Prologue

Author's Note:

Welcome to Dysfunctional - An Assassin's Guide to Reincarnating in Another World. I started writing this book around the time the COVID lockdowns began, during which I found myself having so much free time that I was insanely bored all day every day. That's when I decided to try my hand at writing a book to keep myself occupied and pass the time.

Initially, I didn't take it very seriously, I didn't plan the story out or anything, I was just making it up as I went along. It wasn't until around the chapter 25 mark that I really started to take it seriously and plan the story out more, as this book began to gain more attention than I ever expected it to. 

Therefore, the first twenty or so chapters can come off as kinda amateurish. However, I'd like to think that after that, the story and writing improve a lot, as I started thoroughly planning the story arcs and long term plot around the start of the third volume, around chapter 25-30.

The feedback I've received backs that up, my early chapters get some rather mixed reactions, while my later chapters get relatively positive reactions for the most part. I encourage and appreciate all feedback and criticism, through past criticism and suggestions from comments, I'd like to think that I've used those experiences to improve my writing and the story overall.

I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book, and again, I welcome any and all feedback or criticism, so feel free to express your opinions and thoughts in the comments. Happy reading! 

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I'm dead. That was the only thought that ran through my head in my final moments. I didn't panic or pray, or whatever other people do when they face death.

Nope, all my brain could muster was the bare minimum; acceptance of my fate. Unsurprising, considering the events leading up to my death.

"So, you are now dead," Echoed a floaty voice in my head.

I opened my eyes and saw a figure clad in literal brightness in front of me.

"You appear quite calm, most would panic and start asking question upon question," Once again, the voice came directly into my head.

"I already know I'm dead, and what comes after death was a complete mystery, so I have no reason to panic, in fact I gotta say, this is pretty fascinating. So, are you supposed to be God or something?" I inquired quizzically.

"No, it would be inaccurate to call me a God, but explaining what I am would be beyond your comprehension, so for now let us stick with 'or something'", Came the reply.

"O...kay? Hey, there's one thing I'm curious about...why do I feel so calm? Before I died, I'm pretty sure I was filled with an overwhelming amount of hatred and desire for vengeance, but right now, I feel...normal."

"Hm...I had hoped you would not notice that. It is simple, what you went through before your life ended, the trauma it caused had...skewed your sanity, to put it lightly. I readjusted your sanity back to a relatively normal state of mind, along with a few other...necessary adjustments."

Can't say I liked the sound of that...I-I'll ignore it.

On another note...

"Ugh, do you think you could answer the normal way, you know, through my ears? Talking into my head like that feels super creepy," I groaned.

After a brief period of silence, the voice continued, this time so that I could hear its words with my ears.

"Your life was quite eventful. And by judging it, I shall determine what comes next for you," It stated.

"Ooo-kay. What exactly are my options for 'what comes next'?" I asked.

"It is quite simple. Your soul shall be discarded if it is fully corrupted, otherwise it shall be reincarnated," Came the reply.

Now that, I liked the sound of.

"No kidding? Can you get into more details regarding the reincarnation bit?" I said, my interest piqued.

"Very well, as time is not a constraint here, your question can be answered. There are many different worlds and realities, a soul that is fit for reincarnation will be randomly reborn in one of them, possibly even in the same world where their previous life ended. It is also possible to narrow down and specify the terms and preferences of your reincarnation, but that comes with its own set of drawbacks," The voice explained in that floaty tone.

It took me a moment to process all that, it all sounded like something straight out of a fantasy series...but it probably wouldn't do me much good. Looking back on my life, it was pretty likely that my soul was too corrupted for reincarnation or whatever.

"Not quite. I can confirm the exact status of your soul after evaluating your life, however I can assure you that it is quite unlikely that your soul has been fully corrupted. Now then, we shall begin the evaluation," Came the voice.

Huh, so it could read my mind too.

The "evaluation", as the voice called it, was basically a speeded up replay of the events of my life. It started with my birth and carried on from there. Turns out I was half English and half Sri Lankan.

"Cool, never knew what ethnicity I was."

When I was three, I was kidnapped and sold around the world, before eventually ending up in the home of an assassin at the age of five.

"Huh, looking back, I was pretty lucky that I didn't end up in the hands of a pedophile while being human trafficked across the globe," I mumbled to myself.

From that point forward, I could remember the rest of the events of my life pretty clearly. The assassin raised me and taught me his craft for the next four to five years. And then, between the ages of ten to sixteen, I became a professional, international assassin who killed well over 300 people. I had no name, and went by the codename Kuro, since I always wore fully black outfits.

And I spent my free time watching anime, movies and gaming.

"Are...you sure that my soul isn't fully corrupted or whatever? I mean, I killed a lot of people. And enjoyed it at times."

Guess murder isn't as bad as people say it is.

And then things took a turn. A job I accepted turned out to be a set up, and I ended up as a lab rat in a laboratory run by a group of crazed cultist researchers. I'm not quite sure what I was a lab rat for, but it involved a lot of dissection and electricity, which was quite shocking.

...sorry, that was a terrible pun.

I have no idea who set me up or why they did so, but I was the kind of person who didn't get really along with anyone, I was pretty outspoken and blunt, plus I hated the idea of sucking up to someone just because they held a position of power or authority, so I would never bother filtering what I said.

In other words, pretty much all of my clients disliked me a lot, if I had to sum up my relationships with the people I knew in one word, that word would be "dysfunctional".

So literally everyone that I'd had major interactions with could have been the one who screwed me over.

Anyway, my life as a human test subject continued for three years, and then I died. And now here I am.

"Your soul is indeed fit for reincarnation. The process shall begin shortly," The floaty 'not-God' voice stated, after the replay of my life ended.

Wait, for real?

A whole heap of murder during my formative years, and not to mention that my mind was filled with anything but wholesome or endearing thoughts during my last three years, wasn't enough to fully corrupt my soul?

You know what, I wasn't going to question it.

"Uh, wait a second. Could I customize my reincarnation? Like, I want to reincarnate in a world with magic or superpowers or something. Oh, and can I keep my old memories? Also, I don't want to start over as a baby, could I reincarnate in, say, my mid-teens or something?" I inquired eagerly.

Now that I had confirmation that I could be reincarnated, my mind began racing with thoughts and ideas.

"Hm...recently, a lot of people who die young in your old world have very similar requests. To answer your questions, all of that is possible, yes. However, there are drawbacks. Standard random reincarnation erases your previous memories, which cleanses your soul of any corruption. Retaining old memories also means retaining the corruption you accumulated in your previous life," The voice explained.

"Yeah, blame the first part of your statement on anime and manga, Isekais are absurdly popular these days. And regarding the corruption part, I'm cool with that. On another note, I gotta say, your lifeless deadpan tone is pretty annoying," I mused.

"...I was aware that you were thinking that, but to actually say it out loud, I can see why you were so dysfunctional when it came to human relationships in your old life," Came the reply, a hint of annoyance in the previously emotionless voice.

"I mean, I did kill people for a living."

After a few moments of silence, the voice continued, and I couldn't be sure, but I had a feeling that I was starting to exasperate this not-God being.

"Let us begin the process. There are many different worlds, some operate under the laws of physics and science like your old world, and others operate under laws that would be considered fantasy in your old world. I shall randomly pick such a world for your reincarnation."

"Sweet! Hey, side note...make sure it's a world that's like...not too peaceful, you know? All out war is a bit much, but a little bit of conflict here and there could be fun. I don't plan to be as reckless as I was in my previous life, but I'd rather not reincarnate into a boring world."

Alright, following that there was a ton of dialogue as not-God began the reincarnation process, so I'll summarize instead.

The location that was picked for me was on a small world in a reality where magic was a commonplace factor. And emphasis on small, it's size was just barely large enough to be considered a continent by my previous world's standards.

It contained five countries of relatively equal size, all of them lacking in natural resources to varying degrees, and each taking up about a tenth of the planet. Of the remaining half of the planet, it was a somewhat even split, half taken up by oceans, and the rest were wild areas rich in natural resources, however were overrun by monsters and wild animals, so were unfit for humans to live in. All five countries were closed in by large walls, to keep monsters out.

Each country was surrounded by these areas, and their level of prosperity depended on the quality of the resources available in the areas surrounding them.

For instance, one country may be surrounded by mines filled with gems and use that as a source of revenue, while another country may be surrounded by beaches, and thus specialize in seafood.

War between countries was rare, since most of the countries had formed alliances or non-aggression pacts. However, in the current time period in the world that I would be reincarnating in, tensions between some of the countries were slowly rising, so it shouldn't be too boring.

The most prominent job in this world was the title of Adventurer. Each country has an Adventurer Academy in which anyone at or over the age of 15 can enroll in, and once they graduate, they can take on Quests, which ranged from taking out monsters, gathering resources, escorting people from country to country, and most other types of missions you'd see in fantasy RPG games.

In fact, certain aspects of this world operated just like a video game. Killing monsters results in them turning into dust, however a few hours later they'd come back. They essentially respawn. Stuff like gravity and friction worked the same way as they did back in my old world, but the actual study of science were a couple of centuries or so behind what I was used to in my previous life.

And finally, the magic system. Each person had two magical aspects in them. The first was an animal based power known as an Anima, a person develops this when they hit puberty.

It's easier to explain with an example, for instance if your Anima is a tiger, you'd possibly gain nimble flexibility and raw strength beyond what's humanly possible, as well as a physical mutation or two, such as growing a tail or getting stronger and sharper teeth.

You know what that means, right?

This was a world where cat girls could possibly exist!

...what? I may have been an assassin, but I was also a pretty big anime geek, it was my main go-to option whenever I'd had free time in my old life.

However, the extent of the power varys from person to person, someone with a weak Anima level might show no physical mutations, while someone with a strong Anima could look more animal than human.

Using the tiger example again, if there were two people with a tiger Anima, one weak and one strong, the former might just have red and black striped hair and be slightly more athletic than average, while the latter could have a tail, cat ears, possibly even fur, and be incredibly fast and powerful.

What type of animal a person's Anima would be based on happened at random, it wasn't genetic or something that could be inherited.

Also, when a person reaches puberty and their Anima develops, they will automatically and instinctively know exactly which animal it is, even if they have no resulting physical mutations to give it away.

Apparently, an Anima would almost never have a detrimental effect on its user. For example, most animals have shorter lifespans than humans...however, even if someone had an Anima based on an animal with a very short lifespan, their own lifespan wouldn't be reduced.

The possible effect of an Anima ranges from little to no effect, to overwhelmingly positive effects.

And now for the second aspect of this magic system. This was a lot more simple and is pretty common in games and anime.

Elemental Magic. Unlike the Anima which develops after puberty, your Elemental Magic is something you're born with, ranging from Fire, Water, Wind, Earth and Lightning.

And like the Anima, the level of power and potential capacity varys from person to person.

However, simply having a strong Anima and powerful Elemental Magic wouldn't always guarantee that you'd be a good Adventurer, another important factor was compatability and balance between the two aspects of your magic.

For example, Wind Magic with a bird Anima would be highly compatible, while Fire Magic and a fish Anima would have a much lower compatability.

Thankfully, I was allowed to pick both aspects instead of having them randomly assigned to me. My reincarnation was now just one step away from completion. I needed to carefully specify what abilities I wanted.

After thinking it over carefully for a while, I made my choices.

"Alright then, resurrect me as my 16 year old self, since that was when my assassination abilities were at their peak, I'd like to have my old physical capabilities. For my Elemental Magic...I'll go with Lightning Magic, and as for my Anima...I'll go with the immortal jellyfish. Those things are, as the name implies, immortal, after all," I declared, my excitement turning into giddy impatience as I began anticipating my new life.

My child-like excitement was boiling over. I mean, I was about to live out a literal fantasy, how cool is that!?

"While your choices do have high compatibility...immortality does not exist," Said the voice, raining on my parade, "At any rate, the immortal jellyfish is not actually immortal, technically speaking."

"Ugh, seriously? You are such a wet blanket, not-God. Okay, then how about a Healing Factor? You know, I get an injury and it heals up in seconds," I suggested a compromise.

After a moment of silence, the voice spoke up, ignoring my 'not-God' comment...was he trying to get this over with as soon as possible?

"Possible. You will be able to heal most injuries quite quickly, however if you lose your head or puncture your heart, you will still die. And you will certainly still feel pain, in fact, the entire process of healing a severe injury will be fairly painful. I can grant you this power in exchange for the effects of your Anima reduced to, at most, a minor physical mutation and perhaps a slight boost to your Lightning Magic conductivity. In other words, granting you this 'Healing Factor' will sacrifice any potential effects that your Anima may have otherwise developed. Also, you will age and die like normal, the healing won't keep you at the same physical state forever, or whatever it is that you are thinking right now. Is that acceptable?"

Stop reading my mind already.

Hm, my choices were between...a literal Healing Factor or randomly generated jellyfish-inspired powers?

"Yeah, I'll go with the Healing Factor! Pain isn't really a big deal to me, I mean I was a lab rat for three whole years, I think I can handle my fair share of pain. Oh, you said I can have a minor physical mutation, right? Hm, I don't want anything too freaky, like tentacles or something...how about slightly translucent hair? You know, like how jellyfish are kinda see through."

"Very well then. As it so happens, you'll be the first person to have a jellyfish Anima in this world, marine life Animas are quite rare, second only to insect Animas."

"Wait a sec, so this world has bug people too? Huh, that's kinda off putting."

"Let us complete the process. Your reincarnation into another world will now begin. The next time you wake up, you will be in your new world."

Yeah, he was completely ignoring whatever I was saying at this point and simply rushing to complete the process.

"Huh, you really do want to get rid of me as soon as possible, don't you? I thought time wasn't a constraint here, at least, that's what you said," I smirked, the voice had been pretty monotone in the beginning, but I could sense a growing irritation in its tone the longer this interaction went on.

I did have a few more questions about the world I was reincarnating into, but I guess I'll just figure them out once I'm there.

The being suddenly snapped his fingers, as a wave of warmth rushed over my body and I could feel myself getting sleepy, as the bright light in front of me began to fade and get dimmer.

Right before I passed out, I could have sworn I heard a sigh of relief.

Well, that was fun.

But what comes after was what truly held my interest. The next time I open my eyes, I'll get to see the results of my customized reincarnation process.

I could hardly wait!