[Welcome, Player-NH228922.]
[I am the Moderator, the voice permitted to reach you in this Limbo. Ask anything, and I may answer within the bounds of what you are allowed to know.]
'What is this? Why am I… so calm? So rational?'
By all rights, he should have been shocked and terrified. To be stripped of sense and mobility in broad daylight was a stuff of nightmare.
Yet fear would not come.
And panic would not take root.
It was as if some unseen hand had plucked those basic human instincts from him and left only tranquility behind. Honestly, it was such a scary thought in and of itself, but he couldn't deny that the sense of calmness it brought to him was what allowed him to hold himself together and not broke apart.
"Moderator, why am I here?"
[You have been drawn into the Succession Game.]
[A Game of God. The winner shall become the God, the creator of all dimensions and the ruler of all existences.]
"Why me? Can I refuse?"
[The reason matters little and choice was never yours. You are a piece of set upon the board, and the board has already been prepared.]
"I understand. How will this game proceed?"
[The rules are simple to state, though not simple to endure.]
[1: All Players are drawn from the Prime Dimension, Earth-1α. From there, each will be transferred to a separate new world.]
[2: Your world is not chosen by preference, nor by merit, but by lottery. Yet do not despair, the balance remains. All Players are born as the main characters of each world. In any starting world, the mightiest creatures are confined to the threshold of planetary destruction.]
[3: To aid you, a System will be bound to your soul. Through it you may observe your growth, measure your worth in Status, purchase from the Shop, and commune with other Players in the Community.]
"What do you mean by main characters of each world?"
[The worlds you and the others shall inhabit are not born of chance chaos, but of design, woven from the fictions of your own Dimension. Tales once confined to ink, image, and imagination shall breathe as reality. And in that reality, you will stand where the story's central figure once stood.]
[The stage once scripted becomes yours to walk. Whether you honor or betray the tale, whether you rise or fall... That is the Game.]
"I see."
[Do you have any further questions, Player-NH228922?]
He hesitated. "…No. None."
None of the questions left in his mind matters anymore. There wasn't even an illusion of choice, to begin with. So, whether he asked then now, later, or never, his situation wouldn't change.
[Very well.]
[Then we proceed to the Lottery of Worlds.]
The void around him shuddered. Darkness rippled like water, then fractured, revealing countless lights, they spun slowly at first, then faster, until the cascade of brilliance blurred into a kaleidoscopic storm.
[Re: Monster | Rou/Tomokui Kanata]
[The die is cast. The tale awaits its new protagonist.]