[Word Count: 2451]
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When life throws a curveball once or twice at you, adapt and improvise. Life is quite unpredictable, and things won't go your way half the time.
But, if the things that come your way pass the limit of the supernatural and enter the realm of cosmic bullshit, would you endure it?
Hell no!
Who in their right mind gets tossed into another world and rightfully accepts it without a doubt in their mind? Well, I at least tried to.
The terms transmigration, reincarnation, and isekai were loosely thrown about in anime and novels, but they all had the same general basis.
Traveling over into another world.
And that was precisely the thing that I did. In my case, it was likely an isekai moment? I don't really know the difference between the three, other than reincarnation meaning starting over as a baby.
But I was fully intact in my own body, plopped into a world I once knew as fictional. What was the world, you may ask?
The fanfiction starter pack, the world where the MC could talk to tits, and was the stereotypical "did you?" anime in many boys' memories.
Highschool DxD.
I remember stumbling upon the anime at an early age, around when I was just entering middle school. It was an anime that my friend dropped on me out of nowhere. I could never really look at him the same afterwards. But admittedly, as all horny boys growing up did, I watched it in its entirety.
I wouldn't say I have the clearest memory of what happened in the anime beyond its general plot, but I was now directly inserted into its world.
Waking up in the middle of a Japanese park, sitting on a bench with no clue what the people around you are saying, is a weird experience. I had never really left America other than visiting my birthland, Vietnam, so my tourism experience was at a low.
The cringey Japanese I learned from anime wasn't going to help me communicate, but thankfully, whoever dropped me in DxD had been benevolent enough to grant me enough knowledge of Japanese so I could speak it fluently enough for natives to understand me.
Other than that, there wasn't much of an identity I could use, since my ID was valid for the future, not the past.
So, I had to settle for the "I got mugged" and lost my stuff. It wasn't a permanent solution, but it worked for now. I was sure it was going to bite me in the ass later, but when I'm powerful enough to bulldoze through the powerhouses of DxD, it won't matter too much…
The only other problem was that I didn't know if I even had powers. If it were transmigration or reincarnation, there would be a likely chance, but isekai? I was just plain ol' normal me for the moment.
Just a guy who finished his first year at college, chucked into a grand world.
Making do with what I could at the moment, I gritted my teeth and endured the sense of loss that bubbled up in my soul. My friends and family had all but vanished from my world, literally. I was a lone wanderer, a vagrant lost in a world too powerful for me to even comprehend at the moment.
No home, no family, no friends, no money, and no idea for the future. It almost sounded like me, even in my old world —just no money or an idea for the future.
There was a small part of me that was excited about what I had gotten into. But that was overruled by my rational thought that I had been cosmically kidnapped for some plot I don't know.
I had to tread carefully in the dark and hopefully not find myself in some grand scheme where I'm the one getting shafted. But, at the moment, I had to focus on the present problems like getting money, an identity, and a place to stay.
Thankfully, an old couple who reminded me of my grandparents were kind enough to let me stay at their home and even work for a bit of money.
I don't know the laws on whether tourists or foreigners are allowed to work in other countries, but hey, rules were made to be broken. The shop they owned was a small, comfy little bakery that saw a steady number of customers day to day.
I've been working here for the past few days —3, I assume? My perception of time was still adjusting to the new world I found myself in. When I was taken from my old world, I was playing games at midnight, but I woke up in DxD in the morning.
"Sorry for making you man the shop this early in the morning," Mrs. Kobayashi, one of the elders who took me in, apologized for waking me up so early.
"Eh, it's fine, Mrs. Kobayashi, I'm used to waking up early. Anyway, you and Mr. Kobayashi are elders; let the youngling handle things like this. You two just rest up for the day and let me do the labor."
If it were high school, I would dread waking up early, but for some goddamn reason, I had decided to take early-ass classes in college.
"Alright, alright. You are quite energetic after all," Mrs. Kobayashi chuckled before putting on her sun hat. She had steadily left the bakery and went off to enjoy her time with her husband.
Seeing as they were getting quite old, it was better if they enjoyed their time together without worrying about work.
I stood at the bakery counter, looking at the pastries and desserts on display. Mrs. Kobayashi had baked them early in the morning, and I had finished setting them up early.
Hearing a jingle from the bells hung up at the door, I looked up and was face-to-face with somebody whom I semi-expected in a way. Well, face-to-chest, as in I had to look down.
"Two Strawberry Shortcakes."
Standing before me was a headful of white hair and gold eyes staring at me with an expressionless face. I'm not a tall person in any case, but Koneko Toujou was a goddamn dwarf!
The catgirl was standing before me, donning her Kuoh Academy uniform. I start my shift at around 7 AM, and a few minutes hadn't passed yet, so I assume she was here to get a quick snack before school started.
To be honest, this wasn't the first time I've met a main cast character. I've seen Issei Hyoudou and his friends pass by the shop after school, but this is the first time I've truly interacted with one.
[Detected harvestable source of Emotion Points: Koneko (Shirone) Toujou]
I was broken out of my thoughts by an airy whisper in my mind. It sounded mechanical and robotic, something like Siri… Wait, is this my system?
As an avid webnovel reader, at least 50% of stories had a main character with a form of a system. The versatility of a system was often seen in different stories, but they all generally had useful utilities behind them.
Hopefully, the one that I just awakened isn't bad or commanding. I've never liked systems that punish you for going against them.
"Ahem."
I was quickly broken out of my thoughts by a soft cough, making me realize that I was staring out into the air like an idiot. I nervously chuckled and quickly packaged what Koneko wanted into a small container.
I placed it into a bag with the bakery's symbol, then tightly tied it shut using a technique my mom taught me. I've never worked in places that required me to tie bags before, but my mom often kept shopping bags from supermarkets and stores before we stopped buying them entirely.
"Ah, that would be 700 yen."
I didn't know how much that transferred over to US dollars, but I could never get used to how high numbers could go for currencies like Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, and Vietnamese dong.
Handing over the packaged pastries, I silently observed Koneko, with an equally blank expression on my face.
To be honest, I've had many people tell me I look constantly grumpy and tired. Couple that with my droopy eyes and constantly tired state, I could easily cosplay a slit-eyed villain like Gin from Bleach with ease
Back to the white-haired loli in front of me, I had never imagined what it would look like if you turned a 2d character into a 3d real-life one. I've seen AI or artist renditions of characters, whether realistic or played by actors, but there was something odd about seeing an actual anime character rendered in real time.
I would be lying if I didn't say she was cute, but I wasn't someone who instantly fell in love with a girl and simped over them. I didn't think I would even really see much of her because I didn't go to Kuoh Academy and didn't care enough to enter Rias's radar.
Seeing as I do have a system, which translates to power most of the time, I have a way to defend myself. However, an unknown supernatural being living in your territory without your knowledge? I think Rias or Sona Sitri would be happy to interrogate me about my presence in their town. I would, too, if I were a ruler of a city.
Even worse, I didn't have an identity, so I would be even more suspicious. Thankfully, whatever was bringing me here had altered reality — or something — at the moment of my arrival, so no one questioned why a young man had suddenly appeared on a park bench.
Koneko had stepped out of the store, allowing me to pull up my system notification again.
Emotion Points, eh? I've read quite a few system novels that have concepts like that. Do I have to go around shocking people or invoking strong emotions like rage and disgust like a troll?
I didn't have much opposition on whether or not I needed to appear in the eyes of the devils of this town. By the law of novel bullshitery, the transmigrated/reincarnated/isekai'd character always somehow finds them in the plot of the story. Even if I tried to stay under the radar, some cosmic force would likely push me into the fray of the plot.
If Rias or Sona tried to recruit me into their peerage, I would likely contemplate it. Being a devil was obviously superior to being a weak human without a Sacred Gear and such. Other than trading away my freedom to a devil, there were more benefits. Many people oppose the idea due to the loss of freedom, but Rias and Sona are arguably two of the best choices to choose from if you want to join a peerage.
But that was before I learned that I had a system. If it was strong enough to boost me into the realm of the greats, I didn't even need to put the thought of joining a peerage into my mind.
Now, what do you do?
The system's voice didn't respond, so I assumed it was non-sentient, which could be a good or bad thing. For one, I didn't have a guide and had to figure everything out by myself, but now I didn't have a wildcard in my head spouting shit to me like a GPS.
I tried mentally recalling phrases I've seen in system novels, and "Status" instantly brought up a panel for me.
[Name: Aiden Le]
[Avatars: 0/1] (1,000,000 EP to unlock another slot)
[Emotion Points: 0]
[Reputation: None]
Hm… So, it's an avatar-type system? Am I creating my own avatars, or summoning characters from fiction to serve as my avatars? Either way, this type of system means I can honestly lie low and avoid the battlefield.
It might seem like a coward's path to strength, but hopefully, I can also acquire some strength from these avatars. I didn't want to start anything and have somebody trace it back to me and attack while I have no true power.
But as long as I don't do something stupid to reveal myself, my Avatars should take the brunt of the blame. More than likely, I will be taking control of the Avatar via some soul/mental link. Either that or I physically transform into them, but that seemed more like a Template-type System.
[Detected that no previous Avatars have been materialized, would you like to do so now?]
Would they be summoned directly near me, or is it just creating them and storing them in some system inventory of sorts? I asked the question to no one, seeing as my system isn't sentient.
Sighing, I decided to just go for it. There weren't any cameras in the store, and the people walking by in the morning weren't many.
[You have chosen to materialize an Avatar, please spin the wheel…]
The world around me warped and collapsed into itself. I was no longer standing in the bakery, but in a place imitating space, or maybe it was actually space. I was floating with no sense of gravity, allowing me to glide like I was swimming.
A bright white light eclipsed the entire space as a giant wheel manifested.
It was mostly one color, a bronze color with several archaic depictions of eldritch creatures — both inhuman and human — wrapping their limbs around the edges. It reminded me of ancient murals with legends drawn upon them. Runes were etched onto the surface of the wheel's edge, some being covered by the creatures, and the dividing wedges contained incomprehensible words.
There were thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of wedges on this wheel.
The arrow that was used to point to the wedge spun on was replaced by a withered and twitching arm. It seemed alive and constantly writhing and wriggling upon the wheel.
The wheel was like an eldritch artifact, consuming my sanity from just staring at it. Just the appearance of the wheel was giving me certain vibes about who had brought me to DxD. Hopefully, it wasn't the beings I thought they were.
I gritted my teeth and quickly tried spinning it, gripping my small hands against its cosmically grand frame.
Surprisingly, the wheel spun easily with little force required. But it spun at a speed that blurred in my eyes.
In what seemed like an eternity, the wheel began to slow down. The withered arm landed on a wedge with words that slowly became understandable in my eyes.
Golden light burst out from the wheel, chanting echoed in my ear, and golden eyes peered down at me.
[Avatar Acquired: Phainon]