I don't know how long it took, but one day I realized that I was a trash can.
A trash can. Garbage bin. Waste receptacle. I took the leftovers and waste and held it until it could be moved to somewhere more palatable and less visible. And I had been doing it for… my best guess was years.
First came having a mind again, if you want to call it that. It was strange, and in some ways it must have been what being born was like. Going from nothing to something, with a vague, inept awareness of myself—deaf, dumb, and blind. I don’t even know if I would call that sentience. I’m sure there were snails sharper than I was at the beginning. I don’t know how long this lasted, but one day, clear as day, a message flashed into my new object mind:
ROTTEN ONION, HALF EATEN. EXPERIENCE VALUE: .0015.
TOTAL EXPERIENCE: 100
EXPERIENCE THRESHOLD CROSSED. CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW A LEVEL 1 UNADORNED TRASHCAN WITH MINOR ENCHANTMENT.
STATS HAVE CHANGED AS FOLLOWS:
STRENGTH- 1 -> 1.1
DEXTERITY- 0.5 -> 0.52
CHARISMA- 0.3 -> 0.32
INTELLIGENCE- 0 -> 1
MAGIC OFFENSE- 0.3 -> 0.32
MAGIC DEFENSE- 1-> 1.1
HIT POINTS- 5 -> 5.5
MANA- 1 -> 1.2
SKILLS UNLOCKED:
BASIC COGNITION
BASIC AWARENESS
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
EFFICIENCY LVL 1
And that was that. I thought, therefore, I was. A trashcan.
To say I was underwhelmed would be downplaying it. I was hurt, humiliated. I had seen enough anime and played enough games to know what this was. ‘Reborn as an X’ genres had been overplayed in my real human life for at least 15 years, so I got to skip the initial confusion and skepticism. In the shows, the protagonist always seems to be unable to just get the fact that they were, in fact, a reincarnated healer or knight or vending machine or whatever, but once it happened to me it felt as natural as breathing. It's true when they say that humans can adapt to anything, no matter how horrific. Compared to things I could have been, in some ways, it was a dream.
Sure, my new body was very different from my old one. You don’t even realize how normal two arms, two legs, a head, and organs and bones feel until you don’t have them anymore. Instead, my awareness was centered around the metallic cylinder that now contained my consciousness. Maybe due to the magic effect, but I could even ‘hear’ through the vibrations of sound against my metal. The only other thing I could feel was the plush carpet under my base and whatever item was currently occupying my inside.
The rules for my existence became clear to me in short order: I was a trashcan. I could hear and mostly distinguish voices, though I could not see in any real way unless the object was inside of me. In that case, I knew with my mind what it was and what the total experience value was. Once a day, I emptied myself. That is, objects inside of me ceased to be, and instead I got a fraction of the experience. Once I had enough experience, I would level up like I had before, which could take years considering I only gained a percentage of the experience. A fresh apple, with no bites and in perfect condition, only registered as .50 experience. A half-eaten or rotten apple was half that if I was lucky, and of that, I only got a small percentage.
Over time, I was able to learn where I was: the throne room for King Odval Freise and Queen Malbella Freise. If those names mean nothing to you, don’t worry; it only means you have a thriving social life, or people who love you, or maybe even a real job. I knew those names from my former life as a person: characters in the niche Web Novel/Game/Anime/Hentai series Crown/Last Decree. King Odval was the minor antagonist of web novel spinoff Father of the End. In the spinoff, they, along with all their subjects, were sacrificed for the birth of a demon army led by the foreign Duke Berith, which then rampaged and destroyed for 10 years before the busty heroine Tomoe and her party of equally busty companions finally managed to defeat the Ascended Duke Berith and his army of demons.
Sound cringy? It was. But as a NEET with no friends, it had been right up my alley. And now I was a trashcan in the throne room of two undeniably evil rulers whose ultimate fate was… well, we’ll say it was to be ravaged and impaled and leave it at that. Hey, it was also a hentai; don’t blame me.
In any order, all I could do was listen and hope in the meantime and wait to level up. I had already died once as a man; I didn’t want to risk dying again and reincarnating into something even lower.
