Chapter 1: Prologue

Once in anybody's life, a thought would occur to them, what will happen to me after I die? I think it's because humanity is scared of their own mortality which makes sense. Who wants to die, right? Truth to be told, I had the same thoughts before. Only in passing, however. If it hasn't happened yet, then there's no need to take it seriously. How am I supposed to live my life if I'm continuously stressing the end of it, right?

So I lived. As quietly and peacefully as I can and that was the plan until I die of old age. There was no need for me to become a 'hero' or a 'villain', reading about them is enough.

But how do I say this? Don't they say when one does something extremely stupid, the body usually move before they can even think?

I think this one is it.

I think I have done something like that.

"Call the ambulance! Call 911!"

"Where's her phone? Call her family!"

"You son of a bitch! Why didn't you live honourably? Why do people have to suffer because of you?!"

"Is it painful, big sister? Are you okay?" That tearful voice gets my attention.

I turn my head a bit and find a girl with tears and snots all over her face. Blurry her face, maybe, but yeah, I remember her.

Painful? I think as I weakly touch my stomach that has been stabbed with a kitchen knife. It's beyond painful. I feel numb.

I don't feel pain anymore. As a matter of fact, I don't feel anything at all. But I can't speak. I don't want to, anyway.

This little girl will remember this for the rest of her life. It's enough trauma for a day.

I want to laugh. Look at me, I already prevented this child from being a hostage and paid a hefty sum for it, and I'm still thinking of somebody else.

I really am gonna die tonight… I look at the sky. Strangely enough, it seems every star is present in the sky. They twinkle brightly, like they're about to welcome me there. Is this a wishful thinking of a dying 25 year old woman?

And yet I have no regrets.

I'm fine with dying.

I'm about to close my eyes as I hear a familiar ring tone.

Talk to me, tell me your name…

"Her phone is ringing!"

I snap my eyes wide open and feel a headache incoming. Somebody please answer or reject that call! I'm dying already, okay?! Why must you embarrass me this way?!

"It's said, First Born on the screen."

Ah, fuck.

My eldest sister. The one and only sister I have. She's ten years ahead of me, and was the reason why I grew up nicely. I give her all the credit for it.

"Hello? Oh, my name is… yes, your sister, she's —" the one holding my phone hesitates but decides the truth is better. "She was stabbed when she saved a child. We already got the suspect tied up and everythin— we called the ambulance! They're — okay, okay!" He puts the phone near my ear. "She said she needs to —"

"Nilla! Listen, I'm about to go! Just wait for me, okay? Big Sister is — I'm about to —"

"Can't." I force myself to say. I can't wait for you, is the whole sentence. Forcing myself to say, I don't know if it's because I have no energy considering my situation or if it's because nobody wants to tell their own living family and relatives that they're about to be as good as dead if they ever see them again. By the time my sister gets here, I will be a corpse. "Don't… go…"

"Nilla…" I can hear the sound of her tears. Unironically, I can hear it clearly when everything is like I was underwater.

"You… best… good… okay… thank…" my breathing slowly lessens and the stars, I feel like I can touch them now if I have the strength to stretch my hands to the sky. "I love you…"

I said everything I needed to say.

I close my eyes, and the last air that enters my lungs comes out as a sigh of relief.

*

Bernilla.

Before their mother died, it was the name she decided for her daughter that turned out to be Garcia's sister. She was only ten at that time, and while she felt sad and angry that her mother was gone, the love she felt for her sister won.

The last living proof of her mother and father's love, alongside her.

Bernilla. It means blessing. 

And now she's gone.

"You need to eat, babe." The voice of her husband feels so foreign to her. "You can't get sick."

"I'm not hungry."

"Garcia…"

"I'm not hungry." She says again, firmly this time.

He looks at her for a second before nodding. "I'll go back to the living room. Come out when you feel ready."

Garcia continues to sit on the dining table, without moving.

She can't eat, she can't drink, she can't even breathe sometimes now that her little sister is gone. She may have been twenty five, but for Garcia, she's always going to be the little girl who chased after her happily.

"Bernilla…"

This isn't going to be easy.

*

The first sense that comes back to me is hearing.

I hear different things; the gentle waves of the sea, book pages being flipped, and two voices talking simultaneously. And then it's my sense of smell; salty breeze of the air, the strong smell of newly brewed coffee and the addicting hint of vanilla in newly bought books. And then it's my sense of touch; feeling the soft mattress I'm lying down on, the warm sun kissing my skin and finally, I get my sense of sight.

I open my eyes and the first thing that greets me is a white, unfamiliar ceiling. And when I turn my head, I see a glass door and it reveals a sandy ground, the clean water of the sea and the blue skies.

"You know, Asmodeus, that wouldn't make sense because the door is a metaphor — oh, wait, she's awake."

"You think?"

I look around the room and find two… people (?) looking at me with expectant eyes.

I'm dead… right?

Or I was dead… or could it be… could it possibly be that?

"Afterlife?" I blurt out the word like a gasp.

The two people meet each other's eyes before looking at me again. One of them says, "Sure, let's go with that."

I hastily sit up from the bed — which isn't a bed but a couch, why is it so wide? — and breathe out heavily. "So, what is this? Is this waiting room or something?"

"You can say that." One of them answers. "Oh, by the way, I'm Uriel. You can say I'm a representative of Heaven. I'm an Archangel, as you can see with my wings on my back."

They do have wings. Big ones with grey colour. Funnily enough, that isn't what I see first. It's the beautiful face they have on. I can't explain it clearly but… they're just too beautiful to be true. Same goes for the other one, but in a sense, they seem much more mysterious.

"Asmodeus, tell the poor human soul your name."

"Asmodeus."

"That's it?" 

'Asmodeus' breathes out in annoyance. "I'm Asmodeus, representative of Hell. Is that good enough, Uriel?"

"Eh, it's fine." Uriel shrugs and smiles at me. "So, uh, let me explain why you're here. You died. In normal circumstances, you would immediately go to Heaven or Hell, because it's easy to determine which side you will be by your actions when you are alive but there would be exceptions, of course, like you."

"Exceptions…?" I ask.

"They could go either way. Maybe they did some heinous crime that a higher official from Hell needs to take them or they might be good enough for an Archangel like this one," Asmodeus points to Uriel. "To pick them up. And there are cases like yours," they pick up a book and say, "You don't belong to Hell."

"Then I belong to Heaven?"

"Uh, no, you don't either." Uriel answers.

I frown. "Then where am I —"

"You are subject to reincarnation."

…?

"Isn't going to Heaven is more or less subject to reincarnation, then why —"

"That's not exactly the truth." Uriel says. "When a soul goes to Heaven, it just means they're eligible to go back to where they came from. I think from a human's perspective, it is called the Universe."

A memory fresh in my mind suddenly emerges. The sky before I died, and how it seems the stars are welcoming me.

"When they go to Hell, they commit an unforgivable crime and they have to be punished… or they still feel regret or guilt from their previous life and they need a place to help them get rid of it. That is Hell." Asmodeus adds.

Uriel interjects. "When the souls that went to Hell are deemed successful, they will go to Heaven so they can go back to the Universe as well. Only time will tell when the souls that went to the Universe will go back to humanity. It could be tomorrow, or today, or yesterday… no one knows."

"But I am not eligible for both…?" Rather, in reincarnation instead?

"You didn't do any crimes nor do you have regrets or guilt. You can't be in Hell." Asmodeus answers.

"So I can go to Heaven?" I know I keep repeating it but it just makes sense to me. If I didn't do anything wrong, why do I have to go reincarnation and live all over again? Once is enough. 

"No." Asmodeus replies with a blank look on their face.

"What?"

"It is because it has yet to be your fate to die." Uriel says, this time. "Though, one of the strongest points of humanity is their ability to rebel against that. Think of it in how humans view, let's say, a video game. Don't you have to finish a level before you go to another level? If you aren't able to finish because you need to go somewhere first, like meeting a friend, while playing, you have to save it and play it later. It's like for you, you haven't fulfilled what it needs to fulfil when you were human, so going back to the Universe isn't possible for now."

"How am I supposed to do that, I'm dead now?!" I exclaim.

"Do you want some coffee?" Asmodeus suddenly asks, it shocks me.

"No!"

"That's why you are going to be reincarnated." Uriel clarifies.

Crap. Did saving that child made my not-alive-life much more complicated?!

…funnily enough, I don't really regret doing that. If I need to do it again, I will. Of course I'm upset and sad that I have to leave my sister but… she has a husband to support her and I know years from now, she will have a child of her own, who she will give most of her attention, and maybe, with some luck, she can only remember me in my death anniversary, and she can smile at my grave by then.

Is this what makes someone a hero? Or would that make me a villain, because I, someone who used that child because quite honestly, I find myself thinking that living is a burdensome task. Wouldn't that make me a bad person? For giving that child I saved, and my sister, trauma? I don't know which one I am.

Is that why I'm gonna be reincarnated? For me to find out which one I am?

"And there's nothing you can do to change this result?" I ask, one last attempt before I give it all up.

"No." Uriel answers while Asmodeus just stares at me. "You can say we're just employees in a big company and even the CEO we respect still needs to answer a higher being than them."

I'm guessing Uriel means God and the higher being… is probably the Universe.

How… curious. The Universe is really vast and mysterious. The fact this is just a part of the Universe. Instead of planets and the sun and the moon, there's a whole different life that lives in it.

You are reading story Suddenly, I had no choice but to be Reincarnated at novel35.com

"So, what do I do now?" Let's just finish this and go home.

"We will reincarnate you, but it's going to be in a different world."

Ah, yes. A genre of fantasy media in my last life. Not so fantasy now, isn't it?

"Don't worry!" Uriel adds. "We will retain your memories. A consolation to what happened to you."

Memories? No, screw that. I need something else. "You need to give me the history of the place you're going to send me on, the languages, the culture, is it going to be a place with mana? I need an unlimited source of that. Also I need an Item Box, you need to give me unlimited supplies. Ah, what else? I need skills, right? Do not make me a Hero or whatever, I need to be a Beast Tamer."

In my previous life, I couldn't adopt a pet because I'm allergic. Oh, right.

"Do not make me allergic to pets!"

Uriel and Asmodeus both look at me. And then, Asmodeus sighs and Uriel laughs.

Uriel says, "Okay."

"I need a house, by the way."

"Okay."

"Also, I need a piece of land. I would like to farm." From what I have heard from my sister, my mother used to have one in our province but she sold it when our father died and they were still trying to navigate life without him. And then my mother learned she was pregnant with me three months after.

Anyway, the point is, I want to farm. And take care of animals. And live peacefully.

Now that I have gained a chance to live another life, I should live in a way that is true to myself once again.

"Okay." Uriel says again, with a smile this time. "I will do as you say."

*

The place I wake up in is a minimalist living room with scattered books on the table, on the floor, on the couches. Cups of coffee on table, and a glass door where I can see the sea outside.

Inside it is one Archangel, one Official Demon and a… human soul? I don't know what I am and I don't want to ask.

Uriel is sitting across from me with a pair of glasses on their face and a bunch of papers in their hands.

Asmodeus looks like they just want to go home.

I can relate.

"The place we're going to send you is called Farawa. In their ancient language, that word means Hope. Farawa used to be a united country, but is now five regions. Norte, Luran, Langan, Timog and the Holy Nation." Uriel says. "Langan is an independent empire and they have the hold of a deadly forest called Death's Forest."

"What an edgy name." I comment.

"Tell me about it," Asmodeus snorts. "Not even a Demon in the lower realm would name something like that."

"That isn't the point, you guys." Uriel sighs. "Anyway, there's a reason why Langan is a independent country. It is because, according to the history, the very first King of this region betrayed the three other Kings."

"I'm guessing that's not really what happened." I reply.

"Why do you say that?"

"You specifically said according to the history, and usually, history is written by the victors."

Asmodeus smirks. "Look at that, she's smart."

Uriel frowns at Asmodeus. "You didn't want to be here before. Now she's 'smart'?"

Asmodeus chuckles. "Get on with it."

Uriel rolls their eyes. "The First King of Langan wasn't the one that betrayed the nation but the First King of the Norte. He wanted to be the Emperor of Farawa, and that would have been forgivable if that was only his plan but the thing is, he wanted to do something else, much worse."

"...this had something to do with Death Forest, hadn't it?" I ask.

Uriel purses their lips. "Yes. The First King of Norte ordered of the assassination of the other kings and the annihilation of the entire country, except for those he deems worthy of life."

Well, to be fair, betrayals and murders are the usual plot of any fantasy novels. But I guess it is the fact that fantasy novels are fiction, they are not supposed to be real. And yet here I am, about to live in one.

"And so," Uriel continues. "He made one of the forest far away of civilisation his base. He used Alchemy, kidnapped people to experiment, and those that succeed had no lick of humanity anymore, and those that doesn't became a festiliser of the forest. And by the time the First King of Langan discovered this plan, it was too late. The succession of the experiment of the humans became monsters, and the forest itself became like a machine, continuously generating new beasts to kill the rest of humanity."

That sounds a lot like history of some countries on Earth, except there's no beasts. Just human with guns and intent to kill.

"And? What happened after that?"

"The First King of Langan still tried to protect the citizens. There was no way he would win, and so, he closed the borders of his region and stayed in the forest to kill any beasts that comes out of it. He had a few Knights with him, but as it was, it was just a total massacre. The First King of Norte found this a good opportunity to use the First King of Langan as a scapegoat and declared that the First King of Langan is the traitor. Of course the people would believe it, and even if there was a chance people would think that didn't even make sense, it would be death."

"I have a feeling you're about to say the Death's Forest is near the border of Langan."

Uriel smiles sadly. "It is."

I groan.

"And the First King of Langan never thought there was something weird with the forest that was near his region?"

"The First King of Langan believed his friend wouldn't do something like that." Uriel informs me.

I guess that makes sense. Something stupid as believing a friend would explain why it didn't occur to him an illegal alchemy is happening in his territory. Don't get me wrong, of course, the First King of Norte is a douchebag, and he deserved death worse than a rabid dog but negligent is a mistake, too. And maybe a sin far greater than betrayal. 

"So, now, Langan is an independent empire and Norte is reigning as an Emperor?"

"Quite. Except Luran is an ally of the Norte and Timog is under the hands of Norte and Luran. The First King of Timog found it odd why Langan closed its borders and realised, whatever it was, it had something to do with Norte. Because of this, Norte and Luran attacked Timog and Norte gave half of the land and resources of Timog to Luran. Now, Timog had to beg to Norte and Luran, and the word beg is using it kindly."

I give a look towards Uriel. I guess it's instinct, that when something like this happens, you expect Heaven to do something about it, even when now I learned Hell is the one I should ask about it.

Uriel puts both of his hands up and says, solemnly. "This may sound like an excuse to you but our job is to regulate the souls, not to change their fates. That is why I said it is one of humanity's strongest points," and they slowly put down his hands and meet my eyes, "To have the ability to rebel against fate."

Things still don't make sense to me and my mind is in a chaotic mess, coming up with thousands of thoughts with nowhere to put them. If I had a real head, I might have had a headache by now.

"And then? What else?"

"For now, that is. You can probably imagine how it is looking in Farawa right now."

If the Death's Forest is in the border of the Langan, and Langan is an 'independent' region, that means Langan could possibly be poor and lacking a few resources. Same goes for Timog, but the resources are probably regulated. If Norte and Luran are just 'blackmailing' Timog, it means they still need Timog on their side. Probably to make sure Timog doesn't side with Langan.

"And the weather? Climate…? How is it looking?"

"Because of Death's Forest, it is always winter in Langan. Because Death's Forest is sucking all the mana people can use."

Mana. I knew it.

"And… I guess that all you need to know for now. You can see the rest for yourself."

I frown. I have a bad feeling about this… "Don't tell me… are you going to send me to Death's Forest?!"

Uriel just smiles.

Asmodeus fell asleep and is currently sleeping like a princess.

After that, Uriel and Asmodeus start bestowing me with 'blessings'. The both of them make me stand up, in the middle of the room while talking to each other. I feel like I'm in a movie about to experience their makeover.

"First of all, she should have unlimited Mana Capacity. She will need it when she gets there, right?" Uriel starts.

"That is impossible. If you give her that kind of thing, she'll die. Human body can only handle so much mana before it explodes. How about this?" Asmodeus sighs. "How about giving her the ability Mana Filter?"

"Oh, yes! That's even better than unlimited Mana Capacity!"

"Excuse me…" I say. "What is Mana Filter?"

"It is an ability that can make your body filter any kind of mana, even when it's originally harmful. Unlike the normal human body who needs to store mana to use it, people with Mana Filter don't have to do such a thing." Uriel explains.

That seems like a cheat skill in a video game. Like MOTHERLODE in Sims, yeah?

"Item Box. Give her two. One for the supplies she wants and one where she can put the stuff she needs to take out later."

"How about giving her some healing skills, too?"

"She doesn't need those Hero Skills. She hates being a hero!"

"Beast Tamer. Actually… I'll give her this pet as a gift."

"...Asmodeus, that's…"

"...that deity gave it to me…"

Uriel and Asmodeus seem to forget about me while they talk among themselves. But I can see some sparkles popping out around me whenever they decide on what skills to pass on to me. And I don't want to disturb them as they talk. I feel like some sort of backlash would happen to me. Instead, I look at the books that's on the floor and pick one. I open it and…

It's blank?

…?

Suddenly, a bunch of letters start coming out of the pages, jumbled up and all, until it arranges itself and the sentence starts making sense.

Bernilla,

It is nice to meet you. I'm the God of Creation of this place. You must know me, don't you? As a welcome, I will give you a gift. My blessing.

At that point, Uriel whips their head towards me and stretches their hand as if they're trying to grab me.

May you have the safest journey, my —

"BERNILLA!"

And with that, the room turns white and everything swallows me whole.

*

The next time I come to, everything is dark and there's no stars in the sky. There are two moons instead, nestled together like lonely people embracing each other and yet the light they give off is still not enough.

"Goo? Gaaa?"

…?

I immediately look at my hands and —

Small.

Small?

This can't be…

"Goo! Gaa!"

I BECAME A BABY?!

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