While walking under the watch of billions of stars and of the beautiful full moon, one would definitely feel the love that blossomed from couples entering different high class establishments, or the happiness that exuded from the smiles of children running around on the patch of green grass nearby their parents. It was a common sight for people who lived in major cities.

But not there; not in the crime infested city a certain man lived in. While walking after finishing his shift from his sorry excuse of a job, he failed to not notice a man being robbed by a group of people in a dark alley, a young woman, obviously drunk, being dragged towards a shabby building by two men with dirty smirks on their faces, and a family scrounging in a pile of trash probably looking for food to barely survive the evening.

“A quick death is such a luxurious privilege in the eyes of these people. If only there’s a chance I could end this kind of madness.”

He sighed dejectedly as he continued his walk towards his house.

When he arrived at the front of his apartment building, he quickened his steps after he noticed the lights in his room were on.

“Some petty amateur robber must’ve broken in again; such horrible luck.” For the robber that is.

He slowly crept towards the room while pulling out his gun from his lower back.

“I don’t care whoever you are but…”

He was dumbfounded immediately when he saw who was inside the room. An extraordinarily beautiful lady in a long silver gown was cooking something. He simply stared at her as he tuned out the random ever-present voices shouting in his mind.

“Good evening, boy.”

He jerked stupidly as he realized that she already noticed him while he was gawking at her.

“Uhh ummm, good evening? Who are you and why are you here?”

Rather than feeling angry or confused, he felt strangely comfortable around her.

“Call me Aran and I am here to simply grant your wish.”

He shook his head left and right, trying to expel the feeling he was getting.

“Hah?! The fuck are you talking about? You just barge in here even though I don’t know you, tell me you’re gonna grant a wish of mine, and I’m supposed to be fine with that?!”

He angrily shouted at her face, not even thinking why she was still calm despite the commotion she obviously was the cause of.

“Well, yes. I mean I’m even making you a fine dinner for entering without your permission. So could you please put down your gun?”

The man reluctantly lowered it while being astonished at the strange guest in front of him. Her eccentric behavior just made him considered himself a fool as if his reaction to the situation was not the right one.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Okay…so I arrive at my house to discover a good-looking lady cooking in my kitchen and telling me she simply wants to grant my wish. Is that right?”

She happily nodded as if satisfied by my conclusion.

“Fine then. Grant me my wi…”

He did not have the time to finish what he was saying before he noticed a delicate looking arm going through his chest.

“What…are…you…doing?”

He barely managed to ask the lady in front of him, who was supposed to be some meters away from him, without coughing out the blood clumped up in his throat.

“Is it not your wish to live another life?” She cutely cocked her head as she looked at me directly with her jet black eyes.

“Unfortunately, for one to start anew, another must end.”

That dazzling smile of hers was the last thing he saw before he completely lost consciousness.

----------------------------------------

“Haaah!”

The man woke up gasping extravagantly as he tried to make sense of his surroundings, crunching up his forehead immediately after as he failed miserably at that. He doubted others would as well once they have seen this.

All he saw from his position was an endless blank of white. If that was not weird enough, the random objects floating around made him thought for a moment that the lady at his apartment who killed him with only her arm was all just a bad dream. His whole body sweating profusely from just thinking about it though was proof enough that that was not the case.

“I see that you are awake already.”

He turned immediately only to find the same beautiful lady walking towards him.

“Don’t come near me! Who are you really and what do you want from me?”

He tried backing away from her but all that happened was him flailing his limbs and looking like an idiot.

“Weird. I think I already told you my name and why I came to you. Well, no worries. I am Arianrhod; do call me Aran though. And I am in the process of granting your wish.”

She introduced herself while looking proudly, as if the man being able to meet her was a huge achievement for him.

“Grant my wish?! What sane person would kill people and say she’s granting their wish?”

“Obviously, for you to be reincarnated I need your soul. And to be able to control it, I have to destroy its vessel, which was your previous body.”

“…”

After several minutes of silence, the man just accepted that it was the situation he is stuck in. He considered it not a hard thing to do when a lady of such heavenly beauty was looking at him, smiling and waiting for his words.

He sighed, irritated at himself for focusing at her appearance when all kinds of weird things were happening to him.

As if noticing his acceptance of the situation, the lady made a table and two chairs from out of nowhere and offered him a sit.

“Well, thanks I guess…”

Yeah, thank her for offering you a seat after killing you, idiot. He thought to himself.

“Where are we anyways?”

“Oh right. How rude of me, welcome to Edea. You can think of it as a dimension between universes, something similar to a buffer zone. Right here, everything you can think of, exists.”

“So that’s how you made the furniture out of nonexistent air huh?”

“Correct.”

The man felt tired of everything coming out of her mouth honestly, so he just decided to accept it as it is.

Not like I can change anything if I do not.

Also, the fact that she went happy and cute from deadly in mere moments just by describing where she lives, he assumed, was very disturbing for him.

“What’s going to happen to me from now on then?”

“Nothing much really. You would be reborn again and live you second life in whatever way you want to. A bonus, though, is that you carry every memory from your previous life to this one. Now isn’t that a good thing?”

“I doubt that it’s exactly like what you say but whatever. The bonus is at least appreciated though.”

“You’re welcome. Lastly, I’ll just warn you. Your new life would not necessarily be better than your previous one. It still depends on you.”

“I assumed it’s like that.”

“I’ll start it right now then.”

“Oka---AAAAAHHHHH!”

“Oh right. I forgot to mention that reincarnation would naturally rip apart your soul to delete all the previous memories. But it’ll fail so don’t worry. It’ll just hurt a bit.”

He did not get the chance to understand what she was saying because the pain was too much. It felt as if every fiber of his being was being shredded by invisible claws.

“Good luck and be car…”

He just watched her wave at him as he lost his consciousness once again.