A large breasted blond woman sits on a Méridienne leaning over, glancing at Anon.
“And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?”
The goddess chuckles. “What a cute way of speech. I summoned you here for a funny little game.”
“And you may ask yourself, how do I work this?”
“Straight to the point–”
“And you may ask yourself, where is that large automobile?”
“The Truk-kun? On top of you.”
“And you may tell yourself this is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.” Anon points to the goddess. Then breaks into song
“Letting the days go by
Letting the water hold me
Letting the days go by
Into the blue …. Something something
Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was…same as it ever was.”
The goddess burst out in laughter. “Are you joking in this situation?”
Anon puffs himself up and yells at the top of his lungs. “DOES IT LOOK LIKE I’M JOKING????!?!?!”
“Yes?”
With no emotion in his voice he delivers the punchline to the goddess. “Good. Cause I was.”
The goddess kicks her feet up and down like an over excited school girl before quickly calming down. “I didn’t think I had any true disciples on earth. The other gods get such a large pool, but of the people ages 16-29 I only had seven.”
“So you chose me?” He holds his hands in fists under his chin and bats his eyes.
“No, I rolled a d8.”
“And it landed on little ol me?”
“No, it landed on 8. So I just picked the one who the least amount of people would notice went missing. Easier to clean up that way. Cutting out surviving family members from Earth’s timeline is soooo hard”
—--------
“Anon! Did your god really say that?” Subaru interjects.
Anon nods.
“Then my little sister?”
Anon shrugs.
—--------
“Welp, this was fun, but a relationship with two tops only leads to frustration. So tldr, isekai, pick your shit and get out.”
A tablet appears in front of Anon. It displays his base stats and innate skills that he carried over from earth.
Body 10
Mind 16
Soul 7
Hedonic treadmill. Always return to a state of normalcy.
Low presence. People are less likely to notice you. Sometimes to a comical degree.
Dulled. Your emotions always seem to be more shallow than others.
Anon taps the little thumbs up confirming that he has read the screen.
“Stigmas, choose three restraints to put on yourself in return for more power.”
“I don’t care. I’ll just do what I want.” Anon says to himself while looking for the next button. His words auto fill into the top two lines.
“You didn’t tell me the mic was on!” He yells at the goddess who already has her back turned. She giggles but doesn’t turn around.
The next button appears after his third stigma appears.
“God powers?” He reads the next part around.
“That’s for me.” She reaches behind him and grabs the tablet. It looks like a smart phone in her large hands. Her long nails tap on an onscreen keyboard.
“And you’re all set.” she remarks as a black void opens up beneath Anon’s feet. He flails his arms to grab onto the edge as he falls through.
A very bony object breaks his fall.
“Ugh” a soft voice groans beneath him. He looks down at the skinny girl in priest robes below him. A pauldron enters his view and he is tossed to the side.
“Saintess, are you okay?”
She regains herself and assures him. “I’m fine, I guess I just messed up the coordinates of where the summoning could land.” She walks over to Anon and offers him a hand up. “I’m sorry, hero. Are you alright?” Anon nods and takes her hand. The fancy knight who pushed him off the saintness scoffs at her kind gesture. She shushes him with a look.
“Thank you.”Anon takes her hand and stands in a room with many other people. Armored knights and civilians from earth.
“We’ve summoned you here because of a great calamity, please line up and we will read your class, skills, and what god summoned you.”
—-
“Yall already know that part. They did soyjack when they read what god summoned me though.”
—--
Suddenly awakened by a dagger in his chest. He grasps at the assailant before his body goes limp. The clanking of armor fills his ears as he slowly loses consciousness. An audible pop and the dagger is on the bed next to him. He studies the ornate gold and white handle. The silver blade.
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The next morning he goes to the saintess, dagger in hand. “Someone stabbed me with this last night!” The saintess turns to her attendee. She looks at his dagger holster, his normal ceremonial dagger has been replaced by a foot soldier’s dagger. He steps forward and bows to the hero.
“I apologize for our lack of security. To think the demons would attack you on your first night. We will increase our security.”
“Demons? Already. Well I better go kill their lord or whatever.”
—---
A portal of pure gold light appears where the fire once was.
“Oh yeah, why did you agree with that so easily, you aren’t that stupid.” Subaro asks mid summoning ritual.
“Thought it’d be funny to have the demon lord’s head in one hand and then come back and be like “So who tried to kill me?”
A hand appears from the portal. Subarao takes it gently and kisses the fingers. Two large white wings begin to poke out.
—--
Once anon has left the room she turns to her attendant knight. “I’d rather the Demon Lord win then have Eris’s paladin win her this world.” The saintness shrugs. “Perhaps you are right, but you should have consulted with me first.”
Anon appears in the throne room of the Demon Lord.
“Are you the demon lord?” All eyes dart to him.
“It’s a hundred years too early until you should be here, hero.” and in a flash Anon is obliterated by a dark laser.
Anon materializes then gets hit by another laser. After the fortieth laser Anon is able to take a step forward. He slowly inches his way towards the Demon lord, constantly dying and reviving.
The demon with a strained looks meets his eyes, Anon quickly looks away. “Tenacous, are you not human? I’ve dealt with–”
Anon thrust the dagger into the demon lord’s chest. “As I was saying, I’ve dealt with super regeneration before. I even use it myself.” The dagger is slowly pushed out from his chest as tendons regrow and flesh stitches itself together.
“Dark Prison!” the demon lord shouts and Anon is engulfed in a sphere of nothingness.
Floating through an endless void a jump scare emerges in the form of a notification from the system.
“”Doing nothing is boring” Has activated. CC breaking soon….”
—----------------
Don’t disclose your god skills while a demon is present!” a shrill voice scolds Anon. Waggling a pale white finger at him then turning back to her contractor. “No, we don't erase surviving family members.”
Subaro looks monetarily relieved before Anon interjects “But if you did, would you tell him?”
—--------------
Anon appears in front of the demon lord again. He stabs him again, but the dagger isn’t deep enough to hit anything vital in the lord’s massive chest.
Anon came back with a longer sword, the demon lord can regenerate even organs. The demon lord learned that he can throw Anon away from himself. Anon used a headsman ax, strength level not high enough to cleanly chop the demon lord's head off. Demons built a catapult to send Anon away on. Anon used poison, not very effective. Anon pours holy water on the demon's face. They resort to shooting Anon out of a cannon.
This pattern continues, anon reappearing and attempting to slay the demon lord. The demon lord gets him as far away as possible. At that point half of their taxes were being devoted to research and development on launching Anon away. The citizens were starting to complain. Anon kept reappearing each time with a new gimmick to take out the demon lord. The lord was nervous that eventually through sheer brute force he would find a weakness that the demon lord knew he didn’t have, but what if? The demon lord hasn't tested everything. This was a man who could test everything. The entire budget was put into launchers, a new type of self propelled arrow was created, large enough to hold and man and able to maintain its own flight from condensed mana stones and refined black sludge. The entire army was recalled and the soldiers made a human chain around the castle, but Anon just kept getting in.
In just five months Anon had made the demon lord the most paranoid person as well as made the demons the first race on their planet to send a person to space.
—-----
“And here’s the part where you come in! After I came back from reenetry near where you were killing some dragon.”
Anon pauses his story. Queenie is looking at him with a face of horror, at least it looks like a face of horror; her large praying mantis head doesn’t show much emotion.
“Anyway, his stigmas were “I’ll kill the demon lord.” “I’ll abolish slavery.” and “I will be just.””
The arguing pair turn towards Anon. “you can’t tell her that!” Subaro’s goddess yells. Anon rolls his eyes. “Anyway, he needs to beat the demon lord or his stigma will kill him, or he’ll lose his powers, something like that. We were able to make a deal. He has unlimited stigma slots because of his god. He took my open mic stigma and in return gave me the stigma of “I’ll take 40% of Subaro’s power.” I really fleeced him. Stigmas aren't the only thing about him that’s limitless.”
“Just like how the Demon lord chooses his generals. My stigma was that I would make brood with anyone.” Queenie says.
Subbaru grabs his goddess's arm. “I don’t know if I can believe you. What proof do you have that she's okay?”
“We’ll just ask another god.”
“But you control all of them!”
Her eyes flick over to Anon. Subaro looks where her eyes went. “Anon! Summon your god.”
Anon smirks. “Fine, let me get the script.” He pulls out paper from his inventory and hands it around.
“I read what’s in yellow then you follow along with what’s in red.”
“Hey!”
He looks at the people around him. Subaro and Queen read off “What?” Anon glances at the god. “Please, don’t summon her.”
“Why? Do you guys actually erase people?”
“No it’s just…”
“Subaro! She’s covering up that she killed your sister.”
“Fine!”
The ritual commences.
“Hey!”
“What?”
“Come here.”
“I’m busy.”
“With what.”
“Just busy.”
“With what?”
“Busy.”
“Come up here.”
“No”
“Do it.”
“Fine!”
The impromptu improv group ends. A large squirreling spiral of non existent colors begins to form. Flashes of light on all spectrums begin to flash. Most incomprehensible to the human eye. Queenie falls to the ground holding her face with her claws.
A hand extends through the gateway. Anon takes it gently in his and lowers his face towards it. He holds it up and brings his lips close to it. Then at the last moment sticks his tongue out and licks the back of it.
“Gross!” a giggling goddess steps out from the portal.
“So nice to see you, my paladin. Have you won the world for me yet?”
“Was I supposed to?”
“You weren't even supposed to know.”
“Then know. I did knowt.”
The goddess grins at the joke that only she can see.
Eris turns towards the group. “So nice to see you, little sis.”
“I haven't been your little sister in eons.”
Eris rolls her eyes. After the roll they rest on Subaroo. “So did you find out?”
He gulps and nods.
“And the truth has shaken your faith in your goddess?"
Another nod.
“It doesn’t feel nice to be lied to by the people you trust does it?”
Subaros normal cold steel face begins to crack. A muffled sob fills the silence.
“Whoa kid, calm down, it’s not that deep that she dyes her roots so the gray doesn’t show.”
“Eris!”
Eris giggles as the other goddess begins to punch at her.
“Nah I was giving them my back story, the part where you said you picked me because I didn’t have any family to erase, easier to clean up.”
“Oh yeah!”
“Is it true?” Subaroo demands.
Eris smiles. “Well, it’s that or… the more mind altering gods erase the memory of the disappeared family members then restore it if they ever send the hero back to Earth, but your god is the goddess of strength, she can’t..”
“I got a favor from the God of alteration.”
“Really? Rare for you to use such tact…”
“Eris! Please. I’ll do anything. We can’t have this one turn against the gods, er, humanity”
Eris smiles and she takes the other goddesses hand. “Perfect.” She rustles Subaros hair with her other hand. “I suppose I did hear about the Alteration god offering his services to the summoners this time around. It makes sense that your kind, loving, caring, well meaning goddess of endless strength and ‘love’ would take his services……for the first time ever.”
“Really?” Subaro takes her hand in both of his and looks up at her
“Really. Kiddo. Really.”
“Thank the gods.” He sighs and takes a seat back on the log.
Eris tightens her grip on the other goddess. “It was nice seeing you Anon, watching you is the highlight of my life.” She winks then pulls the Goddess of unlimited strength with her through the impossible straight yet incredibly round portal that Eris entered from, leaving the chosen heroes, and Queen, alone.
Anon looks over at the hero from behind the golden door that Subaro’s god entered through.
“Wanna see how much dirt can fit in her godly realm? “
“What?”
“What?”
Anon takes a shovel from his inventory.