James hurtled down the flight of stairs, taking them two at a time to get out of the school faster. He had been released early, and the constant motion felt great as he had been sitting down the entire school day.

He often thought about fighting monsters with a sword in his mind. The closest thing to that exhilarating feeling he he was sure he would get from killing hordes of monsters was the speed he got from doing parkour.

Anyways, James wasn’t thinking about any of that. He was just enjoying the speed. He wasn’t super in shape, but he could keep up with anyone in his school in cross country, so it was fast enough for him. He was also currently about to hit the doors of the school, so he slowed down a bit and turned to the side.

Pushing them open with his shoulder, he jogged over to the street and looked both ways before crossing. A smile split his face. He couldn’t wait to get on the bus and read the next chapter of—oh SHIT that’s a truck!

The driver honked and shouted incoherently at him, but he froze up. The truck hit him going 30 mph and then he was going 30 mph too. His final thought was how incredibly fast he was going before blacking out.

Many people believe that your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but that it obviously incorrect. The brain can only get the past bit of your life with its processing power, so it improvises. In James’s case, his brain took hold of his thoughts of speed and the portal fantasy he was about to read to make him think of the speed he was getting. His brain didn’t like the portal fantasy because James was spending a little too much time reading it and not enough time trying to get smarter. It is a well known fact among older gods that your brain does not like you, which is why so many of them are incorporeal so to avoid disagreements.

However, his brain continued to function. ‘That’s strange,’ thought James. ‘I could have sworn I got hit by a truck going 30 miles per hour or more!’

His sense of sight didn’t seem to be functioning. The brain, relieved it hadn’t stopped existing, filed that away in the “don’t touch unless you want to panic” section. Of course, James had a lot of experience with this section, as he got things out of it like late work quite often. When he looked at it – look meaning think because, y’know, his eyes weren’t working – he began to panic. His brain sighed. James was a hard candidate to work with. It returned to its daily work of studiously ignoring James’s growing mental health problems.

“Woo! That was some fast pacing kid!” an unknown male voice rang out in the blackness. James sat up, wildly looking around before he remembered he couldn’t see anything.

‘Ah. I’m blind now.’ James thought, and a felt a rising feeling of panic again as he realized he couldn’t be a swordsman if he was blind.

Of course, those thoughts were more hysteria, so it was understandable that he then curled into the fetal position and began to cry of shock.

“Uh… I thought this was what you wanted?” The voice said again, and James cursed it for being so—so nonchalant! Then his brain caught up with his emotions and gave James a million questions to ask. First and foremost, how was he blind and not dead if a truck hit him!?

“Wait, let me put some light on.” The voice said, which James could now see belonged to a man in his 20s wearing a black onesie with a visor on. James sat up and voiced his second question.

“How am I alive?”

“Oh. You’re not! You got transported to where you wanted to be after you died – a fantasy universe.” The man with two scars on his cheeks said with a cheerful expression on his face that did not at all match what should have been on his face with that news.

James, instead of responding, finally calmed down a little. He heard fantasy universe and realized what must have happened.

“I’m in a coma!” he said, almost certain that he was right. If this coma functioned the same as a dream, he could probably finally become a swordsman! After all, he’d been hit by a truck going way too fast for a school street, and people did not normally survive tha—For the second time today, he froze up. And for the second time today, he realized what happened. Only this time, he was right.

“Guess again. You’re being transported into another world by me, one of the great and powerful lesser gods of isekai. I’m sorry you were suddenly ripped away from your loved ones and life like that, but I’m also really not. I have a quota to make.” The man wearing a toga crackling with lightning and sparks said, unaware that James was inwardly shouting with joy.

He had been ready for this! He loved his family, and was sure that he would miss them and them him, but also he could go fast finally! He was getting B+s and A minuses, pretty good, but not for his parents. They had more realistic goals for him than being isekaied, like putting in the work and getting the job he wanted. He was glad to finally have a life free of that!

“I know you want this. Why else would I bring you here? We’re finally getting a better afterlife system in place. People are… guided towards where they want to go after their deaths, and some, like you, get a second life!” The man in a grey suit with moths surrounding his head and a powerful magic aura said.

“For instance, a pious murderer who thinks they deserve to go to hell for their crime will be eternally tortured for their crimes. Well, more like for a thousand years, because we can’t accommodate every wish. Traditionalist demons are expensive, you know. After that he’ll be forced to work as a paper pusher god for another thousand, then the real torture will set in. He’s forced to work in customer support for another year before getting a well-deserved paradise to live in for the rest of eternity.” The man who was actually an anime girl said, still in the slightly interested but more bored tone he- they had been using for the entirety of the meeting.

James tried desperately to not be sidetracked by the man who looked suspiciously like George Washington, but he had to sate his curiosity about the afterlife system before the other 999,998 questions bouncing around in his head. “So it only matters what you think you deserve?”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Well, yes! After death, morals don’t matter. Most gods support overall existence improving for sentients, even the neutral ones that don’t care about those matters still like life. Only the evil gods wish for life to deteriorate, but unfortunately, they do have a lot of power, as only one in a quintillion sentients don’t have any evil inside them.” The man with an apron and a cheerful smile on his face explained.

“But back to your question, only isekaied people like you affect the mortal world after your true death. True death means that someone’s soul has been removed from the mortal realms by the way. So, we have to go through this briefing beforehand to make sure that you didn’t have too bad of a negative impact on the world. But first, I will answer a few of your questions.” The man with a white mask on his face with a black smiley face drawn on it said.

“That was a big infodump. I wouldn’t want to read that whole thing. So basically, you’re saying that I’m special and amazing and the rest of the people who die just go to their afterlife directly?” James said, happy to finally have a grasp on what was going on.

“And very egotistical too, I see. Yep, except for people who want to become gods and world travelers like you, people leave the mortal realm and move to the celestial or godly realm when they have their true death. There’s traveling about in the celestial realm, as most people subconsciously feel they deserve a perfect afterlife so get to see their loved ones and others who die, but no contact with the mortal realm. There’s a lot of rules about how that functions which I can explain if you’re interested later, involving aforementioned paper-pusher gods and customer support working at faster than light speeds to get requests approved, but you don’t need to know anything except that it works, and it works amazingly.” The man with no facial features said.

“Hey! That one’s a Doctor Who episode!” James said, happy to have recognized one of the man’s appearances. He had so many questions about how long 10 years was if you work faster than light, and how time works in general, but he realized he would not understand it even if the man who was totally not spiderman explained it.

“Third… or maybe fourth question? Where am I going, and will it have blue screens? Oh and what kind of world is it?” James questioned, now sitting on an armchair that felt amazing, and made him want to fall asleep. He suddenly realized that he was immensely tired from being hit by a truck and having a long day of stress beforehand. He wasn’t going to question the non-pain, because of course he was being transported to another world (or the afterlife as he was now finding out), but he was definitely questioning why he was still tired.

“You are going to be arriving in the Elegar empire in four minutes. And of course it will have blue screens. What kind of isekai do you think you’re in? And it’s a pretty normal one. There’s magical beasts, classes, levels, magic ores that everybody wants, and a stubbornly medieval world that has been at constant war for the past thousand years.” The man who was once again an anime girl said.

“Four minutes to talk?! How will I have time to ask any more questions about the afterlife?” James said, alarmed by the fact he wouldn’t be able to know how gods were split up into pantheons. Or, that would definitely be at the top of his list. He didn’t want to be struck down by the god of capitalism for failing to introduce McDonalds to the civilization on this planet a week into this new world.

“Well, we could be there right now, but we generally let isekaiers ask some questions before getting dropped into a sun dappled clearing at the minimum of 10 miles away from civilization with a scripted encounter as soon as they wake up,” said the man who was a very good kitty yes you are yes you are.

James was true to his word to himself, and the author’s word to him to expand on the lore already. “How do gods work?” he said, narrowly avoiding a mentor being killed off before Season 2.

“Well, they generally work how humans want them to work. Your world had one god that was always swamped, and after essentially justifying the slaughter of millions of people accidentally, they vowed to take a more hands-off approach. There was quite a few pantheons in the olden days, but then you discovered physics and rewrote it so that there was only one God, but you can’t see him or prove that he exists, but everything good is his Work, and the bad stuff is this other guy’s fault. After that those pantheons died out cause everybody pretty much agreed that that was a pretty cool idea because then you can just say that God is on your side and if you lose it was the one bad guy. Incidentally, the dude down below quit after a while because he complained that “they don’t appreciate me” and that “all I did was give them free will”. If only he had stuck it out till the mid to late 1900s. Those were some wild cults.” The man in a patagonia that was too big for him said.

“Uhhhhh… This all seems disappointingly mundane,” said James, with a little less enthusiasm than before, especially considering that the man just told him that any civilization without clear documentation of real miracles is doomed to slave away on its own until the end of eternity. “But what about on this world we’re traveling to?”

“Well, that’s because a world with only humans would be. When you have real magic and unexplained physics, gods become much more clear. On Kharth, the world you’re going to, there’s a main pantheon worshipped in the human kingdoms, and an elf, dwarf, and a few other species’ pantheons. I won’t tell much more than that, because my job is to inform you of any quirks or abnormal aspects in the world. Oh, and you’re going to forget this conversation after it happens, leaving you with only general ideas that I import upon you. Wouldn’t want you to start a suicide cult who think they deserve to have a utopia waiting for them after death. That would be bad for most gods’ businesses. Well, except the cult god. There isn’t really a suicide god because people generally- Actually you don’t need to hear about this. Just remember not to-”

At that point, his voice cut off. James was falling, and there were paper thin tendrils ripping at his brain as he fell through the dimly lit tunnel down towards a pinprick of light. It was getting bigger, but James was falling asleep and as the god said, his memories were being stripped away, leaving only the feeling of being hit by the truck and something urgent that he almost knew, but not quite. He slipped into blackness and-

“Ack, sorry about that. I’m just going to keep you here for another 30 seconds so I can tell you something important. Those damn timed tunnels. Anyways, as I was about to say, remember not to scream when you wake up. That could attract monsters from the forest outside the clearing. Ok that’s about it! See you later!” The man who was literally just a cardboard box said, after ripping James back from the brink of unconsciousness, back onto the soft armchair.

James saw something opening beneath him before he fell this time, and had many regrets. He would never know what happened to isekaiers suffering their second death. Or, not until he died again of course. James knew he didn’t want to be ripped away from this new world he was entering with screens, speed, and expensive crystals. He would also not remember recognizing a pop culture reference, something he had only done a few times before in his entire life of 16 years.

At that point, his thoughts cut off. James was falling, and there were paper thin tendrils ripping at his brain as he fell through the dimly lit tunnel down towards a pinprick of light. It was getting bigger, but James was falling asleep and as the god said, his memories were being stripped away, leaving only the feeling of being hit by the truck and something urgent- oh. Don’t scream when you wake up. Don’t scream when you wake up. Don’t scream when you wake up. He slipped into blackness content with knowing only one thing, and slowed down before hitting the grass below with a soft *paf*.