Here I am.

Lying on the floor.

Wondering exactly what the fuck is up.

Oh, I see.

I fucking died again.

I always knew that robots would rise up and overthrow humanity. Otto has made his first step towards that goal. Congratulations.

Fuck.

I thought death would be the black space again, not a carpet.

I see.

I understand.

In my quest for justice, I've earned my right to go to heaven.

Yup, that must be it.

And if this is purgatory, then that's even better.

Right, time to figure out what's going on.

I look to my right from where I'm sprawled, and see a desk. Time to figure this shit out.

Step one.

Getting off the fucking floor.

I slowly stand up. Oh, my cramp is gone. Isn't death lovely. Takes care of all of the little things, doesn't it?

I sigh.

Man, fuck my life. And death. They can go and marry each other, and for their honeymoon, fuck off somewhere else.

After fully standing up, I see whose desk I've found. On the front of the desk is a name plaque with a name I've never seen before.

Selaphiel. 

I don't know who the fuck that is, but it sounds like an angel name if I've ever heard it.

I look around the desk and the place I've found myself in before realizing something.

This is a receptionist area.

I swear to god, that lazy bastard, if this ends up being another adventurer's guild fiasco, I'm setting the heavens on fire. I'll do it. I'll figure it out somehow, just you fucking wait. 

I look around the desk before finding a bell to ring. One of those bells you tap on a desk if you want to talk to someone. Since I want to talk to someone, I ring it.

Ding.

...

Ding.

...

DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING.

"Alright, alright. I get it, I get it." I watch as someone walks out from seemingly nowhere with a folder under one arm, and a sandwich being held with the other.

Wait, wait, wait a second. 

Hold up.

Sandwich.

Sandwich.

If I remember properly, as I always do, I remember glasses saying something about heaven only having cookies and coffee.

If so...

"Sorry about that, how can I help you, sir?" The angel (Yeah, it's a fucking angel. What were you expecting, a clown? A demon? Morgan Freeman?) takes a seat behind their desk and gives that thousand dollar smile I just want to knock off his face.

"I'd like to claim that I was roped into a contract while being given false information, and I'd like to press charges." If Glasses, that bastard, really did lie to me about the cookies, who knows what other shit he made up.

The angel froze and didn't say anything for a while.

"Excuse me?" 

"Press charges, you know?" I look around for a moment before finding a chair that had appeared behind me at some point and sat down. "In a place like this that seems to run on bureaucracy, I imagine someone was smart enough to prepare lawyers."

The angel is still holding onto that smile.

"I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand." While his expression has been maintained, his voice is struggling a little.

"I made deal with an angel. The angel told me what consequences would befall me if I didn't accept. He lied about the consequences. I'd like to at least file a complaint."

There was a pause.

The angel has stopped smiling.

"I'm sorry sir, but we don't have a complaint system, or a court of law. Also, no angel in heaven is allowed to lie." Oh really? One angel has already lied to me, like hell I'm going to believe this guy. I mean, they had even set up a system to trick dumbasses like me into saving other worlds. It's a fucking scam. Who the hell would listen to them if they knew that shit?

I have to use the words all lower level employees fear and despise. But there is no other way. In order to save myself, I have to do it. I must!

"I don't believe that for a second. Could I speak with your manager?"

What kind of monster have I become? Was it really worth it in the end?

Yeah it was.

The angel put his smile back on. "I see. I'll be back in a moment."

The angel got up from his chair, turned around and left.

He left me alone.

With his desk.

After pissing me off.

YOU FOOL!

I immediately try and use magic, feeling sparks running across my fingers. Great. Then, everything will work out just fine.

I shove the desk into my Item Storage.

Desk, what desk? I saw nothing.

Life and death are full of strange and mysterious encounters. A giant hermit crab came along and began using it as a shell before walking away. Who knew that crabs could grow that large?

Afterwards, the crab left a bunch of dead animal corpses everywhere as well. What madness has the heavens come to? 

And so, I decided to eat some of my packed bread and water while waiting for someone to arrive.

But man, the animal corpses really ruins my appetite. But, I must suffer through. All for the sake of filing a complaint.

Maybe I could get them to finally set up a review system. I rate my heroic adventure a solid three stars out of five. The only saving grace being the massive amounts of wealth I'm gathering.

As I'm imagining my scathing review of my heroic journey, the angel finally returns with someone else.

Well, well, well. Would you look who it is.

It's Glasses!

How the fuck am I supposed to file a complaint now? He won't do shit.

"Hey, I'm back!" I call out to my old friend. "Miss me?"

He looks around, taking in the sight of me sitting in the chair surrounded by death.

"Damnit, get this shit head out of here." Glasses turns around, but the receptionist ain't letting it happen. "Let me go, Sela! Send this fucker back, I don't want him!"

"Uh, Phanuel, shouldn't you not be using that kind of language in front of a soul?" Looks like Sela has the right idea. Customer service is important. "Also, where's my desk?"

"The beaver got it." I say before taking a big bite of bread. Yup. I'm sticking with that story.

"The beaver--?"

"Don't listen to him. Ever. It hurts your head." Glasses, now forever nicknamed Phanny, stops Sela from continuing the conversation. Damn. 

"But my desk! It was a gift from Azrael! It was even made from mahogany!"

Phanny sighs, before focusing on me. "Simon, please tell us what you did with the desk." 

"I did nothing. You better find that beaver if you want answers." 

Phanny looks back at Sela. "See. You're asking the impossible. Be glad it was only the desk."

Sela looks at him pleadingly. "It wasn't! The bell you gave me was on it!"

Phanny pauses before looking back at me. "Give him the desk back or I'll rip your fucking dick off."

Jesus Christ, I wasn't expecting that. I can feel cold sweat going down my neck.

I dump the desk out of my item storage. Three feet above the ground. Upside down.

Above some animal corpses.

It crashes to the floor with a sound somewhere between a cracking noise and a squishing noise.

"Alright, that'll be fifty dollars. Cash only, no credit. I ain't running a charity."

"..."

"..."

"What? I'm not running a desk finding service for free."

Phanny summed up his feelings in two words. 

"Fuck you."

* * *

After having a long conversation in which I made sure we discussed nothing important, Phanny finally managed to get me out of the reception area and back to his office.

"Bye Sela! Have a nice day!" I call after him while we leave. Sela looks at his desk sadly while we go.

"You really are an ass." Phanny says while leading me through what appears to be nothingness. 

"Yep." I respond.

He looks at me and blinks. "You know that?"

"How the hell could I not? It's pretty fucking obvious. I mean, it's not like every person that's ever lived hasn't thought it." 

"Then why, oh why, do you act this way?"

I grin. "Because I'm an ass."

Phanny frowns before looking away. 

We finally arrive in what appears to be an office. Blank white walls, except for a bookcase behind a desk. The desk is empty of any items except a single nameplate that reads Phanuel.

Phanny walks around the desk and sits down. "Let's get this shit over with."

"So, Phanny, death has taken me, and I'm ready to go to purgatory." I smile and lean on the desk. "As a side note, I want to lodge an official complaint with your boss and get this fixed up."

"... I don't know where to start with this." He says, holding his head in his hands.

"Okay. First, you aren't dead. No, don't fucking say a smart ass line here, you're not dead, got it?" He's looking at me pretty intensely.

"... Okay."

"Good. You came here because you prayed at a holy location. Because of your firm belief that the god existed, and your higher level understanding of her, you were able to connect with the heavens." 

Huh.

Wait, her?

"It's because of my higher level understanding of pajama girl?" I ask. "Shouldn't I have been sent to see her instead, then?"

Phanny sighs and leans back in his chair. Damn, it can recline? "Normally, you would. But you're a special case. Because I was the one who sent you down instead of Risa, you were dropped in front of reception, where they would try and figure out where to send you up here. Anyways, you're essentially my responsibility because of your stupid stunt, so I have to keep an eye on you when you come up here."

Damn.

So Pajama girl's name was Risa.

"Second thing." He continues. "You're not going to purgatory anymore. You killed a lot of people, robbed a lot of houses, and set a city on fire. You're on a one way ticket to hell, buddy." He grins. "Serves you right, asshole."

I'm going to hell.

Huh.

...

You know, I really should have seen that coming. 

Right, time to spend the rest of my life doing the right thing and redeeming myself.

Ah, who am I kidding. I'm fucked. 

"Third thing. The only person above me is the big man himself." Phanny's smile gets wider.

"Santa?"

"... I refuse to dignify that with a response. I'm not getting God involved with you, as I know you'll somehow make things worse for me. It's your fucking destiny to ruin everything for everyone, after all."

"Okay, I've done a lot of things, but that's just flat out mean." I pout. 

"It's not an exaggeration. Your unique skill, the Chaos of a Joker is designed that way." He sighed and put his hand over his eyes. "The skill is designed to put you into situations and areas where you can cause the most chaos and confusion at once. Thanks to you, the first town you visited is fucked. Nice going."

Well then.

That mystery has been solved.

What mystery?

The mystery of how I keep showing up at places where I have to deal with a load of shit.

Is this the reverse protagonist aura, where instead of going everywhere to solve all problems perfectly, I travel to the best location to destroy everything?

I get the feeling that's what this is. 

It's perfect.

"Okay. Great. So, how did me showing up ruin everything for you?" I ask Phanny. He sighs. He really likes sighing.

"I have a lot of shit to do today. Some other asshole in another world accidentally released an ancient monster of evil origins, and now that world is probably doomed. You are the last thing I want to be dealing with."

'Then why are you dealing with me,' I wanted to say, but Phanny kept talking.

"You're a destructive influence on Umber. However, because you have yet to truly become evil, I can't touch you. Yet." He paused. "If you try anything, or do anything, or do something that truly cannot be explained away... We'll send some other asshole down with a stronger ability to kill you."

"... I just came here to complain about the cookies, I don't want to hear these cliched threats." Seriously, asshole. 

"I do admit, I regret lying to you about it. We should have just sent you to purgatory."

"Yeah, and because of you, neither of us are happy." 

"Fuck you." He starts to scowl. 

"Yeah, fuck you too." I respond.

We let the silence wash over us. 

"Alright, do you need anything else?" He says, reaching around under his desk for something.

"Yeah. Can you explain to me why some of my skills don't rank up to unique, like item storage, or why some of them start at higher levels than others?"

"Oh, that." Phanny pulls out a bottle from under his desk, and rips the cap off with his teeth. Holy shit, he's metal. He takes a swig. Drinking on the job, what a badass. I mean, terrible employee. "Haaaah. Yeah, some skills are harder to get a hold of then others. In order to have a front flip skill, you'd need to be able to front flip, and not everyone can do that. Unique skills aren't unique in the idea that only one person can have them, but that each iteration of the skill can have variations. As you level up the skill, these variations become more pronounced depending on the way you develop it."

He takes another swig from his bottle. "When most skills reach a certain point, they can't become any better. That's why, sometimes skills get assimilated together to make a stronger skill. Instant Cast is like that. It's a combination of mana manipulation, chant revocation, and canceled magic circle. It may be called Instant Cast, but that's the end result of the skills combining, creating a new ability. It still contains all of the old ones, it's just been pushed a little further to give you a new power."

"So I've been given mana manipulation, chant revocation, and canceled magic circle?" I ask. "What the hell do they do?"

"Well, normally a person would have to say a chant to cast magic, or manipulate the mana with their mind. With the two skills, mana is easy to manipulate and direct without needing a clear picture or focus. Canceled Magic Circle allows you to create more complex spells that would need a magic circle without relying on the medium. Essentially, all your magic is on easy mode."

"... Wait, I'm not a genius mage?"

"No, you've just been given the tools to speed up your magic development. As I said: Easy mode."

"... FUCK!"

I thought I was a genius mage. I thought I was going to stand at the top of the world as one of the best wizards around. My dreams... Crushed.

But, I recover from my crushed dreams fairly fast. "Okay, can you tell me how the fuck to do my space-time magic?"

Phanny's frown becomes deeper. "You have the space-time attribute?"

I smile. "Do you not know my attributes?"

He takes another drink from his bottle. "It would have been really hard to check considering you were living in a world without mana. Once you entered Umber, the mana disrupts our abilities to keep a close eye on your status. We can, however, check and see what the fuck you're actually doing in general, but it's hard for us to notice the little things."

"So you didn't know I have six attributes?"

"... You have six attributes?"

"Yup."

"... You're not fucking with me?"

"Yup."

"... On your status screen, in the attributes column, there are six rows that each have their own attribute?"

"Yup."

"You realize how impossible that is, right?"

"Nope."

Phanny finishes his bottle before slamming it on his desk. "To have one attribute is normal. One in one hundred people have two attributes. To have three attributes is one out of one thousand. To have four attributes is one in one hundred thousand. Five is One in ten million." He points at me.

"You. You're a fucking freak of nature is what you are. One in ten billion is the rarity of someone with six attributes, and the rarity of the space-time makes that even more of an enigma. The chance of someone like you appearing is, hold on."

A desktop computer suddenly appears on his desk and he rapidly types on the keyboard. I had no idea they used Apple products in heaven. 

"The chance of someone like you appearing is seven out of five trillion. And it just so happens that the freak of nature gets summoned as a hero. A load of bullshit is what that is."

"... How would you feel if I told you I also had the poison attribute?"

"..." Phanny stared at me for a solid fifteen seconds before slamming his head on the keyboard. "Maz I fuckin shed--"

"Sorry, I can barely hear you when you're mumbling into your keyboard."

He lifted his head. "As I fucking said. Freak. Of. Nature. Actually, you may be beyond that even. Instant Cast is just fucking perfect for someone like you." 

"Hell yeah it is." I was wondering how I was going to give him an aneurism this time, but I'm glad the world just decided to do it for me. Life is good.

"... Do you have anymore questions, or can I send you back now?"

"Yeah, could you tell God for me to get his shit together and actually take care of the demon king himself?"

Phanny sighed. "I wish I could."

Guess we're done here. "Well, it was nice seeing you Phanny, but I've got to get back to... What the fuck was the world called again?"

He frowned. "Umber. Also, did you just call me--"

"Yeah, Umber. I've gotta get back there and finish some shit up. Essentially, you want me to stop being an asshole and do some good for the world, right?"

"Yeah."

"Great. Now send me back, and we can be done here."

"Good. I hope I don't have to see you for a while."

"And here I thought we were friends!"

"Shut the fuck up. See you."

"I'll be seeing-- WAIT I FORGOT TO SUE--"

 

And suddenly I was back in the square.