Chapter 1 - An Afterlife with a Useless Goddess

"Yahoo!"

What was this?

I thought I was dead.

"Hey, you alright there? You look like a zombie."

Huh?

Someone's speaking to me?

"Ritsu~"

They're calling my name?

Light gradually flooded into my eyes. I looked around myself, it was like I was sitting on a still pond. The ground seemed weirdly blue with no shades or effects of light.

I noticed a small girl with long white hair flowing down almost to her hips. She had a long dress that floated on the ground. She was also holding something that was covered by a lush red cloth.

"You're finally with me!"

"Huh?"

"Welcome to the afterlife, I guess!"

What's going on...?

"I'm Freya, the highest-ranked goddess."

Highest-ranked goddess...?

"You probably want to know what's going on, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Well to put it simply, you're dead."

"I figured..."

"Anyways, I'm here to guide you to where you're going to go next." She walked closer to me, "Basically, I'm going to reincarnate you in another world where you have to protect this princess."

"Huh...? I have several questions but keep speaking, I guess."

"That's about it, also just to let you know, your punishment for failing is that you'll forever burn in hell."

Ok...

"Do you have other information aside from that... I have basically no idea what is going on right now."

"Oh yeah, I guess I skipped too many details, oops." She covered her mouth like some teenage girl who had just been gossiping. "So I'm going to send you to another world, it's pretty similar to your old world except maybe a little less developed... Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there's also magic and mana and stuff like that."

She suddenly stopped speaking and stared straight at me for a little while.

"Keep going..."

"Basically there's this princess who is being targetted by one of the goddesses here and she's sent lot's of people to try to kill her."

"Mhm."

"Anyways I'm here to stop that so I'll be summoning you to that world."

"Um, I guess I've seen some stuff like this before, so I'm going to be super strong and you want me to defeat the bad guys?"

"Well... not exactly."

"I don't like where this is going... but how so..."

"Since your old world didn't have magic and stuff, you won't be able to use any magic in this new world either."

"Uh... but the people I'm up against won't either, right?"

"Um, no, so the other goddess summoned some people from worlds already with magic and stuff so yeah, they can use it."

What is this situation...

"I won't be able to do it. I give up, just send me to hell now."

"Hey!" The goddess pouted and looked at me. She unravelled the cloth she was holding and passed me a sword. "I found this near the rubbish dump on the way to work today and I thought it might be useful to you."

That didn't sound like it would be something that would be very useful...

I held the sword in my hands, it felt unusually light despite how it looked.

"How is this meant to help me defeat the bad guys exactly...?"

"Well, it looked like it had mana in it so you might be able to use it and do something, I guess?"

Oh boy.

"Is this all you're going to give me before you send me on my merry way?"

"Oh yeah, there was also this instruction manual for the sword next to it."

How convenient...

She passed me a thin book, it didn't look like it was longer than twenty pages.

"Do you have any other questions?"

"Um, why did you choose me out of everyone to do this?"

"Oh, it was just because you were the most recent person who died, so it was just easier."

So this was how the afterlife worked...

"Do you know much about how I died?"

"Yeah, you were run over by a truck while you were in your car with your father."

I see.

"Any other details?"

"Well, you seemed to be looking at your phone even though you were dying and bleeding all over the place..."

This was interesting, for some reason, I had forgotten all about how I died, despite the feeling of death still feeling so recent to me. I had basically forgotten everything that happened the entire week leading up to my death, everything else was pretty foggy as well.

There must have been something very important on my phone...

"Any other information?"

"I'm afraid that's all I know, another goddess was overseeing you during your death so they would know more."

"Who's the other goddess?"

"No idea!"

Oh great.

"Anyways is there anything else you want to know?"

"Well can you tell me about the magic system of this other world?"

"I have no clue about it."

Hm.

"How long do I have to protect this princess?"

"Forever, I guess."

What...

"Does the magic system in this world make the other people much stronger than usual?"

"No idea."

...

"Ok, well can you at least tell me about the princess?"

"Well, she's cute but she's pretty mean."

Not exactly what I was asking for...

"Anything else? Like is she strong, does she have lots of guards...?"

"I have no idea."

How useless can this goddess possibly be...

"Why do you want to protect her in the first place...?"

"Well I saw one of her baby pictures and I thought she was pretty cute, so yeah..."

"Are you a lesbian..."

"No, you've got it all wrong! I do think she's pretty and all but I am in no way attracted to other women... In fact, there's actually a boy I really like..."

So I'm being sent into a battlefield unprepared just because of this one goddess' whim...

"Is there any useful information of the world that you can give me?"

"Well the other goddess has a pretty strong grip on that world, so us other goddesses can't really get much information on it."

Makes sense, I guess... Wait no it doesn't make any sense, weren't you meant to be like the highest-ranked goddess or something?

"Oh yeah, I forgot to give you this photo of her, she looks like this."

She passed me the photo, it was a picture of a very young girl in a long blue dress.

"Is the princess like seven years old or something?"

"Ah, no, that's the only picture I have of her, she's actually like sixteen now."

Well, she was the same age as me when I died, well, I guess I'm still the same age...

"Um, so when I get reincarnated am I going to be a baby or something?"

"No, you'll be exactly as you are now."

Well, that's somewhat good, I guess.

"Also, am I going to be placed in their castle or whatever?"

"No, you'll be placed in the middle of a forest."

What.

"Why...?"

"Well, it's the only place I can put you. Other goddess... strong grip on the whole world... remember?"

Uh.

"So how am I meant to find her...?"

"I gave you the picture for a reason."

"This is her from eight years ago... I doubt she'll look the same. Anyways even if she did, how would I have any idea of where to go?!"

"I'm not sure..." The goddess looked at me with tears welling in her eyes. "Well, um, her name is Lucia, if that helps."

I guess it helps, but not a lot.

"Can you at least tell me her last name as well?"

The goddess looked towards me with a sad expression.

Don't tell me...

"You know what, it's fine. You can just send someone else after I die in like one second in this new world, so whatever." I decided that there wasn't much more information I was going to be able to get. "Can you send me off now?"

"Y-yeah."

A button appeared from the ground.

"See you soon!"

"Bye, I guess."

The goddess seemed disappointed at my response. She pressed the button.

A stream of light shined on me, then, all of a sudden, I began floating upwards.

"Also, Ritsu! I was lying before, I didn't just choose you for no reason... I chose you because you were the only person I... count on..." She choked on her words a little bit. "...so please don't die... on me..."

I couldn't really hear what she was saying.

I eventually floated a decent distance upwards before everything around me suddenly became white.