When a Corporate Drone Is Reborn as the Fourth Calamity

[My Lord of the Rings fanfic, "Huh? I'm Fighting Sauron?", is also underway. Lots of chapters in reserve, so if you like it, please add it to your collection~]

[Second-person RPG / Fourth Disaster style]

You, an overworked office drone, get hit and killed by a truck.

Good news: you're alive again.

Bad news: you've been bound to an RPG game system.

What a hassle... You want to live an ordinary life, so you choose to be human.

"Character selected. Loading... Welcome to Furry RPG!"

You: Huh? What furry? Furry what?

"Game setting: A futuristic interstellar world where beastfolk rule and humans disappeared long ago into the river of history, becoming extinct animals mentioned only in history books. As beastfolk genetic diseases worsen, human genes have become the key to curing them."

You look at your status screen.

Your health and stamina are pitifully low, and your starting funds aren't even enough to buy a bottle of water.

Once an office drone, you decide to make do and play the game.

Because it's an RPG, you break into people's homes and rummage through their belongings.

Because it's an RPG, you storm the police station and break prisoners out.

Because it's an RPG, you beat up all kinds of NPCs.

By the end, every faction is hunting you.

You: Huh? I thought I was playing a game?

[Check out my post-apocalyptic story in the works next door: "Can a Humanities Student Save the World, Too?"]

Jiang Fei regrets choosing the humanities track in high school more than anything. She puts on her office badge, earns a salary of three thousand a month, and finally finds a job, only to work overtime until ten at night and die in a car accident on her way home on her little scooter.

But she's bound to a Savior System. The world the System comes from reached the pinnacle of technological advancement, then was plagued by war, until it finally descended into chaos.

System: Your job is to restore peace and save the world!

The savior you imagine: strong, skilled in math and science, a military theorist like everyone else, and so on...

And you: weak and helpless, having given all your math and science back to your teachers after the college entrance exams.

So here's the question: Can a humanities student save the world, too?

*

This world seems never to have known peace. War and death go on without end, and biological weapons have ravaged the environment until it can no longer support human life. The people at the bottom of society huddle underground, and civilization has regressed by hundreds of years.

At some point, seventy-two towering spires appeared on the surface. Only those who answered a question could enter. A wise man once answered the first question and earned a great supply of goods, but got no further. The people of the underground cities sent out exploration teams again and again, but none returned with anything. No one knew the answers to the towers' questions.

One day, Jiang Fei, newly arrived in another world, is dropped in front of a tower called Gaiyin, where she happens upon an exploration team clad in layers of protective clothing.

"Damn it, we're going to come back empty-handed again! If this keeps up, there won't be enough supplies and we'll all die!" one of the team members cries out in anguish as he looks at the question.

Under the astonished gazes of the others, Jiang Fei walks up to the stone tablet bearing the question.

--Briefly explain the relationship between matter and consciousness.

Jiang Fei: I know this one!

The humanities student's DNA has been activated!

*

Later, people call Jiang Fei their savior. She rescued humanity from the underground cities and brought peace and hope.

Jiang Fei has this to say: I'm just an utterly ordinary humanities student.

Theme: Always take matters of the heart seriously.