“Help me truck-kun, you’re my only hope,” were Simon’s final words before he stepped out into traffi a rainy Wednesday afternoon. For him it was a messy but mercifully quid as he transformed from 29 year old man into an impromptu speed bump for the eighteen wheeler barreling dowreet to make the light. The driver fared less well, and he was he same after he had to use the windshield wipers to the mist of blood off his windshield. He did his best, smming on the brakes the instant he saw what was happening, but he never had a ce of stopping in time.

  For Simon, the hardest part of the whole thing had actually been leaving his home while people were awake to figure out which street in the area was the busiest, but still within an easy walk from his parents house. He’d sidered jumping off a bridge instead, but he was a lot more afraid of heights than he was afraid of dying, and the idea of letting someone else kill him, even by act, seemed to be the much easier option.Dying was hard enough already and he saw no reason why someone else couldn’t help him along. Besides - to really make the stars align a him the harem he deserved he really he perfect otaku ending for the hell that had bee his hikikomori life.

  He’d been a shut in for years, spurning real people for the stant disappois they were and pying games to avoid messy social iions as the world passed by without him. He’d been like this since he’d gotten id off and moved ba with his parents a couple years ago. His friends said that he was just stu a rut, but they didn’t get it. They were too busy with girlfriends or careers of their own to see how he’d steadily simplified his life to what was really important. One by ohey drifted off, giving up the online games they’d pyed together for so long. Simon didn’t care though, and ohey drifted away he rarely missed them. Ooo many Isekai light novels vinced him that his only salvation was in another world, even if the odds of such things actually existing were pretty slim. While he might not have been any good at excel spreadsheets or showing up for work on time, after the proverbial ten thousand hours spent fighting every monster uhe sun in his games, he was certain that he could save the world from the demon king or stop the undead army or whatever another world might need help with. He’d be gd to do it too - in exge for a few busty friends and some great tavern fare along the way.

  The way Simon saw it, the worst case sario was that instead of waking up in another world with an overpowered skill or two he would just book himself an express ticket to oblivion anyway. It’s not like stupid cepts like heaven or hell were actually real. Looking down the barrel of thirty he’d already decided that it wasn’t like he was going to find anything to do with his life that was better than gaming anyway, so either option worked for him. He’d had a good run. Anything would be better than this tedious mundaeh his mother pestering him to get a new job, and all of these online fascists ruining his online life with their frogs and their memes. W at fast food or retail was beh him, and none of the game design jobs he’d applied for had called him back, despite the extensive library of rare game achievements he’d attached to the resume.

  Moments after he felt the weight of the steel bumper force him underh its unfiving wheels though, Simon eeling himself off of the arble floor of a beautiful antichamber decorated in mosaid marble statuary. He smiled for the first time in weeks at that. “Well it looks like there’s life after death afterall,” he said to himself as he regarded the unfamiliar room. He was standing there in the clothes he’d been wearing earlier, and as he checked himself with his hands, he seemed he worse for the wear.

  The room had only o, and Simon walked through it, taking it all in. The stone arch led to a long hallway of life sized statues, each of which had a pque below them, though he couldn’t read them. The sight gave him hope. This was feeling less like heaven and more like a light novel with every step. That was wheurhe er and saw her: a beautiful woman sitting on a throne in the middle of the rotunda before him. The throne a dias, with a flight of stairs leading up to her perch. There was a rge bance scale o her, and the walls between the ns were filled with bookshelves, but it was hard to focus on those details though, because the light ing from the oculus in the roof made her blond hair almost glow with heavenly light. All he could focus on was her beauty as he stumbled forward.

  One look at her beatific expression and he knew he’d made the right decision. This was a deity that could uand him and the difficulties of his life. She could help him find something more suited to who he really was. She could help him find true happiness. When he finally reached the top, he just stood there while she regarded him, and he fidgeted nervously, resisting the urge to bow.

  “Wele Simon, I’ve been waiting for you.” The goddess’ voice was as beautiful as the rest of her and it filled him with hope.

  “T-thank you, your majesty,” Simon said, just barely overing his shyness. It was only after the words left his lips he realized that his honorific didn’t sound quite right, but he wasn’t sure what he should call her exactly. What did you call a living breathing goddess that was sitting right in front of you?

  “Oh, please,” she ughed musically. “You call me Hedes. There’s o be so formal. This is hardly the first time we’ve met after all.”

  “It isn’t?’ Simon asked, fused. He was sure he’d remember someohis beautiful, even if he walked past her oreet.

  “No oo try their hand at being a human without a few dozen reinations as a lesser animal. This isn’t even your first life as a human.” She expined patiently, “That’s what reination is for. Maturing and distilling souls to prepare them fger aer things. It’s why we’re all here.”

  “Then why don’t I—” Simon tried to ask before she brushed him off.

  “No one remembers,” she shrugged, starting to sound a little bored. “Just like no one remembers to step on the scale before I ask them o.”

  “Oh, Sorry ummm… Hedes,” he mumbled, turning around and grabbing the ter bance for support as he stepped on to one side. The other side was empty save for a thin tome, but still, the scale barely moved. While he stood there taking it all in he realized that she probably got very bored answering the same questions and expining the same things over and ain.

  “I see,” the goddess said, lifting her arm. As she raised it, the book flew from where it was ying on the scale to her open hand, and o arrived it flipped open, and started flipping through the pages on its own until finally stopping at somethihe end of the book.

  “Ahh - yes, that’s what this is then.” she said, finally looking baon, “Okay - you get down now. Why don’t you tell me what you’d like for your life.”

  Simon coughed, clearing his throat before he unched into the spiel he’d been preparing for almost a year now. “All I want in my life is everything I was missing in this one. Love. Meaning. Adventure. I want to be reinated into a fantasy world where I grow up to be a hero and—”

  “Sorry,” she interrupted, “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”

  “What?” Simon asked. The statement was a mental suckerpund left him fumbling for words. “Are there no such thing as fantasy worlds then?”

  “Oh, it’s not that,” The goddess replied. “I’ve got an infinite amount of possible worlds I could send you to. More than you could imagine. But you simply aren’t cut out for such a role.”

  “B-But I —” he tried to defend himself.

  “There’s nothing you say that would surprise me Simon. It’s just - how would people from your world put it? You ck the experience points for that sort of css. If I let you do that sort of thing I’d just be setting you up for failure and putting the destinies of tless other souls in danger,” she said, sounding almost ciliatory. “We o be realistid look at lives that better suit who you are, deep down, and what you’re actually capable of.”

  “Other choices?” Simon asked, as he mao avoid g, but failed to keep the disappoi out of his voice. He’d never sidered the option that he might get all the way here only to be cast back down into another life where he was just another nobody all ain. “Like what?”

  “Well, based on your past lives I think you should give koa or sloth ary, but if you wao try something new I think that musk ox or bck bear might be a good fit.” She smiled. “If you’d like a plete list though…”

  “You think I should be… a-a bear in my life? A fug bear?” As he sputtered, first with fusion, and then with e at the idea, but the goddesses expression remained pcid. He was about ready to open his mouth again and really give her a piece of his mind when he finally opehe book floatio him, and thought better of it. Yelling at someone wasn’t the way to get what you wanted uhey were a burger sve at a fast food resturant. He’d learhat lesson too many times. Talking to your boss like this would get you fired, he reminded himself as he opened up the book and started leafing through it in an attempt to calm down. He didn’t even want to know what would happen if you pissed off a goddess.

  “You’ve been a bear many times. You seem to do well as an upper level omnivore. I know it might be strao think about, but if you give it a shot…” While she spoke, he flipped through the pages. Most of the entries were lined out, which presumably meant he couldn’t choose them, but most of the furry ones remained avaible. Koa. Leopard Seal. Lma. Manatee. Meerkat. Moose. Mountain Goat. Musk Ox. The list went on and on.

  “How short am I on experieo be human?” Simon asked finally. His mind still rebelled at the idea of being an animal, but if he appeared to be reasoo er service agents then sometimes they beore reasonable. Maybe if he pyed along he’d find a back door. To get what he wanted. If he could just weasel himself a path to a peasant in a fantasy world he could bee the hero no matter what she pnned for him.

  “Well - if a soul needs a million experience points to bee an average human…” she said, p the question, “Then I’d say you have about 150,000. So you’re pretty far from it, but you have enough points for a red panda. That could be fun, right?”

  “But that’s way off,” Simon protested. That’s like… I’d have o live until I was 120 just to be a person again? How is that fair?”

  “Now, now,” the goddess said, her patiearting to show cracks. “You were on track for a perfectly normal life until you ended your early. There’s a big penalty associated with that sort of thing. You lost… call it a quarter million experience points. See for yourself.” As she spoke, the book on her p floated over in front of him. The page on the right had all sorts of entries about his achievements and failures and eae had a number o it. The most ory was ‘wasted day -5. There were lots of other ehat stood out thought too; have a happy birthday +300, get fired from your job -500, beat a video game +25, it suicide -250,000. The other side of the book was more iing though, auro look at it, just for a sed until she suddenly snatched it back from him.

  It had a list of his previous inations, along with grades o them. There had been a lot of sloth lifetimes rated A and B+, and a handful of human lives with C- to F o them. It was the most depressing thing he’d ever seen, and a crushing blow to his ego as it sank in. So he hadn’t just bee up to fail in this lifetime, but in all of his lifetimes? That was so incredibly unfair.

  “So you’re tellihere’s no other way?” he asked, resigo his fate, however unfair it might be, as he sat down on the scale. “My only choice is to be an animal for another dozen lifetimes and then try again?”

  “Well,” she answered, a little hesitan her voice. “There are penance lives and punishment inations, but I wouldn’t reend them for you. You don’t have that much bad karma to work off, so that would be needless suffering on your part.”

  “Wait, no,” he said, smming the book shut. If there was anything he could do to avoid being a damned musk ox then he was going to do it. “Tell me more about those.”