Chapter 1: So those are Real

[??? POV]

This introduction might sound quite cliché.

But, do you know the intro of a random isekai novel number 19392479234, where there would be a dream, or perhaps a mysterious voice, or perhaps a 'secretary' that would inform you that you made it into some kind of reincarnation cycle? Yeah, I got none of that.

This is because of the natural phenomenon called isekai, and reincarnation is not fucking real. What's real right now is the fact that I have a steel bar lodged from the right side of my head to the left side, all because when I finally got my motorcycle driving license and decided to use it to go to school I teach in, the bearings seem to not feel like being in place anymore, so the rear wheel suddenly flew out of the the damn body. Now, I'm in a rather not so developed province in my country, it was so undeveloped that I had to be deployed from the capital to here because all secondary education graduates are going to the capital or gunning for college instructor-type work.

I got blasted off on an exposed metal bar of a house in the side of a road that was indefinitely on hold because the owner didn't have a budget.

So... that's why I got barbecued, blood covered my whole face as well as eyes, making all people and lights that seemed to come from people who wanted to help and/or gossip look like a murky broth being continuously stirred. They're honestly useless, but thanks. The blood came with brain juices, and in the whole human body, the safest place that cerebrospinal fluid can leak is through the nose, and these are my temples.

Time seems to slow down.

Obviously, my head hurts like hell, and I'm turning slightly lightheaded (mainly because a rusty steel bar is lodged in my head) because of blood loss, and everything seems to be muffled and can only be recognized by the last bit of my pattern recognition. Man, and it's even the first year of me being able to teach in a public school after 2 years in a private school.

Bigger salary, and such, went down the drain.

I don't even wish to have a lavish life, I just want to live a life with a rock-solid and stable job, technically not that high paying, but will not lay me out because AIupmyassgpt released a model that lets students become dumber with lesser repercussions.

And then I got myself into an accident, it's not even other people's fault. I have no helmet, I'm barely within the speed limit, and I didn't let a mechanic check on the bearings of my motorcycle. I don't even know how I can make a very concise summary of my early career, maybe because I'm about to die and adrenaline got into my leaking head and stuff.

Ugh... now my vision's already getting darker... wait a minute... where's my life flashing before my eyes...

Wait...

Don... give me... some boring... career highlights...

I'm not... Kobe...

I want...

To see... my family...

___________________

Seeing myself get pierced in the temples by a steel bar without any head protection and slowly slip away into the cold embrace of death is not something I expect myself to wake up on. Yet, here I am, looking like a ball of phantasmal flame floating in a place with perpetual darkness. It was a place where not even being a ball of flame could make it any brighter. It's as if the darkness is not only the absence of light but an entity independent of the concept of light itself.

_What in the world is this? Is this a dream? No, I just got pierced by a steel bar up my temples. I'm sure I was dead as hell at that point. So, why am I here?_

As if to answer my question, a mechanical voice of someone that resembles that of a woman suddenly rang in my metaphorical ears.

[Notice: Congratulations, individual [Abraham Rivers] of [Right Hand Universe 1], for entering the reincarnation cycle with the approval by the Goddess of Fate [####] and God of Mischief [####].]

This sentence made me confused before fear crept out of my whole being like a snake wrangling my now non-existent heart. Those shit are true after all, and if they are, that means some being incomprehensible by mortals or something is in some crack and made me part of their dangerous world for some noble mission or for shit and giggles.

A great desire to escape emanated in my heart, yet the feminine mechanical voice that rang into my non-existent ears without a care about my feelings continued.

[You're given 5 wishe- bzzt! God of Mischief [####] rejected your 5 wishes.]

[God of Mischief [####] has given you the title: Blessed by Mischief]

[Effects:

10% added proficiency to unique, racial, and common skills categorized by the title as 'deceit' based.

10% added proficiency to Shadow Magic

Gift: Illusion Magic]

[God of Mischief [####] gifted you the unique skill: [Parasitism]]

All of these monotone voices made my mind go blank, and before I could even process the feeling of fear, confusion, and my desire to get the hell out of this place, I fell into a great feeling of plummeting down a great distance somewhere with an atmosphere. Obviously, I start to feel like my whole body is going to be burned and turn into carbon.

Yet the damn voice and that bastard named 4 asterisks are not over with their bullshit yet.

[Notice: You will be given a body that can resist any physical damage to a degree... creation, successful. You are the very first [False Angel Slime].]

[Notice: As a final bonus by the God of Mischief [####], the name of your soon-to-be habitat is [Bizarre Forest]. You will be given the name: [Hermes Trickmaster].]

[Bzz-! You have used all your wishes.]

Just like that, the mechanical voice finally died down, returning the silence in my mind while I once again fell into a deep ravine of never-ending darkness. It may have taken only a second before I once again regained my vision that somehow turned 360 degrees, but for me, it felt like an eternity of wishing that this was just somehow a hallucination.

But in the end, from the blow of the wind, the sound of the silent current of the river beside me, and the feeling of the loamy soil made me accept this harsh reality.

_Man, I get to sound like a protagonist on a monologue with this... it would be better if I just died. Why would I be reincarnated with all my memories intact and be even blessed by someone called [God of Mischief]? Shouldn't it be at least [God of Honesty] or something?_

Also, I feel calm right now, too calm in fact, that the emotions boiling within me before all of this seem not to exist. Yet, I knew I felt them and knew even now what being an item being sorted out of a factory feels like.

_This must be another 'compensation' of the [God of Mischief]. Also, the fucker changed my name into 'Hermes Trickmaster', that's very uncreative. That's like naming me Loki Mischief, but the one who named me wanted to be creative, so he used the 'god of trickery' instead of the 'god of mischief'._

This made me sigh while feeling myself flatten a little bit. Right, I remember I am the 'first' [False Angel Slime]. What even is that? Don't tell me I'm the MC of some knockoff of that slime novel/manga/anime/game and whatnot series...

This is so confusing. Also, why would an esikai not have a system panel? Are we for real? Like for real real?

Suddenly, as if to clap back on my ridicule, I saw a bracket that slowly expanded into several quantified units.

[Name: Hermes Trickmaster

Race: False Angel Slime

Level: 1

Exp.: 0/200

Titles: Blessed by Mischief

HP: 10/10

PP: 50/50

MP: 20/20

Mana: 10/10

Skills:

Unique:

[Parasitism]

Common:

[]

Magic:

[Illusion Magic vlv. 1]

Spells:

Racial:

[Charm]

[Self Division]

[Digestion] ]

_...10 Hp...? Fucking 10? I'm the [Blessed of Mischief] or some shit, and they give me 10 HP? Also, if I have 50 PP, which I assume is Physical Points of 50, does that mean I need 100 PP to have 20 HP? Why would you call me something so cool like the 'False Angel Slime' if I have that ass of a defense?_

I can't help but rant, not only because, well, having 10 HP with my body size, my gamer instincts make me loathe players who don't prioritize increasing their defense and HP. Also, those people are called glass cannons most of the time, but my unique skill is not even about punching a hole up the ass of my enemies; it's about being a parasite!

You drag me out of my world, and you give me this!?

It seems like the god of mischief doesn't need to take away my fear and confusion at all; it's sure as hell that I will get angry after seeing this.

_But this is not really a game, I'm inside a real new world, and I will die if I don't find a way to survive using all that I have... Speaking of which, I also have some ass-tier MP and not-so-good PP. I hope I can find a way to make them better somehow. I don't like those numbers at all._

In any case, I may need to be thankful for the fact that the system is simple and can be understood at a glance: PP represents all physical, HP, physical defense, offense, and probably stamina, while MP is everything magic-related. You just have to be either a gamer or someone who has read that Spider novel. Also, if you think about it, my HP is like PP divided by 5, while my Mana is like MP divided by 2, meaning I may need to focus on magic for now.

Though I will not give up on improving my PP in the future.

_I do wonder, I imagine a slimy body having a rather big mass and resilience since it's jiggly and even has the [Digestion] racial skill... is a slime and a False Angel Slime of a different kind?_

Thinking of this, of course, I immediately need to confirm this to at least understand the situation of my body. Who knows, I might have an incurable disease or something, using my 360 degree vision, I saw the silently flowing river right in front (or behind?) me as I tried my best to move towards it. I moved like a slug, literally as I reached its bank.

_Oh, surprisingly, this body is easy to use..._

As I observed, I saw reflected on the river is a pitch black slime with no face or any other distinctive features other than the golden line forming a hexagon atop its head... that... is me from now on. But I can't see any indicators that explain my stats. Don't tell me this is only for the love of the game? One of the mischiefs of the god of mischief?

That can't be... if PP is physical points, that means the bigger someone is, the more PP and thus HP they should have...

As I was contemplating my not-so-impressive appearance, I suddenly saw something deep inside my body being hit by the sun. It's the only thing inside my body that reflects the sun. It's a diamond-shaped object that, if I tried to look closely seem to be emitting light instead of reflecting it, though this light is being absorbed by the darkness of my whole body and maybe being funneled by the faint glow of the hexagon atop my head.

_This is... a core of some sort? Could it be that this is the one that got its HP calculated into numbers?_

This made me even more gloomy; this core is most definitely mine. And let's forget about my HP being low, if someone managed to crack this open, my whole existence will go down the drain, even if I have millions of HP and PP...

_Ugh... I was harder to kill when I'm still a human, at least it took 50 feet into the air and clean steel bars chucked in my temples... this core looks like it would crack if a bird plucked on it a good amount of time..._

Just when I was about to sigh again, my vision saw something different. A brown colored head under the river arching its body up with its alligator mouth, looking at me. Not only that, as if curious, the 'alligator' tilted its head, and while that might not be a problem on itself, it became one the moment the alligator's eyes were on the same side as its belly and continued turning 360 degrees until it came back to its original spot.

After that, the alligator slowly turned its head again in a different direction. I feel my heart (or core, as indicated) be again gripped by fear as I felt my whole blob of a body tremble and freeze for a moment, and be thankful that the alligator is just looking at me with curiosity

_Oh god, what the fuck was that?_

I, the great [Blessed of Mischief], immediately used my fastest speed to get the fuck out of the riverbank and enter a shadow being cast by a tree about 50 meters away from the river. Which cost me a fourth of my total PP.

That's... weird...

_Right, this forest is literally called 'Bizarre Forest'... but that's still creepy as fuck. I'm so sure it's dangerous as hell, too... I have to get away from the river until further notice._

I decided not to think about it for now and continued scanning my status panel.

Now I focus on my skills.