The Undying Drama Chapter 7: A Heavy Burden
Di Qi Ju: ……
Ah, It"s morning…
I wonder what will Miss Poppy make for breakfast today? Perhaps it"s vegetable porridge or a dish made from Theats?
I"ve pretty much understood the rough workings of this world. I wonder what will she teach me next? Writing or Language? Sounds daunting...but with Miss Poppy teaching me, I should be able to grasp it in a short time.
That reminds me, I"ve imposed on Miss Poppy for such a long time. I should be able to help her with some matters.
But...what should I help her with?
......
No, there"s no such incident…
The sun"s scorching rays are a cruel reminder to me of reality. Even a fresh off the boat transmigrator like me knows that it is already afternoon not morning…
That"s right, I"ve sent Miss Poppy off this morning. All that stuff about breakfast was merely made up, and I"ve just woken up to the cruel reality of the situation.
I"ve had enough sleep...but I do not to wake up…
I, Di Qi Ju, am alone once more, just like when I just woke up from that terrible quake.
Scary.
However the source of this fear wasn"t death or despair. It was the sense of loss.
Should I try to follow Miss Poppy? But that would likely get her into trouble. Plus, I don"t even know what kind of trouble she was involved in.
Am I truly fated to have my wish unfulfilled?
No...aren"t there those wish points granted by Westrealm? That"s right, those are the key!
Having thought of a solution, I finally recovered from the sadness of departure.
Right before my eyes was a matter I needed to clarify. Just like an examination question, once you understood the gist of the question, answering it is not a problem.
However, in order to do that, I need to know how many wish points I have.
I crossed my hands into a 十 and shut my eyes. I cleared my mind as I prayed…
Di Qi Ju: Oh Westrealm…
Di Qi Ju: I am willing to offer up one wish point if only you would tell me how many wish points you have granted me.
For this one minute, my eyes were filled with a dense sea of stars...no, a star coffin, dazzling, just like the previous time. Despite this, my eyes locked onto a certain corner of the star coffin. That area was missing one mote of light. I don"t know why I paid attention to that tiny point drowning in a sea of lights. A sea so vast that I would never be able to commit to memory such a sight even with my impressive memory skills.
Perhaps, G.o.d made to sure to remind you that you had just spent 1 wish point.
Disturbing…
A minute later, the lights finally disappeared and a number appeared in my mind.
Finally an answer...but it was one which I did not expect.
Eight.
Why is it eight?
Is 1 wish point only able to count up to 8 wish points? They can"t be that stupid can they? So what does this 8 mean?
I should go through the information Miss Poppy taught me once more and see if I can figure out the reason.
A normal person"s natural wish points range from 60 to 100 while a hero possesses around a thousand. Certain ability wishes will experience transformative change once 100 points are invested; like Poppy"s communication ability.
Ability wishes will activate automatically like my 1 point wish to have "An ability that allows me to distance myself from fatal danger".
While I can"t be sure that it had activated because it sensed danger, but that moment was when I was going to reveal the secret of my wish points to Poppy.
Based on those facts, I can draw one obvious conclusion: Even a 1 point wish would have a visible effect.
Then could it be the number of cl.u.s.ters of stars? But why would G.o.d give me such an unrelated answer?
Since that"s the case, there could only be one unbelievable explanation.
------------The amount of wish points I have is too numerous to be counted even after spending 1 wish point.
Di Qi Ju: Don"t tell me it means....8 digits?
If that ma.s.s of lights was entirely made up of my wish points, I wouldn"t be surprised if the count hit 8 digits. That is definitely a number that can"t be counted within a minute.
Paying 1 wish point to find out that my wish point count is 8 digits long seems to be reasonable. Probably.
But how can such a thing be possible?! There"s no way I have over tens of millions wish points!
Isn"t 10,000 points the realm of an ent.i.ty close to G.o.d. Isn"t the highest point count even with the non-human races added in, just hundreds of thousands? There"s no way I could have over tens of millions of points!
Would G.o.d even allow such a thing to happen? Shouldn"t such a thing have "unforeseeable consequences" and all that junk?
Even by my smallest estimate, 10 million wish points is equivalent to the wish point count of 100,000 normal people.
Di Qi Ju: Wait...100,000 people?
It"s that…
An unreasonable disaster…
An unreasonable tragedy…
An unreasonable tsunami…
Di Qi Ju: This can"t be right...it can"t be true…
Di Qi Ju: Oh G.o.d...it can"t be true.
Blood dripped from my fist as I clenched them, my nails digging into my flesh.
Even the harshest moments of living in those ruins didn"t bring me to tears. But now tears flowed freely from eyes as I sobbed.
Di Qi Ju: Is this the case? Is this really the case?
Di Qi Ju: Westream…Do you mean to say even my parents are right here, inside of me?
Di Qi Ju: Are you the mastermind behind all this? Or is this just your attempt at salvaging our last-ditch efforts at surviving?
Di Qi Ju: If it"s the former, do you wish to create a monster? A monster that will destroy the balance of this world.
Di Qi Ju: Even if it"s the latter...isn"t this burden just too much for one person…
Di Qi Ju: This burden...can I truly bear it…
I don"t know, I just don"t know…
However, if these wish points are the remnants of the dead, if they could make a wish like the residents of this world…I believe they would they have the same desire as me.
...Live.
Even if it costs an arm or a leg, live.
No matter the price, live.
Even if I was to die, I must at least let my loved ones live.
Whether it was for them or whether it"s just for me, this wish was one I must make to the G.o.d of this world.
-----Live.
However...life is just too fragile. There are simply too many ways to die.
If I made an ambiguous wish to simply become "undying", even if G.o.d agreed, it would cost an astronomical amount of points. If I invested tens of millions of points and the effect was only minor, wouldn"t the wish points be wasted.
Miss Poppy said that a wish that was focused would be easier to grant. If that"s the case, I should test it out on the simplest method of dying.
An "ability to not get killed by external physical forces". Let"s start with 100 points.
-------------Then it"s decided.
A minute later, I opened my eyes.
The first thought that came to my mind was: why is there something pressing down on my head?
Di Qi Ju: Plaster fragments? Hm, that stuff from the ceiling.
The second thought that came to my mind was: when did I turn into a pillar?
Di Qi Ju: Ha----!? Why is the ceiling resting on my head !?
The third thought that came to my mind as I looked down was: what the heck?!
My body had turned into a two to three metres tall giant. The clothes on my back were completely were ripped to shreds by my enlarged muscles. My bones seemed to have become denser and heavier as well.
A cold sweat ran down my enlarged form as the situation dawned upon me.
Is this what they mean by "side effects may vary"?
Because my body needed to become st.u.r.dy enough to resist fatal physical attacks, it turned into this thing?
Westrealm you con artist!! This wasn"t in the fine prints!!
If Miss Poppy saw me like this, she would probably faint…
Di Qi Ju: Ahem… An "ability to disguise my body as a normal person who had never had his body and/or appearance transformed into something else in order to fulfill a wish"s conditions."
100 points.
Nice! It"s back to normal.
Shopping for clothes in this world must be a pain…
This time I made sure to pay attention to the previous spot where I had used 100 wish points; there were no changes to the Star Coffin"s density.
Next, I"ll try investing more points into my abilities.
……
……
Half a day later…
My "disguise ability (shortform)" seemed to be rejecting anymore point investments. My star count didn"t drop as a result of my wishes.
A successful wish and a situation where no points were spent, were contradictory. It had to mean that [The limit has been reached].
I totalled about the records on my notebook. According to it, the amount that I spent on my disguise ability came out to…
Di Qi Ju: Two hundred thousand and one point.
Well...that"s quite an amount.
Does this mean that the strongest being on this world who could see through a disguise ability, could only see through an ability of up to 200,000 points?
Well what"s important is that I"ve reached the limit. No point overthinking things.
A full day later…
My "ability to not get killed by external physical forces" had capped out as well.
Di Qi Ju: 1.7 million…
Surprisingly, it took a lot of points. However, does this finally mean that I am good at taking a beating?
I wonder if I can survive two stars colliding with each other…
Haha, I"ll definitely die! Although the cause of death is another reason…
Even so, being impervious to such a method of death was only a small drop in the ocean of death.
Just in terms of physical forces that could kill me, I"m still vulnerable to radiation, cold, heat, electricity and etc.
Lack of oxygen and water would probably kill me as well.
Let"s not forget sickness, toxins, psychological factors etc etc.
Plus, if you think about it carefully, not dying didn"t mean they couldn"t inflict serious and painful harm on me.
Should I invest into the "pain" and "injury" categories as well? Will I even have enough points?
As expected, the road to being "undying" is long and arduous. Thank G.o.d, I didn"t wish for that directly.
Suddenly, a terrifying thought flashed through my head-------
Di Qi Ju: If I deactivate my disguise ability, what will I become??
Di Qi Ju:......
Di Qi Ju:.........
Di Qi Ju:Ahhhhhhhh-----Why did I have to think of that!!?
Di Qi Ju: As expected, this burden is just too heavy to bear!!!
I"ve wasted an entire day on this problem already. The rations left by Miss Poppy had dwindled as a result.
After planning out my future wishes, I knew I shouldn"t spend anymore time on this.
The next step of the plan was already given to me by Miss Poppy; that was to face the world my own will and abilities!
Footnotes:
Fresh off the boat
Credits:
Special thanks to 7STARDARK BLADE! The first ever patron of Catato Patch Translations.