"..."
"You're wondering why you don't remember our last meeting. I don't blame you, if I don't wish so not even gods could remember."
Vigil casually waved his hand.
"Aargh!" Adrian screamed as the memories of their last meeting were poured into his head.
"I apologize for that. There are many safety measures to keep me safe. I may be incredibly strong, but that doesn't mean I underestimate my enemies."
The pain left Adrian as quickly as it arrived.
"I understand... But what could you possibly want from me? There's not much I can offer."
"That's only how you see it. But what I want from you is to travel to a different world. I'm certain you already have some rough idea about it from novels, manga and anime."
"Yes." Adrian nodded.
"The world that you'll travel to is a world of swords and magic, Opportunitas. It has powerful heroes, blood-thirsty demons, wise magicians, ancient dragons, a Demon King, powerful and interesting abilities. It also has a way to help you get rid of your problem." said Vigil enthusiastically.
"!"
"What you'll do there is entirely up to you. If you decide to become a hero, you can! If you decide to destroy the world, you can! It doesn't matter what you decide to do, so you don't have to worry overly about it."
Despite suspecting Vigil, there was not much Adrian could do besides accept his proposal. Refusing his offer would not be any different from accepting his own death.
"I accept your offer."
"Perfect." Vigil smiled.
"Now then," Vigil said as many papers appeared from nothingness and started floating around both of them. "You will have to make a choice."
Adrian looked at many papers surrounding them. All of them contained vague information.
'Gain time-control.'
'Reincarnate as a vampire noble of the Crimson clan.'
'Gain a system.'
'Reincarnate as a prince of a powerful empire.'
'Gain the location and time of a hero summoning that will happen soon.'
'Reincarnate as a slime.'
'Get summoned by a cult that will soon be annihilated.'
'N̳̯̐͛o̯͖͑̂̍͢ṱ̱͔̪̉͒͂̔h͇̼͕̔̍͞i̠̺̹̎̀̄͟͠n̡̟̩̤̤̊̀̉̿̚g̮͔̺͖̿̾̈́́.̧͈̼̑͊̂̊ͅ'
'Reincarnate as a demigod's son.'
'Gain god-like comprehension.'
'Gain two lives.'
'Become a Demon King.'
'Gain the best possible talent for magic.'
'Gain Clairvoyance.'
'Be summoned to a treasury room of a dangerous dungeon.'
'I understand now. This is like that comedy isekai I've watched. At the start, the protagonist gets to choose a single powerful ability or talent. But still, most of these seem really overpowered, so much that it feels a little off.'
There were many papers, too many for Adrian to read all of them thoroughly. Adrian thought about the decision for quite a while. After all, it was very important and it would most likely decide his fate.
"Can I ask some questions?"
"Try asking. Maybe I will give you the answers." Vigil said with a smile on his face.
"Can you tell me more about my curse?"
"I could, but would it not be more exciting if you found out about it by yourself?"
"In that case, can I ask about the choices?"
"Of course."
"There are three choices that interest me."
"The hero summoning."
"The cult summoning."
"And…"
"N̳̯̐͛o̯͖͑̂̍͢ṱ̱͔̪̉͒͂̔h͇̼͕̔̍͞i̠̺̹̎̀̄͟͠n̡̟̩̤̤̊̀̉̿̚g̮͔̺͖̿̾̈́́.̧͈̼̑͊̂̊ͅ"
Vigil frowned and then snapped his fingers. Black flame burned the paper with the corrupted text and turned into nothingness.
"I apologize for that. A choice like that was not supposed to be there."
"But your other two choices..."
"The first one is a classic choice chosen by many, but knowing your personality, the outcome of this choice would be considerably different from other people and certainly interesting."
"The second choice... You really are an interesting person, Adrian." Vigil smiled.
"Before that, can you tell me why you chose these three?" Vigil said with an intrigued face.
"I chose the hero summoning because heroes are some of the most powerful beings in fiction, sometimes capable of slaying even gods. If I became a hero, I would get enormous support from the humanity and my power would rise quickly. I would also be in a very safe environment. Since heroes aren't that common, humans would do their best to protect me while I become stronger."
"An obvious choice, huh?"
"I chose the cult summoning because it differed from other choices. While other choices had only positive things written about them, the cult summoning was different. The cult will be annihilated, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. After checking the other choices, I believe all of them should have their own pros and cons. That means the cult summoning is a high risk, high reward choice."
"You're sharp."
"And the last choice... I felt allured by it. It felt like I had to choose it, no matter what. Now that I think about I don't understand it myself."
"Hmm... Adrian, I appreciate you giving me your reasoning."
"Now, what are your questions?" Vigil said.
"How are the heroes chosen, and how do they become so powerful? I'm almost certain that not just any person can become a hero."
"You're right, not everyone can become a hero. Heroes are people with more powerful souls than regular people, but that is not all. Because there's only so much you can do with a soul in a normal state, you have to unlock it to use more of its power."
"Souls contain soul essence, as a being with soul lives. Soul essence gets used up among many, many lives. Soul essence is mainly reserved for other lives, but what do you think would happen if someone used soul essence meant for many lives in a single life? Ignoring the possibility of destroying their soul completely, they would become way more powerful. That process is called soul unlocking, or soul essence unlocking."
"There are two methods of soul unlocking, natural and artificial. The natural method is used mostly by more powerful and knowledgeable souls. They use some of their soul essence to gain power and use the rest to keep their memories and knowledge in their next lives while they chase after soul immortality. Then there is the more common artificial method, it is crudely unlocking all of soul essence. More powerful entities or gods usually use this method to create powerful soldiers or heroes. It's very inefficient, and it uses up most or all of soul essence in a single life, meaning after the heroes die, their souls usually cease to exist. But for higher beings, souls are easy to gather, so despite the method being dangerous and inefficient, they still use it."
'If this soul unlocking is as powerful as it sounds, then the hero summoning might not be a great choice.'
"If I chose the hero summoning, and they performed the artificial method on me, how much stronger would I become?"
"Not much. At most, a level of an experienced adventurer."
"Huh?! W-Why?"
"Your soul."
"...My soul?"
"It doesn't have much soul essence remaining. In the current state, you will run out of soul essence even before you die of old age."
"...Is that perhaps related to my main problem?"
"..." Vigil had a neutral expression, neither confirming nor denying the question.
"I see..." Adrian said to himself.
"The cult summoning is probably different from the hero summoning. How?"
"The cult summoning is simply summoning a person from a different realm or world. It has nothing to do with soul unlocking."
"Since the cult summoning is riskier, what are the rewards?"
"I cannot say. It would make it too easy."
"What was the last paper?"
"The corrupted text, huh? It was probably put there by someone like me. It's hard to say if it was meant to annoy me or something else. I have a lot of enemies. But you don't have to worry about it." Vigil said with a slight frown.
"I think you should already be satisfied with my answers. Now, pick a choice."
"I choose..."
"The cult summoning." Adrian said with a resolute expression.
"Certainly an unexpected choice. We'll see if it was a good one."
...
A man with gold armor stood outside an adventurer's guild, in front of him stood many soldiers, adventurers and mercenaries. He was the commander of the subjugation squad, Jeffrey.
"Welcome to the devil's subjugation. I hope all of you are ready and have steeled your resolve. As you know, the devil is causing many deaths, chaos, and havoc. That's why we are here, to kill him and to get rid of the true evil!"
"Yeah!"
"Let's kill the devil!"
"I can't wait to get the reward!"
"Wohoo!"
"Let's get rid of the devil!"
"Let's become the heroes who killed the devil!"
All the people present were screaming and already celebrating the death of the devil. After finishing, they went to the devil's location.
It was night, the white moon was shining, stars were sparkling, and the icy wind was blowing. The subjugation squad or army, considering the numbers of them. If normal people saw them without context, they would think they were going to a battle with an enemy kingdom, but it was only for the sake of killing a single person.
A lone person stood in the middle of a field. The person's whole body was hidden under a long black robe. The person gave off a suffocating aura.
"The ants have arrived. How annoying." the person said without a hint of emotion.
The subjugation squad surrounded the devil, who they were supposed to hunt for fame and riches. Archers and magicians hid in the rear. In front of them stood people with swords, axes, spears and shields, and other close-range weapons. The commander Jeffrey stood in the squad's face, his golden sword was shining as if ready for the battle.
The devil stopped and stood without moving. But he wasn't scared. There was no way these ants could scare him after all those painful and hard years he spent to gain power.
"Let's kill the devil! The person who kills him will get a bonus!" shouted Jeffrey.
All of them ran to the devil with their weapons. Archers shot arrows and magicians fired spells. Jeffrey swung his golden sword at the neck of the devil. Despite the danger, the devil didn't move. Just as Jeffrey's sword was about to cut off the devil's head, a silver sword stopped it. Many people screamed and sounds of battle followed.
Another person stood in front of the devil. It was a man in silver armor.
"Mihel, what is the meaning of this!" shouted Jeffrey with an angry expression.
"The charade finally ends. I wouldn't have to do this if you weren't stupid enough to raise your sword against my lord!"
"!" Jeffrey had a surprised expression. He looked around to see many of the members of the subjugation fighting among themselves or, to be specific, a small number of the subjugation members were fighting the rest.
"Did you truly think my lord would not be prepared for this situation? We have infiltrated the whole kingdom generations ago. Now prepare to die!" Mihel said as he charged with his sword at Jeffrey.
Jeffrey charged at Mihel and slashed the golden sword at his neck. Mihel raised his sword to block the slash. When the swords collided, Mihel flew back at fast speed and fell to the ground. His body was a mess, blood was flowing from his body, and many of his bones were shattered.
"You bastard, how dare you! After all these years we spent together!" Jeffrey shouted as he raised his sword that shone as if it was alive.
He swung the sword, aiming for the neck of Mihel. This time, he would kill the traitor. Unfortunately, he forgot about the biggest threat...
His body froze, unable to move, and so did everyone else's. The loud battlefield became silent. Not even a single person dared to talk or blink. The devil moved.
"A soul weapon. It has been a while since I saw one." the devil said as he appeared in front of Jeffrey.
The devil reached his hand towards the sword. It wasn't a hand of a human; it was a hand of some powerful monster. The sword shone and shook as if trying to escape. The devil took the sword from Jeffrey's hand. The second he touched the sword, it lost all of its light as if it died.
"Interesting, for giving me this sword I will give you a swift death." the devil said.
Jeffrey looked him in the eyes, his body shook, he realized he had made a huge mistake that would cost him his life.
The devil swung the golden sword, aiming for the neck of Jeffrey. His vision turned black.
...
A boy woke up from a terrible dream. His body was sweating heavily, and he was out of breath.
The boy stood up quickly and looked in the closest mirror. He saw his youthful body and touched his face as if unable to believe it was his body.
"This... How is this possible?" the boy said with a confused expression.
"I came back in time. I see how it is... The gods want me to stop the devil this time."
"I, Jeffrey, will definitely kill the devil and prevent the bloodshed caused by him!"