《Death is Just a New Opportunity》Chapter 2
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God, I feel so good. Okay, some people may take that out of context but it’s true. I feel the most comfortable I have ever been in my entire life. Admittedly I have only been alive for a couple of hours, not even a full day yet. That doesn’t change the fact of the matter that I’m so fucking comfortable. At this wonderful moment, I’m curled up in a blanket, wrapped around my mother’s arms. It seems we’re in my old house, or rather, my current house. I and my mother are in the bed while my father is standing up trying to get my attention.
Huh, now that I think about it, I didn’t tell any of you our names, did I? Well, a couple hours ago, my parents decided on the name Xavior Dark Jr., after my father, Xavior Dark. My mother name is Sarah Dark, taking my father’s last name. In the future, if things go the same, I’ll have a little brother named Neo Dark in a year. At this moment in time, I have no way of self-transportation. I can barely move my little fingers. That, is a problem, especially when I have a Mission to do.
My father starts pouting at the fact that I’m not paying attention to him. I decide to throw him a bone and slightly turn my head so I can look at him. Honestly, it was way fucking harder than it should have been. It almost took all my might just to move my neck! Being a baby sucks. I start to laugh at the silly faces he’s making to make him happy. After he hears my little baby giggle, a big smile appears on his face and he jumps at excitement. I can’t help but laugh a little more at his display. I hear my mother laughing as well. I decide not to look up because it’s too tiring.
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I eventually stop paying attention to my father to focus on something more important. I need to figure out the extent of what God did. I didn’t question it until now but now that I think about it, what the hell was that blue screen that popped up in front of me. No one else seemed to notice it so it seems like it’s something only I can see. That’s not really the thing that has me curious about what else God might have done to me. No, it’s the second screen that popped up telling me that I have my first objective. At first, I just assumed that it only popped up so I know what’s going on. I thought that it wouldn’t really come back after that. That doesn’t seem to be the case though. If I think back on it, the message was congratulating me on my first objective. This means that it will be giving me more in the future.
In my last life, I wasn’t very religious. It’s not like I didn’t believe in God, no, that’s not the case. I believed in a God, I just didn’t know which one I believed in. You see, there are many religions in the world, some with one God, some with many Gods, and some without any Gods at all. I believed that there was something or somethings that were higher than us, that created our universe, I just wasn’t sure which one to pick. How can you believe that your religion is the right one when there are thousands of others? Some people would give a half-assed definition or would say something like “You just have to have faith” but I couldn’t accept any of them.
You needed to know this about me before I move on so it can make sense. The thing is, I think God or the Gods created our universe out of boredom. I believe our life is like a game or show for them to watch. Now, you might think I’m crazy but the thing is, I’m a realist, so I think about things instead of accepting them blindly. Think about it, why else would the Gods create us? Humans tend to have a superiority complex to everything else, and even if they say they don’t, they do. They think that they were specially chosen or that they have a purpose. I call bullcrap on it all. What makes you special from anything else the Gods created? So when I say the Gods created us out of boredom some people will get furious. Well before you have a heart attack, I want you to think as if you were God. You are an immortal being with nothing at all to do because nothing is created. You're the only intelligent thing alive and there is literally nothing to do. After you spend billions of years bored, tell me, what would you do? Create something correct? It’s literally the only thing you can do since nothing is in existence yet except for yourself. You create something because you can’t handle the sheer boredom anymore. You need something to entertain you, to spice things up, so you create.
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Now here’s the thing, if my logic is correct, even if I take every opportunity I have ever missed, it would probably still have been done before by someone else. Nothing really entertaining when you're older than all thr number of humans alive. So why did God give me this second chance? Thousands of people die every day without doing anything with their lives, even if I skipped out on all my opportunities, it shouldn’t really matter. Even if you say something like “God just want the best for all his children” I could counter by saying that if that was true in this situation, they would have revived every human who died ever because most of us die with regrets and missed opportunities.
I’m thinking, what probably happened is, God gave me many opportunities to relieve their boredom, even just a little, and I straight out skipped all of them. That probably made them a little frustrated. They probably found a way to make my life more troublesome while ensuring on getting, even more, entertainment than before.
Congratulations! For figuring out something most don't find out on their first day and thinking logically, without any emotions interfering, you get the skill: Gamer's Mind +5 Wisdom +5 Intelligence
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2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. 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I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. 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