Oh God No... Not A System

"Mmph... Haha! Tom? What a lame fucking name!" I spat out, bursting in a fit of laughter at the creepy skeleton thing in front of me. I knew I was simply distracting myself from the terror I was feeling evident by my shaking hands and trembling legs.

"Enough with the antics boy. We must have a brief talk." Instantly I stopped laughing. Was it fear that took over or was it some sort of magic, if not both?

"You, and I are going to enter in a little contract, yeah?" He took a step and suddenly melted. His puddle creating another entity this one however was much more human. He was only a head shorter than me wearing an all black tuxedo and top hat. His hair was thin and gray.

"This puts you much more at ease doesn't it? This appearance, you like it more yes?" He asked.

I simply shook my head in agreeance not wanting to offend the creature.

"Good, now let me fill you in. The human, Geralt. He was right enough, but some things, he did not have knowledge of. He was right, you and your classmates did die. A methanol fire then led to a gas explosion. But I'm certain you believed him. You see although I go under the guise of death that is not my true being. I am nothing, and now you are nothing." He said to me.

His eyes not leaving mine for even a fraction of a second. "Death is something... entirely different." Pausing he turned around pointing at the darkness surrounding us. "This is home, aka the void. Anyhow, one of your friends has a contract with my... little sister of sorts. Tess, the sweetheart she is. And now you will have one with me, but allow me to introduce myself once more."

Finishing his statement the darkness around us began to warble and shift. We were in a different space now. No, we were in space.

"Ages and ages ago there was a collection of matter. The primordial, was alive, yes, however, there was nothing but itself. And I do mean that literally. In the beginning, it was just the primordial. There was no nothing, I know it's hard to comprehend but just stick with me. After who knows how long it began to use the mana in its system, albeit it was quite literally one hundred percent mana, it began to spin itself dry. Creating a vast playground for the creature. We call that space, and then trillions, billions, or however many year's it took it began to create little balls of matter, those being planets. And one of those plan-"

"Wait... Holy exposition, why are you telling me all this? Can't you get to the point?" I interrupted.

Seemingly annoyed Death, or nothing rolled his eyes as he began once more. "Well as I said as it began to release mana off of itself nothing was created, that nothing being me. I am a collection of the oldest mana known. And then eons later another form of solid matter was created The Eternal Soul Sister, or Tess, the Goddess of Life and Creation. She named me The Only Man, or obviously Tom. The two of us being the older sentient creatures in the known universe, if not universes. And the reason I tell you this is for one reason."

"I will be the primordial's first and last creation... And you and I are now one and the same."

My brow furrowed as I listened to Tom speak. "So... What are you saying? Let me guess you're telling me to destroy the universe, haha." I said laughing it off.

Upon our eyes meeting once again Tom's face held no emotion. It was simply blank, and that told me everything I needed to know.

"Although I do enjoy bloodshed, I hold no real contempt for life forms, it is a simple program; Destroy all. And you know not just the living, but planets, stars those things too. And I'm telling you because whether it be tomorrow or a septillion years in the future you will feel that program unfold. And you will do what you are told. And with that I have made a deal with Tess, stating that my mission will not begin until she can say with confidence that she has made the perfect deal. So rejoice, as of now she has not."

"Now be gone."

And with that, I was comfortably in bed.

Silence, that was the only thing comforting my ears.

"How ironic, nothing is making me feel better about Nothing." I sat up for a moment taking in the room I was in. It was just a tad smaller than the cellar but it was still very spacious. The stone this time was proper and taken care of with a window facing the moon letting in the natural light.

I flopped myself back down too exhausted to even want to think about what had happened with Tom. I closed my eyes and was soon granted the sweet release of sleep.

***

There was an angel, he had long beautiful white hair and matching wings, and beside him sat an odd creature. Neither man nor animal but it sat on all fours with the face of a human, the body of a dog, and the legs of a spider. It was perhaps six feet long, and four feet tall. The monstrosity would scare even the bravest of men yet the beautiful angel didn't seem to mind.

He sat on pristine white cathedral stairs and to the right of him stood a massive clocktower, with a low-hanging bell. And to the left was an open field surrounded by dark metal gates. Or so the angel thought, but as he looked into the field even harder he soon realized it was that of a grave.

There was only one stone, there was writing there. Presumably a name but no matter how hard the angel tried to read the stone it would simply be scribbles. Ignoring the grave he turned his attention to the bell. He knew in his heart that it had struck an hour yet the clock didn't ring out.

Noticing his master's displeasure the dog, spider, and human hybrid crawled their way to the bell trying to push it, but no matter how hard the thing pushed the bell wouldn't budge and seemingly both the angel and the monster gave up, instead, they simply returned back to the stairs of the cathedral.

With one last effort, the angel looked back to the grave to see if he would finally be able to read who it belonged to, and upon focusing in on the stone he was able to make out the letters of the grave that read out-

***

"Shiloh! Wake up man come see this!" Eliza shouted shaking my shoulders, jolting me from my sleep.

"Hmm...?" I moaned out not even with fully opened eyes.

"Look just put some new clothes on you're covered in blood, and meet us in the courtyard!" He shouted running out of my room. Seconds later he came back bursting through the door.

"I forgot you don't know where that is. I'll get someone to come to get you alright buddy just hurry up!" He said once again dashing away.

With a slight shrug, I began to toss on some new clothes seeing as he was correct my clothes were covered in blood. Probably from something similar to whatever happened to Benjamin.

Minutes later I walked out of the room and to my surprise standing at my door was none other than Emi. I almost walked past her due to her height.

"Hey Em," I said awkwardly.

She seemed annoyed, no I knew it. She was pissed off.

"The only reason I'm here is because you were the only one who slept in and Alex asked if I could get you. So don't even think about trying to be all buddy-buddy." She responded sharply.

"Sor-" I began to apologize.

"Don't you even think about saying sorry after what you did. You should be in jail, you argh!" Emi let out, interrupting me. Seeing as I was obviously not going to get anywhere I did as instructed and we walked about six minutes in silence.

Arriving out of the castle we reached a circular clearing outdoors with a massive fountain dead center of the area.

"Shiloh! Look at this shit man!" Caleb exclaimed. He reached out seemingly grasping the air but soon after a dazzling silver sword appeared. My eyes went wide with shock from the display.

"H-holy shit... Magic?!" I exclaimed.

Caleb waved his hand making the sword promptly disappear. "This morning something popped up in my eye. And I thought I was like going blind and shit, but then I focused in on the corner of my eye and then this huge blue screen popped up. It had my name, and a bunch of other cool shit on it. I mean it was fuckin' nuts!" Caleb continued.

No... I felt as if I was going to throw up in my mouth. B-blue screen? Name, and a bunch of other info. Like... Level, skills, exp, etcetera. That meant only one thing, this place. This world, the magic imbued... It wasn't normal, cool magic. But it was a goddamn system.

I had read many novels, and manga back on earth and if there was one genre of light novel I hated it would certainly be systems. It was the same overused shit in every single one, I took a deep breath and smiled.

It's not like we had magic on earth so I might as well do the most I can with this new opportunity.

With one more deep breath, I opened my mouth, cursing at myself inwardly.

"System," I said muttering aloud. And to no one's surprise, a thin blue screen appeared in front of me.

[Name: Shiloh Kirchner]

[Level 1]

[EXP 0/10]

[Health: 100/100]

[Mana: 10/10]

[Setting: Hidden]

Hmm, so it was just the general stuff. Was there a specific panel for the other things? Like stat points, skills, and whatever else? And as if reading my thoughts a new panel appeared.

{PAGE TWO}

[STR: 6]

[INT: 13]

[DEX: 8]

[COS: 7]

{SKILLS}

[Grim Aura-1]-Emit a powerful aura of death and decay, causing enemies to become weakened or frightened. Cost-2MP/s

[Shadow Step-1]-Move quickly and silently through the shadows, allowing them to ambush enemies or escape from danger. Cost-.5MP/s

[Harvest]-Dissolve and absorb the source of any living being. Passive

{PATRON}

Nothing.

Blinking my eye the screen fluttered away. I shook my head as I cried in defeat, if there was another thing I hated about system novels it was the horrid amount of extra reading required. Ignoring my own pettiness another thought intruded my mind. One of the skills I possessed [Harvest] I believe it was said passive while the other two had cost.

"Just to be safe..." I said to myself quietly walking away from the group toward a group of vines. I lightly brushed my finger along a leaf and confirmed my suspension almost instantly the plant began to wither and decay away.

I then placed the hem of my shirt over top of a different part of the vine onto another leaf and wrapped my thumb and finger over it. Rubbing the fabric back in forth I smiled as nothing happened.

So it did seem to be passive but it was horrible to work around.

"So guys... I was informed by that Ren guy this morning that we would be taking some sort of combat test sometime either today or tomorrow. So I think it would be smart to at least know who we are all sponsored by." Alex said stepping up as leader per usual.

Caleb hopped up first brandishing his sword once again. "Mine's the God of War, Bell something. I don't care got this sick ass sword."

Then followed Eliza. "So this is kind of lame but I just got the God of Farming. No cool sword but I can grow crops fast so that's something" He said sinking into himself obviously disappointed. Alex smiled and put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

"I um... I'm sponsored by the God of Healing, Sanitas. I have like a lot of Mana, whatever that is..." Emi then joined in.

Waving his hand in the same manner as Caleb a bow appeared in the hands of Benjamin. "I think it's pretty obvious but look, my patron is the Goddess of Archery."

I nodded in approval listening to my classmates. "This is such bullshit..." Lily spat out. "This fucking loser got something cool and I- I got the fucking God of Sloth?" We all looked at her in alarm. Lily was many things, but someone to say something that nasty was not one of them.

"L-lily?!" Alex shouted out. It seemed as if she was in some sort of trance.

"Sorry..." She said weakly.

A few moments went by before both Samuel and Sophia stepped up.

"I got The Goddess of Luck, and he got the God of Intellect," Sophia said quickly.

Nodding in satisfaction the group then turned to Alex. "Well, guys looks like I'm the lucky guy, Goddess of Life and Creation." He said smiling. Excited the group then turned to me.

"Well... What'd you get?" Alex asked, his question obviously directed at me.

In theory, I didn't see anything wrong or dangerous with sharing what I got, but after years of reading light novels for the most part anything that dabbled into dark magic looked pretty bad, and left an even worse taste in the mouth of important people.

I mean who would want to be around a guy who decays anything he touches? I know I certainly wouldn't.

Emi walked up to me stabbing her finger into my chest. "What. Did. You. Get." She said with brazen irateness.

Debating if I should even tell someone like her, who clearly didn't like me, my system appeared in front of me once more. This time the emblem of a lock appeared and then it had something akin to an animation of the lock cracking open. And at the bottom of my vision read.

[Setting: Hidden (Shared with Emi Nakamura)]

She seemed to be taken aback as she gained access to my information. Her eyes scanned my body resting on my hands.

"It says his patron is Nothing, whatever that means... But, he's abilities are akin to dark magic." She shouted out.

My jaw dropped as I was quickly stupefied.

Did this bitch just sell me out for some brownie points?