Once dinner was over, Guildmistress Toriel instructed the residents to return to their cabins. Nothing would happen to her Children tonight, she assured them with a warm smile.
Judd, of course, was hardly comforted by that word tonight. In the presence of that qualifier, he suspected that something would happen after that. And whatever that something might be, it could hardly be positive.
Maybe I shouldn’t trust Toriel. But then, I knew that already. Didn’t the Lord always warn us to beware of demons?
He sighed as he made his way back to Cabin Gemini. That had been drilled into him from an early age, of course - just about everything he’d been taught about Christianity fit that description. Judd just hadn’t expected to need to worry about that once he was dead.
It wasn’t difficult to find the cabin, even though they all looked the same aside from their labels. He just had to remember that it was the sixth one on the left, that the cabins were in the order prescribed by the Zodiac. Even if he scoffed at any mention of the Zodiac.
In any case, Judd’s long strides ensured he was the first one back to Cabin Gemini. This gave him plenty of time to open his suitcase and observe its contents.
Although Sophie had warned him not to get his hopes up, Judd refused to believe that he would be disappointed. After waiting so long to see inside that suitcase, he needed to hold onto some inkling that his hopes wouldn't be dashed.
Well, Judd thought as he opened his suitcase, I suppose that’s true. After all, you can’t disappoint if there are no expectations to begin with.
The suitcase contained an incredibly basic amenity kit. There was only shampoo, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a pair of plastic slippers (one orange, one purple, both of them with his last name and four-digit discriminator on it.)
That’s interesting. So my number is Asgard-2194. I wonder if they were assigned at random, or if there’s some order to this chaos? Probably the former; the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
But not always. The “simplest” afterlife would have been one in which he was sent to heaven or hell, or “eternal oblivion” like most of those atheists expected to happen. Quite frankly, the thought of not existing anymore, never having any thought again, was flat-out horrifying to Judd, but at least it would be simple.
Instead, he’d been thrust into Jet Force Isekai and all the trials and tribulations that entailed, the likes of which he could probably hardly imagine right now.
The only other item in the suitcase was a purple-and-orange striped tracksuit that was sized up to fit Judd’s tall, lanky frame, but was otherwise identical to the one the three ladies of Cabin Gemini wore. His surname, Asgard, and the four-digit number he’d been assigned (still 2194) were sewn onto the back.
Judd entered the bathroom, a co-ed one with two stalls and a single shower that only seemed to run on the cold setting, and changed into the tracksuit. It wasn’t right to be immodest, for the Bible spoke out firmly against that behavior. At the same time, there was nothing else to wear, so Judd figured the suit would probably get quite smelly before long.
Come to think of it, Judd realized, the amenity kit doesn’t have deodorant. So why didn’t I notice the girls smelling bad?
Oh well. That question hardly seemed relevant right now, not when compared to everything else that had happened that day.
A few minutes later, the three ladies all arrived, jabbing fingers at one another as though they’d just been bickering about something inconsequential yet incredibly heated. When they saw Judd, however, they toned it down.
“What are you three going to do until bedtime?” Judd asked eventually. It didn’t seem quite late enough for sleep, though he was a poor judge of time. He always had been.
“It’s almost bedtime anyway,” Jessica stated. “You’ll need to be well-rested for it.”
Judd frowned. “What’s it? I don’t think it makes sense to be well-rested for bedtime.”
Marie rolled her eyes, but Jessica glared at her. When Marie looked away, evidently rebuked, Jessica answered Judd’s question.
“Sorry about that, Judd. I wasn’t talking about bedtime; I was talking about what happens in the morning. Tomorrow’s Friday, and you know what it means when it’s Friday.”
It means they’re going to play that song by Rebecca Black over and over again? Oh boy, maybe I’ve ended up in hell. My Lord, what did I do to deserve THAT?
“What happens on Fridays?” Judd forced himself to ask.
Sophie turned her nose up as though she couldn’t bear to stoop down to someone of Judd’s low intellect. Nonetheless, she responded thusly: “Friday is when we have our Isekai missions. They occur once a week, and our minds are transplanted into the bodies of Pokémon and…”.
“Hold up, sis,” Judd interrupted. “How does that work?”
“Technology works in mysterious ways,” Sophie replied sharply. “And don’t call me sis, for I am not your sister.”
They always told me God worked in mysterious ways. I guess technology does too. But a brain transplant, or soul transplant, would be pretty insane.
“Where I’m from,” Judd responded, “we call one another brothers and sisters. That’s just how it is in small-town Kansas. Everyone knows one another.”
“Well,” Sophie muttered, “you’re not in Kansas anymore.”
“Clever,” Marie told Sophie coolly. “Did it take you all day to come up with that line?”
“It doesn’t matter. We should all get to bed and rest up for tomorrow. We don’t want to fail our tasks, do we now?”
Although Judd wasn’t yet privy to all the details of what his bunkmate was telling him, he elected not to pry any further. Instead, he partook in the typical bedtime routine of brushing his teeth (though it felt a bit unusual, admittedly, to be doing it around three women rather than men like he’d do at a youth group camp).
Once all of them were in bed, and Sophie, Jessica, and Marie were snoring, Judd took this opportunity to communicate with the creator of the universe. Like any good, pious Christian, he did this every night, thanking the Lord for being granted each day. After all, today was a gift - that’s why they called it the present.
Aside from his religious obligation to do so, the routine comforted him. Jesus, after all, had prayed while being crucified, and in this brave new world, Judd had his own cross to bear. Not, of course, that he would ever equate his suffering to that of his Lord and Savior.
Judd sat cross-legged in bed as he clasped his hands together and prayed.
My Heavenly Father, thank You for granting me this day. I know that although I have passed on, I am not yet in Your Kingdom, but I will reach it eventually. Furthermore, I trust in Your will, that You have a plan for my life, and I will accept whatever shall come my way. I trust that You will show me the way through this brave new world.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner. I know I am imperfect - indeed, that I am a depraved human being. That is why You died on the cross, to cleanse me of my sins.
Only after Judd had finished that prayer did he realize he’d been saying it out loud. He might have been doing so in little more than a whisper, but such a “careless whisper” was more than enough to wake Sophie.
“Excuse me,” the brown-haired woman muttered groggily, “but what were you doing there?”
“Praying,” Judd stated.
Sophie sat upright, furrowing her eyebrows. “Excuse me - did you just say you were praying?”
Judd nodded. “I am a man of faith. What’s wrong with that?”
Sophie frowned. “Well, nothing inherently. If you want to live your afterlife that way, then be my guest.”
“Great” Judd noted.
“But just because you’ve got a certain view of the world doesn’t mean I can’t criticize it. After all, truth should stand up to scrutiny, shouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, which is why I believe Jesus rose from the dead and is my Savior.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “That claim can’t be falsified on Earth. But we’re clearly not on Earth anymore, are we?”
Judd frowned. “What are you getting at?”
“What I’m getting at,” Sophie responded testily, “is that you’ve already died once, haven’t you? And God didn’t save you from that fate. You ended up here instead of at the pearly gates.”
“God is testing me” Judd stated matter-of-factly. To him, this was a basic fact, just like the proposition that two plus two added up to four.
“He’s testing you? But you seem to have been faithful in your Earthly life. Why would he need to test you?”
“I prayed a lot,” Judd muttered, “but I guess that wasn’t enough.”
“No, it clearly wasn’t. What about all the people who pray endlessly for their children to survive cancer, and then they don’t? Like, the fact that pediatric cancer is a thing would seem to argue against what you believed in.”
“Well, I believed in Jesus Christ,” Judd responded curtly. “I still do.”
Sophie grimaced, looking as though she were about to say something about how Judd couldn’t help but go back to God even though the Good Lord had deserted him in his time of greatest need. And now he continued to insist his beliefs were true even in the face of a very different afterlife from what he’d expected.
“It’s okay if you don’t,” Judd continued, “but I’d love it if you understood why I do.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Sophie replied. “And I’m worried about that.”
Somehow, this argument had not yet woken Jessica or Marie. However, Judd felt sure that if their “row” got a little louder, one or both of them would be roused, and then the “row” would expand.
“Why are you worried?” Judd hissed. “They’re my personal beliefs.”
“First of all,” Sophie remarked, “if they’re your personal beliefs, you should be okay with keeping them personal. That’s what people do where I’m from - your religious beliefs or lack thereof are a private matter, and we’re all better off for it. Just look at the statistics…”.
“Well, Sophie, I’m from America’s heartland. I’m from Kansas, and here we wear our hearts on our sleeves.”
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Sophie snorted. “It shows. You’re certainly not shy about your faith, even if I think it’s something you should keep to yourself.” She said this all in a rather condescending manner, with her nose turned up.
“Well, where are you from, Sophie?” Judd asked. “Because you seem to think it’s so superior to Kansas.”
“I’m from Canada,” she said proudly. “The province of British Columbia, to be more specific. And don’t come at me with those jokes about how we all have egg-shaped heads like on that show South Park - I just don’t want to hear about it.”
Judd frowned. “I wasn’t allowed to watch that show as a kid.”
“I’m hardly surprised, given how that show makes fun of everything” Sophie stated. “Yes, it’s an equal-opportunity offender in that regard. But it mocks the American Dream, which is something that deserves to be mocked. Quite frankly, there’s a reason they call it the American Dream.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you have to be asleep to believe it’s real.”
“Good one.”
“Listen, Judd. Us Canadians do not think highly of American-style politics where you all support politicians who deny climate change. Of course, that’s not all of you, but in the Great White North such a politician would be lucky to get 5 percent of the vote.”
Judd frowned. “Way to show that you’re so much saner than we are.”
“We are, though. Like, the fastest possible way for a politician here to lose their job, whether it be Prime Minister or Dog Catcher, would be to endorse your country’s health care system. And don’t even get me started on your gun laws! The rest of the world is laughing at you, and when we’re in an empathetic mood, we weep for you.”
“Well,” Judd said, “is it really that nice to laugh at us? To mock my nation’s governing ideology?”
“Where I come from, Judd, nothing is sacred” Sophie continued. “Nothing should be above scrutiny or even mockery, especially if it’s as ridiculous as everything about your country is. Quite frankly, I don’t understand why so many people feel the need to shove the flag in your face and worship it like it’s your God!”
“I don’t worship the flag. I respect it. Only God and His son, Jesus of Nazareth, are deserving of worship.”
“First of all, thanks to all the awful things about what your flag has come to represent, what is there to respect? And even if your country didn’t deserve to be mocked seventy ways from Sunday, it’s creepy to worship a piece of cloth.”
“Again, Sophie, I do not worship it” Judd insisted.
“Pride in your country is like a…well, if I said that last word, you’d probably cringe so hard your brain would explode. It seems you were not taught how not to cringe at that word.”
“What’s the word?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sophie muttered. “Anyway, where I’m from, stuff like religion and patriotism are just like that thing. It’s okay to have one. It’s okay to be proud of it. But it’s not okay to wave it around in everyone’s face.”
Judd did not respond, thinking Sophie was done with her speech. However, she wasn’t.
“Look, Judd,” she continued, “we’ve got a lot of missions ahead of us. Isekai missions, where we will become Pokémon and need to figure out a stressful situation. During that time, we won’t be able to rely on anyone but ourselves.”
Judd sighed, sensing what Sophie was getting at here. And he was right!
“If you spend these missions praying to your God - a God who didn’t save you from Jet Force Isekai when you needed it most - that’ll detract from what you’re supposed to focus on. It’ll come at the expense of actually solving the problems.”
“But I’m only hurting myself by doing so, right?” Judd asked.
Sophie shook her head, wagging a finger at her devout bunkmate. “You’re not. Many of the missions you’ll take on are co-op, meaning you’ll be with someone else. And if one of you screws up, both of you fail, and I don’t plan on failing.”
“Right.”
“Judd, you do not seem to understand how vital it is to be at the top of your game. And I mean it. God isn’t going to swoop in and help you with a mission - it’s all on you and your teammate. And we have one tomorrow, Judd. Right after breakfast!”
“Right,” Judd muttered.
“You need to acknowledge what I’m saying, Judd,” Sophie snapped. “This isn’t a video game - pressing X to continue will not suffice here.”
“How should I know? I didn’t play video games very often.”
“Whatever. Anyway, we need our rest. Like I said, tomorrow is a big day.”
As much as Judd may have disagreed with Sophie on metaphysical matters, he could not disagree with that. Given how high the stakes clearly were for tomorrow’s mission, rest was likely the first thing he required.
Despite how agitated the argument with Sophie had made Judd feel, it was surprisingly easy for him to fall asleep. Judd didn’t have any dreams either; his mind was just a black void until he woke up the following morning to a knock on the cabin’s door.
“Who might that be?” he wondered aloud. “I thought the mission wasn’t until after breakfast.”
For a brief, horrifying moment, Judd wondered if he’d slept through breakfast. He felt thoroughly rested, and he grew convinced that this was the best sleep of his afterlife (then again, it was also the only sleep of his afterlife so far - did he really have anything to compare it to?)
But the girls were also in bed, just waking up as well. And the knocking at the door continued, seemingly to the tune of that sacrilegious song “Jesus He Knows Me” by Genesis. Judd hated that song, because it made a mockery of his faith, switching the station whenever it showed up on his car radio. (Admittedly, that wasn’t often.)
Sophie, in fact, hummed along with the tune, which seemed almost designed to piss Judd off. If she wants me to clear my mind for the mission, she sure isn’t making it easy!
The knocking continued, and Judd just wanted to make it end. He sat bolt upright in bed, then donned his plastic slippers. He hadn’t expected them to be very comfortable, and he was proven right when the cold material seemed to seep right into his bones. Nevertheless, he persisted.
I mean, they can probably open the doors whenever they want to. And if it’s not locked, why would they even need to knock? Of course, I’m not sure who’s come to greet us at this hour right before our mission…
On the other side of the door stood Lucas the Lucario. The jackal-like Pokémon bore a fierce expression, though seemingly not an angry one. This look merely suggested that Lucas was determined to get what he wanted, and that nothing Judd said would get in his way.
“May I borrow Judd Asgard for a few minutes?”
Judd frowned. “What for?”
Marie glared at Judd. “The invitation was spoken clearly. You’re the one he chose.”
“I get that,” Judd replied, “but why me? Is there anything you want to do with me?”
“There is,” Lucas acknowledged. “But it has to be away from the others.”
Judd looked around at his bunkmates. None of them struck him as someone likely to defend Judd from any of Lucas’ attacks if they got into a fight. But they just looked at the Lucario as though his presence in the cabin were perfectly normal.
“I’ll come,” Judd sighed, realizing he had no choice in the matter. “Just let me put on my shoes first.”
Once that task had been accomplished, Lucas led Judd out of the cabin. Although the sky was still full of that pre-rendered fog, Judd somehow knew it was morning. Perhaps it was because the Lucario had a spring in his step as the pair put distance between themselves and the cabins.
“Where are we going?” Judd inquired.
“Somewhere they won’t be able to hear you scream” Lucas muttered.
Those words were more than enough to make Judd shiver. Is he going to torture me?
Eventually, they reached a small piece of a marble pillar that, for some reason, existed right in front of the wall. Come to think of it, this lean, mean ravine had quite a few of those pillars placed every so often.
“Sit,” Lucas instructed Judd.
Judd placed his rump on that pillar, and then he awaited further instructions with great anticipation. Lucas, too, seemed to be savoring the moment, as though he wanted to hold Judd in suspense for as long as possible.
Then the Lucario snapped his claws. “Every couple of days, I pull people aside for a quick check-in. That’s how it is at Jet Force Isekai.”
Judd didn’t know whether to smile or frown. “Well, that’s nice of you.”
“No problem,” Lucas responded. “So tell me about your first meal with the other residents here. Who did you sit with?”
Judd elected to take this question literally; was there any other way to interpret it?
“I sat next to a guy named Mizar. Those were his initials, of course, not his actual name. Then again, I guess real names are what you go by rather than what you’re born as. Like the Pope chooses the name of a saint, and they’re better known by that name than the name on their birth certificate.”
“So what did you talk about with Mizar at the dinner table?” Lucas asked.
“Oh, we discussed the food. Mizar didn’t seem to mind the pasta salad, but he turned up his nose at the butterscotch cinnamon pie. And I asked him why that was, because it’s not like nutrition matters down here. We’re all immortal…right?”
Lucas sighed. “Well…it’s complicated. Continue.”
“That really surprised me about Mizar. Personally, if I were in this situation, and I could choose what I ate - one of those things is true, I guess - I’d have a giant slice of apple pie with a heaping scoop of vanilla ice cream for every meal. I’m very proud of the country I came from, you see. But does Mizar have any reason from his previous life to be so insistent on proper nutrition?”
The Lucario narrowed his eyes at Judd, which could mean one of two things. Either the question was too personal to be answered, or that’s for me to know and for you to find out. Of course, the two were hardly mutually exclusive.
“So you’re very patriotic about the United States” Lucas stated matter-of-factly.
“Right.”
“And we talked about this a good amount yesterday in the context of expecting a different sort of afterlife from what you have now. However, I know you were a deeply religious man in your first life…”.
“I still am,” Judd replied. “I pray every night before I go to bed, thanking the Good Lord for yet another day that He has granted me. Is it so wrong to do that now?”
Lucas did not answer that question. Instead, he replied with a question of his own: “Has your faith and value system led to any conflict in Cabin Gemini?”
“Oh boy, has it? It sure has” Judd responded.
Lucas waved a paw, showing off the spike on the other side of it. “Continue.”
“Well, last night after dinner I got into my suitcase and didn’t find a Bible. I didn’t even have my T-shirts with my favorite verses on them. But just because I didn’t have any such items with me doesn’t mean that I couldn’t pray.”
“So you prayed?”
Judd nodded. “Sure did. I prayed for a minute or two, but apparently that woke Sophie up. And she wasn’t too happy about the fact that I was praying, though she insisted she respected my beliefs.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Did she?”
“Well, does it still count as respect if the other person mocks you for believing what you believe? I mean, as far as I’m concerned, the Heavenly Father needs to be worshiped, but Sophie insisted that nothing was above ridicule. And she told me that my God wouldn’t save me now.”
“So what is your opinion of Sophie Frey?”
Judd sighed. “Well, it’s complicated. I don’t want to say that I hate her, or even that I’m mad at her, because we’re going to rely on one another in the future. Can you confirm or deny that?”
Lucas shook his head. “I cannot confirm or deny that.”
“I’m not sure if I should tell you what I truly think about Sophie,” Judd repeated. “I’m worried that those words might come back to haunt me.”
“Oh no, they won't,” Lucas insisted. “Trust me, Judd, your secrets are safe with me. They’re between me, you, and your God. You could consider this similarly to that act where you go into a booth and mention your sins…”.
“Confession?”
“Yes, this is confession. Nothing you say will leave this conversation unless you want it to.”
“Fine, then” Judd replied. “I’ll be honest. I don’t think I get along well with Sophie. I don’t hate her, but we just don’t have compatible belief systems. She hates God, and she hates America - I guess the latter makes sense, because she’s from Canada. But we’ll have to put those differences aside, I suppose.”
Lucas winked at Judd. “You suppose.”
“I really do think so. We’re going to rely on each other, and I have to trust in that compatibility index. In a way, it’s like having faith.”
“Why is that, Judd?”
“Because to trust in the compatibility index Toriel mentioned is like trusting God. You can’t see Him, but you have to believe He is there and loves you at every moment.”
Lucas nodded. “So you’re saying that faith is belief in things not seen, and that Sophie Frey objected to that?”
“I suppose that’s what she objected to,” Judd muttered. “Only God can read her mind, though.”
“You have two other bunkmates. Tell me what you think of Marie Emerson.”
Judd scratched his chin. “Well, she and Jessica don’t seem to get along. Every time I’ve seen them together, they’re either bickering or look like they’ve just been bickering. And again, only God knows which - I sure don’t.”
“If you had to make up a theory for why Marie Emerson and Jessica Petty don’t like each other, what would it be?”
“Huh…” Judd mouthed. Quite frankly, it didn’t feel right to speculate about such a thing, because he was a man of faith. To be a person of faith meant that sometimes you couldn’t question things. Sometimes there were easy answers to your questions, and you needed to trust them. Besides, something told him that sticking his nose where it didn’t belong was quite rude.
But Lucas kept looking at Judd expectantly, so the latter eventually came up with something.
“Maybe they failed a mission that they went on together,” he suggested, “and one of them feels like the other dragged them down. Maybe they both blame the other person. I’m not saying that’s true, of course…”.
“...because only your God knows?” Lucas finished.
Judd nodded. “Only God knows.”
“I have one last question for you, Judd,” the Lucario stated. “You’re going on your first mission today. What do you hope will happen?”
Judd glanced back at Lucas quizzically. “What do you mean? I hope I win. I hope I don’t lose?”
“How do you know that there are only two options?” the Lucario replied with a wink.
“That makes no sense. It sounds like a game, and in a game, you either win or you lose. And you don’t get paid unless you win most of the time.”
“But you do not know that the same rules apply here,” Lucas said. “Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. In that regard, this is very different from your 600-book life.”
Judd frowned. “There are only sixty-six books in the Bible.”
“Whatever. The point is, Judd, you need to open your mind. You need to accept that some things just aren’t as they appear.”
“Fair enough.”
“Back to the subject of the mission,” Lucas stated. “I know I said there’d only be one question. But I guess it’s a subset of the other one - of your three bunkmates, which would you prefer to be placed with on the mission?”
Judd narrowed his eyes. “Does it matter how I answer here?”
“Not really. We’ve already decided on your assignment. We plan things well in advance here at Jet Force Isekai.”
“Well then,” Judd replied. “I guess I hope it’s Jessica. She seems to hate me the least. And that has no bearing on whom I’m ultimately placed with?”
“No bearing whatsoever. Didn’t I already say that, though?”
“Yeah, my bad.”
Lucas snapped his claws. “Well, I think that just about covers it. Thank you for the interview, Judd. You may now proceed to breakfast, and I suggest you fuel your mind properly.”
“You’re welcome,” Judd replied cordially.
“Good luck, Judd. And remember: Things are not always as they appear. But sometimes they are. So don’t overthink things too much.”