Getting Started

"I look forward to working with you Snow!"

I looked at Sunny who was cheerfully jumping around me, amused at how much it resembled a child for a moment, before answering.

"As do I Sunny."

It seemed to grow more cheerful at my answer until it stopped on my head, or, well, what I would assume counts as my head currently, following which another list popped up in front of me, this one, unlike the previous one had more text coupled with pictures.

Skimming over it I quickly realized that these were the tasks.

Each task had the Contractor's name along with his or her picture, a description of the Contractor's request or requests and finally the time period the task was situated in, which I noticed mine were all 'modern times'.

"These are the tasks currently recommended to you. They are automatically selected by the system after taking into consideration your Task Accomplishment Record, Skills, and other such relevant factors. In theory, these are the tasks most suitable to you." It paused for a moment before continuing hesitantly. "Of course, if you don't like the presented tasks, I can request others, but it's not advisable…"

I turned my attention to Sunny in curiosity. "Why is that?"

It seemed to shift uncomfortably on top of me. "That…" It seemed to sigh to itself, which gave me a sense of surprise at how out of character it was for itself before it continued in a solemn tone. "If you fail tasks multiples times, especially consecutively, you, or more specifically, your actions, will be assessed by the Main System to check for the reason of the failures. If the Main System determines that you are just wasting resources and therefore expendable, you will be terminated."

I couldn't help the chill that went through me at those words, the realization that if I fucked up badly enough I'd just be 'Terminated', disposed of, eliminated from existence…

Subconsciously I had already known this, after all, the System wasn't a charity, there must be a reason for why all of this was in place, and there must be a cost for all of this, there's no way that defying the laws of time and space was cheap, so, there was also no reason why it would be tolerant of Agents who were just wasting it's resources and not furthering its interests.

But having the reality of the situation just stated to me as cold, hard fact really seemed to take the cold truth and shove it right in my face, with no chance for me to look away from it.

It threw me into a mild panic for a moment before it rapidly simmered down into cold rationality, the panic and anxiety being kicked to the back of my mind as it tried to catch all the information that was being told to me and ingraining it firmly for the future.

"There are some Agents who come along every once in a while, who are confident in their abilities or just not trusting the Main System's recommendations, who ignore the recommendations and choose a task for themselves. Some of them manage to accomplish these tasks, maybe even going above and beyond with their abilities. These people usually are truly talented, skilled, or even just really lucky."

"But these are the minority…" I muttered to myself realizing where Sunny was going with this.

Sunny seemed to nod at my words. "The rest are the majority. People who were overly excited at their new identity and power, overly confident, or just plain old stupid. They fail the task and instead of getting rewarded, they get penalized, the rest is obvious."

I hummed lowly as I took in Sunny's words. "It snowballs… they don't get the rewards they were supposed to get, which has them not improving, or improving too little, which in turn frustrates them, making them take risky and irrational decisions, and that only makes things worse. It just creates a vicious cycle."

Some would realize this and try to fix the results of their actions, but, by then it would already be too late, they were already swimming against the current.

So either you are good enough to just ignore everything and carve your own path not caring about the consequences, or you plunged into the abyss, having to fight tooth and nail to crawl your way out of it.

Or… You took the path of the normal people and just followed the recommendations, reducing the risk to yourself. Well, I knew which one I was going with.

I turned my attention back to the recommendation list seriously considering each one. There were only three so it wasn't like there were many to choose from anyway.

[Rec.1

Contractor: Ryan

Requests: Become successful as an actor.

Time Period: Modern Times.]

[Rec.2

Contractor: John

Requests: Win the National Tournament of Star Shooter.

Time Period: Modern Times.]

[Rec.3

Contractor: Sam

Requests: Become a famous Model

Time Period: Modern Times]

Looking at the first task, I nodded, feeling it was expected since the skill I picked was acting.

I stopped at the second recommendation for a moment before letting out an awkward laugh, while I used to play games a lot, I never reached the professional level in any game.

You almost did in one, if you didn't stop playing - a part of my mind argued, which I ignored.

I then looked at the third one somewhat incredulously, feeling that the request was a bit too much. Or, well, at least I did, until I looked at the contractor's picture, feeling somewhat nonplussed as I looked at it.

Why do you need to issue a task for this with that face!? The guy was way too handsome! He looked like a model, so it shouldn't be hard for him to become one right…?

I somewhat managed to shake myself out of it, pointedly ignoring the ridiculousness of the situation.

It was tempting to pick the 3rd one, and, in fact, I was gonna pick it until I realized that it seemed… too easy.

I mean, sure I needed to become a 'famous' model, but to be fair, Sam's appearance was more than enough for it, so if he got into a fairly good model agency and did a decent job at it, then it should all come into place naturally. That was my initial reasoning, though I was probably oversimplifying things.

But then, if it were that simple, there would be no need for this task to be issued. So, there should be a reason why the Contractor wasn't able to do it himself.

Either family conditions, pressure from other parties, or even just that he wasn't talented at it, maybe his personality was bad, who knows, but something had to be stopping him from doing it.

Thinking from that angle on the other two tasks, the most probable obstacle for the contractors is the lack of skill, but even then that might not be right, or maybe just not all there was to it, after all, I didn't know what the price for entrusting a Task to an Agent was, or even how you began to do so.

Hell, I didn't even know if there were requirements for it!

There were too many unknowns that didn't let me come to a properly informed decision, but even so, I had to come to a decision eventually.

After thinking about it for a bit I decided to go with Rec.1, Ryan's task to become a successful actor.

Besides being interested in what the life of an actor would entail the major reason why I picked it was because of the Acting skill I picked earlier.

Sunny said that the skill was at the standard professional level, and, from the new knowledge in my head I think that should be about right, so there should be no issues skill-wise in becoming an actor.

But even then that was only part of the reason why I chose this task. The main reason was that it seemed to have been recommended because of me picking the Acting skill. So if that was so, it should at the level of the skill, right?

It was guesswork at most, but it was the best I had at the moment. If I were more confident in my skills, I'd have picked the 2nd recommendation, but I wasn't sure if could trust my skills in Gaming to be enough to reach the national level.

As for the 3rd task, after thinking about it some more I couldn't bring myself to choose it. If I was being honest, the task felt like a trap, seeming like easy pickings only to be a grueling task.

Maybe I was wrong, who knows. I certainly don't.

"I'll go with the first task." I finally said, not giving myself a chance to second guess my decision.

"Alright! You'll get briefed on the Contractor's identity when you're there! Good luck!"

Sunny cheered me on as I started feeling my consciousness fade.