You Can Only Go Up From Here

Prol had always found life to be a bit meaningless. Sure, he could enjoy provocative encounters, and the rush of good entertainment. He felt pain when he was hurt, and he felt lazy or hated things. However, what really inspired emotional rush for him?

Gambling was boring. It was nice to win money, but the whole experience was so obviously a scam he could never feel joy from it.

Driving nice cars was enjoyable, but the amount of pleasure obtained from that was very limited.

Attracting women? Well, he loved feeling loved, but like anyone else, it had very specific requirements. Being loved for his value, looks, or anything else was meaningless. Didn't everyone just want to be liked for who they are?

That's right, there was only one thing that was truly interesting. Playing the trickster. When someone who lay low the whole time suddenly stepped forward and did something incredible, it felt great. Of course, just being overpowered in general was awesome, but he hated people who didn't understand their power. Rich kids who never knew anything else, or people born with god-tier abilities. It was still interesting to see other's reactions sometimes, but often, it just felt annoying.

Who starts with god-level powers and then goes to fuck with the masses, really? You don't know the world, so you can't even appreciate your own strength. All you know is everyone else is weak, there's no surprises. If you have too many abilities to ever understand or use them all, it was idiotic. People who designed their characters as such were fools.

While he was pondering the perfect character to create for his next adventure, he felt a slight pain in his head. He tended to get migraines, but this was an unusually abrupt occurrence. He stopped, wincing slightly as he does so, his hand going up to his head.

Massaging his temples didn't help any, but he wouldn't have access to painkillers until he got home. He supposes he should've just got an Uber back from the bar, but it'd been close enough he could walk. He'd barely been stopped a second, when a massive movement came into his vision. He reflexively jumped back- practically flying back as a massive white truck barrels past him over the sidewalk, and slamming into a tree.

'Truck-Kun?! Did I just miss my chance to enter a fantasy world because of a headache?'

He feels a moment of disappointment that almost irritates him, before his eyes go cold. He walks up to the vehicle, jerking open the truck's door. He was actually a bit surprised it was unlocked, but some vehicles did so automatically in accidents.

He looks up at the gruff looking truck-driver, who in turn looks down at him in surprise. Based on his hand stretching into nothingness, he'd been about to open the door anyway, and probably had just unlocked it.

"You alright? You took a nasty turn there. Need an ambulance?" he asks as he looks over the fellow.

The fellow was pretty muscular, and a bit shorter than Prol, but tall enough in his own right. Rather, he seemed a bit too fit for a truck driver. Probably, he really loves fitness.

Prol should feel mad he was almost killed, but he'd never been the type to get mad. Honestly, the guy's career might well take a hit from being in an accident, so it'd be silly to follow up with yelling at him. He'd get his punishment.

The gruff man freezes, before laughing as if he'd just seen something hilarious. He jumps out of the truck, limber and obviously unharmed.

"Ah, man, I really fucked up this time," the man says, even as he laughs.

"No kidding, you almost hit me," Prol prods.

"Ah, yeah, sorry about that. I didn't expect you to stop," he replies.

Prol freezes. He'd always been a bit paranoid because of the nature of his work, and as he sees the man reaching for his waist, he takes an evasive dive.

He looked like an idiot, diving out of nowhere, but the gunshot that rang out proved otherwise.

"Piece of shit!" they both yelled out as Prol charged the man, swinging his right fist with his full force. Though, the man's voice was filled with much more surprise than Prol's.

It was something like a corkscrew, his fist flying with the full power of his over two hundred pound body. Even as his fist nears the gruff man's temple, he feels an innate sense of failure. There's no way this could work. Not on a professional. His weight shifted slightly, and as the man caught Prol's wrist with a smug look on his face, Prol returned that smugness. With his knee driven into the assassin's stomach, the smugness quickly leaves his face as he doubles over. Prol follows the movement by driving up his knee into the man's face, and slamming down his interlaced hands on the back of his attacker's head at the same time.

The blow had the intended effect, and after pulling back and stumbling a couple steps, the man falls to the ground, his weapon clattering as it hits the concrete. Prol steps firmly on the man's wrist, grabbing the pistol even as the main yells out with pain. Prol's eyes held a definite coldness to them, shining with determination. He doesn't ask any questions, he doesn't delay for backup to arrive, or a mistaken good-Samaritan to look into the scene. He directly fires two rounds into the man's skull, and then empties the clip into his chest.

The law didn't matter. Self defense is valid. With his position, this sort of thing wouldn't fall back on him. As long as the man didn't have any accomplices, he just had to get back home safely to end the incident.

Prol only managed a couple stumbling steps, before he realized he probably had the worst migraine of his life. It felt like his head was splitting apart. The worst pain in his life, his medication wearing off after all of his wisdom teeth were removed, was nothing in comparison. That had made him want to kill himself, but this deprived him of the ability to think.

He directly collapsed, the collision with the concrete ground certainly not helping him at all. But, compared to the pain in his head, that was nothing. He tried to get back up, but he couldn't move his body.

Finally, slowly, he managed to raise his field of vision. The pain was gone as he rose up. He wanted to walk forward, but instead, he just keep going up.

'Huh?'

He rose higher than his height. Seven feet, eight feet. In a few moments he was looking down over the entire scene. A massive figure was collapsed in a pool of blood, and a gruff man was a few feet away in his own.

'Wait. I died?'

That was the only explanation. He felt himself in denial for a few moments.provacative

'What killed me? Who? How?'

He felt unresigned, but then, all at once, he accepted it. He felt no different than if he'd died in a hardcore-mode video game on his favorite character. Just because he loved his family didn't mean he'd miss them. Perhaps they'd disagree, but he felt the insurance money more than covered for his life.

'Well, I guess I finally find out if my speculations were correct. If I truly chose to be born into this world to harvest ideas, I've succeeded. If, however, I wasted my life.. Who knows what I'm in for?'

He always held the impression that reincarnation made the most sense, even if it was slightly less logical that the "Born and die" idea. Why? It just made sense. Why were some people so intelligent, even at a young age? Why were some people so helplessly stupid, as if even the most basic concept was a massive mystery they had never encountered before?

Perhaps, the intelligent just had more experience. Perhaps, they just had older souls.

It'd also explain childhood. He felt he had too firm of a grasp on what he needed to do when he was young.

He was so interested in exploring the world, and finding his purpose and place. Finding things he loved to do.

Yet, when he grew up, he could barely remember anything he'd once known.

He sighs, looking down upon the world as he leaves it. He meant that quite literally. While he was zoned out, he'd reached the atmosphere.

'You know, this trope usually ends with the soul suddenly going to heaven. But exactly how high do spirits go before then?'

He was pretty sure he was speeding up as he went, because he passed the moon in much less than three days. It wasn't even a few days later he'd passed a couple planets. He couldn't really identify them, though the yellow one was obviously Venus.

'Wait, Venus? That's closer to the sun.'

He felt a shiver through his soul.

'Wait a minute. I'm not flying backwards into the sun, am I? That'd be silly, right?'