The Beginning, Once Again

The air was filled with the scent of rose petals fluttering down onto the ground. It was a dark and quiet night, the surroundings only lit up by the full moon above. A young man and woman stood in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by roses petals falling slowly.

Usually, this would be the type of place that a romantic confession was held, amidst the fluttering rose petals. The man would hold the woman's hand, delivering the beautiful heartfelt confession that sparks the beginning of a romantic love story.

…Or at least that's what a normal story with this type of scene would start with. Instead, a faint air of killing intent could be felt, as Yue Ying eyed the woman in front of him. The woman shifted her weight from one leg to another, seemingly happy about the situation at hand.

Yue Ying touched his forehead with one finger, looking to be deep in thought. He had just been at home, minding his own business when out of nowhere, a bullet came straight for his head through the window. After collapsing on the floor and thinking about how absurd this situation was, he was immediately whisked away from his dying spot on the floor, appearing here in this moonlit clearing.

Letting his hand fall to his side again, he finally looked at the woman in front of him properly. White hair fluttered around her thin figure, reaching to her waist. As though matching her hair colour, she also wore a white dress coupled with white shoes, looking like a piece of white paper if you excluded her brightly shining aqua eyes.

Seeing this appearance, he paused for a second. Looking more carefully, he relaxed, letting go of his killing intent as though he saw something that pleased him.

Yue Ying stared at her wordlessly, causing her to nervously look around the area, as if waiting for him to speak. Noticing after a few minutes that if she didn't speak up, nobody was going to say anything for an eternity, she finally spoke.

"Uh… hi! Hi there. Hi… are you going to say anything? Maybe ask where we are, or something like that…. May be a bit to straightforward, but can you act like you care that you died at least." After spouting a bunch of nonsense, she stopped, looking at Yue Ying again, who had narrowed his eyes, staring at her.

This continued on for a few minutes before Yue Ying finally spoke, letting the woman thank her lucky stars.

"Playing along with you doesn't merit me anything. State your name, class, occupation, why you have brought me here and my cause of death now. Also, clear up this huge mess of rose petals. Switch to a starry night sky or something." Yue Ying looked away from the woman, catching a rose petal in his hands.

He seemed to examine the rose petal for a second, before ruthlessly crushing it in his palm. Seeing this, the woman shuddered snapping her fingers. The rose petal filled area gave way to an inconspicuous starry night sky, to which Yue Ying nodded in satisfaction.

"I was right… alright, first, let me guess. You are a system and I have died. If I want to go back, I have to go through worlds for a period of time. Right?"

"Yes… yes you're absolutely right... how the in actual…?" The young woman, who had been opening a whole lot of blue panels in front of her in search of something, finally stopped to look at Yue Ying, shocked. Did this man know something about systems and how they worked?

Yue Ying carelessly smiled, giving the impression of a cute young youth who knew nothing of the world. If it wasn't for the arrogant tone of voice he had been portraying this entire time, he could've passed off as one perfectly.

"System novels. You've heard of them. It's quite amazing how good human imagination is these days." Yue Ying turned back to the rose petal in his hand, which oddly hadn't disappeared when the woman had changed the background.

"Now. Name. Age. Class. Occupation. Well, I guess the occupation part and the class part isn't necessary." Yue Ying dropped the crushed petal onto the ground.

"Actually, forget the name and the age, I have no interest in knowing. Just tell me what's going to happen now." Yue Ying stared at the woman, who was still staring at him in shock. Smiling, he went up to her.

Standing behind her shoulder, he looked at the panels in front of him. Swiping a few times, he finally opened a panel, reading it quickly. Smirking, he walked back in front of her.

"A script? Do all systems have a script? I thought this stuff was supposed to be memorised." Curiosity could be seen in his eyes as he stared at the woman, who finally unfroze at the provocation and looked away in embarrassment.

"I'm new. And do you want me to do my job or not?" She looked back at Yue Ying, annoyance seen in her eyes. "Do you want me to read the script or not?" Forget about knowing why he could touch the panels and how he knew about the systems, she just wanted him gone right now.

"Ah, please do." Yue Ying continued to maintain eye contact, as if to make the young woman uncomfortable. "If it's not too much of a problem, can I also call you Zero? Since you can name your systems in some of these… novels."

The young woman, now called Zero, rolled her eyes. "Call me whatever you want to. I'm going to read the script that you mocked now." Enlarging the panel, she started to read from it.

"I am system #9158 at your service, more commonly known as the counteract system. Your job as the system holder is to inhabit bodies of side characters and by doing so, fulfil their wishes. If you do so successfully enough times, you will eventually be able to go back to your previous world, where you died."

Zero puffed up her chest, feeling slightly more at ease. How was that? Usually most people would go into some sort of extreme emotional state.

Sadly for Zero, Yue Ying only had on a slight smile on his face. Rather, he seemed slightly relieved by her confident look.

"Yes, yes I understand. If so, shall we start?"

"Hmph." Zero opened up a panel, pressing a few buttons that were on it. If this host wanted to do things by himself without a more proper explanation, then fine by her.

It wasn't as if she needed to explain everything anyway, if he wanted to act like he already knew what was happening,

As the final button was pushed, Yue Ying was overcame with darkness. Calmly accepting this strange lost of light, he smiled faintly.

A trace of longing flashed past his eyes as he looked at the spot Zero was at previously, before being replaced with determination.

He opened his mouth, mouthing something out. Closing his eyes, he let himself get swallowed by this darkness.