Rowan died. This was widely regarded as being bad for your health, but based on his current surroundings, it didn’t seem too bad. 

He was in a marble garden, not decorated with marble, mind you, everything in the garden was made of marble. It seemed a bit gaudy to him, but what did he know? He’s the dead one.

Suddenly, an ethereal voice rang out in his mind, “Child. For your bravery in battle, you have been given a second chance. Any world you could wish for is open to you. You could retire to a peaceful farm on a beautiful, verdant planet, or become an engineer on an advanced world with no war. The universe is open to you!” 

Rowan looked upwards and saw her. Gorgeous didn’t even begin to describe her, so of course the first thing he said is, “I wanna fight.” 

“U-uh, what? I don’t think you understand, for your bravery, you never have to war against your fellow man again!”

“That’s boring. I wanna fight.” He spoke once more with a monotone voice. He didn’t see why this was so hard to comprehend. 

“Your life has already been nothing but fighting! Don’t you want to try something else?” The goddess asked, almost pleading. 

“No, I wanna fight.” He said stubbornly

The goddess felt her brain short circuit before she finally just gave up. 

Sighing, she asked, “Is there anywhere in particular you want to fight?” 

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This finally got Rowan thinking. The goddess wasn’t wrong, he had been fighting his whole life. He had been fighting since he was four years old, when he had to battle for every scrap he could get. When he eventually enlisted, he was frequently reprimanded for being too violent. He thought that was stupid - they were soldiers, not nannies - why should he go easy on the enemy?

But did he still want to fight other people? He loved fighting, but people had gotten old. There wasn’t a challenge, and they died so easily. Rowan didn’t like killing, it ended fights way too quickly

Contrary to how his thoughts sounded, Rowan wasn’t stupid. He knew this was the opportunity of a lifetime. He could go wherever in the universe that he wanted, but that was the thing, he didn’t want a peaceful life. He had tasted peace in his last life - not for long, mind you- and he found it boring. 

Finally, he asked, “Is there a place where I can fight non-humans?” 

The goddess’ demeanor actually lit up when he said that, “thank goodness”, she thought. He wasn’t a complete psycho!

“There are several worlds that need a brave warrior to fight monsters! Do you want to fight demons? Or monsters? Elementals? Ooh, robots maybe!” She asked, excited

“Yes.” is all he said in response. 

“Uh, you wanna fight all of them?” 

“That’s what I said.” 

The goddess frantically searched through all the available worlds, of which there were infinite, but it was still difficult to find something that specific. 

“Ah! I found one! Let's see… Robots, check. Demons, Check. Monsters and Elementals, check and check. Ooh, robot demons! Now that is exotic. Damn, they are in a pretty major war right now, do you wanna wait until that’s over?”

The goddess had Rowan absolutely starstruck at ‘robot demons’. He would not wait for this.

“No, I want to go right now.” He said, heat entering his tone for the first time.

“Um, there aren’t any good candidates for reincarnation right now, you would have to go into an already inhabited body.” 

“That is fine.”

“I don’t know… hmm, this guy could work. Nothing great in any of his previous lives, and he is destined to live a boring life again in this one. He wouldn’t be missing out on much, I guess. I can send him to his next life. Hmm, he does have a pretty decent talent with magic… it would be a waste.”

Rowan, ever impatient, grabbed her arm. 

This was a bad move. 

Before the goddess could react, he was already traveling down the conduit she had made to observe the man he was going to replace.

Silence rang in her divine realm as she realized what happened.

“Fuck.”