3 First Death

As I stepped outside of the doors, I found myself in another dark hallway.

I continued down it until making a right turn, whereupon a strange furry creature with sharp teeth jumped on me. I had no time to react, and my 9-year-old body was made short work of.

There was only one thing I could say.

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"Damn it, he one-shot me!"

As I looked around, I was now sitting on the floor of my cell yet again, perfectly intact.

Satou.

S: Hm?

What just happened.

S: You died, that's pretty obvious. It's really embarrassing, that thing is one of the weakest monsters in this world.

You finally tell me something about this place just to spite m-, Wait, what do you mean I died?

S: I mean, you died. Death. Freed from this mortal coil.

Does this have something to do with that weird sword?

S: Why don't you go check?

Taking his advice, I left the cell, the door strangely still where I left it, and ventured back up the steps. When I arrived, I noticed that the doors were still open, and went over to the greatsword, the ring of blue flame still surrounding it. One of the three glowing runes I had seen on it before had completely disappeared.

S: So, there you have it. This right here is one of Korin's Monuments, one of the greatswords said to be wielded by a legendary hero of this world. Some say these monuments even have mystical properties, like the ability to bring someone back to life, for instance.

So...this thing brought me back to life? Why?

S: See, this world is rather infamous among deities for being extremely dangerous, to balance the high power ceiling. As it stands, even one of the weakest enemies in this world is about as strong as a high ranking monster in your world. There's always a bigger fish, so they say.

S: I wouldn't be so heartless as to throw you into a situation like this without some sort of advantage, but I've learned from experience that making people really powerful from the get go makes things really….boring. So instead, I gave you the ability to try again, the proof being from that mark on your palm.

I thought you said you weren't here for exposition.

S: In the interest of fairness I should probably let you know some things in advance. You don't exactly have infinite lives, so you can't just die over and over. When you activate one of Korin's Monuments, these runes here will represent how many lives you have left. Once all the runes are gone…. Game Over!

S: But, there are multiple Monuments scattered throughout this world, so you'll have opportunities to replenish your lives. They don't stack though, so you might want to make sure you only use one when you run out of lives.

S: Also when you die, all your body and gear will be left wherever you died, until it decomposes. So you might want to avoid that.

S: As you can see, you only have 2 lives remaining. And you no longer have your clothes or sword hilt. Like I said, I'm a very busy deity, so I'll only be checking in on you every now and again.

S: So with that said, goodbye, good luck, and git gud!

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