The Counter System

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The last thing she expected to see was an office desk filled with stationery items like rulers and pens along with a computer with stacks of paper by its side, that and the well-kept and near professional-looking man behind the desk looking right at her.

Slick back black hair from gel or continuous coming, stern face sporting crimson eyes that shone near-emotionless disposition and a slight frown on his lips, the suit was spotless everything from the tie and undershirt seemed crisp and clean.

As for herself, a simple chair was what she found herself sitting on other than that she still was in her office drone work uniform with the distinct lack of a massive hole in her stomach. She could count herself lucky to still be alive but the environment and current situation spoke otherwise.

She knew she could not have survived that kind of injury though she could take a good blow and keep going but when a pipe impales you your expected to die.

If this was Death sitting behind the desk then she did not mind being taken away to some other place, she lived a good life, a bit above average and she knew she could have done better but she was content where she was and was happy with what she had.

"So" the man behind the desk finally spoke, though it was in a drawl and he did drag the 'so' out. "It appears that you've finally died, I hope you're ready to get to work" the man said reaching down into a file cabinet to bring something out.

For the woman in the chair, she blinked in a small sense of confusion, as instead of a ferryman of souls this figure seemed to imply that this was some sort of job interview or perhaps a recommendation or dare she dread conscription out of the afterlife.

"Here it is" the man said bringing out a set of two forms setting them in front of her and sliding them across the desk with a pen in the middle.

She glanced at them briefly before turning her sights back to the business-looking man.

"What is this?" she said hoping that this entity would give her more context to what was happening.

"This is a recruitment drive, I and many of my colleagues are tasked with employing exceptional individuals to join in our job of ensuring the continued existence of Human life in all corners of reality" he then tapped the sheet on my left.

"This is the Acceptance form once signed I will become your handler and get you the necessary gear needed for the job until your existence is destroyed or you file for a transfer after a few centuries of service" he then tapped the sheet on my right.

"This is the Rejection form once signed you will be given an option to go to heaven to be judged on what kind of afterlife you will go to but there's another option in it where you can choose to live again but with no recollection of this nor your past life, so what will it be" the man then leaned back in his chair watching me with those same lifeless eyes, waiting for me to make a choice that would affect my continued existence.

Part of me wanted to reach out for the rejection paper and sign it as frankly fighting for eternity didn't sound too good.

Yet, a larger part of my mind weighed heavily towards accepting the duty to forever defend humanity, this conflicted me as I didn't believe I'd do something as grand as that, sure in life I had a great need in my gut to help people but that was about it and yet here in this limbo of some sort, my gut and heart were raging against my mind to choose the acceptance form.

It must have been a few minutes for me to get my internal struggle under control, but at the end of it all my hand reached out for the pen.

With my other hand, I brought the form closer to myself to see where I needed to sign on the dotted line.

In a few seconds, I had written my full name and signature on the bottom of the form declaring my intention upon the contract.

When I was done I handed back the pen and form to the man, both of which he skimmed through before looking me dead in the eye and a small grin made its way on his face.

"Welcome to the Counter Force Miss Orion" Both forms shattered for a lack of a better word, their fragments disappearing into moats before a new form came into existence.

"Now before I explain things and how to acquire what you need for your job, I need to remove the locks on your mind and body" I wanted to question him on what he meant by that however I wasn't able to voice it as once he flicked his fingers I felt something deep in my mind snap.

It was a sharp pain which forced me to clutch my head and hiss out as images and knowledge of things I both knew and didn't know invaded my mind with reckless abandon.

Tears leaked from my eyes as I was forced to relive some horrible yet equally comforting memories, I couldn't help but fall out of my chair as the pain hiked up in intensity as my body was on fire, it was a familiar pain, one I wished never to experience again and yet I feel it for the second time in my lives.

Bones broke and mended, muscles tore and regrew, and from head to toe my form increased in height, thankfully my office uniform did not rip from the new meat it was supporting.

Thankfully the pain was receding quickly, something I was grateful for as it was not pleasant to feel one's body rip itself apart.

Soon I was sitting myself up and shakily refamiliarizing myself back into my old form, I was both happy and conflicted, two personalities were clashing but both were the same, I was going to have some problems in the future.

"Now that that's done we can get to business you and I" I refocused on the man as was typing away on the keyboard.

"As you have now become a member of the Counter Force you will be linked up with the Counter System, but as a new member several features are locked until you are promoted up in the ranks. How the system works is fairly simple, every new Counter Guardian who is recruited through us is given a set amount of points to spend on various items be they physical or some conceptual passive defence, are you following so far" I just nodded as my mind was easily keeping up and effectively deconstructing what he was saying.

"Good, as a new member you will be given 10,000 points to start you off, once you've spent or save them, you'll be deployed to an alternate reality as a tutorial to how things work, you'll be given a Status through the system which will show an inventory, the points store, missions tab, and other features, for now, you'll only have your inventory, store and missions until your promoted via feats, experience and overall mission performance which the higher-ups will go through after the conclusion of every world you go to. Once they have evaluated your performance you'll receive points to spend and other things. Right, I'll let you begin your purchases in preparation for your tutorial." A screen soon popped up in front of me showing a list of tabs I could tap on.

Weapons showed two sections range or melee and if one of those were tapped on subsection would come up showing long range, medium range and short range, melee was likewise showing the different types of close-up weapons, and there was also a rank to each weapon from E to EX, the higher the rank the more expensive the item was.

And there was so many things here.

Gazing at my handler he didn't seem pressed for time so that meant I could take my time and appraise what I could get.

Some items here were very absurd like the ability to create things from nothing though that was five times the price than what I had on hand.

But what I really wanted was my armour, thankfully there was a search tab where I could find my armour but looking through the list I knew I could definitely upgrade to something far better when I found what I was looking for and selected it I was surprised to see an enhance option.

The things I could modify my armour with were vast however some of those upgrades required that my very biology change to be able to handle the changes

[Unlimited potential EX-rank 3,000] [Body Modification A-rank 1,000] [Mjolnir Mark F A-rank 1,000]

I was happy with that now I had to find a good weapon loadout I needed going forward, and the search would take some time as I loved what I was seeing but sadly I needed to make a choice eventually.

[Unlimited Bullet Works A-rank 1,000] [M6C/SOCOM 100] [Sniper Rifle System 99-Series 5 Anti-Materiel 200] [BR85N Service Rifle 100]

And finally for my close-quarter weapon, and frankly nearly finished off all my points simply because I wanted to see what magic was like to use.

[Magic Circuits 100] [MageCraft Starter Pack Bonus] [Noble Phantasm Papiyas Reborn, Demon King Of The Sith Heaven A-rank 3,500] [Avenger-Class Bonus]

I was done with my purchase and faced the man who seemed to be done with his typing.

"I see your done, good, now for the world you're going to" He brought up another sheet of paper which had a brief summary of where I was going and a list of important characters with a small bio for them.

"Now the primary objective of us Counter Guardians is the removal of threats to humanity's continued existence and that usually means purging everything related to the problem, however in recent times we found a much more beneficial way around it, Guardians merely need to exist in said worlds for a set period of time to allow our system to lock down the world's walls of existence, how it works is above your current rank but just know it will act as a barrier to foreign entity's trying to get into the said world, and those already there will slowly but surely be removed as a threat to humanity, however, some worlds will have a lot of exceptions, in some worlds magic is normal just as much as monster attacks and some other worlds will be the opposite, all that matters is humanity's continued existence, how Guardians go about it is up to them. Now the world you're going to is one of those exceptions." At the end of his words, a portal opened up to the side, the man gestured for me to towards it however I did have a question.

"How long will I remain in this world" the man was swift to respond.

"That is based on the mission I send your way to complete, I expect you to remain for a year or two to get used to your new position, if you have any other questions say them now if not walk through the portal to begin" I shook my head, I didn't need to say anything, however, part of me wishes to ask about what kind of threats I'd face and what he meant by "exceptions" but I feel as though I'd know only if I experience it rather then ask, besides this is a tutorial world for me apparently so I likely would not be facing anything threatening.

Turning I faced the tear in reality and started to walk towards it, once I place a foot through I felt a small suction which with a jolt threw my body forward through the multicoloured tunnel.

Flashing lights and many streaks later I found the end of the tunnel blind my sight for a moment as gravity took over and my armoured feet found ground.

Blinking away the lights I find myself looking through an all too familiar visor that gave me a lot of comfort, the armour I was in felt like I'd come home from a very long journey, it was a feeling that I'd longed for in my second life and now in this new third life, I finally have it again.

Now that I am here I look around the area seeing I'm in an alleyway with the usual brickwork and trash dumpsters near the walls and graffiti sprayed all around in various symbols that either displayed something phallic or marked a specific territory for a gang.

Moving to the lip of the ally I see the street bathed in nightlife as many citizens of various origins walk about minding their own business, and looking further I made my way out to find myself looking up at the skyline to see very few skyscrapers but it was what was shining in the skies high above that caught my attention.

A broken moon.

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