Elara, 35.Twice divorced. No kids, no pets. A job she hated so much she once broke her ankle just to get out of a Monday meeting.
Elara had once spent six months training a new hire who thought Excel was a medieval weapon. She'd filed her resignation twice. HR rejected both. She considered arson.
On an average Thursday, she was walking to work—black coffee in one hand, resignation letter in the other—when life hit her like a truck.
Literally. She was hit by a truck.
And just like that, everything went black.
She opened her eyes to blinding white light and a glowing figure hovering above her.
"Congratulations!" boomed the voice. "You've been chosen for reincarnation! You will become the strongest being in a magical world filled with danger, power, and purpose!"
Elara blinked. "Oh hell yeah. Boss Babe Anime Remake!"
Or so she thought...
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In a cursed world crawling with malevolent spirits, only trained fighters from elite academies stood a chance. Students were paired with sacred weapons—each bonded through mysterious markings, each one imbued with a system. A system that guided the user.
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Aiden, 14, had just ranked high enough to be granted his own weapon. He strolled into the Academy's vault, where rows of relics stood silent in the dark, humming with restrained power.
His eyes locked onto a long, black katana. Its handle shimmered like obsidian, its blade engraved with glowing, ancient designs.
He touched it.
Pain surged. Marks crawled across his arms and back in wild black swirls. A bond forged.
Grinning, shirtless, a little too cocky for someone who still couldn't drive, Aiden whispered to the weapon, "Heh… You're pretty possessive, huh? Half my body marked up just from touching you. Come on, show yourself already. Don't keep me waiting."
The sword shuddered in his grip.
Then—
"WHAT. THE. HELL. I'M A SWORD?!"
The voice was loud. Female. Full of rage, sarcasm, and thirty-five years of trauma.
"You can talk?!" Aiden gasped.
"Oh, yay, he's observant. Must be that Academy education."
"I'm Aiden! What's your name?"
"Fuck off, kid."
Aiden blinked, still grinning as he held the sleek katana up to the flickering vault light.
"Excuse me?" he asked, voice high with excitement. "Shouldn't you be telling me my level and stuff? My strengths? What I can do? What you can do?"
The blade shuddered again. A slow, deep sigh vibrated through the hilt.
"Kid," Elara said flatly. "I said… FUCK. OFF."
Aiden nearly dropped her. "Wha—"
"Congratulations, you unlocked Snark Level One. Let's see if you can survive long enough to evolve into someone tolerable."
"But aren't you supposed to be my system? Like… give me guidance and—"
"I was a middle manager for seven years, kid. I've guided enough man-children through their 'growth arcs.' I'm not doing it again."
A beat of silence.
"…What's a middle manager?"
"I swear to the gods, I will find a way to impale myself on your own stupidity."
Aiden stared at the sword in his hand like it was made of gold and dreams.Elara, on the other hand, wanted to be set on fire.
"But like… what kind of skills do you have?" Aiden asked. "What I have? What's my level?"
Another sigh.
"Fine," she muttered. "You want stats? Here's your glorious character sheet, oh Chosen One."
📊 Character Sheet: AidenStrength: 8 – "Weak-ass. Can barely lift me, and I'm mostly attitude."Dexterity: 10 – "Yay! The white boy can jump!"Constitution: 9 – "What the fuck is this? You get winded walking upstairs."Intelligence: 12 – "Mmhmm. Dumbass, but a slightly functional one."Wisdom: 5 – "Damn, higher than I thought. Must've been a fluke."Charisma: 3 – "Oh gods. You can barely speak. Do you bark at strangers too?"
"You're the worst system ever," Aiden muttered.
"I was reincarnated as a sword and stuck with a 14-year-old testosterone goblin. Lower your expectations."
"…Do I have skills?"
"Oh, we have skills. You've got 'Uncontrollable Puberty Aura' and 'Mistake Magnet.' I've got 'Blunt Weaponized Sarcasm' and the sacred art of 'Slicing Shit to Death.'"
"That last one sounds kind of cool."
"I know. I made it up."
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"I never wanted kids," Elara muttered, her voice echoing in the silence of Aiden's mind.
Aiden, completely unfazed, slid her into the sleek black scabbard on his back. "I'm going to the training grounds. They want to see our skills."
Silence.
He walked a few more steps. Slower now. "...Nothing?"
Oh gods, just pretend I said something sarcastic and move on, kid.
He found the training grounds just as a group of sweaty adolescents were finishing a sparring session.
Some booger-picker with a mop of greasy hair was bragging loudly to a kid whose nose ran like a leaky faucet.
Elara shuddered inside the scabbard.
If one of them touches me, I'm disassociating until the next apocalypse. At least yours isn't that nasty.
Booger Picker: "My new axe is soooo cool, man! It even lights on fire sometimes!"
Snotty: "Yeah? My system answers my questions and shows me my stats."
Great. A glorified Google as a blade. I'm so inspired.
Aiden stepped forward, trying to look cool. "I want to test my skills," he said.
Silence.
Then Elara, way too cheerful:
+2 Skill Stat Points available if you kill them.
"WHAT?! NO!!"
">:-) Yeah. Do it."
"Nooo!"
"Fine. Swing me around and do your little 'I'm special' dance to impress them. Maybe add a grunt or two. Make it masculine."
Aiden sighed and unsheathed her.
The moment she left the scabbard, Elara screamed:
"WHEEEEEEE!"
Booger Picker took a step back. "Did your sword just… yell?"
Aiden flushed. "She does that sometimes. It's… battle energy."
"You wish, noodle boy."
Aiden squared his stance, eyes narrowed.
"Point the stabby end at them!" Elara shouted in his head.
"No duh!" he yelled, swinging her forward.
"DIE, YOU NASTY—uh, CLEVER CURSE!"
"That was… pitiful."
Before Aiden could humiliate them both, Elara took control.
Her blade glowed. Her hilt pulsed. She yanked him forward like a mom dragging her kid out of Target.
"HI-YA YA YA!"
In a flurry of chaotic movement, she sliced the straps of Booger Picker's axe holster, sent Snot Wiper's staff spinning into a bush, and smacked both boys on the forehead with the flat of her blade—twice, for good measure.
The boys burst into tears and ran off.
Aiden blinked. "WOO! Uh… f—Forget those kids!"
"WOO! FUCK THEM KIDS!"
+1 to Sword Mastery+1 to Vanquishing Evil: One booger eater at a time
"…They weren't evil," Aiden muttered.
"Like I said: fuck. them. kids."