Thir died exactly how he had always known he would—publicly executed. Well, that was that, and now he was dead, so it didn't matter. Only the afterlife wasn't how he'd imagined.
「 You made a major contribution to the destruction of your native World. 」
「 You have committed the following crimes as recognized by the Natives: 」
「 Arson. Burglary. Counterfeiting. Embezzlement. Forgery. Fraud. Homicide. Identity theft. Money laundering. Murder. Robbery. Shoplifting. Tax evasion. Theft. Vandalism. Wire fraud. 」
「 You have committed the following acts against the World Will: 」
「 Mass destruction of Core. Partial destruction of two World Trees. Involvement with Outer. Manipulation of timeline. Illegal border crossings. 」
「 Your Karma has been calculated. 」
「 Karma Value: -99999999999999 」
Golden threads morphed into words. Thir sat on the floor—legs crossed, spine slouched, hands clasped, and long strands of ash-blue hair strewn around him.
At first glance, he seemed to be inside an endless world of white—an empty canva devoid of colors, shapes, and sounds other than his own and the incorporeal text before him.
But this space was anything but infinite. If he stood, his head would brush the ceiling—just enough to fit all six feet of him. Three steps forward would slam him into a wall.
He was trapped inside this cramped room where farting would be a fatal mistake.
Worse, he seemed to be in a strange, intangible state without any physical sensation. He pinched, bit, scratched, clawed, and punched—nothing. No pain. No feeling. Despite the bizarre helplessness, he felt neither frustration nor anger. Thir normally kept his cool, but this was a calm beyond even his usual composure—a complete absence of emotions.
Almost.
While irritation escaped him the words, or the entity who was scripting them, ignored him, he was bored as hell.
'Why is it taking three business days to tell me things I already know?' he grumbled internally.
As someone who'd lived a fast-paced life with explosive background music, Thir was so understimulated that he would rather be getting tortured in hell's classic depiction—fiery pits and lakes of blood. At least there, he could try bargaining with some devils while flirting with others.
「 Due to your negative Karma value, your Soul has been sealed, and your rights as a Higher World citizen have been revoked. 」
※
Main Quest: Improve your Karma Value (Minimum threshold: 0 / -99999999999999)
Side Quest: Prevent the destruction of a World
Failure Penalty: Complete annihilation of the Soul
※
A quest screen came into view, eerily familiar. The format matched the monthly quests assigned to everyone in his world: a main quest personalized to the individual with a penalty for failure of the main quest. The side quest, while not mandatory, gave a clue about how much time the person had and/or the failure conditions.
These quests had been imposed on everyone from the day of Awakening, and until the day Thir's execution, no one had any clue who—or what—was allocating them. Thir had more insight than most after climbing up a World Tree or two. It only took a few snapped branches before they admitted that they were merely messengers of a greater will. Now, it seemed this World Will was what they had been referring to.
Thir wasn't entirely sure what was happening. The World Will, whatever it was, also mentioned 'Higher World citizen' and other cryptic terms he couldn't grasp. Yet, for some reason, he just couldn't bring himself to give half a shit about this entire ordeal—perhaps his curiosity had been sealed along with everything else.
Regarding the quest itself, back when he was alive and kicking, the only penalty that could get him to take things seriously was death. Now that he was dead, what made it think he would still care?
"Hey," Thir spoke to the words, unsure if the World Will could or would even listen to him. "If you're trying to threaten me, start by unsealing my emotions first. You sealed my fear, so 'soul annihilation' means nothing to me. Ceasing to exist doesn't sound too bad honestly. I was getting bored of everything anyway."
He nodded to himself. The penalty really didn't sound bad.
Then, the words flickered—somehow the twitching movements looked almost exasperated—and the contents of the quest updated with an additional line at the bottom:
※
Main Quest: Improve your Karma Value (Minimum threshold: 0 / -99999999999999)
Side Quest: Prevent the destruction of a World
Failure Penalty: Complete annihilation of the Soul
[ Soul annihilation process: Containment of self for 13 Billion Years inside the White Room until the Soul crumbles into Soul Dust.]
※
Thir blinked rapidly, his eyelids quivering. His body didn't bleed even when he tried to wreck himself, but now his palms were cold and clammy. He didn't have a heartbeat at all no matter how hard he listened, but at this moment he felt the unreal pounding of his heart. This—this was primal fear from the depths of his being.
"Wait, wait, wait. Time out! By 'White Room', you mean here? With no beauties, no phone, no alcohols, no entertainment, no nothing? For 13 Billion years? What the fuck? Can't you just snap and zap me to dust or something!?" he spat, half-cursing and half-pleading.
The quest screen didn't budge after its first—and last—respond to him.
"Fuck!" Thir sprang up, his head banging loudly against the ceiling, which had apparently lowered, forcing him into a hunch. The room had shrunk; the floor felt frosty.
"Okay, okay. You win," he gasped, sitting back down. "I'll do it."
「 Make a selection. 」
Golden words flashed. At the same time, three prismatic cards materialized, splashing colors into the white void.
The leftmost card, marked 'A', featured a muscular man in his late forties with salt-and-pepper hair. He wore formal attire like the ones you would see in historical films, though torn and bloody, and had an unyielding expression. Strange blue-tinged corpses piled up beneath his feet. Behind him was a horde of similarly dismantled bodies that stood on wobbly, bent knees with protruding bones.
"A necromancer?" Thir made an uncertain guess. Most necromancers he knew preferred to keep functioning corpses. The ones behind the man, however, didn't seem to be a good choice with their brains and whatnot spilling out. The back of the card read: "Yeoum."
Unable to reach a conclusion, he decided to turn to the next card first.
The middle card had an 'S' at the top with 'Meria' on its back. The character and scene in it were just as peculiar. A young boy stood—no, it wasn't quite a young boy, and he wasn't standing either. Rather, he was half boy with a fish as his other half. Thir had never seen anything like it. The half-boy, half-fish stretched both hand and tail out as he reached toward the water's surface, which was an ominous red with molten fire blanketing the top.
"Make a selection..." Thir echoed the last instruction of the World Will. Combining it with what he knew from the quests, he supposed he was choosing a world to save. As much as he wanted more clarification on the matter, he knew his questions would remain unanswered. He had no choice but to make educated guesses.
"Since my body is dead, I guess I would be reincarnating as one of them to save the world." Thir muttered, moving on to the third card—'SSS'.
His eyes were immediately drawn to a young man—a stunning young man, if you would.
A combo of shoulder-length raven black hair with thin streaks of purple and blood-red eyes—a pair of rubies—was fatal. Double kill. Soft feminine features with an appropriate amount of assertiveness and dominance—half a smile from him was sure to have ladies dropping like flies. A single smirk would topple kingdoms. Most people simply couldn't remain strong enough to resist such a pretty boy with siren eyes.
"Damn face card," Thir murmured, nose nearly pressed to the card. "If mine's gold-plated, his is carved out of diamond!" He almost forgot to look at the rest of the card, but when he did remember, there really wasn't much to look at. The young man seemed to be in a dark alley, leaning against a wall in the shadows.
"Oh, I just realized—he seems to be bleeding?"
Thir took a closer look and indeed, the spot where the young man clutched was bloody. It looked like he had been stabbed in the gut. The young man had a slender build but seemed fit enough to survive a few stabbings. All in all, this card was the most normal.
"I guess this should be my choice then," Thir muttered. A 'SSS' card sounded like the highest rating, so he was more inclined to it, though it could also mean the highest difficulty. "But the other two cards have too many unknown factors."
Thir took a deep breath. He had decided. It went against his instincts to choose 'S' or 'A' ranked item when he had a 'SSS' as an option.
"SSS it is!" Thir declared as he reached for the card. It was definitely not because he wanted a good-looking body.
「 Earth had been selected. Assist Earth's protagonist to prevent the end of the world! 」
"Huh?" Thir frowned at the screen, which definitely said 'assist'. "Wait, what do you mean—"
Before he could finish, the screen faded as his own body simmered into silvery dust. Everything went black.