Krakatoa 1 (Patreon)

Krakatoa
Chapter 1

-VB-

“So, what, you want to use me as a key to get into other universes?” I asked the being in front of me.

“Exactly! I mean, I would have used Slutlife’s services, but why go for a long contract when I could easily do things on my own?” the being replied with a relieved cheer that I understood his explanation.

I couldn’t see, feel, or smell. I knew I had a body, but I could only hear and speak. Kind of shit, really, but I was a soul right now because I died, apparently.

The being in front of me called himself “Marowa Ereutil Trakuthita,” which roughly translated to “Marowa of the Trakuthita Alliance.” In his words, Trakuthita Alliance was an organization on par with the Slutlife when it came to cumulative power, but as a confederation without a hierarchy or real political structure beyond a set of rules and a strict defensive pact, each member was left to do as they pleased or could act.

In Marowa’s case, this meant that he was left to his own devices to seek his sustenance.

And his sustenance?

Souls.

He wasn’t a predator like most eldritch or evil beings. He was closer to a bottom feeder who ate the dead or pieces of the dead. In his case, he preferred to eat broken souls of unbelievers who refused all pantheons and thus had been left out to dry on their own. By the time he got his mittens on them, most of them were lifeless husks. They were more mana or energy than actual souls at that point.

By the way, that’s what he said mana comes from. Mana was merely lifeless and broken souls, or pieces of them, floating about aimlessly once sapience disappeared.

Even in death, nature liked to recycle everything, apparently.

Unfortunately, he had the same problem all other eldritch beings like him had; he didn’t stop growing. He needed more soulstuff to live on, but the worlds he had claims on were kind of already providing him with everything they could. As a being who fed on the dead souls of the unbelievers, he actually discouraged religions, though this actually did spark a different kind of religion in some places.

“So… you want to use me to gain access to parallel universes where people haven’t laid claim to yet.”

“Yes! Because one of the stricter rules for the Alliance, thanks to the goddamn unfair treaty with Slutlife, is that we, god-like beings, can’t crack open new timelines for ourselves. Too much trouble down the line and whatnot. But we can use agents to gain access to new timelines and feeding grounds.”

“Uh… huh. What do I get if I do this for you?”

The being smiled, though I didn’t see him smile. Was it like a soul-sense thing?

“Well, aside from being able to live again?”

“Yes. I mean, I am a believer, so I won’t stay here for too long, I assume.”

“You are correct.”

“Oh good.”

He snorted. “So you just want to end your life like that?”

“I lived a full life. Sure, I didn’t get everything I wanted, but I still lived a good one.”

“What if I could give you more? Why not do things in your new life you couldn’t do before? Live out your fantasies!”

“... There’s no trick involved? No ‘I implied but didn’t say it’ kind of things in the background?”

“No, no, no. I’m being honest here! I know some of your Korean cousins like it when they have a still living and squirming octopus leg on their plate, but I’m not like that. I just … you know, it feels really awful when my food is screaming and begging to live.”

I cringed.

Yeah.

I never liked the san-nakji.

“I guess… I wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Great~! What do you want?”

“... What can I take?”

-VB-

Marowa was a great guy. He was really flexible, too, and even let me choose how I wanted to enter.

However, he strictly banned me from using Waifu Catalog, because that was Slutlife’s deal.

Instead of Waifu Catalog, I got my hands on Team Builder, final version 4. It was basically a discount Waifu Catalog with less options overall but simpler to use.

“So am I limited to only the worlds on this?” I asked him.

“Of course not! I can find the Waifu Catalog equivalents and send you over there, too.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah! Um… by the way, why do you guys like sex so much?”

I paused and “looked” at him. “Pardon?”

“Like, I get it. Your flesh and bones brain pumps out the chemicals, but sex isn’t the end all be all of life.”

“I mean, yeah? You’re right. But … flesh and bones kind of thing. Reproduction is kind of crucial.”

“I guess. I never had sex because I don’t have a gender or sex in the first place.”

“But you asked me to refer to you as ‘he’.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s because the first aknth’geqa I met called me that.”

“... What is a ak… whatever they’re called?”

“In Earth terms, imagine a bipedal purple cow with a reptile snout, no horns, three fingers and one thumbed, digitigrade limbed, about ten feet tall, and egg-laying race of people.”

“Oh. So alien.”

“Yes.”

“So what world do you want to go to?”

I had a few worlds in mind.

“Well, I have a lot of options,” I laughed. “But I certainly don’t want to go to a place that will leave me dead fast.” I paused. “I think… I want to go to Code Geass initially.”

“Initially?”

“Yeah, Team Builder has the Portal utility gear. It’s expensive, but I can travel to other worlds if I don’t like the world I’m at.”

“Okay. That’s where I’ll send you then. You can spend points as you spend the time there, aight?”

“Wait, what? No, let me fi-!”

Zap.

-VB-

I tumbled out of the sky, and screamed as I saw the ocean beneath me and land not too far away.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck-!”

I hurriedly imagined the Team Builder, because it wasn’t like I had paper in front of me or whatever so imagination was the only possible way for me to spend the point, and I saw it pop up in my mental headspace as clear as the rapidly approaching ocean water.

“BUY ESPER!”

[Purchase confirmed.]

And then I stopped falling and stood on air.

I took deep breaths, ignored the piss in my pants, and gasped out as my heart hammered inside my chest.

“FUCK!” I hissed as I fell to my knees while still in the air, and “laid” on the ground I formed with my new psychic power.

It took me sometime before I got uncomfortable in my own piss-soaked clothes.

Seeing as I needed both clothes and money to survive in this world…

“Buy Alchemist,” I instructed again as my heart finally calmed down and started beating normally. Ah, right. I also needed an ID. “Buy Fake and Portal.”

I took out a deep breath in and let it out slowly as new knowledges flowed into me. Thankfully, I wasn’t the run-of-the-mill FMA Alchemist but someone like the Elric Brothers; I could do the “Clap Alchemy,” which bypassed the need for a transmutation circle. Oh, and I felt a passport and some kind of remote appear in my pockets.

And then I saw it.

Tokyo Settlement. It was a monstrous megastructure covering only a tiny portion of the original Tokyo metropolitan area, but it was still a big structure that looked more like a parking lot yet stood over several hundred yards tall.

That was a feat of engineering right there.

I took a deep breath in again.

“I’m in Code Geass,” I muttered as I looked down at this … Area 11.

I just realized that I came to a world, looking and being identified as a “Britannian” because I was an American before my first death, which was also the case for the passport, and I came to a conquered and colonized archipelago.

Well, I guessed that I better -.

Boom.

I paused and looked towards the source of the sound and found a smoke rising up from the edge of what looked like a very rundown part of the town.

“Ah, right. Canon.”

Which meant that Lelouch, Suzaku, C.C., Kallen, and her terrorist cell would be present.

And speaking of Kallen… I did have a crush on her when I was a teenager looking at Code Geass for the first time. She wasn’t my first “waifu,” let’s say, but she certainly was one of my first five.

“... Well, I …”

And then I realized that I had a choice before me. Use Team Builder as it was intended or don’t. If I did, then I would be diving into this knowing that I would be collecting women like they were trophies, mentally altering them, and doing all sorts of things with them. If I didn’t, then life would continue on as normal.

I …

… Chose not to take anything too morally evil.

“Buy Pushover, Lady-Killer, and One Night Stand plus.”

Once I felt the changes fall in, I flew down.

If I failed to get Kallen’s attention, then that’s on me.