Goddess, Another World, and a Cheat Ability

"So, where am I?"

A young man with Hei hair and Hei eyes stood in a pitch-black space that stretched as far as he could see, speaking to the girl before him.

He remembered that just a moment ago, he had been...

Screech!

Oh. That shrill sound of brakes in his head brought it all back. A car had hit and killed him. Talk about bad luck.

"Is it supposed to be this Hei in hell? I don't think I did anything that awful while I was alive."

The young man scratched his head, baffled.

"This isn't hell."

Just then, the girl before him finally opened her eyes and spoke with a smile.

She was fair-skinned and pretty, with white hair and a youthful face. Her flowing white dress gave her an almost ethereal air.

He wasn't studying her because he'd fallen for her. Standing next to her simply made his ordinary Hei clothes look a little shabby.

Rustle.

A small booklet resembling a register of the dead suddenly appeared in the girl's hands, and she began softly reading through his life.

"Let's see. Mo Bai, age twenty. Likes video games. No particular talents. Cause of death... Pfft."

When she reached Mo Bai's cause of death, she let out a little laugh, lending a spark of life to her beautiful, solemn face.

A moment later, Mo Bai no longer saw it that way.

"You were playing on your phone while walking and got hit by a car? Hahahaha!"

With her laughing like that, Mo Bai couldn't imagine her as some ruler of the underworld.

What was this? Had she come here just to make fun of him?

"Ahem. Sorry, sorry. I haven't introduced myself yet."

Apparently noticing the disdain in Mo Bai's eyes, the girl coughed to hide her embarrassment. She rose from her lavishly decorated throne, placed her left hand over her chest, and declared solemnly:

"I am the nameless goddess, the divine being who shows lost lambs such as you the way forward!"

She might have imagined herself looking majestic, but Mo Bai saw something else entirely.

A girl who looked fifteen, apparently cosplaying, was spouting lines so cringeworthy he couldn't imagine saying them himself.

Oh god! Was this some kind of torture?! This had to be hell!

But even as his toes curled, Mo Bai kept those thoughts to himself.

"So... Goddess? Are you going to help me reincarnate or something?" He recalled her grandiose introduction.

He was already dead. Would he be reborn as a baby somewhere, like in a novel, and live another life?

Wait. What if I'm born in a bathroom? Or in a dumpster behind a bar?

Forget it. That's for the next me to worry about.

I'm dead anyway.

"Heh. Consider yourself lucky, mortal. Those who come to me can travel to another world with their memories and bodies intact. The whole package!"

As if she had read Mo Bai's mind, the goddess planted her hands on her hips and spoke with pride.

That startled him.

"If I go back like this, won't it cause... Wait. You mean I'm going to another world?" Mo Bai caught on at once.

Going back to his original world like this would definitely cause an uproar.

Besides, his memory of being hit by the car was still vivid. This couldn't be some elaborate prank.

"Heh. You caught on pretty quickly."

The goddess nodded, seemingly satisfied with his reaction.

"Well, I'm dead, and a little girl claiming to be a goddess has appeared in front of me. So what happens next? Do you just send me to another world? What do you want out of this? And can you at least tell me where I'm going?"

Mo Bai fired off questions one after another.

The goddess didn't seem bothered. Instead, the corners of her mouth lifted slightly.

She could tell that, despite his calm tone, asking so many questions at once meant he was excited.

That made things much easier.

"I had a look at your past. You're a homebody, huh? Ever heard of Wuthering Waves?" The goddess idly flipped through the booklet recording Mo Bai's life.

"Never played it." Mo Bai spread his hands.

"Huh?!"

Her startled cry made Mo Bai's head ache again.

She's just a kid who likes shouting...

"That's perfectly normal. I'm twenty and in college. I'm past the age for gacha games. You're not about to dump me into a world I know nothing about, are you...?"

Toward the end, Mo Bai looked at the goddess with growing unease.

"Heh-heh."

I don't like where this is going...

Seeing her expression, Mo Bai could only sigh and accept his fate.

Getting to cross into another world with his memories and body intact was already a stroke of luck.

"So... great nameless goddess, will I get a cheat ability before my journey begins?"

To his surprise, Mo Bai felt no embarrassment at all saying that.

When you need someone's help, pride goes right out the window.

As for whether he'd get a cheat ability...

A goddess had appeared before him. If she hadn't prepared a cheat ability for him, that would be pretty disappointing.

He'd heard that gacha games were full of world-ending disasters these days. Some way to protect himself would be nice.

"Of course there's a cheat ability. But I happen to enjoy dramatic developments, so..."

With a wave of her hand, a huge wheel appeared beside the goddess.

It was covered in symbols. Mo Bai had watched plenty of anime, so he recognized most of them.

"Rasengan, Zanpakuto, Devil Fruit... There's this much good stuff?" Mo Bai was a little surprised.

"But what you get depends on your luck. If you're unlucky enough to land on this one, don't expect a refund!"

Mo Bai looked where the goddess was pointing and saw a red bamboo scroll.

Great Thousand Record.

Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He was just an ordinary person. Drawing that self-mutilating artifact would be no different from drawing a "Better luck next time."

"You're pretty casual about this..." Mo Bai muttered. He stepped forward and placed his hand on the huge wheel's pointer.

Ding-a-ling!

As Mo Bai spun the huge wheel, a flashy sound effect rang out. While he waited for the result, he asked the goddess one last question:

"Oh, and can you at least tell me why I'm the one who ended up here?"

The goddess was pretty and sweet-looking, but Mo Bai couldn't shake his unease.

He didn't think he was lucky enough to be the one person out of over a billion who got a free ticket to another world.

"No special reason."

At his question, the goddess merely toyed with her long hair, looking bored.

"I sit in this Hei place guiding souls day after day. It gets dull. So I send lost lambs like you to other worlds, then wait for you to die and come back to tell me about your interesting adventures!"

Ding-a-ling!

Just as the goddess finished speaking, the wheel's pointer landed on Mo Bai's cheat ability.

Boom!

Before Mo Bai could see what it was, the ground vanished beneath his feet and he plunged downward.

"Have a lovely trip!"

The goddess smiled down at the panicking Mo Bai as he fell. Then the space returned to darkness.

With another wave of her hand, all the other cheat ability symbols fell away from the wheel. Only the image of ten creatures' shadows remained.

[Ten Shadows Technique]

Looking at the image, she recalled the glimmer of anticipation and excitement Mo Bai had shown earlier and couldn't help smiling.

"Mortals are so easy to figure out."