Rebirth and Spirit

When Setsuna opened her eyes again, she noticed some odd phenomena with her body, the first of which being that she didn't feel like she had a body. Looking up and down, she thought she would be before the gates of heaven and hell by now, but instead she was standing rather floating on an old dilapidated road that seemed to vanish into darkness both in-front and behind her. The only way forward was the storefront now standing before her. The architecture of said storefront was similar to feudal era japan with a giant sign above bearing the iconography of a crystal ball with the lettering 'Reincarnating Incorporated Shoppe; KARMA NOW ACCEPTED!' with the letters in capitals seemingly only recently added with red-hued paint as it wasn't faded like the rest of the lettering. Setsuna pushed open the door and walked inside to see a large room which inhabited shelves and displays filled with relics from centuries past.

Standing at the back counter was a small garish creature with green skin and elongated features including a pair of arced long ears, Setsuna remembered hearing about these back in her sessions of Pathfinder - they were known as Goblins. this particular one was wearing an extremely well-kept black tuxedo and had a small black moustache, and moved as it noticed the girl who had entered the shop which belonged to it's master at-last. Grumbling, the creature spoke as it pulled out two devices, one of which seemed to be some sort of scale and the other was a magnifying glass. "Mmm... You must be another dead customer. Welcome to the Shoppe of Reincarnating Incorporate, responsible for maintaining the workflow of the celestial hegemony's lifestream reincarnation system! We don't usually get many direct visitors, maybe once a century. How can I help you miss? Perhaps you'd like to have your previous life reviewed since you don't seem to have any Drachma?"

Setsuna had no idea about what the odd creature was talking about but she surmised from it all that she was now dead and had somehow arrived in this location after her death. With the details brought to light she began to mentally freak out, doing her best to hold her composure she simply nodded and spoke at least attempting to sound like she knew what she was doing though in truth hadn't even slightest clue about it. "Yeah sure you can go ahead and do that... So since I'm dead what, you're going to help me reincarnate into a new life? Is this anything like those isekai novels some of my gaming friends read and have been telling me about? So if I don't have any Drachma, I have to pay in Karma whatever that may be? Please feel free to explain all this reincarnation junk to me!"

The goblin grumbled at the mentioning of Isekai Novels, his master's little project attempting to garner more customers for their shop and it had worked it seemed for now he had a customer before him. Didn't mean that the goblin had to like it, however. The goblin picked up the magnifying glass and pulled it up to his eye, using the glass or rather the artifact embedded within the glass to fully examine Setsuna at length. The goblin was amazed at what he viewed, repeating details garnered by the artifact back to Setsuna verbatim. "Name is Setsuna Fujikura, Age is Thirty, Race is Human, Job is Accountant; all normal so far. Hmm... odd to see such a high willpower for a Human. Wait... what's this? Karma is 15,300.... must be from a past life or something because it looks like you lead a pretty average life during your last reincarnation..."

The first few things which the Goblin said seemed normal as they were all true and about her more or less then spoke about how it was odd to see such a high willpower which brought her back to tabletop roleplaying games like the goblin was reading a character sheet or something. And then he read the Karma off which to her didn't sound like much it was close to what she made a day in yen when working so of course it wouldn't sound like much to her. Unknowingly, each singular unit of Karma could be translated into one-hundred million Yen should the customer wish for such an exchange which came out to being nearly one million dollars united states currency give a few thousand. Setsuna tries to push away thoughts of death as she spoke. "Is that a-lot? Doesn't sound like it. Well now that you've done all that we can go to the transaction side of things right? Do you have a brochure so I can see what some of my options are for my new life? I want to get out of this weird dream and back to reality as soon as possible."

The goblin sighed and rather than explain the differences of Karma and Yen simply picked up a small brochure which contained a small list of items from their great selection then handed it over to Setsuna. The Brochure was a single-page pamphlet and had a cloudy theme with the following limited selection: #1: Basic or Uncommon Ability κ500; #2: Rare Ability κ1250; #3: Vampirism or Lycanthropy κ4,000; #4: Member of Nobility κ750; #5: Lord of Nobility κ1250; #6: Member of Royalty κ2500; #7: Artifact-Class Item κ3000; #8: Soulbound Artifact-Class Item κ6000 #9: Divine-Class Item κ5000

Reading over the Brochure piqued the interest of Setsuna, especially if she considered the fact that she really was dead and in the afterlife. Not that she considered such a fact a reality - in fact the woman still believed she slumbered deep asleep in her apartment and this was all a dream. Well, since this is a dream anyway she might as well make the best of it. And so she spoke, "I'd like to purchase three basic or uncommon abilities we'll say Assess, Fencing, and Stealth; one rare ability hmm... we'll go with Necromancy; Vampirism; Member of Royalty; and Soul-Bound Artifact. I'll convert the remaining bits of Karma into local currency I suppose. Doesn't really matter though as this is all a dream."

Hearing the last bit of words spoken by the woman, the goblin started to cackle mad with laughter. Her denial of her own death was rather amusing to say the least. Goblin hadn't had such a good laugh in at least a century or two but then again the number of customers that passed through were one every couple of decades so he didn't have a chance to practice his speech or interact with those other than his master very much. As his laughter subsided, the goblin laid down the contract before the woman for her to sign and offered her a rather off looking pen that seemed to have been made from the feather of a peacock. Setsuna looked at the pen oddly for a moment then applied ink to paper and signed her own name. The goblin smiled in glee as the name glowed with magic and floated up into his grasp.

"Your old name is mine, price for my services mind you. You'll not be able to use it in your new life nor will you remember it. You shouldn't remember anything from your previous life, but with your willpower I expect you'll carry some memories into your new life. Now, go!" And then, everything was consumed by darkness as Setsuna's vision faded and she felt the sensation of falling for thousands upon thousands of leagues over what had seemed to be hundreds of hours until the sensation eventually faded. Eventually, the first sensation to return would be sound as the girl listened to the ear-piercing cry of a child somewhere - almost sounding like it came from herself but that couldn't be... could it?