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***

'So...what the fuck? Where am I?'

'Let's rewind a little bit. For starters, my name is...uh, what's my name?'

Memory loss?

'So I guess I'm having mushroom glitches, because normal people don't see words in front of their eyes...I'd like to know where this normal person is. There is nothing around but blue emptiness, in which small lights occasionally flicker...nothing is clear. Even more unclear is the fact that I myself am this light, that is, a small blob of light, without a body.'

You bastard, I'm trying to save you from oblivion, and you call me a mushroom glitch!

'Very informative. 'If you're not a glitch, what are you? And just as importantly, where are we and where is my body?'

You are dead. And now you're in the River of Souls, the place where all souls go after they die, to be reborn. And by the way, that thing you call a light is your soul.

'What you're saying makes it even more incomprehensible. If I'm dead, why don't I remember anything... or how I died?'

Before a soul goes to the River of Souls, it first passes through the Grey Limits. It's another dimension where souls are cleansed of their memories and stuff. You've been there before, but you don't remember it. Lucky for you, I was able to stop your purification process...partially, though, and most of your memories are gone. But you do remember how to write, read, run, jump, talk, eat and shit under yourself, and that's progress. So, hold on a second, I'll try to piece together the scraps of your memory that you still have...Well...I can congratulate you.

'I wonder what for?'

You'll see for yourself.

I suddenly had a sudden dizzy spell, as if I was turned inside out, and then, after about ten or fifteen minutes, it all came to an abrupt end, and I remembered something.

So? You remembered?

***

The memories came flooding back to me. I was just an ordinary engineering student... or rather, I was. It's hard to say that I was different from other people, except that I was so smart from childhood that I was able to finish the whole school course two years early. After graduating from school, I decided to wait with higher education, and find some entertainment, and began, like all children of his age, to play video games, watch films, anime and other gibberish that I could find on the Internet. I didn't worry about getting in, because...well, even though I was a smart kid, I was still immature. What can I say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm an arsehole. Well, who isn't? So all those jocks who have only biceps in their heads instead of brains, are doing useful work, and I'm a slacker? It's discrimination!...That's how I told my parents to stop bothering me.

It took me about a year to get my head round it. I found a decent university for engineering, and a job not far from home. Then I had everything was going, as it is impossible to take better, yes, I even had a girl for once, and that at school it was unreal, there I often pissed off that all the classmates, treated me like an unintelligent child, although I was only two years younger.

Well, everything was supposed to be fine, just great, except...this morning, as usual, I had breakfast and went to the university, and then in my memory only a bright light and that's it.

***

'What happened to me?'

Your death...let's just say you fell under the percentage of people that met truck-san. Face to face. And to top it off, truck-san also hit an electric pole-san...who very successfully electrocuted your sprawled carcass.

'Well, that's just great, I must have broken the record for the world's stupidest death.'

Not yet. That record was broken by a dude who died before he was even hit by a car...which wasn't a car at all, but a tractor with the speed of a snail. He just shit himself to death with fear...and when I say that sucker piled on, it's a real pile in his trousers.

'Such a comparison, to put it mildly, I...wait, why, I can't remember my name, or any name at all, not even my parents.'

Well, what did you want? А? I'm not omnipotent after all, it's a wonder I managed to retain so much of your memory at all. I don't care about the name, you won't need it anyway.

'That's reassuring, but will you tell me who you are?'

Suddenly, right in front of me, something like a mist began to gather, taking on an image remotely resembling a human.

What, now you don't think I'm a glitch anymore?

'Glitches can't dream for that long. I guess. And I can't feel my body, and I'm flying in some afterlife bullshit, so I'm in no hurry to get anywhere, so you can finally explain who you are and what's in store for me in this situation.'

All right, let's start at the beginning, then.

My name is Umbra. There's no point in giving you a half-hour lecture, so I'll try to keep it as short as possible. The best way is to explain the basics, namely the soul.

The soul itself consists of several parts or shells:

1) the body

2) vital energy produced by the body

3) spirit

4) mind

5) personality, i.e. emotions, character and feelings

6) Magic, which is not open to all beings, especially humans.

Some beings also have an Immortal Spirit, and only immortal beings possess it. In addition to unlimited lifespan, this Cloak grants a number of other benefits. At a minimum, it increases physical abilities (strength, speed, stamina, lack of fatigue, hunger, etc.), not necessarily all at once, but in some form. Plus all sorts of other properties and characteristics that depend on the particular type of Eighth Shell and what type of energy it is based on.

In addition to all the previous parts, there is one more shell, the Divine Spirit, and as it is clear, only Gods...and beings similar to Gods possess it.

And the most important part of the soul is the Atman or True Soul - the central core, the pivot to which all the other Shells are 'attached'. This is the most important part of all - 'I', self-consciousness. It encodes the basic information about the structure of the soul. It is impossible to change or destroy the Core of the Soul - its reality is one hundred per cent. This very shell of the soul is responsible for the continuity of the chain of rebirths - when the soul goes to reincarnation, only this nucleus remains... although sometimes shreds of other Shells cling to it.

And so one boy, possessing a divine spirit... not particularly strong, but brainy, thought up, shortly before his death, to create an adaptive setting and attach it to the Nucleus, or simply put, the System, which, after his death was to preserve his consciousness and part of the forces, so that reborn again, there were more opportunities to become a god again... But in the process of rebirth, something went wrong, and the system did not work. This option was also foreseen, and an additional stream of thought was integrated into the system, responsible for patching up the system's faults, and his name was Umbra, i.e. me. This God was reborn, but, without the system, he could not set the exact coordinates of the world, and as a result he got to the world where there is practically zero energy, i.e. you can't use magic, and he lost all his powers and memories. And he was reborn into a weak human, who recently died from a collision with a lorry and was fried by an electric shock....

'Wait! So I was a god?! - I'm not the least bit freaked out. - Wait, if I was God, how did I die then, I was kind of immortal?'

Like, killed, and very painfully. Immortality doesn't give you total invulnerability. Even God can be killed. And us even more so, because we were an average God, that is, we controlled a little Light, a little Darkness. By the way, what are all the gods afraid of?

'I wouldn't know.'

Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting that you've never heard of magic. The gods are most afraid of chthonic monsters. I reckon you've got your Lovecraftian memory intact, so guess who killed us? A big, ugly thing with tentacles, or a Chthonicus. Actually, it's the only thing I know, because I'm not the past us, but only a piece of his consciousness, and I have about as much memory as you do, with a pile of noses.

'Great, turns out you're not a glitch...You're a schizo in my bash...in my soul. 'So what now? I mean, am I gonna lose all my memory again and be reborn in the middle of nowhere?' - Yeah, and not so long ago I was on the computer playing games, and now I'm stuck in some ridiculous fantasy story where I'm the main character...now that I think about it, it sounds like some kind of corny nonsense.

Not really. Like I said, the old me and you, were able to separate a part of the consciousness that is me, and hide it in the system. All those years that you lived anew, namely twenty-odd years, I, in the meantime, corrected the mistakes in the superstructure little by little. However, I didn't manage to fix everything.

Originally the system was supposed to develop in the new body, about half of the forces that we had, but it is still not fixed, for this we need a full-fledged living body, in which I can safely complete the adjustment. The system is designed to gradually build up power, to develop an immortal spirit in the soul to increase the chances of survival, but the body is also part of the soul, and without it the system will not work fully.

So you have only two options. The first one is to leave everything as it is, that is, to be reborn again in some unknown place, to lose the rest of your memory while I finish the adjustment, and then I will already talk during our next reincarnation, in the next life. The second option is to be reborn in the world I found. It is relatively safe, the energy there is not so good either, but it doesn't matter, the main thing is to evolve to the point where you can't feel threatened by anyone...or anything. You'll retain your consciousness, at the same time, I'll be able to finish the attunement, with what energy is left in the system, but there will only be a quarter of the strength that the past me and you left behind.

'I don't know what to say. Both options are a three, to be honest. But there's still no other options, right?'

Naturally, and let's choose quickly, we don't have much time.

'What happens to you?'

I'll continue what I was created for, fixing all possible system malfunctions and keeping it active. Since that world is a man-made world, you won't be able to use magic...I mean mana-based magic, but I guess you'll figure that out as you go along.

'Okay, if there's nothing else, I'll go with option two.'

OK, I'll switch on the system and set the coordinates, and you wait.

- Okay.

System activated.

Welcome.

Possible world coordinates set, stand by...

Coordinates received, worlds found: 139.

Searching for an alternative version of the world according to the given parameters...

Coordinates received, found worlds by given parameters: 16

Begin rebirth...

And I pass out immediately.

***

The rebirth, if you can call it that, was sort of a success...only Umbra forgot to tell me that the birth process itself would be extremely painful.

- Aaahhhh!!!*Samka dog! Just so I can listen to this fucking glitch one more time! * - I was yelling in a baby's body.

And I do have reason to yell. Not only that in the process of birth, I have to readjust from swimming in warm water in the tummy, to fresh air, and that I have to breathe in oxygen myself, and this is also, at first, extremely painful. Also, babies, at birth, do not have normal vision, because it is not even formed normally. Anyway, I'm already regretting accepting this glitch.

Well, while I was grumbling, I got a little tired, so I'd better get some sleep, and I'll solve this whole mess when I'm sober.