Welcome to Your New Life

Introduction

"Hello!!" A bubbly voice said excitedly. The was no figure around but you could feel a very strong presence around you. This is both strange and unnerving to you as you have no idea where you are or what has happened to you. All you remember were the last moments of your life and then a haze with the exact memories of what happened unclear to your mind. Yet one thing is certain…… “Yes, that’s right!! You all are absolutely one hundred and fifty thousand percent, DEAD!!”

Right on cue, lights turn on all around you. The room is filled with shapes of people though none of them are capable of being made out due to the intensity of the lights around. Yet you are all on a circular stage in a grand arena with no roof on it. If you look above, you can see the star-y sky with….a planet above? “Do not be alarmed dear travelers.”The voice said as a figure beings to descend down towards you slowly. Applause and cheers rained down as the woman’s appearance finally became visible to all of you.



“You all have done marvelous in you endeavors to reach here, you know, dying and living lives full of regret. Oddly enough, all of you happened to die right around the same time.” The girl was definitely not normal. And what was all of this around her? Are people actually there? You can hear the crowd laughed at the same time with the familiar group laugh you would hear form the old 90’s sitcoms we used to love so much. The girl dressed in white walks closer to you and smiles with a seductive smile that could make your heart melt. All of you feel some strange attraction to her, something involuntary really. Your body begins to heat up a bit, just enough to make you feel… “Oh no!! Wrong smile..” The Crowd laughs again, “No that wasn’t a joke!!” The crowd laughs again, “Whatever. I’m gonna just fix this real quick so I can clearly talk them.” Waving her hand, all of the “feelings” you were feeling disappeared, bringing you back to normal. The girl begins again after clearing her throat.

“Welcome, to the end if your life.” She says bowing with a more welcoming smile which puts you all at ease. “Got it right this time, go me.” She whispered to herself before continuing, “Since you all have passed away, your souls have been brought here on my whims. You all have been chosen as the saviors of the next world. You are all people who wished for a second chance to do the things you wanted to do before your life ended so abruptly.” She beings to stroll around, hovering one foot off the ground, holding her hands behind her back, “Now that you are here, with a second chance at life because of me of course, you now have special abilities and powers making you all heroes. However, you won’t simply be forced to save the world because I said so, that would be boring.” She then stops mid walk and faces everyone, standing dynamically with her hands on her hips. “Everything will be up to you however, things will go my way. Because I always get my way. Still, you are free to explore this world any way you please. You can learn anything you want to learn and be anything you want to be. Heck, if you want to be king, BE KING!!”

After a short pause, she then smacks the top of her head, “I am so rude. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is *&^(*%*(&” You understood nothing that she said. You could not even read her lips to decipher what she said. Who was this woman and why did she pick you of all people? More precisely, why are you unable to speak and object to anything she is saying. “You can call me Ayame though. My name is extremely powerful and father won’t allow anyone who hasn’t earned his approval to say my or my brother’s names. But, this is all you need to know for now.” With that, the world began to fade from your view. Or was it that your consciousness was fading? Who knows what happened. Its not like you have any choice in the matter. Though a few of you might care….if you can remember what happened when you regain consciousness, if you regain it, that is. “Oh, remember this, check your phone when you wake up, kay.” You felt as if she gave one last smirk with a wink accompanying it.

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It felt like seconds passed before all of you woke up. The everyone was lying in what looked like an infirmary. There were two women looking at you with happiness that you strangely dressed people were finally wake. “Doctor, Doctor...they are all awake now” said a blonde haired woman who quickly ran out of the room.

“Please excuse my friend. She is easily excitable.” The brunette-haired woman said afterwards was a warm smile. “My name is Millie and the person who just ran off to get the doctor was Alice. You all probably have all sorts of questions, I’m sure, so I will give you all some time to yourselves to gather your thoughts.” Millie then walks out and closes the door, gently.

Looking around the room, you can see that the place you were in is pretty big. It holds enough beds for every person there to have their own. The building was quite sturdy as well. Stucco walls and a high ten-foot ceiling. The floors were made of real wood, some kind of oak if you had to guess. Windows surrounded you on every wall except for the one where the door was. Next to the beds were a bowl of water, a candle for light and your outer clothes folded neatly right next to the table. That’s right, you are in your underwear because that is how you are taken care of in the olden times. All of you have many emotions and thoughts running through your mind and the only people who might understand are the ones in the beds around you. However, you instinctively do the last thing the girl, Ayame told you to do, the last thing, really the only thing you remember, you hurriedly look for your phone. When you all find it, you see that your phone has no service and all of your old apps are gone. Same wallpaper though. Why did….nevermind. At the bottom of the phone, you have two apps. One says ‘About Me’ and the other says ‘Pictopedia’. So what will you do now? Every option imaginable is available here.

Lifting her head and blinking at the light, which was strange because she remembered it being dark, Merlou looked around the open and large room, her head fuzzy and feeling a little disoriented. She noticed that there were other people in the room as well, all..undressed? She frowned slightly and looked down, and true enough, she was in the same position as the others. Confused, Merlou pulled the blanket over herself and took a deep breath, instinctively grabbing her phone and rapidly typing in the passcode.

Once it clicked on, she took one glance at her background, ignoring the other apps that were on it and not noticing that everything had been deleted. Her background was a picture of herself and...and her youngest sister. Her family. All of a sudden, the memory of her death came flooding back, and the words from Ayame made sense; Merlou had died, and there was nothing that she could do about it now. Her life was over. But what was she doing here? Was she in heaven? In hell? Who was Ayame or those doctors? Where was she? Who were these other people? What was this place? Was her family okay? How were they taking her death? Did they even know she was gone?

Merlou let her phone slide from her hand and onto the bed as her eyes filled with tears and were soon streaming down her face as she tried to make sense of it all. What did she do that she deserved to die? Was it her fault? It probably was,
since everything was always her fault. As these thoughts crossed her mind, she was soon sobbing, gasping for breath and pulling her knees up to her chest, unsure of where to go or what to do other than cry. She was always sensitive, but she felt as if this were a good reason though she felt vulnerable as a terrible feeling of emptiness sat in her chest. Merlou realized she was alone for good now, and that was what truly terrified her.

It was quiet. Deafeningly so. Even with the squeals of people he didn’t know, even with the words of the doctor who cared for them, it was painfully quiet. No engines. No generators. No fans. No commuters. No chains. No gears. Nothing but emptiness.
He opened his eyes slowly, blinking away a too-bright light, before pushing himself up gently, piecing together the fragments of his memory. He lived. He lived? He shouldn’t have lived. He died. And then…a dream? Hallucination. Delusion. Ayame. Who? The kid. A callused hand pressed against his chest. His heart was still pumping. Another hand lifted up his bedsheets, before, with a grimace, he looked down towards his torso.

No scars to indicate an injury. But he remembered what it felt, his organs spilling out as his body popped against the force of the truck. Bile rose up his throat, bitter and burning, but he forced it down. It’d be gross if he threw up here. Gross and disgusting. Just like how his mouth was now. He grabbed a bowl of water by his bed and chugged it down.

Ew, it tasted hella metallic and minerally. What fresh hell was this?

Right, it was the hell that Ayame tossed them in. Goddamnit, he wanted a girlfriend, but he didn’t want to die and go to another world to get one.

Katsuo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat up, leaning over to a bedside stool to pull his phone from the back pocket of his trousers. A finger tap and it opened up, revealing an empty space where many apps once cluttered. There went his dating apps. His mobile games. His contacts lists. His Youtube account. His calendar. His notes. His playlist. The $70 that he loaded onto his Google Play. His photos. All that remained was…two new apps, and the default background that he never bothered to change.

‘About Me’ and ‘Pictopedia’.

Katsuo sighed, then smiled. The afterlife was a trashy light novel, and the goddess was a Narou author. The fate of a Japanese teenager like him, huh? What’s next? He pressed the ‘About Me’ app and actually laughed. A light novel isekai with game-like elements. Some people would actually kill for this sort of opportunity, wouldn’t they? His eyes had been closed when the doctor and her assistant were in the room, but he was pretty certain their voices sounded cute, and what fragments of memory he could compile in relation to his hallucination-delusion made Ayame out as devastatingly attractive as well. So…three for three so far, sweet.
But others couldn’t see the world so positively, huh.

After all, they did just die.

Turning to the source of the sobbing, Katsuo’s eyes widened slightly at the presence of a foreigner with a punk rock hairstyle. Not all Japanese after all? Or maybe she was in Japan for work? Tourist? Stop thinking, goddamnit. He awkwardly swung his legs over the edge of the bed to face her, his own sheets draped over her body for a modicum of modesty before he said, with a smile that felt like it contradicted his concern, “H-hey, so, uh…dehydration is bad, so…do you want water?”

Wait, no.

“I mean, like,” he shook his head. He definitely shouldn’t touch her, yeah? This wasn't a drama, after all. “Are you alright? I mean, it’s clear that you aren’t, but like…we’re stuck in this together so I guess I feel like I should say something anyways? Unless you’re not, uh, from Earth?”

Water. Yes. Water. He grabbed her bowl of water (it was for drinking, right?), and stuck it out in her general direction.

“Have a drink first. I think it helps? Not that I’m an expert or anything, so…yeah…oh yeah, fair warning, this actually tastes worse than mineral water, so...fair warning?”

@ERode

She hadn't heard the one of the other's speaking to her in the midst of her crying. To be honest, she had forgotten they were here in the first place, too busy wrapped up in her own thoughts to realize they were technically "alive" as well as she, and goddamnit, was her head starting to hurt. Which was something that she definitely didn't need right at the moment, but at this point, she had just kind of given up; an unusual thing for her usual optimism.

It was when she stopped for a brief moment to take a breath, that she heard his voice speaking in her general direction, and it was enough to snap her back into reality. She gave a sharp, nervous laughter, quickly wiping her eyes before lifting her head to meet his gaze. His features made him look a few years younger than she, so she assumed that he was, but she let her legs fall off the edge of the bed, though keeping the blanket on her for decency.

"Haha, yeah, I'm fine. Just a little...shaken, that's all," she gave him a polite smile, following it by giving another short and nervous laugh, wiping away the rest of the tears.

Hesitating in the slightest bit when he offered her water, Merlou frowned at herself for doing so before quickly replacing it with another smile and grabbing the bowl of water, although taking in mind of his fair warning.

She slowly drank it, but soon after pulled it away from her lips and replied with, "oh, she paused. "Yeah, you're right, you're right," she grimaced a tad, placing the water down next to her. "Let's not do that again," she shook her head and drew her arms closer to her.

"But anyhow, I would suppose we're in the same boat, yes? Umm..dead?" she asked, lowering her voice. "Ah, and by the way, I'm Merlou," she gave him another smile, trying her best to be positive.

When Daisuke woke up his first though was rather naturally that the whole thing with Ayame was a dream. Just looking at his surroundings completely changed his mind however. After taking a few breaths to keep himself from freaking out he reached for his phone, not that he was expecting much as the battery had died about 30 minutes before he headed home. Oddly enough it seemed to be functioning though all his recorded numbers and downloads were gone, the wallpaper of him in front of his truck was still there though.

Just as he was about to check the new aps that were on it he heard someone sobbing. Looking around again he noticed a teenaged boy offer some water to a clearly overwhelmed woman. After grabbing his pen and thermos he forced himself out of bed and after briefly wondering if he should get dressed first walked over to the two.

“Have a drink first. I think it helps? Not that I’m an expert or anything, so…yeah…oh yeah, fair warning, this actually tastes worse than mineral water, so...fair warning?” Before he could make his own offer the girl tried the water and clearly didn't like it."Ehm excuse me. I have something that might taste better, though I can't offer a lot as the others might need it as well." He said holding up his thermos half filled with lukewarm coffee and hoping he sounded and looked calmer than he felt, though the facts he talked faster than normal and kept clicking his pen revealed he was feeling uncomfortable as well.

Apollo

As Apollo awoke, the first thing he noticed was the air on his bare flesh. His first instinct was to sit up, but he fought back that instinct and remained laying down for a few moments as he gathered his thoughts. The comforting smell of salt water was no longer in the air, and it unsettled him. If what he had was just a dream, he would be in one of the city's close by hospitals. Despite the girl from before running for a doctor, a quick scan of his surroundings gave way to doubt that this was a hospital at all. It looked more like a hospital you saw in fantasy movies or old documentaries. He began to self examine himself, feeling for any injuries or discomfort. Nothing. When he was sure that sitting up wasn't going to cause any problem, he slowly sat up on his bed.

Remembering about his phone, Apollo reached over to his clothes and grabbed his phone. He unlocked the screen and all of his beloved chemistry and magic apps were gone. The only thing left was the background picture of a crow holding the ace of spades in his beak and the two apps now sitting on the bottom quick menu. Apollo opened and took a quick scan of both apps before setting his phone down beside his pillow. The apps were of interest, but there were much more pressing matters to address.

He turned his body to the side and reached for his clothes. The thoughts of a doctor touching his body while he was unconscious made his skin crawl, and he needed to put something on and now. The first was his gloves, his precious gloves. He felt the warm cloth sliding over his hands and felt a sense of ease pass over him. Familiar and safe. Once his gloves were securely attached to his hands, he grabbed his shirt.

During this time, Apollo heard the others he had woken with begin talking to one another. Apollo listened to them as he finished the buttons on his shirt. They were mainly talking about how the water by their bedsides tasted quite bad. Apollo made a mental note not to drink any. He also heard the word "dead" thrown out. Now that was a dangerous word. It means that the others had the same dream he had. Or maybe it wasn't right to think of it as a dream anymore. Vision or Experience sounded better. Yeah, Vision. Definitely won't sound like a nutcase.

After he finished with his pants, he turned to the others who were still in their undergarments. Who were these people? Were they all like him? A lot of questions needed answers, but the current environment may not be the correct time for the answers to come to light. He simply let out a long sigh. "If that's coffee in that Thermos. I could definitely use a swig when she's done with it." He said calmly. He pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket and started shuffling. This gave his hands something to do. Something to keep his fingers from fidgeting nervously in front of the audience.

From the moment his eyes re-opened Aoba was ready to fight, despite his sudden change in location and lack of clothing he jerked upwards, eyes darting back and fourth, looking for one specific person that unsurprisingly, he did not find. He thought back to his final moments, a blur of gunshots, screaming, crying and the cool somehow comforting feeling of an aluminum baseball bat in his hands. He could only remember gasping for air as his whole body failed him at once. The sound of police sirens seeming unimportant in the back of his mind as he stuck close to his niece, his voice weakly echoing his last words "I've got you..."

Eventually he noticed he had been staring at his hands for a good minute, and finally looked up to the room around him. He stood and began wandering around the room, absent-mindedly picking at his fingernails as he paced the room. He ignored his phone, an older, shoddy model that could barely call itself a "smart" phone. Now, though Aoba had been studying medicine, most of his friends being gym-freaks meant that as a result his body was well kept. Lean muscle and his own collection of scars make an uneven pattern across his body, the result of his unhealthy habit of starting and ending fights with people getting unhealthily close to his family. He usually won but that was because he never played fair, waiting around the corner of an alley with a baseball bat is not normally considered a fair fight, even in the ghetto where he was born and raised.

Aoba vaguely noticed other people talking, huffing and quietly looking around before shuffling his way back to the bed he had woken up on. He tried to ignore the conversation going on around him as he tried to make sense of the fact that he had died... or was dead. He fumbled with his clothing as he dressed himself, immediately tugging on his pants and hoodie as he withdrew the pack of cigarettes and debated on lighting one.

"Still not really sure this is all real, I mean I distinctly remember smashing my way through a damn drug den and being shot up. People don't normally come back from that do they? Unless this is some elaborate prank like in one of those TV shows."

Aoba laughed to himself, trying to remember how the plot of the shows went. It would make things so much easier if everything was some elaborate joke. Tears slowly began to well up as his voice began to shake.

They could do anything with Hollywood movie junk right? Right?

"Cmon guys, it's not funny anymore. Where's Sammy?"

“I know right?” Katsuo grinned at her reaction, feeling a bit more comfortable now that it looked like she had picked herself back up. “Pretty sure I’m dead and…revived or whatever though. Name’s Katsuo. Don’t suppose, uh…you’re from Japan too?”

He paused, tilting his head slightly. The language came to him naturally, but at the same time, was he really speaking his mother tongue here? “By the way, just out of curiosity…what language are you speaking right now? There’s nothing like subtitles that are popping up when I talk, right?”

Before such trivial questions could be answered, however, others woke up, one of them offering coffee as a substitute to water, while another began shuffling cards while waiting for his turn with the thermos. Yup, between the dude that looked like a freeter and the guy who could have walked out of a Hollywood spy thriller, it was definitely looking as if Ayame had some peculiar tastes. Or maybe it was just coincidence again. Who knows? While the adults sated their caffeine addiction, Katsuo awkwardly shuffle-pulled his pants back on. Or well, he did, until someone else spoke up.

A real hunk, and a real scarred up one at that. With blue-haired and a chiselled body that looked like it belonged to a criminal who had nothing to do but work out, the man’s words certainly make sense at all. An elaborate prank? Smashing through a drug den? Sammy? All those words carried weight, even if none of them connected in any meaningful fashion. He must have been disorientated, huh? Disbelieving? Was there some sort of reincarnation ‘sickness’ that scrambled one’s memories?

“There’s coffee being passed around,” the blue-haired youth said, motioning towards the owner of the thermos. “It’s really not a prank though. I mean, even if we survived what we did…it’d be in terrible taste to do something like that. You know…trick people who just came out of a coma into thinking they’re in another world…”

He pursed his lips. He had more he wanted to say. But he kept quiet, and after a few more seconds, began buttoning on his blazer.

Now that the coffee was being handled Daisuke decided that it would be a good time to get dressed himself. "Just save some for me, it's taking some effort not to freak out. As he was putting his jeans back two other members of the group woke up and came to a decently reasonable conclusion that maybe this was all a hidden camera tv show.

"Not just bad taste with what they did to our phones alone I'm sure there would be a lot of lawsuits coming from us, also if you had the same reaction to "Ayame's" smiles as I did..." Daisuke took a deep breath as the possible implications of what he was about to say sank in. "Well let's just say that any technology that could do that sounds closer to scifi mindcontrol than anything we have available." "Speaking of scifi tech some kind of virtual reality program with semi-sentient NPC's with false memories and a player character could also explain things." He decided to keep that bit for himself.

Without saying another word he finished dressing himself and tried to think of a distraction to keep his mind off the fact that he might have never been alive in the first place. His phone seemed like a good place to start. "Hey do you mind if I take a picture? I want to try this Pictopedia thing." Despite his best efforts even Daisuke noticed how shaky his voice sounded as he asked.

"GWAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUU-"

The pink-haired youth screamed as she shot up from her sleeping position like a mouse trap. She went from lying on her back to sitting on her ass in mere milliseconds. With a few deep huffs, her mind began to process everything that went on. She was in the hospital, right? Her heart was pretty much exploding, then she fell unconscious. She didn't feel anything for a bit, then her mind slipped away from her. Then she had a really weird death bed dream where she was in a room with a bunch of people. She thought it was just her feeling like she was about to die, 'cause her heart felt funky again about halfway through.

In her continued panic, her hands rapidly felt her body. She hit her chest, rubbed her cheeks, pinched her arm, everything to do to confirm what was going on. Yikes, she thought, every pinch hurts. Wait. It hurt. That meant...

"I... I..." she muttered under her breath, a shocked look overtaking her before... "I LIVED BITCH." Her face was instantly overtaken by dumbass grin as she launched herself out of bed. As her feet felt the ground in the first time in days, she noticed something very peculiar: she wasn't alone.

There was a blue-haired twink, a blue-haired twunk (that one letter had MASSIVE DIFFERENCES), some woman with funky hair (POT MEETS KETTLE), a generic lank-man who reminded the manic youth of an anime that starred a baseball loving PI, and a man with the face of a 40 year old villain.

In other words, they had formed the world's worst collection of superheroes.

As the slight tinge of coffee danced its way into her smell holes, something became apparent: she was hungry as HECK. Exactly as though there was a dude with a jackhammer in the room, her stomach rumbled with the force of ten thousand suns. In other words, about how loud a stomach would usually growl. It was bold for her body to ignore the actual mood of the room, whatnot with everyone coming to terms with their death and those who they missed. Everyone important to them, gone.

It was heavy stuff, but for Umi, it was a second chance. Even if her mind didn't admit it, even if she didn't think about it, deep down, she knew that it was a second chance. No point in treating it like a dream. If it was only a dream, then she would still enjoy her time left. It was more than she had before it all happened.

"Sssoooooo hi. Me llamo Umi."

Now there were other people waking up and discussing their current situation, Merlou took this chance to reach over and grab her clothes, quickly dressing herself and slightly sighing, feeling a tad more secure. It seemed that the group was talking about how it could be some reality t.v plot, she was certain that she didn't survive her accident, no matter how much she would have loved to believe the newly formed hypothesis.

Rising off of the bed, she stretched her legs, being six-foot-five meant that her legs often cramped up in small spaces, or just not moving for a period of time. "Ah, yes, coffee sounds amazing right now, thank you," she said as she waited for the thermos to be passed toward her. She stood around awkwardly for half a second, a little embarrassed that some of the others had seen her crying, so she ran a hand through her hair and cleared her throat, preparing to enter the conversation.

Placing a hand on her hip, she said, "Well, we could always ask one of the doctors. I'm pretty sure that they must know something, since they knew we would have questions, right? And I wouldn't mind you taking a picture, I'm pretty curious too, whatever Pictopedia is," Merlou chimmed in, but before it could be answered, a small, younger looking girl with pink hair woke up, who kind of reminded her of a cupcake, sitting up quickly in her bed.

Merlou gave her a slight wave, smiling lightly. "Hi, I'm Merlou, nice to meet you Umi, well, er, not in this setting, but hopefully you know what I mean,"

Apollo

Apollo switched to one handed shuffling as he took the thermos. More and more people seemed to be waking up now. That was good. Apollo just sat there, soaking in information, as he took a swig of the coffee before passing it over to the girl who introduced herself as Merlou. The coffee wasn't the best, but it was good enough for the situation. He set aside his cards and stood up as others began debating if they were apart of some prank show.

"It's definitely not any type of T.V. show," Apollo interjected, "No country would greenlight a show that would potentially affect the mental stability of people who were all in, from what I can tell, horrid death-like encounters without consent. It's just too immoral." He ran a hand through his oil black hair as he took a second to think. There were other possibilities, but they were all just a little too far fetched too him. "Let's also not forget that we all had the same encounter with 'her'. Unless we were all placed under some sort of chemically induced suggestive state, there is no way for us all to have the same vision."

He stood up and walked over to grab his cane. Giving himself more time to process the severity of what he was saying. It had to be true. He had died when the stage exploded. It was so hard to wrap his head around. He was dead, but he isn't. He pushed the thoughts of his death to the back of his mind as he retrained his focus on the situation at hand. "Katsuo is right though. I'm American, born and raised. I don't know a lick of Japanese nor have I been to Japan. I know of no technology that can translate languages and then transmit to each individual person. Not with enough speed or accuracy for it to be unnoticeable anyway. That being said, I understand you all clearly, and I'm assuming the same is true in reverse." His voice was calm and his tone was low.

He turned back to the group his eyes scanning over each and every one of them. He was apart of such a motley group. Just then the small pink haired girl had just woken up. She said her name was Umi. "Welcome to the party, Umi." He said with a half smile. She was too young. She looked the same age as some of the other children from the church. Apollo fought to keep the memories of the church from flooding his mind. He grabbed a nearby chair and dropped down, letting out a small oof. He then looked towards the door that the nurse had exited from earlier, "Merlou is right too. We can get at least some answers from the doctor & the nurses. They are probably our best source of information at the moment. Even if we don't believe what they tell us."

Daisuke wanted to point that the American was basically just repeating what he said earlier, but he figured that the more people pointed out that it wasn't a tv. show or movie the better. He did his best to ignore the thoughts about all but of them being fake since there was no doubt nothing any of them could do if that was the case. So instead he finished dressing and was just about to take the girl's picture when another pink haired girl woke up.

The fact that this new girl seemed to be as young as the boy offering the first girl water made him terrible for both of them since they at least remembered dying at a young age. Still since he didn't know what to say he felt it was better if everyone dealt with things their own way for now at least.

In Daisuke's case that meant trying to distract himself from his suspicions. Once he was fully dressed he grabbed his cellphone and prepared to take Merlou's picture.

The group woke up one by one and began to take in everything that happened. As one would expect, being taken from a traumatic event, like death, to a place of unknown origin was very unsettling. Yet, they began to use each other as a footstool to sort out exactly what was going on. It was not long before helping hands were being passed around.

\Skill Acquired: Strong Stomach Rank Novice- Lvl 1

A notification up on Katsuo’s and Merlou’s phones not too long after drinking the water. The notification was like a banner and then, in app form, left a notification bubble over the app to remind you to check it.



After some time had passed, and their minds calmed down, a bit, Daisuke decided to snap a picture of Merlou to try out the Pictopedia app. Merlou gave a soft smile and a Peace sign after putting on her shirt. Despite her size, she was very gentle woman with a big heart and people could tell just by the pose. Once Daisuke opened the app, he could see a lot of movement around the main subject. It was like she was being analyzed by the phone. This freaked him out a bit but his curiosity overpowered his fear, this time.

The picture was taken. After a few seconds, all of Merlou’s info popped up on the screen as if she was being appraised in a video game. Soon as analyzation was complete, a voice sounded from the phone giving the details of the results with a picture o the tall girl.

Subject Name: Merlou Zenon
Age: 22
Gender: Female

Level: 1
Health: 97/97
Mana: 74/74

Stats:
Strength: 7
Constitution: 8
Agility: 11
Speed: 14
Intellect: 10
Discipline 9

Talents:
Charm: Rank Novice - Lvl 1
Healing Magic: Rank Novice - Lvl 1
Stealth: Rank Novice - Lvl 1
Strong Stomach: Rank Novice- Lvl 1

Inventory: Her phone, lipstick, a simple silver ring

Information: A former nursing student in the old world, she lived a life unsure of her life’s direction. After a heated argument with her mother, she was caught in a head on collision and died upon impact. However she was given new life by. Beautiful God who loved her dearly.

Pictopedia is now level 2

The voice ended giving a lot more information than one would have expected. In fact, it seemed very intrusive, to say the least. If things couldn’t get any worse, the thoughts and memories were confirmed with just one picture. Everyone, indeed, just died.

Before everything could settle down, the doctor showed up with Millie and Alice in tow. He was a man of average height with dark hair. He was clothed as if he was some grand Druid with cane and books in tow. His white garb was nothing like you would see in our time but not at all that strange in eras before. However he seemed nice enough and the two women seemed to trust him. After clearing his throat, the man spoke.
”I see you all have finally come too. You were out for at least 14 days so I’m glad you all are alive.” He then wraps his arms around the two women who flanked him either side and pulled them closely. They blush a bit but tried to not draw attention to themselves. ”You should thank these girls here, with their healing abilities, they nurses you all to keep you healthy.”

He then walked over to a chair and sat down. Looking at everyone, then said, ”I know you have millions of questions to ask, so I will try to answer them to the best of my abilities”

"No country would greenlight the show?" Katsuo grinned, trying to make light of the situation. "What about North Korea?"

Silence. Then everyone moved on, conversing of more important things. Ouch, there went his pride in his sense of juvenile humor. As Katsuo sat back, listening to the others talk, he felt his phone vibrate suddenly. His heart pounded suddenly. A text? Could they receive texts? Further investigation said 'no', however, and as he read the notification slowly, the blue-haired twink cool guy tilted his head in confusion. Strong Stomach? Was that...no...

"Uh, yeah," Katsuo said, taking the oppurtunity to take a quick camera shot of the male doctor, "Just a question...but what's in these bowls, doc?"

As the phone analyzed her picture, Merlou incresingly grew uncomfortable, starting to slowly inch her way toward the guy who had taken her picture, trying to peer over his shoulder, but not wanting to be weird about it, so she was stuck in this awkward position where her neck was extended, but she was a little too far to actually see anything. "Um..this isn't some weird..dating app, is it? I really hope not, but uh, if it is, I don't mean to bash someone's work, sorry," she apologized to no one in particular. "This makes me seem like some sort of, er, video game character, and I'm not really into that, I think, if this is a dating app. But probably not. I dunno why it would be, but I'm just guessing. Ah, sorry for rambling, I just- this is weird, sorry," she began playing with her hair awkwardly, wanting to ask him to just delete the picture, but she didn't want to sound rude.

As she was trying to come up with anything else to say to grab her confidence back, the two nurses that had been with them previously appeared with a man who Merlou assumed was the doctor. Maybe. She wasn't sure. As he offered to answer their questions, Merlou listened, but kept her watch on the nurses, frowning a bit when he pulled them closer to himself. Mumbling, she said, "but he's so short, why would-(she stopped herself here, again, not wanting to be rude)-but I'm technically a nurse too, but it's whatever," she averted her gaze.

"So uh, where are we? And who are you?"

@ERode

”Wha....what was that light? What is that device? What did you do to me?”. The flash startled the doctor as he fell out of the chair due to shock. He had never seen a device with such “power” before in his life. What magic created this thing. He was super curious however, his curiosity had to be held at bay. Instead he took in the two questions he had to answer.

”My name is Fenius Ferb. Most people just call me Doctor.” The man regained his composure and pulled himself back onto the chair. ”I’m the local physician here though my talents reach farther than just he medical field. I am an Alchemist and a mage of,” Fenius pauses for a moment, looking for the words to describe himself without boasting too much, ”moderate trustworthiness. I am also the head of the Adventurer’s guild here in this town.....”

As he went on, Kastuo gained some information on Fenius

Subject Name: Fenius Ferb
Age: ??
Gender: male
Level: ??
Stats: ??
Talents:
Alchemy
Inventory: a stick and a book of unknown origin

Info: A doctor who helped you back to help. He is an Alchemist and a mage. Pictopedia cannot analyze more info. Subject level is too high.

”What!! It can talk too!! What is that thing?” Alice exclaimed as she ran to Katsuo’s side to look at his phone. ”Millie, look at this!! It’s so cool!! It’s a picture of the Doctor but it’s so clear like it’s him standing in front of you.”. She grabs Katsuo’s hands and gets really close to his face, her eyes brimming with curiosity and vigor, ”Can you teach me this magic?”

Millie walked towards Merlou, and looked at the phone, a bit more inquisitively. She then touched the about me application on the phone that Merlou had on her phone. When it opened it gave the exact same info that was described by the Pictopedia. Millie inquired ”WOW, you know healing Magic? Can you show me?”

Now seeing his girls flock to these two people made Fenius pretty jealous. He is a doctor but the attention from women was something he revelled in. ”Oh, yes, your question kid. In those browns are bath water. Actually, I am kind of dumbfounded that you would have to ask that question?”

"I doubt it's a dating app, after all you didn't enter that info. Daisuke picked up on Merlou's use of the word videogame character and tensed up a little. He decided that he could use some coffee and waked over to his thermos.

At that point the doctor and two nurses came in, offering to answer their questions. The first question he wanted to ask was the obvious one to him, but the man's reaction to the blue haired boy taking his picture showed he knew nothing about their phones.

So he went for the second choice. "What can you tell us about "Ayame" and do you know why she would bring us back to live in another world?" He honestly doubted he would get a good answer to the second part of his question but he had to try. As he waited he drank his coffee and tried the about me app on his phone.

Apollo

Apollo just sat there listening to the group as he pondered the Pictopedia. The ability to simply take a picture and obtain an amount of pertinent information absolutely free was fascinating. The applications of such technology would be extremely valuable, but there were flaws. It seems like it appraises the photo targets with some sort of level system. If a target is out of an indicated range for the Pictopedia, the information comes out as unknown. Although it seemed that the Pictopedia also levels up, so that problem can easily be fixed with enough photographic snooping. The bigger problem he saw was that it audibly dishes out the information it gives. As long as that is a function, discrete information gathering was going to be hindered. He couldn't help but wonder if a text-based option would be available at higher 'levels' of the Pictopedia.

He sat there for a few moments as the nurses excitedly mused over Merlou and Ketsuo's phones. Apollo then discreetly reached over and picked his phone up off of the bed and slid it down his sleeve. He didn't want any nosy nurses grabbing his phone. He then looked over to the doctor appraisingly. He seemed normal enough, a little perverted, but that wasn't completely out of the box. You see a lot of different type of people on the Boardwalk.

Apollo leaned forward in his chair as he addressed the doctor. "I guess a few of the important questions should be answered first. Where are we? What country and/or town would be preferable. I also want to know how we got here. Did you find us in a field, or did we just materialize in these beds?" He made a quick gesture towards the beds as he took a moment to mull over a few other questions in his head before settling on one more set, "Also, you said you were a mage and one of the nurses mentioned that Merlou had healing magic. Am I to assume you guys are talking about real bonafide magic? Not just tricks and sleight of hand?" He asked accenting the question with a quick display of making a playing card appear and disappear in one of his hands.

The last question wasn't nearly as important as the first two, but he had to know. He had spent a good portion of his childhood and young adult life dedicating himself to the art of smoke and mirrors. If magic was suddenly real now, he would have to endeavour to learn more about it.

Oops. Looked like flash was on. As the doctor stumbled back in shock, Katsuo stifled a half-laugh, switching the camera settings to Auto-Flash instead, before reading what little information he could gather from the Pictopedia. Too high-leveled, huh? Figured.

One phrase that Ferbius spoke of did catch the blue-haired youth’s attention though. An Adventurer’s Guild? If this was a normal isekai rather than an edgy one, the Guild was definitely going to be the first place they’d be hitting up, right? Sounded like a plan, for sure. Turning his head up again, he was about to launch into another question when Millie (remember, she’s the brunette) suddenly got way too close and curious. Her hands wrapped around his was enough to short-circuit his mind for just a moment, and Katsuo almost dropped his phone in the process.

Damn, he had heard girls’ hands were soft and smooth, but Millie’s was certainly nothing like that. Calloused and firm, but wonderfully cool despite it.

Leaning back slightly from the sheer brilliance of her child-like curiousity, Katsuo opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, but only to let out a half-sigh, half-laugh.

Wow, he felt a bit popular right now. Was this what it was like, to be a winner in life? Even if his smartphone was something literally everyone else had as well.

“Ah, uh, well, it’s not really magic,” he said, gesturing to the device, “More of a special item that only people with specific knowledge can use? Oh, but basically, you just need to…” As Katsuo rambled, he turned on the camera app again, this time reversing the camera so that a digital display of Millie and himself popped up on screen. “…press the white circle you see here. Just like…”

Click.

“…this.”

And with that, the first selfie in this fantasy land was taken.

A moment later, Katsuo switched the camera again to display what was in front of the phone, before handing it over to Millie and gesturing broadly towards the room. “Here, you try. Remember, just touch the white button once. And, like I said, it's not magic, it's just this item in particular, so you won't really be able to do anything else.”

Compared to learning about the new world, scoring friendship points with a magical healer nurse was way more important, right? Definitely.