Death After Death

“Help me, Truck-kun, you’re my only hope,” were Simon’s final words before he stepped out into traffic on a rainy Wednesday afternoon.

It was a quick but messy end as he transformed from a 29-year-old man into an impromptu speed bump for the eighteen-wheeler barreling down the street. The driver slammed on the brakes the instant he saw what was happening, but he would never stop in time.

For Simon, the most challenging part had been figuring out which street near his parent’s house was the busiest. He’d considered jumping off a bridge instead, but he was afraid of heights, and it was easier to let someone else kill him. Doing it this way was just the perfect otaku ending for his hikikomori life.

He’d been a shut-in for years, spurning the constant disappointment of real people and playing games to avoid messy social interactions as the world passed him by. It had been like this since he’d gotten laid off and moved back in with his parents a couple years ago. His friends said he was stuck in a rut, but they didn’t get it.

They were too busy with girlfriends or careers of their own to see how he’d steadily simplified his life to focus on the essential things. One by one, they drifted off, giving up the online games they’d played together for so long. Simon didn’t care, though; once they were gone, he didn’t miss them.

Too many Isekai light novels had convinced him that his only salvation was in another world. Even if the odds of such things were slim, it was still worth betting his life on. While he might not have been good with Excel or showing up for work on time, after spending thousands of hours fighting every monster under the sun, he was sure that he could save the world from the demon king, stop the undead army, or whatever another world might need help with. He’d be glad to do it, too, in exchange for a few busty friends and some great food along the way.

As Simon saw it, the worst-case scenario was that instead of waking up in another world with an overpowered skill or two, he’d just disappear. Stupid concepts like heaven or hell couldn’t be real, so either option worked for him.

Anything would be better than this tedious, mundane existence. He was tired of his mother failing to understand that working retail was beneath him, and no matter how many rare achievements he attached to his resume, none of the game design jobs he applied to ever called him back.

Moments after he felt the weight of the steel bumper force him underneath the truck’s unforgiving wheels, Simon peeled himself off the cool marble floor of an antechamber decorated with mosaics and marble statuary. He smiled for the first time in weeks at the sight.

“Well, it looks like there’s life after death after all,” he said to himself, standing there in the same clothes he died in as he looked around.

The room had a single exit, and Simon walked through it. It led to a long hallway of life-sized statues. Each had a plaque below them, but they weren’t written in English. The sight gave him hope because the place felt less like heaven and more like a light novel with every step. Then he turned the corner and saw what he could only describe as a goddess. The beatific woman sat on a throne in the middle of the rotunda, radiating peace as the light of the oculus shone down on her from above.

The throne was atop a dais and a short flight of stairs led to the top. Next to it was an oversized set of balance scales, and all the walls that circled the room between the columns were filled with bookshelves. It was hard to focus on those details, though, because the light made her blond hair glow with heavenly light. Her beauty acted as a beacon, forcing him to stumble towards it.

He knew he’d made the right decision. This was a deity that could understand him and just how hard his life had been. She could help him find something more suited to who he really was. When he reached the top, he stood there resisting the urge to bow while she regarded him.

“Welcome, Simon. I’ve been waiting for you.” The goddess’s voice was as beautiful as the rest of her, filling him with hope.

“T-thank you, Your Majesty,” Simon said, barely overcoming his shyness. It was only after he spoke that he realized ‘Majesty’ didn’t sound quite right, but he wasn’t sure what else to call her. How did you address a living, breathing goddess?

“Oh, please,” she laughed musically. “You may call me Helades. There’s no need to be so formal. This is hardly the first time we’ve met, after all.”

“It isn’t?" Simon asked, confused. He was sure he’d remember someone this beautiful, even if he’d only walked past her on the street.

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“No one gets to try their hand at being a human without a few dozen reincarnations as a lesser animal. This isn’t even your first life as a human.” She explained patiently, “That’s what reincarnation is for. Maturing and distilling souls to prepare them for bigger and better things. It’s why we’re all here.”

“Then why don’t I—” Simon tried to ask as Helades spoke over him.

“No one remembers,” she shrugged, sounding a little bored. “Just like no one remembers to step on the scale before I ask them nicely.”

“Oh, Sorry, ummm… Helades,” he mumbled as he turned around and grabbed the balance’s center for support as he stepped onto one side. The other side was empty save for a thin tome, but still, the scale barely moved while he stood there nervously.

“I see,” the goddess said, lifting her arm. As she raised it, the book flew from where it lay on the scales to her open hand. Once it arrived, it started flipping through the pages on its own until finally stopping at something near the end of the book.

“Ahh - yes, that’s what this is then.” she said, finally looking back to Simon, “Okay - you can get down now. Why don’t you tell me what you’d like from your next life.”

Simon coughed, clearing his throat before launching into the speech he’d been preparing for almost a year. “All I want in my next life is everything I was missing in this one. Love. Meaning. Adventure.

I want to be reincarnated into a fantasy world where I can grow up to be a hero and—”

“Sorry,” she interrupted, “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”

“What?” Simon asked. Her statement was a mental sucker punch that left him fumbling for words. “Are there no such thing as fantasy worlds, then?”

“Oh, it’s not that,” The goddess replied. “I’ve got an infinite number of worlds I could send you to. More than you could imagine. But you simply aren’t cut out for that.”

“B-But I can—” he tried to defend himself.

“There’s nothing you can say that would surprise me, Simon. It’s just... how would people from your world put it? You lack the experience points for that sort of class. It would just be setting you up for failure and putting the destinies of countless other souls in danger,” she said, sounding almost conciliatory. “We need to be realistic and look at lives that can better suit who you are and what you’re capable of, deep down.”

“Other choices?” Simon asked, failing to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He’d never considered the option that he might get here only to be forced into a new life where he was a nobody all over again. “Like what?”

“Well, based on your past lives, I think you should give koala or sloth another try. If you wanted to try something new, though, I think that musk ox or black bear would be a great fit.” She smiled. “If you’d like a complete list, though…”

“You think I should be… a-a bear in my next life? A fucking bear?” He sputtered, outraged at the idea even as Helades’s expression remained placid.

He was about to open his mouth again and give her a piece of his mind when he thought better of it and opened the book floating next to him instead. Yelling at someone wasn’t the way to get what you wanted, and talking to your boss like this would get you fired, he reminded himself as he leafed through it in an attempt to calm down. He didn’t even want to know what would happen if you pissed off a goddess.

“You’ve been a bear many times. You seem to do well as an upper-level omnivore. It might be strange to think about, but if you give it a shot…” While she spoke, he flipped through the pages. Most of the entries were lined out, which presumably meant he couldn’t choose them, but most of the furry ones remained available. Koala. Leopard Seal. Llama. Manatee. Meerkat. Moose. Mountain Goat. Musk Ox. The list went on and on.

“How short am I on experience to be human?” Simon asked finally.

His mind still rebelled at the idea of becoming an animal. Still, if he appeared reasonable and played along, he might find a back door to get what he wanted. If he could just weasel himself into a path to a fantasy world, he was sure that he could become the hero no matter what she planned for him.

“Well - if a soul needs a million experience points to become an average human…” she said, pondering the question, “Then I’d say you have about 150,000. So, you’re pretty far from it, but you have enough points for a red panda. That could be fun, right?”

“But that’s way off,” Simon protested. “Like… I’d have to live until I was 120 just to be a person again! How is that fair?”

“Now, now,” the goddess said, her patience showing cracks. “You were on track for a perfectly normal next life until you ended yours early. There’s a big penalty associated with that sort of thing. You lost… call it a quarter million experience points. See for yourself.” As she spoke, the book on her lap floated over before him.

The page on the right had all sorts of entries about his achievements and failures, each with a number next to it. The most common entry was ‘wasted day -5. Many other entries stood out, too: have a happy birthday +300, get fired from your Job -500, beat a video game +25, commit suicide -250,000. The other side of the book was more interesting, though, and he turned to look at it for a second until she suddenly snatched it back from him.

It had a list of his previous incarnations with grades beside them. There’d been a lot of sloth lifetimes rated A and B+ and a handful of human lives with C- to F next to them. It was the most depressing thing he’d ever seen and a crushing blow to his ego as it sank in. He hadn’t been set up to fail in this lifetime but in all his lifetimes? That was incredibly unfair.

“So, you’re telling me there’s no other way?” he asked, resigned to his fate, as he sat down on the scale. “My only choice is to be an animal for another dozen lifetimes and then try again?”

“Well,” she answered hesitantly. “There are penance lives and punishment incarnations, but I wouldn’t recommend them for you. You don’t have that much bad karma to work off, so that would be needless suffering on your part.”

“Wait, no,” he said, slamming the book shut. If there was anything he could do to avoid being a damned musk ox, he would do it. “Tell me more about those.”