Onyx was dying.
"O--- Hol- -n!"
A voice was dimly registered as he lay dying. How...how did he end up like this? oh. Right. he just had to play the hero.
-5 minutes ago-
Onyx was an ordinary boy. 16, not fat, but not muscular either. brown of hair and blue of eyes...he was perfectly ordinary...if you ignore the fact that he's a huge nerd and fan of martial arts. especially Manhwa and Manhua fiction.
He had been walking home with his schoolmates after an after-school night class when the loner of a boy wearing a hoodie, the quiet kid, pulled out a knife and lunged for the popular girl of the group. Onyx tackled the quiet kid and wrestled him to the ground using his limited practice in jiu-jitsu. However, the quiet boy slipped the grapple, as he was secretly muscular under his hoodie.
"YOU BASTARD! DIE! DIE, DIE DIE DIE!" Each yell was emphasized with a stab to Onyx's stomach, as the quiet kid went apeshit on him.
"DI-" the sound of thunder is heard, and the quiet kid falls dead, a hole between his eyes.
Onyx relaxed, his blood pooling around him, as his life drained out of him
-now-
Oh, right. you're not here for the heroics. nobody ever is. ahem.
Onyx looked up at the moon, admiring the cosmos above. he dimly acknowledged that someone was begging him not to close his eyes.
'I'm...I'm so tired...'
His eyes drifted shut, and Onyx slipped away into a calm, gentle dream...and drifted away into death.
[You have died.]
"...huh?"
[You have died.]
"...I suppose so, huh..."
Onyx was in the dark. no body, no sensation, nothing but red letters in the void.
[You died saving the life of █████ ████. Name redacted because it no longer matters who she is.]
"...so it didn't matter...?"
[Incorrect. She doesn't matter. the act of saving her did.]
"...that makes no sense, but okay...so...what now?"
Onyx's mind slowly returned to him, as the red letters shifted and flickered into a new sentence.
[We need entertainment and amusement. You amuse 'them' at times. You will be reborn in another reality. You may or may not have heard of it before. We do not care either way. I do not have the authority to tell you setting it is. The System is present in this version of this setting, and the past and future of it have been changed by Players before you.]
the words settled in Onyx's mind, and he felt...something stir inside him.
"Players...? like that gamer stuff from those Korean and Chinese comics?"
[Correct.]
"...why me?"
[why not you?]
"...touche. fine. do i get any choices in this?"
[only a select few. preparing for transmigration and rebirth.]
"Wha-"
Onyx felt reality twist, and soon he faded into the deeper darkness of this empty void.
[Good luck, Gamer number █,███,███,███,███,███.]
...
...
...
[Choose your origin:
Silver fate
Waste of skin
Deprived
Make the choice.]
"...well, Waste of skin- wait, THE choice?"
[...well, unless you LIKED doing all those Bloodborne and Dark Souls challenge runs-]
"NAH! ILL CHOOSE SILVER FATE!"
Onyx panics a bit, not wanting his new life to be hell. ngl, relatable.
[...Very well then, now, choose your class: WARNING: CHOICES HAVE MAJOR IMPACT ON NEW LIFE. Class determines starting skills and proficiency. Class determines starting point and starting time:
Hunter: Vale, Fall of Beacon
Maiden: Mistral, Betrayal of Lionheart
Civilian: Atlas, fall of Atlas
Grimm: Grimmlands, great invasion of Vale
Cultivator: Vacuo, Pre-plot
Make your choice.]
"...what the fuck are these...? Fall of Beacon sounds...scary. Lionheart sounds like a warrior, and that's tied to a...maiden? what? like a virgin girl? creepy."
[...]
"what? it's true. Grimm and Grimmlands sound like the bad guys or something...like, big-bad vibes there. and great invasion just hammers that home. Vacuo sounds like some foreign place, and Pre-Plot implies time to...well, learn and get my bearings and shit."
[... I'll let you think this out. it's clear to us now that you've never heard of the setting, or at least just can't remember it.]
"...okay..."
Onyx sighs, and startles as he realizes he can sigh.
"...well, the system referenced Bloodborne and Dark Souls...so...Hunter is either cool, badass hunters like in Bloodborne...or lame failed multiclass hunters like in Darksouls...not worth the risk. Maiden is out by default, major impact and all that, and the lionheart thing sounds bad..."
Onyx huffs, and rests for a minute before continuing. "Civilian is out by virtue of having something that sounds as terrifying as 'Grimm' around, and being in 'Atlas' during the 'fall of Atlas'... and Grimm is a no-go as they're obviously bad or evil."
Onyx laughs a bit, realizing his only real choice. "I must be retarded for not realizing sooner."
[Quite possible-]
"I was joking!"
[So were we.]
"...cultivator...like in Wuxia...or...o-or in Xianxia?!"
[Yes, you deok-hu.]
"...ow..."
[I mean, you only ever read the scans and translations of the Manhwa and Manhua.]
"...the scan teams are cool tho..."
[...fair.]
"...anyways. I choose Cultivator."
[Very well. One last thing: if you die, you die for good, unless you manage to earn a life or two. I will not tell you how to do so. earning lives will be exponentially harder with each life earned, so try not to waste them.]
"Y-Yes!"
[Completing Transmigration. commencing Rebirth.]
[...Good luck, On██-Alexandrite... you'll need it.]