"Hello, little soul." Greeted a voice in front of me.
Looking up, I can only perceive a mass of stars in a humanoid shape.
"This must be a dream..." I started since my perception is very off right now.
But when I wanted to move my hand to touch my head, I only saw a transparent tentacle like thing in front of my eyes. It was seen through, so it only blurred out my vision of what it was in front of me.
That experience made my mind sober, and after examining myself, I concluded that I became a transparent yet pale red blob with 4 small members as feet and hands that look like tentacles found in porn manga.
Fortunately, they are relatively short to be truly considered tentacles, yet long enough to be used in daily life as hands and feet.
So that's how a soul looks like.
"It seems your consciousness has awakened to a level where you are capable of making conscious decisions. As you could deduce, you have died because of a cosmic event that was very devastating and unpredictable for the people of your old world." Stated the entity before me.
Turning my gaze at him, I found it genderless, just like its voice.
But what cosmic event can have such consequences to be devastating and shocking my old world?
"The cosmic event I am referring to is of a meteor that crushed on Earth and caving Tokio, the capital city of Japan that you were visiting for the Poke-con or something. I usually skip the names of events that are not really important, but here you are."
Oh, right, I won a trip to Japan to the conference, but it was day one after I spend around 57226 yen in merchandise alone that I blacked out and woke up here.
At least I could visit a fraction of that contradicting city that's a mix of tradition and innovation.
"Before letting you recall all the things, you should also know that more than 2 million humans were killed in that event alone, and other 96 million from the resulted earthquakes and tsunamis. It was an event that resulted in moderators and admins like me working overtime to ship most of you to different worlds, so repeatedly going through the same explanations is a chore." Explained the entity.
"I got the gist of it, and I could feel up the gapes thanks to me reading so many Isekai and Tensei stories, so what now?" I asked the entity since the monotone in his voice was a little annoying, just like someone reading a speech from the nth time that day.
"First, I'm glad you are part of the ACG (anime, comics and gaming) community since you could understand this kind of stuff. Second, it depends on a person's belief, so someone believing in God like the catholic/orthodox church would go through judgement and end up in a hell or heaven kind of place, while someone believing in reincarnation would reincarnate for example. However, there is one group that's so messed up that they need to be placed in place so to say, and that's your own group. The ACG community believe in other worlds that they believe to be fictional, and they also have endless fantasies of becoming X or Y in Z worlds and so on." Lectured the entity.
And it is not wrong. Even I have fantasied every time I want to escape reality for a reason or the other, so I make up my own stories of how great becoming a Saiyan or Kriptonian would be, or how cool becoming a knight or mage and adventure in different kinds of setting would be.
Not to mention that sometimes I also want to try different technologies from cyberpunk or steampunk worlds or just become an immortal cultivator and live for endless eons while working in refining, alchemy or slaying demons and subduing beasts to become pets while also witnessing entire civilizations being built, developing and being destroyed from within or outside.
This very aspect is something that made me part of the ACG community, and living in a part of the world where this community is very weak, it made me enter international forums and torrent websites to watch anime or read manga and novels.
Even if I know it's illegal, nobody will release apps or websites in the country I live so I could watch by legal means, or support the creators even indirectly, so… yea.
Not to mention the incredible fanfictions I discovered in these communities and forums.
But it's also a bummer for being forced to go to international forums, as I have almost zero homies that understood my passion and longings.
Most individuals around me would talk about politics, sports, cars or their work life, but when I try to explain why I would prefer to visit an Isekai world for example, they would dismiss me for being childish.
I could not really blame them since I have almost no common interests with them.
"Before letting you continue your inner monologue, you must spin this wheel. As you can see, on this wheel there are a hundred slices, and each slice has a world's name, a race/bloodline, job/talent, and a person's name followed up by a number." Interrupted the entity.
Looking near him, a wheel appeared, but the names and terms are always changing.
In a slice for example I see Naruto-Uchiha-Anbu-OC-3, but the next moment it becomes Fairy Tail-Human-Dragon Slayer-Laxus-7.
I could only guess that it could be either easy to rigg such a wheel and make me become something that fits their agenda or is made so with the purpose of stopping someone with unnecessary talent from choosing what they want.
But there is also something that made me nervous, as there are also slices that states Modern-Leopard-Zoo mascot-Leo-0, so that should mean that in my next life I could become a simple animal or insect or something somewhere.
"I could understand the first 4 terms by their nature, but what does the number there stand for?" I asked the entity.
I could only presume it's either number of wishes or lives that I have there, but it shouldn't be since some of them are 0, but it could also be my luck or something.
"That's the number of balls you get for the lottery. If you get at least a 1 there, a lottery machine will appear and after starting it, you will get the mentioned number of balls. Each ball is a cheat that could become a blessing or curse for you. For example, you could get a bloodline, energy, skill or even race change, not to mention a system or a sort of immortality for example. It depends honestly, as even I was surprised sometimes by what someone could get." Stated the entity.
If that's so, it means that my unlucky nature could screw me over here.
There are endless combinations that could make anyone something beyond a hero protagonist type, but the opposite is also true.
There are also risks in getting an unbalanced cheat or contradictory and mismatched cheats that could work one against the other.
Not to mention cheats that work perfect in one world, but become worthless in another, like a cheat that makes you Jordan 2 in the world of Fairy Tail. Besides running and sidestepping plus throwing objects, the main cheat, the basketball play, is wasted.
"Skipping over your monologue, please spin the wheel with some effort unless you want to suffer. I speak for experience here, as some of the souls ended up in unfinished or unstable worlds for some reason." Warned the entity.
And that's also good to know.
Let's see, this wheel is kind of huge, so spinning it should take some effort.
Now, spinning... Why did it spin so slow?
I could only hope I end up somewhere interesting since I'm also open to interesting challenges.
But after the wheel stopped, the slice pointed is... AGTFF5586JUOP-Player-Interdimensional Mercenary-Yamamoto Oreo-7.
First, what kind of world is that?
And what race can a Player be, considering that Interdimensional Mercenary is my job apparently?
But it's also golden.
At least I know I will be a Japanese person in my life, and that I will have 7 cheats.
Wonder how having 7 balls would be like, but that's for hentai fantasies, not here.
On the other hand, it's been 5 minutes since my fate was partially decided, and the entity still did not react.
Is something wrong?
Or is it communicating with someone to find out about my destination?
As for the cheating balls?
I think the entity will need to come back to bring up the machine or something.
"Sorry for the delay" said the entity abruptly.
"No problem, have you been checking out the reality?" I asked since zooming out like that is not normal.
"No, I was just speechless. You see, the world in question is a dimensional hub that works similarly to Conton City in Dragon Ball Xenoverse. The only difference is that the world in question is a whole world with solar systems, multiple planets, and so on, and the world's natives are split in 3: natives that work, take care of animals and build/maintain the infrastructure and so on, the dimensional traders that make businesses across different dimensions with the purpose of helping said dimensions with resources and technologies and so on, while the third group are the players that can travel to said dimensions, but their role is the most important to the world."
"So basically, I will wake up in a dimensional hub that is always connected to other worlds, and I will become someone who's job or ability is to travel to different dimensions as a dimensional mercenary, correct?" I half asked myself and half the entity.
Such a plot twist is not unheard of, but usually the protagonist stays in a stable world, whereas said travels are something that breaks the protagonist's monotonous life, not something that he does for a living.
Granted, such setting mostly depends on the author and how much he wants to screw up the protagonist, but usually the protagonist will mostly have a blast in these worlds.
Unless he gets a very strict time limit for his job, or the plot develops in a direction that complicated things beyond acceptable complications, usually the protagonist should be able to solve all problems he may encounter, even the tricky ones, not only in a short time, but also get some free time if he needs to wait for certain plot nodes or events to do his job.
That said, being able to live in a dimensional hub is not something I encountered yet in any novel or manga, so I am curious of how it would go.
On top of that, Conton city has many powerful warriors and they receive their missions from either the two Kais (the gods in the Dragon Ball world, more specifically the Gods of Time and Creation), or from one of the overseers of certain timelines, so the time travelers there are manually managed by AIs, Kais and experienced Time Travelers that report directly to the Kais.
So, I wonder how a dimensional hub like world like the one I'm going to should work.
And I could only see two possibilities:
One, the hub is managed by a sort of council made by gods and demi-gods that oversee the entire operation, and as such, they assign "heroes" to perform various duties.
Second, there is a powerful System that oversees everything and every native of said world will have a terminal-grade System that would help said individual manage and perform the assigned duties, with a god of someone that always works as a supreme admin in upgrading and tweaking the settings and assignments when something serious happens like errors or crushes, or unexpected delays/reports appear.
It could also be a combination of both, where each god will be assigned to various modules of the system and working together to perform their duties as smooth as possible.
On a side note, why are there multiple solar systems, planets and what not?
The only reason I could think of is that there are dimensional shops and mercenaries toiled specifically to certain world settings, as such, there could be planets made in Chinese ancient style with cultivators that has cultivators as interdimensional mercenary and cultivation shops while on another planet to be made in cyberpunk and space style that will have enchanted and geared mercenaries while the shops will sell implants, gears and space ships toiled to different such settings.
"Your assumption is mostly correct, as in every native of that world has a terminal System, but the system is autonomous in its running. It does however respond to the wishes of the natives of different worlds, connecting the shops to different cities, towns, or places and assigning different missions to a mission poll, mission poll used by the interdimensional mercenaries to find missions of their liking and ability. As for the vastness of the world, you are also correct, as different settings require different abilities, knowledge sets, and different mindsets. Although to become a mercenary or shopkeeper, one must have a flexible mindset, as every society may have vastly different social norms and rules, even when they are part of the same setting. I believe you can also agree with this, as even in ancient Chinese cultivation stories, the way people behave in one novel vs another one is completely different." Said the entity.
And I couldn't disagree. The way cultivators behave in Tales of Demons and Gods for example, is vastly different from Emperor's Domination, or another world like I Think I'm a Fake Cultivator. The three novels have typical Chinese cultivation settings with clans, sects, academies, monsters, beasts, alchemy and so on, yet the way they interact with one another is different. Although they are dog-eat-dog worlds and have no remorse in killing each other for resources or because one looked the wrong way for a split second, their societies have certain vast differences in how they approach things.
The same goes for Hero type worlds. Not only are the super powerful and the normal civilians interacting and seeing each other differently in Marvel vs My Hero Academia, the proportion of the awakened in MHA is also way bigger than people with abilities in Marvel.
This created different expectations for society when they interact with one another.
In MHA for example being quirk-less is seen as being an inferior or not evolved individual, but being a normal civilian with no ability in Marvel, is considered as being a normal and perfect human.
This misalignment in perception is mostly assigned to the fact that in MHA, a quirk is seen as an evolution from a human being, since it's a biological trait that is mostly awakened since the age of 4, while in Marvel, the awakened are either stable experiments that successfully transformed, like Captain America, or simple mutants that woke up on the wrong side of their beds like Magneto. There are also aliens and other causes or whatever, but in Marvel, the Heroes and the mutants are seen as completely different kinds of awakened individuals.
"Little Oreo, I must attract your attention every time you start your inner monologue?" asked the entity with a hint of impatience in his voice.
"No sir, I was just thinking and trying to process in my way the info dumps I received." I excused myself.