I Became a Spirit in Date A Live, but I Refuse to Date

I Became a Spirit in Date A Live, but I Refuse to Date. Author: Upside-Down Zhongsheng

My name is Qian Lingmeng, and I'm a Spirit. Right now, I'm panicking, because the boy standing in front of me, Shido Itsuka, just asked me on a date.

If someone had wanted to date me before, I probably would've been happy. But right now, I couldn't feel happy at all...

Shido: "Lingmeng, will you go on a date with me? I promise I'll save you!"

Looking into the boy's determined eyes, I couldn't bring myself to turn him down, so I answered as tactfully as I could.

"Get lost! I might be a girl now, but I'm still a man on the inside! If you want a boyfriend, go find Kannazuki!"

Shido: "..."

The protagonist ends up with a man. If that's not your thing, please don't complain.

Travel to Another World, Boy!

"Um... I'll get straight to the point. You're dead. There isn't even any ash left of you."

In a vast white space, a sweet-looking little blonde girl said this to the young man across from her.

"...What the hell are you talking about? All I did was grind a game and stay up late. How did I die?"

The speaker was a young man. His brows were tightly furrowed, and he looked far from pleased.

His name was Ling. He was ordinary-looking, twenty-four years old, single, and a college student. His parents had died when he was young, leaving him lonely and starved for affection. He liked gaming, browsing Bilibili, and watching anime—a typical shut-in.

The recent outbreak of a new coronavirus had shut down his school, allowing him to stay home and grind games all day.

But after falling asleep and waking up, he'd somehow ended up here, only for a stranger to tell him he was dead. Who would believe that?

"Ah, it's a little complicated to explain. In short: my name is Xier Ya, and I'm a goddess. You died because a thunderbolt I accidentally released last night traveled down your internet cable and electrocuted you. To make it up to you, I'm going to reincarnate you in another world."

The little girl who called herself a goddess scratched her head as she spoke, looking somewhat embarrassed.

"...Damn, there's so much wrong with that I don't even know where to start. Forget whether you're really a goddess—why the hell would your thunderbolt travel down an internet cable and hit me? Who do you think you are, Yang Yongxin? Even he couldn't pull that off!"

Ling couldn't process Xier Ya's ridiculous explanation. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard.

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah... Let go of me, mortal! Keep shaking me and I'm going to throw up!"

"Uh... Sorry. I got a little carried away."

Coming to his senses, Ling immediately let go and gave the dizzy Xier Ya an apologetic look.

"Ahem. It's fine. Anyone would get worked up after dying for such a ridiculous reason." Xier Ya coughed twice, trying to look composed. "As for why I struck you with lightning... you killed me over a dozen times while we were playing a game last night. I got so angry that I accidentally sent a thunderbolt down the cable and hit you."

"Whoa, so you were that noob I kept killing? You scared me! I thought some little kid had joined the game. I never imagined it was you. Ha! That's hilarious."

Ling remembered how the matches had felt like beating up a child and burst out laughing.

"Hey, that's going too far! I might be a teeny—okay, enormous—bit bad at games, but you don't have to laugh like that!"

Seeing Ling openly mock her, Xier Ya's mood instantly soured, and her face darkened.

But even after she said that, Ling showed no sign of stopping. He just kept laughing.

"...You're still laughing? Shut up!"

A vein bulged on Xier Ya's forehead. She raised her right hand and swung it at Ling, sending a bolt of purple lightning straight into him.

"Aaah! I'm dying! I'm sorry! Please spare me, Lady Goddess..."

Caught in the lightning, Ling was tormented by the sudden shock and begged for mercy without stopping. At that moment, he finally believed Xier Ya really was a goddess.

"Hmph! I'll let you off this time. Let's see if you dare laugh at me again." Xier Ya folded her arms, her expression full of disdain.

She snapped her fingers, and the lightning crackling around Ling vanished at once.

Freed from the shock, Ling collapsed to the ground as though all his strength had left him. He opened his mouth and breathed out a puff of black smoke.

"Ugh... I thought I was going to die. Wait, I guess I'm already dead." Ling got back to his feet and looked at Xier Ya. "I never thought a goddess would play human games!"

"What? Goddesses aren't allowed to play games? Forget it. Enough of this nonsense. I'm sending you to another world now, so get ready."

"Wait, wait, wait! You can't just reincarnate me like that! At least tell me where I'm going!"

Seeing that Xier Ya was about to begin, Ling hurried to stop her. If she sent him to a world like Dragon Ball, where people could destroy heaven and earth at the drop of a hat, a hundred lives wouldn't be enough!

"Why do you have so many questions? Relax, I know what you're worried about. You think the world might be too dangerous and you'll be too weak to survive."

Xier Ya had seen straight through Ling's thoughts.

Ling gave an awkward laugh. "Ha ha. You figured it out."

"Ah... The world you're going to is dangerous, I suppose, but I'll turn you into a member of its strongest race. So stop worrying!"

Xier Ya looked at Ling's timid face with open disdain.

"Oh, good! That's a relief." Ling patted his chest and exhaled. "I'm ready. Reincarnate me!"

"Finally. That took long enough."

Xier Ya snapped her fingers, and a portal glowing blue appeared out of thin air before Ling.

"Oh, right. Since you're being reincarnated, why not change your name too? Think of it as a fresh start."

As though an idea had just occurred to her, Xier Ya gave Ling a mischievous smile.

"Why bring that up out of nowhere? Even if you say so, I can't think of a new name on the spot."

Ling shook his head and looked at her in confusion.

"No problem! I've already thought of one for you. How about Qian Lingmeng? Pretty, isn't it?"

"It sounds nice, but why does it sound like a girl's name?"

"Oh, don't worry about the little details! Come on, get in."

Still wearing that mischievous smile, Xier Ya pushed Ling toward the portal. Ling thought something was odd, but he obediently stepped through it anyway.

At last, Ling entered the portal...

"Ha ha... I wonder how he'll react when he sees his new body. That's what you get for laughing at me!"

Xier Ya stared into the portal, muttering to herself...

"Wooo... Wooo... Wooo..."

Not long after Ling entered the portal, a blaring alarm shattered the peace and quiet of a city somewhere in Japan.

Everyone out on the streets froze when they heard it. Then they hurried toward the shelters.

Within minutes, the streets were empty. The silence was frightening.

At that moment, the sky above the city seemed to compress. The air twisted and tore at itself, forming a black sphere.

The sphere slowly descended toward the city.

The instant it touched the city, a tremendous boom rang out. A violent blast tore through the area, leaving the city in ruins as though a massive hole had been gouged through it.

A Spacequake—that was the name of this phenomenon. The first had occurred thirty years earlier near the border between Mongolia and China's Inner Mongolia. Its enormous blast had torn a hole through Europe and Asia.

Roughly 150 million people had died in that event, dealing the world a devastating blow. Later generations had named it the Eurasian Great Disaster.

Afterward, Spacequakes of various sizes continued to occur around the world from time to time.

There was no way for people to prevent a Spacequake. All they could do was rely on machines to predict their arrival. The slightest unusual fluctuation in space would set off an alarm, warning everyone that a Spacequake was coming.

When people heard the warning, they fled to shelters built in advance, just as they had now.

The Spacequake began to fade. At its center, the faint outline of a person appeared.

"Whoa... What happened here? Why does everything look like it got nuked?"

The person was Ling. He stood on the only patch of ground that was still more or less intact, staring at the ruined surroundings in bewilderment.

"Where am I, anyway? These buildings don't look too different from the ones back in my world, so this place must be pretty similar, right?" Ling looked around and muttered, "Aw, I thought I'd end up in a world of swords and magic. Kind of disappointing, but whatever."

As Ling walked, he kept mulling it over.

Then he happened to pass a collapsed building. A mostly shattered mirror on its wall reflected his image.

"..."

Ling suddenly fell silent. The person in the mirror didn't look like he had before he died. Instead, he saw a girl he'd never met.

She had long, pale-gold hair with a braid tied on the right, pinkish-blue eyes, a straight nose, and a small mouth. In short, she was stunning. Ling was sure there had been few girls so beautiful in his old world.

Her clothes were every bit as striking as her face. A crown set with three rainbow-colored diamond-shaped crystals sat atop her head. She wore a long white dress with a colorful peony on either side of its flowing skirt. There was little fabric around her waist, leaving its slender curve bare, while simple brown boots covered her long legs and lent her splendid outfit a touch of plainness.

Ordinarily, the sight of a girl this beautiful would have excited Ling so much he couldn't sleep. But right now, he couldn't laugh.

Because the beautiful girl before him was... himself.

"He" Became "She"

"Hey, hey! What the hell is going on? How did a manly man like me end up like this?"

Ling stared at his small, girlish reflection, overwhelmed by conflicting emotions.

"This has to be a trick! I just look a little androgynous, right? I'm still a man underneath, right?"

Ling refused to accept what he saw and kept trying to convince himself.

With a sinking feeling, Ling reached a hand between his legs. Then despair hit him. The little buddy that had been with him for over twenty years had vanished. There was nothing there.

"It's over. It's all over. The thing I was proudest of as a man is gone..."

Ling gave up resisting reality and slumped to the ground. His eyes were as empty as those of a fish that had lost all its dreams.

He was still a virgin, yet the moment he crossed into another world, he'd changed sex. Ling couldn't accept it.

Isn't this gender-swap stuff only supposed to happen in novels? Why did it happen to me?

As Ling thought that, he finally understood Xier Ya's mischievous smile and why she'd suddenly wanted him to change his name.

She must have known all along that he'd turn into a girl. No—Ling was certain Xier Ya had done it on purpose, all to get back at him for laughing at how bad she was at games.

"...Xier Ya, you little brat! I only laughed a little. Did you really have to go this far? I hope your mom always pays extra for groceries, your dad always gets crushed on the subway, your grandpa gets heckled every time he plays chess, and your grandma is always half a beat behind at dance practice..."

Ling went on cursing Xier Ya for several minutes, all but insulting eighteen generations of her ancestors.

Meanwhile, Xier Ya, who was playing games in her own realm, suddenly sneezed for no apparent reason.

She rubbed her nose and said in puzzlement, "Why did I sneeze? Oh, whatever. That kid must have realized he's a girl now and started cursing me because there's nothing else he can do."

With that, Xier Ya lowered her head and went back to her game...

"Whew... I'm exhausted."

Before long, Ling—no, she should be called Qian Lingmeng now—felt her throat going dry and put an end to her tirade. Cursing Xier Ya wouldn't change anything. She was only wasting her breath.

Still resentful, Lingmeng gave the two rather ample mounds on her chest a squeeze and felt a pleasure unlike anything she'd experienced before.

They're huge. A C cup, maybe?

As embarrassing as it was to admit, for a moment Lingmeng felt that becoming a girl might not be so bad after all.

"Damn it, what was I just thinking? How could I think that when I'm a man?" Lingmeng let go and scolded herself. "Huh? Is something flying this way?"

In the mirror, Lingmeng caught sight of a group of things that looked like birds flying rapidly toward her from behind. She hurried to her feet, turned around, and looked up.

"They seem to have wings. Are they birds?" Lingmeng watched the dark shapes intently. "Wait, something's not right!"

As the shapes drew closer, Lingmeng could make out more of them. By the time they were less than a few hundred meters away, she realized something was wrong.

They weren't birds at all. They were girls in skintight suits, with thrusters and wings on their backs, carrying advanced Gatling guns and glowing Light Swords.

An Unregistered Spirit...

Lingmeng was especially nervous now. Why? Because dozens of girls in strange mechanical armor had surrounded her, aiming Gatling guns and Light Swords at her.