The landing was troublesome at best, with the person simply watching on. He got a look at them right before his legs made ground- the person was androgynous at first glance, a brown hair and smooth-looking skin, brown eyes, and of no distinct race. He landed on the ground, and his legs twisted beneath him, yet he felt no pain as he went down. The parachute covered him, and suddenly it disappeared. He realized now that he had lost sight of the movement in his panic, and now it was just him and this person.
“How troublesome.” They muttered, picking up a tea glass from atop one of the ruins.
“Hello!” He said, picking himself up, “I have so many questions for you right now.”
“Hello,” They replied, “I suppose I’m obligated to answer them?”
“No, but I’m going to voice them anyway.” He smirked, and sat at the table.
The person rolled their eyes, and replied, “Go ahead, I’ll probably have answers.”
“I’ll start with the easy ones: Where am I? Who are you? Why am I here?” He said, standing roughly a head taller than the other person, who looked feminine now.
“Hi, I’m a god,” They said, waving their hand, “You can call me God.”
He took a step back, a smirk appearing on God’s face. “Wait like God God?”
“Ugh, I’m not going to give you a lecture about my role as a deity; my name obviously isn’t God, but I’m the only God you're going to be interacting with if your life goes well and you might as well use my title.” God was visibly annoyed, and a million more questions floated up in his mind, but he would leave them unvoiced. “Where are you? You can think of this as a staging area for your next life- they’re tailor-made for each of you, but that doesn’t mean you should be waking up in it. I hope you enjoyed yours- you liked math right?”
“Yeah,” He replied, confused, “but it was just a great big circle.”
“That's where you're wrong,” God replied, some confidence and superiority encroaching in their voice, “it was an apeirogon!” God struck a pose with her eyes closed and arms at their side; they then visibly deflated when they looked upon his disappointed face, “Okay so maybe we don’t get too much time to make it for each person but we do our best okay?”
“So, just to make it clear,” He said, sitting down on a chair, “You’re an overworked god who would like to be called God, and I’m in a staging area for my next life, which implies I died.”
“Yep!” God replied, beaming. Their form had shifted, even more, looking like a 10-year-old girl with blonde hair. “You're basically on deck. Any other questions?”
“Approximately a billion more.” He replied to her exasperated face, as she sat down across from him at the table. He looked around and saw, to his surprise, he was in the same library he had met his friend at before. “What’s my next life going to be? Am I still going to be a human? Will I be born in a random country? How did I die? Why did you give me a parachute when I landed? Can I ask you for stuff for my next life? Why won’t I remember anything for my next life? And how did you make all of this” He said, pausing to gesture to the new scene around them, “appear from my memory?”
She laid her head on the table, and twirled her finger on the table before blurting out a response, “Yes, no, no, Yes, and why do you care?” She replied to his surprise.
“Those weren’t yes or no questions! And I definitely had more questions than that.”
“Fiiine, you want a full lecture do you?”
“I always liked lectures,” he smiled. They looked at him with disgust, before pulling out a dry erase marker to draw on a large whiteboard now next to them.
“Your next life will be in a different world, it’ll be medieval era, swords, and magic you know. So that sh-”
“Magic?” He interrupted them, surprised.
“Please leave all questions for the end of the lecture,” They said, pushing up glasses on their face. They now looked like a 70 something year old male college professor, still likely a head shorter than him though. He hadn’t noticed any process of change, but decided to just continue onwards.
“So, back to it- swords and magic, that should be simple. It’s a trope you know? I know you know, don’t answer. You’ll be human or human adjacent, don’t worry. Your country will be randomized because honestly you don’t know any, and any choice you’d make would be a bad one. How you died isn’t important- a satellite hit you or a truck ran over you, it doesn’t really matter. You can ask me stuff for your next life but you’ll also have to convince me why I should give them to you; my job isn’t to make every person who reincarnates think they're the protagonist. You don’t have a high enough narrative dimension for that stuff.”
God paused for a moment, flicking through notes on their lectern at the front of the lecture hall, which had only one student in it. He had a pencil and paper out and was taking notes on the lecture. “You won’t remember anything because, well, it’s a new life. It doesn’t mean your memories are locked away forever though- there’s a chance you’ll have what we call a ‘trigger event’, getting back all of your memories from previous past lives- they’re rare at best though, so don’t worry about it. That also means you won’t remember this, which means I have less paperwork to go through. Okay, simple enough- any questions?”
He raised his hand, and God interrupted, “I said no questions until the end of the lecture.”
“But you just asked if I had any questions!” He replied incredulously, standing up from his seat and knocking the notebook and pencil aside. The sound of the pencil falling reverberated across the practically-empty lecture hall
God thought silently for a moment, “Fair enough.”
He sat back down, before raising his hand again. God then chose him. “Yes, you in the back. What’s your question? Make it quick.”
“You're a horrible lecturer.” He quipped. “Regardless, I have a few questions. Firstly, excuse me, magic?” He asked.
“Same magic as existed in your last life” God replied, “Next?”
“Wait, my last life had magic?” He responded
God sighed, exasperated, “Is it really that forgotten? That’d be its own lecture, I’ll get to that later. I need new notes for that” They said, shuffling through the notes on their lectern.
“Okay, okay, we’ll get to magic later. Later.” He said, “Narrative dimension?”
“I could have sworn your last reality had pataphysics, it should be simple even for a mind as dull as a rock.”
“That doesn’t answer my question”
“It wasn’t trying to” God replied, smiling.
“Fine then, you have paperwork? As a god?”
“It was an expression; but yes. A lot of paper that needs work done on it.”
“Alright… What's this world I’ll be isekai’d to like?” he asked, bewildered.
God physically cringed at the word “isekai’d”, before returning to the lecture, “It’s a doomed world.” They said, whacking the chalkboard with a meter stick, “the world has had roughly 6000 civilizations of humanoids appear on it and disappear. The longest-lived had existed for roughly 1000 years and got much, much more advanced than your previous life. They were able to predict many apocalypses and prevent them- until the unpreventable end of their civilization occurred. The shortest existed for a single generation. Let us just say only a handful of civilizations even figure out they’re doomed, and they have all died out. The one you’re going to? Hasn’t figured out it’s doomed, that’s the fun with swords and magic. Anything else that’s important about the world, you’ll have to figure it out yourself- you’ll have an entire lifetime to do so.”
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Why is it doomed?” He asked, to only hear the crack of a meter stick on the chalkboard back. “Okay, okay, what's a trigger event?”
“If you do something or see something substantially close to your previous life, then you’ll be able to access the hidden memories. Important is that the closer the activity was to your death, the more likely you are to remember.” God said, setting a dark roast coffee on the table between them. They now resembled a young, blonde man in his early twenties, wearing a navy uniform, “A lot of drunks have trigger events at a bar. Luckily, drunks can’t usually do much with their knowledge except kill themselves again.”
“I see, so why is it-” He said, interrupted by the crack of a meter stick on the chalkboard.
“Magic!” God said, no chalkboard or meter stick in sight. “It’s time for your lecture on magic. Ultimately the more you exist, the stronger your magic.”
“The more I exist?” He asked, puzzled.
“For instance, I exist more than you. You are a mortal or were. I, on the other hand, am a god. A spirit exists more than a human, who exists more than a rock. And a god exists more than a spirit. The more you exist, the stronger your magic.”
“So, it’s inherent to my species?” He asked, disappointed, “It’s impossible for me to grow?”
God chuckled, and replied, “Of course not. You only need to exist more. There are a few ways to do that, but I believe the most common one in your old world was piety. Gods exist, demons exist, but humans exist less. But, if you’re closer to a god, you exist more. Closer physically, spiritually, mentally, whatever, but closer nonetheless. For instance, catholicism in your old world was originally built around a cabal of priests, trying to increase their magic by becoming spiritually closer to their idea of God.”
“The idea of god? Not god?”
“Ideas exist. All a god is an idea given form, and they of course exist less than the idea themselves. But, of course, it’s more possible to get closer to a being than it is to an idea.”
“That doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make any sense. How does magic actually work though?”
“Reservoirs and regeneration and precision and spells.” God replies, dismissively, “It’s not particularly important the mechanisms behind it. Just know that the important part of existence is the regeneration of magical potential. Err, well, not exactly, but approximately. The more you exist, the more magic you regenerate in a shorter time, thus you can put more magic in a spell or a ritual or what have you- it doesn’t really matter.”
“Hold up, so casting a spell, presumably, uses magic from a reservoir- which is passively regenerated at a rate based on my existence- and used to cast spells?” He asked, not expecting much.
“Approximately. Not actually, in reality it’s not even close, but it’s approximately close. There are 50,000 other factors to think of but it’s more like really more like 4- but I think your old world splits each into 9, making it 36- but it’s better described as 5 or 6 or 7, but it’s really, truly only 1: How much you exist. Anything can be done by anything given enough time, a rock could destroy the galaxy after a long enough time- but, of course, it’d take a human much less time. A spirit even less, and a god even less.”
Throughout the monologue, the god shifted forms back and forth from a variety of forms, ultimately landing on the first form he saw them in, a fairly androgynous person. The environment around them shifted back to the ruins they were originally in, but the ruins were clean, with a wooden table adorned with a tea set.
As the god sat down at the table, he was more confused than ever but also got the understanding that they were done talking about this subject. The god lightly chided them to take a seat, and he complied, pouring himself some tea. The god seemed as if they wanted to talk about something, but they refused to make eye contact with him. He decided to take the initiative.
“So, I’m dead and only learning about magic”, He said, disheartened, “And I won’t remember any of this in my next life?”
“Yep,” The god said quietly, sipping at their tea.
“Alright. Can I ask you for something for my next life then?”
God smiled into their tea, “I knew you’d come around to this. But to answer your previous question, I didn’t make a parachute to save you. You did.”
He was stunned, and confused, as God continued, “You became close in my physical proximity, you then existed more, and were able to manipulate reality more, essentially using magic.” God looked at his still stunned face before continuing, “What were you going to ask for in your next life?”
He looked at his tea for a moment, his mind still racing, before making his request. “Immortality, and the power to take abilities from people I defeat.”
“Looking to be a warrior eh?” God replied, “Unfortunately the only immortality I can do is prevent old age. That’ll be fine, it might delay your reincarnation though. I can get that through without anyone noticing. However, the other one is interesting.” God paused for a moment, sipping from their tea, “Taking powers eh?”
“I was thinking more of copying”
“Can’t do.”
“But you’re a god!”
“But I’m only a god,” they replied, “I can only do so much. It’d be a bureaucratic nightmare anyways. Maybe I can push it though- how does copying their worst power sound?”
“Their best power.” He replied, negotiating with a god.
The god groaned, “Mortals and their arrogance. Do you think you can barter with me? Their best power, according to them, sounds perfect. Don’t make a deal with a genie though, you never know how it will end up. I might be able to do it. Rarely. Some people, not everyone.”
“So I get to be born with immortality and the ability to copy powers?” He asked.
“Born with? No, of course not- You’ll find them eventually, probably. I can’t make any promises. Maybe born un-aging, but I make no promises I can’t keep. But you get no other guarantees.” God said gently. “Now, final questions?”
“About 1 billion more,” He said, lingering questions still bouncing around his head, “You said that you don’t want everyone reincarnated to act like the protagonist. How many people are reincarnated?”
“Everyone, next?”
He paused, “Wait, everyone?”
“Everyone in this world you're going to will have passed from your old world, give or take some time. Like them.” God said, pointing at a naked man lying peacefully in the white void. “They were a lumberjack, had a tree fall on them when they were not paying attention. Their life will be used as an example for trainees for maybe the next 50 years or so. They’ll be reincarnated within a few years.” God looked up smugly at him, now looking more like a little girl, “And their platform is in the shape of a circular tree stump! See, I do care!”
“I see,” He said, another question encroaching on every other one, “When will he wake up?”
“Huh?” God asked, their face puzzled, “when he’s reborn, obviously.”
“Wait, but I woke up and I haven’t been reborn?”
“Well, yeah. It’s a bit of an issue if you ask me. A wanderer is always an issue, they rarely happen though. But, ultimately it makes it a little more entertaining. You’ll have to go back to sleep eventually too, ya know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me just tell you, being born without being asleep is fairly traumatizing.”
“So, he died around the same time as I did?”
“Within a thousand years or so, yeah.”
“A thousand years! How is that the same time at all?”
“I’m a god, a hundred years or a blink of the eye.”
“Ugh, you gods are insufferable. Will you watch my lifetime blink away too?”
“You’ll be immortal, you mortal. I-mor-tal. I’ll get at least two blinks out of you.” God said while beaming, clearly enjoying the banter.
“Well you’re just stuck up, you god.” He was enjoying the banter as well, and he enjoyed the company of the god. “Is there anything else your highness believes I should know before I forget it all?”
“Your highness decrees,” The god said, a blonde long-haired girl, maybe 12 or so years old, with a glittering crown on their head, “You shall know that you entertain me. I like you, so, my knight, you shall have my favor. Also, if you meet another god, let them know my name: Paper.”
“Huh?” He said, before the color beneath him disappeared, and the only movement he saw was the ground disappearing into the void, and Paper waving to him, goodbye.
Eventually, after an infinite eon of falling, everything was white, and he lost everything as his vision became engulfed with white, then engulfed in black. He thought, maybe his last thought, that it was ironic that his last sight in a world of brilliant, lustrous white would be one of abyssal black.