In the darkness, darker than the middle of the night, with no stars, or whatsoever giving off even the faintest light... Er, probably except for a pair of lifeless...o...b.. from a kneeling gentleman floating in this void. Time ticked by indiscriminately and a long while should have already pa.s.sed. But the young man seemingly didn"t care and was not even minding the pa.s.sage of time. It seems he was not even aware that instead of getting thrown to the purgatory, he got pulled up into a void-like s.p.a.ce. A very questionable being called the system was the culprit.An impatient voice suddenly rang beside the lifeless-eyed young man"s ears to wake him up from the trance.
"You know that you just died, correct?"
The kneeling figure, which seemed to be a statue depicting the truest definition of hopelessness, didn"t respond. It was ever silent, not even moving the slightest.
"Don"t wanna answer? Aiya, this poor bloke. But I can"t blame you. You just experienced so much. Even I, a being made up of numbers and data couldn"t help but pity you. I even wonder if you"re so dead asleep when the Mighty Creator rained down some luck and fortune to the multiverse. You"re so unlucky."
"Eh? Still no reply? Sad. Maybe all the breakups, treacheries and zombie-biting paralyzed you and even made you brain-dead. Really, really, sad. But hey! You actually don"t have to worry anymore! Your luck and time to s.h.i.+ne finally came! Listen up, poor bloke! It"s because the Mighty Creator finally noticed you and got you bound to me!"
The thing babbling probably knew that its newly found host wouldn"t reply so it went on with its explanation. This time, it considerately made an intangible hologram-like screen appear before the young man"s lifeless eyes. Then with its still child-like voice, it began to explain.
"Host is now bound to me, so let me introduce myself. I will be your companion for your many years and missions to come. My name is 025, and my official system name is "Crazy Villainess Saving System"! Just from the name itself, you can immediately infer that you will be saving every desperately in love crazy villainess out there in the whole multiverse! Host, isn"t it amazing!? Aren"t you excited?"
A sound of someone taking a very deep breath faintly echoed in the s.p.a.ce. Followed by that was a soft, hate-filled voice replying to the system.
"... I, the unluckiest man in my world, who even failed to save myself, has to save someone else?"
The system energetically responded, "Yup! That"s your goal as my host! Through my help and guidance, you will tunnel through worlds and take over the body of some guys there to save the villainesses who died tragically insane and slave to love. As someone who experienced getting driven insane, you should be able to relate to their experiences. You will be able to, since, in a sense, you will be near them, possessing memories of their past lives, thus learning why and how they went mad."
".... I will be able to relate to them? On how they went mad?"
As he uttered these words, the man had to close his eyes at the sudden pain that tackled him inside out. The word "mad" seemed to have triggered something within. Memories started to rush forth, they engulfed him, as if they wanted to forever remind him of things he had just gone through.
Now, he remembered. The system was correct.
He died.
Emotionally.
After his father died due to an orchestrated accident set up by his uncle, his mother committed suicide as she couldn"t accept the fact that his father was already dead. He became orphaned, buried in debts as his uncle sabotaged the company left by his father from within. The last blow was when the woman who has been his girlfriend for three years suddenly broke up with him, and not just on any day, but on the day his family business was declared bankrupt.
Mentally.
When he learned that a few minutes after their breakup, his b.i.t.c.h of an ex-girlfriend immediately accepted the marriage proposal of his b.a.s.t.a.r.d cousin, Jiang Yun, son of that same son-of-b.i.t.c.h uncle that destroyed his family and company. Now everything he and his family once possessed got thoroughly stolen by his uncle and his family. He, Jiang Li, felt like killing himself already as he was a failure of a human who let all these happened.
Ah, heavens, as he remembered how things ended up this way, Jiang Li couldn"t help but die inside. It was all painful. Very. When the zombie apocalypse suddenly descended to the world, when he died physically after stupidly getting bitten by a zombified baby that fell from the fifteenth floor of a condo building, honestly, he didn"t even feel the pain of his flesh being torn from him. He didn"t even flinch at the pain of the virus slowly eating away at his sanity and humanity. He couldn"t care less if he became one of the first few people who died at the start of the apocalypse. Why would the dead even care if the world has ended?
Now, here he was in a dark s.p.a.ce he couldn"t even name. A weird voice calling itself system was saying he got bound to it. He didn"t understand how that happened and was not the least bit interested to know.
But his task was to save somebody else preyed by fate and love?
Lights seemed to return to his eyes and gradually he raised his head. Not long after, a bout of crazed laughter reverberated in the s.p.a.ce. It became louder as minutes pa.s.sed. Louder. Crazier. The child-like voice of the system let out a fearful sound as if it got terrified by the host laughing without a stop.
"H-host? Are you still sane?" It asked in a small, fidgeting voice.
The man replied as he laughed, "Of course! I am sane! I am so sane that I know how crazy the world is. No, the universe is crazy. Some stupid thing here is making me save somebody else. Why? Just why? Who the heck do you think you are!? What made you think you can act like fate and toy with me again!? b.a.s.t.a.r.d!!!!"
"C-calm down! It"s your duty now! You are chosen. Because you"re also almost crazy, the Mighty Creator knew you"re the best person for the task."
"Because I can understand them?"
"Yup! And also, also..." The child-like voice seemed desperate to think of some reasons to justify why this person was made into a host. "Y-you already tasted despair, so for sure you can save them. And, and, actually, you don"t have to feel so bad! I am a system and in my shop, there are many amazing things you can buy. Immortality, richness, intelligence..." And the panicky thing listed out many delicious and nice-sounding offers that it could think of. It was just that scared by the man who suddenly started laughing and shouting madly.
The young man went silent as he sunk into deep contemplation. The voice still kept on enumerating much stuff he only heard from legends and stupid fiction stories. As time pa.s.sed that they were like that, the system"s unease kept on growing and it was already thinking why it had to be the one a.s.signed to this line of tasks. It thought that it was hard. Its host was clearly not that insane yet, but it was already so difficult.
Finally, the young man seemed to have thought it all out, and asked, "Is there a way for me to go back and turn back time, to when I am still younger?"
A light bulb seemed to have lit up in the system"s main brain. This could be its chance to convince it to accept it, and it hurriedly replied, "Yes! Definitely! Once you finished enough tasks and acc.u.mulated enough points, you may go back to your original world and steamroll through every b.i.t.c.hes and betrayer from your past life! You can go back in time, as long as you have enough points!"
To the young man"s ears, that revelation sounded like the greatest melody he had ever heard in this conversation. A wide and sinister smile appeared on his lips. Joy seeped out of his slightly red eyes and in his mind, he was already imagining how he would make those people"s lives a h.e.l.l greater than he had experienced.
Then in a bright and reenergized voice, he declared to his system.
"Bring it on! I"m up to the tasks!"
........