A Flaming End and a New Beginning

Once Upon a time, there was a world filled with gods, adventure, and myth. However, our story doesn't start there. It starts on our own world, earth. Right now, it's 2024. Our protagonist is a normal man working at a factory packing boxes. A cog in the wheel of consumerism. He stands in one place for 10 hours a day shoving orders into a box and tossing them onto the conveyer belt to get sent off to god knows where in the local area. Its... a mind-numbingly boring job but it pays enough. Our story starts here. One of these standard mind-numbingly boring days for our protagonist. Yet things would quickly change for him.

James was just at work listening to music. A hood up to try and keep his bosses from spotting the headphones in his ear. He didn't want to get in trouble again for listening to music while he worked. But he needed something to keep his mind busy while he worked, or he would go insane. 

"I wish I could do something better with my life." He said softly. His words were lost in the endless noise that the many belts made around him. As if in response to his words the machines in front of him sputtered to a stop. He grumbled for a moment as he looked up at now still conveyor belt. "Great just great…" his words were cut off mid-sentence as there was the sound of an explosion nearby. So close that he could feel the heat of it scorch him and his clothing. He collapsed backward against the shelves full of products as he watched the area around him quickly catch fire. The sea of boxes easy tender for the flames. 

Our protagonist's death was a horrible one. Even as the fire suppression systems kicked in he was burnt. Having been in the epicenter of the incident he was lucky to survive the explosion. But not so lucky to survive its resulting inferno that swept the building.

In total 12 people died in the fire and 2 more in the initial explosion. Something that was quickly labeled an accident and swept under the rug. Such a massive corporation surely had its way. What else was there for anyone to do but accept this horrible accident? 

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Darkness. That was the only thing our protagonist saw. His memory of recent events was fuzzy at best. He seemed to stay like that for a small eternity. Just floating in an endless void of inactivity. But then like the flash of a sudden inferno, it all came rushing back to him. 

[Welcome! Please tap to start!]

This is the message that seemed to float in front of him. Confused he tried to glance around but no matter where he looked it was just darkness. And this message.

"Ahhh um… hello?" he tried calling out. But the void seemed to swallow any noise he made, and no response was given. He tried walking around but again the scene never changed. No matter how far he attempted to walk in any direction it was just darkness. And that message. Finally seeing no other option, he reached forward and pressed on the message and was instantly blinded by the bright screen that expanded before him.

"Ahh fuck. A warning would have been nice before you turned on the lights." He said with a frown. As he gazed at what was now in front of him.

[Character Creation! Please Create your next life!]

[world: Unselected]

[warning please select a world before continuing.] 

[warning if the user does not select world it will be chosen at random]

He gazed at the warnings that were now filling his vision and shook his head. "Yeah no let's not let it go to random. I'll end up in some horrible setting like Dark Souls or Warhammer with my luck." With that, he clicked on the world setting and an entire host of information popped up. Far too many worlds to even properly comprehend. He was almost overwhelmed at first. But then he spotted it. A handy dandy search bar. 

"Well, at least this is user-friendly." He praised whatever person made the system in front of him. He typed in the world of his favorite show. It had released a new season not so long ago. Danmachi. It had some of his favorite lore.

[searching…searching…searching… world found! World selected.]

[Character Creation! Please Create your next life!]

[world: Danmachi]

[warning this world is labeled as dangerous]

[Please create your new body.]

And what appeared in front of him was one of the most intense character creators he had ever seen in his life. It was as if someone had taken the very best character creator and cranked it up to 11. The first option he was given was race. Everything else was greyed out. 

"I'm going to be here for a while aren't I," he said. A smile crossed his face. He truly loved making his characters in video games. "I think I'm going to play around with this for a bit and see what things I can make before I make my actual new self." And with that, he tapped on the race box. And with it appeared a much shorter list than he thought would appear.

[Amazoness, Boaz, Bull, Cat People, Chienthrope, Dark Elf, Dwarf, Elf, Hume Bunny, Human, Pallum, Raccoon, Renard, Sheep, Weretiger, Werewolf, Xenos]

He thought to himself for a short while as he looked over the options in front of him. Indecisive on what to look through first. He wanted to make one of everything. He could just sit here for hours and hours and hours really on just this simple decision. It was this very same thing that had gotten him yelled at by many of his friends when they sat down to play games. He took a very long time to make his character. In fact, In the last game he played. Baulders Gate 3 he had taken 3 hours to make his very own Tiefling. And that character creator wasn't even that deep with only a few body types and hairs along with color choices. After a short while more thought our protagonist James reached out and tapped his chosen race.