I let out a small sigh, turning off my computer and leaning back in my chair. I stared up at my ceiling through my glasses, before pulling them off to massage the bridge of my nose. My work for the day had just finished, dealing with a bunch of angry customers calling for support with the most mundane problems, many of which could be summarized as ‘have you tried turning it off and back on again?’

  Standing up, I walked out to the fridge, thinking what I could get myself to eat for dinner. Looking at my nearly-empty fridge, I couldn’t help but grimace. “Delivery, again?” I muttered to myself, reaching for my phone. Ever since the Vanishings began, the price of most food items had increased drastically.

  The Vanishings began just over a year ago, on the first day of January, 2087. That day, without any known explanation, nearly a hundred million people disappeared from the face of the planet. There was no warning, no evidence of a struggle, or even signs that they had just willingly left their homes. They just vanished.

  The religious groups called it the Rapture. Conspiracy theorists said that it was aliens or a government plot. Governments started pointing fingers, trying to find someone to blame. All that was known was that there was a pattern. Of course, when that pattern was ‘nobody saw anything’, it didn’t help much.

  That’s right, with nearly one hundred million disappearances, there was not a single witness. Everyone that disappeared was on their own, whether they were a prisoner in isolation, a farmer off on their own, or just someone in the bathroom.

  Just as people were starting to calm down, over a month later, it happened again. Another massive batch of people disappeared from the planet, and again there were no witnesses.

  Prices to live in the city skyrocketed even more than before, with few willing to risk living out on a farm and being the next victim. Thus, naturally cultivated produce became more and more rare. Nowadays, you were lucky if you could find anything that wasn’t grown in a lab.

  By this point, the cycle had repeated a total of nine times. Each time, the reported number of disappearances is slightly smaller, which led some theorists to the conclusion that roughly one percent of the population is taken each time. As the population dwindles due to these Vanishings, the number of people taken will naturally continue to decline.

  As for me? I lived alone, worked a thankless job in tech support, and rarely went outside. I knew that it was only a matter of time until I was taken, but I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. My apartment wasn’t big enough to support a roommate, and my boss kept demanding I take on more and more hours, using any excuse he could come up with.

  I dialed the delivery company, bringing the phone up to my ear as I heard it ring. However, instead of hearing someone pick up on the other end, I felt my hand suddenly empty. Not only that, but I was no longer standing. Instead, I was sitting in a wooden office, my hand up to my ear.

  And across from me? There sat a thin man in a black suit, wearing a white mask that covered the upper half of his face and a black top hat. “Cain Duval, pleasure to meet you. Before you ask, I won’t tell you my name. There’s no equivalent for it in any language on Earth, so it would just sound like a garbled mess to you.”

  As I sat there, stunned, he continued while looking through a stack of papers on his desk. “I have a lot more people to process after this, so let’s get the common questions out of the way. I manage the cycle of souls across numerous worlds, guiding people to their next life when they die. Typically, death erases your memories, allowing you to live your next life without any influence from your past.”

  “Next, the reason that these disappearances have been happening is because Earth is no longer capable of sustaining its own population. To prevent a total collapse of its system of souls, emergency measures have been implemented, diverting a portion of the Earth’s souls to other worlds which are in need of extra souls. Thus, we can maintain a balance.”

  “Yes, this means that you will maintain your memories after you are reborn, as you did not experience a death. Do you have any further questions?” Finally, he looked up from his papers at me as he asked this.

  “Why… me?” I asked, though I had always expected that I would be chosen eventually. “It sounds like there’s no real ‘save the world’ mission or anything like that.”

  The man let out a small sigh. “Are you familiar with Schrodinger’s Cat? A previous transmigrant I handled said it sounded like that. In essence, a human’s soul is more firmly rooted when that person is being actively observed or thought about, confirming their identity. Just as Schrodinger’s Cat could not confirm its own state within the sealed box, you can also not confirm your own existence. Since nobody was observing you or actively thinking about you, the tethers tying your soul to Earth were loose enough for me to retrieve you. Is there anything else?”

  I hesitated for a moment, processing that explanation. Hearing that there was nobody thinking about me… while it wasn’t really a surprise, it was still a bit sad to hear. “No… no, I don’t think so, sir.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Good,” the man smiled, clearly relieved to get on with the procedures. “Now, I will allow you to make three wishes for your next life. Think of it like a compensation for suddenly being pulled from your previous life. Before doing so, I won’t tell you where you will be going, as people have tried to use that knowledge to intentionally create an exploit to benefit themselves and ‘design’ their own dream life. So keep your wishes general enough to apply to a vast variety of worlds if you want them to be granted.”

  I paused again, thinking about this. Wishes? I looked back at my life, thinking about what I could want. “I… want to be able to make friends,” I admitted. I had always been an introvert, afraid of going out and socializing with others. That was part of the reason that I lived alone. Yes, I blamed my boss a lot, but the truth was that I enabled the behavior by never trying to argue with him about it.

  “That’s an easy enough request,” the man confirmed, holding up one finger. “Next?”

  I pursed my lips into a fine line, thinking it over. “I… don’t want to die too easily. I don’t want to get to this new world and die because of some sickness or crime.” That didn’t seem like it would be a terribly difficult thing to wish for, right? Just the ability to live out my new life without having to immediately worry about death.

  The man hummed thoughtfully, lifting a second finger. “I can work with that. Your last wish?”

  The weight of this request was heavy on my shoulders. What was the last thing that I could wish for? I felt my old anxieties creeping in, imagining myself surrounded by hundreds of people. “I… I would like to be somewhere out of the way. Y-you know, so I can have time to develop properly without attracting trouble.”

  Deep down, I knew that this conflicted with my first wish to a degree. But, given this man’s identity, there was surely a sweet spot that could be found, like being born in a small village off the beaten path where everyone is friendly.

  However, the man’s expression made it seem like this request wasn’t as easy as I imagined. Just as I was considering rewording my last wish, an idea popped into his mind. “Aha! I’ve got just the thing. And, because you were such a good sport, keeping things moving along and listing actually normal wishes, I’ll complete them to the best of my ability.”

  “Now, as for the world that you are going to. The planet is called Caern, and there are two main points that I should note. First, this is a fantasy world, where magic and monsters can be found. Secondly, aside from the rare mage or priest, civilized races do not themselves possess exceptional power. Instead, nearly all items produced within Caern have the capacity to hold special powers.”

  “For instance, a hammer that increases the user’s strength, or a shield that can block a dragon’s breath. Everyone has a certain number of ‘attunement slots’ that they can use to attune to these items, gaining their effects. The reason why Caern is so in need of souls is because these items themselves, on rare occasions, can possess their own souls. These become what you would know as growth-type items, able to develop over time.”

  “To make things simple for you transmigrants, the power to grow as an item has been translated to resemble a game-like system.” As he spoke, I felt the color fade from my face. Reincarnating as an item? Would I end up being a shield, forced to take attacks from monsters, only to be thrown to the ground when the person holding me died? Or, maybe I’d get really unlucky and just turn into a pen or something, left in a dark drawer forgotten for months at a time.

  “Now then, since I have a lot more people to process, I wish you luck on your new life,” the man said with a warm smile, snapping his fingers. With that, my vision went dark.

  When I next realized I was awake, I found that I couldn’t see. Of course I couldn’t see, objects don’t have eyes… But, I could feel warmth across my body. Was I in the middle of being forged? No, it didn’t feel that hot.

  I tried to feel around with what little I could, trying to map out my own body. As I did, my nonexistent face grew darker and darker. I wasn’t a shield, or a sword, or even a pen.

  I was something far, far worse.

  Atop my body, I felt countless roots digging painlessly beneath the surface, all serving as extensions of me, like hairs on my arm. Using this comparison, there was one long, ‘shaved’ strip along the edge of my body.

  That’s right… I was dirt. A patch of uninhabited land with a single strip of road. Thinking back, I recalled my wishes. Sure, I was out of the way, and it would be next to impossible for me to die. But… how was I supposed to make any friends here?

  As I was thinking about that, a window appeared in front of my face.

  I wanted to sigh in frustration. Was I supposed to just lure people in with fresh food? I sounded less like a plot of land and more like a creepy old guy with a white van… thankfully I wasn’t handing out candy.

  With a sigh(or at least a mental one, since I wasn’t even allowed to do that!), I placed the tree near the center of my land. At least with it there, they would have to step onto my territory to get to the tree.

  As soon as I chose to plant the tree, I felt it appear, roots burrowing into my body painlessly. It rose up like an extension of myself, and I could feel the entirety of its body all the way to its canopy. If I focused, I could even vaguely see the fruits hanging from its branches. They were red like apples, but their shape seemed a bit off. Still, this confirmed that I was at least able to ‘see’ to a certain degree, though my vision did not extend past the tree.