“I hear your plight and feel your regret. Truly, I do. It always wounds me to see one of our creations fall this low, especially one as young as you.”

Well, that was a load of bullshit. Even if God couldn’t lie, it was most definitely bullshit. Even if my very soul screamed that it was the truth, it was most definitely bullshit.

If it wasn’t, God never would’ve created such a wretched world.

“Yeah? Well, maybe it wouldn’t’ve come to this if you didn’t make such a fucked up place to live in.” Every word that I spoke inflicted a great deal of pain to me, but I held it in. I’d suffered worse.

More importantly, this told me one crucial thing: humans are not meant to defy God.

This was an intrinsic axiom of the world. Yet, it was one that I was breaking right now.

Outwardly, God was seamlessly perfect. It was completely unperturbed. But I knew that deep inside Its pure-white body, It was floundering. That’s why It was losing its capability to speak with dignity. That’s why It was losing its capability to speak as if I were a lesser being.

Heh. Serves you right, you piece of shit! Bet you’ve never had someone speak to you this way, asshole!

“...I apologize, but it is out of my hands.”

That’s right, you sicko. Beg for my forgiv— Wait... What? Did... Did a deity just apologize to me? A mere mortal!? I frowned, genuinely surprised this time. Out of all the responses that I expected from this nauseatingly perfect being, an apology was the last thing on my mind.

Apology or not, I wasn’t going to let this rat bastard weasel Its way outta this so easily!

“‘Out of your hands’? The hell do you mean by that? You’re God, aren't ‘cha?”

“That is only partially correct. I am ____, the God of Transmigration. Your world was not one that I created.”

I stared at the God whose name I could not comprehend, much less pronounce. The fact that there was more than one God shook me to the core.

I had always been under the impression that God was God, and that was it. There was a single supreme entity which lorded over all of existence with a malicious grin.

But I was wrong.

And to make matters worse, I’d lashed out at the God who kindly fixed my body without prompt or recompense. My hands balled into tight fists.

Just... What the fuck am I doing...?

“I... I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

The God of Transmigration smiled at me gently. “That is alright. You could not have possibly known.”

Now that my mind was no longer clouded by anger, I noticed that the God’s speech pattern was painfully robotic as if the very language we spoke was something foreign in its mouth.

I bit my lower lip in frustration. If I was paying attention earlier, I would’ve noticed. There’s no way that a God who created my dismal world would be unfamiliar with its language.

Regardless, there was no going back. I knew that best.

“...So what did you want from me?” It was better to just soldier on.

The God touched a hand to its bosom. “I hear and feel your pain. Your regret and your resentment. I have received it all. That is why I wish to offer you a chance at a second life. A life filled with the joy that was unjustly taken from you.”

“I’m listening.”

The God presented to me a myriad of worlds. There were worlds nearly identical to the one that I had just departed from and worlds that were much more fantastical than anything I could have ever imagined.

But I already knew the world I wanted to go to. The very moment that it was shown to me, I knew in my heart of hearts that it was the one.

Paresica.

It was a strange name, to say the least, but it was the name that its denizens had chosen. Otherwise, it was simply your run-of-the-mill fantasy world. It had dragons, wizards, and adventurers.

“...Are you sure you wish to choose such a world?”

“Damn straight. Why the hell would I go anywhere else?”

Really, there wasn’t anything special about it except for one thing:

It was a world scheduled for imminent destruction.

Honestly, it felt like I was being shown classified information. I didn’t understand why it was being destroyed, but that didn’t matter to me.

The reasoning for that was simple. The God who had scheduled it for destruction was the very same God who created my world. 

My original world.

That was the only thing that mattered.

If any God wanted to destroy a world, the first world on the chopping block should’ve been the one that I just left. To choose another would be fucking bullshit, and the very moment that I witnessed this, I knew what had to be done.

I didn’t know how I’d do it, but I would. Whatever it took, I would deny this shitty fucking God Its will. I would be there to oppose It at every step of the way.

And in the end, I would crush him like a fucking bug.

But there are other things that come first, of course. In my current state, I could barely crush a fellow human, much less a God.

“Very well. Now that you have selected a world to inhabit, I shall grant you two favors in the form of abilities. These abilities are not peerless, but they should give you a strong start. Treat it as recompense for all that you have endured.”

Ah, yes. The ever-popular cheat abilities. I’ve seen these in just about every damn isekai novel. It’s no surprise that they’d show up here too.

Interestingly enough, the God of Transmigration had given me a whole slew of abilities to choose from. Some of them were relatively straightforward like [Overpowering Strength], [Starting Level 99], or [Omni-Affinity Mage], whereas others were far more obscure in what they granted.

Despite the various enticing abilities that were offered to me, there were only two that I was truly interested in:

[Rulebook] and [Complete Analysis].

The first ability allowed me to understand the fundamental workings of the world and all that existed within it. In short, this was basically the equivalent of the Akashic Records dropped into the palm of my hands.

The second ability worked in tandem with the first, allowing me to immediately identify and understand anything that I laid my eyes on. Apparently, if I inspected a living creature, it could give me details that even the creature wasn’t aware of.

On paper, these abilities sounded like trash compared to something like [Demon Lord’s Heir] or [Level Limit Breaker], but I alone knew the true value of them.

You see, there are two things in a tabletop role-playing game that are the most important: rules as written (RAW), and rules as intended (RAI).

Normally, the rules of a tabletop role-playing game are ironclad. If an ability says “x”, then using it will result in “x.” However, such rules can often be exploited by more devious players.

I too, had been guilty of doing so in the past, and I was about to be even guiltier. Whenever the RAW was being abused, that’s when the game master would step in as the arbitrator and invoke the RAI.

However, the world of Paresica had already been abandoned by its creator and its destruction was left in the hands of someone else. There would be no arbitrator. There would be no RAI.

This meant a horrifically disgusting min-maxer munchkin like me with complete, uncensored access to the rules of the world would be able to exploit the rules as I pleased.

In other words, these two abilities made me completely unstoppable as soon as I got started.

“Would you like to change your appearance before I send you off?” The God of Transmigration asked me as soon as I finished selecting my cheat abilities.

I shook my head. My current appearance was perfectly suited for my purposes. When I finally threw down with that asshole God who created my original world, I wanted to engrave this visage in Its mind as the last thing it would ever witness.

That would be a fitting end to my revengeance arc.

“Then have a safe trip. I wish you the best of luck, Transmigrator Mikado Ryuuko.”