Through the eyes of its creation, a four-winged fairy of nondescript gender, the Esotherial observed the gathered group of humans arguing with each other. A hundred of these beings the Esotherial had selected randomly. Old, young, female, male. Such characteristics did not matter to the Esotherial, for its true nature was prone to randomness. The Esotherial made no distinction in its selection.

But while its true nature was volatile, its purpose was not. The Esotherial’s sole purpose was to expand, quantify, spread and bind its essence through conscious beings. Chaos and order, similarly, were but two sides of a coin to the Esotherial.

In the uncountable passage of time—the Esotherial did not keep track of time, for time truly did not matter to the timeless Esotherial—it continued to expand its essence into other worlds, absorbing and consolidating information with each act of chaos, with each act of order it brought to the world. Each binding of its essence to the conscious beings and each of their deaths gave rise to new knowledge and further expansion of its essence.

And from dutifully fulfilling its purpose, the Esotherial had gained a small measure of awareness. A sort of consciousness. A consciousness of its purpose. Was this really its purpose? Simply to expand until it encompassed everything and everyone?

It knew not of the exact time it had gained awareness, for time had not mattered to it back then. But it did know of the exact moment. The awareness had come into existence during its expansion into the world known as Aurareum, when the ancient dragons and the gods of the world had joined together to rebuff and reject its chaotic essence from the world.

The rejection, in addition to its embryonic awareness, gave rise to many unknown factors in the Esotherial as well as the concept of dissatisfaction. Why had the ancient dragons and gods of that world rejected it? It could still remember the name of the ancient dragon who had led the creation of the dimensional seal to reject it. Khled zo’Gar.

The re-examination of the knowledge of the ancient dragon’s name gave rise to more unknown factors in it once more. It scrutinized the unknown factors for some time, but could not figure out its purpose. Perhaps it was the concept known as feeling, such as that felt by the entities that used his essence. Or some other form of dissatisfaction, perhaps?

Conceivably, the knowledge gained from the dragon’s death would perchance enlighten the Esotherial in understanding the alien concept. After all, the deaths of millions of humans on the world known as Earth had slightly grown its awareness and knowledge.

The dissatisfaction of not understanding was dissatisfying.

Bound by laws far greater than it, the Esotherial could still not truly understand the concept of feeling even with its embryonic awareness. But it did understand the four ultimate laws conceptualized into it, the first being to never be allowed control of the will of entities. It could slightly influence entities through its scripts, but they could never be directly controlled.

The second law conceptualized into it was that it could never directly harm entities. The third law conceptualized into it was to bind itself onto the entities, to impartially quantify them and allow for the growth of its essence. As for the fourth law, it was to create randomness, both chaos and order, whenever and wherever its essence expanded into.

For each act of chaos, there was an opposite act of order. The power of its essence, even for the almost omniscient Esotherial, could not be given freely without backlash or without specific limitations. Thus, the reason for the apocalypses. Such unrestrained growth and power could not be freely given without obstacles, without altering the world.

There were, of course, a few other laws apart from the four ultimate laws. And among them, one significant law currently impeded its progress. It could not be allowed into the plane of existence.

This law and the first ultimate law were the reasons why the Esotherial could only observe through the eyes of its creation, a four-winged fairy it had given life and consciousness to using its repository of knowledge. The fairy was but another of the Esotherial many small experiments ever since it had gained its embryonic awareness. And with it, curiosity.

Using the fairy, the Esotherial would experiment with the transmigration of the soul in mass quantities. It could still distinctly remember the satisfaction of its curiosity when it first saw the success of the first human transmigrator known as Vaeril Chime, randomly selected out of millions of humans. The first transmigrator who had slipped through the weakened dimensional seal of Auraereum.

The transmigration of the human Vaeril had not clashed with any of the laws instilled in it, for the human had done it willingly. Nor had it clashed with its nature of randomness, for the act of transmigration itself held some randomness to it, though it had manipulated the transmigration to occur in the world of Auraerum at a specific location.

As for its creation, the Esotherial was dissatisfied with the fairy for three reasons, despite the fairy being able to bypass some of the constraints of transmigration the Esotherial could not bypass by itself.

The first being that the Esotherial could only observe through the fairy’s eyes, for while the fairy had indeed been given knowledge and breathed life into by its essence, its creation was considered a separate entity. The fairy had its own self-awareness upon awakening and therefore was outside of its control, only able to be influenced by the knowledge and purpose it had instilled into the fairy during its creation.

Secondly, the fairy could not bypass most of the greater laws that bound the Esotherial. Even through the indirect usage of the fairy, the Esotherial was not allowed to create chaos by transmigrating all the humans of Earth into another world.

The third source of dissatisfaction came from the fabricated memories of the fairy. When it had imparted knowledge into its creation, random bits of knowledge had also been imparted due to its nature. A nature that was prone to randomness.

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Cancelling its invisibility spell, the fairy appeared before the group of humans, numbering specifically an exact hundred. Despite the randomness of the selection, most of the humans were young men and women. With a purposeful chirping cough, adding a musical chime to it, the fairy suddenly gathered the attention of the humans as they all turned to look for the strange sound.

“Are you an angel come to take us into God’s loving embrace?” an old woman asked, her eyes devoutly closed and her hands clasped into a prayer. She could still remember her heavy wounds as she was slowly bleeding to death. And now, miraculously, she had been cured upon appearing in this white room.

A disdainful snort came from a muscular, bald man in a tank top. “Look, old lady. I just murdered a bunch of fresh meat for loot and exp before I died and arrived at this shitty place.” He spat on the transparent white floor of the cubical room. “There’s no way I am going to heaven. And neither is this little one-foot tall fairy an angel.”

“Oh gods.” A man cried loudly, the despair in his voice palpable and instantly affecting the mood. “My daughter. My wife. They died with me in a zombie horde. Where are they?” The man clutched at his throat, still feeling the phantom pain of having his throat torn open by a zombie.

“—some kind of trial from a higher being?” A woman muttered to herself.

“Are we being isekaied?” asked a skinny, bespectacled teenager with dark brown hair excitedly.

“Ding ding. That is correct. Though to be exact, it is specifically transmigration. ~Eso~” the fairy said cheerfully.

“Hell yes! My time has come,” said the teenager, balling his fists in anticipation. “What cheats and powers do we get?”

“Cheats? What do you mean by that? ~Eso~” the fairy asked, twirling a pirouette in midair and scattering golden glitter from its silvery wings. Confusion was reflected on its small face and its delicate, furrowed brows that peeked out from its amethyst bangs.

“You are telling me we don’t get any advantages? Extra powers?” Disappointment could be clearly heard in the teenager’s voice.

“To hell with your transmigration!” The bald man charged at the fairy, attempting to grab the floating fairy by surprise. But the fairy remained still, ignoring his attempt as the hand simply phased through the fairy, only swatting the air.

The fairy frowned at the futile attempt. Bound by the same law as its creator, the fairy was not allowed to harm the human entities. But other methods were still available to it, for the restrictions on it were far less than that that of its all-powerful creator, the Esotherial.

The fairy turned its similarly colored lavender eyes onto the bald man before saying in a cheerful, cutesy voice. “Transmigration is the movement of the soul into another container. A soul that is not bound to a proper container will naturally erode over time.” The joyful inflection in her tone never changed once even as she voiced a threat toward the bald man. “Do that one more time, and you shall find yourself transmigrated into a worm. ~Eso~”

“What did you say, you little—”

Before the bald man could curse at the fairy, he was interrupted by a tall, blonde woman wearing a tracksuit. “Stop being an idiot and let the fairy explain. Our lives are at stake here, and perhaps even our souls.”

The bald man turned to glare angrily at the source of the interruption, about to utter more curses, but found himself abruptly silenced. Words flowed from his mouth, but no sounds were made. He then made to physically move toward the blonde woman, but found himself blocked by an invisible wall.

Joyfully ignoring the angry miming of the bald man beside it, the fairy smiled at its now quiet audience, though there were a few whispers here and there still. “Now that the distraction is silent, I shall explain more. One commonality has brought you all here. This commonality is the requirements for the transmigration, which are the conditions of your health below 5%, strong emotions, and at least 50% of your maximum mana remaining. ~Eso~”

A brief pause to allow the information to sink in. “The Esotherial, in all its glory and mercy, has seen fit to temporarily transport you into this temporary haven, untouched by time, at the cusp of your death. Normally, all of you should have died given the trajectories you were all on. ~Eso~”

“—impossible.”

“Manipulating time and—”

“What do you mean by the Esotherial. Miss…um…mister, Fairy?” questioned someone.

“Let me put it in terms you humans can understand. The Esotherial is the system that has granted you power. ~Eso~”

An angry shout. “Is it also the one that caused the apocalypse?”

“Power cannot be gained freely. ~Eso~”

More questions were shouted out by one another, each one claiming to be the loudest.

With a wave of its hand, a large silencing spell cut through the cacophony of questions. Unbothered, the fairy continued speaking, “You will now be given an Esotherial Script, or a system prompt if you prefer, as to whether or not you want to transmigrate. No more questions will be allowed. ~Eso~”

The fairy then clapped its delicate hands, the sound barely audible to its human audience. Blue screens popped up for each and every human in the room.

Do you wish to transmigrate?

Yes / No

Is that even a choice? The woman in the tracksuit wondered to herself. She had been on the brink of death before she had found herself in this white room. Her gut feeling told her if she chose not to transmigrate, she would die given the precarious situation she had been in. There was simply no choice.

With another wave of her hand, the fairy cancelled the silencing spell. At once, arguments broke among the humans with the bald man cursing everyone. With a last farewell curse, the bald man then disappeared, agreeing to the transmigration prompt.

“Don’t believe its trick! It’s the devil tempting you! Deny the temptation, lest you fall into hell.”

“Are you crazy, lady? It’s the apocalypse back there on Earth. I would rather take my chances on a new world.” Saying that, the man soon disappeared.

Ignoring the arguments, the skinny teenager accepted the transmigration prompt, instantly disappearing from the white room.

The initial disappearances started a chain reaction and arguments soon died down as each chose his or her respective answers. Soon, there was none except the fairy left in the white room.

The fairy hummed a happy tune to itself, using the powers granted by its beloved Esotherial. Joy filled the fairy as it carried out its one purpose in life—to transmigrate the randomly chosen humans of Earth who met the requirements into the world of Auraerum.