Disclaimer : KonoSuba is owned by Akatsuki Natsume, I don't own it nor do I intend to use it for personal gain and only using it as a material of my fanfic.
~(0)~
Prologue
"Geh! ! !"
Waking up with a painful feeling as if I got choked, I gasped for air while looking at my surrounding.
'Hey, why did this guy turn that pale all of the sudden?'
'No, look at his hair, how could a dark brown hair turn into pure white in such a short time? Even Marie Antoinette{1} took even longer time to get that white!'
'That aside, he looks like he could die at any moment. Let's call the ambulance.'
Around me stood many people with the puzzled expression on their face as if looking at something strange. Not only that, they're wearing a very familiar clothing that I missed for two years.
As if it wasn't enough, I can feel warm and wet feeling from my pants.
Raising my upper body from the ground- no, this rougher texture should be asphalt, I see that my pants are wet and smelly with yellow liquid surrounding it. Yep, I just wet myself despite not being in the age where people usually wet themselves.
This confirms it.
I'm back.
And that's the last thing I thought before I collapsed.
~(0)~
Slowly opening my eyes, I instantly close it again after I got blinded by a bright illumination provided by the lamp above.
Rubbing my eyes and adjusting it to the light, I can finally see my surrounding and it appears that I've been hospitalized considering the IV drips on my hand and hospital gown that I wore.
"Looking at his condition, it appears that he only suffered malnutrition while his hair probably turned into that color from a stress, but it's rather strange for it to happen in a span of few minutes if what eyewitnesses said are true." The man wearing a white robe with the stethoscope, most likely the doctor said to two people, my parents from a few distances away from the bed I laid my body on.
Listening to that, it seems that I'm really back.
"Oh, your son has regained his consciousness." The doctor said, directly my parents' attention to me. Which I respond by waving my hand.
"Geez, what do you think you're doing?"
"Hey Kazuma, is it not enough that you're burdening us as NEET and now, you do that embarrassing stint?"
My father and mother said respectively with reproachful gaze instead of a worried gaze toward their hospitalized son from a near-death accident- no, I did die, but it's complicated. But then again, their reaction is understandable considering what I've been doing up until now. I'm even surprised that they even bother to visit me here instead of leaving me to die.
"Well, um, what do I have to say? Sorry, it must've been a bother for you two to care for a useless son like me." I said sheepishly while scratching the back of my head.
"Of course you should, we- WAIT! Did you just say sorry!?"
"Impossible! Our good for nothing NEET son is actually apologizing while admitting his fault!? This must be the sign that this world is coming to an end!"
Both of them shouted, earning them a stern gaze from the doctor who reprimands them to stay quiet due to being in a hospital.
"Gee, thanks for that reaction. I'm feeling so amazing to have a parent like you two." I quipped sarcastically.
"B-But, in this kind of situation, you would probably say something like 'It wasn't my fault', 'Just let me rest!', 'Could you please shut up.'?"
"Yeah, that's right!"
Guh, two years ago- no, a few hours ago, I might really say that.
But the thing is-
~(0)~
Two Years Ago
My name is Satou Kazuma, I'm 16 years old and not in any education, employment, or even training a.k.a NEET.
You must be wondering on how this 16 years old kid turned into a parasitic hikikomori NEET, right?
Because I'm lazy? No.
Because my grade is bad to the point of wondering what's the need to study? No.
Because I'm too engrossed in the video game? No.
The thing is, this pathetic youth's descent to uselessness started two years ago.
Two years ago, there's a boy, a very naive and foolish one tried to confess his love to a girl. Specifically, his childhood friend who is very kind to him. Sounds normal? Very much.
What happened then? During the middle-school, said naive and foolish boy finally musters up his courage to confess to the said girl.
And that's where the tragedy happened.
Said childhood friend rejects him while laughing at him before saying that she already has a boyfriend who is a delinquent and while saying that, there's no longer any trace of the gentle girl she was anymore.
At that moment, his heart broke and the only solace he could find is in the game which slowly degenerates him into the shut-in that he is right now.
And now, the said boy finally comes out of his fortress(his room) to- buy a newest popular online game in the city. What do you expect? Him growing out of being a NEET and become a better person? That's a foolish thinking and I won't hesitate to lump you with the idiot that is me for thinking such things.
Then, his life changed in the city.
After buying the popular online game I want, I saved a girl from being mashed to paste by a tractor by pushing her out of the way and thus, saving her life- not.
Instead of saving her, she got injured instead by my stupid stint.
As if to rub salt into the wound, the tractor moves so slowly that a zamboni might move even faster than it.
Does that mean I merely dolphin-dived into the asphalt like a moron that I am and injure my already plain face? No, it doesn't.
I died from a heart attack caused by the shock from thinking that I'm dying from being mashed to paste by that tractor despite the tractor being so far. Not only that, my bladder also choose the wrong time to release itself. Then again, dying people tend to have 'bladder incident' at the time they're dying, but still.
After that, my soul got transported into the afterlife.
And apparently, the afterlife isn't some place with angels waiting for you to escort you to heaven or devil waiting to escort you to your eternal damnation or in case of Japanese, going straight to Yomi-no-kuni{2}. Not all those, but instead...
"Satou Kazuma-san, welcome to the after-life. Unfortunately, you have died. It might be short, but your life is over."
Someone suddenly spoke to me in a pure white room.
In the room was a set of office desk and chair, and the one who announced that my life was over sat in that chair.
If there was a goddess, she must be it.
Her beauty was beyond the idols shown on television, she had glamor that surpassed humans.
Her long blue hair looked silky smooth.
She seemed to be about my age.
She wasn't too busty or too lacking. She had a light purple hagoromo draped over her clothes.
The beauty blinked her eyes which were the same aqua blue color of her hair, staring at me who didn't know what's going on. Or maybe staring at me who didn't know where I am.
Even though I'm in such a weird situation, I managed to mutter out a "What?"
"You are already dead."
"WHAT!?"
I'm surprised that my head didn't blow up a few seconds after I shouted that{3}, but instead of my head blowing up, the woman yelled back at me for being too noisy.
Though, as unreasonable and annoying she is, she still explained this and that about she's a goddess, how her world need saving by bringing dead people from earth and for some strange reason, choosing mostly Japanese people to be reincarnated with very vague explaining of them being easy to manipulate along with being too humble and timid to do weird crap in the other world after giving them the so-called 'cheat' instead of western or chinese people who usually ends up starting revolution or destroying a kingdom to replace it with a country with modern political system or killing anyone who stood in their way even if it's for the slightest reason with their 'cheat' despite initially following the gods' order{4}. After said explanation, she offers me a catalog of many 'cheat' which tickles my inner chuuni like 'Demon Sword Gram', 'Holy Sword of the Lake Arondight', 'Sword of Promised Victory Excalibur', 'Magic Sword Balmung', 'Dark Magic', 'Modern Weaponry', 'Rider Belt', 'Ultra form', 'Heroic Spirit Cards(?)', and many more amazing things{5}.
But despite all that, one magic piqued my interest very much and could solve the problem I had caused for dying on earth.
"So, what kind of 'cheat' would you like to bring in order to save the world?"
"Time manipulation ability." I instantly replied.
"Sure, good luck on your journey." She instantly responded.
With a snap of her finger, a glowing magic circle appears below me. Before I could inspect the magic circle, my vision was consumed by bright light and sure enough, that's the clue that I'm going to another world.
By the time I regained my sight, I saw unfamiliar terrain close to a town that looks similar to many RPG genre video game that I played.
The first thing I do is obviously is to use my power for 'that' goal.
"[Rewind]!" I shouted while outstretching both of my hands.
Just as the instruction I've read earlier, several green runes appeared on both hands, rotating around my wrists. For the next step, I imagine a downstream river flow with its flow slowly reversed just like the description of that magic.
As that image completed, I can feel some kind of energy leaving my body while few runes that rotate around my wrists glowing.
"GAH!"
Before the magic I want to unleash goes off, my concentration broke away as a sudden feeling of pain struck my chest.
The answer to that question was answered later on in the adventure guild after I registered there in the form of my stat.
Name: Satou Kazuma
Age: 16
Height: 165 cm
Weight: 55 kg
Job: Adventurer
Level: 1
HP: 100/100
Mana: 9/50
Strength: 8
Agility: 10
Speed: 10
Vitality: 8
Intelligence: 100
Magic Power: 45
Luck: 1000
I'm running out of juice before I could even complete my spell.
And thus, I began my adventure to increase my stat so that I can perform that magic.
Two Years Later
"I see that you've managed to get this far on your own, Hero Satou Kazuma." A man wearing an extravagant black eerie robe said to me while clapping his hands.
"Eh, I just don't want other people to get in my way or become your hostage. Besides, don't call me a hero, I'm no hero material at all." I replied while shrugging my shoulder.
"I see. It seems like history does repea-" "[Fast Forward]!"
CLANG CLANG CLANG
Before the man could finish that sentence, I already cast my spell and turned him into a mere pile of dry bones wearing a black eerie robe.
"Gee, is it only me who thought to attack the enemy while they're rambling about as practical?" I muttered to no one.
What did I do? I simply accelerate his aging by 10.000 times, causing even the long-lived demonkin to still die of old age. Turns out that tampering with "time" on someone's body cost far less mana compared to tampering with "time" of the world. For comparison, if 100 mana was used to mess around with someone's body, 10.000 mana would be needed for a far smaller time and has more consequences than tampering with people. Nevertheless, it still costs a lot of mana. But now, my goal has been accomplished.
Name: Satou Kazuma
Age: 18
Height: 172 cm
Weight: 59 kg
Job: Arch Wizard
Level: 1028(+250)
HP: 95565/95565(+5000)
Mana: 100591/125650(+42000)
Strength: 4951(+563)
Agility: 5542(+651)
Speed: 5592(+652)
Vitality: 4956(+572)
Intelligence: 150
Magic Power: 10578(+3000)
Luck: 1000
Finally, my mana reached the number of over 100000. From my stat and what happened before, everyone(even me included) can agree that I'm basically a monster compared to the weak me two years ago. But the only reason as to why I could reach this monstrous stat is because I have a time in my hand(get it? Time in my hand? Okay, that's enough) as in I accidentally return back to the past during one of my experiment to test my 'cheat' which threw me back up to one year as time leap. Despairing over my stat that returned back to what it was in the previous year except for my intelligence stat which isn't exactly useful in direct combat, I found out after few days later that my stat returned back to the time I did that experiment due to the fact that my soul is the carrier of stat and uses up my mana to 'mold' my body back to its future shape. With this, I basically create a New Game+ system in real life except that I don't even get to the end game nor do the enemy I encounter get stronger. Spamming this 'cheat', I can kill a one-time only enemy that raise my magical stat many times over until their exp not enough to level my stat up. Before I realized it, my physical stat while not being my main focus, also becomes that of a 'monster' as the side effect of leveling up.
And the next thing I do is to repeat what I did back when I first arrive in this world, except there's a lot of runes involved and ended up successful. Kinda, since my actual goal is to arrive at the time I'm about to commit the stupid stint, not after that happened.
~(0)~
-I've experienced many near-death situations and how hard it is to get a mere loose change from that world. If I don't have this 'cheat', I'd probably be dead by now as no one could survive multiple ordeals where you lose your arm, leg, heart, lungs, and so on. Heck, I even get to experience losing all that. And the sad thing is, no matter how powerful and amazing I've become in terms of power, there's one single thing I never get to experience and that is getting a lover. I wonder what kind of gods pulling such a mean prank on me? I'm not dense nor do I want to build a harem, but why couldn't I get just one girl who honestly likes me aside from wanting me to do absurd action using my power!? Not only that, I'm still a virgin even in that world as I was too scared about letting my guard down if I do that kind of thing considering how many assholes want me dead for not accepting their ridiculous request either for bringing back their long-dead beloved ones or wanting me to make them immortal. And those are some small bit of reasons for me to keep pursuing the mastery over my 'cheat' while expanding my mana capacity to go back home. Turns out I barely managed to do it while almost dying. AGAIN. If my suddenly-turned-white hair color isn't giving you any lead of what's going on, that's my life force being sucked out just to replace my empty mana from crossing different worlds through the passage of time.
Returning back to the current situation at hand, apparently, I will be discharged tomorrow after the doc checked my body's condition.
Few more scoldings later from my parent about not to be a burden for the family and bringing a topic of quitting my NEET lifestyle, they left for work and left me alone in the room.
Well, since there's no one nearby, let's just do it.
"[Analyze]-[Display]" I muttered the chant as a HUD interface appeared in front of me out of thin air, displaying my current stat.
Name: Satou Kazuma
Age: 16
Height: 165 cm
Weight: 55 kg
Job: NEET(Arch Wizard)
Level: 1/1028
HP: 4/95565
Mana: 11/125650
Strength: 8/4951
Agility: 10/5542
Speed: 10/5592
Vitality: 8/4956
Intelligence: 150
Magic Power: 45/10578
Luck: 1000
Status:
Debilitated(Fatal): Cause the afflicted to lose most of their stat, disables most abilities, and prevent all kinds of recovery but natural ones to take effect. Time until status disappeared: 12 hours.
Mana Tuning(Disabled): Considerably increases the amount of mana regeneration and moderately reduces the amount of mana required to cast any spell. Time until status disappeared: Permanent Status.
Delayed Resuscitation(Disabled): For once, when the affected dies, automatically reverse the state of the afflicted to a healthy state before dying 60 seconds after death. Time until status disappeared: Permanent, one time only.
Dishonorable Retreat(Disabled): When low in HP, temporarily grants invulnerability for two seconds followed by tripling Agility and Speed stat until exiting the combat. Cause Debilitated(Light) status for 1 day after the effect wore off. Time until status disappeared: Permanent Status.
Magic Shield(Disabled): Passively halves the damage taken by a magical attack while nullifies physical attacks at the cost of mana at the ratio of 1 mana for 30 points of damage. Affected by Mana Tuning. Time until status disappeared: Permanent Status.
Readjustment: Slowly recovers user's stat. Time until status disappeared: 15 hours.
Time Immunity: Prevent the afflicted from being affected by time manipulation in harmful ways. Time until status disappeared: Permanent Status.
I'm utterly speechless.
First, while it wasn't wrong, why the heck does my job column shows NEET!? Second, I never thought that I'm stripped away from many abilities that I have just from crossing the world for this long. If I'm still in the other world, there's no doubt that I'd already been dead for having most of my arsenal gone along with my messed up stats. The worst Debilitated status I've experienced was Moderate and it was after I did the time leap spam and it doesn't seal away most of my power like Fatal does. So, right now I'm completely defenseless. Glad I'm back to the good old earth then. Surely there's no crazy thing back here, right?
Tch, rather than thinking much of this and that which could make my head spin, I'd rather get a rest right now.
~(0)~
The Next Day
After being discharged from the hospital and enduring the long scolding from my parents because thank you Sunday for being the time I'm discharged, I'm finally home after two years of real-life level grinding in another world. It feels so long yet not so long and I don't even know what I'm saying anymore, but I really did miss this place.
Returning back to my messy room just like the day I left it before dying and going to another world. Oh wait, it's just approximately three days since I was unconscious in the hospital for two days and discharged the next day, so it obviously stays the same with bottles of soda and bags of chips lying around either the floor or my computer desk.
Alright, the first thing I need to do is my main goal. Turning the computer on, I put the disc inside to install the game.
What? Surprised that it wasn't for some good purpose like wanting to correct my mistake and change my life? Nah, I just wanna know what kind of game I bought that indirectly caused my death. Initially, my main goal of returning home is to remove the porn stash I got under my bed, but then again if I returned back completely, why bother since I'm going to stay here anyway and will use it later on for 'Research Purpose'. I don't have any attachment to that world anyway since every day is filled with me being on guard for both demon army or stupid nobles who want me dead after they found out my 'cheat'. Not to mention the very important fact that I got no lover or even someone remotely possible to be my love interest. It may sound cruel since it might really happen considering its state, but that world can just die.
Completing the registration of said game's account, I start the game up.
Few hours later in the game and I'm no longer interested in it.
No, the game isn't boring or uninteresting. I daresay that it should be one of the greatest MMORPG adventure video games that I've played to date with its great system and visual. But the thing is, the magic and combat are too plain compared to my experience to another world, making the grind I have to do in order to get good pieces of equipment boring due to the already telegraphed attack pattern and the inability to do erratic or eccentric way of fighting like I did in the other world. Even though the game's spells and combat are flashier than what I've seen in the other world, all of those moves are impractical and if they're in the other world fighting with that kind of skill, they'd die when they fight even a normal enemy. Not only those, using my 'cheat' that could be used after the 12 hour period of Fatal Debilitation, I can't die at all with my crazy reflexes and the ability to slow the time down so I can plan far ahead in combat. Worst of all, many flashy moves don't have a devastating effect compared to the other world's spell where a stupidly small black orb could curse someone to death in seven days unless one kill the caster before that time comes or a simple explosion spell could atomize someone instead of dealing numerical damage like in the game.
And so, I tried many games; thrilling, horror, adventure, action, fps, and many more after that to regain my gaming spirit to no avail.
I wonder what should I do now that my raison d'être{6} gone.
~(0)~
In the certain alley away from the still bustling street that is Shinjuku despite being so late at night, a homeless man wearing tattered clothes is sleeping on the ground in the alley, sleeping from roaming around at the day trying to find any way to not stay at the same state he's in.
BZZZT
CRACKLE
A loud crackling noise reverberates in said alley. Had the alley located so close to the bustling street of Shinjuku Ward, everyone nearby would be alarmed by the sound as if there's an electrical malfunction happening. But since it's away from it, the only one who noticed and awoken from his slumber is only the homeless man. Rubbing both of his eyes, he tries to locate the source of that noise only to find a small flickering light coming out of a small hole in the wall at the end of the alley.
"What the heck is this? Wa!"
The man muttered while trying to peer through the hole, only to be falling on his butt as the hole suddenly enlarged right in front of his face from a mere size of ping pong ball into an oval shape as large as his body.
"HAHAHA! It's a success! I've returned!"
A loud hoarse voice can be heard from the other side of the hole as the figure who said that slowly stepped out of the hole.
"W-W-What's going on!?" The homeless man stuttered as he looks at the man who came out of the hole garbed in strange garment consisting of a hooded black robe with two skulls pauldrons on his shoulder.
Taking a glance at the homeless man, the man in strange garment took his hood off, revealing his face which causes the homeless man to sigh in relief. Why? Because that face is a common face that could be found anywhere in his country which is the face of Japanese youth.
"Good grief, you surprised me brat! This ain't Akihabara, ye weird- Bufu!" "[Rot]"
Before the man could finish his words, the youth grabbed the homeless man's face and said a single word. And said word caused the homeless man's body to convulse violently for several seconds before he stopped moving altogether.
Removing his hand from the man's face, it reveals what happened to the man; his face is melting- no, it would be better to call it as rotting along with his body while exuding horrendous stench. Looking at the rotting corpse beneath him, the youth had an evil grin on his face.
"It works! This great me still retain such power even when I returned! HAHAHA! Just you wait! I will have my revenge!"
After he had enough laugh, the youth leave the alley, leaving an unnaturally fast rotting corpse behind him.
~(0)~
References:
{1} Marie Antoinette Syndrome: an alleged condition of hair suddenly turning white. The name comes from folklore about the hair of Queen Marie Antoinette of France turning stark white after her capture following the ill-fated flight to Varennes during the French Revolution.
{2} Yomi or Yomi-no-kuni(黄泉 or 黄泉の国): the Japanese word for the land of the dead (World of Darkness). According to Shinto mythology as related in Kojiki, this is where the dead go after life.
{3} You are already dead(Omae wa mou shindeiru): A catchphrase that Kenshiro, the main character of the series uses after hitting his opponent with his Hokuto Hyakuretsu-ken which didn't do anything at first glance, earning the What!?(NANI!?) reaction from anyone unfortunate enough to be at the receiving end of this technique as their head will explode afterwards.
{4} A reference along with jab to the cliche regarding how Japanese(LNs and WNs), Chinese(Xianxia and Wuxias), Western(WNs and Web Series) would act when they get transported/reincarnated into another world.
{5} Large references of Fate series along with many legendary weapons from earth's myth being used in fiction, Kamen Rider series, Ultraman series, etc.
{6} Raison d'être: reason for being. In this case, Kazuma who is a video game obsessed NEET, lost his interest in the only thing that keeps him going.
Author's Note:
Alright, this is my first step in the world of Fanfiction as a writer. The inspiration I got to the point of writing my own fic came from various things like reading many Light Novels, Web Novels, Movies, Animes, etc which stimulates my imagination and finally put said imagination into this fic. Thank you guys for reading it and I hope you guys can leave a rate and review so that I can improve since as much as I feel what I released is good enough, suggestion and constructive critism are always welcome to fix any mistake and improve it into something better. See you later!