Time slowed. Yuki didn’t close her eyes. Didn’t— couldn’t move. She faced Truck-kun head-on.
There were several ways it could have reached her: a freak accident on the adjacent highway, a flying transport, magic. It all amounted to the same result: Truck-kun was here, and she was dead.
A small part of her felt vindicated for preparing the locker, the email, and the time-gated delivery. No one believed when she said Truck-kun was real. Now, her death would be the proof needed to expose the inter-dimensional serial killer.
Before the truck could turn her into a pancake, someone tackled her out of the way.
Time resumed its regular cadence. The truck flew past and hit the electrical devices behind the stage. The crash was deafening. The building shook, smoke billowed from the impact site, people screamed.
Yuki groaned, an uncoordinated hand pushing against the ground, face hurting where it hit the floor. She sat up and looked around. A handsome guy sat a few feet away, eyes piercing blue, his hair perfectly styled even after the tumble. His eyes widened when their gaze met. A smile blossomed on his face, and he opened his arms wide. “I’m so glad you’re—“
Yuki punched his beak shut. Unbelievable. Saved by the stalker.
That was it, enough was enough. Not that being saved was bad. She was happy to be alive. But why him, of all people? Why in the nine anime-hells did it have to be him?
Leaving the house today had been a mistake. It was one of the days the investigation indicated Truck-kun would reap another victim, but she’d been preparing for this convention for months. And now, the MG Pink Love Genocide cosplay was in shambles, and she owed a life debt to the stalker. It was time to return home and disable all the dead-man switches.
Yuki ignored the growing ruckus from the other convention attendees, got up, and dusted the cosplay, trying to salvage the priceless artifact. She took a step, stopped, kicked the stalker for good measure. Satisfied, turned toward the exit.
Behind, the stage was on fire. Very on fire. Dark, brooding smoke billowed from the truck.
Yuki hadn’t taken more than a couple of paces when the truck exploded. The blast propelled one of the tires straight at her. Time didn’t slow down. The tire clocked her head, and she saw no more.
Yuki didn’t open her eyes. She had none. At some point, awareness simply returned. She tried to move but had no body, even if agony crawled behind eyes that didn’t exist. Hovering in front of a face that wasn’t there was a blue interface box where strange letters scrolled.
Yuki took stock. She died.
Somehow, Truck-kun managed to reap his victim even after the stalker intervened. Now, she was in some dark, featureless place with a system window glowing a few centimeters away.
Isekai’ed. Well, it could have been worse.
All that effort that went into gathering the evidence wouldn’t go to waste. There was a hint of curiosity to know about what would happen when her death and leaks hit the news, given the circumstances.
But that was in the past: old memories, old life. There was now a new adventure to brave.
Yuki already had a plan in mind. All those hours checking out isekai novels, ice cream, and pizza recipes weren’t in vain, no matter what others said. The ‘Isekai invention list’ would finally come into play. Riches and fame awaited, but first, the system.
“Hello?” Yuki called out.
No answers.
That was good. Perfect, even. No meddling god or goddess to screw this process. Her attention turned back to the system window: there were a lot of messages there.
With intangible hands, she scrolled up and up and up. The messages didn’t seem to end. They were mostly the same line repeated over and over. The broken system trope? There were ways to exploit that.
The translucent blue system window shimmered, and new lines appeared, this time in English.
Language sample detected.
Calibrating…
Yuki didn’t need to wait for long. A god-blessed character’s sheet popped where once was the blue UI. It had several tabs. Trembling, invisible fingers clicked on the first tab.
Name: —.
Gender: N/A.
Race: Locked.
Troubling. No name. Race locked. She clicked on gender— the only option not grayed out— and set female. Yuki liked gender bender like every sane person but didn’t want to live the bender; she just loved to read the bender.
Yuki closed that tab and clicked on the next one.
Body: Locked
Mind: Locked
Soul: Locked
Only three stats? Did they… encompass the whole thing? The names seemed simple enough, but well. Fingers tapped on Soul, one, three, maybe five times. Nothing.
“Identify!”
Silence was her answer. “System, help! What is Body? What does it do?”
A new log message appeared.
System help functions are unavailable outside the tutorial.
Progress. The following request was obvious. “System, please start the tutorial.”
Tutorial completed 4242 system days ago.
What an oddly specific number. Was this really the broken system trope?
More thoughts fired between neurons. The system had responded to ‘help’ but not to the question of what body was. It also responded to the tutorial request. Had one question obscured the other? It was easy to test.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“System, what is Body?”
System information is unavailable while resolving trait effects.
Ugh. Was the system stuck in a logic loop or something? Or was this just the Unhelpful Broken System trope? It was okay; Yuki had read many of those stories, and there was always a way around it. Would the system also turn out to be snarky with the log messages? She hoped it would. She loved those.
After another glance to make sure she wasn’t missing anything and a few more taps on Mind and Soul to make sure there was no way to add attribute points, she moved to the next tab.
Heroic Trait: Reincarnation.
Heroic Title: Summoned Hero.
Trait: Locked.
Title: Locked.
There was nothing that could change here on that tab. She tried clicking, tapping, yelling. It was read-only information, with no information to read, but it shed light on the setting: Summoned hero.
A world with a Demon King? Bad flag.
A broken system and hero summoning often meant the system was a tool to harvest the hero’s soul after the quest was completed to power some bullshit ritual or another.
Gooseflesh rippled throughout Yuki’s nonexistent skin. Yikes, best be careful with this one, or she’d end up as fuel to whatever trap the summoning was.
The Skills and Quests tabs were grayed out and inaccessible. Which was a shame; Yuki wanted to know what skills the system provided. It would have to wait. That left the last one. With trembling fingers, she clicked on it.
Magic.
Tradition: N/A.
Skill: N/A.
“Yes!” Yuki danced, cheered, swayed.
Magic wasn’t locked. This was it, finally! It was time to be a sorceress for real! No more cosplaying and pretending. Magic! What should her sorceress’s name be? So many ideas. She clicked on the option tradition and saw a list of choices.
Choose from:
-Sorcery.
-Theism.
-Mysticism.
-Animism.
-Elementalism.
Yuki glanced at the options, with no idea what Mysticism and Animism were; maybe animism was related to animating things, necromancy, or golems? A necromancer magic girl could be fun, but the idea of dealing with corpses didn’t appeal. Nope, that one was out.
Mysticism, no clue what it was either. Elementalism, were probably the elements— Sorceress Avatar? Sorceress Firebending?
The word ‘theism’ was related to gods; Yuki was sure about that one. Arch Priestess of Magic? No, that didn’t sound right, and she wanted no part in any deals with any gods. It always ended in disaster.
She clicked the only real option. It was the basis for every sorceress and magical girl out there. The power of love! Arcane magic! Unlimited powaaa!!
Bubbly happiness moved in her core. The previous interface came back.
Magic.
Tradition: Sorcery.
Skill: Invocation, Shaping.
Yuki didn’t know what invocation and shaping were. She’d learn it first thing after character creation. A new tab appeared after confirming the choices. Giddy energy started from her nonexistent toes to the tip of her nose. The new tab read: Spells.
“YES!” She screamed in glee. Time to get those juicy spells! Fingers smashed that tab.
Choose ten.
The list was long and had no descriptions whatsoever; the only thing she could see was the name of each spell. How was she supposed to know what each did? She took an unneeded breath and read the complete list.
Yuki wanted to flip one, maybe several tables. Where were the nice-sounding, easy-to-understand spell names? She looked at the list again. Where were the valuable and indispensable ‘Friends’ or maybe ‘Charm Person’ or even the super helpful ‘Fly’? What was up with those names? Actuate Machinery? Yuki had no idea what actuate meant.
The final selection— based on names— was:
Appraise.
Contract Familiar.
Enchant.
Neutralise Magic.
Portal.
Protective Ward.
Regenerate.
Shapechange.
Spell Resistance.
Wrack.
Yuki’s reasoning wasn’t that complicated: Everyone needed a healing, a dispel, a shield spell, a way to create magic items, and, of course, offensive magics. With luck, Portal could serve a similar function as a Teleportation. Those were educated guesses based on the spell names. She wasn’t about to risk picking something she couldn’t even pronounce. But seriously—Loxodromic Locomotion? What even was a loxodromic? She hadn’t known that word existed until five minutes ago.
Appraise was the only one she hesitated over. Wasn’t the system supposed to have a similar function? Ethereal tables would flip if that appraise wasted the spell slot. Shapechange and Contract Familiar were just the bread and butter of any worthy sorceress. A crow familiar was a must. Couldn’t pass up the chance to transform into a giant crow.
With the spells selected, she confirmed the choices.
The system wasted no time.
Select a skill template:
- Warrior.
- Mage.
- Scout.
Did she even need to think? Yuki smashed that second option.
Select an attribute distribution:
- Warrior.
- Mage.
- Scout.
- Warrior/Mage.
- Warrior/Scout.
- Mage/Scout.
- Warrior/Mage/Scout.
Choice and choices. Yuki was tempted to pick Warrior/Mage; after all, a magic gi—sorceress also needed to be good at close-quarters combat, right? But with magic, she could boost physical capabilities. In that case, wasn’t it preferable to excel at one rather than be mediocre at two and terrible at three?
It was option two again.
Confirm selection?
Yes/No.
That was it.
Before her death — when not waging a clandestine war against Truck-kun — Yuki had always dreamed of having magic and going on a magical adventure. Days lost in books and fantasy worlds, wishing she was the protagonist, to brave dungeons, slay monsters, save villages, or even better, seduce the princes and princesses of the world. She wasn’t hero material, but if the adventure led to saving the world? All the better! One thing was sure: she would be the bestest sorceress in whatever world she ended up in! She clicked yes, giddy anticipation at the start of a new adventure.
Calibrating…
Error: Trait waiting for resolution.
Active trait supersedes user choices.
Incompatible template selection.
Incompatible attribute distribution selection.
“What!?” What was this about active traits and choices? There was no trait to select from, they were all locked.
Calibrating…
Calibrating…
Calibrating…
No compatible template found.
Extending parameters.
Calibrating…
That didn’t look good, not one bit. Had she broken the broken system trope even more?
Solution found.
Assigning race based on active trait.
Allocating attributes based on user choices.
Applying user-defined preferences.
Error: User choices and race selection are incompatible.
Calculating…
Reallocating attributes.
Calculating starting skills.
Error: Race selection and starting skills incompatible.
Reassigning starting skills based on race.
Selecting spawn point.
Setup complete.
That… was ominous as heck.
What was happening? Why were her non-existent bones trembling?
Welcome traveler.
May you enjoy your third and final life.
“Third what?” Yuki yelled, but it was too late. Without ceremony, her consciousness faded, and she saw no more.