Ch 43 – World God?

Soon, the four were running towards the outskirts of the city far from the park they were in previously to reduce the suspicion that would be put on them if their plan did fail and the wolf's dead body landed somewhere in the city.

"Huff puff" let out the four boys as sweat ooze from their bodies and it finally dawned upon them that they have F rank bodies.

"So, huff, why do you guys, whew, think a monster appeared in the park?" asked Zoran as he leaned over a tree while wiping his sweat with his bloody white shirt that got stained by Jong-ga's gift.

"Either a game design where monsters appear at random intervals in the city, or an in-game villain, or worse, you!" said Jong-ga as he pointed at Zoran with a resentful gaze.

"What!? Why are you blaming me?!" said Zoran while pointing at himself with wide eyes.

"Don't you remember! I want excitement this, I want a villain that, now look! A Sonic Wolf has responded to your wishes" said Jong-ga while shaking his head.

As Zoran looks at Jong-ga with eyes of disbelief, he let out an ominous chuckle from his mouth, "Oh? You really believe in things like jinxing? Stop acting so childish Jong-ga," with a belittling grin.

"Me? A kid? I've been alive for more than 3 decades already fool!" said Jong-ga while shaking his head from left to right.

But unexpectedly, Zoran's grin widened from Jong-ga's ridiculous claim, "OH! You're saying you're a 30-year-old virgin? Tsk tsk tsk, if you had just asked, I could have helped you get laid."

"Stop acting so snob, I know you proclaim yourself as a "Man of Culture" you porn addict," said Jong-ga with a face that just shouts the word "pathetic" which made Zoran clutch his heart as if it just got struck by an arrow.

But while the two were arguing back and forth along with Sora trying to calm the two down, Aki looks at the trio with a distant gaze as a glint appears in his eyes.

'30 years, 15+ years into the future based on Jong-ga's age, I would have expected my previous self to have completed it by 10 years but the rifts did change my plans radically, but oh well, it's still the same foundation and with a failsafe called time loop by my side, I could act a bit more reckless with my oncoming plans, especially the plan to become God' thought Aki but what was strange was that he was now inside a dark room with nothing inside it.

"But my clones could keep the trio busy for now, beacons of hope huh? Beacons of hope, probably a name made up by me in the future, propaganda is key for an image worth being trusted isn't it?" muttered a voice very different from those of Aki's as the room suddenly lit up to reveal it was inside a lab of sorts with monitors and chemicals all around the room.

With a warp vision from my view, everything was laid out to me in an omniscient manner around my room, and felt my mind keeping up with the load with ease due to the Gifts I have gained over the months.

[Akihiko Tanaka] [Title: ]

[Race: ?]

[Class: Hunter]

[Gift: ?]

[Body: ?]

[Mind: ?]

[Energy: ?]

[Skills: Draconic Scales(S) Draconic Vitality(S) Draconic Strength(S) Draconic Senses(S) …]

"Still the same question mark, the system is still primitive I see. It just automatically becomes a question mark once I breach past the S tier, but I'll just call it Z tier for now. But it can't even process the number of Gifts I have huh? Though my memory could easily keep track of it already" I muttered while I walk out of the room with slow steady steps and was greeted with a long white hallway that seems to stretch for eternity.

I'm currently inside a sub-dimension of my own from a very lucky Gift I managed to obtain from a pesky hero breaching past one of my territories, still no luck-related Gifts though, I do wonder if it's like they are lucky enough to unconsciously make them avoid me.

As I continued to walk through the long hallway, I stopped by in front of a door and opened it with one hand, and was greeted by the sight of a picturesque landscape of hills, grand meadows of grass, flowery fields, and rivers.

But soon, monstrous roars appeared from the distance as the sounds of wings flapping appeared in front of me, and on the far horizon appeared the silhouette of a horde of dragons.

"The dragons seem to be healthy and Red-4 is about to lay an egg in the oncoming weeks, it is a surprise we found this S rank portal far away on an unknown island and even the due date of the rift seems to be a long time till the dragons are let out" I muttered while I watched the dragons fly around the sky in the distance along with humanoid figures riding on top of them.

With that, I closed the door and went towards another one to be greeted by giants roaming around a beautiful landscape just like last time, then onto another to see wyverns, then another to see a land of Ogres, Orcs, Hobgoblins, and Goblins as doors upon doors lined up in this hallway and after checking every one of them, I went back to the room I was in before to continue what I was doing.

"Test 652" I muttered while standing in the middle of the room as everything went to retract to the walls with the things left being cameras and monitors to keep track of the experiment.

As I closed my eyes, I felt the whole world around me starting to disappear leaving me with only my thoughts and my senses enhanced to a ridiculous degree.

But even with all of this, I still struggled to sense my soul and interact with it other than using the abilities it somehow holds like necromancy which further irks me on how do I even have the ability of necromancy in the first place?

Ability to steal gifts, bestow and empower gifts, healing, necromancy, and charm?

I could attribute the charm to necromancy but how do I have those two in the first place?

It just always felt so out of place from the world I live in, the healing, gifts and other crap is normal considering the world I live in right now but necromancy?

It just felt so… otherworldly to me.

And I thought the rifts and monsters would be able to help me understand this power but it just opened a new can of worms called mana and skills, how do they work? Why do they work? How did they arrive in this world?

Upon arriving on the neighboring planets around Earth, no rifts seem to reside on them and somehow this is the only planet in this solar system to have rifts which makes me have the suspicions that rifts are either judgment of a higher being, a natural occurrence which is highly illogical or it comes from extraterrestrial beings.

Considering Gifts have appeared in my world along with the system and skills, it's not that unlikely for other worlds to have Gifts or something like magic, perhaps even cultivation, ki, qi, life energy, and other power systems exist out there.

"If only I could travel further into space but considering the distance of lightyears… yeah no, I would need to further develop either Gifts or technology to traverse further into space but then… if rifts came from extraterrestrial beings… then why are they using rifts and not just directly go through them" I muttered while a hologram displayed itself in front of me to show pictures upon pictures of rifts including videos and IVR content for me to explore.

"Inside rifts are subspaces of these mystical lands that contain otherworldly terrains and each one vastly differs from one another in their data, but how were those lands produced? Why are those places inside the rifts? Not only that, those places seem to be the natural habitat of the monsters so not only is it otherworldly, it's specifically catered to the monsters it holds" I muttered as I floated in mid-air while in a lotus position as a window appeared just below my hand that I could write on.

"Rifts are somehow blocking the access of the monsters to go through them, the inside area is a habitat for the monsters, the monsters somehow wants to attack Earth so either lack of intelligence or they are under control… so a higher being sealed the wormhole or space travel of this monsters into these subspaces that also somehow suck in the area around the monsters to form into this habitats, this shows a lack of offensive capabilities by the higher being and instead of just making it black voids devoid of anything to kill the monsters instantly, it holds them inside this prisons waiting to be let out through the rifts which means the higher being has limited control" I muttered as words rapidly covered the screen while more theories stack upon my mind.

"It requires us to take care of the monsters and rifts so we're in a symbiotic relationship where it gave us this system to fight back, but with Gifts being a part of the system, it shows this being has been here longer and way before the rifts appeared and the most plausible one is… it's the World God/Will of Earth" I said as a glint shimmered in my eyes as I finally came to the most plausible conclusion after days and even months of research.

"A World God… how ridiculous is that!" I said with a mad cackle inside the room as an ominous aura exuded out of my body that made the surrounding area shake from the pressure my aura produced.

AN: This is 1673 words, you're welcome.

My experience with writing Braun and the One That Shall Not Be Named has allowed me to write the character called Akihiko, having the traits of the Final Boss of the Multiverse and a criminal, it accumulated into this Evil Genius!

(April 23, 2022 – 150th day of writing)