“Please do not panic. You are merely dead”, a female voice tells me. I can’t really see anything. Everything is just a blur.

I faintly see a hand reaching out to me. It is impatient. I accept it and the person leads me to what seems to be a desk with a computer on it.

A desk? Great, the afterlife is a goddamn bureaucracy... is this hell? I know I wasn’t the best person in life, ugh, was I? My memory is as fuzzy as my vision.

I look back and it seems I was in some kind of sci-fi capsule. I hope we don't go the matrix route here.

I ask her, “Can you tell me what is going on here?” I can barely see that she seems to fiddle around with a clock on the desk.

"Before that let me quickly start this timer", she fiddles around with a green cube, "...Ok, done.”

“What is the timer for?”

She explains, “To make a long story short souls need vessels to exist. The longest period they can exist safely before dissolving was ‘tested’ to be about 3.5 days", she air quotes the 'tested', "*sigh* we lost a few … billion souls before we knew what we were doing.”

“...do I get it right that that means those souls are just dead-dead? Gone forever?”

“I’m afraid so.”

My vision continues to get better again, I can make out that the person in front of me has blueish skin, what is up with that?

“Excuse me for asking, but who or what are you?”

“Oh, right sorry, haven’t introduced myself yet.", she clears her throat, "Call me Eva, I’m the deva in charge of making sure you reach the right destination on your afterlife journey. And no, I got that name before I became a deva; my parents weren’t that bad with names.”

“Well, nice to meet you? I’m... – why can’t I remember my name?”

“That’s… a common occurrence. Identities are more tightly linked to the earthly body than the soul so some memory loss tends to happen on death; though most should come back given enough time.”

“Does that include having no memory of how I died, Eva?”

“Most likely. Anyway, as you’ve died you, your soul specifically, needs a new vessel ASAP. For that, we need to do some paperwork, sorry about that, but regulations and all. I hope you understand."

She checks her watch, then continues, "Well, the final step of putting a soul in a new vessel can take up to half a day so as to not endanger more souls than necessary, I set a three-day timer. Most of my coworkers do. With me so far?”

I nod, “I think I get it. Just for curiosity, do you know anything about how my life ended? The last thing I recall is driving to work, a bit of a headache and next thing I know I’m here.”

“For privacy reasons, I don’t have access to that. But if you want to know I can give my boss a call.”

“Yes, please.”

“OK, one moment.”, she presses a few buttons on her keyboard, “It should take a few hours until someone brings the relevant documents.”

“Got it."

clatter clatter

She types some stuff on her keyboard and focuses on the screen.

I try to grab her attention, "So, what is the other paperwork about exactly?”

“Where we’ll send you, or rather where you want to go within the restrictions we have to work with. Before that, I’d need you to sign this document that states you’re fine with me processing your soul.”

She hands me a document and a pen.

I don't have a body, why can I touch them? I guess they must be a special soul-compatible material.

“Sounds like blackmail to me; do I really have a choice here? Sign or be gone.”

I glance over the sheet of paper, none of the entries makes any sense to me.

The name and date of birth fields are empty.

“What are all of these values about? Half the entries are empty and none of the rest makes any sense to me.”

She moves her mouse around, “Perfect, let me quickly note down that your cognitive facilities are working properly.”

Click

Now I’m completely confused, “What do you mean by that, Eva?”

“Too many souls are disoriented or confused after arriving here, so they tend to sign documents without understanding what really goes on or the ramifications of signing the final documents. This was just a test to make sure you grasp at least somewhat what is going on.”

My curiosity flares up again, “What about the kind of people that are too easily talked into signing anything?”

“Mostly experience. You’re not the first soul I process and our talk so far gave me the impression that you’d not be one of those.”

Eva grabs one of the paper sheets and then continues, “So before I outline what your options are you need to know that your choice is only final when you put your signature under the document. Until then you can still change your mind. Though if the 3 days are up before you do that you’ll be handled as if you went with the default choices; personally I don’t recommend that.”

“Still sounds better than just being ‘gone’."

Her gaze is glued to the screen again. Every once in a while she makes some notes on a sheet of paper.

I question her, "Before we start what do you guys even get out of this? Sorry to ask but from my experience nothing is ever truly free, you either pay too much or you are the product. Often both.”

I finally got her attention back, “Ah, sure, no problem, you’re allowed to know that. So souls carry a bit of ‘enlightenment’ energy in them. Don’t know how to call it better. We take this energy as souls can’t make use of it anyway. This energy is used to keep the universe running, prevent its collapse, stave off entropy, all the good stuff.”

“Doesn’t sound too unreasonable.”

She finally finishes her preparation. Couldn't you have done that before getting me out of the capsule and starting the doom clock?

Eva begins her explanation, "So in total there'd be 14 possible options, you only qualify for five of them."

"Does that come from karma?"

She thinks about it, "Hmm... yeah, you could more or less look at it like that. Don't worry, bad people only get the two worst options. You don't even have the one that is leagues worse than soul death. So congrats on that."

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"Uh, thanks?"

She goes on, “Ok, so here are your options: One: we wipe your memory and send you to get reincarnated.”

“Without memories, I’d no longer be ‘me’, just a different person wearing my skin, or soul or whatever. So I’d pass on that.”

She makes a note on the paper, “Got it. Two: basically soul death. We convert all of your soul into this ‘enlightenment’ energy. On average it yields the same amount as 5 reincarnations of the same soul. This option basically only exists to give the bad apples a way out. To be honest with you I kinda flounder some of the explanations with those so they end up with the eternal suffering option. What can I say? I can't stand it if they get away scot-free.”

I wave her off, “Hard pass, obviously.”

“Three: you could be turned into a deva. We’re chronically understaffed. This branch alone could use a few million more helping hands.”

I'm so close to face-palming, but stop myself at the last moment, “So a literal eternity as an office drone? I’m not too good with people handling jobs.”

She clicks a few times on her computer, “There are also options for things like finance, maintenance, logistics and low-level management. Maybe assistance for… sorry, no, I’m not allowed to talk about them. They recruit compatible devas from other offices. Please forget I said anything.”

"Noted. How many days do you get off per year?"

She scoffs, "A whole day. You're in luck. A few centuries ago, it used to be a day per decade."

“Uh, maybe if the alternatives are worse.”

She crosses off another option on the paper, “OK, four: your soul gets sent to a proper ‘afterlife’. One of seventeen afterlives to be specific. Depending on which afterlife you chose, your ‘life’ there would be different, like an eternal party, search for enlightenment, just ordinary life. Whatever makes you happy, there are several options there. Most souls last a few dozen years, maybe a hundred, before they are completely fulfilled and the soul passes on.”

“Guess even the ‘eternal reward’ isn’t eternal. And option five?”

She wildly gestures with her hands, “Option five: we rip your soul out of the cycle of reincarnation and then send it to a troubled world. Ugh, I always struggle with how to explain that properly…”

“Go on, I’m listening.”

She sighs, “Regular reincarnation can only go to normal worlds. There are some special worlds that still need help from us. So we take volunteers and send them there, well, if they have sufficient compatibility; the whole thing is kinda complicated.”

“Sounds so far like one of those isekai stories.”

Eva sounds surprised, “Oh, your world had those? That makes it easier. The thing is sometimes those special worlds ‘resonate’ in some way when they are resolved which can lead to some writers getting inspiration from it, then they go on to write a bastardized version of what really happened.”

I have to put that into question, “How often does that really happen?”

She answers, “Less than 0.1% of cases resonate, and then they only reach maybe 1-2 normal worlds out there. And given that there are countless populated worlds out there...”

I feel a headache incoming, “I think I get that so far; so is the part of ‘cheat abilities’ real?”

“That depends on the world in question. Some allow big bonuses, others even have penalties for reincarnators.”

So far I'm interested, though the 'soul divorce' part sounds offputting, “And the part about leaving the cycle of reincarnation?”

She doesn't even hesitate, “Your next death would be final.”

“Direct and to the point. Well, you said just looking can’t hurt, what are my options here?”

"Give me a moment", she hacks away at her keyboard again and then stops, seems she doesn’t like what she sees.

“Only three?”, she exclaims surprised.

That tells me nothing, “Three what?”

Eva explains, “Usually there would be at least a few thousand possible worlds but for you, it only shows three, sorry, let me call Steve quickly.”

She takes out a mobile phone and calls, “Hey Steve, can you please check for case 41819376468160, there are only three options instead of the usual thousands… uh-huh, yeah, I got you.”

Click

She turns back to me, “*sigh* OK, so we’ll just have to make do with what we have. Big boss has tied him up in some important stuff right now so he won’t be able to fix that within your time limit, sorry.”

knock knock

Eva goes and answers the door, “That was quick, thanks.”

A man at the door hands her two documents. She glances them over, signs one, and sends the man off with it again.

“That is the document about the cause of your death”, she tells me.

“What's with all the secrecy?”

Eva facepalms, “There were cases where devas were… less than professional while handling people with not really dignified deaths.”

Probably had a useless blue thing among them.

She hands me the document. I try to make sense of what is written there, “What the hell does ‘Quantum Mutation’ mean?”

“Can I see for a moment?”, I hand her the document back.

“Oh, that… is something your world wouldn’t even theorize about for another 800-1200 years if worlds with similar history are an indication. To be perfectly honest, that is not something I understand myself.

*whispers* this shouldn’t even be possible to happen there yet.”

“I heard that.”

She shrieks, “*eek*, I know you deserve to know how you died but if your world doesn’t know about it I’m not allowed to tell you. Blame bureaucracy, not me.”

“Fine, I’ll just accept it", I lie, "But your reaction tells me that there is much more to it than just a random physics malfunction.”

She waves her hand, “Okay, let me please change the topic before I say something that gets me fired. Your three transmigration options would be…”

Why does she go silent this time? Why is my luck always so bad with these government types...

She sighs, “I need to make another call, one of the three worlds is flagged to be under Gzeph’s jurisdiction. If I didn’t check the calendar earlier I would have thought today is Monday…”

She makes another phone call, “Hi Gzeph, I have a case ‘eye-dee-ten-tee’ here for your little pet project ‘Deteoh’. (…) Good, I’ll start with the other options until you’re here.”

Click

“Did you just call me an idiot?”, I ask her.

“Pardon?”, she looks confused at me.

I explain to her, “You said I’d be an ‘eye-dee-ten-tee’, i-d-10-t, read 10 as ‘i o’ and you get idiot!”

She stammers, “Oh, umm, I swear that’s just a coincidence! The auto-translation doesn't work on intention!”

I don’t believe in such coincidences, odds are far too small, “Fine, whatever. What now?”

“So until Gzeph arrives I’ll explain to you the other two world options.”

“What exactly is so special about the third that we need him?”

Eva elaborates, “Sometimes ‘heroes’ fail, sometimes multiple times in a row and we’ve only a limited amount of tries. Technically there’s also an overall time limit on top of that.”

“What happens if we fail a world within those limitations?”

She urges, “In the BEST case, everyone there dies and their souls are lost, alternatively it can also ‘fall to darkness’ which is even worse for the people. You don’t want to know what that means. I've worked here for a couple thousand years, seen it a few times and it still keeps me up at night.”

I'm curious, “If you’ve lost multiple worlds – how many worlds are you responsible for?”

She brags, “Personally? Only a couple billion. A couple of my colleagues have to handle trillions. Ready to start with the first option?”

“That is a gigantic number to take in, but sure.”

She switches to a different document, “Okay, so first world. If you’re familiar with isekai stories, this one is as plain as it gets. Be the chosen hero, gather a party, slay the demon lord.”

“Well, since it would be a struggle for my life, plain doesn’t have to be bad, what’s the catch?”

She looks for a moment over the sheet, “Let’s see… race is locked as human, you get three ‘cheats’ but two are forced to be [Doormat Personality] and [Perfect Memory]? We can choose your third bonus and the class at least.”

Doormat personality? That sounds like a curse and not a cheat, hard pass, “That sounds like it’d get to live about 50 years and be completely unable to enjoy any of it, pass.”

“Can’t refute that. Next one, what does that one have…”

This better be good, so far all of the options were questionable at best.

She suppresses her laughter, “I’m not sure if this is real or a joke but here goes: you get to be the villain in a Saturday morning cartoon-like world called Sugar Land where the concept of death doesn’t exist. If you didn’t have diabetes before you’ll get it within 2 weeks at most.”

“I’ll file that under jokes.”

“It doesn’t even list a win condition. Yeah, I can’t send anyone there in good conscience.”

The clock starts ringing.

“That was already the first day?”, Eva frowns.

“So what now? Your friend isn’t here yet and we’ve exhausted all other options.”

She plays with a strand of her hair, “I think I’ll give him another hour, if he isn’t here by then I’ll start discussing the last option we have. Until then, do you mind if I check something about the first world again?”

“Knock yourself out.”

She hacks away at her keyboard again.

After a while she stops, “So I was curious why [Doormat Personality] was listed under ‘blessings’ or ‘cheats’ as you call them; our giant database of everything tells me that it is more of a trade-off. For ruining your personality – and chances of going past friendship – it gives about five times exp gain and twice the maximum lifespan. I don’t see how that relates to the skill name but that is what it says here.”

“As long as that downside remains I will definitely pass on that.”

“I’d do the same. This was only half an hour, so what now?”

I consider it for a moment but don't have any other easy questions for her, “Just start with the final option.”

“Yeah, we can do that. But let me quickly send a text message, I forgot to send Mike an invitation to the cinema next weekend.”

“Your boyfriend?”

She frowns, “I WISH! He’s too dense to pick up on any hint I drop.”

If it wasn't for the whole 'managing death' thing I'd totally think I'm just in a generic government building here...

She finishes writing her mail then we pick up where we stopped.