A New Life

Suddenly, I can see again. There's a beautiful garden with white roses, and in the middle is an elegant table where a man is sitting. He appears otherworldly, there's even a slight glow around his body. Is this heaven? Does that mean that my cats that had passed away are here too? He looks in my direction and waves his hand. I feel my body move towards him, it doesn't seem like walking, but something else. Now I'm at the table with him, strangely I'm unable to feel my body until he gestures me towards some treats on the table. It feels like he's got full control of my body, that's a bit rude. But I guess, it's normal for dead people? Should I base it on living logic or dead logic?

*This god had troubled himself to bring the human to him before she crossed over.*

"I've been watching you for a while." He starts, looking at me gently. It sounds like a weird confession to make. I mean, what exactly was there to watch? My life was pretty boring to most.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" I ask, intrigued for how long he managed to watch before becoming bored. Even my parents were bewildered about how I lived my life.

"I did. Your life was pleasant. A lot of people in that world try too hard. You lived, and enjoyed yourself with the little things. I'm the God of Laziness. I just sit here most of the time, sip some tea, have some cakes, and watch people's lives. But a lot of them are too stressful. Your life was carefree, and loving. I enjoyed it a lot. I feel very unfortunate that you've died, I'll have to look for someone new to watch now…" He seems to be reminiscing while snacking. I'm touched that he cared about my life. I also cared for it. Now that I'm dead, I feel a complicated feeling. I wish I hadn't died, I wish I could still keep living. But with my cats.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it. I would do anything to continue living the life that I had." I continue to sip tea, which strangely didn't taste like much. Maybe because I never really drank tea in my past life, and couldn't remember what tea would taste like. It was pretty bland, like drinking nothing. The sweets on the other hand, tasted pretty nice. The one on the left looked like a bread roll with sugar on top. I used to buy sweets on my off days, when I could spend a bit extra on the side.

*This god gave it some thought.*

"Well…" He turns his head to the side, looking out in the garden. I turn as well, trying to figure out what he's looking at. The garden has many different types of flowers. Some look familiar, while others look a bit strange. There are flowers of various colors, some glow, and some look alike to flowers that I've seen before.

"I guess I could???" He looks back at me, and looks me up and down. Not much to see here. Keep your eyes off the prize, pal. I chuckle. I'm dead already, but that doesn't mean I've lost my sense of humor.

"Let's do this. I can help you reincarnate into a new world. This garden connects multiple worlds together. Each flower represents a different world. I can't be bothered to pick the world for you, but I will give you a recommendation. Some of these worlds have magic, and some of them have war like infrastructure. I would rather not watch you in a world that is too dangerous. So I'll just give you a heads up." He turns again to the garden, and points out two different flowers. One is a very gentle yellow, it almost looks like lilac. The other is a weirdly shaped purple flower, vaguely shaped like a heart.

*This god had done this before only a couple times, but had heard of other gods doing it much more often. They took pride in placing gifted children in the worlds. (Which was what these gods called the reincarnated people.)*

"You should go up to them, just… don't touch." I sit up and walk over to the purple flower. Up close, it looks unattractive. It reminds me of a poisonous frog. I decided to check the other one out instead. The other flower is large but doesn't appear domineering. It isn't scary looking, or strange. Instead it reminds me of a flower that I would often see in the country-side. It's petals are small but it's defining feature is how close the petals are to each other. Like a cute community of petals. It's much more attractive than the other flower.

"What's this one called?" I look over at the God of Laziness.

"It's called a Ysyringa. The world associated with that flower has magic but the world hasn't been through a war in over 20 years. It's peaceful. It's possible that a war could break out, but if it does there are enough heroes to keep the war short. It probably wouldn't affect you if you were to reincarnate there. It's a good choice." He wanders over to the two flowers. Watching him move is weird, he looks like he's walking but it's so slow. But also so fast at the same time. Most likely, my human brain can't understand his movements. He's a god after all.

"What about the other one?" I only ask out of curiosity. The ysringa was my choice already.

"The other world is peaceful for the most part, but otherwise they sometimes get attacked by dragons." I'm not interested in fighting dragons, though it would be cool to see one.

"Okay, I've picked this one." I point at the yellow flower.

*She picked the one that this god had hoped.*

"Good choice. Now you're free to demand power or skills from me. Most people in this world have at least one skill that they're born with. So we'll do a baseline of one skill. What would you like?" We're both at the table again. He has got to stop teleporting me around, it's making me dizzy. Though after a couple times, I'm starting to get used to it.

*This God doesn't know the rules of Gifted Children too well but it'll be fine.*

"I want my cats." I really just want to have my cats.

"Huh? Well, it has to be a skill. Be a bit more creative than that." He continues to sip his tea while waiting for my answer. I don't know much about magical skills, but I did know that it had to be centered around my cats. So I just made something up.

"I want the skill of 'Summoned Beast'. I want to be able to summon every cat that I've interacted with in my past life. Including the cats I left behind when I passed away." He smiles at my answer. He probably doesn't realize that I've interacted with hundreds of cats. The day where I get to live with hundreds of cats in harmony will come soon!

"Okay, so a Summoning skill. I can work with that." He taps on the glass table, and a screen appears. I can see my house, my body and my cats. I suddenly want to cry, but I can't seem to cry in this body. I'm thankful because I don't want to cry in front of him.

*This god makes a clause to limit the Summoning skill, so that she can only summon cats that she can fully remember. Since she died at 78, dementia must have kicked in by now.*

"But since you're going to a magical world. I'm going to add that every cat will come with one skill as well. You'll reincarnate and immediately start out with the 12 cats on this screen. I'll add a beast taming skill, since if people see the beasts on you, they'll probably get confused about it." He switches the screens and starts to write everything down. He's much better at thinking about ideas than I am. The most magical thing I had experienced in my past life was probably the first cat I had when I was 5.

"Can you make it so that only I can see the cats, unless I dictate otherwise?" I thought that 12 cats would probably be surprising in a magical world.

"Okay, I'll give them invisibility." He writes it down on the screen.

*This god writes down that the invisibility can only wear off if the master wishes it to.*

"Also can you make them immortal?" He stops writing after that. I'm not sure if I'm asking for too much, but I have a reason for it this time.

"Really? Why?" He seems confused or surprised that I'd ask for something like that. I am too, but if I'm going to live in a magical world with my cats, then I refuse to let them die.

"I've experienced countless deaths, I don't want to see another one of my cats dying." I still remember every cat that I've had in the past, each death has brought me turmoil. If I could keep them away from death, I would.

*This god somewhat understood the sadness of seeing those around you die.*

"Alright. I'll add immortality but if you die, they will perish along with you, anything else?" He finished writing down his notes and peered over at me.

"I have a question first before I continue… The summoned beast skill, what does that include? Could I talk with my summoned beasts?" After the last bite of the sweets, a new biscuit appeared on the plate. This is a very convenient world.

*This god wasn't fully sure, but thought that sounded right.*

"Yes. That would be included." He wrote it down as well. I didn't know what else to ask for.

"Can I have the beast taming skill limited to only felines? Like cat ears, cat tail, type felines."

*This god didn't fully understand, but after thinking a bit, thought this god understood.*

"I can do that too." He wrote it down, then asked if that was all again. I nodded.

He then got up and walked to the garden again. I had once again, magically teleported behind him. I was starting to get used to it, so this time I was less dizzy afterwards.

"When you reincarnate, you'll have some starting gear and a small amount of gold. Use the gold wisely cause it's not much in this world." He points towards the flower.

"Do I just… touch it?" I knelt down near the flower and looked up at him. He towered over me, and nodded. I was prepared to travel to a new world, just so I could continue to live for my cats.

I reached out towards the yellow lilac, when I touched it, I could feel it's soft petals on my skin. It felt more real than anything had during the entire conversation with the God of Laziness.

*This god would see them again.*

"Goodbye, child." That was the last thing he said to me, before I felt my eyes close.