Alice stared at Joe, still in disbelief. “I have so many questions.”
“Ask away, you’re the first person I have talked to in five millennia, so I am looking forward to a delightful conversation,” answered Joe.
“Okay, let’s go one by one. First, you said most people run away from you. How am I different?"
“Ah, yes, remarkably interesting indeed. Seems like you were around death a lot back on Earth, and you have built some sort of tolerance or even indifference towards death. How do you feel about death?”
Alice thought about her job. How, every day, people, despite her best efforts, would die around her. She must have seen hundreds of people die a few feet away from her. How at first, she would cry after the death of a patient, or when she had to tell a family their loved one just died. Then she remembered herself growing used to death. She came to understand that death was just part of the journey, and her job was merely to delay death as much as possible, not stop it. How death was… inevitable. “Well…I guess… I got used to death.”
“You got used to it huh… interesting,” said Joe as he ran his fingers over his chin.
“Alright, second question,” said Alice. “If you’re here, does that mean that you’re not killing anybody up there?”
“Nope, I delegate those sorts of things. I have people for that.”
“You have people for that?! Like assassins?”
“Not assassins, that would be ridiculous, no, their official job title, as your world would say, would be Reapers. I sense who is ready to die, and they go and fetch their soul for me.”
“Well, it’s also ridiculous that rock can suffer from necrosis, and yet here we are,” thought Alice. “Alright third question, can you send me back to Earth? You know... given that you are a god and everything?”
“That I cannot do. That is not under my... let us call it... jurisdiction, but there is a way for you to go back.”
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“I’m listening…”
“Right... well, there are two ways. The first way is to have somebody from Earth summon you back, but, since magic is non-existent on Earth, that is not happening. Second way is for you to do the summoning yourself…”
“Sounds easy enough…” replied Alice before Joe interrupted “...and you have to be S-grade to perform summon magic.”
“S-grade!” Alice remembered reading that it usually takes an adventurer at least 5 centuries to reach S-grade, and most adventurers never even reach it. Only the elite were able to reach those heights.
Alice slumped against the poker table with a resigned look on her face. “How am I ever going to reach S-grade? I bet Tim would be able to get there. He has been essentially preparing for this world his entire life.” A small smile creeped into Alice’s face with the thought of Tim as she regained a little composure. “Alright, no giving up, WWTD right?” Alice thought.
“Alright Joe, last question, what’s the fastest way to get to S-grade?” said Alice with new resolve on her face.
Joe took a long look at Alice before saying, “It will be extremely dangerous.”
“Don’t care.”
“Most people fail.”
“Don't care.”
“It’s not an easy path.”
“Are you going to tell me or not?”
“Tell you? Dear Alice, I am going to help you,” said Joe with a big smile on his face.
Joe was a, what you would call, greater god. There was a total of four greater gods: god of death, god of space, god of time, and god of life. They were the four pillars that the universe, not just Sfiraz and Earth, relied on.
Below them were the lesser gods. There was a lesser god for everything you could imagine. god of the sea, god of the mountains, god of plagues, so far and so on. Out of the four greater gods, Joe was the least popular among the mortals. Sure, he had his little cults here and there that worshipped him, but nothing that would compare to the other three. Even some of the lesser gods had more followers than him.
Mortals always misunderstood him. Mortals believed that Joe was this evil god that would bring death to anyone and everyone he pleased, but, in reality, Joe was there to provide balance to the universe. He did not choose who lived and who died; he simply took the souls of those who no longer belonged in the realm of the living.
Joe did not understand why mortals did not understand this. It was as natural to die as it is to be born, but one brought joy while the other brought despair. The way mortals felt toward death always puzzled Joe.
He was curious to understand how someone would prefer to worship the god of war, god of literal violence and suffering, over him. What Joe offered was change, to end suffering, a resolution, to transition from this flawed realm of the living into a higher state of being, and, for some reason, mortals still feared and despised him. It was baffling to him, so, one day, he decided to live among the mortals to try to understand these feelings.
After a few centuries of living with mortals, he made no progress on his quest to understand them. Mortals would run from him or froze in fear just by being in his presence, unbeknownst to them that he was the god of death. Joe's mere presence would make mortals run away; talking to them was near impossible. After failing at having a decent conversation with a mortal, he decided to hide himself for a little while before going back to Eons, the planet where gods resided. Joe was not a fan of hanging out with the gods either.
Millennia passed and Joe started to like the feeling of being alone, not being with the other gods, comparing himself to them and wondering why mortals had so much negative feelings towards him. Until Alice arrived. Alice was not bothered by his presence at all. He could tell that Alice had no negative feelings towards him or the concept of death. She was, to say the least, a breath of fresh air.