1 - A New Start

Rumi remembered she died on her 21st birthday. It was an accidental house fire that started from her neighbor's room. Rumi was sound asleep after going out and drinking with her friends and unfortunately, didn't hear any fire alarm, leading to get trapped in her room.

To say that was a painful experience would be an understatement. Rumi remembered the helplessness she felt before her death. But also, somehow, she was glad to be freed from her uneventful, tedious life at her last breath.

Rumi laughed a little at the emotional rollercoaster she was having just before her death. It was over for her, wasn't it?

The thought was relieving, yet, it felt wrong.

As if she wanted to be something more than that.

She wanted to be someone more than just an average twenty one year old girl who died an unfortunate death at her home.

It was funny, she thought as even her thoughts started to blur and stopped.

Maybe that was death.

-----------

Rumi never expected to  be able to open her eyes again.

But when she did, she found that she was alive.

How was that possible? Lots and lots of questions popped in her head, so much so that she started to feel a small headache.

Again, that was strange.

If she was dead, how could she see, think or feel pain?

After a moment of confusion and panic, she realized she was completely in a new environment.

There were small Japanese style houses nearby, although they were a bit run-down. A poor neighborhood, Rumi deduced. There were a few people walking around in old Japanese style robes but they were also either torn or very dirty, which confirmed her previous deduction.

"I was dead, right?" She muttered to herself. There was no way she survived, not when her whole body was probably burnt to a crisp, but that did nothing to explain her situation right now. She was very much alive right now and was in an unfamiliar place.

[Yes, you are indeed dead. This is a place called "Soul Society", where deceased plus souls go after soul burial.]

Rumi was shocked to hear a voice in her head but she was more shocked to hear what it said.

"So..this is kind of like afterlife.."

Rumi found herself saying.

"And who are you?"

[You may call me Choice System. I'm responsible to make you stronger in this world.]

"Make me strong?" Rumi repeated. It kind of sounded great after a life of tedious cycle.

[Exactly. There will be a lot of choices you have to make with me as your system and with each choice, you will build your very own power to survive in this world.]

Rumi's eyes lit up in interest at the explanation. She felt her heart beating so fast in excitement for the future. It was so different from her nothing special life and she was loving this development. It was as if she had opened a door of new possibilities and she felt alive for the first time in twenty one years.

"Where do we start those exciting parts?" She asked.

[First, you have a starter pack. Do you want to open it?]

"Absolutely." Rumi answered.

[Understood. Starter pack opened.

Option 1 : Random Passive Skill from Seven Sins Series.

Option 2 : Random Body Modification to make it stronger or give unique abilities.

Option 3 : Mind Reading.]

Rumi looked at the choices in System's interface that seem to be invisible to others except her. She wasn't expecting to make a choice herself for her own starter ability so she was taken aback a little. But, at the same time, she felt like this was the kind of excitement she was missing in her life.

Out of three choices, two were random, meaning  she wouldn't know what exactly they were until she actually chose them.  The last one was the only choice that is clear.

"Mind reading sounds great but I feel like I'll be curious what I could've got if I were to choose the other two.." Rumi muttered.

After thinking for a while, Rumi was sure that she wanted to be bold and sate her own curiosity. She decided to go with one of the two random ones but she felt like modifying one random part of her body would lead to disfiguration and stuff.

Rumi had always loved the idea of having a good looking body and face and if it were to be ruined somehow, she would feel very disappointed.

"I guess I can only go with the seven sins one. But the name sounds badass so it should be great." She decided. "System, I choose option 1."

[Understood. You chose Random Passive Skill from Seven Sins series. You have received Passive Skill - Sloth.]

"Sloth?"

[Description : As a sin of sloth, not doing anything productive is your strength. You excel at things that has nothing to do with your job and when you finally end up doing your job, you can use less spiritual energy and effort to do it better than normal people. In short, you will be lazy and unproductive for most of the time but when you actually do something, your efficiency is 10 times better.

Sub ability : You collect and save up spiritual energy when you are inactive. The amount adds up everyday and when it reach a certain level, it will directly increase your reiryoku. If you use more reiryoku than you normally have, the stored reiryoku from this sub ability will be used up.

Requirement for passive skill : Sleep for ten hours a day. If your daily sleep goes under the requirement level, passive skill will be turned off.]

"Sloth?"

While Rumi knew it was in her nature to be more laidback, she didn't think she would get a passive skill for slacking off. But, there was an exciting aspect to it. With Sloth, she could afford to slack off, yet still get the work done if needed. Plus, she would also get the efficiency boost so she would still be better than average if she knew when to put effort in.

"I like it. I always loved the phrase 'Work smarter, not harder.'" Rumi nodded to herself in approval.

'Oh, right. Do you think you can give me a fancy stats panel to look at my own stats or something? I've always wanted to do that when reading fanfictions and webnovels where main character gets system.'

[Understood.]

With that voice, Rumi saw a panel showed up in front of her.

[Name : Fujiwara Rumi.

Age : 1 day. (Soul Society)

Race : Newly crossed soul.

Relationships : None.

Reiryoku level : Moderate.

Stored reiryoku : 0/1000.

Skills : Sloth (Passive), Fire Resistance (Passive).

Tools : None.]

Rumi took her time to go through her stats panel although there weren't much to it yet. She felt that it was strange to see her age as 1 day even though she knew she recently crossed over to spul society after death.

But, what surprises her more was another skill called fire resistance.

'System, why do I have another passive skill?'

[When you died in a fire, your soul was unharmed and gained a familiarity with the fire. So, it has become your unique passive ability in afterlife.]

'That sounds kinda sketchy...' Rumi thought but she didn't care much. It was another useful free skill so why should she even complain about it?

"Also..there's the issue of my reiryoku being moderate? doesn't it mean like average?" Rumi muttered, a bit disappointed.  After all, who wanted to be normal average canon fodder in the world with superpowers?  Rumi found it a bit unacceptable.

But, this was something she currently can't fix right away so she could only sigh and think of the next best approach.

'Well, I guess I better act more like a sloth so that I can have more reiryoku to store and use it to level up my own reiryoku.' Rumi thought to herself. She had yet to grasp enough information about this soul society place but she had a feeling that reiryoku would be an important factor if she wanted to be stronger. She knew that after years of reading webnovels and fanfictions, this would likely be the case.

By storing more reiryoku, she could level up her reiryoku to high levels if what System's description was accurate.

With that thought, Rumi decided to explore the neighborhood a bit and find a place to sleep.