Death Is Very Painful
Where am I?'
As Brandon slowly opened his eyes, he was blinded by a bright flash of golden light.
'What the heck is going on?'
With his eyes tightly shut, he tried to sit up. His elbows threatened to buckle and fail beneath him, but he managed to sit up all the same. He then slowly opened his eyes, ignoring the immediate pain and found himself in what seemed to be a garden. He was surrounded by roses and lavenders, lilies and dandelions. All manner of flowers were around him. Beside him was a massive tree with vines encircling it. Using it as a support, he slowly made his way to his feet.
'How did I get here.'
With that, some sort of dam in his brain was broken and everything came flooding out. His head got hit by what felt light a 20 ton truck as countless memories suddenly flashed through his mind. He began to watch his whole life starting from his birth. He watched as his mum cradled him in her arms for the first time as she named him Brandon Cole, as he and his father would run around in the park with their kites, as he would start school and make friends.
He watched himself fall in love with one of said friends, a girl by the name of Rose. He was entranced by the way her hair red hair would dance in the sun, a golden layer of light radiating from it. His mind would go blank at the sight of her dazzling smile. His heart would threaten to burst within him from her beautiful laugh. Her sky blue eyes would draw him in, making him feel like he could stare into those eyes for a thousand years. In the day he would only think of her and at night he would dream of her. And yet still, he had no courage to ask her out, too afraid that what he already had would be lost to him.
He watched everything, from the breastfeeding and the toilet breaks to the anime and TV shows he used to watch at home.
And he also saw what appeared to be his death.
***************
He was coming home from school one day after finishing with his A-Level exams. He had been in a good mood but that was to be expected. After all, he had just finished school for good and would go to Uni after the summer ended. He was just about to pull out his key and enter his home when he saw a bright light on the door from behind him. When he turned, he saw a truck speeding up to collide with him. The windows were splattered in blood from the inside, so he doubted whether or not there was a driver behind the wheel.
Saying the collision was painful would be an understatement. He felt his skin torn asunder as his chest collapsed from the force of the truck. He felt his bones get crushed and pierce his back as he flew through the front door, glass shards and wooden splinters getting themselves embedded all over his body. And the blood. All that blood just flying everywhere.
He didn't know how, but the truck seemed to come to a stop after half of it entered the building. His body, or what was left of it, lay there in the living room. He turned his head and laid eyes on his mother in an apron.
'Is that lasagne?'
For a moment, he forgot all about his situation and thought only about the lasagne his mother was cooking. That was until his mother started screaming.
'FuckfuckfuckfuckI'mgonnafuckingdie!'
As his vision began to darken from the edges of his sight, he realised that there was no time left so he ignored the growing panic at the back of his mind, turned to his sobbing mother, who at some point had come to his side, and did the only thing that came to his mind.
"I...love you…mum." He then tried to smile as tears began to roll down his cheek. His body couldn't handle it any longer and so his vision completely faded away, his life coming to an end.
***************
After watching all of that, Brandon began puke as his legs gave way. He began to cry and scream.
'IdiedIdiedIdiedIdiedIdiedIdied! Why did I have to die!'
Wallowing in his despair and sitting in a puddle of his vomit, he hugged himself shakily, the tears ceaselessly cascading from his eyes.
He thought back to his loving parents who he'd never get to see again. They would never be able to recover from his loss. He was sure his mother would cry and grieve for many years. He thought of his friends who'd been with him since the time they were children and were his siblings in all but name and blood. He thought of Rose, who he'd never get to see again. How he loathed himself for having no courage to ask her out!
"Dear child, I must apologise for how we meet each other."
He quickly turned his face around at the sound of the voice. He saw an old man standing behind him with a long white beard and a wrinkled face. He wore robed make of red and gold, with depictions of dragons and phoenixes on his arms and chest. His eyes were a strange gold that gave off its own light.
"Before we may speak, though, we must get you cleaned up first." With a snap, all the vomit disappeared from around Brandon's body. The tears on his face turned to nothing as his body found strength once more. He stood up and found that a white garden table and two chairs had suddenly appeared, with the old man sitting in one of them. The man gestured to the seat opposite him.
"Sit, Brandon. We have much to discuss."
Brandon warily pulled out the chair from beneath the table and sat down. He made to speak, but the man stopped him before he could.
"Now, I know there are a great many questions you wish to ask me, so let me speak first and get things out of the way. I am a god. Not the God that most people in your world worship. I'm what you might call an Overgod. My role is to regulate the other pantheons of your realm, ensure that they do not destroy said realm with all their power in a war between each other and protect your realm from foreign invaders. All the other gods that you have heard of exist. Buddha, Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, Amaterasu, Allah, the Jade Emperor, Kamun Ra-They're all real.
"Now for why you are here. You are dead. You died because of my failure. With such a vast domain to cover, there will eventually be a small gap that I will miss. As much as I would like to be, I am not omniscient, so some things may fall through. In your case, a small parasitic being from another realm made it through that hole and found itself in the brain of a human. After being unable to eat the human, it blew up the brain of that human for enjoyment. Once it had interfered with the being of your realm, I discovered its existence and promptly destroyed it. What I could not do was halt the truck that human had been trying. The Ancient Laws prevent this. That truck then went on to crash into you, which brings us to where we are now."
"What!?" Brandon had no words to say in response to all this. His mouth was like a fish, just opening and closing repeatedly as he tried to find a reply, but once again, the man-no, the Overgod stopped him.
"Now, as compensation, I am offering you a choice. You can either go to the afterlife of whatever pantheon you choose, you can become a god serving under me, or I can reincarnate you into a world of fiction with three wishes and your memory intact. If you pick the last choice, you will not be able to choose which world you go to or where you appear in said world, but you will be able to choose your appearance and age separately from your three wishes.
The world you go to will depend on what is your favourite of them and the place you end up in will be close to where your favourite character of that place will be. The time you appear at will be, for all intents and purposes, random. You cannot use your wishes to choose which world you go to, where you appear in said world and what time you appear in that world. There will also be restrictions on your wishes. You cannot wish for something too powerful such as Complete Invulnerability and Absolute Immortality.
"I know this is a lot to take in, so relax, take your time, and think carefully. Perhaps a drink to help with the nerves?"
He made a small motion with his hands and a cup appeared before Brandon with a purple-gold liquid inside. He quickly drank it all, feeling a sense of calm and ease flooding over him. All his grief, panic and confusion disappeared, which really helped him realise what was going on.
'I'm was dead. And now there is a powerful being who'd be willing to reincarnate me into another world. Forget the other two options! This would be like living in an anime or a fanfiction! I even got killed by 'Truck-kun'!
'But he said it would be my favourite fiction. Out of everything I've watched and read, I'd put that Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire as my favourite. But that world is dangerous. If I'm born into the wrong social class, I'll probably die once the War of the Five Kings breaks out. Even if I survive that, There was a frozen zombie apocalypse coming from Beyond the Wall. And Dragons from the east. Will there be an Aegon in this world? Will I arrive before the rebellion? Do I even have a favourite character? I'm torn between Tywin Lannister, Jon Snow, Robb Stark and Littlefinger. But that would mean I can end up fucking anywhere in Westeros and at any time from the reign of Aegon the Unlikely to the fucking Long Night!
'With the restrictions on wishes, I guess I won't be able to get a system like the one in The Gamer. Nor will I be able to ask to be immune to all weapons. So I would need to carefully choose moderately powerful and very useful wishes that would help me best in the long run.
'Given that he said I'll be reincarnated, I may be a sibling to one of those 4 characters. But given that I can customize how I will look, something that is hereditary, I will not be born into that world to one of the existing characters or as their sibling. As a result, I will almost definitely not be a noble of any sort. I could pretend to be a bastard, but being a bastard can only go so far. If I want to be a part of a noble house, I will have to be raised to nobility, so I would have to perform a great feat worthy of that. I will never find anything of the sort near Baelish. All I will get is a purse of gold and eventually a knife in my back.
'I could get to Lord Tywin and serve under him, but I would have to do something truly exceptional in full view of everyone so that Tywin has to grant me nobility or have enough of a force behind me that Tywin would want to make me a lord so that I would be required to serve his purposes. Once I was useless to him, he would try to relegate me to the sides or kill me. I can't be a Lannister, so I cannot be assured of safety under Tywin's rule.
'Through Jon, I could possibly get to Ned Stark, which would be the best outcome. If I serve him well enough and perform the required feats in his service, I may get a castle and lands to my name. Unlike the Lannisters or Baelish, the Starks are an honest and loyal group of people and I may come to like serving under them. I could also be in a position to help against the White Walkers. With all 8 seasons of the TV show and 5 out of 7 books in my memory, I have enough knowledge to help the North properly defend the Realms of Men from the Others.'
"I've decided to go with the last option," Brandon said.
"And are you sure that you will not come to regret what you have chosen?" He asked.
"No," Brandon answered.
"Very well. You are correct in believing you will go to Westeros. According to my files-" The Overgod pulled out a file from thin air and began flicking through. "-you are equally drawn to Tywin Lannister, Robb Stark, Petyr Baelish and Jon Snow. The only places two or more of these characters meet are at Harrenhal, King's Landing and Winterfell. As a favour to you, you will appear near Winterfell.
'Hold up. He said I'll appear near Winterfell. Jon is only at or near Winterfell until the very beginning of the story. So I now know I will arrive when Ned goes to the South at the latest and when he returns from Robert's Rebellion at the earliest. My best choice here will be to serve House Stark in some form. Since I'm going to a magical fantasy world, I do not want to miss out on any of the magic. Given that I'll be in the North fighting in wars against the South and in the Long Night, warging abilities, greensight and fire magic would be best. For a wish, I may not be able to ask for all of these magic abilities in a single wish, and it would take at least two of my wishes, if not three if I ask for them separately.
'My best bet would be to ask for a mixed bloodline. The First Men and the Children of the Forest are both capable of warging and greensight, the former group probably due to some inter-racial marriages with the latter. The Valyrians are the only known bloodline with ties to fire, so I will need that. If I'm asking for bloodlines, I might as well throw in some Rhoynish and Giant's blood for the chance at water magic and immense strength respectively.'
"My first wish is to have the blood of the First Men, the Children of the Forest, the Valyrian dragonlords, the Giants and the Rhoynish." Brandon said.
"Done. What else?"
'Holy shit, that actually worked! I can warg! I may have greensight! I can ride dragons!
'Calm down, Brandon. There are still two more wishes to ask. The normal thing that any protagonist would ask here would be for a system. But as specified before, I cannot make it too powerful. I'll have to get a weaker system, maybe a gacha-type system? But I would have to use actual money for that. Since there are eight main coins for the Westerosi currency from gold dragons to copper halfpennies, I could ask for a gacha-system with 8 types of lotteries for each denomination. It would still be very useful, and not too OP. Will I still be able to see my status and skills with that like a normal system? let's try this.'
"My second wish is for a Gacha system with 8 different lotteries, one for each of the following coins: gold dragons, silver moons, silver stags, copper stars, copper groats, copper halfgroats, copper pennies and copper halfpennies. It would also have a status page with my attributes, such as strength and agility, and skill with their proficiencies. And maybe an inventory as well?"
"Nope. Too powerful. The best I can give you would be one with 6 lotteries. One that needs 140 silver stags, one that needs 5 gold dragons, one that needs 100 gold dragons, one that needs 1000 gold dragons, one that needs 10 thousand gold dragons and one that needs a million gold dragons. You will not be able to see any attributes, but you will be able to see everything else. The inventory will only be able to hold money and items from the lottery."
'Fuck. At least it's better than nothing. But this just encourages me to get more of my own wealth. I guess a lottery for a halfpenny was too much. Now, what to ask for the third wish? I'm set for the long run, but I will need something for when I arrive immediately. Magic hasn't been seen much in Westeros, so I shouldn't ask for anything magic related. If I'm going to be serving the Starks, the easiest way would be to join their household. As a member of the Stark Household, I will be charged with protecting Lord Stark and his family, going on errands for him and following the Starks to war. For most of these, I will need some martial capabilities, but I don't know how to use a weapon or fight at all! I should make up for this.'
"For my third wish, I would like to have the knowledge and muscle memories for every martial art and weapon discipline."
"No. Your previous wishes were already at the limit of what I can provide you. Your last wish must be something much weaker. Choose one martial art and/or weapon discipline from the choices I give you now. You will get the knowledge and muscle discipline for what is chosen."
A screen appeared before Brandon with a list of choices. Looking at the bottom of the screen, he saw that there were over a hundred thousand pages for the martial arts and weapon disciplines. There were countless in front of him already on the first page. Each of them had a number beside them for some reason.
"The number you see next to each option is its value in points. As you can see in the top right-hand corner, you have one hundred points to spend. Your choices must be within these 100 points."
'100 points? But some here need 100 million points! What the fuck!'
painfully, he sorted by Price [Low to High] ('What the? Is this an online store or something!?'). To his disappointment, the cheapest martial art, Mortal Boxing (Beginner), cost 35 points and the cheapest weapon skill, Sword Mastery (Beginner), cost 60. Baffled by why there was Sword Mastery when he was searching for weapon disciplines, he found out that just the simple martial disciplines for weapons had a basic requirement in the mastery of a weapon, whether it be in swords, spears, or warhammers. Some basic ability in that weapon was necessary. He felt scammed by the Overgod before him, but there was nothing he could do but sigh. Sigh and gain information.
At the top of the page, he found a search bar. Seeing this, he got a brilliant idea. He typed in 'mortal boxing'. He got multiple pages full of different types of martial arts with the words 'mortal boxing', but at the top of the first page were multiple martial art choices that were only 'Mortal Boxing'. The only difference was that the word in the parentheses was different. He concluded that the word in the parentheses would be the skill level, and for boxing, there were 6: Beginner, Novice, Intermediate, Master, Grandmaster and Sage.
He then typed only the word 'Mortal' and found that every choice had the same skill levels, but when he just wrote 'boxing', there were words like 'enlightenment' and 'ascension' among many others. From this, he deduced that after the Sage level, 'Mortal' martial arts would upgrade. He also saw that it was the same for the weapon disciplines.
When looking at the weapon masteries, he found that the skill never changed or upgraded, but that there were different levels. They were: Beginner, Intermediate, Master, Intent, Heart, Dao, Divine, Supreme and Chaos. It was safe to say that he understood that weapon masteries should be pretty damn important. Especially if there was a word like DIVINE being used.
'I guess I have a lot of bloody grinding to do.'
"I guess I'll take Mortal Boxing (Beginner) and Sword Mastery (Beginner)."
"Alright. Almost finished. Now, just envision how you would look and how old you would be, and then I will send you on your way."
Brandon was faced with a character design page not too different from most games, but with a level of quality and a number of choices that he knew would be impossible for at least a couple hundred years.
He made himself 14 years old. Just young enough so that he could befriend the younger Starks. He gave himself hair that was as dark as the night sky and deep, sea-green eyes. He gave himself a toned muscular body with defined abs but made it so that it wouldn't be too noticeable when he was wearing normal clothes. He put his height at around 160 centimetres. Short enough so that it was clear he wasn't a man, but tall enough to be able to fight others without too much of a disadvantage from height. If he needed to be taller, he would still be growing for a few more years. He couldn't forget to give himself a big one down below. That would always come in handy, wouldn't it? By the end of it, the image he made looked so handsome it should be illegal. Pleased with himself, he decided that that was all.
"Farewell, Brandon Cole. Try not to die."
Then the world twisted around him and for the second time, he thought he was dying.