Ch1. Reincarnation

For those who didn't read the synopsis:

Please, do give me your opinion on the story after you are done with it.

I am not interested in people saying: "Yeah, it's trash!" Because they have problems in real life and this is the way for them to vent. I am sure there will be things not everybody will like but I am interested in constructive criticism.

If you find yourself so inclined, do leave a comment or review on what you liked about the story and what you disliked and why. Maybe how it felt to read it for you. (Yeah, I am not really all that satisfied with how this story turned out, tbh. :D.) It might help me the next time I find myself desiring to write Overlord fanfic.

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Shiba Rei, a man of average height clad in a midnight black coat with a hood fully covering his head, fully casting a void-like shadow on his face with only two yellow-ish orbs with slitted pupils shining through the darkness under the hood, looked at his slightly shaking hand clad in silky white thin glove with an intricate magic circle sewn on its upper part, barely holding his excitement back from showing.

'Thirty-five years... It took me thirty-five years but finally, here I am.' He reminisced with no small amount of melancholy.

It was thirty-five years since he was reincarnated. When he appeared in a black void after his apparent death, Rei had no idea what to expect and decided to stay cautious and question everything.

Good thing too, otherwise he would be screwed beyond all belief.

Yes... he got his ROB and three wishes. What for? He had no idea and the ROB clearly had no desire to share the reason. Fortunately, Rei managed to pry at least some answers in this regard from the entity and found out nothing would be expected from him even if he accepted the wishes. He would basically just exchange his good karma for them with the entity.

Maybe he was scammed right there and then but honestly... Rei had no idea how to use his good karma and he doubted he could do anything with it as he was then. Exchanging it for wishes seemed like the most logical answer at that moment. He simply decided to count himself lucky and play along.

Still... he questioned everything. The ROB actually told him he was the very first soul who asked so many questions about wishes and the whole reincarnation process. Most answers were of 'I can't say' variety but Rei still thought he got to know many important things about his situation regardless.

After all, it wouldn't do to get reincarnated only to become a slave or pawn of some omnipotent entity. He needed to get a perfect picture of what he was getting into.

As such, Rei has spent forty hours long Q&A session with the ROB who seemed bored but still diligently answered everything he could without any complaint. The dude clearly wanted that good karma badly.

Rei had three wishes but the catch was that if he wanted to get the full isekai'ed experience, he had to use two of them for it. Kinda underwhelming and he felt as if he was being scammed but apparently, those were the rules.

After his questioning session, Rei was glad he asked because there were supposedly many people who instantly asked for three, by their standards, OP powers without specifying anything and ended up unable to leave the void until their soul crumbled on itself.

One had to use a wish for the actual reincarnation. Go figure...

The good news, however, was that all these supposedly fictional worlds existed and that gave Rei an idea of what to ask for and a direction with his questioning.

The second problem was... he had to use his second wish if he wanted to retain his memory. Talk about a loophole. Rei could feel a headache creeping on him then and there when he started to think about how many people got their wishes fulfilled only to be reincarnated without any memory of it. Sure, their next lives probably were good but what was the point if they were no longer 'themselves'?

As such, two wishes were kinda chosen for him, much to Rei's chagrin.

Rei didn't complain. He knew that even with only one free wish, he still got more than he bargained for. He simply had to be smart about it in order to get what he desired out of it.

His first wish was a no-brainer. Naturally, he chose to keep his memory. Rei actually tried to ask for improved intelligence alongside it but no matter what, retaining his memory was apparently big enough that he was denied any additional improvements.

His second wish was where most of the time for questions went into. It was the wish where he was to choose the place of his reincarnation. Rei understood that this could make or destroy his chances at a good life. If one had the knowledge and opportunity, there were many ways to get strong easily in many worlds. One didn't explicitly need three wishes from ROB to become overpowered.

It was only natural that Rei started asking questions that would help him decide what would be the best destination for him. This time, the entity actually answered most of his questions as there was no rule preventing it.

Rei's first target was cultivation worlds but that idea was quickly rejected. In a cultivation world, Rei could climb high and get an incredibly high lifespan. But it would be incredibly hard and his core principle was Keep It Simple, Stupid. He didn't want to spend several lifetimes trying to amass power by cultivating only to despair that there was always someone stronger than him. And if he reached the pinnacle there... then what?

Just the thought of having to put millions of years of effort to get to a point where his strength would be sufficient brought disgust to Rei's mind.

Nope... cultivation worlds were just a bit above the paygrade of his comfort.

Rei then went through many other franchises he knew. The fate franchise was instantly rejected as was anything having to do with a Zombie apocalypse. Neither had the kind of opportunities Rei looked for.

Harry Potter world was... interesting, to say the least. But the power level cap was what made Rei rethink it. The Wizarding magic was one of the most versatile things he knew but it wasn't particularly strong. Taking into account that his lifespan there would be around a hundred years and ways of immortality were quite hard to find in that universe... yeah, Rei gave up on Potterverse despite wanting to experience it. For now.

The Naruto world had the same problem. While the power cap was significantly higher, attaining immortality or longevity was quite taxing there. Not to mention... he would have to train like a maniac unless he spent his last wish on a cheat that could bring him closer to Naruto's level. And even that was not really all that impressive in the grand scheme of things. It was simply too much effort for too little benefit.

That led Rei to the Bleach universe...

Which held no real appeal for Rei whatsoever.

It was kinda frustrating. When he was alive, he always dreamed of being transported to one of these worlds and having a grand adventure but... when the opportunity finally arose, the logical part of his brain kicked in and he could instantly see all the flaws with these worlds, making it hard, if not impossible, to actually say he would genuinely want to be born there.

It took Rei a considerable time to finally settle on a decision and so far, he didn't regret it even for a second.

Hearing the opening of a door, Rei lifted his head and smiled, "So, in the end, it is just the two of us, eh, Momonga?"

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Rant & Author Note:

(I wrote this rant when I was writing the story so it was some time ago. I am leaving it here because I personally find it funny now how I felt at that time. Sorry if it offends someone. All I can say, don't take it too seriously.)

Yes... the third wish was not revealed. Don't ask for it as it was on purpose.

Gosh, I am so frustrated. I have read Overlord fanfictions on ff.net and I just... why are there so many people who think giving Ainz a human body WHILE taking away most of his power is a good move? I just... how stupid must these people be to think having a weak as heck MC in Overlord fanfic is a good thing? The entire premise of Overlord is to have an overpowered character!

Yeah, I am ranting.

Then there is the fact, these people 'resolve' the issue of new human Momonga by having him reveal something only his attacker and Momonga would know. I just... WHY THE HECK would THAT make the attackers stop just shy of killing him!?

Is it so freaking hard to make Ainz human WITHOUT taking away his powers? The answer is no... if someone is capable of making Issei the strongest being in his world by relying on perversion, then why would pulling some bullshit reason to make Ainz retain his power be hard...

The authors are just supremely stupid, that's why. They are not creative at all. They try to keep with the original source material so much that it screws them over and they drop the story after 20k words because they have no idea how to continue considering the source material is unfinished and quite frankly, sucks when it comes to making a fanfiction out of it. There simply aren't that many plot holes that can be exploited as in Harry Potter or Naruto and the events are not flexible enough to make a good fanfiction plot. Hence, Overlord fanfiction writers have to be mostly original when it comes to plot.

THAT STILL DOESN'T MEAN THAT MAKING A WEAK SHIT MC IS THE WAY TO GO!!!!! NOT WHEN THE FREAKING NAME OF THE SOURCE MATERIAL IS 'OVERLORD'!

(If you didn't yet notice, I am really mad right now so sorry if I offended someone but this is my HONEST opinion...)

Anyway, this story won't really focus on Ainz. I want to have my OC and Nazarick will be important but it won't be the main focus of the story. Try it out, if you like it, then good, if not, no problem. Have fun and I hope you will enjoy it.