2 I became a God... of nothing?

"Ok, first things first."

"Dying pathetically and passing away — Check."

"Having a disturbing conversation with a fishy, self-proclaimed God — Check."

"An ominous, game-like system supervising my mysterious, newfound powers — Check."

"Absolute, omnipotent might and infinite wisdom — Nope."

"Ok, ok, ok. I know where this is going... I reincarnated into a different world and got a powerful system that will help me rise against all odds and come out on top of the universe. Just that... I got no superpowers... No explanation... just... a planet? And even that blew up literally five minutes after I took over. So... I have nothing?"

The newly initiated God, Karl, walked circles around his recently doomed planet and contemplated his situation. He had been a chronic procrastinator in his previous life and knew a fair share about various games, movies, and books, but nothing could have possibly prepared him for today.

"Come oooon! This is not how this trope works! Couldn't I just reincarnate into a random fantasy world with cute elve-girls and Magic?! I demand to get my custom Harem right this instant!"

The universe, however, remained silent in front of his demands, like it always had.

"This fricking Thunderdrill bastard! He really did scam me after all! This is not what I signed up for at all! I'm not a powerful God! Not even a hero... Does this even qualify as 'another world' when I am the only being in existence across the entire universe?!"

...

Karl fell silent.

There was apparently no one else here to take note of his complaints, nor would anyone have cared, but it felt good to vent one's feelings nonetheless. He was feeling quite depressed due to the current situation and shouting it all out had always worked best for him — he did not even bother to question how his voice was able to travel through the airless void of space or what exactly he was walking on here.

He really longed for the embrace of his warm and fluffy bed in his cramped apartment right now. A hot chocolate and an undisturbed movie-marathon of his favorite fantasy series was all he desired at this moment. Becoming a God? That must have been the worst decision he had made in his entire life, heaven could hardly be any worse than this crap.

"Take a deep breath, Karl! Calm down! You're a God now, you need to act like one... not that anyone could see... I need to analyze this logically! I refuse to accept that I am just screwed, there has to be a bright side to this!"

Karl made his way over to Planet X again. He had been walking in circles for a few hours, but weirdly enough he did not feel exhausted at all... weirdly enough he did not feel much of anything, physically at least. His new, godly body seemed to be quite different compared to his former, mortal one.

"Maybe I am overthinking it. Maybe it's not as bad as it seems! Look at it! Almost like new? No?"

He stared at his very own planet intently. Most of the green and blue patches were no more, but there were lots and lots of yellow and red spots all over the place.

"Well, it has seen better times I admit, but it's still... round and all. How bad can the damage be? There are probably lots of survivors hiding somewhere, already planning how to rebuild their civilization. The ecosystem just needs time to heal, right? If I observe this planet closely, maybe I can find something."

[Planetary Observation mode initiated. Generating a virtual body. Processing transfer. Please wait.]

"What?"

Before he could finish his previous thought, a message popped up suddenly and at the same time, a monotone voice rang out in his head. Then there was a rotating circle in his field of vision that looked a little bit like... a loading icon?

"What the he—"

Before the words could fully leave his mouth, his body had already dematerialized and his consciousness was zapped away.

"—ell?"

Karl suddenly found himself standing on a yellow patch of dried mud under a clear blue sky.

"Where am I? Where is this?!"

[Minor God Karl has entered Planet Terrania in observation mode. Use the exit command to disengage]

As if to answer his query, the unnamed system timely informed him of what had happened.

"Oh! Well, now that you explained as much, it does make sense. I guess I could have come to the same conclusion if I didn't panic like that... But don't surprise me like that anymore!"

...

The mysterious system remained silent.

Maybe it was just a coincidence after all. It probably just stated everything it did after doing it and did not explicitly try to answer his previous question either.

"Whatever..."

Karl was a bit disappointed by his own misinterpretation, but quickly focused on his surroundings instead, the magnificent scenery of his mystical Planet X, which had turned out to be called Terrania.

A seemingly endless desert made up of sand and dried mud stretched into the distance, the sky vaguely blue with signs of dust storms in the distance.

"Fu**k! This place is a dump!"

And his evaluation was spot on. The only things in his field of vision were rocks, sand, and dust in increasing order. No signs of animal or plant life to be found.

Karl started wandering around, after randomly picking a direction to head into, but even after a considerable amount of time passed, very little about his surroundings changed.

"I can't possibly walk across the whole planet, but so far it's looking really bad. I guess the former inhabitants did a pretty good job of annihilating themselves. Aren't there any lifeforms left whatsoever?"

[Initiating life force scan. Standard range 50km. Please wait]

"Ha! I don't need to aimlessly run about the place after all. God bless the system! Oh, I guess I just did, hehe."

His initial excitement quickly ebbed though, when he noticed the small progress bar at the bottom of his vision filling up veeery slowly. It was not at the level where he did not see it move at all, but he had hoped to get answers NOW instead of waiting for... at least another 15 or 20 minutes? Luckily he did not have much of anything else to do, so he just randomly continued his pilgrimage through the desert. After a while, he was pulled out of his thoughts by the now-familiar, monotone voice of the system.

[Analysis complete. 73 types of lifeforms detected. No target species clarified, counting all individuals. Total population 2.4 billion. List details?]

"Yes!" Karl hurriedly replied. He had been mistaken after all! This was not simply a dry and dead rock, there was a flourishing population of billions here! The tenacity of life really should not be underestimated.

[Genus: Bacteria, 28 types. Genus: Archaea, 41 types. Genus: Fungi, 4 types. No sentient life detected]

...

"A flourishing population of billions my ass! These are just single-celled organisms, aren't they?! How am I supposed to get a bunch of microbes to worship me?!"

How long would it take a few bacteria to evolve into anything useful he wondered. Probably quite a while and most definitely longer than he was willing to wait — even he knew that.

Karl was no expert in microbiology, he could not even remember the last time he had seen a microscope, much less used one himself. The only thing micro he was confident in using was his microwave... and maybe his Microsaft PC, which he both dearly missed already.

"Whatever, I need to work with what I have and some life is better than none at all I guess."

Karl took the result of the test quite relaxed. He had gotten a bit worked up when the system had told him about the amazing masses of 'life' in his vicinity, but apparently that only referred to a random patch of mold growing under a rock somewhere...

No use crying over spilled milk. He had already expected the planet to be a goner from what he had seen so far anyway. It was indeed a downer, but at least it was not dead entirely.

He doubted, that he would be able to work with this though. Even if he managed to magically change the environment to something more... suitable for life, his microbial buddies would probably take millions of years to become sentient anyway.

*Sigh*

"I just wish I could start over from scratch or something. This whole planet belongs into the trash, honestly."

[Scrapping initiated. Chosen target, Planet Terrania. Initiating material recycling. Harvesting available Biomass. Exiting observation mode. Commencing dismantling]

Before Karl even had the chance to comprehend what he had done, he found himself inside his original, humongous body, silently hovering in front of Terrania.

"Oh no! Ooooh nooo! What have I done?"

To his great despair, the planet he had just visited was rapidly dissolving in front of his eyes and after a while, not even a pile of dust remained of it.

"You are fricking kidding me! Damn it, Karl! Can't you keep your damn trap shut for once?!"

Uncaring for his rage and frustration the usual, annoying voice of the system pierced his thoughts once more:

[Scrapping completed. For detailed information on the extracted resources, please visit the material log]

His one and only planet, gone without a trace. Sure, it was no beauty, it was quite literally a dump — but it was his dump! He was not even in the mood to pay any attention to the system messages right now.

"Congratulations me, you managed to become the God of absolutely nothing, good job!" Karl said self-ironically. A failure as a human, a failure as a God, nothing unusual there.

[Potential Domain acquired: Nothingness]