Oscar had no idea how much time had passed. He was in a dark vacuum, moving at a speed his brain failed to register. Well, it wasn't like he even had a brain anymore—he was dead, anyway.
Died on the first day of regression.
After what felt like an eternity, a speck of light appeared before his eyes. It quickly zoomed in, looking like a seed waiting to sprout.
He saw it become a sapling, then a little plant with a few leaves, before transforming into a massive tree that stretched as far as his vision could reach.
Then the surroundings changed. It shifted into a three-dimensional scene, with him as an omniscient observer.
He watched the tree's roots descend and coil around a beating heart. The branches extended in all directions, oddly resembling human veins.
Then his vision shifted again.
With the tree at the centre, countless bubbles of unnatural life energy floated in an endless space. Each bubble was connected to the tree's branches, wrapped in a protective embrace of leaves against whatever lay beyond.
Then the scene changed. Oscar found himself staring into a mirror.
A stranger, but oddly familiar figure, stared back at him. Dark golden hair cascaded past his shoulders, and a pair of crescent-shaped golden pupils contracted in surprise.
"Alaric Kingsley?"
Why was the man in the reflection following his lip movements? Oscar covered his mouth in terror as the man in the mirror repeated the action.
"How did I become you?"
Oscar felt his world tilt, nausea rising in his throat. He glanced around, but there was only himself and this mirror in a space that blurred and flickered like a hologram.
Alaric Kingsley—the only NPC in The Card Online, and the main protagonist the universe had chosen for itself. Somehow he became him, Oscar rubbed his face trying to shake of the non present mask.
Nothing happened except the dire reality of him becoming the absolute controller of the Card online.
The Card Online was actually a trial forced upon its inhabitants so they could survive after merging with the Star Network.
However, humans on Earth saw it merely as a virtual game at the start. Meanwhile, other planetary races understood its true purpose.
Early on, these off-world races posed as NPCs, tricking humans into completing fake missions while claiming the real rewards themselves.
By the time humans discovered the truth, it was too late; half the game had already been explored and completed.
With their limited strength, humans contributed little to the second half. As a result, the game ended with them labeled a 'mediocre race,' forced to start from a battlefield once the merge happened.
Still, humans endured under harsh circumstances, though their lives were anything but easy. They had to fight horrifying mirage abominations every day, risking their own and their loved ones' lives.
Alaric clenched his fists in anger. Perhaps humanity was naive and clueless in the grand scheme, but it was still his race. It hurt to know the bleak fate that awaited them.
In this life, he would do everything in his power to prevent that outcome. After all, he was Alaric Kingsley, the only NPC in the game, and the only one who could initiate quests.
"Wait, why am I thinking of myself as Alaric?" Oscar spoke aloud, startled.
He had no idea how he became Alaric, was it an illusion?. Anxiety spiked as he felt unfamiliar emotions—ones that weren't his—starting to creep in.
They weren't erasing the original Oscar, but they were injecting him with Alaric, making him fully Alaric. So this wasn't an illusion!
"I have to think," Alaric—no, Oscar—muttered. "One plus one equals two. Oscar before and after equals Al… Oscar."
He repeated it over and over until he accepted it: whether Oscar or Alaric, at the end of the day, they were the same soul who had saw the end. He embraced that truth.
He was neither only Oscar nor only Alaric—they were both him. A slight smile tugged at Alaric's lips as the scene before him froze, revealing a blue screen.
[Formation of the world's administrator is a success.]
[Sharing authority of the sealed failed world to Alaric Kingsley…]
[The virtual world has been created!]
[Congratulations on becoming the chosen one!]
The space around Alaric began to distort, transitioning into an actual world brimming with magical energy.
He watched new continents form. Oceans filled and separated these lands. Concrete cities rose across them. Monsters began to spawn, shaping their surroundings according to their properties.
The game's monsters were similar to mirage monsters, which could alter the atmosphere based on their nature.
If one trained seriously against these monsters, they could face real monster without not that much difficulty. The game had 'Trail grounds' as a name for that reason.
Suddenly, Alaric snapped back. The surroundings blurred, and he felt himself slam into the soft embrace of a bed. He blinked several times, then involuntarily muttered the first word that came to mind:
"Status!"
[Name: Alaric Kingsley]
[Role: The World Administrator]
[Title: The World's Supreme Protagonist]
[Heart Card: Dreambound]
[Variance: 10]
[Dreambound]
Properties: Your dreams become your power!
End: Only you will see the end.
Alaric read the screen with excitement. In the game, the protagonist was always overpowered.
Despite countless attempting to find the reason for it, all failed. Now, reading the details about his heart card, Alaric had an idea why the strength of the protagonist was always above all.
"What the fuck, he just has to dream to obtain power?"
No wonder!
When every player in the game was doing almost impossible missions to power up, he just had to dream, and boom, he became strong.
Alaric had no words to explain his mood. It improved his mood that now it was him with such a talent.
'It is justified. I am the protagonist after all,' his gaze landed on the end of him predicted by the system. Alaric frowned at it.
The end was a prediction of the future awaited by a player by the system. It might change as per their actions, but still, it was a bit creepy to see such a prediction of his end.
Despite protagonist having such an overpowered talent, in the previous life he fell even before he would see the end. If so, how much powerful was that monster?
Alaric shivered remembering the blurred image of that monster.
'Whatever, it's better to worry about the present rather than waste my time on the future. At least I can change my future, but not the present,' thought Alaric, shaking off the anxiety gripped in him.
After all, he had to greet the players entering the game. He glanced at the timing in the air.
He had to be in better state for that, in the end he was the administrator of this game, right?
* *
Far away from Earth, on a planet that circled around a huge purple star.
A group of people in different shapes and varying sizes gathered around a table. All of them stared at the timing nearing zero. They all wore futuristic helmets on their heads.
The rulers of sixty-six galaxies nearby couldn't wait… to enter the trial grounds and achieve the power their ancestors predicted.
Similar gatherings were happening in every corner of the universe, while humanity, clueless about these, continued their ordinary lives.
This was what happened in Oscar's previous life; however, in this life, something he never expected happened.
Inside a huge mansion on a private island in the Caribbean, the heir to the famous business empire, Sofia Sinclair, opened her eyes.
Her gaze hardened akin to something not possible in a seventeen-year-old girl before a grin formed on her lips.
"So I regressed?"