I was both proud and embarrassed by the display my very own species was putting on.

  People of every walk of life were experimenting with the strange new powers they now had.

  Sure, some people tried to immediately use their new powers to harm others, but they quickly found themselves unable to cast magic when they tried to put someone else in their sights.

  That didn't stop people from blowing stuff up and stealing though.

  Half the city was on fire, one block was frozen, another sparked like a faulty transformer, and one of the banks turned to gold. Which was interesting to see and feel happen, because why did The System give someone the ability to transmute stuff into gold?

  I'll never understand the process The System chooses what power to give someone.

  It likely used the personality or mind of the person in question to draw up an ability. There certainly seemed to be... some freaky powers out there that I hadn't seen before.

  And I do mean freaky.

  "I really hate being able to see everything sometimes." I grimaced as I tried to ignore the nastiness that happens when two or more people really like each other behind closed doors.

  Now that I wasn't being distracted by all the evil stuff in the world, I was able to be distracted by all the other crap going on 24/7 365. Though I do prefer being forced to see that over what I was seeing previously.

  Some people were still trying to be bad little psychos, but thankfully The System knows how to deal with those kinds of people. It simply plops them in front of the authorities or in prisons. Much better than what I was doing, but it also seemed to be too simple. There's no way it should be working, but the fact that it was made me feel a little stupid.

  "I'm glad that everything seems to have... somewhat gotten better, but what do I do now? Go on some villain rampage and really sell my image? Or..." I trailed off as I considered seeing my family, and it certainly feels like something I have to do at some point.

  I tilted my head back and forth as I thought about it, then made a decision.

  "Let's get this over with..." I sighed as I Gated to my hometown, in some secluded alleyway.

  I grew up in what can be considered a low population city, but it always felt more like a town. A town named "GreyVille", full of all kinds of crazy people claiming aliens are real.

  Well, they are right, but for not the correct reasons.

  Walking down the familiar streets, seeing the same buildings I used to see everyday. It all felt pretty nostalgic.

  I thought I was home before, but now I was really feeling it.

  I was so lost in the experience of walking through my old hometown, that by the time I snapped out of it I was standing in front of my old home.

  The reason I was hesitant to even ring the doorbell was not dread or nervousness, but a little nagging voice telling me that I'm not human like they are anymore. This didn't affect me emotionally, but since it was intellectual or mental, I couldn't ignore it like I could with negative emotions.

  It bothered me slightly. Just a little bit.

  Sensing the old two story house, I felt only two people present. My mom Veronica, and my younger sister Layla.

  My older sister Kaity seemed to be with her husband? Or boyfriend? It was hard to tell, especially because she was single when I left. Good for her.

  Though that did mean I might need to have this awkward conversation twice. ugh.

  I rung the doorbell before I could psych myself out of it, needing to bend down to reach the button.

  While waiting, I sensed my sister Layla get up and tell mom that she'd get it so in the short time I had left, I tried to come up with something to say.

  "Hello- GREG?!" She nearly screeched as she looked up at my face. She was surprised first by the height, then further surprised by who she was talking to.

  "Hey, I'm back f-" I was cut off as she point at me.

  "Greg, what the hell happened to you? I knew you were insecure about your height, but getting a botched height change surgery from Brazil is NOT the way to go! Just because you have astronaut money now doesn't mean you get to spend it like this. At least give me some!" She frowned up at me, half serious and half teasing.

  I froze slightly as she chastised me, my mouth hanging open a bit. I snapped it shut as something clicked.

  'They don't know about the accident.' I realized as she got behind me and shoved me forward into the house. No one had told them what had happened to me.

  "When did you get back? Mom is going to flip out on you for going radio silent for two years!" She chastised me some more, elbowing me right in the thigh as she tried to aim for my side.

  "Yeah... I got back not too long ago. Yesterday actually." I said, deciding I'd leave out the accident and what had happened for now.

  I'd explain it eventually, but I think I'd rather do it while all three of them are here. So when Kaity shows up to see me I'll explain it all properly.

  Maybe them not knowing is a positive thing? I'm sure they were worried, but at least they didn't think I was dead... hopefully.

  "I want all the details! I'm sure mom does too, and I want to watch her tear you a new one... Dick." She glared at me, then punched me again.

  It was obvious that she was mad at me now that the surprise was dying down. I couldn't even respond as she ran off yelling for our mom.

  I was not looking forward to this next conversation, now that it was going from 'resurrection' to 'where the hell have you been'.

  The first thing I heard was a scuffle from the kitchen as my mom came charging through the house, unshed tears in her eyes as she turned a corner.

  She paused, whimpered something, then barreled into me with a hug. Actually dragging me down to her level with surprising strength.

  "...You're really back." I heard her croak out, and I felt even more awkward.

  I could tell she was happy but... I wasn't as happy for some reason.

  Returning the hug, I saw my sister was now trying not to cry as well and I knew something was wrong.

  With me.

  I was definitely happy, so why wasn't I as happy as they were? Then it hit me like a divine revelation.

  I cannot feel sadness, stress, anger, worry, or anything negative.

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  And as I felt my families emotions roaring through them, I learned something. Without the ability to feel the bad, I cannot truly appreciate the good. Emotions go hand in hand, and my dulling of the negative has in turn dulled the positive.

  I'm becoming desensitized to everything.

  Even as that hit me, I felt nothing but the calm joy of reuniting with my family.

  Just another thing that makes me different from them now.

  "Where were you?" My mom pulled back, grabbing my face.

  "It's... a lot. I think I want to explain everything when Kaity is here with us. Can you wait for that?" I asked, and she sniffled.

  She stared into my eyes, and I couldn't bring myself to look away from hers.

  "...Fine. But you are not going anywhere until she gets here." My mom said after thinking it over, and now that the sadness and joy were calming down, I could her anger start to flare up.

  "...Okay." I shivered involuntarily at her glare, and she nodded as she grabbed me by the ear and dragged me off to the living room.

  "Besides explaining everything, you will tell me why you couldn't contact us for two years! Honestly!" She began to ramble, going off on me for years of silence.

  I saw my sister giggle as she wiped her eyes, and I resisted the urge to sigh.

  This was going to suck.

  ...

  An hour later, the doorbell rang.

  This signaled the end of my verbal punishment, as my mother glared at me with venom in her eyes.

  Layla answered the door, and two people came inside.

  "So, he's back- Oh my God, he's massive." I heard Kaity mutter as she saw me kneeling on the carpet in front of our esteemed mother.

  Even kneeling, I was eye level with my mom sitting on the couch.

  "She's here now, spill it." Mom glowered at me and I nodded, mostly happy to be done with the yelling and feeling a bit bad.

  "Can I sit on the couch?" I asked, hopeful.

  "No." She said immediately and I nodded, sufficiently cowed.

  My two sisters sat next to my mom, and the man sat next to Kaity. Must be her significant other.

  "Okay... How do I go about this..." I mumbled to myself, trying to get my thoughts together.

  How do I explain all the crazy shit that happened to me over the course of 2 years?

  "Start from the beginning." Layla glared down at me, or at least tried to since I was still taller than her.

  "Fair enough. So first thing that happened to me was that I was working on the Ring, and I was going a bit crazy from the solitude. I went on a spacewalk when I shouldn't have of my own volition to repair some cameras, and then a blackhole appeared above me. It sucked me in and-" I began my tale of a weird and wacky adventure, but then got cut off.

  "Please be honest. You don't need to lie." Kaity said, looking like she ate a lemon.

  Her boyfriend, some normal looking white guy with brown hair and thick looking glasses, looked a little uncomfortable or nervous. He seemed to prickle when Kaity interrupted me, giving her a weirdly subdued panicked side eye. Strange.

  "...I'm not lying. Two years ago, I was swallowed by a Black Hole." I said and held out my hand palm up, creating a Gate.

  A tiny palm sized Black Hole appeared, floating above my hand.

  They stared at it in silence, and I continued my story.

  "I thought I was going to die, or maybe I did, but I found myself in an entirely new universe after that event. Floating out in the void of space, my body feeling like it got wrung out like a wet rag." I lowered my hand, but left the Black Hole floating in the air.

  "Isekai..." I heard Kaity's boy toy or whatever mutter and I nodded. He was a nerdy little geek like I was.

  "Basically, yeah. So after waking up in this weird universe, pretty sure death was certain because I was in space, a System window showed up. Probably a little different than what you guys got though, because mine is... stranger." I was being careful with what I said, cautious about the weird censoring the green system does if I talk about it too much.

  "...How so?" Layla asked, seeming able to comprehend this faster than mom and Kaity. She was always a geek like me, which was my fault for showing her comics and anime growing up.

  "Well, my body has been altered as you can see. It's responsible for that. It changed more than just my height though, as my brain has also been altered slightly. I have a magic core as well, but that's a bit more complicated. My body has learned and adapted to just about everything I could have subjected to it as well. I no longer need to eat, sleep, drink, use the bathroom, or breathe. Lethal environments and attacks no longer affect me either. I can survive the center of a sun, extreme cold, blunt force up to several hundreds of thousands worth of g's, and my heart doesn't need to beat for me to survive. I think." I rambled on about the things I knew I could survive getting hit by, and most of them looked at me blankly.

  Boy toy, Kaity's SO who I don't know, seemed to realize something from my tirade and looked very uncomfortable. Well, more uncomfortable.

  "This universe that I found myself in, has no humans whatsoever. I was the only one of my kind, and due to some unfortunate or fortunate misunderstanding, everyone believed that I was some kind of eldritch horror newborn." I paused and almost enjoyed the look of confusion everyone gave me.

  "A what?" My mom asked, and I smiled a tiny amount.

  "An eldritch horror baby. Something from beyond the veil but only a few days old. Anyway, I grew in power really fast, and now I have several OP powers. Well, I did have a bunch of powers. They all kind of just... merged into one when I hit level 10." I was skipping quite a few things, but there was just so much that I didn't know what to cover.

  "What kind of power? Did you need to defeat a demon king?!" Layla asked, looking significantly more excited as she likely compared me to one of her manga mc's.

  "I can manipulate and sense Reality to the smallest degree within a diameter of roughly two solar systems, and sadly no, there was no demon king. It was actually kind of annoying how good of a place that universe was." I chuckled, remembering how perfect everything seemed to be.

  Blank stares.

  "What? Manipulate Reality?" Kaity said and I saw Boy Toy shiver, avoiding my gaze.

  "To a small degree, yeah. An example would be rearranging atoms making up an object to make it something else. Or creating matter from Energy, which is extremely inefficient and really boring. Another thing I can do is manipulate time a bit. Make it slow down or speed up. Can't go backwards though." I listed somethings I could do, and got more stares.

  It made sense though. I'd be staring at myself too if I heard it. I sound like some bullshit self insert of a fanfiction or some truly terrible isekai web-novel.

  "...Could you show us?" My mom asked and I furrowed my brow.

  "I could, but... Meh I'll just do something." I mumbled and then decided to show off a little.

  Dispelling the little Gate I made earlier, I made another one leading to the cups in the kitchen cupboards and grabbed one through it with Telekinesis. Tossing the cup into the air, I slowed time around it. It was falling still, but it was doing so at a snails pace.

  It wasn't really the best display, since I could do something similar with regular Telekinesis, but I wasn't sure what else I could do without attracting a bunch of attention.

  "Whoah..." Layla proved my worries were for nothing, as it seemed this was enough.

  "So you slowed down time on this cup?" Kaity asked, looking at it like she didn't know what to do with it.

  "...Can you do anything else?" Mom asked as she reached out and caught the cup. Seeing that it wasn't enough, I tilted my head thinking of anything else I could show.

  "I can be in multiple places at once?" I said and created another instance of myself right next to me, causing everyone to jump from the sudden materialization of another me.

  "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Layla muttered, completely in awe and I shook my head.

  "No, not a clone. This is me. It is literally me, just in a different spot." Both of me said in unison, freaking everyone but Layla out.

  "Another thing I can do, is this." I dispelled the instance and gathered all of the dust in the house almost instantly by using Telekinesis.

  Between me and my family was a floating ball of grey dust and hair, roughly the size of a small apple. Altering the atomic makeup of the dust, I turned it from dead skin and other trash into pure gold. The perfect sphere going from grey and lifeless to a disgustingly polished yellow ball.

  "Is this real gold?" Kaity asked as I dropped the ball into her hands and she turned it over in her fingers.

  "Yep. I altered the atomic makeup of all the dust in this house and made it something else."

  "So you were in this other universe for two years... Got powerful... is that it? Did you do anything else?" Layla asked, clearly digging for more information on my grand adventures.

  "Well I made some friends, joined a Guild, fought monsters, built a city out of a rare metal called Adamantium that could fit New York City in it and still have room to spare, and... dealt with a problem. I suppose you could say that something like a demon lord showed up at some point, but he's not a problem anymore. The second year was actually entirely spent trying to clean up his mess. If not for him, I would have been home earlier. Maybe. I don't actually know, there were some weird circumstances." I avoided bringing up my oaths, because if I was honest they were extremely cringe.

  While I could not feel true embarrassment, I tended to pretend that I did. Or maybe I could still feel embarrassment? It was strange. While it was an emotion, it wasn't entirely based on emotional factors, so I could feel it in an intellectual way.

  I could feel partial embarrassment.

  "So you're like a Hero then, right?! You could defeat The Dark Lord Azurath!" Layla was entirely too excited, and I cringed.

  "That... might be an issue?" Boy Toy seemed to twitch at that. He looked away like he knew something.

  "Yeah..." I looked away too, not feeling too psyched about this next bit.

  "What? Why?" Layla asked, my mom and Kaity looking relieved for their part but still curious.

  "Well..." I sighed, looking down at my knees.

  'Fuck it. I might as well tell them.'

  "I am The Dark Lord Azurath." I said, instinctually putting some dramatic flair into it as I stood. Jimmy morphed into my villain costume and I posed, my cape fluttering in the (false) wind.

  Blank stares once again, but Boy Toy had the decency to look surprised.

  'Just kill me.' I sighed internally, maintaining the perfect villain pose.