being comfortable, but a castle is a bit beyond comfortable, and with one of these, I’m pretty sure that I can make anything or at least a being capable of making anything. Gold, diamonds, food, water, alcohol, what more is there for me to want? What more do I need to live a comfortable life?”
Lin scoffs “Well that’s great for you, just you know all of that boils down to one thing that most of us can’t or rather don’t do… Binding souls to do our bidding, which even in undead circles is a bit frowned upon, mostly due to you know how it tends to lead to slavery, bounties being placed, oh, and literally gods eventually going after those who do.”
I pause “That is a point, but I’m pretty sure that you’re not exactly in a rush to stop existing, and it’s not like the absence of scarcity couldn’t be achieved without messing with souls.”
“Sure, I want to live, but how much of a choice do I have, after being forced into the circumstances that you are responsible for?”
“Tha-”
Lin rushes in front of me, her body turning into blur, before her blue eyes are staring directly into mine.
“Just be honest, you don’t care about anything other than power, and the ability to create anything you want, regardless of what it costs.”
“It’s a power anyone can have!”
“If they’re willing to go against the gods, and defile souls.” Lin turns away “For some odd reason that’s a price too high for most, but not for you… I wonder why?”
“Right, because your existence is such a monstrosity.” I shake my head “And who cares what gods want!”
“I would say that the bounties on both our heads are two very big reasons why you should care what the gods want.”
“Lin look at me.” She turns “I am covered in filth, while my world most likely has millions of people currently dying brutal painful deaths where they beg for mercy, and before this system showed up, that was pretty much what my world already was… So many terrible things happened there every single day, without anything being done. I don’t care what gods want, and don’t believe that the powers that the system gave to me are inherently evil, if they were, what would that say about the system? Why are you using a system that allows people to defile souls?”
Lin shakes her head “It’s easy to cast blame on others, but ironic when you stand on a world not your own, while your people suffer, and die… while you do nothing, something I imagine you’re quite used to.”
“I am not a god!”
She laughs, the ridicule of her laughter, flowing through my body, and bringing me to a cold stop.
“Sorry, just the idea that the power to do just about anything, couldn’t make a difference is hilarious. You’re certainly no god, but there’s nothing stopping you from helping your people.”
“Oh sure, if you just ignore the little thing of a bounty being on my head.”
“Oh so risk? The same thing that stands in the way of anyone helping another, and who knows, could even be the thing that causes even God’s to hesitate? What makes you any different than any of those selfish people who had power in your world or the gods you seem to think so little of?”
“I don’t, didn’t have…” I grow quiet as a self assured smirk grows across Lin’s face, before with a shrug she says “Look, we are talking in circles, and at worst it’s going to cost around a million credits each to make it to the nearest neutral world, we should probably get started on that.”
I shake my head, almost as if it’s possible to shake away the idea that I’m truly just as selfish, just as self centered as everyone who did absolutely nothing when my life was at its worst.
I lean against the wall, while Lin rambles on, her words barely even registering, until she starts floating off.
“I’m going to start mining the higher end crystals, and other valuable materials, while you figure out a way to make yourself useful, with your ability to create anything.”
Lin then floats up to a wall, her hands gripping around a mana crystal, that she tears from the wall, before tossing it onto the platform, and disappears through the cracks.
I roll a glowing green crystal in my hands, before taking a deep breath, and close my eyes.
She’s wrong… A cloud of red blood drifts through my mind, as I rewatch that kid having their brains blasted out, while still not really feeling a thing.
Cold apathy wrapping around my mind, in a comforting numb blanket.
Well, maybe she’s not completely wrong, it’s not like before now I lived my life for others, which maybe could be justified by what was going on in my life.
How powerless I was, after all, when one is doing all they can just to survive, just to keep going, wouldn’t it be a bit unreasonable to ask them for more?
Or is that just an excuse?
I shake my head “Either way, now, it’s entirely possible for me to make a difference or at least it was.”
I could have helped save so many people’s lives, even if it would have opened myself to being hurt by others… to being betrayed, to disappointment.
All it would have taken, is being brave enough to reach out a hand to those who need it, to do the right thing.
A sigh escapes me, before I start to slowly thump the back of my head in the wall, until a shout bursts out of my mouth.
“BUT I DON’T WANT TO, AND THERE ARE MILLIONS, IF NOT BILLIONS WHO ARE MORE CAPABLE OF IT THAN ME!” I sink my head into my knees “Who are probably being just as selfish as me… the question just is, do I want to be better, do I want to be better than the gods?
And to think, all it would take is caring about more than just myself, such a tall order when there are days I truly don’t even care about myself.
“Ugh, this is pointless, and it’s not like there’s even a way to get back to Earth.” I then drift back into meditation doing my best to clear my mind, and not think of anything, but for some reason it doesn’t go very well…
Due to formating issues this story doesn’t quite look the way it’s supposed to 0_o and you can read an updated version on Kobo, or other platforms. https://litrpgandpolitics.wordpress.com The story is also at around chapter 60 with around 400,000 words, and will posted once per day, until it’s caught up.
Then it will either be weekly, or twice a week, with that being said, I still welcome any feedback, after all I’m still editing everything 0_0 and different perspectives can so often help one see the things we take for granted.
Thanks for reading, and I hope that you have a great day!