I'd Like to Change My Reincarnation Subscription, Please

Ch5 - Tolerance

When Lucas makes it to the door of his apartment, he drops the knife on the ground. He shakily pulls his keys from his pocket, further smearing bloody debris on his clothes, and slowly fumbles through unlocking the four external locks.

Once the door is open, he kicks the knife inside, then staggers in after it.

Once inside, he hurriedly sets the boxes down on the floor by the doorway, closing the door behind him by kicking his shoes back at it.

He dashes to his bathroom to wash his hands with hot water, not stopping until the third complete cycle of scrubbing them.

With the sink still running, he braces himself against the edge of the vanity. Slowly looking up into the mirror, he has clear sight of all of the blood and pulverized fleshy bits splattered across his face and body.

Violently shuddering, he leans forward and begins vomiting into the sink, although it is mostly bile since he already had an empty stomach.

[Was this... Your first time killing anything? Not just specifically a human?]

Lucas wipes his mouth with the back of the offending hand, looking up into the mirror again before starting to cup handfuls of water and washing his face, sobbing the whole time.

'Yes... Fuck... Even if it was him, I didn't... Goddamnit...'

Lucas finally shuts off the sink and then promptly begins undressing, throwing everything into a pile on the tile flooring near the vanity. He immediately climbs into the shower without bothering to wait for the temperature to adjust, then completely washes himself three times over.

Eventually finished, he silently stands under cold running water for a few minutes with a completely blank face and mind.

After finally shutting the water off, he doesn't make any attempt to dry off. He just marches out of the bathroom to the linen closet to grab a towel, wrapping it around his waist.

He goes back to the front door while dripping a trail of water across the wall-to-wall carpeting.

Once there, he leans his forehead against the door, slowly locking the four locks and two barrel bolts in his usual order of top to bottom.

After finishing locking up, he turns around. Leaning back against the door, he slowly slides to the floor, with the towel riding up and reducing the friction of his spine against the metal door.

With his blank expression remaining largely unchanged, he leans over and can just barely reach far enough to pull out a beer from the cardboard box, cracking it open and chugging the entire thing in one go.

After opening a second beer, he pulls the pizza box over onto his lap and starts mechanically eating his lunch while seated on the floor, still resting against the door.

If he was not in a state of numb shock, he'd realize he just covered the carpeting in a trail of gore when dragging the boxes over.

427 has remained completely silent through the whole process, ever since his question.

Eventually having his fill of cold pizza and warm beer, Lucas spends some time blankly staring up at the ceiling. His hair has mostly air-dried by the time he finally gets up, wrapping the towel around himself again and bringing the remnants from lunch into the kitchenette to put away.

'That beer isn't gonna cut it... I don't even feel a buzz after eight of them.'

He reaches up and fumbles around in the cabinet over the fridge, eventually pulling out a mid-sized bottle of 192 proof vodka. Without bothering to grab an empty glass, he walks out to the living room area, setting the bottle on the coffee table before deciding he wants to change into something more comfortable than a random towel.

After donning an old worn-out t-shirt, pajama pants, and a mismatched pair of slippers, Lucas settles down on the patched-up sofa, rips open the bottle of vodka with his teeth, and grabs the TV remote to turn the TV on.

The last station that was playing on his TV was the local news, the familiar blonde-haired blue-eyed female newscaster going through a report that Lucas doesn't actually pay any attention to.

Once a bit of time passes, someone leans over and hands her some papers. After reading over them quickly, a brief expression of surprise crosses her face before being quickly replaced with a bright smile.

"We've just gotten in a follow-up report regarding the unidentified strength supe incident from earlier this afternoon. Unsurprisingly, no witnesses have been found. However, what is surprising is that after a series of interviews, no known strength supes have come forward. There hasn’t even been any useful speculation as to who it could have been. Let's get another shot of the scene, perhaps a viewer or two this time around was a witness. After all, a new local supe would be exciting news!"

While Lucas is in the middle of drinking straight from the bottle, the traitorous TV switches to a bird's eye view of the late purse-snatching thief's corpse. The shot had been taken not too long after the incident, considering most of the blood shown is still fresh.

Choking and coughing on his mouthful of borderline rocket fuel, Lucas quickly tries to grab the TV remote. Instead, he accidentally knocks it further away.

"Given the scene, rough estimates as to the force required puts them at at least a grade 2 strength power. So, if they are recently developed, this is particularly impressive. If it is a new supe, they must be a late bloomer, as the height of the deceased puts them at being tall enough that a normally developing teen wouldn't be able to reach for the requisite horizontal strike to lead to the body ending up in the state it was in.”

Full of enthusiasm, the female reporter keeps going.

“Every villain we have interviewed this evening has made an open offer for an internship if this is, in fact, a new supe. If it was someone from out of town that was just passing through, we'd still like to hear it though! The offer most likely still stands!"

Now managing to spill some vodka in the place where the ramen had been dumped, Lucas finally regains hold of the TV remote, hurriedly shutting it off with a trembling hand, all while still coughing occasionally from his unintended attempts at breathing a burning liquid. Gritting his teeth, he hurls the remote through the TV, impacting and damaging the wall behind it.

'Since when have they cared enough to report on a random murder around here? Fucking hell.'

Slouching back on the couch, he tilts the bottle up to resume his depressed day drinking.

[Lucas.]

He chokes again, having never heard 427 address him by his name before, let alone with such a stern tone.

[If you are doing this with the intent of redoing this afternoon's events you should discuss it with me first, rather than going through with this in this state. I was already going to offer to take you back to this afternoon at your next rebirth, you don't have to go this far.]

Coughing a few more times, Lucas slowly lowers the bottle of vodka, though he’s still keeping a hold on it.

He's a bit sluggish while trying to comprehend what 427 means, the previous alcohol having hit him significantly more than he realized.

[Seriously, with all the questions you have bombarded me with so far, why hesitate to talk this through? I didn't want to interrupt while you were calming down, but this is just too much to quietly watch.]

Lucas stares up at the ceiling for a few more seconds while slowly processing what 427 is saying.

'You're not really a machine, are you?'

[I honestly don't even remember what I originally was anymore. Given I do feel weak emotions I probably... Wait, why is this your focus right now!?]

'Why were you actin' like a computer!? You had me at first but it feels like you've started slippin' since... since our... talkin' at the pizza place.'

[We can talk about me later, if your intent isn't to drink yourself to death you should go induce vomiting ASAP, you've already had too much!]

Lucas leans back while laughing a few times before having another coughing fit.

'Fuck it.'

He tilts the bottle back up, only taking a few more swigs before blacking out, vaguely aware of 427 yelling something at him before he loses consciousness.

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Lucas kills this chapter: 1

Lucas kill count: 2

Lucas deaths this chapter: 1 (Unless you want to count his second mental breakdown, then 2.)

Lucas total deaths: 3

Lucas current GDV: 2.45

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Little character theater:

Lucas, clear-headed after the fact: I thought you said I won't get more rollbacks for minor tasks?

427, the angriest he's been in decades: [Are you seriously not going to acknowledge what you just did!? And of course I'll let you have this one after seeing your reaction! Don't do something like this ever again!]

Author, quietly lighting candles for the TV, as well as the repeatedly soiled patch of carpeting: You got this 427.