"My name is Kamirn and I'm a god."
I held back a snigger, earning a glare.
This guy spoke with the absolute air of someone announcing a cosmic event.
Well, he looked like one: pearl white, naked and an empty groin. Also, his presence explained why I still heard alarms ringing throughout the building, but I'm not in an ambulance.
Kamirn ignored me for a while, his eyes fixed on the laptop in front of him. He fiddled with the keyboard occasionally, emitting amateurish vibes.
After a while, he abandoned the laptop and began to study how the swivel chairs work. I heard him mumble stuffs like "fascinating technology" and "pity they can't create cultivation yet…guess I'll have to wait another million years…"
I studied him, from the sinewy arms and legs, up to his gleaming head. I hid a smile behind my hands.
Never seen anything rounder and shinier than it, even in fantasies. Kamirn glanced up from his examination, affronted.
"Sorry," I said defensively, "I really have nothing against bald dudes," I spluttered, and a chuckle followed.
Kamirn's eyelids twitched but he didn't reply. Instead, he forced a smile, swiveling the chair to face me.
"You know, you've gotta be careful. I could easily make yours just like mine," he shrugged, a bold hint of malevolence dripping from his tone.
Wow, he's a benevolent god. Most gods would bless me with insanity at this statement.
"My apologies," I bowed low, "I really love my hair's shaggy –"
I halted mid-speech, running a hand through my hair. It parted too easily than it should, stuck sleekly to each other. I dragged it down, discovering that the hair extended to the middle of my back.
'Wait, when did my hair become so long?! And sleek?'
With a jolt of horror, I remembered what that officer – or Kamirn, rather - had called me before my apparition here.
Askin.
I knew that name. It belonged to a person I hated and pitied so much.
'What the actual f*ck is going on here?!'
Kamirn cleared his throat importantly, drawing my attention back to him.
"I'm Kamirn, and I'm a god."
"So, I should swoon in adoration and fear maybe?" I retorted sharply, without meaning to. Kamirn shrugged again, very ungodlike, but I somewhat imagined a dangerous flash of something inside his pearl white eyes.
"Well, that won't be bad, but let's leave your disobedience at that." Kamirn smiled, icy danger coated in a sweet tug of lips.
'This is bad. But well, I should just hope for the best, since I can't force anything out of him.'
"So, what's your aspect as a god?" I asked, hoping to escape my Fate by distracting Kamirn.
"I'm the god of –"he paused, curling his beardless chin. I waited, at a loss of words to say. What god has to think before saying his aspect? "You could call me the god of novels," he finished with a dry smile.
Boring, but I don't say it out. Authors don't need gods, they create them. In the literal sense, that is.
However let's get down to business.
"So," I look expectantly at him. "I have no idea why I was summoned –"
"Ah, Yes."
Kamirn's jovial smile vanished faster than a water droplet tossed on the sun. "It's about this," he turned to the projecting screen, and then glanced at me, voice colder, expression colder.
Displayed on the screen was the book cover of the book I've been rejecting for months now. But I didn't get why Kamirn seemed so angry at me for it.
'Navigating through fantasy realms.'
"The author of this book was a struggling varsity student who just wanted a side hustle to support his aging parents and younger siblings. Yet, you kept on thwarting his dreams, with each rejection. What's more, you don't even give a reason for that…only once did you type "Unreasonable".
I've been observing this maltreatment for so long that I've decided to take action. For fuck's sake, he's already at a thousand and nine hundred chapters, because he still trusts that his efforts would work out. No uncontracted author has ever crossed a hundred, and this is how you treat a perseverant one?!"
Kamirn drew breath, his eyebrows arching at my nonchalant expression.
I had listened all through, expression rapt, but unmoved within. Now, I let out a dramatic sigh, choosing my words carefully.
"He can still apply though, I promise I won't reject them any longer," I retorted, restraining myself from barking at this unreasonable god. He called the number of chapters to drive home his point, but what kind of books could have less than a hundred thousand views with almost two thousand chapters?
Kamirn looked at me quietly. I was surprised how he'd calmed down so fast, but then I saw his watering eyes.
This guy shouldn't call himself a god…he's more human than I am.
"The author chucked himself on a building headlong when he saw the last rejection…I think he'd–"
"Good, then reincarnate him into his own novel, I think he'd appreciate that much better" I suggested calmly, whipping out both palms in a flourish. "Problem solved."
Kamirn's lips curl into an evil grin. He chuckled lightly, an empty gaze fixed on me. Its sound rang across the room, stirring a deep sense of alarm and despair.
When he stopped, the very silence cut into my thoughts like a samurai's blade, heavier than the sound of thunder. I shuddered involuntarily as his eyes never left mine.
"And that," Kamirn whispered slowly, his voice a purr grazing the fringes of my thoughts, edged with raw depravity, "is where you come in, friend."
Kamirn hasn't moved, but I can feel a cold presence creeping onto me. The air grow heavier, weighing down on me like intensified gravity. My bones strained to remain in place, cracking under the pressure of sheer power. I stumbled back, glancing around for a door. There wasn't any.
"Navigating through fantasy words, has a tragic MC. His whole life events, from birth to his many deaths at points in the story, is heavily draped in tragedy, to which the author prescribed no escape routes."
Horror flooded my eyes at this, alarm and fear lurking within. Sweat beaded all over me. "Who the hell would want to read such a novel?"
Kamirn shrugged, morbid amusement still lodged in his eyes, unfitting to his nonchalance. "Social deviants may like them, but that's not the point. So here's a few words…try not to rush into things, for over 70% of events in your life as MC are bound to be tragedies, but with proper planning, they can be avoided. Also, I won't be tampering with any of the key characters...they've been designed already quite perfectly."
'What's going on? Is this really happening?' I clutched my head in despair. 'Am I about to be forced into a tragic role by a psychopath god?!'
"Yes, you are!" Kamirn cackled loudly, reading my thoughts. "I've always wanted to do this, but never found a perfect sinner to bestow this blessing on."
"Shouldn't I have a say in this first?" I pleaded in a last bid effort. "I'm not a minor!"
Kamirn chuckled maniacally, sound thin and sharp as a dagger's edge, his eyes glimmering with refusal.
"Nice try, but I'm not human, so I don't follow your laws," he winked victoriously, but began curling his beardless chin in thought. "
"So this is how it'll go. Your Role would be something identical to a traditional claim of your world's Catholics about the afterlife." Kamirn muttered distractedly, voice a pitch above whispering.
"I'll give you a system too, but with a few bonus tragedies."
My mouth dropped open, muttering soundlessly. My knees buckled and I slammed into the ground, still twitching like I'd just survived electrocution.
I can't even think straight anymore. What's the shit about Catholics?
'I've always wanted a system, but not in circumstances like this! Accepting it would be akin to a Repeat of the Trojan Horse!'
"How about this then?" he snapped his fingers at me, a wicked smile playing across his lips. "Think of me as that God Almighty, which your family worships, then you can take this stint inside a fantasy world as Purgatory. If you make it through" – Kamirn's eyes glittered amusingly at this – "then, I'll grant you a Heaven, where your siblings love you…or maybe one where you and your adopted family live together all lifelong. That would be ideal, won't it?"
I smiled fleetingly, happiness and despair flashing through my mind, upsetting my mind with its uneven mixture. I was enthralled by the offer, but Kamirn's conditional statement – "if you make it through…" – made me shudder.
'He might be lying, but I don't think he's joking either. Is this my chance to a perfect life?' A glimmer of hope stirred within me.
Kamirn rose and threw his hands out and head backwards, his upper body shaking in sadistic laughter. "I'm a mastermind," he declared smugly, bulging eyes fixed on me.
Now, I'm sure of one thing. This guy's just a psychopath who somehow became a god.
'What difference does that make?' I sighed dully, resigned to my fate.
Moral lesson; never argue with a mad god.
Slowly, and no longer trembling, I rose to my feet, dusting my knees.
'You can do whatever the fuck you want,' I cursed silently. 'I'll longer give you the satisfaction of been begged! I'll prove you outrightly wrong!
I knew he could hear me, but then, what other choice did I have?
Kamirn, still laughing, flicked his wrist at me, as though swatting a fly away. It wasn't vague, but I didn't miss it.
Before I blinked, a loud sizzling sound rippled through the charged air. Next moment, a vortex spiralled open at my back and sucked me in.
My last image of Kamirn was of him, facing the glass wall, hands outstretched in opposite directions, shoulders still shaking in silent laughter.
My vision rotated between black and white, as I somersaulted nonstop without landing, each lasting a split second. Kamirn's loud maniacal laughter still rang in my ears, and I clapped my hands over my ears, trying to shut them out.
I couldn't hear nor feel anything else.
Just then, at the height of my turmoil, a hand closed over my wrist, pulling it away from my ears.
"Hello there…it's a pity you can't see me, but I'm–"
I attempted to shrug my hand off. It wasn't Kamirn's; this voice was tender, amused and eerily similar to Jane's sweet tone.
"Hey wait!" she called a snort of impatience and annoyance slipping out. I obliged, halting and she hastily explained.
She held me into a steady position, in which I floated in, filled with an eerie sense of weightlessness.
"I'm Kamirn's wife, the goddess Aurora –"
I shrugged her off, but she held on tighter, speaking faster.
"I really took a liking to you, so I'd bless you with a Harem too. Thank me later, and sorry about Kamirn. Bye!"
She let go of me and I fell again into the swirling void.
What good will true love and a harem do when strung with a myriad of tragedy?
Love can bring about really good things, but on a general scale, it eventually leads to dark sides and broken hearts.
Prove me wrong.
I ain't becoming one of those.
I somersault nonstop in the vortex, waiting for my new life to resume, filled with resolve.
I will not fail. I survived the Hood.
I'll prove to Kamirn that even mortals aren't as subservient as gods think they are.
…
A dainty hand, reeking of care and infatuation, pressed lightly into my chest, trying to restrain me.
"Young Master Askin! Please calm down!"