I read a whole lot of novels in my lifetime, and when physical ran out, I read ebooks and comics online, and when those ran out, then I threw myself in a dangerous world of amateur/self-published webnovels. Let me get it straight then: the proccess of being isekai'd fucking sucks. It's not quick, or anything, and I stayed so much time dead that accepting my ticket out of reality was the only way.
Then I was pulled into that black world.
Everything was completely black, silent, and weird. I had my body, my clothes, my glass, but there was no life in it, no touch. It was merely a projection, and it felt empty, weightless. At least there was some peace in death, something like your thoughts drifting slowly and forever. Getting it robbed was a piss off.
A door spawned out of nowhere, and haphazardly it opened up, a plump and tripping old coot coming out. A familiar...ball of smiles and glass.
I puffed my lungs, ready to throw the most memorable fit a dead person ever did, and put this lazy isekaing god in his place, specially if he was somehow related to that shit, buuut...
"NOOooOOOoOOOO!" He fell on his knees and squeezed his own face. "It wasn't supposed to go like this! Why? WHYYYhahAHAYYYY?"
'Da fuck?
"Yui-chan! Yui-chan! Please, forgive me, forg—" The fat oldman crawled as a bug and tried to snatch my leg to cry, or something.
"Eh, creepy." And I put my foot right in this face for it. Oh, and before you imagine it with your corrupted mind, I was wearing long skirt, who'd you think I am, some ecchi protagonist? "Explain, fatso."
After pushing him back and demanding something, he slowly put himself up and brushed his wet eyes. I knew how to command a nerd, and a fat man with a glass is always a nerd. What me to command you? Creepy, you can wait a bit, groomer.
"I-It...It was my fault, again..."
"So you did have something to do with it?!" I brushed his gloominess aside, I was the dead one.
"Yes, I did..." His dispirited state was almost pitying, but just almost, it was easy to pity him, and easier to hate guts. "But let me explai—"
A high kick, pretty open, reached his face, it was not meant to hurt him, just scare a bit, and it seemed to work as he curled up. I fetched my skirt, pulling it down so neither he, or you weirdo, could see anything.
"Who're you? I make the questions here."
"God."
Now that escalated quickly...Oh shit, I bullied God?
"Which god? Who was right in the end?"
"No one." God sniffed and sat in a chair. Where'd it came from? "I'm not the only god either, but the one responsible for you and some other people, too..."
"And you're obeying a little girl? C'mon put your game up, man, that's embarassing." If God was a nerd, God could be bullied.
"I think of it rather as, as, as...working together. No reason to be angry, too, I know you too well, Yui-chan." His words were softspoken and a gentle smile covered him in grandparent tenderness.
"That's disgusting, only Yui is fine, and, and...what...what the hell, did you spied on me? Ew, man! That's just wrong, WRONG!"
"I did not." He interrupted before I could hit him again. "I know you for a long time, but not because I followed your life, Yui. This is not my job. My job is to watch over death, and make sure it is done rightfully, properly, which sadly means that sometiems it is indeed gruesome and cruel...You can interpret me as a Grim Reaper, of sorts."
"...yikes..." I muttered. He didn't had the shinigami looks, but there was no arguing about it. "Where am I? How do you know me for a long time, I just died."
"You are, at this moment, in Limbo, the interspace between existence and nothigness. The universe's waiting room. And how I met you? Well...you're a no non-sense girl, so I'll just speak it as last time."
Last time?
God stood up, and I don't know when the chair vanished. With a flicker of his fingers, TVs fell from the dark and each screen was already playing a different footage. They were all about me. I recognized immediately what it was.
"These are from our trip, what gives?" I frowned. Looking one by one, I even saw myself stopping to stare at the bookstore's window...damn moment.
"These are from moments before your multiple deaths."
"What?" As I asked, one of the Yuis, the one preparing food two nights ago, started to toss around and cough to her knees.
"This one...you chocked on rice, asphyxiated and died. A pitiful death." Slowly each screen started to stream my own demise, again, again and again. "As your overseer I decided this was an unworthy death. I welcomed you here, spoke about it, and merrily sent you back to the living — not whole, but almost."
"w-wait...I-I...I died...multiple times?" Once was already a ride, believe me...
"Technically." The god nodded. "I sent you back. And see, its not like a full-fledged time travel power...You were reborn, like a restart, like starting a new save-file. 16 years went by, few things changed, and when the day came...boom..."
"Boom? Boom what? Don't, don't just 'boom' oldman, boom what?!"
"Drowned. Horrible thing. You slipped, face right into the sand...your snorted some, and died while grasping for air. Sad thing, horrible thing." A clap helped break that foul mood. "Then we spoke, and I sent you back again. And again, and again...something was off, like your fate was just too strong and always so unlucky, so small and petty, that I kept doing it just to try and get you out."
What a bleak thing it is. Knowing you'll die, and die ridiculously. Despite having an impresion he simply kept me around to wait and see what awaited me next, what tragicomical disaster was to scythe through me, he was clearly bereft.
"C'mon, I'm the one dead, don't go moping...See, there's a thing that happens often in fiction...can't you, liiiike...gimme that treatment?" Haggling with death, what a surreal thing, but it proved worth as he brightened like a kid receiving a nintendo cartridge.
"Aye." This heartful whisper jumped from his lips.
My heart pumped up, and suddenly all that darkness surround us was lifted. It was black yeah, but both of us smiled to each other.
"This is your 11th passage, so—"
"Holy fuck! Eleven?! Shit...oh, sorry, ahm...go on."
"Your soul is made of several components, memory is but one of them, although one of its main counterparts. It largerly affects your personality, character, and everything in-between mind and matter. I have no permission to let a human to restart with their memories, so I must send you back without it, however...what it is done with these memories is left for us Reapers to decide. Some build their own soulhouses, but you see...I have a starking preference to giving you all a second chance, a new beginning. I've sent you, Yui, to another worlds before, and I'll send again."
Exciting promises!
A normal reaction would be freaking out, or just going full villain, anguish, I don't know. MCs take it differently. During my short lifetime I've always wanted to close my eyes just to find out if this world-swapping schtick was real...It being real was amazing, really, something that I could very well turn into my own religion. Getting to be reborn, starting it all over again, and with my memories even...
A Mushoku Tensei-like scenario, a perfect chance to not only do things right, but to enjoy it to the tenth potence!
"It is indeed the 11th time, but I always come to enjoy your smirk." After fixing his glass and a bit of throat cleaning, he started to walk around. "For most people simply reincarnating is enough, for some others, specially the ones with extraordinary lives, I gift them a blessing or two, and for you...well, take it as customer service."
Suddenly a thing popped up on my view. A VRMMO-like HUD, the types you see on anime, movies and novels alike, floating, composed of simple geometrical shapes, and colored text.
"No way, you're kidding me..." I couldn't contain my laughter and excitement.
"I'm not. This system was developed to better your chances of living fully in your second life, specially when the world is a little bit on the rougher side. But for the first 7 times you always asked to be reborn in a fantasy world of any sort, so...hehe, I'll cut it short and send you to one."
"Look at you, all smug and witty, you're almost convincing me that you are really a god!"
"I don't know which world you'll be sent to, Yui-chan. My system will make you company, but be warned: it's a tool, and it'll not guide you or facilitate too much. Think of it as stepping stones."
"And I will. It would be boring otherwise." Arms folded, and a smirk, my glasses glimmering with my future conquests.
"Good..."
And slowly I felt my descent, my body sinking into floaty nothingness. I gave him a small wave...He was a good oldman.
"Have a great life, Yui The Unlucky."
Blessed by the Grim Reaper himself, I fell into a new life.
And it would be fucking amazing.
