Chapter 4: who the hell are you?!
The night sky was aglow with bright stars hundreds of light years away, The pale crescent moon shone like a silvery claw in the night sky. As described, it was nighttime, where many people around teyvat take a comforting slumber to awake in the morning, it was no different for ryuma
He was accustomed to this world and to his usual routine, wake up, eat, train, take a break, train, eat and go to sleep. It was starting to get boring doing this everyday as he should be a chef right now, he literally has the "chef" system, why is it taking so long to do what he loved doing most?
In the earlier moments of today, He asked his system when will he get a job as a chef, and the response he got was that he will get one when the opportunity comes, he was confused and asked what opportunity, the system said it will buy a place for him when the owner of said place sells it, but as of right now he needs to wait as there was no current spots for the system to buy for ryuma, which slightly irked the latter but found it respectable
Right now, he's going to sleep in his cave like everyday, while he could go to his realm and imagine himself a house to sleep comfortably in, he didn't trust it yet as he may switch it off and waking up in the middle of the night and ruin his sleep schedule, so he kept sleeping in the uncomfortable rock slab
He could feel his consciousness drifting away, his vision becoming darker, he is falling asleep, and with little to no reason to stay awake, his vision faded to black, indicating he is asleep
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He felt warm, comfortable and cozy. Ryuma was asleep, and as quickly as he felt that, his eyes darted open as he found himself surrounded by darkness. No sense of light anywhere no matter where he looked, he thought he was in a nightmare beginning to start, but as fast as he thought that there was a voice calling upon him
"Hello? Can you hear me?" A voice spoke, which ryuma caught on as he looked around for a host of the voice. But yet again, he couldn't see anything but darkness
"Oh wait, i forgot that you cant see me, sorry! ehe~" the voice spoke out again, but with the tone of that same voice, Ryuma thought that venti somehow got in his dreams, which caused him to say:
"Venti! i swear to god that if you somehow got into my dreams to offer me some wine, then get the hell out of here!" Ryuma yelled out, although he doesn't hate venti, he wasn't his most favorite archon as all he does is drink some wine and doing… bard stuff he guessed? But that was beside the point, what made him skeptical is the unknown talking voice was speaking to him in the pitch black dream he is having
After some minutes of looking around, he finally saw a white orb, which then became a silhouette of a boy, which then shocked them as he could see his current face on the glowing silhouette of himself
After some days of being transmigrated into this body, he went on to see his face on a river, he was a bit tanned and with black curtain bangs hair with an oval shaped face, straight eyebrows with blue pupils. He found himself as handsome individual, but seeing himself right now was like looking at a mirror
"Im not so sure of this 'venti' you speak of, but i was finally able to meet you after countless of times trying to pull you in here, it was really hard with-" the 'imposter' said before getting cut off by ryuma
"Who the hell are you?! Are you the cliché where some person who's wants to take over my body and i have to fight over it? Because hell to the no i'd give you it! I haven't had enough time to feed a single person!" He yelled out with a annoyed expression, he remembered that when he was still in high school, he liked to read some novels, but almost every novel he was interested in had the "i want to take over your body for myself because i can" troupe, which slightly pissed him off as he wasn't into that at all
"…thats one way to greet the person who you took over the body of" the person deadpanned, not understanding anything what he said but assumed it was hateful stuff aimed towards him
"Ah… sorry for my sudden outburst, but if you're the one who originally owned this body, why are you here?" Ryuma recovered from his outburst
"Well… I couldn't find my way to the afterlife… so i kinda.." Xie Shen smiled wryly
"…do you happen to have no sense of direction?" Ryuma asked curiously, he remembered a certain green-haired swordsman from a specific pirate anime he watched some time ago, he really found it funny having a character with no sense of direction
"Nononononono! Its not that! I was just lazy to float up to the sky, so i just relaxed in the back of your brain… if you dont mind" the former assured the latter, and with a bad pun reminding ryuma of a certain electro desert man from sumeru
'You also have bad puns, noted.' He thought quickly, but unknowingly to ryuma, xie shen and him share the same thought process
"Hey, my sister loved these puns! But thats not what im trying to say. You see, i want to have a deal with you at this very moment, so will you please listen to me?" The original one asked the transmigrated one, intending on making a contract
"If its within my boundaries, sure. I did take your body in the end, so ill hear you out" ryuma spoke out, he wont mind if its simple to do
"Look, ive been in your brain since you got transported onto to my body, and ive searched your memories recently and i found that you have no plan in seeing 'your' family, and i know you want to avoid seeing them at all costs, but i want to see them one last time before you go to mondstadt. and since i cant seem to pass on to the afterlife, i swear ill do anything for you until we both die" xie shen requested
'If i accept his offer and do want he wants, if they system lets me, i can make him my stand… thats not a bad deal' he amusedly thought, he remembered watching jojo at some point, he liked the anime a lot with its art style and the concept of stands, so if the system makes a mechanism for xie shen to become a stand, he'd be a certified stand user in another universe
"…whats a stand?" The latter asked innocently, not of aware of the former's plans
"Dont worry about it, i accept your deal" ryuma spoke excitedly, not wanting to waste any time in getting a stand
"Great! Now that we both agreed on this, it makes a contract, so you better not go back on your word! Ill see you when your awake" Said xie shen equally in excitement
With that said, ryuma began feeling strange, the darkness surrounding him began turning into a bright light making unable to open them, before his felt his mind transferred into somewhere else
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His eyes jolted awake, and what met his vision was the ceiling of the cave he always stayed at in his time in this world, he then called out for the thing that he trusted most
[ good morning host, how may i serve you today? ]
"Look system, 2 questions. how long will it take for me to go to liyue harbor?" He asked with no hesitation whatsoever
[ about 9 hours of walking with your current agility ]
"Darn.. and can you make a soul into a stand?" He shot another question
[ if your referring to the original user of your body in the back of your mind, yes as he willed to do anything ]
"You knew that!? When? And how? And why did you not tell me?" He spat out, he underestimated his system a tad too much that he didn't expect it to know what have transpired in his dream
[ since your incident with truck-kun, i was tasked to find a body for you, and after i transported your consciousness into this body, i noted that i felt another conscious being in the back of your brain, as for why i didn't report it to you is i deemed it unimportant as even if it tried, it wouldn't be able to surpass and take over your consciousness ]
'Thats… acceptable to say the least, do i have everything i need in my inventory?' He asked himself as he began checking, which turns out he did
In
'Thats good, ill just do my other training and then save the walking part for when i begin walking to liyue' he assured himself, and just pulled some jammy egg toast he made yesterday, turns out the system has the pause time feature so he could put stuff and save it for later without worrying about it spoiling
From here on out, he will start his journey where he'll begin traveling to liyue harbor
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( authors note; hey guys! I finished my exams and im back to writing! I know this chapter is a bit short from the last chapter, but i hope you enjoyed reading it, cya next week! ]