When morning rolled around, Mateo felt something nudge his side a few times. A moment later, it resumed. Finally, he opened his eyes to see Elijah standing over him.

"You forgot to set your alarm clock last night, didn't you?"

Ah shit, he'd been so caught up in anticipation for his dreams that he'd forgotten to do so. Elijah looked into his eyes for about 10 seconds before adding.

"Though, maybe you SHOULD keep sleeping. You look like shit, man."

Mateo grumbled as he sat up, rubbing the back of his head some.

"It's fine, dude. You wanna run around with me today while I say bye to Finn and quit work?"

"Nah, much as I wanna, I got investigating to do. Came to say I'll see you later, keep in touch, and I'll see you when you get back."

He held up a fist for a bump. After a moment, Mateo smiled and reciprocated.

"Sorry man, but I'm not actually bringing my phone. Like I said, soul searching. I'll come visit you first thing when I get back, though."

Elijah snorted.

"Sure, man. Tell me the truth one day, though. Stay safe, friend."

He finally left, leaving Mateo staring at his bedroom door for a few minutes. Finally, he stood up and got dressed for the day. Simple attire for a goodbye to a few people. After fixing his hair in the mirror and spraying on some deodorant, Mateo walked outside, hopped in his car. He elected to go by his job, first.

When he pulled into the parking lot, he stared up at the sign for a moment. He'd been working part time for a small local auto-repair shop for the past year now. As much as he enjoyed the work, he otherwise hated his boss enough that he didn't exactly feel bad about quitting right now. With a sigh, he approached the door.

Upon walking in, he saw a familiar face. Probably the only guy up here he planned on keeping contact with after he left. Not that he disliked anyone else besides the manager, just that most of their work relationships were strictly professional. Liam, a shorter blonde kid, gave him a smile. He'd been the primary one in charge of training the kid, and it'd only been when Mateo had asked if he wanted to drink after work that he'd learned that he was only 19 at the time, now 20. Hopefully he'd be back in 9 months to make good on his promise to take Liam by a local haunt Mateo frequented on Liam's 21st birthday.

"Mateo! I'm glad you're okay, when your sister came in it sounded pretty bad."

Liam gave him a relieved look, leaning forward with a smile.

"Yeah, I'm alive somehow. I'm also here to do something I probably should have done a while ago."

He grabbed a piece of paper and started to write on it. Liam peered over his shoulder, eyes slowly widening as he realized what was being written. 'Fuck you, I quit', a signature of Mateo's full legal name, and a detailed drawing of a middle finger. Liam tried not to laugh, but did express surprise.

"You're leaving??"

Mateo turned toward Liam with an apologetic look.

"Yeah, sorry man. I've got some shit to handle, and won't be in town for a while."

Liam looked a little sad at that.

"When you come back, give me a call. We'll have to hang out."

Mateo gave him a smile in return.

"Yeah, I think I'd like that."

He walked around his now former workplace and gave more professional goodbyes to everyone else, before finally walking out the door. In the parking lot, right before he got in his car, Liam ran out of the building. He was shouting something while waving his arms. When Liam reached Mateo, he was out of breath from the short sprint and had to take a moment before standing back up straight. Once he did, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small charm necklace. The band was made of some type of brown thread, and the charm was that of a small wood carved wolf.

"When you were walking around, you had this weird look on your face. Whatever you're doing... it's not going to be entirely safe, is it?"

"... no, I'm not sure it will be."

Liam held the necklace toward Mateo.

"Take this, then. Just, wear it for me. For some peace of mind."

Mateo stared at it for a moment, before taking it with a smile.

"Then I'll accept it graciously."

He put it on, under his shirt. Liam smiled up at him.

"Come back to me, you hear? Stay safe, Mateo."

Finally, Liam returned to the shop. Mateo held the necklace under his shirt for a moment, smiling. After a moment, he returned to his car and drove off again. Next, he went to the local boxing gym. When he looked inside, he saw Finn, another high school friend. He was getting ready to do roadwork. From outside, Mateo stared at Finn for a bit. He was tall, easily clearing 6 feet, though he was still shorter than Beatrice. His hair was its usually messy mat of red, and his arms were pretty damn toned with all of the working out he did. Mateo stepped inside, holding up a hand for a high five. Finn stared at the offered hand for a few seconds, before standing up and hugging him instead.

"Asshole, getting yourself hurt like that again."

"Oh come on dude, you're all sweaty."

He managed to break out of the hug with a chuckle.

"Hey man. I'm actually here to tell you I'm headed out of town for a bit. Got some shit to handle."

Finn fixed his sleeves. Mateo, Elijah, and Finn all met around the same time, and had been good friends for a long while. Pretty surprising, with how different the 3 were from each other. Even if they all went relatively separate paths in life afterwards they still hung out pretty often, usually at Mateo's place since his apartment was the biggest, or the bar. Finn gave Mateo a look for a few seconds, before sighing.

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

"Well, shit. When are you leaving?"

"Noon. Only couple more hours, really."

Finn grunted in response to that.

"Wish you'd said something earlier, but I guess you were preoccupied with not dying."

"Sorry, man. Hopefully I'll be back sooner than later."

"Alright, I'm glad you stopped by at least. Stay safe, you hear?"

Mateo waved as he walked out, and returned to his car. He turned it on, before staring up through the windshield for a while, mostly just wasting gas for about twenty minutes before he finally drove off. After making a few more inconsequential stops, he bought some flowers. Next, he took the fifteen minute drive from town to the graveyard. When he arrived, he got out and walked the usual path towards a pair of graves, belonging to his parents. When he arrived, Beatrice was there too, on one knee, offering flowers of her own. Without even turning around, she spoke up.

"Figured you'd make a stop by here. You always did before going to do something important."

She stood up, looking at him.

"Look, I don't know what you're about to get yourself into, but let me at least ask while we're standing here. In front of them. Are you doing something that they could be proud of?"

Mateo stared at the grave in silence, before he walked up and placed the flowers down.

"Yeah. I think I am."

Beatrice put her hand on his shoulder with a sigh.

"Then go and get on with it. And stay safe, you hear?"

Mateo nodded, before turning and walking to his car again, finally driving home. Upon arrival, he walked in silence up the stairs, into his apartment, before stepping into his room, then the attached bathroom. After a few seconds of staring in the mirror, Viola appeared with a smile and wave.

"There you are. Are you about ready?"

"Yeah. I think I am."

"Great! Strip. You can't take anything physical with you into the next world."

Mateo paused, before nodding with a sigh, kind of expecting this really. So he took off all of his clothes, staring at the charm necklace for a few more seconds first then putting it on his counter, before looking back into the mirror, killing his embarrassment.

"Alright, what now."

"Stick your hands against the mirror, and I'll pull you through."

He complied, putting both palms against the mirror. Viola reached out and clasped his hands, before pulling him through slowly. After a minute he was yanked into the Divine Realm once more with his physical body for the first time. Mateo sat nude on his knees with his legs crossed on the shallow water that blanketed the floor of the divine realm. Viola was sitting in the chair like before. After looking at him for a moment, her eyes shifted.

"You've got good friends."

"Huh? Oh, yeah..."

She pointed to his chest.

"Didn't expect someone to give you a gift like that."

He looked down, before jolting. The necklace Liam had given him was resting around his neck.

"I thought you said I couldn't take anything with me?"

"That necklace was soulbound to you the moment you put it around your neck. It has a faint trace of magic in it."

She held her hand out toward it with a fluid motion. "Identify."

After staring at a status window for a moment, she nodded.

"Level 1 Protection. A fae skill."

"... magic? Liam gave me something magic?"

"He might not have even known he was giving you something like this. Maybe he wished upon the charm for you to be safe as he handed it to you so hard that a fairy decided to bless it. Maybe he has some fae-blood and crafted it on purpose. Whatever the case, it's a nice gift. Treasure it well. Even if you lose it, it'll try and find its way back to you."

Mateo stared at the charm of the necklace for a few more seconds before a smile came to his lips.

"I'll have to treat him to something nice when I get back."

"Like I said, you've got good friends. Now-"

"Hold on. I've got a question about earlier. You said you were used to 'begging' when it came to getting divinity, right? And this first job is for the God of Mirrors. You got it pretty quickly, right after finding out I'd actually do the job for you. Tell me, did you actually just happen to find this, or did you get a loan of power from the God of Mirrors, and this job is paying him back?"

Viola gave a slow blink, before covering his mouth.

"I guess it's a good thing that you're so sharp. What fully tipped you off?"

"You pulled me back into the divine realm through a mirror, and you'd mentioned the God of Mirrors, so I was wondering where you'd gotten the power to do that."

"... well, you're right. Pulling you into the divine realm via a mirror, not by grabbing your soul through death, was due to a divinity loan I got from the God of Mirrors himself. I didn't plan on informing you till you'd gotten through this job, but it seems keeping something like that from you was pointless."

"Why? You seem patient enough to just wait. Why did you get a loan like that? What will even happen if I fail?"

"... well, let's not think about that for now. The rest of this is my secret to keep. I'll tell you when we've got more time. For now, I need to be preparing to send you off to the next world."

"Okay. I've already decided to trust you for now. So I guess I can live without all of the answers for the time being."

He gave a nod at that, shifting his legs a bit uncomfortably. At least the divine realm was a neutral enough temperature that sitting here without clothes wasn't discomforting, but there was still the awkwardness of the fact that he was, in fact, not wearing clothes here. Viola, on her end, did not seem to care. At all. Mateo supposed that being a God meant that she simply had no such desires.

"So, to start off. Your target."

She showed what looked like a holographic image of a red-haired, taller man. He looked about Liam's age, and had a nasty look in his eyes.

"His primary blessing from the God of Mirrors is called 'Divine Reflection'. He can copy any one person's abilities and use them as his own. If he slays you while he's copying your powers, he keeps them for himself. However, while he's copying someone's abilities, he can't use any of his own for the first 30 minutes."

"... do MOST Transmigrators get such powerful abilities?"

"Yes."

"... I'm feeling a little cheated here."

"I had to trade off a lot of power to give you as many freedoms as I did."

Mateo sighed. Yeah, he had advantages a lot of other Transmigrators didn't get, but he couldn't help but feel slightly sore now that he saw just WHAT he traded away for that.

"Moving on, he managed to obtain all of the abilities of the Demon Lord when he struck him down. His primary weapons are dual swords. He dual wields the blade of the Demon Lord, as well as the Holy Sword given to him by the kingdom he awoke in to go slay them. If your battle gets into melee range, you can basically guarantee a defeat."

"... so my strategy should be to have him copy my abilities, and-"

"Try to kill him while he's mimicking you, yes. The upside of not being able to use his own abilities when he first copies you is that it'll be your best chance to kill him. So that should be what you aim for."

Mateo slowly nodded, considering that.

"He's been setting up his kingdom in the westmost part of the continent. So I'm going to put you in the most peaceful place possible, in the eastmost settlement. There are hardly any monsters there, and the residents aren't very attuned to fighting. You can start a journey from east to west, building up your strength as you go, before finally confronting the fallen hero at the end of your adventure."

"That makes sense, since I'm starting as weak as I am."

"Then if that's all."

She stood up.

"One more thing. Do you, like. Have a holy symbol or something, as a Goddess?"

"... why do you ask?"

"I figure that I should carry around some charm or something, pray to my Goddess every once in a while. Since, well. I'm sort of yours. That'll help with Divinity, right?"

"I suppose it will. Alright. I'll give you a holy symbol of mine to take with you. Hold it close, and let it be a source of strength."

She formed a golden symbol of a handgun melded to a textured circle. He held it for a few seconds, then nodded.

"Alright. I think I'm ready to go, Viola."

Viola gave a smile.

"Good luck, Mateo."

A blue swirl of energy appeared in front of them both. It opened wide, before showing a grassy field. Mateo stood up, figuring this was his cue. After giving Viola one last look, he hopped through, into another world.