Mateo suddenly opened his eyes, looking up into a vast blue sky. He was cool, but not cold. Felt nice really. He honestly was expecting a hospital setting, so this was a bit of a surprise to him. He tried to sit up, but couldn't put much strength into his body. Less nice now. The last thing he recalled was a still image of a large truck about to strike him. He didn't FEEL in pain, but he didn't really feel anything right now besides a strange sense of calm, which was ironically making him panic a bit.

"Uh-" he finally got a word out, only to immediately be cut off.

"Oh! You're finally awake!" A young, feminine voice spoke. "That's good, this can be a pretty disorienting process for some!"

There was a small giggle off to the side, before he heard someone scrambling through what sounded like water, rapidly running up to his side before standing above him. What entered his vision was a young looking girl with solid white locks of hair that fell to her shoulders and bright, golden eyes. A small wreath of golden leaves fell over her shoulders, but otherwise she was wearing what looked like a white gown. She then gave a big smile to him.

"How are you feeling? I know you can't really move right now, but take a moment to focus and you'll be able to sit up."

Her voice was kind, at least. That was somewhat reassuring. Mateo considered his situation for a moment, trying once more to sit up, but only managing to twitch his arms. The kind looking girl gave a patient smile. Finally, he asked the big question.

"Didn't I die?"

"Ah-" her expression shifted, being slightly evasive. "Well, that's a difficult question. Sort of? Some of your internal organs were pretty much obliterated, some of your bone fragments have pierced your softer tissues and torn them up, and you lost quite a lot of blood before EMTs got to you. Technically you should be dead, but I'm making sure you aren't for now."

Now THAT got his attention. He managed to get a surge of strength from sheer panic for a moment, sitting up so fast he headbutt her nose.

"Wait, what?!"

The girl flinched backward a bit, less from pain and more from surprise by the look of it.

"Ah! Hey, you recovered pretty fast! I've heard some people take hours to recover motor functions upon awakening in this world for the first time!"

Mateo blinked.

"In this world..?"

He looked around him. He was wearing a similar white gown to the girl in front of him, but otherwise they appeared to be sitting on an endless expanse of shallow water, reflecting a cloudless blue sky above. He looked at his hands, and then his arms. He didn't SEEM injured. In fact, he seemed healthier than normal. Some of his panic left him, replaced by a non-zero amount of unease at just how everything around him looked.

"Where... am I..?"

The girl bounced a little on her knees as she settled a few feet away from him.

"Good question! I'm glad you're lucid enough to ask something like that! Basically, you're in the Realm of the Gods."

He looked at her again, blinking incredulously. 

"I'm in the where-of-whozit-now?"

She clasped her hands together, seemingly happy at his questions. "Realm of the Gods! Sorry, this is my first time doing this too, but I'll try my best to answer your questions here!"

Mateo tried to hold his hands forward, but instead lost his balance and fell face first into the water, before turning over, lying back up and staring at the sky again.

"... you said I'm not dead. What... am I doing here then? Am I about to die..?"

"Oh! Well, sort of, but I won't let that happen as long as I'm talking to you, so don't worry about that."

Mateo didn't exactly know how to take that, so he stayed mute. After a pause, the girl took his silence as a cue to continue talking.

"So, getting this out of the way first and foremost, I'm a Goddess. albeit a minor one. And I summoned you here because I had a proposal for you. You're free to turn this down of course, but I'd like you to at least hear me out first."

Mateo slowly nodded along, trying and failing to absorb all of that, but not exactly having it in him to stop her. A smile came to the girl's lips.

"So, it's common practice for Gods to summon people from your world upon their deaths, whether natural or unnatural, using miracles. The purpose of which is to give those people their blessings and put them into other worlds in need of help, usually while bearing their crest, in order to solve a variety of issues. Usually defeating some monster or demon lord or something else like that. However, it takes a lot out of a God to bring out the divine power needed to create a miracle capable of summoning forth a soul. Not to mention having to wait for the precise moment that someone with any amount of potential will die."

Mateo stopped his nodding, finally holding out a hand.

"Wait wait, give me a moment to process. That's was.... a lot."

The Goddess beamed down at him.

"Of course, take all the time you need!"

He sighed, staring up at the sky still. Frankly, he wanted to be skeptical right now. However, he was inclined to believe the girl was a goddess simply because of how devoid of imperfections her entire form was, as well as a subtle hint of energy around her that told his instincts something was simply not human about this woman. And he tended to trust his instincts. He scanned over all of her words a few times in his head a few times, before deciding it'd be easiest just to swallow them all for now. It's not like he could go anywhere even if he could move. After about 20 seconds of this, he nodded, swallowing a bit.

"Alright, keep going."

The Goddess stood up now with a bit of a hop, arms spread out to the side.

"Soo~o, with all I just said taken into consideration, what do you think happens if that 'Transmigrator' turns out to be evil, or gets corrupted by power?"

Mateo considered that seriously for a moment. Maybe the water had some calming effect, or maybe he otherwise was just trying to focus on this instead of the recent memory of getting hit by a truck, but right now he was actually pretty focused on the girl speaking to him right now.

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"They'd... have to summon a second person to stop them, right?"

She snapped her fingers at him with a slightly more sly grin.

"Correct! However, remember what I just said about the high cost of performing that miracle in the first place, combined with the effort of actually finding an individual capable of downing their first Champion?"

Mateo nodded along again, considering the implications of that.

"So it might be awhile before any help actually arrives... right?"

The Goddess leaned down a bit, extending a hand toward him.

"I'm Viola, by the way. A Goddess of Ballistics."

Mateo, briefly surprised by her sudden introduction, stared at her hand for a few seconds before hesitantly reaching out and shaking it.

"Mateo... a... 23 year old college dropout."

Viola smiled wider at him.

"I know, I did a bit of a background check while looking for potential people to summon."

"Just thought it'd be polite..." Mateo muttered to himself.

"Well, moving onto my main point here. I want to open a small business in the Divine Realm."

This caught Mateo's attention as he let go of her hand.

"What does THAT entail..?"

"Well, put simply, I'm a minor Goddess. It can be pretty hard for me to gather Divine Power, since I don't have any worshipers. It'd take a while to set up a proper church, and even if I did, I can't imagine people would pick a Goddess of my type over, say, a God of Harvest or a Goddess of Fire. So, I wanted to try something a little different." she held her hands out toward him. "And that thing will be you, hopefully."

Mateo shook his head, finally sitting up again.

"What now?"

"I want to train a 'Hitman', someone who specializes in taking out people who betrays their benefactor God. In exchange, that God will give me some Divine Power, and we'll both walk away happy. I'll even compensate you for your troubles~"

Mateo paused at the fact that she'd so casually, still smiling at him the same way, asked him to effectively become a hired killer.

"... you want me to kill people...?"

"Bad people."

"Even still..." he shrank back a bit. 

"Look, after you kill them, their souls will just return to their benefactor God anyways, who will punish them as they see fit for the whole 'turning evil' thing."

"That's not exactly lessening my moral quandary here..." he held his head some. A slightly sinking feeling tingled in the back of his mind now, before he slowly looked up at her again. "... you said you were the one making sure I wasn't dying, right?"

"Ah, yeah! I'm using a very small but steady miracle to keep vitals in tact long enough for the hospital to stitch you back together. Frankly they're all amazed you're pulling through. Your older sister's pacing around the lobby right now, worried sick. Although, if the miracle does burn out, you're pretty likely to die here."

He looked down some, considering her statement some more. "... you..." he closed his eyes, taking a bit longer. Thankfully, Viola seemed to be a very patient Goddess, so when he finally opened his eyes, he'd finished absorbing and considering everything she'd said, and she was still smiling. "... so the job would just be killing those who'd turned evil, right?"

"Correct!"

"And you looked around and saved my life just to ask me to do this job, right?"

"Also correct!"

"... why me?"

Viola sat back some. "Well, to be honest, there were a lot of factors going into you. First of all, you seem to be a good guy. I mean, you got hit by a truck pushing a little kid out of the way of it. That's pretty noble. Way more than most. Second, you live in America, so you obviously know how to shoot a gun-"

Mateo held up a hand. "Hey, just because I'm from America doesn't mean I automatically know how to use a gun, and why is that important anyways?"

"I'm a Goddess of Ballistics, it'd stand to reason that I'd be putting a gun in your hands. Anyways, you don't know how to shoot?" she briefly looked a little panicked.

Mateo paused for a few seconds, before swallowing back a sigh. "Okay, so, I do actually know how to shoot a gun, but it's not because I'm American."

Viola just smiled slyly back at him, not pushing that point any further. "And finally, your bloodline."

"My..... bloodline?"

A swirl of golden mist appeared in Viola's hand. "Yes, though to explain that I need to explain a few fundamental parts of your 'Earth' you live on."

Mateo went quiet again, nodding along again to Viola's very patient explanations.

"So, basically, for a reason unknown to the Gods, something in the core of your planet prevents magic. The people of your world tend to be born with decently high magic potential, making them prime candidates for summoning, but otherwise as long as you live on your world you'll never, ever be capable of accessing that potential. However, there ARE 5 types of magic that can bypass that, though they have their strength reduced by a factor of 100. The Divine Miracles of the Gods, and the Magicks of Demons, Yokai, Fairies, and Dragons, though Dragon magic is reduced by a factor of 1000 instead."

Mateo froze at the revelations about Earth that were being spoken about so casually in front of him.

"YOU are a pretty nice catch yourself. On your mother's side, you've got Yokai blood, and on your father's side, you've got Demon blood. Both of them were a few generations ago, but it's there. And that's what's important to me."

Mateo blinked a few times in rapid succession, trying and failing to absorb that one. 

"Wait, I'm part- huh??"

"Riiight? I did a lot of searching to find someone with blood like yours. Unfortunately it'll likely be a long time before you can use any of that kind of power, but that's besides the point."

Mateo stared down at his hands now at the revelation that even if it was only a slight amount, he wasn't exactly entirely human. He was pretty sure if it wasn't for the strange aura Viola had to her, he wouldn't have believed her so easily.

"So, you're saying you picked me because... I have potential?"

"Correct! Well, the other factors were present too. Don't think I'd have just picked anyone with some nonhuman blood, however uncommon."

"Why is that so important?"

"Well, there's a bit of an issue with having the same person move world-to-world. The skills don't always translate too well..."

Mateo looked up from staring at his palm now. "What... does that mean?"

"Well, not every world has the same laws and systems governing magic. So, er, when you move to a new world, any skills you have that weren't obtained FROM that world are reduced in strength by a factor of 10. The exception is universal powers, like the ones I named earlier. So a hitman with innate powers like yours that translate to all worlds at full strength is a lot more efficient!"

Mateo nodded slowly, now piecing fully together why he, of all people, was chosen for this.

Viola clasped her hands together. "Sooo.... pleasepleaseplease say yes? It took me 30 Earth-years to gather up enough Divine Power to fully put together everything for this! Unlike most Transmigrators, you'll be able to go through worlds a lot more freely, meaning on your off time you'll be able to return to Earth from here, as well as return to any worlds you've previously had jobs in. And even though you can't bring magic to Earth, you'll be more fit and-"

He held his hand up, stopping her more ramble-y rant in its tracks, considering in his head for a full minute, before looking up at her with a a very serious expression. "One more thing. You said it's your miracle that's keeping me alive right now, and if you make it go away I'll die right?"

Viola nodded.

"... then. If I say no here, will you release that miracle, and allow me to die?" 

There was a short pause, then Viola shifted indignantly.

"What?? No way, even if it took me a while to scrap together this Divine Power, I'm not a monster who's trying to threaten you into working for me here. I'll keep the miracle up and go back to gathering power for a bit. I've gotten pretty good at begging." she let out a slightly smug smile, seemingly proud of something she really shouldn't be.

However, that was enough of an answer for Mateo. He extended his hand.

"Alright."

Viola blinked. "Alright..?"

"I'll do it."

Viola paused, before her eyes lit up and she smiled wide.

"Wait, really? Woo! I thought it'd take a couple of tries to find someone willing to be a hitman for me!"

Mateo let out a sigh as what he just agreed to was laid out to him again. 

"... to be honest, if you said you would have just let me die if I said no, I'd have said go ahead and do it. I didn't want to work for someone like that."

Viola turned back toward him, extending her hand toward him. "... so, we have a deal then?"

Mateo gave her his first smile now, taking her hand and shaking it. "Yeah, we do."

Right as they shook hands, a large blast of light went between them, before everything went dark. As he faded off back into sleep, blue text appeared in his vision.

[GUN GENERATION LEVEL 1 ACQUIRED]

[BULLET GENERATION LEVEL 1 ACQUIRED]