Possession
"Six months left."
"...Pardon?"
I'd received a terminal diagnosis. Stunned, I asked the doctor.
"You're... joking, right?"
"I'm sorry."
At first, I denied it. Cursing the quack doctors, I dragged myself to every hospital in the country.
"At our hospital..."
"It's too late..."
Quack bastards. What's the point of studying your whole life if you can't fix something like this...?
Wandering from place to place like that, I even met someone who claimed they could cure me. It was a scam. I blew half my life savings, then holed up at home, sleeping for a full week straight in a depressive funk.
"...Fuck."
After starving for a week, the will to live suddenly hit me hard. What's the point anyway—six months and I'm gone—so I ordered a massive spread of pork hocks and bossam, shoving it down by the handful as tears streamed down my face.
"Why me, of all people? Huh?"
I even prayed to God. There are plenty of other assholes out there—why me? Orphaned, working my ass off my whole life, just when I thought I might finally be happy... why? Why the hell?
Gulp, gulp, gulp—
I chugged straight from the bottle. Whether my nerves were already dead or what, even pounding the booze didn't get me drunk.
"Fine. Let's die."
On the 100th day after my diagnosis, I finally accepted it all.
But accepting death didn't magically change a damn thing. People say you make a bucket list at times like this, but I didn't have a single hobby like everyone else.
The only thing I did was play a mobile game in the spare moments between work.
The thought of the game popped into my head, so I grabbed my smartphone and logged in.
The game, which I hadn't touched in ages, was still running a pickup event for new characters to suck up players' cash.
Thinking it was my last hurrah, I dumped almost all my remaining money into it. Everything except what I'd need to coast for three months of freeloading.
And wouldn't you know it—after pouring it all in, I pulled every 5-star and 4-star character I'd only dreamed of before. Hell, that wasn't enough; I even maxed them all out to the highest level.
Something I'd never dared try while slaving away at work just to eat, but reaching the top, even for a moment, left me feeling strangely unburdened.
"...I want to live."
Lying in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, I drifted off without realizing it.
And then I woke up.
Bam-baka-pam~♪
Attendance Check Reward!
You have acquired 100 Soul Power!
"Ugh... what the hell..."
I opened my eyes, and right in front of me floated a boxy window straight out of my phone screen.
"What is this?"
It looked like I'd somehow ended up inside the game.