- - : POV character's thoughts are between dashes

- Name ~ : Change in POV

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Late Evening - ???? : The Forgotten Altar, Dracoria

-----

Hi. My name is Evren Lestir, and I am a normal human...

At least I use to be.

On Earth, I would have been viewed as a regular girl, standing about 175cm tall, with black hair and silver pupils.

But to most, I probably looked like some thug.

I always wore black clothes and listening to loud music through outdated, wired earbuds so no one would bother me. If I ever needed to leave the house, I just tossed on some clothes to cover up and went to do whatever I needed to.

No matter what, I made sure to keep to myself and not stand out.

But it wasn't always like that.

Through school and university, I was a bright and cheery student working to become a game developer with my family and friends always being there and supporting me.

But then 'that day' came.

The morning of my 22nd birthday, just a few months after I graduated from university, the regular phone call to my parents was interrupted by another call; one from the authorities.

It was the call that informed me of my parents unfortunate passing.. and the culprit was carbon monoxide poisoning.

To say it was devastating wouldn't do it justice. My whole world fell apart.

It didn't take long for my friends to become distant as well. Although I didn't mean to, I unknowingly pushed them away... Before I even realized, I was locked in my apartment, watching anime, reading manga, playing games, and eating cheap, microwavable food.

Having at least been knowledgeable enough to invest my parents' inheritance, I managed to accumulate enough wealth to retire by 25 and had more than enough money to do whatever I wanted, but I had no motivation to even use it.

My life and motivations had simply been consumed by the void.

But, no matter how much I wanted to dwell on it, memories of those times had long-since faded.

"Uwaah..." Letting out a yawn, I looked up at the bright orange sky with a blank expression. -I wonder what Earth is like now...- The grass I was lying in felt like blades of metal, and the orange sky smelled like a mix of iron and sulfur.

*Ding!-Ding!-Ding!-Ding!-Ding!-Ding!* Countless noises met my ears as thousands of small windows appeared in front of me. -There they are.-

It was what showed up every time I killed something.

-I guess the drones found the last colony...- *fwip* With a wave of my hand, the panels disappeared and stopped reappearing. "Haah..."

Currently, I was in a world completely different from Earth. One that was so similar to a videogame that I had to constantly question if this was simply the afterlife. If this was hell.

But it's not like where I was or what the mission the system gave me was mattered any more.

*THUMP-SPLASH* *THUMP-SPLASH* *THUMP-SPLASH*-Hm?- Looking up a bit, I saw a colossal, nearly 200-meter-tall lizard charging at me with enough drool leaking from its mouth that it could fill a pond. -One snuck past the drones, huh...-

Not bothering to sit up, I grabbed a pebble off the ground next to me and casually tossed it up at the lizard. *vwoop-pop-BAAAAANNG*

Its entire head vanished instantaneously, along with a massive section of the dense orange atmosphere behind it, exposing the dark, starry sky.

In the past, seeing the night sky would make my eyes sparkle; It would make question if Earth was out there somewhere, and if I would ever return there.

But that curiosity and yearning to leave this hell vanished about 500 years ago.

*WHAAAM-SPPLAASH* As the huge body of the lizard limply fell into the water beneath the ledge I was on, I looked back up at the sky to watch the foggy orange atmosphere fill in the hole I created. "Haah..." -I wonder if the clock has glitched yet...- "System Open."

*Ding!* The main system panel immediately appeared in front of me, showing dozens of tabs and icons around the edges, with the central text displaying:

The number of coins was constantly fluctuating between positive and negative, causing the numbers to blur together and make it impossible to read even if you could stop time. -I'm surprised it hasn't triggered a calculation error like the population count...-

But that wasn't what I was there to look at.

*Boop* Tapping the 'Elapsed' tab at the top, the text updated.

For a very long time, I figured that the 'Time Remaining' statistic was a sign that this hell would end at some point, but absolutely nothing happened at 100, 1,000, 10,000, or even 100,000 missions completed.

Eventually, I just stopped caring.

-Well, I guess it's not like its that bad...- Finally sitting up, I glanced back toward the ocean to see an endless field of colossal bodies floating lifelessly in their own blood. -Some of the worlds were quite pretty... Having to destroy them was a bit of a shame...-

*Ding!* Another panel appeared in front of my face as I looked out toward the setting sun.

It was the panel that would appear whenever I finished a mission. -4,291, huh... That's pretty low for a 'Planetary Extinction' mission... Was this world just small?-

In short, the panel told me all the items I, or the drones I sent out, collected and sent to my inventory, as well as the upgrades I got from killing monsters.

In the past, I would spend hours looking through it just to see if there was any better gear, or improved strategies and synergies I could make use of.

But now, I had so many upgrades that my stats were all errors, I could destroy entire planets on a whim, and had an inventory so massive that even the automatic systems in place couldn't regulate it. -I can't even see how many upgrades I have anymore... A few of the rarest ones seem to cap at 999, but I think that's just a visual bug...-

Just to check if there was any change, I tapped the 'Upgrades' tab and selected the first upgrade.

*Boop* But as expected, there wasn't.

-Why do I even bother checking...- Quickly swiping my hand, I closed the menu and got ready to start my next mission, but just as I went to stand up, another panel appeared.

-Huh?- It was a panel I had never seen before.

Thinking it was just another bug, I tapped on it without expecting much. *tap*

However, it was most definitely real.

I could only stare wide-eyed at the panel as the frigid, toxic air blew past me. -W..what?-

It was the one thing I had wanted since the beginning.

The End.

But for some reason, I felt conflicted about it... -Return to any world I have previously visited? Does that mean I can return to Earth?- "System Open."

*Boop* Immediately opening the new tab, I was presented with a list of exactly 184,214 names, all of which being worlds I had previously visited, with the return status of the planet next to it.

*Boop-Boop-Boop-Boop* I typed Earth into the search immediately.

And as if it was waiting for me, it appeared.