Are You Here to Take Me to Heaven?

After the class reunion ended, Hermione hurried home. By now, night had basically fallen.

She was eleven and about to turn twelve, and she had finished elementary school. Today was a day of parting, so Hermione had attended a farewell class reunion with her classmates. She had not come home until now because they had played for so long.

Hermione could have asked her parents to pick her up, but she had refused. She knew her parents were busy and did not need to be troubled over such a minor matter. Besides, she felt that she was grown up now and could handle this sort of thing herself. The gathering place was not far from her home anyway, so she could easily go there and return on her own.

Her parents were dentists. Dentists were a high-income group in the United Kingdom, after all. So the area where she lived was not bad, and its safety was guaranteed. Otherwise, her parents probably would not have agreed to let an eleven-year-old girl stay out until evening and walk home alone.

"This is strange. Why is there an owl circling in the sky?"

As Hermione walked home, she looked up at the sky after hearing an odd birdcall and discovered that it was an owl. It did not draw much of her attention; she merely found it strange. But then she remembered that autumn had arrived and that she would soon be entering middle school, so an owl appearing at a time like this was not entirely unacceptable.

She slowly headed home. The starry sky was especially bright tonight, as though all the dark clouds had left London. Hermione found that she could clearly see every star in the sky. It was beautiful, and she liked such a sight. What puzzled her, though, was that she had not seen a single person on her way home. She was all alone on the street.

"This is really strange." Hermione pulled her clothes tighter around herself. She was still young, so she was a little frightened. Of course, she was not afraid of people, but of all sorts of strange, terrifying creatures from stories that often surfaced in her mind in the darkness of night.

So she decided to pick up her pace and get home sooner. At the same time, she wondered whether there had been any response to her school application. Hermione had always been a clever girl, so when choosing a middle school, she had selected one with an excellent reputation and submitted an application. She simply had not received the results yet.

As she walked, Hermione suddenly noticed strange points of light appearing in an open space not far ahead. The lights were silvery white and extremely conspicuous in the night sky. They were beautiful, like elves constantly spinning and dancing in midair as they slowly descended to the ground.

"What are those?"

Hermione was curious and unconsciously walked in that direction. Of course, she did not dare get too close, because as she approached, she clearly felt an oppressive pressure. She did not know how to describe the feeling; she only knew that it made her extremely uncomfortable.

More and more points of light appeared. They seemed to be falling from the sky, yet they also seemed to appear out of thin air. Hermione did not know. She could not explain it and could only watch helplessly as the lights slowly gathered together, growing more numerous, larger, and brighter.

Hermione looked around and was shocked to discover that there was still no one nearby. Although the houses around her were lit up, it seemed that no one had noticed the strange occurrence here! This made Hermione deeply uneasy. She wanted to leave, but she wanted even more to know what would happen next.

Slowly, the lights converged at a single point, and no more silver lights appeared. In an instant, all the lights spread out and transformed into something like a door. All kinds of strange writing and differently shaped runes were engraved upon it. Then the door slowly opened.

Hermione rubbed her eyes, but when she opened them again, she found that she had not been mistaken! There really was a door before her! But that was not the important part. The most important thing was that Hermione clearly saw two figures stumbling out of it!

"God! Did I die in some accident? Are you here to take me to Heaven?"

Hermione stood frozen in place, not daring to move at all. All sorts of random thoughts immediately flooded her mind. Naturally, she was terrified. Stories often said that when kind people died, Angels would come to receive them and take them to Heaven. But Hermione did not want that to happen to her so soon. Going to Heaven might be a good thing, but she was not even twelve yet!

But in the next moment, something happened that made her eyes nearly pop out. A burly man in armor, carrying a massive greatsword on his back, walked out of the silver door and immediately crouched on the ground, dry-heaving. Then another person in a black robe, who looked somewhat thin and frail, walked out as well. Unlike the first man, he did not crouch to dry-heave. Instead, his expression was strange, almost embarrassed.

"Damn it, Lord Josh. Is this what traveling between worlds feels like?"

Needless to say, these two were Josh and Garen, who had summoned the Void Gate to travel through worlds. Josh had been unconscious during his first crossing, so he had not felt anything. This time, he was awake, and the sensation really did make him uncomfortable. Fortunately, Josh had ridden roller coasters and gone bungee jumping before, so it did not affect him much. Garen, however, was clearly having a much harder time.

"Well, I think it's not too bad. I just didn't expect your reaction to be so intense. Maybe it would be better if I put a Magic Shield on you next time?"

Josh said with an amused smile, but the answer he received was a refusal. Garen did not want a Magic Shield filled with Void energy wrapped around him; it would make him feel extremely uncomfortable. Josh did not care much about Garen's rejection. He was observing everything around them.

Very soon, he noticed a girl standing not far away, staring blankly at them. Josh found this rather interesting. After briefly sensing the girl's power, Josh was left speechless. She was merely an ordinary person—no, an ordinary person who had awakened a Magic Seed but had never undergone any training.

"Looks like this time won't be as unlucky as last time."

Josh spoke softly as he carefully looked the girl up and down. To be honest, Josh found her extremely familiar, but he could not remember where he had seen her before. Her clothes also made Josh feel as though he had returned to a familiar place. That was right—her outfit was familiar too.

Is this Earth? Josh wondered. After looking at the surrounding houses and billboards, Josh was basically certain that he had returned to Earth. He just did not know what era this was.

I wonder whether League of Legends exists here. If it does, this should be very interesting. Josh glanced at Garen with ill intent, chuckling to himself.

"Who are you?"

Just as Josh was distracted by other thoughts, the girl seemed to gather her courage and walk over to ask them. Hermione was very afraid. She truly wanted to turn around and leave, but she also desperately wanted to find out what was happening here. She was an extremely curious girl; otherwise, she would not have watched those eerie balls of light instead of leaving immediately.

"English? Looks like we really did return to Earth."

Josh's mouth twitched as he looked at the girl before him. It was not because he had any thoughts about her. Although she looked cute, Josh preferred mature women. As for little girls, they should be raised a little longer first. What gave him a headache was that he had once again heard the thing that had tormented him for over ten years and that he had never used again.

After racking his brain for a long time, Josh found that apart from words like hello, sorry, and goodbye, he could not remember anything else. It was not really his fault. Josh was not some language genius. Even learning the language of the Muya Continent had taken him a great deal of effort. It was already impressive that he could remember a few words from something he had forgotten nearly twenty years ago. After all, it was not his native language.

"Hello." After struggling for a long time, Josh finally managed to squeeze out a word.

"Hello." Hermione gave the young man a strange look. He appeared to be only fifteen or sixteen, handsome but dressed in an odd robe. His expression was strange, as though he was confused by her question.

But Hermione quickly realized something. Could this strange fellow, who had likely come from Heaven, not know English? That seemed unbelievable to her. None of the Angels in the novels she had read had been unable to speak English.

But soon, she saw the man gather a point of light in his hand. It looked very similar to the silver lights from earlier, though it also seemed somewhat different. Hermione could not say what the difference was, but she soon saw him float the light above his finger and hold it out before her.

Is this magic?

Hermione thought to herself, then unconsciously reached out and touched the point of light. She immediately discovered that it entered her body, and then she felt as though her mind had connected with something.

That was right. This was the Mental Link Josh had used because he had no other choice. He had to admit, it was quite useful.

"Hello, little girl. I hope you can understand what I'm saying now," Josh said gently.

"You don't look much older than me. By the way, are you here to take me to Heaven?" Hermione rolled her eyes, but then she remembered something depressing and asked in a low voice.

"To Heaven?" Josh scratched his head. "That doesn't seem to be my responsibility. Besides, for me, sending people to Hell is much easier than sending them to Heaven. Did you misunderstand something?"

Josh himself might not even make it to Heaven, considering he was a Void Mage. No matter what plane it was, Void Mages seemed to have terrible reputations. In the simplest cases, during his previous life, Void Mages seemed to be synonymous with demons. In worse cases, they were servants of demons or something similar.