Darkness. Floating. Nothing.
No up. No down. No sensation except the awareness of Pierre's own thoughts, suspended in a void so complete it defied comprehension.
What the fuck?
The memory crashed back with brutal clarity—headlights suddenly flooding his apartment with harsh white light, the deafening horn that vibrated through his bones, the catastrophic sound of the wall exploding inward in a shower of drywall and splintered wood. A truck. A fucking eighteen-wheeler had plowed through his living room wall while he sat reading, obliterating everything in its path.
Look left.
The message from OneAboveAll. That cryptic warning he'd dismissed as nonsense, as just another random forum post. Two simple words he'd scrolled past without a second thought.
A laugh bubbled up from somewhere inside him, from whatever constituted "inside" in this formless state. A single, hollow "Ha" that existed without lungs or throat to produce it.
Then another. "Haha."
The laughter built, echoing in the void around him though there were no surfaces to reflect sound, growing more frantic with each repetition until it became a wild, unhinged howl that would have torn his throat raw if he still possessed one.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
"A truck. A goddamn truck ran into my house!" His voice sounded strange, distorted, as if speaking underwater or through layers of thick cloth. "Who dies like that? What are the fucking odds? Just sitting there reading and then—BAM!—truck through the wall!"
The laughter cracked, fragmenting into something else. Something wet and broken and raw with grief.
"Three weeks." The words caught in whatever constituted his throat in this place. "Three fucking weeks until my birthday. Eighteen. I was going to be eighteen."
"UFC contract. My apartment. All my training. Everything..."
Eighteen years of life. All those hours in the gym. Fourteen hours wasted reading that stupid novel instead of training. One second of inattention from a truck driver who probably walked away unharmed. Game over. No continues. No reset button. Just the void and the knowledge of everything lost.
Is this it? Just... floating forever?
Then he saw it. A pinprick of light in the distance. So faint he might have imagined it, but growing steadily brighter. Closer.
Or was he moving toward it?
The light expanded, a tunnel opening before him, drawing him forward with gentle but irresistible force.
The light at the end of the tunnel. How fucking cliché.
Fear gripped him. What waited on the other side? Heaven? Hell? Oblivion?
"I don't want to go," he whispered, struggling against the pull. "I had plans. I had..."
The light engulfed him.
===
Pierre opened his eyes to blinding whiteness.
Hospital ceiling? Maybe he'd survived. Maybe the impact hadn't been as bad as it felt. Maybe—
"Welcome, Traveler."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once, echoing in the vast emptiness around him with perfect clarity, as if spoken directly into his consciousness.
Pierre blinked rapidly, and the disorienting whiteness gradually resolved into a vast, empty space that stretched infinitely in all directions. No walls, no ceiling, no floor that he could distinguish—just endless white nothingness that somehow supported his weight. Before him stood a desk—an ordinary government-issue office desk with a sleek computer monitor, a meticulously organized stack of papers, and a polished nameplate that read "ADMINISTRATOR" in authoritative block letters.
Behind the desk sat a woman. Middle-aged, with unremarkable brown hair pulled into a tight, professional bun, rectangular glasses perched precisely on her nose, wearing what looked like a standard office blazer in muted gray. Her expression was neither friendly nor hostile—simply efficient.
"Please take a seat." She gestured with a manicured hand to a chair that materialized from the whiteness, a simple office chair that definitely hadn't been there a second ago.
Pierre remained standing, his legs trembling slightly as adrenaline and confusion battled within him. "Who are you?"
"I'm the Administrator." She adjusted her glasses with practiced precision, the movement so bureaucratically perfect it seemed rehearsed. "And this is Processing."
"Processing for what?"
"For your transition, of course." She typed something on her keyboard, the soft clicking sounds unnaturally crisp in the silence. "Pierre Lamont. Age: seventeen years, eleven months, eight days. Cause of death: vehicular collision, specifically a delivery truck carrying... hm, ironic..." she paused, a flicker of something almost like amusement crossing her otherwise impassive face, "manga and light novels."
Pierre's legs suddenly gave out beneath him, and he found himself collapsing into the chair after all.
"I'm really dead," he whispered, the words hanging heavy in the endless white void.
"Quite." The Administrator continued typing, her fingers dancing across the keyboard with mechanical efficiency. "Now, normally we'd proceed directly to reincarnation processing, but your file has been flagged."
"Flagged? What does that mean?"
She turned the monitor toward him. On the screen was the WebNovel app, showing his heated argument with PLGA_Author and the mysterious intervention from the user called OneAboveAll. The timestamps, the words, everything exactly as he remembered from his final moments.
"It seems your death wasn't entirely... accidental." Her voice carried the slightest hint of concern—the first real emotion she'd displayed.
Pierre leaned forward, staring at the screen, his fingers gripping the edge of the desk. "That OneAboveAll person. They knew. They told me to look left right before—" The memory flashed vivid and terrible through his mind—the truck, the screeching tires, the split second of horrified recognition before impact.
"Yes. Interference from outside entities." The Administrator sighed, removing her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. "This complicates things."
"Complicates how? And who is OneAboveAll?"
"That's classified information." She replaced her glasses. "What matters is that your transition has been interrupted. You can't proceed to reincarnation as scheduled."
"So what happens to me?"
The Administrator tapped a pen against her desk. "We have a special program for cases like yours. A sort of... interdimensional refugee status."
"What does that mean in normal human terms?"
"It means, Mr. Lamont, that you're being isekai'd."
Pierre blinked. "I'm being what now?"
"Isekai'd. Transported to another world. Given your recent reading history, the system has selected an appropriate destination."
Horror dawned on Pierre. "No. No fucking way."
The Administrator checked her screen. "Ah, I see you've made the connection. Yes, you're being sent to the world of 'Pirate Lord's Great Adventure.'"
"That's a joke, right? This is hell, and this is my punishment."
"This isn't hell, Mr. Lamont. It's bureaucracy, which I admit can feel similar." A thin smile crossed her face. "And it's not punishment. It's protocol. When interference occurs, we place the affected soul in a reality they're familiar with."
"I read it for fourteen hours! That hardly makes me an expert!"
"More familiar than most." She stamped a form. "Besides, your... passionate critique suggests you've formed strong opinions about this world. Perhaps you'll have the opportunity to create a better story. You'll even receive a gift package to start you out."
Pierre stood, knocking the chair backward. "I refuse. Send me somewhere else. Anywhere else."
"I'm afraid that's not how this works." The Administrator's voice remained calm. "The decision has been made. Processing is complete."
The floor beneath Pierre began to glow.
"Wait! I have questions! Who is OneAboveAll? Why did they target me?"
"Good luck at the character selection Mr. Lamont." The Administrator's voice faded as the light intensified. "Oh, and happy early birthday."