Chapter 0: A Sleepy Mistake

The day of the accident has just been a regular day at work for Leo. Leo was the head researcher and test dummy for a project in his company regarding a new set of electrical prosthetics. Leo's team was experimenting using graphine to replace parts of the interfacing and some of the electric components that controlled a prophetic arm, since they needed a test subject, but had yet to find a person willing to go through the many forms and red tape their company has in place to protect it's secrets, Leo had decided to undergo the testing himself. Since Leo still had both of his arms, the group had to hire a surgeon to assist in installing a contact point at the base of Leo's skull to connect the electronics to his brain stem, a common practice in the year 2040 as these devices allowed for faster informational exchanges between humans and their machines. The only reason Leo hadn't undergo the process yet was because it was cost too much in his opinion compared to the benifits, but due to the need for a test subject, the company was willing to cover the cost of it.

After a few weeks, Leo had healed up enough, and the connector was fully operational. The night before the first test of the machine, Leo had stayed up playing the game "Genshin Impact" a game that had come out a while ago and that he had been playing for fun, that evening, he had reached the city he had been the most excited for, Fontaine, the beautiful city of clockwork engineering and drama.

Addicted to the story and scenery, Leo ended up staying up overnight playing through the archon and side quests,.excited to explore all around the place.

Before he realized it, it was already three in the morning, remembering that he had a test run in the morning, Leo quickly set an alarm and went to sleep. Waking at 6 am Carman quickly got out of bed and got to work.

Upon getting to work, one of his coworkers informed him that they had to do some last minute changes to the prosthetic since it would be working off of input sent directly from his brain stem instead of connecting to the ends of nerve chains from a severed limb. In his dazed state, he failed to notice that one of his coworkers had accidentally forgot to fully insulate the section of graphine that would send power through the prosthetic from the circuits controlling it and connecting to his brain.

After getting himself situated and connected to the arm, Leosat down and turned on the limb, it took a few seconds, and as they thought the limb was working as it mirrored Leo's left arm movements, a small trail of smoke came out of the elbow joint, and Leo felt a shock in the back of his head as he fell forward, losing all controll over his body and losing consciousness. His coworkers ran forward as they saw Leo fall over and start thrashing and the prosthetic catch fire. They quickly detached the cable connecting the flaming limb to Leo, but the smell of ozone and cooked flesh made them move back as much as Leo's llviolent thrashing. They called an ambulance but Leo died on the way to the hospital due to his heart failing to pump properly due to damage to his brain stem.

Leo awoke in the void, there was nothing around him, not even light. It was an utterly mind boggling experience for him, as his brain tried to wrap itself around what he was observing. Just as his mind was about to snap like a rubber band stretched far beyond its limit, a bright light surrounded him as he hear a voice.

"My apologies for being so late child, with so many people dying the death gods of this world are currently overwhelmed."

Leo tried to look around, but all he could see was the light surrounding him, blocking the void from his sight. "Who are you?" He asked.

"I am an entity that most of your kind would refer to as a "god" though it seems that you didn't believe in higher beings during your life." The entity said.

"So I am dead?" Asked Leo.

"Unfortunately yes, due to your sleep deprivation, you failed to miss a small yet important flaw in the construction. That flaw sent about seven and a half amps of current through your brain stem, roasting a decent portion of it."

Taking some time to digest the cause of his death, and deal the gross image, Leo responded, "so.. what now? I'm dead. What happens next?"

"Well normally I'd take you to whatever god of death belonged to the pantheon you worship, but nowadays, a lot of people have been begging to be reincarnated into other worlds, I swear when those death gods find whoever let that happen the first time they are going to have a field day with them. Anyways, seeing as you didn't believe in any pantheon before is there a particular afterlife you want to go to, and don't worry most gods don't take it personally since it's been about a millennium since any of them have interacted with your kind."

"Uhm, what was that you said about reincarnation?" Asked Leo.

"Oh that? Well a while ago some god let a mortal reincarnate into another world after their death because they died in a noble way. The fool also gave the mortal some overpowered yet unimaginative abilities and didn't think to set a preventive measure to stop the dude from coming back, and even though his powers no longer functioned, his story basically became a widespread genre around the world."

"Oh you meant you wanted to be reincarnated..." Continued the entity, "hmmm. Normally I'd say no, since I don't want the death gods on my ass for reincarnating you, but I do need someone to bring some creative ideas to a world I am overseeing. Let me check with the others real quick."

There was a brief silence, and then the entity continued, "Alright, so here is the skiny, you are an engineer, I have a world that could use some fresh ideas and modern technological ideology, especially after the gods overseeing technology and technological advancement died, don't ask. I'll give you a system that should help keep you alive, but in return I want to see a technological revolution over there in a few decades. Deal? The other death gods don't mind so long as you aren't going to Hell and end up improving things down there."

"Alright you have a deal, what world are you referring to?" Said Leo.

"Oh, one you are familiar with through a game. I'm not going to say anything more since you are probably going to forget most of this conversation when you wake up in the next world. Just do your best, good luck."

And with that, Leo went to sleep, when he woke up, he found himself in the body of a baby, facing a depressed looking woman calling him Carman trying to feed him from a bottle.