Chapter 3

The boy felt his awareness slowly return to him. It felt almost like waking up. The lack of pain was amazing; he didn’t hurt at all. He didn’t hurt from all the broken bones he just suffered and the constant dull ache that plagued his legs had faded. He kept his eyes shut as he slowly ran his hands down his thighs. They were….whole.

His eyes flashed open and looked his legs over; they confirmed what his hands had felt: they were unbroken, whole. The boy slid over to the side of the stone pedestal he was laying on, not caring about his surroundings. He slowly placed his feet onto the glowing white stone that made up the ground and pushed himself to his feet.

The boy promptly fell.

“Well,” he mumbled to himself with a big grin on his face, “I can’t expect to magically know how to walk after never having done it before.”

If all it took to be able to walk was practice then he would practice until he could walk and run as easily as other people, no, better!

He finally glanced around to see where he was. He was currently standing on a circular platform it was twenty feet in diameter and made of closely interconnected glowing interconnected white stones. The platform was surrounded on all sides by darkness the only light coming from the gentle, almost pleasant, glow coming from the stones.

The boy carefully worked his way back to his feet holding onto the stone pedestal to help him balance. Fortunately it didn’t appear that his legs suffered from any kind of atrophy. That’s pretty nice. He began to take a few shaky steps relying on his pseudo-bed as an impromptu crutch.

It took a few hours of constant practice before he could walk without any issue; unfortunately the platform wasn’t big enough to practice running. He carefully walked over to the edge of the platform and looked down.There was nothing supporting it; it was just floating in the darkness.

He reached his hand out to touch the darkness and ran into some kind of barrier just a few inches out from the edge of the platform. He quickly backed away from the edge the barrier felt….almost alive. Not malicious, but watching. Now that he had noticed the presence he could sense it all around him, watching from all sides.

He turned around and the pedestal that was in the center of the room was gone; beyond it, on the other side of the platform there was a path made of the white stones meandering up into the darkness. The boy cautiously walked across the platform and toward the path. He couldn’t see the end of the path.

With a sigh the boy stepped forward, glanced down again at his legs with a quick grin, and started walking with determination along the path.

- - - - - - -

The boy had walked for hours with out stopping or taking a break.

“Thanks a lot after life. I had to learn how to walk but I have infinite stamina.” There is a certain kind of joy that comes from working hard and the infinite stamina was preventing the boy from feeling that joy. It was extremely irksome.

He glanced up the path again and noticed that there was a new platform off in the distance.

- - - - - - - -

Raften floated in the air hiding in the darkness by the Altar of Rebirth. He had spent the last few hours dealing with a couple who kept bugging him; they were finally able to work something out but he was forced to delay the boy by giving him a very long path.

The boy had been fairly quick to leave the Altar of Awakening in comparison to most of the others who won the lottery.. It had given Raften an even bigger headache than he usually got from dealing with the lottery winners. Don’t get him wrong he loves this part of the job, but the people who he usually has to deal with aren’t logical and spend their time complaining about something or other until they leave.

The last pair he dealt with were particularly persistent and even though it gave Raften a headache the deal they worked out was…interesting.

The boy finally stepped onto the Altar. It’s Showtime!

“Congratulations on winning the Afterlife Lottery boy!” Raften said carefully watching his reaction.

The boy quirked one of his eyebrows with a look of amusement on his face.

“You’re congratulating me on my death? That would feel almost insulting if I still couldn’t walk.”

“You would have died in that situation anyway; no, I’m congratulating you on winning the ‘Semi-Tragic’ category of the Afterlife Lottery. You must be extremely lucky.”

“Alright so I won. What do I get?”

“You have won the opportunity to reincarnate! I am The Overseer. It is my duty to help you reincarnate into the best world for you and to give you a gift to take with you.”

“Seriously? I get to reincarnate and I get a gift?”

Raften stared at the boy. From what he knew of the boy’s personality he should be asking about his parents or showing trauma from his death, but there was nothing; no indication of anything wrong.

“Yes, to both your questions, but aren’t you worried about your parents or how you died?”

The boy looked at the Altar base sadly. “I died in my sleep right? I know my parents will miss me but, they will be better off not having to look after a cripple like me. They won’t have to pay for expensive hospital bills; they could finally get a nice house; they could finally be happy.”

Uh-oh, Raften thought to himself, the trauma of his death must have made him forget what happened.

Raften decided to ignore it and move on. Letting the boy know the truth wasn’t important. Plus, his job description said nothing about being a counselor.

“You’re right boy; but, now is the time to decided: what kind of world do you want to be reincarnated into?”

“Is there one with magic?”

“Yes, there is! What gift do you want? Near-infinite mana? Every elemental affinity? The most powerful magic sword? The best class or skills? What do you want?”

The boy stared off the Altar in Raften’s general direction clearly thinking.

“Could I be reincarnated with my body whole?”

Raften grinned, this was going to be an interesting negotiation.

“Yeah you won’t have any problems with your body. That one’s a freebie.”

“Could I keep my age.”

“Yet another freebie! Boy, you don’t have much ambition.”

“That’s where you are wrong Overseer. I want to be strong and powerful, but I want to earn that strength I want to become strong without it being handed to me.”

Raften laughed, this was the most fun he’d had in a long time!

“I have to give you something boy! It’s my job, you see.”

“Tell me a little about this world so I can decide. Please.”

“This is a world of magic as you requested, it also uses mechanics similar to video games so you will have a status screen. Magical creatures do exist as well as various non-human races. Is that enough information or do you need more?”

“No, that’s enough. I know what I want my gift to be then. I want a skill that grants me knowledge about the world when I need it and one that tells me about how to use my status screen.”

“Very well then, boy. Both of those gifts are small enough that I can grant them both. Just be warned: your name and your face will change.”

- - - - - - -

After the Overseer said that final sentence the platform beneath the boy began to glow even brighter. The light surrounded him and the loud sound of wind echoed around him then, everything turned black.

He woke up laying on hard stone and slowly sat up with a groan. His entire body ached; he opened his eyes and found himself in a prison cell.