Concept Stories - Modern Warfare - Chapter 1

“Dude, let’s talk about this!”

“Talk? You fucked my girl! Now, you’re going to fucking die!”

“Dude… she left you, she ain’t your girl right now, you know that!”

“She left me because you ratted me out to the feds. Akari is an ivy league girl, you knew she wouldn’t want to be with no arms dealer’s son! I TOLD YOU ABOUT MY FAMILY BECAUSE I TRUSTED YOU! BUT YOU! YOU BETRAYED ME!”

“I didn’t have a choice! I was facing jail time!! Just put down the gun. Come on man, we’re bros. Don’t do this.” Reo lowered the gun slightly, and Kaito let out a relieved breath. “See… we can work this out. There is no… wait, what are you doing? Stop!”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Reo lifted the Glock 19 and fired three times, sending the guy he once called a friend to hell.

“Noooooo!” A girl screamed nearby.

She was on the ground, a natural Japanese beauty with long black hair, dark eyes, pale skin, and breasts that fit perfectly in a man’s palm. Of course, Reo only thought that, since he had never had the pleasure of fondling those things. She was his ex-girlfriend, Akari, who was there to witness the death of her new boyfriend.

“How could you kill him, Reo?” Akari cried tearfully. “He was your best friend!?”

“Not anymore,” Reo neither turned back nor looked at her. “A best friend wouldn’t betray me. Best friends also wouldn’t sell a friend out or sleep with his best friend’s girlfriend!” Reo added as his voice raised in anger.

“Reo…”

“Three fucking years…” Reo turned and stared down at her threateningly as she shrank back. “Three fucking years, I dated you and you told me you wanted to wait till you got married. You broke up with me two days ago and you’re already fucking my best friend. You fucking skank.”

Akari turned her head away, not knowing how to respond to that. It was true that she had slept with Kaito, but this was because she was emotionally vulnerable and distraught. After finding out the last few days that her perfect boyfriend had such a dark family, it was Kaito who had given her comfort. It was exactly while receiving this comfort when Reo broke into the room and started waving his gun.

“I-I’m sorry… but the heart wants…”

“Shut Up! You’re a slut!” Reo responded in exasperation.

“I’m not! Daddy was right, I never should have dated you!” She shouted back summoning all of her remaining ferocity with teary eyes.

“Yeah, well the feeling is fucking mutual.” Reo shot back.

“And really? I just don’t get it! You broke up with me and slept with this loser just because you found out my father is a weapons dealer? What kind of slut are you?”

“I’m not a slut!!!”

“Then explain yourself?! I never force you to sleep with me because I respected and loved you! But, what did you do? Sleeping with a fucking loser. You know he’s got a criminal record? He’s even got a drug addiction! How do you justify that while you spurn your so-called long-term boyfriend because he is the son of a weapon dealer! You felt vulnerable? THAT’S BULLSHIT!”

“…I…I”

Akari was silent as her tears streamed down her face. Slowly her forehead pinched as the question fermented in her mind and she realized she couldn’t refute it. Reo was right. Reo had been the perfect boyfriend that any girl could ask for. While his appearance looked wild, he was very intelligent and had a promising future. He is very gutsy, very polite, and never cursing, he treated everyone nicely and he is also very respectful toward women. Despite the situation, he was always generous to his friends. It was only enemies who had his scorn. Meanwhile, Kaito was a very problematic guy. He was very rude. He was a coward and worst of all, he had a drug addiction and had even spent time in jail a few times.

As to how these two boys became friends, it was because of their fathers. In particular, Kaito’s dad was a politician and had made a few shady deals in the past with Reo’s dad. They had been put together to play many times as children and had grown closer. Then Akari had come into their lives. Kaito had secretly always wanted her, but it was Reo who had attracted her interest.

Although, the true reason Akari jumped into Kaito’s arms, Reo could already figure out. Akari was trying to get into ivy league schools. However, two weeks ago she got a rejection letter to her first choice. Kaito’s dad is exactly the kind of person with the influence that’d turn a rejection letter into an acceptance letter. So, Kaito had sold Reo out, and convinced Akari to dump him and jump in his arms, and Kaito would give her everything she wanted. Did those thoughts seem a little paranoid? Perhaps, but that was exactly the kind of guy Kaito was, a schemer.

Akari looked at Reo and her heart began to break. She had always known her choice would have consequences. Akari had spent the past two days wondering if what she was doing was the right choice, but her father told her relationships rarely stayed together after high school, and that Akari should focus on her future. Thus, she went with the option that seemed the most logical. Now, she curled up into a ball and wrapped her arms around her frail legs. It felt like her heart was shattering and she was struggling to breathe.

Now that Akari had found herself in this situation, she needed to escape. She didn’t think Reo would hurt her, not really. However, once he killed Kaito, she was no longer certain. She still had her future to consider. Thus, she pretended to lose all her strength, collapsing on the floor.

“This is the police! Come out with your hands up!” A voice suddenly came over a loudspeaker just outside.

Reo cursed, moving up to the window and peeking out the curtain. “The police are here already? You fuckers didn’t set me up, did you?”

Just as Reo turned to look at Akari for an answer, she lunged at him. More specifically, she tried to get his gun out of his hands. Akari had done some of those anti-rape self-defense courses, so despite her smaller size, she almost succeeded in getting Reo’s gun before he could recover.

She had managed to put her back to him, holding his arm in her armpit. She was now clawing at his hand, trying to force him to lose the gun. Reo’s other hand could only grab her hair or her tits. He went for the tits, grabbing them tightly.

“Nnnnn!” Akari made a panting grunt as Reo painfully twisted her nipple.

She kicked back with her feet and sent Reo slamming into the glass window. He felt some blood running down his back and heard the resounding crack of the glass shattering. On top of that, the blinders were knocked down, landing on the pair of them. Enraged, Reo slammed his knee into her ass. The sudden motion was enough to cause her to lose her grip. Just as he managed to spin her around, her tit struck his hand, and his trigger finger pulled.

BANG!

A single bullet was let out. It was the sudden jerky surprised expression on Akari’s face that told Reo it struck true. A few moments later, red started to form right in the middle of her gut. Reo remained calm, pulling the gun back as Akari’s grip loosened, the fight leaving her.

“It didn’t have to be this way…” Reo said calmly, still waving his gun. “Why’d you have to fight back, I didn’t want to kill you too…”

“Ah… en….” Those were the only sounds Akari got out before blood started to bubble up in her mouth.

She first collapsed to her knees, followed closely by falling to the floor. Reo stared down, his lips tight and his heart feeling very complicated. Part of him felt that she got what she deserved. The other part of him felt like he had just become a monster.

“Take the shot!” he heard the words spoken distantly, causing him to look up.

He was standing right in front of the window. The blinds were down and even the glass was broken. He was in full view of the front street. There were three cop cars and about a half dozen police officers and a swat team. The swat teams dressed in black held MP5 submachine guns, while the standard police held 0.38 caliber revolvers. However, it was M1500 sniper rifle pointed at him from across the street that caught all of his attention.

“Eh?”

There was a flash, and Reo’s mind went white. The last conscious thought he had before he left this world was ‘nice gun’.

———

Reo’s eyes opened. “Eh… Aren’t I dead?”

He shook his head and was surprised when he realized it didn’t hurt. With the bright white lights all around him, he expected to at least have a headache. Was he in a hospital now? That’s the only place that would be this bright, right?

However, as he lay there groaning, he quickly realized that no one was coming. He heard none of the expected noises of a hospital. The world around him was abnormally quiet, and his back was lying on a surface far more comfortable than a hospital bed. It took him a few more moments, but Reo finally made his way to his feet. It was only then that he realized that the white light permeated everything. He seemed to be standing in white, with the color stretching as far as the eye could see. There appeared to be no ground, walls, or ceiling in this world. Even what he stood on looked like he was floating in a white abyss.

His eyes immediately focused on the only thing in the infinite whiteness beside himself. It was a podium sitting about fifteen feet away.

“A-am I dead?’ Reo muttered.

As he recalled his last moments, combined with this white light, dead sounded about right. He could only shake his head again and start walking up to the podium. There was a blue piece of paper drawn in the shape of a clock with two red hands on it. The text was in a language Reo could read. It said:

God will be back in… 10,000 years.

“Wh-what is this?”

Reo stumbled around the podium until he was standing in front of it. There was a book, and on top of the book was a short letter. Reo had nothing else to do but read the letter.

Dear Recently Deceased,

I’m God! Sorry, I’m not in right now, I’m a bit busy being God and all. As it turns out, you have been selected for reincarnation. You will be teleported to a new world in your current body. I’m sorry if you’re old or ugly, but you’ll just have to live with the lot I gave you in life!

On top of that, this new world is a bit of an experiment. I was playing some video games recently, and I liked those RPG fantasy things you people invented, thought I’d try it out in my world. Turns out RPG worlds are a bit of a mess. A lot of people die, monsters run around willy nilly, it sucks.

So, while considering what was missing, I realized I forgot the most important part of a game, gamers! Guess what you’re going to be! However, this game has no second chances… just one life! Don’t worry, I’m going to make it easy on you. You can have one cheat power you can bring to the other world. Just write down your power in the ledger on this podium, and you will be empowered with whatever you want. Do be careful though, your power is level-dependent! You’ll need to level up to get your unique skill at its max.

As far as what your cheat options are, I’m way too busy as God to make a list, so just come up with something on your own. I’m sure it’ll be well-balanced and well thought out. Hah! Well, good luck either way!

Sincerely,

God

“What kind of garbage is this?” Reo cursed, reading the letter three times just to process what was revealed to him.

Where does he start? God existed, Reo was dead, and now he was going to be sent to some other world on that God’s whim? Reo himself wasn’t that big into the manga scene, but isn’t this one of those stories? The question is, what kind of story was it? There are the wish-fulfillment stories, but they never met Reo’s tastes. There are the revenge stories, but Reo already got his vengeance. Either way, this world sounded rough. If Reo was going to live a second life, he wanted a life where no one could tell him what to do. He wanted a free life.

“The only people who get to choose their own lives are the rich and powerful,” Reo mumbled to himself.

Reo pushed the letter aside, and then looked down at the ledger. Each page of the book seemed to be filled with writing. The book was completed, except for one empty page that had been added to the end. It looked too fresh to have been sitting there while innumerable other people wrote down their wishes. It looked like every person had one page to write down what power they wanted.

“An entire page?” That seemed a bit excessive, but after flipping through previous wishes, it started to make a bit of sense.

I want to be like superman but have no weaknesses! I want to be super powerful and have laser eyes and everything!

That was an example of one of the entries, which sounded like it came from some kid. So some kid was jumping around as basically a super superman? That’s when Reo noticed that there were some additional annotations made around the wish. These looked similar to the scrawl of the person who wrote the letter. Did that mean that God reviewed this wish?

You need to have some weaknesses! Strength is only level-dependent. Give him superman’s skillset. Vulnerable to magic.

Reo coughed as he read the decisions. Every page in this book had similar annotations. God seemed to be very good at nerfing people’s desires. One person asked for immortality, only to have the note “send him to some Xian Xia world, let him work for immortality”. It seemed like God wasn’t the kind of guy who just handed out OP powers.

“God helps those that help themselves, is that it?” Reo only spoke those words casually, but they seemed to be the truth to him.

Reo sat back, trying to imagine his wants and desires. Reo could learn some kind of Geass-like ability and force people to follow his commands. It’d probably start somewhere around one person at a time, but as he leveled, Reo could gain more and more followers. He wasn’t completely sure if this was the best skill though, so he continued to dwell on it.

Eventually, the thoughts of being rich and powerful came back into his mind. If he was powerful, riches would naturally follow. However, what was true power? Simply being the strongest didn’t earn you the love and adoration of all the people. Neither did being the smartest. Some smart people became leaders, and some strong people became leaders. However, neither ability necessarily explained why they became leaders.

Of course, he could simply request to be a leader, except that Reo didn’t trust people. After catching his girl cheating on him, naturally, Reo wouldn’t be the kind of guy that could accept someone into his heart. Reo wanted to be in power, but he had no love for people. How could he? They’re people from another world. They live a completely different life to him. It’d be strange if he could connect to them even on a fundamental level.

It’d be nice if he could bring people from his world. This new world didn’t sound advanced, so if Reo had access to modern technology, wouldn’t he be powerful from that? Hmmm… As Reo pondered these thoughts, a new path became to open up in his mind. Bringing people over to his new world…. disciplined, loyal people that would take his orders and follow them. He didn’t want their love. He wanted their respect. He didn’t want citizens. He wanted soldiers. Reo decided and wrote down his wish.

I, Reo Trevik, want the ability to summon an army of loyal soldiers from my old world. They will follow my orders unconditionally, and their experience is my experience!

Reo only just put the pen down when a great light exploded in his vision. A moment later, he had disappeared from that place. What he wouldn’t have seen was the annotations being filled in a moment later.

Interesting wish… I shall grant you the ability to summon soldiers, and as your power grows, armies, buildings, factories, everything you need to run a military force! Become the conqueror you wish to be. But beware, unconditional loyalty comes at a cost.