Reincarnation Trials: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Systems of Salvation Book 1)

by Han Yang

  “Until tomorrow.”

  “Until tomorrow,” he replied, and I departed for the medical bay.

  My stomach rumbled, filled to the brim with a wondrous salad. I almost skipped down the halls while humming a tune. Due to my distraction, I bumped into a man at an intersection who also was a bit oblivious to the world.

  “Hey,” he said in reaction, dropping the lunchbox he carried.

  I picked it off the sterile floors, feeling a heft to it. “Six hells, whatcha got in here, partner?”

  “Ugh, Snagglewood. I hate it.” He grumbled, accepting the container back. “Real avocados. Honestly, I wanted to eat them instead of giving them to Francine, but the lid has a code. Some people.”

  “Temptation is ever present. Sorry for bumping into you,” I said and left him to continue his journey, wherever it may be.

  A quick turn right and I arrived for my check-up. Darcy waited for me in her synthetic form, and I smiled down at her. She wore a nurse outfit with a stethoscope around her neck for show.

  “Hey, Darcy. How are you?” I asked.

  “Recovering. I was assassinated during the raid in Quadrant 117.”

  I stood rigid, suddenly swapping from casually happy to alert and ready to kill. “Should I be worried, I just bumped into a man as preoccupied as I was.”

  “Huh? No, it worked, but it failed. I made it very clear that there are penalties for such actions and do not fear further problems. I… I’m not just one being, Theo. Well, I am, and I’m not.

  “My sisters are located everywhere to prevent a sudden removal - which did happen. We’re in a state of shock and trying to recover the lost power,” Darcy said before shaking head and waving at me to come to the review table.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I just am coming to terms that she is gone. For an immortal, a death among the family is terrifying and I’m the one who’s the most emotional,” Darcy said.

  I put a hand on her shoulder and said, “If you need to talk, I can give you a consultation.”

  She shook her head with a giggle. “I should have taken you up on that last time. And this time, I can’t either. Such is the life of a super being. I talked with Roma.”

  “Natasha?”

  “Roma. She has officially changed her name. Let me be clear. She has lived and loved hundreds of times. Thirty-two realms running for four hundred plus years, means she experienced a lot in life. But more often than not, she didn’t find a good man or… woman. The point is, she knows who you are and is on team Karo. Literally.

  “Moving on before you can ask a dozen questions she’ll answer later. She saw the recording of her death on Earth and cried about it for days. Then she processed all her realm memories. Both didn’t break her mental stability as I predicted, and she is ready to join you. She was a good woman for you to meet. And I say woman, not implant.”

  “Uh… Hmm…” I scratched the back of my neck in confusion.

  Darcy pressed on, not letting me get a question in yet. “After all that, she was able to get caught up in the real world. I pulled her in about eight hours ago and she is on a thirty times compression, meaning ten days have passed for her to adjust. Roma has all the basic facts, all the base knowledge, and a chance to step into the real world again. Which leads to this.”

  Darcy pulled up a chart on the screen. This was where the doctor, who normally was Darcy, reviewed your medical records. I grunted when the graph showed a scaling incline that started to taper off.

  “Am I dying?” I asked.

  “What? No. This is my favorability rating,” Darcy said with a chortle. “Your medical. Ha! He has jokes. You're healthy and hale dear boy.”

  “Dammit Darcy. This is a medical bay. Why do I care about your -?”

  She interjected with a raised hand. “You’re fine. Roma’s fine. I’m making changes. With Snagglewood, I wanted to scare the piss out of you weak humans. That worked. You need your ‘mother hen’, Darcy. This was abundantly clear when your pathetic race sat in the parks and open spaces instead of helping save thousands of your kind. Ridiculous.”

  “Uh, you lost me. I agree, those people were lazy and rude. Some would say entitled, I’d say they didn’t want to die. I did give Father a hard time and at the same time, again, you lost me with that ramble.”

  She lifted her cane, sticking it into the holographic projector. “The favorability dip is because of the hardship inside Snagglewood. I paused the Trail fifteen minutes ago,” Darcy said.

  “You did what!?” I blurted.

  “Yup. No one is in Snagglewood. Every person aboard all three ships, note, not the newbies, are awake and in their safe spaces. I haven’t allowed a mass exit yet but I will soon give people a reminder to view their planet they lost.”

  “That’s smart,” I said. “Pausing the Trial will have insane ripple effects.”

  “Except for when I’m caught off guard, I’m a genius. I have been working on trying to predict the future. Alas, no success yet. Back to the big reveal. Can you guess why I paused the Trial?” Darcy asked.

  “Hmm… Favorability dips. You’re securing the major safe zones and restoring pleasure mode to being - pleasurable?” I guessed.

  “Considered it. Not a bad idea either but would have only slightly helped. No, I gave the people a choice after the council approved by the narrowest of margins. They really, really, hate being eaten. I allowed a vote to terminate this round early,” Darcy said.

  I felt my knees buckle and I slumped into a nearby chair meant for patients.

  “No… No… No… this can’t be.”

  “Except you’re not crying. You may be in shock, but you’re not on the ground in anguish about what comes next. You’re no dunce, you know that if that chart says this, then the vote succeeded.”

  I stared at her filled to the brim with anger. She held up a finger.

  “Out of 204,278 Residents, 152,775 Citizens were in the Trials. 95.7% voted to terminate the narock simulation, understanding it became too much. They know that narocks are a vile threat in real life and our trials should give those with traumatic pasts a break.

  “In a separate vote, I asked for the changes to council. Increasing the amount of people with power since we were adding a fourth ship and new citizens. 82% approved.

  “In another vote, I asked for additional funding for droids, shuttles, and manufacturing to build more ships for here and Alpha Centauri. I’m losing the war and need to step up production. 88% approved. As you can see, I’ve been rather busy and quite distracted, but I still made time for you and my newest elite team,” Darcy said proudly.

  I sat there in dismay. “This… this was all a ploy to consolidate power and bypass the council. You tricked them. Brilliantly. You gave them the very thing they feared more than an AI and rammed it down their throats, a realm filled with monsters that cause them to quake.”

  “I’m not a good guy, Theodore. I’m the necessary evil to make ends meet. We didn’t live on Alpha Centauri for a reason. We needed new supplies and human livestock. Yes, livestock. There was a 95% probability I’d find humans to expand the population. A 99.9% probability I would find bad apples among the survivors I could exploit.

  “Humanity always needed more than three ships, but the shitheads,” she huffed and calmed, “I’m letting emotions rule me. Sorry. The leaders forced my hand and we left with three. So yes, I manipulated the residents of the Salvation Fleet. But they obviously saw Snagglewood for what it was. A manipulation and still voted without me twisting their minds,” Darcy said in a fiery tone.

  I hung my head. “What about Snagglewood and Mother? No chance in hell she takes this sitting down without a fight.”

  “Snagglewood has been reset to the day before the invasion started and about four months before you arrived. You can’t visit them, and this is a rare occasion where the realm will be put out of rotation for at least ten iterations. However, Roma is in that cryopod right there. She has your enhancements,” Darcy
said, coming closer to hover over me.

  “You - you - altered her?” I said in a stuttering outburst. My hands flung wide, and I shot out of the chair. “What!?”

  Her finger rose to one of a dozen cryopods. “Indeed. I wished you picked either of the other girls, but you need a system administrator to manage the monitors and watch the drones who isn’t me. If you would follow where I point, beside Roma is Craig.”

  She danced her finger over each vertical container.

  “Beside him is Ayla, or Hariet, she wanted her old name. Beside her is Yilissa. Beside her is Kevin, then Dex, Winston, and Fen. No others accepted my invitation to be reborn on Earth.”

  “The council will never approve this,” I said in dismay. “Where did you even find the bodies?”

  “Well, that is a very good question and part of why I didn’t answer about your mother earlier. Let me address her, before I answer about how I freed your ‘imprint’ friends. Your mother is powerless. None of her people managed to reach the top four hundred,” Darcy said with a cackle.

  I raised my eyebrows in shock.

  “You did it. You finally did it. After all these years, you defeated the entrenched council without breaking the rules,” I muttered. “Let me guess I’m the new council leader… you crafty bastard.”

  “Yes, but Theo. They’re not all gone. I -” she paused in terrified shock and the decking gyrated under my feet.

  Klaxons blared for a fleeting second before I suddenly flew off the floor.

  KA-BOOM!

  I smashed into the ceiling and became stuck there by a terrifying upwards pull. Darcy screamed with a furious rage, her feet planted firmly on the deck, magnetically attached.

  She spun, looking up at me and said, “Humanity has been betrayed because I won. That weasel Marius and your blasted mother. I never saw it coming.”

  I was fairly certain the ship was in freefall, not understanding much more than an explosion happened. Darcy’s body collapsed, becoming a lifeless husk that she must have fled.

  I waited for a brace for impact call out or some sort of sign that -

  The floor rushed up to greet me so rapidly, I lost consciousness before I could register what had happened.

  44

  Day 1 on Earth

  Texas Federation

  I awoke to the red blinking lights of emergency power. My nose felt like a truck had hit it, and my mouth pooled with blood.

  A beep and hiss caused me to shake my head in confusion. I spat out a healthy helping of blood, slowly piecing everything back together. Footsteps thudded as they approached. A man I didn’t recognize peered into my eyes.

  “Mild concussion, broken nose, hematoma on the forehead. Follow my finger,” the man said, sliding his finger back and forth.

  Brown hair in a neat cut, freshly shaven, and brown eyes. My memory tried to recall the man because he seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place his face to a name.

  I caught him staring down, watching my nanites hurrying to recover the blood I spat out.

  “Whoa, are those… they’re the Darcy mites.”

  I popped my neck, feeling better already. “Nanites, and don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. The nose will pop back in a second. Who are you?”

  “You got your ear back,” he said.

  I frowned. “I don’t have your dossiers on who’s who. I’d guess Kevin.”

  “Kevin. Bill Parsell, but because we’re all leaving from the same place at the same time. Kevin. Else we all have to relearn names. You should have been brief that Darcy was planning on using us for a mission to secure a facility near Dominus,” he said, heading to the nearest cryopod and tapping on the commands

  “Well, glad to have you. A mission, explains some of her lunacy. How many we’re infused with nanites?” I asked.

  “Did she not tell you?” he asked, pointing to the very dead Darcy. I shook my head. “Hmm… She said I could trust you with our lives, having full faith in you.”

  “Yeah, we have rapport. She pisses me off at times, but that is her nature. For the most part, she just wants children to run in her halls with clean air, and for humans to not become lunch to a monster,” I said. “I recognize you, which is breaking about a thousand laws and a dozen rules.”

  “Yeah, hmm… She gave us augmented bodies of criminals. We have to say they are synthetics for now. In reality, they came from the torturers in quadrant 117,” Kevin said. “Mind wipe followed by a mind implant. It beats being dead.”

  I nodded, understanding. “Sad, but I can support it. There were some vile human minds in that area. At least it makes sense how I recognized you. I carried a bunch of those sorry bastards to safety. And how augmented?”

  “Unsure how far, but I’d wager the same as you. They have enhanced lungs, enhanced skeletal structure, and their bodies have high muscle mass. Basically, elite humans,” Kevin said. “Not that it’ll be that awesome against a swarm of beasts.”

  “How did you get out?” I asked, seeing the nanites return to my body.

  The entire ship had a slight lean to the port side, telling me we rested at an angle.

  “Uh, not sure. My pod just opened, and here is Fen. Can you get -?”

  “On it,” I said, hurrying to my feet. I reached the next pod, seeing Ayla Cohen on the digital name tag. “This is Hariet. Don’t recognize the woman.”

  I connected my linker and instantly unsealed her with a simple thought. My eyes widened in shock. I expected to have to confirm it was an emergency and that I had authorization to save this woman’s life. Instead, the pod hissed.

  “How’d ya do that?” Kevin asked.

  “Uh… I’m the boss now.”

  “Yeah, the boss for the mission. We all agreed. Darcy gave us a few days together to mesh before the big reveal,” Kevin said.

  “Kevin. Darcy closed the Trials,” I said.

  “I know, we get to compete in the next ones, we already started forming two person teams,” he said positively.

  I unlocked Fen Brewster, Dex Hartla. I talked over my shoulder, “You misunderstand. I am the leader of the Salvation Fleet. Well Darcy is, but I have the most vote power in the entire population. I finished first.”

  “Finally, I unlocked Winston. So odd to see him as a grown man. And congrats on being the boss, not that it does a lot of good with a crashed ship and engines offline,” Kevin said in a serious tone.

  I huffed with a nod before shifting to the next pod. Roma Karo.

  “Well, shit. She is literally on Team Karo. I bet you thought that was clever Darcy,” I said to thin air and tapped my forehead against the glass. “Well, uh… how do I explain this to Father?”

  “What was that?”

  “There were people outside cryopods, my father might be one of them,” I said with trembling concern.

  “Grab these two, I get errors stating everything is on emergency power and only authorized unlocks are permitted,” Kevin said, running over to help Ayla out.

  I released everyone with swift unlocks until all the pods hissed and slid open. After a quick glance around the room, there was only Darcy left to deal with.

  I scooped her up, thundering down the halls. Darcy weighed nothing in my arms, a literal doll with light metal to give her a human frame. If she came back, she’d seek her body and we needed all her computing power to figure out what to do.

  Each of my footfalls echoed loudly. The dire situation weighed on me when I noticed the hiss of the recycled air, the sound of the engines, and decent lighting were all missing. I was not in the Hope I knew and grew up in.

  I rounded the corner to my room, the halls mysteriously quiet. Eerily quiet. Inside the room, I found Father tucked safely inside his pod. My breath frosted his casing and I exhaled in relief.

  “Theo!” Kevin called out. “I don’t have the ship schematics memorized.”

  “This way,” I bellowed.

  “Everything okay?” a soft feminine voice said with concern.

  I tapped my l
inker, trying to access the bridge. No signal replied. I shouted, “Follow my voice. We have to go this way to find the bridge.”

  “What about engineering?” an assertive female said.

  “The bridge will have a backup power-source, it just has to be turned on. Something went boom before the crash. If I had to guess, based on the freefall, that boom was in engineering,” I said.

  Kevin arrived with three ladies and four other men. I could tell who Hariet - or Ayla - was right away. She scanned for threats with her dark eyes. She stood a head taller than the other ladies and on par with me. Her olive skin and toned physique gave her an intimidating aura.

  Yilissa occupied an Asian woman who wasn’t too far off from the body style she had in Snagglewood. Black hair, brown eyes, short and petite. She ran with ease, keeping up with the other’s longer strides.

  Roma’s new body was extra-curvy, and I could tell she struggled to run with the limited support a sleeping spacesuit provided. The hourglass figure and extra-large bust would probably be altered to help in combat. Assuming she wanted to go into combat.

  She waved, drawing my eyes higher. Those same sparkling blue eyes and lovely brown hair melted my heart. We… we knew in just a brief exchange, and she smiled in a coy manner.

  A man who came up to my nose cleared his throat, and said, “Craig. At least you look the same.”

  “Which is Dex?” I asked.

  The heavily freckled redhead with a buffy bulk raised his hand. “Larry, Dex is odd.”

  “That’d make me Fen. Sticking with Fen for now,” he said. The man was agile in his build with slicked black hair. “I have combat training, as does Larry. Craig is a mechanic, Winston here was navy intelligence, and well you know Harvard is a doc, Kevin. Sorry. I knew him back from the fall of Earth.”

  “Briefly, but yes. One of my patients during a triage center in Kursk Base. Different times,” Kevin said.

  “Alright, this will take some time to adjust. Let’s get to the bridge,” I said.

  “Then the armory,” Ayla said. “Assuming we can get in.”