I open my eyes in an unfamiliar room. My head hurts and I try to remember how did I end up here, but can only recall up to when the teleport was almost ready. I hear a sound and look in that direction. There is a woman sitting on a desk. She looks young and wears glasses. After a few seconds she notices my gaze.

 

“Oh, you have finally woken up. Was getting bored.”

“Where am I? How did I end up here? Is Seelena fine? Is Muradel okay? What happened with the monsters?”

“A lot of questions… but alright. You are in the afterlife management service room #762. You are here because you died. Seleena is dead. Muradel is dead. The monsters destroyed the world.”

“Huh? Are you joking with me??? I won’t forgive you saying my cute girls are dead you know!”

“I am simply stating the facts sir.”

“That’s ridiculous, I am the hero of the prophecies. It’s impossible for me to die.”

 

“Yes, your report definitely said that. I regret to inform you that according to the logs we have, we have concluded that there was a bug in the code and you died.”

“Code? What code? How did I die?”

“Your universe code. An unusual combination of factors happened that weren’t considered in the test cases, I’m sorry on behalf of the company.”

“I don’t understand. I asked what killed me.”

“As I said, there were multiple factors involved… but ultimately you could say that it was a mosquito bite.”

“Me, the great hero dying from a mosquito bite… I still can’t believe it.”

“Well, there is nothing I can do about that sir hero. I have only been assigned to your case to explain you the situation.”

“Bring me back to my world, I need to save the Kingdom of Feldem!”

“Unfortunately that won’t be possible. Your world has already been completely destroyed. No one could stop a young boy and his minions.”

 

“I haven’t grasped it all, but isn’t this your fault? Do something about it!”

“Well we do have a program to revive people, but it is too late. No one is alive in that world anymore. In the past we had a program that could reverse time, however it has been incompatible since the company decided to switch os.”

“I don’t understand, are you saying that everyone is dead?”

“That’s right.”

 

Tears start dropping from my face. It is very unseemly but I can’t stop. Everything I know, everyone I know, all gone. I have failed them. The only thing left is my regret. I should have tried to kill them all without my full power. Then at least everyone else would still be alive. I dwell in my memories. My father training me to be a knight like him. The first monster I slayed. My father’s death caused by a high level demon king. My anger and revenge, unleashing a power I didn’t even know I had, killing all. The great oracle announcing that I was the hero of the prophecies. Leaving my mother with my brother alone to travel the world trying to save people from evil.

 

Saving people. Becoming popular. Saving Seelena. Starting to travel together. Our first kiss. Meeting Muradel. Seleena and Muradel fighting to decide who is worthy of my lips, which ended with a draw. Meeting other girls, having a bigger party, enjoying my life. But all that is over. The woman with glasses just watches me in silence. After a while, my tears stop and I try to understand the situation I find myself in.

 

“Why am I here if I have died?”

“Well, your universe has an insurance and the insurance company is affiliated with us. According to my reports, you have saved a great deal of lives and you had good influence over many things. After analyzing this, we have deemed it to be worth 95894 afterlife points. After some deliberation, considering that you would have earned more achievements without the bug, we took the decision of rounding it to 100000. With that many points, you enter the vip category. Congratulations sir.”

 

“What does that even mean?”

“Well, people with less than 0 points can either go to hell or choose to be reborn to try to earn more points in their new life. People between 0 and 99999 may go to heaven and depending on their amount of points they enjoy different perks. With 100000 or more you enter the vip category. That means a customized universe for yourself, where you keep living the greatest years of you life again and again. Here are the documents, just sign and you will soon be enjoying your life as a hero again.”

 

“So I will be able to save the kingdom of Feldem? I will be able to save everyone?”

“Well no, it's just a replay of your previous life so things won’t change from how they happened. And we currently have no programmer available to fix the bug, so when that moment comes we will just reset the universe and you will live from the start of your hero days again. Of course, you won’t be remembering anything of this so you would be as happy as you were in your original life.”

 

“What is a programmer? When will one be available?”

“Well, one that creates the rules for the universe you live in. Guess you can call it a God from your perspective. I wouldn’t recommend waiting for one to be available. Unfortunately the last one we had quit after getting depressed over his newest creation, a planet called Earth. That happened many thousands of years ago. Now, if you could sign these documents please.”

“I don’t want that customized universe thing, it would be all fake!”

“Well it depends on your definition of fake. After all, everything is still code.”

“But if everything will happen the same way as before, there is no free will. And it would be like a copy of the other, so for me it is fake. I am a hero, I would rather save real people than fake people.”

“Even if that means never seeing your beloved ones again?”

 

That question makes my heart ache again. However, I have already made up my mind. I must be strong in my resolve. I am sure that they would have also wanted me to keep saving people. So I firmly reply.

 

“Yes”

“I see. Still, there is no one else alive in your planet, so even if we revived you, there would be no one else to save.”

“Can’t I be revived in another world?”

“We do have a beta program called Isekai. We select humans from Earth that lead a meaningless life and revive them in another world. It was the company response to the complains about the bugs in the world.”

“What bugs?”

“Well, the programmer decided for some reason to go against company policy and created a world without magic and powers. My guess is that he got tired of making the same type of universes again and again. He tried to be creative and changed the code to make a world without them, in the hope that something interesting would happen as a result. However after some time he got disappointed and quit.”

 

“So you can revive me in another world?”

“Well it’s not that easy. First of all, this is a program exclusive to Earth humans. I would need to make a petition to make an exception for you. Even if we got an approval, the queue of humans waiting to be born in another world is huge, there are 45247521 waiting at the moment.”

“Why are there so many?”

“Many humans from Earth live a meaningless life, so there are many candidates. And it seems they have similar concepts there called video games and light novels, so when they are informed of this program they are usually very enthusiastic and agree to it.”

“What about being reborn in Earth?”

 

The woman looked at me as if I had said something outrageous. It was the first sign of emotion she displayed since I came here.

 

“You want to be reborn in Earth? No one has ever wanted that. It is a boring world without magic or powers.”

“But there is people right? I would still have a chance at saving more people. As a hero, that is my mission.”

“Even if I get approval, you won’t have any power. You will be a powerless human like any other. And when you die there, your afterlife points will be reset and recalculated, it would be a waste of your vip status. You would regret it. Why don’t you choose the customized universe?”

“I am not selfish enough to indulge on my own happiness, I am sure many others still need saving.”

“...Alright. I will ask my superiors.”

 

After a while, she gave me an answer.

“Your request has been accepted, you will be reborn in the body of a boy around your age that died a few hours ago.”

“I see, thank you very much.”

“Don’t thank me, I’m sure you will regret it. Now just sign this paper.”

 

After confirming the contents of the contract, I signed it and just like that was transported to another world, or at least my mind did because I definitely had a body that was not my own. And that is how my life on Earth started.