"After all these years of living I guess I still didn't find out why I was cursed with all of these things… THEY RUINED MY LIFE! WHY MUST I BE THE ONE TO SUFFER THESE CURSES?!" An old frail looking man shouted whilst having a sword sticking out of him from the back causing him to bleed out. He had tears in his eyes finally being able to rest from these so called curses.
"While I must admit I do feel sorry for you Augustus your time has come. I really expected something better from the world renowned 'Shadow Hunter'!" A young man dressed in black attire with blonde hair and purple eyes shouted back.
"Hopefully you can live a better life if you're reborn or whatever not that I really care about you old man. Now just die silently and stop all your shouting!" The young man continued whilst shoving the sword deeper into Augustus's stomach causing him to cough blood out of his mouth finally closing his eyes.
"Even though you're the one killing me… I must thank you… for letting me finally-" a silent raspy hoarse voice came from Augustus but before he could finish the young man pulled out the sword and kicked him onto the ground.
"Tch. I don't care about your sob story old man just shut up and die." The young man said while leaving the room with a look of disgust in his eyes as if he were looking at trash.
Augustus died immediately after he was kicked onto the floor but he had a strange smile with tears rolling down his face as his dead carcass laid there.
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An unknown amount of time has passed since he has closed his eyes feeling bliss that he had finally died, taking him away from all of the things that had caused him grief and pain. He was glad he had died, finally letting him move on to the afterlife where he could rest without all of the pain. He felt as he were floating and stared into the dark abyss that was all around him.
An unknown amount of time had passed for him but he wasn't bothered at all just silently waiting to be let into heaven where he could eternally rest. Finally after what felt like a millennia he suddenly felt a jolt of pain that was unbearable even for him who lived for a few centuries. It felt like something was stabbing his soul.
As the pain finally subsided he heard someone speak surprising him, "Welcome to Rebirth Online, would you like a tutorial about the game?". Augustus was surprised to hear this voice and slowly realized he was able to open his eyes and he had a body again. When he had died he didn't have body to move around which he found odd at first but just didn't pay attention to it.
He had opened his eyes and saw that there was a little fairy floating in front of him standing next to a menu with everything grayed out. He didn't know what or where he was and what the fairy meant, was this a tour of heaven? If it was then what did the fairy mean when they said 'Welcome to Rebirth Online'?
"What exactly do you mean by that? Isn't this the afterlife?" Augustus asked confused by his current situation.
When the little fairy heard this she started to laugh hard even bringing tears to her eyes from laughing so much. "No haha this isn't the afterlife sir, what gave you the impression that it was? This is a VR game called Rebirth Online that was just released about 1 minute ago!"
"This is a VR game?! I thought this was the afterlife... I had died and then I found myself here so I just guessed you were a tour..."
"You are very funny a human you know, but enough joking around would you like a tutorial of how the game works or would you like to jump straight into revealing your talents to choose a class?" The fairy had a smile on her face unlike when he first saw her face as when he first opened his eyes.
Augustus was even more confused now, he really wasn't joking he was telling the truth. Maybe it was something to get into heaven or something like that so he just decided to go along with it since he had no other option.
"Alright I guess I will listen to the tutorial since I don't know what this place is and have no knowledge of it" Augustus sighed after realizing he had no choice but to go along.
"Great! First of all the place you are going to is called Emor. It is inhabited by many races such as humans, elves, and even demons as well as much more, of course there are other players in the game such as yourself and you'll be able to meet them."
"When you spawn into the game you can either spawn directly in a town or spawn a little bit away from it, it just depends on your luck. If you don't spawn directly in a town it is advised to make your way to one as soon as possible because that is where you are going to get everything you need for your adventures. You can also learn more about the world there."
"Next is about the classes in the game and the differences between them. Not everyone is going to be able to choose the exact same class as you only get classes that are within your talents, for example, if you are very talented in magic and you have potential with a sword then you could have a chance to get the Unique class 'Magic Swordsman'. These Unique classes are very rare and very few people will have them, there are classes above Unique such as Epic, Legendary, and Mythical. Everything is dependent on your talent, if you are talentless you don't need to worry since well no one has ever been talentless."
"Now the last thing is about your character. Many people don't like this but you cannot change what you look like from the real world. You may choose a username but the game will not allow you to change your real name which is going to be the same as your name in the real world." The fairy finished explaining the basics of the game and suddenly pulled out a white large crystal about the length of about 10 feet.
"Since the tutorial is done we will now measure your talents, do you have any questions?"
Throughout the whole explanation Augustus was still in shock that this wasn't the afterlife when learning it was really a game. He still listened to her though as he still needed to know his current predicament and was surprised it was similar to his old world since this world has magic as well as well as magic swordsmen. He took a few seconds to digest all of the information that he was just told and didn't have any questions so they moved onto testing his talents which he was worried about.
The little fairy could see that the man was nervous and thought that it was normal since not everyone would be able to be what they wanted but the fairy couldn't be more wrong. Augustus wasn't worried about what class he would be able to choose he was worried that he would be restricted again because of his curses but there is no way that would happen right? He died and the curses should have died with him and he should be fine now but the fear still lingered in his heart.
"Its okay don't worry about your talents as hard work is just as important as talent, if you put in enough work you can be just as powerful people who are considered geniuses!" The little fairy said to cheer him up"
"Now place your hand on top of the crystal and hold it there for 10 seconds, your results will show up on the screen right next to me so that's where you'll see the results." The fairy explained.
Augustus slowly walked up to the crystal that was about half his size and placed his hand on top of it nervously. Every second felt like an eternity for him as he got more and more stressed feeling that he would still have the curses he once had in the world he was in before.
As soon as 10 seconds hit the status screen showed him his talents.
[Talents -
Sword - S
Dagger - SSS
Mana - SSS
Magic Control - *%^
Shadow Magic - SSS
Death Magic - SSS
Overall Grade - SSS]
When both the fairy and man read this at the same time they had polar opposite reactions when they finished reading it. The fairy almost fainted when seeing this many SSS talents, she had seen people have SSS talents since she was the one who was actually talking to every single person that logged into the game currently but she has yet to come across someone with all S+ talents. She also saw something new that she never saw before, 'Magic Control' didn't even have anything on it. When she looked over to see the man she was surprised to see he looked dead inside.
'This is exactly what I didn't want... It even followed me to my next life... Why.... Why can't I just live a normal life and get rid of this FUCKING CURSE!' Augustus screamed inside his head.
Even if he had these SSS talents just as he had last life he would end up miserable just like last life. Anyone who wielded Shadow Magic was marked for death in his old world. To add on to this when his own foster father and mother found out he had this magic they tried to kill him. He was only 5 and his parents who had adopted him when he was a baby were trying to kill him because he had talent for shadow magic.
He had abysmal magic control at the time so when his parents were trying to kill him he let all the magic out of him that he could to defend himself but he ended up releasing so much he had killed his parents instantly. He didn't understand what happened until someone had found him with his shadow magic swirling around him and his parents remains scattered around him and immediately called him a monster. He didn't wanna cause harm he just didn't wanna get hurt he didn't understand anything at all but he suddenly heard a voice in his head.