This party fucking sucks.
I'm all for breaking the monotony of life now and then. Work, gym, game, read, sleep, repeat. But I like to make that moment of disruption worth it.
Not this neanderthal festival. To be fair, parties with cheap alcohol and teens too young to drink have a certain charm. Still, the party host should be beaten to death.
The last time I got this worked up over a non-functional autist was in the comments section of 'To Be a God.'
It was the only Webnovel in existence with a unique title. I read it, got attached, and the ending proceeded to rectally fist every one of its few thousand readers.
What sick bastard creates a novel about achieving godhood and then proceeds to jam in an Aesop fable level of moral preaching about martyrdom?
Give me my slop power fantasy. Have him reach godhood and murder everyone. Who cares. It's Webnovel. 75% of the website's user base is South Asians who can barely comprehend English, let alone care about themes or commentary.
Whatever. I'm here to get wasted and forget about my grievances. Well, buzzed, at least. I think my designated driver is plastered.
"Robert," I call to my friend, who barely hears me over the blaring house-EDM music that no one enjoys. "Is there a single drink here that doesn't taste like I'm tongue-punching a dead raccoon's asshole?"
His face turns sour as he holds back a laugh—god forbid he laughs in front of women—before looking at the can in my hand.
"Dude, that's an IPA. Are you retarded?"
Not only does he hold back his laugh in front of girls, but he also shoves me down to look cooler. Fucking prick. I'll blame it on the alcohol.
"Here," Robert hands me a red solo cup of liquid.
A plethora of carbonated colors dance in the liquid, solely illuminated by shitty LED lights that pulse in a slow rainbow pattern.
Absent-mindedly, I take the cup in hand and have a swig.
…
…
…
It tastes like a raccoon's asshole.
The world contorts in my vision. My body turns light, but I cannot move an inch. Frozen on the spot.
I cannot breathe. My instinctual cough releases nothing but void.
The air has turned into spears, and they stab at my every follicle. The women turn into hobbits, and the speakers turn into an orchestra of high-pitched accordions played by gnomes.
Blood seeps from my eyes. I blink, and it enters my irises. I stumble backward.
"Yo…. @#$%^&, are… you good?" The baritone voice of God speaks to me. I think he's a homosexual.
When I wipe my eyes, my best friend lies dead at my feet, bloodied, flesh shredded. Then my parents. They are dead too. They aren't my parents, but they are.
My stomach shrivels, eating itself like an eternal snake. I'm afraid. Shaking. The rain is cold and everything will kill me. I am weak. A hyperventilating wet kitten.
A woman runs her slender fingers through my mane, her voice whispering nothings in my ear like the wind.
Those fingers turn to knives and proceed to scalp me, ever so gently. Painfully. Excrutiatingly
A circle of darkness appears below me, turning the laminate wood floors muddy and viscous.
I am swallowed whole by the void as I choke on nothingness.
My Soul continuously tears itself apart. Then it reforms like a muscle fiber. Then it tears for good.
I am shattered and broken.
Darkness eats me. Now, without a face, without a name, I am no one.
***
┌─────═━┈┈━═─────┐
Soul Transfusion Successful
Restoring functions
└─────═━┈┈━═─────┘
…
…
…
My name is Auren. And my face is handsome. I'm supposed to be a noble.
There's nothing more that I hate in the Seven Realms than a handsome noble.
One day, hopefully soon, I will give in to my depravity and skin one alive. But I must be controlled if I ever want to be anything greater than an annoying mutt. I find Master Nero's wisdom more applicable by the day.
Upon waking up, I had expected to see the ceiling of a sterile hospital with a nurse telling me I'd ingested enough fentanyl to kill an elephant.
Instead, I sit on the bed of a rich man's attempt at making a single-person dorm room, holding the soft paper of a sealed letter.
I am Auren. I do not remember my name from my past life. I remember everything else. From both lives.
Two different beings. One encapsulated by an ever-present, hypercritical self-awareness, and a being entirely forged in the bowels of hatred.
This is another world. This is also the same world. I am both old and new. It is strange. But at least I know for certain that I am one. One singular. Complete, and stronger for it.
Nothing to do but trudge forward. But I cannot trudge past the lingering feeling of danger. I am fearful. I have always been a being of fear. No matter how high I rise, I have never truly left my home, the slum hell of Shacktown.
Opening the letter, I'm pleased to see that the merging of Souls has allowed me to read, though there's no real reason it shouldn't have:
Young Master,
Echoing the words of Lord Alric and Lady Bellona, you are told to do your absolute best on the upcoming Dim Entrance Exam.
Further, though they understand your reluctance, they require you to attend all events and engage in aristocratic society. Create connections, particularly with the young heirs of the Big Five Guilds.
They have also stressed that due to the large tuition to the Dim, you will not have access to additional funds for the next few months.
I will remain at your apartment estate in downtown Columbia.
Forever at your disposal,
Melena Snow, Senior Maidservant of House Ovine
…
This seemingly innocuous letter is encoded. After all, Melena is not truly a maidservant. Alric and Bellona are not my true parents.
I am not a noble, nor am I even a true human, but a racial half-breed of sorts—The Sullied.
Humanity is my enemy. They forever will be.
They are worse than any mindless Corrupted beast. And a noble—a Human "Favored" by the Gods—is a calamity by itself. I would make bread with a hundred thousand Mutant Necrophiliacs before I spared a Human, given the chance.
I am an agent of the Cabal, and these people exist to further my aristocratic facade purposefully created for me to enter the Dim Institute—the greatest Favored preparation school in the Seven Realms.
The Cabal's Council has seemingly changed my mission. They want me to rise to the top, not linger at the bottom and spy for them.
But the biggest realization amongst this flood of personal exposition does not stem from my new memories, but the old ones.
This is the world of a novel. The same one that I shat on for its 'good' ending.
That's why these terms are so familiar; I've read them before. Everything becomes a bit clearer as a result.
My monotonous life has ended, and a new, antithetical life has been born. One where my childish revenge boner has reached a world-record length and girth.
In the moment, I know exactly what to do. I'm a smart cookie.
'Status.'
A box of text appears before me, and me only.
┌─────═━┈┈━═─────┐
Name: Auren
Age: 18
Race: The Sullied
Health: Healthy
Essence: 160/160
Rank: E
Shards: ◇─◇─◇
Strength: F+
Agility: F+
Vigor: E-
Soul: D-
Magic: F
Charisma: E+
[Imprints]
????? - Manifests upon achieving C- Rank.
[Manuals]
✩ All-purpose Swords: Defensive Style
Mastery: Adept
Description: A basic form for all sword-like weapons, emphasizing tight and controlled movements. Gains openings through fundamental, sturdy parries. Lacks offensive power or deception. Don't expect anything particularly deadly, flashy, or powerful.
[Skills]
Slot 1: Sunshine-pilled→ [Rank: F]
Description: Controls the user's brain, allowing for the artificial control of happiness through increasing and/or decreasing serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and other chemicals, without any physiological complications as a result. As for psychological complications? That's up for interpretation.
Common. Replicable.
Slot 2: Unlocks at D- Rank.
[Traits]:
Endangered - You have been hunted your entire life, the crippling hand of fear bears down on your psyche at full force. The gut's feeling of danger is enhanced and profound.
└─────═━┈┈━═─────┘
I close the bombardment of information, a hollow forming in my torso as the realization of my situation set in.
I am in danger. I am afraid. My trait has created this insatiable background itch, especially after reading my Skill's description.
[Sunshine-pilled]
The hollow flees as quickly as it arrives. My mood instantly softens from neurotic to amiable.
By instinct, I activated my sole Skill.
It was an easy feat. A trained action. Like a click of a button, similar to how I brought up the status in the first place, I merely willed it to do so.
This particular Skill, the hatred I now feel, and the position I'm in, all of it belongs to a small child, effortlessly crushed under an iron boot, shattered, and scattered to the winds, trying with futility to make change in an unchangeable environment.
Luckily for him—me—I have the tools needed to make our—my—goals a reality: knowledge.
VRRRTTTTT.
A message appears on my school-issued watch, an artificial Artifact. Magic makes normal modern technology infinitely cooler.
With a sigh, my attention shifts to the school's message sent to me personally through the watch Artifact.
Dear Auren of Ovine,
Following the Dim's Placement Testing, you have been ranked 425th out of 1000 aspiring attendees.
Rank 423rd on the Interview section.
Rank 427th on the Status Measurements section.
Historically, the Dim has gone through a process of eliminating 50% of aspiring students from the initial 1000, down to a total of 500.
This normally would qualify you as a student, should you score similarly on the Entrance Exam.
This year, however, the Dim has changed the elimination percentage from 50% to 33%. The maximum number of first-year students admitted will be 333.
Therefore, your current ranking is insufficient. Should you place within the top 333 students on the special Entrance Exam scheduled for four weeks, you will be admitted to the Dim in full for the 601-602 semester and beyond.
In the meantime, the Dim's facilities are open to all aspirers. 10,000 points have been allocated to you for this month based on the Placements, which can be used on Dim Island for items and services located in the commercial district.
Keep in mind that the Dim's portal will be restricted after the Entrance Exam.
Best wishes,
Vice-Principal Everett Staal
…
I'm utterly crushed.
I thought that I would swoop in and take every Artifact, Charm, Manual, or even a Hereditary Imprint straight from the protagonist's too-good-for-mass-murder-and-power-tripping hands.
I'll have to miss out on all that fun, unfortunately.
The current year is 601 AD. 601 years of aristocratic domination. AD stands for After Democracy—this universe's equivalent of Nazism.
And a century ago, on 501 AD, Darrow of House Landeskog, the Hero, the protagonist of the novel, died.
…
What the hell was the point of transmigrating to the world's future?