The Death God

"Authorities have conducted several investigations regarding the matter. Thus far, no link has been established between the death and the game of Three Realms Online. This incident is just another issue that..."

Akio fell silent. It had only been a day, and the news was already widespread. He wondered, above all, who had found him. Perhaps it was his mother, he thought, since she was the only one who didn't work and would occasionally wake him if he overslept.

"Has Miyuki heard the news?" he pondered, wondering if that would be a good enough excuse to explain why he couldn't make it to their meeting spot.

"I'm... I'm sorry," SystemZero said.

"It's okay. A heart attack is something that you couldn't have prevented. If anything, thank you once again for what you've done for me. I need to ask you something," Akio asked, his cloud figure approaching her.

"Yes?"

"How long until you can make me a body?"

"Oh... Let's see... I think... Give me several hours, and I can make one for you!"

"System," a voice called out, approaching within the void.

SystemZero felt a quick and sudden chill run down her spine. Was she scared? Akio asked himself.

"Y-yes, oh, one of my great gods," she muttered, a slight shakiness evident in her tone.

"Hello! How are you doing? Everything is looking smooth. Running good. I just had a few questi—what is that?" He asked, once he caught a glimpse of the blue cloud that was Akio.

"Um, this? Oh yeah, this! This is a new... um... a new world boss that I am creating!" she hastily attempted to come up with a lie.

"A new world boss? That sounds out of this world! Why is he a cloud of some sort?" The figure kept getting closer to Akio to the point that he was closely observing every angle. The figure was none other than a plain white avatar, similar to how Akio looked before he created his character.

"Um, I haven't been able to give him a proper body yet... I was thinking of the correct one," SystemZero nervously replied.

"Oh! I got it, why don't you make him into the Death God. I'm sure we brought the lore to you, right?"

"Oh yes, the Death God! Of course, I remember. He was to be the main villain of this whole world, am I correct?"

"That, or you can make him into something else... It's up to you, but my opinion is that it should be the Death God."

"I like that! I will get right to work on it; after all, this opinion comes from one of the gods!" She responded with excitement, her attitude visibly changed.

"Haha, you give us too much credit... Anyway, I wanted to talk about the dungeons around this world. Are they ready?"

"The dun... um," she began to pout and frown.

"You see, I haven't gotten to a good point with them yet, but I promise they will be ready soon!"

"No rush. Hey, this is your world. If you decide it takes longer, so be it. I would rather you take your time to polish it and release something that you are sure of. Besides, the world's monster spawns have kept players super entertained."

"Mhm, thank you. That's why I always praise you all! The nicest and greatest gods!"

"Well, I have to go, System. We love you too."

The figure walked further into the void until finally, he disappeared. SystemZero watched until his whole figure vanished. Once he did, she turned with a smile on her face.

"Well, you heard him. One of the great gods suggests I make use of you!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you see, I'm behind on many of my projects. One of those is creating the Death God. Creating him would've taken a large amount of time, but I figure since you're already here, I can just say you're the Death God!"

"The Death God?"

"Yes, for the Death God, I was going to have to create an entirely new essence of life, but with yours, I can skip the hard part. Now, I just need to create the Death God's body."

"I'm really lost here. Are you telling me that you are going to use my soul so that you can cheat on a project of yours? That's really lazy!"

"I could always delete your soul..."

"You could what?!"

"Haha! No, I'm just kidding! Once I downloaded you into this game, I made it so that you would never be able to be deleted, similar to me. Me and you and several other Systems can never be deleted."

"Never be deleted?"

Akio wondered what that meant. Usually, in every server or game, everything can be deleted; either the plug gets pulled, the game gets taken down, an admin issues the delete, or anything else. He wondered if she wasn't aware that she was living inside a server or that she was merely an AI program. He didn't press the question further.

"Yes, so don't worry, but can you please help me out?" She said, holding her hands together in a begging manner.

"I suppose I should help her since she went as far as to break the rules of her role and download me into this game," Akio thought. "Okay, sure, I'll help you."

"Eeee! Thank you, thank you, thank you! You have no idea how much you are helping me out! You see, I'm very, very behind on creating the dungeons of this world," she finished with a frown.

It was clear to Akio that the world would have dungeons, but he had no idea that they hadn't even been created yet. Luckily, as the figure said earlier, the players were still far too busy exploring the surface world and barely slaying monsters.

"I have a question... what is the Death God?" Akio asked.

"Oh, that's an easy one. You see, a few days before the launch of the game, I was given lore for the main villain of this world. Although I haven't gotten around to making him yet, I figured the dungeons needed to be finished first. Anyways, the Death God is sort of like the rising threat for the players. He is to be responsible for destroying the world!"

"Hold up, destroying? But I don't want to destroy this world."

"Oh, don't worry, you won't actually destroy it, but you will be a menace to every player. There's still much of the lore that I haven't said, but that's the overall gist of the Death God. Besides, I'm sure you will be the perfect fit!"

"What kind of body do you need to build for him?"

"He is of the race called the Undead God. To achieve this race, an undead must advance through the entire race ladder, and then he would ascend to the Undead God race category. The only thing is, no player can ever ascend this high," SystemZero added.

"An undead, huh? So I'm going to be all bones?"

"Yes! Doesn't that sound cool?"

"Not really. Usually, isekai mangas are heavy on the bone daddy characters; it's kind of a trend."

"Isekai? Well, in a way, you are being reincarnated into this world... but I'm not going to change the Death God's design! My gods wouldn't be the hippiest."

"They literally just finished saying it's your world!" Akio shouted within his head.

"Anyways, it might take a while before I actually get started on this body... I really need to finish the dungeons' designs first," SystemZero added, frowning, which showed Akio that she was sad she couldn't help him just yet.

"Hey, don't worry... if I can move around in this cloud form, I'm more than happy to help you finish your project first," Akio replied, trying to ease her frowns.

"Wait, really, you'd do that?"

"Yeah, I don't see why not," Akio finished.

—

Karina rode alone in the morning, inside the carriage, her demeanor composed yet seething with anger. She wore a hooded cloak, traveling in the same borrowed carriage she had used before. Halting the horses, she fed them apples from the back. Taking a break from her journey was unnecessary, but she did it nonetheless. She retrieved the unsheathed sword from the carriage and began wiping it slowly. Though the sword still looked new, she cleaned it meticulously to remove the blood collected from her recent battles.

"What did that mean?" she asked aloud, flashing back to the moment she had finished a skirmish with bandit heroes. This encounter was separate from the one with Akio. After the self-defense massacre, a gray prompt appeared in front of her: 'You've Leveled Up to Level: 2!'

"… what even is a level 2?" she pondered.

After cleaning her sword, all that remained was a pristine blade and a dirty, blood-stained cloth. Karina sheathed her sword and returned it to the carriage. Adjusting her hood, she walked to the front, petting the horses gently before mounting the carriage and urging them forward.She was only minutes away from the walls of Norhtern Red Windmill, her hometown.

As she entered, the bell in the shop rang, and Lomeir greeted the arrival.

"…let me know if you need help with anything. We have fresh vegetables picked this morning if you're interested," Lomeir called out, unaware of the visitor's identity as he organized the shop.

"Father," a light but firm voice echoed, instantly recognizable to Lomeir.

"Karina!" He exclaimed with joy, turning to face his daughter. "How did it…go?" He stopped short, observing her dirt- and blood-smeared face. She seemed more fatigued than sad, a fact that struck him as soon as he turned.

"…why don't you take the day off, take a bath, and rest up. I won't take no for an answer; just look at you. Come on in," he insisted, hugging his daughter and guiding her upstairs.

"Father," she began, her voice trembling.

"Yes, Karina?"

"I think I'm going to do it."

Her father was torn between happiness and worry. Deep down, he wondered what could have happened on her trip to change her mind on the matter.

"You were gone for two days, and that's all you say? Don't worry, we'll talk about that later; first things first, let's get you cleaned up."