Chapter I: The Deal of a Lifetime

Many people ask, "What is there after death?"

After a recent freak accident I was in, I reached the answer to the quintillion dollar question. Nothing. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

Just a vast space of black nothingness with no sound, no sense of time, and not an entity in sight. I don't know how long I stayed there motion-less, but I would have lost my mind if not for the bouts of unconsciousness that came over me from time to time. A coping mechanism perhaps? The human psyche was not designed to survive such severe lack of sensory input for prolonged periods of time.

Time went by - or so I hoped - between the episodes of consciousness and unconsciousness with no change happening to my surroundings.

Well, not entirely since sometimes I would see wisps of light appearing suddenly then disappearing just as fast into void, I chalked it down to my eyes playing tricks with me - if I still had eyes that is.

Then, when I regained my consciousness for the nth time, I was greeted by a different scenery. There was a simple velvet room, with a simple mahogany table in the middle with a faceless humanoid being of light in a velvet suit sitting behind it. Noticing my presence, they opened their arms welcomingly.

"Ah, deceased soul, welcome to the velvet room," their voice, neither feminine nor masculine, came in greeting although they had no mouth to speak from. "Don't stand on ceremony please, for our topic of discussion is of much importance."

Staying in an empty void alternating between spells of consciousness and unconsciousness for who-knows how long, I was deservedly disoriented by the sudden change in scenery.

Looking down at myself, a hazy, luminous, humanoid body with no apparent features came to my view. I had a body again! A wierd luminous body but still a body!

I looked at the faceless being behind the mahogany table who had waited patiently as I came to my bearings. Then, walked over to the table and sat on the chair that suddenly manifested when I reached it. "Uh, hi," I greeted unsurely, not exactly an expert in the etiquette used in such situations.

The faceless entity clapped his hands and I got taken aback as suddenly a transparent window appeared before me, "Now, now, we could stay here and do pleasantries for all eternity but neither of us are that bored are we? Let's get into juicy details."

My clueless and shocked expression, if my new body showed one, didn't seem to hinder him as he took charge of the conversation.

"As you may have noticed, you are very much dead. A very unfortunate series of events lead to your untimely demise."

"Untimely demise?" I wondered on their wierd choice of words.

"Precisely, one of our new employees had a fluke and may or may not have shattered your hourglass of time." he replied with no fluctuation to his tone as if trying to gloss over the entire issue.

"Excuse me? What?"

"The technicalities of it are of no consequence. What's important; however, is that ,due to the hourglass shattering, you died and all if your deeds from your life whether good or bad were lost. Basically, it was as if your existence got a hard factory reset as you mortals say."

I sat there in silence as I took in the information I was given, not knowing how I should feel. The other room occupant, being the considerate being he is, continued on.

"Now, I know this is a lot to take in and everything but I am a busy being with places to be and important things to do. Fortunately for you, there is a silver lining to your predicament, the higher ups have decided to give you a new chance at life. Exciting, isn't it?" they said in monotone, thier tone not betraying any emotions.

Before I could formulate a response, a series of words appeared on the transparent window before me that read, 'World Selection Roulette'. Below it was a box that changed it's contents faster than I could see it. Soon, it became slow enough that I could read some of the contents: Bleach, Warhammer 40K, DxD, GOT, Mass Effect, etc. Those words tingled the deep abcesses of my memory but due to either the long period of time I spent in the abyss or something about this room their meaning was lost to me. The roulette became even slower and it finally stopped at:

[Mato Seihei no Slave (Class 4)]

What was a 'Mato Seihei no Slave' I didn't know and the class thing didn't ring any bells in my luminous noodle.

My faceless roommate didn't trouble themselves to explain it to me. "Great with that out of the way, now comes the tiny details of our little endeavor here. Due to the fluke being mostly on our part - allegedly; the higher ups gave the green light to give you a helping hand for any new world you shall find yourself in so that you won't die immediately upon exposure to said world's various flaura and fauna."

"Said helping hand, includes a number of traits chosen randomly by our system according to the danger class of the world you are being thrown into with a basic understanding of what they could do automatically ingrained in your new brain. Wouldn't want you complaining about being given things you don't know how to use."

Just as he said that, the window before me got cleared before being filled by a new series of words that read, 'Trait roulette'. Unlike the other roulette, this one had several boxes whose contents changed faster than I could follow. Soon, it started slowing down before eventually coming to a halt at:

[Legendary House Husband: You have the innate knowledge and skills to become a legendary house husband.]

[Stress Feedback: When your body experience stress, it will slowly adapt and evolve to counteract the stress.]

[Berserk: You can remove the biological limits on your body and enter a furious rampage.]

[Combat Instincts: You have high innate instincts for combat such as knowing where and when to strike an opponent to hurt them the most or how to move your body to dodge an attack.]

A wave of nausea came over me as information got forcefully pushed into my head. Don't they have a less painful way to do this?

After the mild torture I experieced, the window's contents changed again, this time showing the words, 'Law of Causality Balancer'. As the contents of the box on the window rolled, the being in the velvet suit massaged their shoulder, "We're finally at the end, now we only need to change the world you enter a bit to balance your presence there so that the laws of casualty don't rip apart your soul during the crossing." I gulped at the casual mentioning of my soul being ripped apart, it felt just as painful as the mental image in my mind made it out to be.

[World Deviation by 0.3%]

"Now, all information about this meeting and any lingering memories of your old life shall be taken from your mind for security reason. Please understand that it is company policy."

I felt something literally grab onto my head and rip a chunk of it off causing me intense agony.

Meanwhile, as I was thrashing in pain while holding my head, the faceless asshole clapped his hands before saying, "Okay, I guess that's all; write us a good review on your return. Godspeed."

Then, everything when black again.