The young man found himself seating in a white room, on a black steel chair. He groaned, clutching his skull. "Damn it… feels like my head's splitting open."
Before him was seated a young woman wearing white robes and having long silver hair. On her face is a steel mask of an disfigured man with scars.
Her eyes were ocean blue, sharp enough to cut through him. "Oh, please. Your head is absolutely fine."
The young man paused, disbelief clearly written on his face. "Are you perhaps, the disfigured one?" It was a long guess but the only one that came to mind.
The woman nodded slowly, she gestured to the small table before him where there there was a coffee cup with strange black liquid in it. There was a line of steam rising from it, the smell it gave off was odd, almost repulsive.
"What do you want me to do with that?" He asked, irritation leaking into his voice. "I am not drinking that, who are you and what am I doing here."
The woman let out a sigh, before leaning back into her seat. "You said you could have led a better life than the false hero, now you have seen his end, you have felt his pain. What do you wish to do?"
He was perplexed by her question.
Did he really care?
"Surely you do not just want things to end like this." She continued, her voice subtle and slow. "After all, you are it's only reader."
He did not have to search long for the answer to that, he knew he did more than anything he wanted to see the story end. But now knowing that everything he had been reading was just a plan orchestrated by a totally different person, he felt cheated.
He gnashed his teeth as he recalled how he had felt to learn of how the hero had died, no— false hero.
"You want to know how I fell? I wasted five years of my life following this story, I had to watch all of the good characters get killed off, I had to endure the hero's foolish righteous acts for so long only to have him killed off." The veins on his temple throbbed., "He wasn't even the main character of the story but a pawn, the damn priest was the one behind it all."
The DISFIGURED ONE said nothing for a long time, she only listened to his heavy breathing for a while. When she spoke she sounded excited, "How would you change the story then?"
She leaned in closer, a smiled curled up beneath her mask. She watched the young man before her get ruled up even more and relished in it.
"I would kill that damn priest for wasting my time!" He said in rage.
She nodded and pulled back gently, "I called you for that exact reason, you will pick up where the story left off and maybe return back to your world when this is all done."
His rage flickered out, replaced by confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"I will reincarnated you back into the world of the story and give you a little push." She said. "Since you are not of this world you will of course have your own ability specially tailored to you."
He still could not believe it. "What's the catch?"
She giggled hysterically before digging her hand into her robe and bringing out a rolled up parchment. "Simple, I just need you to sign that this was not forced against your will. I would hate to get sued."
He looked at the parchment which resembled a contract of sorts.
THE PARTY INVOLVED IS STATING THAT THIS ACTION IS OF HIS OWN FREE WILL AND ANY DAMAGE TO HIS PERSON OR PROPERTY IS SOLELY HIS CROSS TO BEAR.
His eyes went back to the strange woman, "Who are you?"
"You know my name?" She responded after a heartbeat.
His eyes yearned for more. "What are you? Why do you want this?"
She paused for a short while and rubbed her pale fingers against each other. "Let's just say I'm finally listening to the wishes of my readers. Think about it, you could live two lives for the price of one."
He looked at the contract to see three special requirements he had to tick before he could sigh.
AGREE TO BE REINCARNATED INTO THE BODY OF SPECIES OF SAME SEX. Y/N?
"What the fuck would happen if I picked no? Would I come back as a female chicken or something?" He thought.
He made sure to tick yes.
The next line read:
AGREE TO RECIEVE ONE OF TWO SPECIAL ABILITIES OF ORIGINAL HERO? Y/N?
He remembered the hero had two abilities that made him unstoppable. The first was the affinity for light magic which he wielded in his blade and the second was the power of the phoenix flame which granted him regenerative abilities.
He made sure to pick, yes.
The third and final took him by surprise, the air seemed to grow heavier.
SELECT WHAT SPECIAL ABILITY THE REINCARNATED WILL BE COMING WITH.
He looked up at the disfigured one confused.
"What does this mean?"
She gave an expression similar to yawning before saying. "You were something before you came here right? It's a bonus, I can't have you without a specialty of your own."
Her mask twitched in anticipation on what he might fill in.
He filled in the only thing he knew, the parchment glowed oddly at the word he had filled in..
Then he signed in his name.
She nodded and took the parchment from him, and read it. "Programmer, what a rather odd profession."
"I hope you fulfil your goal and save the world."
He shook his head. "I am going to kill the priest."
"It's one and the same, slay the mc and perhaps we will meet again." She gestured to the strange liquid in the cup again.
He hesitated, but lifted the cup anyway. The liquid was thick, tar-like, and it clawed at his throat as it went down. His stomach burned, his veins lit up like molten wires, and the white walls around him flickered with streams of symbols he half-recognized—lines of code, bleeding into runes.
The Disfigured One leaned forward, her voice muffled behind the mask. "Slay the false destiny. Write your own."
His body shattered into pixels of light. Then came darkness— before his eyes opened again, not in the white room, but in a world that reeked of blood and fire.