While the darkness and silence took over his senses, and he awaited the moment where he'll be destroyed and all his senses and thoughts will be severed, he felt a piercing pain.
Pain?
Startled, he used his remaining will power to gain control over his senses once again.
[Death my as*! You think you can escape that easily?]
As a metallic sound came, startling him, for the first time he felt he found this metallic voice really nice.
Like a man drowning in the river, he found this metallic voice to be like a lifeguard. He instantly began struggling, trying to gain control over his consciousness. But to his fear, he was like a paper boat sailing in an ocean.
No matter how much he tries, he'll always be at mercy of the waves.
[Stop struggling. You poisoned yourself the moment you entered the forest. Now this small amount of poison from your medicine was just a trigger. You are now hanging on with a really small thread, you are as good as dead.]
The system spoke again, disclosing some of the necessary details.
As it turned out, he accidentally poisoned himself in the forest itself, just that it was a weak poison and wouldn't have done much to his body. But this poisonous mist amplified the process and maybe amplified the effect of the previous poison too.
Now he was in an unknown state.
For more details, contacting the evil system.
"Hey, then what I am right now? Dead soul or alive?"
[The state you are in right now is weird. You are dead as well as alive, at the same time.]
"Huh? Schrodinger's soul?"
[Something like that.]
"..."
He was speechless right now. What the hell is this system trying to say?
But then he thought of something; if he really was in such a case; unsolvable case, why would this system contact him? Wasn't it just better to leave his body right now and then get a new host?
[Hey kid, why aren't you so sharp usually? Usually, you are like a dumb starfish with tits.]
Alexander's soul lips twitched as he tried to figure out the direction of the system in this dark world and stare at him.
[Since you already know, I'll go to it fast. Right now I can save you but if you want to become normal after you are saved, that's impossible.]
"It's good as long as you save me. But what do you mean by not normal? There are many ways a man can be not normal."
[Well this is just a small issue for normal humans. But for you, this might be the worst thing possible. As long as I save you now, you'll become a crippled man with a body as weak as a maple leaf in autumn. You can be literally blown away by the wind.]
"..."
He became silent for a while then said with some hesitation, "Hmm… it's good enough. I can keep staying in a room. Why do you say it'll be a problem for me? I personally think it's better than dying."
[ Well it's true. But you still have a mission to become king of this world. If you fail, you'll face direct death, with not even a so-called reincarnation possible. ]
"You are really hell-bent on me finishing that mission? Even trying to say that I won't be reincarnated if I fail."
[ Yeah I am. If not for the mission I won't even save you. It's because you are important and this mission is important that I'll be locking your gene locks permanently to trap the poison and keep you alive. ]
The system didn't deny this at all and directly accepted this without much thought. Well right now it can't be said if the system can even think or not, but the reply was fast.
Alexander heard this and started thinking for a while before he came up with a question, "I am important to this mission or to you?"
[...]
[This level of information can't be accessed yet.]
The system paused for a while before it gave a pre-programmed type of reply unlike the usual human conversation type replies it responds in.
But Alexander was kind of satisfied with this reply as he laughed out and then said without hesitation, "OK then save me now. I'll give my all in to finish this mission for you. At that point, when I am done with the mission, will I have the authority to access this information?"
He didn't know why, but there was a sudden flame of curiosity inside him. This was just like the time when he was a young researcher where curiosity was driving him forward. Right now the same kind of flame forced him to make this decision. The moment he was rejected to know something he wanted to know, he knew it was something important and this became his new driving force.
[Yes you'll have the authority to know this, by then.]
[Initialising revival]
[3]
[2]
[1]
[...]
Everything became silent again.