“What’s going on?!” I practically screamed, panicking as I watched the horrific scene happening right in front of me.

For some reason, the tall, dark-haired beauty had changed. Her hair turned silvery-white and one of her eyes flashed with purple light. As if that wasn’t strange enough, she promptly fell to the ground, spasming and screaming as she continued to cough out blood without pause.

“I am unsure,” the voice replied, “I have heard that terrestrial bodies often suffer due to diseases. Perhaps she is ill?”

Was this thing serious? It wanted to write that off as being sick? And this stupid thing was supposed to train me?

Something else was strange though. I had seen plenty of dying people before, but I had never seen anything like this. If I wasn’t mistaken, I was pretty sure that she had already lost too much blood. If the rules were the same as back on Earth, she would be dead.

“Is there some kind of magic keeping her alive? Or is it because she’s a vampire?”

“One moment. Allow me to look into this.”

I waited impatiently as the owner of the robo-voice did whatever the heck it was doing. The woman coughed out another half gallon of blood before the voice finally answered.

“In regards to your second query, this individual is not a vampire. She is one of the original, native races of this world. The amount of blood in her body should be comparable to a human and, to answer your first query, there is currently no magic preserving her life.”

“Then how the hell is she still alive?!” I asked, my voice tense.

Watching people scream in agony wasn’t exactly a hobby of mine. My inability to do anything was beyond infuriating.

“This ritual seems to have modified her body to some extent. Currently, her body is regenerating blood as fast as she is losing it. Since she is maintaining perfectly healthy levels, one can infer that she is, in fact, regenerating her blood faster than it is draining.”

“Huh? So did that ritual give her super regeneration or something?”

“That is a highly probable scenario. However, there is not enough data to return an affirmation.”

The woman let out yet another piercing wail.

“Is there any way we can help her?” I asked desperately.

“Affirmative.”

I waited tensely for the voice to continue. After a long pause, I cautiously asked.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“If it is your desire.”

Another long pause.

This was an entity designed to train gods, right? Did I really have to state it outright?

“Please tell me how I can help her,” I growled, annoyed.

“Acknowledged. Designate her as your Tether.”

“What?”

“You contemplated choosing her as your Tether, correct? That is the only way you can save her with your current level of power.”

The woman’s violent screams simmered down to a low whimper. Her arms and legs twisted unnaturally as her muscles writhed and spasmed. If one listened closely enough, they could hear the continuous crunching and snapping as her bones broke and healed in rapid succession.

Insane regeneration or not, whatever was happening to her was getting worse. Eventually, it would probably outpace her regeneration and kill her.

I decided to trust the robo-voice. Unsure of how to make her my prophet, I tried to reach out with phantasmal arms that didn’t exist, willing myself to touch her head. I felt a phantom sensation where my hand would be, but otherwise nothing changed.

“You do not need to touch her physically to make her a Tether. This is within your power as an Overseer. Command and it will be so.”

I squared my non-existent shoulders as I looked down at the young woman crying out in absolute agony.

There was no hesitation in my voice as I pointed at the woman and powerfully declared.

“As of this moment, you are my Tether.”

Several moments passed but nothing seemed to change.

“Now that you have successfully chosen your Tether, it is time to move on to the next step,” the robo-voice said.

“What are you talking about? Nothing happened!!”

I felt a heavy force pulling on me, attempting to move me away. I resisted with every strand of will in my soul as I screamed at the stupid, lying robot.

“Didn’t you say that would save her!?”

A heavy impact slammed into me from below, launching me into the sky. I tried to move back but something restrained me. There was no pain from the blow and no physical sensation against my incorporeal body, but I could somehow tell that something hit me and was holding me in place.

“Young Overseer,” the robo-voice replied calmly. “I assure you that you have already saved her. Come with me now to begin the first stage of your training. If you resist, I will have to terminate your standing and that woman will lose her status as a Tether. If that happens, she will die permanently.”

Excuse me? Did this thing just threaten me?

I wanted to scream but the final line of the voice’s warning made me hesitate. Whether or not the voice was trustworthy, I couldn’t say. However, I didn’t have the power to resist that mysterious force. Even if I did, I had no idea what else I could do to help her.

My only option was to follow the voice amicably. At the very least, I needed to build a somewhat better impression of my mental state. Having just died and reincarnated, followed by witnessing an event more horrific than anything in my previous life, it might be justified that I was a bit panicked. However, this voice was going to train me to be a god, and I had a feeling that it didn’t have a very good impression of me so far.

“Fine,” I grumbled, fighting the raging anger and heavy defeat welling up inside of me. “What are we doing next?”

“It is considered polite to introduce yourself to your seniors.”

Ah.

“Next, you are to meet your fellow Overseers who have jurisdiction over this world. As you are not yet a full-fledged Overseer, you are not qualified to know the path we must traverse. I have taken the liberty of temporarily disabling your soul for the duration of our trip.”

My vision went white as I felt all of my senses rapidly deteriorate.

What an unpleasant sensation.

***

At some point, the pain stopped. It wasn’t because she overcame the problem. Rather, it was because her nerves started dying faster than they could regenerate. In a state of total and perpetual numbness, the woman felt her mind slip and she willingly embraced the darkness.

She sat in the murky emptiness for an eternity, huddling against the edge of the hollow depths of her memories. Despite the vastness of the space, there was precious little to fill it. She could understand and contemplate words, but some of the words she knew had no meaning to her.

She knew what a name was, but she knew no names.

She knew the meaning of history but knew no history.

She knew that she had a purpose but knew not what it was.

Hiding from the recent and sole powerful memory of her own, she contemplated the fragments of language and emotions that dwelled within the vessel that was her mind.

First, her name. She most definitely did not remember her own name but could see vague flashes of unfamiliar faces speaking her name. If she focused on those memories…

Ev… Evin...? Ray...?

The memories danced at the tip of her tongue, always out of reach. She tried to reach for them, but they moved away and then slowly faded out of her mind. Then they were gone as well.

“Evin or Ray? Which should I go by?” The woman mused to herself, testing out the sounds and feelings of the names. Whether either of those was actually part of her original name or not, she had no idea. However, she would rather have a name for now and deal with that later. She couldn’t quite explain why, but she desperately wanted a name.

“Let’s go with Ray, for now,” she decided.

Ray smiled softly, mumbling her new name to herself. A sense of delight filled her soul as she gained her second distinctive memory. A bright light filled her vision and, for a very brief moment, her happiness outweighed the pain in her memory.

She awoke lying on a warm, padded surface. She lurched forward, almost falling off whatever she was lying on as she tried to grasp her surroundings. Though her vision was blurry, she realized that everything in the room was either white or gold. Something soft draped over her shoulders as someone placed a white cloak over her body.

She belatedly realized that she wasn’t wearing anything under the cloak. How embarrassing. It didn’t bother her all that much, but she was still grateful for the cloak. She turned and found the young teenager that had lent her the article. The young girl donned a bright smile as their eyes met.

“I’ve never met a human with a red eye before! And your eyes are different colors! It’s so pretty!” the girl exclaimed in English, the language of humans.

Red eye? Different colors? Okay.

Though her memories were scrambled, Ray’s various languages were untouched. She could still speak English, Ancient, Orcish, Dwarvish, and Goblin.

Ray smiled weakly at the enthusiastic young… priestess? She wore a white robe with a golden rose embroidered across the front. Her vibrant, blue eyes were filled with childlike wonder and innocence.

“So how did you die?” the girl chattered curiously.

Ray stiffened. She died? What?

What did that mean? Obviously, she was alive... right?”

“Did some monsters get ya? Goblins, or orcs? Maybe some bandits?” the girl prattled on, leaning forward as her questioning eyes gleamed.

Ray thought for a moment and then the entirety of her new existence’s most distinct memory returned to her. She clutched at her head, huddling into a ball as phantom pains raced through her body. The twisting and crunching of limbs… the blood…

Blood? At that thought, Ray’s mind was consumed with hunger. She remembered the taste of the blood that was in her mouth when she became aware, and she began to salivate. At the same time, alarm bells rang inside her mind.

‘Don’t show your teeth.’ a vestige of an old memory rose to the forefront, a sense of impending danger accompanying it. Without questioning the thought, Ray obeyed, pursing her lips to hide the sharp teeth that extended when she thought of drinking blood.

Still, she was very hungry. Ray leapt to her feet, glaring at the young girl with crazed thirst in her eyes.

The young girl sighed and calmly rang a bell. A large, heavy-built man walked in, his hand on the hilt of a sheathed sword.

“It’s another crazy,” the girl complained.

The soldier shrugged as he stepped up and grabbed Ray, lifting her struggling form into his arms.

“I’ll take care of her. You should get some rest, Kelsey. That’s the fifth person today.”

The girl, Kelsey, nodded before turning and leaving the room. Ray briefly contemplated chasing her, but she wouldn’t get very far. Though she was wriggling desperately, she couldn’t break his grip.

“Hoh…?” the man exclaimed as he easily suppressed her violent struggling, “You’ve got a bit of strength. Are you an adventurer?”

Ray froze, a dark and heavy storm filling her heart and mind. That word… ‘adventurer’? Something about that word struck a chord with Ray’s soul. She fought the urge to bite the man as she stiffly shook her head.

“Hmm…” the man tilted his head curiously.

He had short-cropped red hair and a neatly trimmed beard. A long, thin scar peaked out from the edges of an eyepatch covering his left eye.

“What’s your name, girly?” the man asked.

“Ray,” she muttered.

“Nice to meet you, Ray. My name is Max.”

“Max…” Ray tested the sound of the name.

As it was the second name she heard, after Kelsey, she would certainly remember it.

“Ray, can I ask you something?” Max asked in a warm and comforting voice.

She nodded carefully, her eyes roaming over his shoulder towards the door.

“I need you to remember what happened. It’s an important step in clearing the confusion after a respawn.”

‘Respawn’? The hell is that?

Ray shook her head sharply, rejecting the memories as they threatened to overtake her once more.

“Please, tell me.” Max pleaded softly.

She forced her body to relax.

“Will you let me down first?” she asked evenly.

She needed to get out of here. If she kept talking to this man, he would end up forcing her to think about that horrific pain.

Max carefully set her down. She waited for the moment when his grip on her was released. She took a deep breath as if to start speaking.

And she ran.

She bolted through the door, turning sharply in the opposite direction from where Kelsey had gone.

“Wait!” Max shouted after her, but Ray ignored the man as she wrapped the white cloak around herself to cover her body. She reached the end of the hall and turned sharply, moving in the direction of the soft breeze that was flowing into the building.

The halls were all the same theme and design as the room she awoke in. The core color was white while the trim and designs were done in gold. The new hall that she entered had a few wandering, white-robed individuals. Some of them watched her as she ran by, but nobody tried to stop her.

In the center of the new hall was an archway that led out to a courtyard. Ray practically leapt across the courtyard, laughing lightly as the pleasant wind caressed her face and the gentle sunlight warmed her skin. She reached the edge of the courtyard, passed under a second archway, and then she skidded to a stop. She stood at the top of a large flight of floating stairs leading down to the ground below.

Looking over the area below, a sense of awe at the beautiful overhead view of a fortress town clashed with a blurry memory dancing at the edge of her vision. As great as the town was, Ray felt an inexplicable repulsion that told her that she shouldn’t be here. She was in danger and she needed to leave.

Ray began to run once more, dashing down the stairs at breakneck speed. She moved between the stairs gracefully, never missing a step. A few people wandering below noticed and whistled, calling out in appreciation.

She ignored them as she reached the bottom of the stairs and leapt, landing on top of the nearest building. She ignored the sights and the people below as she single-mindedly focused on escaping through the gate.

Nobody in the town tried to stop her, either. Some people shouted but most just ignored her and moved along with their lives. She figured that what she was doing didn’t stand out all that much because she could see at least a few dozen other people dashing across different roofs throughout the fortress at any given moment.

Less than a minute later, Ray reached the gate. She leapt off the roof and over the guards. The guards stared in awe for a moment at the unusual sight of a young person easily clearing a jump of several meters.

Still, they didn’t bother to try and stop her.

Ray exited the gate, ignoring the crowd of people bustling to enter as she took off towards the nearby forest.

Her first priority - preventing Max from forcing her to think about that pain - check.

Now, she needed to find some blood to drink.