Reincarnated with a cheat power, but I picked the wrong power!

So I found out that when you die, depending on your actions in life, you are granted a second chance at life with a cheat power. Now, normally you don't get to actually pick your cheat power, but my death was unique. You see, normally people don't die because some goddess somewhere accidentally kills you trying to kill someone else in a series of freak accidents.

As a result, I ended up in front of an apologetic goddess of rebirth. How apologetic? She handed me a sort of electronic book and told me to pick whatever ability I wanted. There certainly were a large number of abilities from your typical "Strongest Swordsman" from fantasy to "Enchantress" to "Summoning Slimes" and other weird abilities. Of course, since I, you know, died before I could find romance, I wanted to have a nice, romantic ability. Not Enchantress. I wanted whoever I loved to fall in love with me for reals.

Like, for reals for reals. Well, after some searching, I found a few decent abilities:

True Love Detector: Enables the user to detect how much a person really loves a target.
Fate's Knot: Alters fate to increase the amount of encounters with people the user is interested in.
Compatibility Visual: Gives the user the ability to see compatibilities.
Fortune Teller: Allows the user to discern the fortunes of a target.
Highly Fit: Makes staying fit easier for the user.
Detractive: Makes a target less attractive to others.

Of course, these were all decent and matched my criteria, but I was only allowed one. In particular, I was thinking True Love Detector or Detractive. The first would allow me to tell if the other person really loved me and the later would help avoid disputes that might pop up if my desired spouse was overly attractive.

As I swiped up and down the list, my finger accidentally brushed against an option and selected it as my choice. I looked in horror at the ability I ended up picking.

"Trebuchet Summoning? What kind of ability is that?"

The goddess frowned as she looked at something in the air beside me for a few moments. Her expression turned to confusion for a few moments before changing to surprise.

"Oh? That is an odd choice. Well, you can summon a trebuchet anywhere in sight, so it isn't bad for battle maniacs that like wars, but that seems like a weird choice for you. Did you read the description properly?"

"I didn't mean to pick that!"

Seriously, why in the world was that skill even in the list? I just wanted a happy, romantic life, not some battle hardened life of combat! Worse yet, the goddess seemed to smile wryly as if planning to placate me.

"Ah, sorry. Well, what is done is done. Think about it this way, you can summon a trebuchet anywhere, if your previous trebuchet breaks or is stolen, you can just summon another one and the previous one will disappear, same with any ammo you use for the trebuchet. It is honestly quite convenient in a warring world. Well, you'd end up in a less modern world, but that isn't too bad."

"I am just a girl! Why would I want a war ability? What even is a trebuchet?"

"Let me install the information in your head. It might hurt a lot, so please brace yourself."

"Shouldn't you be telling me it won-Oh god! My head!"

The pain felt crushing as if someone was using a magnifying glass to etch the information into my brain. The pain increased as more information rushed in and I found myself bashing my head against the floor from the pain as I lost control of my body. I somehow knew everything I might need to know about trebuchets and some of it was rather horrific. I also knew everything about my skill now, but it felt like I must have screamed for years.

"Well, you were screaming for years. Ummm... I'm sorry, I thought it would be okay since you don't really have a body right now, but I didn't realize it would be worse without one."

The goddess really did seem apologetic, but I was rather irritated. Just how scatterbrained was this goddess? Still, even if I didn't have a useful ability, I could still find love. Hopefully.

"Let me think. I can at least try to set you up with a good world. Trebuchets are rather nice for war, so you should easily climb the ranks and get a lot of prestige."

I sighed. This goddess clearly did not seem to understand just how useless this skill was.

"Look, I am a girl. What in the world would I want a trebuchet for? I can't even operate it, I can't move it. I am just a normal girl."

"Oh, well, I can't undo your selection, but I'll secretly give you a second ability so you can use the trebuchet. There you go, you now have super strength. You should be able to move the trebuchet by yourself now."

"If you could give me a second ability, why couldn't it be something like True Love Detector?"

This scatterbrained goddess! If you could grant someone anything and intended to grant that someone anything they wanted, wouldn't common sense normally be to grant them the skill they wanted instead of a skill for what they didn't? I mean, not that any of this was normal or common in any sense of the word, but still.

"Oh, you wanted that? Ummm.... Sorry! Oh, but the world I'm sending you to will be a warring world. They have daily wars from 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon with a thirty minute lunch break at noon..."

"Is war a day job or something?"

The heck? What kind of war is that? Do they not do ambushes or night raids or anything? Even our legacy wars were more involved than that!

"Well, they found that war hindered the economy too much unless they kept the war constant, so in order to reduce the economic impact, wars are now scheduled ahead of time with a designated location and they have matches until one side manages to take the leading general. If no clear winner is found, they look at the overall results..."

"The heck? So wars are just chess with living people?"

"Well, you aren't exactly wrong..."

For reals? I had to deal with a world where war is basically just a sport? Was that really okay? I mean, not that I wanted a real war or anything, but what stops a country from starting a real war?

"You are from Earth 97, right?"

"We are just called Earth, thank you very much."

Seriously, why was she appending a 97 to Earth? Was there like 97 different Earths or something? 

"Yes, so Earth 97 is a bit different from the world you will be going to. The god of that world is active and ensures that the rules are not broken. If any country were to break the rules, the god of law would destroy the entire country, so no sane country would break the rules."

"I see."

Okay, definitely not scary at all to think that I could die because of someone else's mistakes. Again.

"Once again, sorry about that. She does this a lot, but usually we manage to avoid unintended casualties."

"Oh no, it is fine, nothing wrong with me going to visit my sister at her workplace, having a car lose control, crash into me, strike a solid brick wall with windows and turn me into a pile of meat that even my mother couldn't recognize. All because some goddess messed up! I'd hate to think about what my sister must be feeling right now. She must be so shaken from that accident."

Just a tad irritated at this point, I ended up more sarcastic than I meant to be. I understood that this goddess wasn't at fault, it was just that dying for some stupid reason upset me. And my sister was working in that café, so I was a bit worried about her. This goddess refused to tell me anything aside from my death.

"If it makes you feel any better, I think you can still find love. There are plenty of generals that have hundreds of proposals, so if you advance the ranks enough..."

"But I want true love, not just anyone!"

"Well, true love is still possible, you just need to carefully pick your desired person. You'll have plenty of choices, I'm sure. I'm confident that you can make it and I'm rooting for you!"

Well, I suppose it is slightly better than nothing at all. Still, if every time we die, we get reincarnated with some sort of cheat powers, wouldn't that mean I had some sort of power my previous life?

"Well, Earth 97 is a bit special. The god there strips away the powers from reincarnations and takes the powers for themselves."

"What? How totally unfair!"

"Well, normally the perks are rather minor like 'skilled with pianos' or something and you'd lose your previous perk once you die, so it isn't like you'd have a bunch of perks now. Oh, but don't worry, you'll be reincarnated into a body that already exists with their memories and yours. Rather, you will remember after a few years."

Well, nothing to it but to make do with what I can get. At least having some sort of ability sounds better than nothing. The goddess waved goodbye and wished me good luck as I fell into a pit of pure black. The next time I awoke, I'd be someone else.