Prologue: A New Beginning

In a dark room covered with many posters of anime girls and eroges, lit only by the faint light of a TV. A constant clicking sound of a controller can be heard, held by a boy sitting on the side of his bed with a listless expression.

“Ding, ding”

The sound signifying his character’s death in the game echoes throughout the room. With the same emotionless expression, the boy looks up at the clock. It reads 4:30 AM.

“Just one more death, I can still get some sleep before school.”- The boy told himself.

Right as he said that, his eyelids start to get heavier and heavier, and eventually he falls to his side, falling asleep on his soft bed. Within seconds, he slides off the bed, “Thud” a sound can be heard as gravity carries him down to the hard wooden floor. The idiot who believes that he can finish the boss two hours ago ends up wasting his precious sleep. Ah yes, this idiot is our main character, Ryuji Tanaka, a 14 year old boy that lives in Japan. Everything about can be summarized in one word “average”. He isn’t an overachiever nor is he a bad student, he is just your background character. Raised in a middle class household, he lives a life like everyone, uneventful and mundane.

“Wake up Ryuji, you’re going to be late for school!”- a familiar sound echoes through his room from downstairs.

“Just... 5 more minutes... Mom...”- Ryuji replies in a slow and barely audible voice.

The sleepy boy tries to open his eyes to take a peek at the clock. After a great amount of struggle, he manages to force open his eyes ever so slightly. The TV is still on from yesterday night along with the sound of the game he was playing. His game character standing still at the respawn point, a low battery message can be seen at the top right corner of the screen. Turning his head over to his window and looking up. The clock reads 8:30. The boy jolts awake with a panic.

“OH NO, I’M LATE FOR SCHOOL!”

He immediately rushes out of his room, slipping on his blanket that’s on the floor and falls, “BAM” the boy hugs his knee in pain. No time to waste, he stood up and started changing, then quickly brushing his teeth. He ran down stairs past the living room where his dad sits and into the kitchen.

“Why didn’t you wake me up earlier Mom?! I’m about to be late for school!”- Ryuji bickers.

“I did consider waking you up, but I wanted to let you sleep a little more. You know what they say, sleep is important for your skin.”- His mom nonchalantly replies.

“While you are here, you should eat breakfast with us. I made a little bit too much food.”- She follows up.

“AGHHH, I’m late for school! I’ll just grab this.”- Ryuji answers in a rush.

Ryuji quickly searches around on the table filled with many delicious looking food, a feast that his mom made for breakfast. Locking his sight on the piece of toast, he grabs it in head to the hallway. He rushes toward the door and put his shoes on, holding the piece of toast using his mouth.

“Irrrm, orffff tur schoorrlll”- He says with the piece of toast in his mouth.

The boy is now outside in the nice, sunny weather. He turns right and starts to run en route to his school.

“Wow, I must look like an anime main character so much right now, this is so cliche. What if I run into some cute tsundere girl.”- He thought to himself while having an ugly ass grin.

Distracted, he slips on a baguette on the ground, falling face first into a pole, crashing and losing his piece of toast in his mouth.

“NOOOOOO!!!”- He yells in despair.

But the boy didn’t have time to lose. He had to accept his defeat. With a pained look and some tears in his eyes, he stood up and continued running to school, not looking back once. After a few minutes of running, he arrives at a traffic intersection that looks quite empty. The crossing signal is still red so the boy hops up and down, trying to keep his running momentum. With some free time, glances over to his right and sees a truck in the distance, heading towards his direction on the road.

“WOW, THAT’S A S83P MINI TRUCK!”-The boy yells in awe.

“That’s the legendary truck in every isekai anime. What an amazing coincidence! I gotta take a picture to show it to Handa!”- The boy thought to himself.

With the truck approaching, the boy pulls out his phone to try and get a picture of the marvelous truck. But with every second that passes, the eagerness turns to horror as he sees one of the front wheels on the truck slides, veering it off course into the side walk in his direction.

“I love isekai anime, BUT I’M NOT ABOUT TO BE IN ONE!”- The boy screams out and jumps towards the road as the truck drifts into the sidewalk, completely obliterating the traffic light.

Narrowly escaping death, the boy, still shook, yells out:

“HA-HA, not today baby! You thought you could take me? Not in a million years!”

But with the sound of a car horn extremely close behind him, the boy quickly turns around in horror. Yes, it was another S83P Mini Truck manufactured by Honda in Japan with a yellow rim heading towards his way, with it being so close, dodging was impossible. A big crashing sound can be heard, the isekai truck has indeed taken another life, albeit requiring a double whammy.

Waking up in a room filled with only bright light, the boy sighs as he has seen too much anime to know that he is about to be isekai’d. With some small grunts and sighs, he stood up and started to walk in the direction of that light. It led him into a room that looked like outer space. A small, white path leads right into its center where a beautiful blonde goddess can be seen, sitting on her chair and looking at Ryuji. Her expression is calm, as if she was expecting him. As he walks closer, she starts to speak in a very soft tone.

“Welcome, poor lost soul. This is the afterworld, where all the souls of those who experienced unfortunate deaths are given a second chance.”

“You especially, are quite unfortunate. You almost narrowly escaped death, but ultimately couldn’t get away from its clutches. I’m sorry that you had to go through that.”- She said with a sorrowful look on her face.

“Did I at least look cool when I died?”- The boy asked.

“Well, it looks like after narrowly escaping the S83P mini truck, upon seeing the second S83P mini truck with gold rim, you ahem...”- The goddess tries to cover up her embarrassment.

“You, hmmm... well... wet yourself, and the truck didn’t really do much damage to your body, so many passersby can see...”

“Ok, you can stop there.”- The boy interrupts the goddess with a defeated tone.

“At least I was late to school, so other students couldn’t see the sorry state that I was in.”- The boy tries to rationalize to salvage what is left of his honor.

“Well sadly your crush, Nagane, happened to be late today too and well… she saw your body.”- The goddess said.

“NOOOOOO!!!”- The boy yells in despair while both of his hands cling to his head.

“My love life is over, out of anyone, she had to be the one that saw my body in that sorry state.”- The boy screams in horror, while looking at the image on the ground of a pathetic looking body with snots spilling out, and tears coming out his eyes with soaked pants.

“Rest assured, young man. That’s why this world exists, to compensate for your untimely death.”- The goddess gives him a look of reassurance.

With his weeb knowledge, the boy catches on quickly to the goddess’s explanation of how he will be reborn into a new world called Pandora. A land where magic is common, even better is that Demon Lord was recently vanquished by that world’s hero. A wonderful and peaceful world to be reincarnated into. The Goddess also grants him almost omnipotent levels of magic.That is, he has an infinite mana pool, can cast any form of magic without the need of incantation, and he has the knowledge of any magic spells in existence. It was a deal too good to be true for the boy, but it makes total sense, considering the very tragic circumstances of his death.

“Hell yeah, it looks like my death wasn’t for nothing! This new life will be amazing! I can conquer the world and have my own personal harem!”- The boy said in quite a confident tone.

“Other than the fact that you constantly kept staring at my boobs during my explanation, you caught on quite quickly.”- The goddess replies.

“Hehe, what can I say?”- The boy snaps his head to the side, averting his gaze.

“Well, there’s no time to waste. It's time for you to head into the world of Pandora, young lost soul. Good luck on your journey and I wish you all the best.”- The goddess said in a louder voice, glowing and opening a gate.

A bright flash of light appears, so bright that it’s almost blinding for the boy. The sounds of many lively voices fill the air surrounding him, the boy opens his eyes and sees that he is now in the world of Pandora. A completely foreign place, completely different to his homeland of Japan. It looks just like the setting to those JRPG that he always plays. Lively streets in a medieval looking town filled with colors, the air is fresh and sounds of carriages can be heard down the street. Many mages can be seen walking down the street, some street performers even using magic to aid their performance. It took a while for it to sink in as Ryuji stood there in awe. It looks like no one has noticed his sudden teleportation into the area either.

“Wow, I’m actually in a fantasy world! With real people and real magic! This is not a dream!”- He looks up in the sky in pure joy and celebration.

“YEAHHHHHHHHH!!!!”-Ryuji shouts in celebration and starts to dance with his terrible dancing skills that would burn people’s eyes.

As he is celebrating, he looks around and sees many passersby looking really concerned, some are even yelling something at him. With confidence and the new magic knowledge that flowed into his brain, he laughs and turns around. Seeing that he is right in the middle of the road and a horse drawn carriage heading his way, Ryuji keeps calm and smiles. With his superb magical ability, he simply teleports himself a few meters to the right to avoid getting hit.

“See? No problem!”- The boy said out loud to reassure the passerby.

Little did he know, he teleported right in front of another horse drawn carriage on the other side of traffic. Before he could even know it and react, it hit him, killing him instantly.

Waking up once more in a room filled with bright light, the boy is struck with disbelief. He just died again within a few minutes of reincarnating to another world. He sprints towards the familiar light, screaming while looking for the goddess again. Once he reaches the room, he looks up at the goddess, who has a very disappointed look on her face. It was as if she was looking at a colossal failure, which was true.

“I’m sure you don’t need me to give another explanation”-She said.

“I don’t want to talk about that, please. Let’s just pretend we both saw nothing.”-The boy said quickly.

“No one has even given me this much trouble this quickly before. This is unprecedented. Give me a few minutes.”- The goddess states.

The goddess turns to her side and pulls up something. It looks like she is communicating telepathically to someone and arguing with them. After a few minutes of panic discussion on what to do, she turns to him.

“ Unfortunately for you, lost soul, I cannot grant another miracle for you. There are no special perks you can have anymore. At the very least, I can provide you another world to reincarnate into.”- The goddess said in a disappointed voice.

She explains that this new world she will be putting him into is called Ataxia, a deep rooted world where the Demon Lord still lives. He is also constantly reining terror across the land. The world won’t be as peaceful as Pandora, but at least it won’t be too terrible either. The boy will not have any special powers, and will be reborn into a random family.

“That is the best I can do for you, lost soul. Good luck on your journey, and please don’t die again immediately, please, please, oh please.”- The goddess said, breaking her elegant facade to tell the boy in desperation, as if she would lose her job.

“I promise. I will not disappoint you this time.”-The boy answers with minimal confidence.

“Hopefully...”- He quietly whispers while avoiding eye contact with the goddess.

With another flash of light, the goddess once again wishes him luck and sends him to reincarnate into the world of Ataxia. The real adventure begins now for the boy, along with all of its difficulty to come, and the uncertain future that awaits him.

End of Prologue.