A Reluctant Isekai

“Where… Am I?”

That was the first thing that came out of James’ “mouth” the moment he regained consciousness.

Looking all around him, he found himself “standing” in the middle of nothing… or perhaps everything.

It felt as if he were blind. He once heard how people who lost their eyesight described it.

‘Like trying to see with my elbow, was it?’

Certainly, that was the most apt description of his current situation.

What did he mean by standing in the middle of everything, then?

That’s the thing, it was as if he could see everything through his ‘elbow’ in alternating colors of black and white.

At the same time, he felt that he couldn’t actually “see” anything.

It was a dizzying experience— it should be, a dizzying experience.

But the only thing he felt now was clarity.

And despite all of that, he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. True, he could see something; in fact, it felt as if he could see with every part of his body.

If this weird form of existence could be called a body, that is.

‘What a weird experience… Am I dead? Is this how a soul perceives the world?’

He wasn’t surprised that there was a high probability that he ‌ currently existed just as a soul.

Long before this, he had already expected that he probably didn’t have long to live.

The signs were already there, his intermittent chest pains or the sudden stabbing pain in his stomach. It was just a matter of time.

Why didn’t he go to the doctor?

‘Heh, as if a broke dropout could afford to go to the doctor. Especially as a citizen of a third-world country.’

Well, there was no point in thinking about his country anymore. He was already dead after all.

What he needed to figure out was what to do from here on, and why didn’t he get thrown to hell— or heaven, if God was feeling generous today—already?

“Hmmm, what a pessimistic individual. I don’t know why this guy was chosen.”

Suddenly, a voice echoed straight to his mind. It was neither the voice of a man nor that of a woman.

‘Damn, pick a side, will you? Oh, maybe this guy is one of ‘those’ guys. What was it again, that gender fluid thingy? Oh, but maybe this person just had an unnatural mix of a heavy and high-pitched voice, which also makes sense too.’

Just as he thought about that, he could feel the temperature drop out of nowhere.

‘Weird, I’m a soul, how could I feel chilly?’

“Has anyone ever told you that you were rude? Oh, of course you haven’t, after all, you are the most polite person in the whole world. Always smiling and saying what the other person wanted to hear.”

Hearing the mysterious voice’s response, he couldn’t help but feel that it was his duty to piss this guy off even more.

‘After all, who told this guy that he could just read another person’s mind? Tell you what, I won’t ever hurt others' feelings if I speak properly. It was your fault for reading my mind in the first place.’

With an ‘I have nothing to lose’ attitude, he quickly switched gears, but before he could start his barrage of curses and profanity in his mind, it hit him.

A barrage of data crashed straight into his mind.

It was a series of conversations— ones that hadn’t happened yet. Or rather, ones that were about to happen.

Word for word, emotion for emotion, the entire exchange was transmitted to his consciousness in an instant, like a downloaded memory.

Worse, there weren’t just one or two such iterations.

There were hundreds of these exchanges, as if every possible version of conversation, every single reaction he might have made, was replayed instantly in his mind.

Although he didn’t like the fact that he always ends up out of curse words to say, the suddenness hit him so hard that he stopped thinking for a full minute— if time exists in this place, that is.

He was overwhelmed by a nauseating feeling of surreal déjà vu that happened over and over and over again in the span of less than a second.

Then, as if on cue, the mysterious voice once again echoed in his mind.

“Let’s restart our conversation, shall we?

I offer you my condolences. You have passed away, with a heart attack as the cause of death.

But please, don’t feel bad, as you have been chosen to experience the coveted reincarnation into another world.

A world of sword and magic, a world full of possibilities.

Now, young man, please state your reincarnation preferences. Do you want to start over from a baby, or do you want to go there with your current age as is?

Please, you are free to consider all your options.”

‘Hmm, no thanks. I don’t want to go to an isekai, just erase me from existence if you can’t send me to heaven or hell.’

“Of course, you are going to reject, but too bad, you’re going anyway.”

‘Hey, that’s not—’

Before he could give the mysterious entity a piece of his mind, space itself collapsed all around him— or maybe it was he who simply ceased to exist within it.

He tried his best to stay conscious, but alas, it was never meant to be.

His awareness disappeared like a fire snuffed out in water.

…

“So? How’s it? You satisfied with my performance?”

A young woman, who looked to be in her early twenties, suddenly asked.

In this empty space, where it was impossible to judge which way was up, down, left, or right, the young woman floated in silence, with seemingly no hope of an answer to her question.

But then, as if to deny that silence, a voice cut through the silent void.

“It was so so, I mean, you’re someone way beyond a mere mortal, yet you got annoyed by him and forcefully finished that exchange by forcing the memories of your ‘future sight’ straight to his head.”

The words came from a young boy who hadn’t been there a moment ago. He lounged lazily on a soft three-seater sofa with his head propped lazily on one armrest, while his legs sprawled over the rest of the sofa.

“Shut up! He mocked my voice! He said—well, not said, he thought that my voice sounds like a young boy’s!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo~! You don’t have the right to peek inside someone’s thoughts. Listen, people can think whatever they want inside their heads, good or bad; it doesn’t matter so long as they don’t say it and hurt others. It’s absolutely OKAY to talk shit about everyone and anything inside their head— well, inside their soul in this case.”

“Oh, don’t give me that!” she snapped, crossing her arms. “He was a soul, for God’s sake! His thoughts were basically his speech, don’t go blaming me for hearing his thoughts!”

She huffed, glaring at the boy on the sofa, “Ugh, whatever! I’ve got better things to do than argue! I still have to clean up after your mess, so please, don’t go around making more problems! You said you were bored, and I gave him to you for your entertainment. Now sit quietly and enjoy watching him.”

She turned, muttering under her breath, “Damn it! Who goes around exploding a civilization’s central planet just because of an argument?! One of these days, I’m so gonna knock some sense into this old man!”

A few moments after steadying her breathing, she disappeared, leaving that small grumble echoing in the empty space.

Left alone, the young boy silently pulled out a control panel, looking through the statistics of James— the soul that had just been sent ‌who-knows-where by his cute daughter for his entertainment.

When he thought about how these days his little girl didn’t even think much about using other humans as his entertainment, he felt a bit sad, but…

“I guess she had too much on her plate, poor girl, having to take care of her old man.”

“Oh well, that’s just the duty of any child, right? Well, let’s just get the compiled data of the planet Lil James was sent.”

Scrolling through the data, he looked for a list of the highest grade Ascender and monster available in the planet’s star system.

“Let’s see… hmm, the strongest Ascender there is about… grade C? Oh, in that place it’s categorized as grade A. I guess for planet-bound civilization, grade C is already beyond their comprehension, huh?”

His eyes narrowed slightly as another entry popped up.

“Eh? There’s a sleeping dragon in the local star? The hell’s a dragon doing in the middle of nowhere… Oh~ there’s a spirit king here, now that’s even more rare.”

After he looked through the data of the destination planet of James’ soul, he decided he would ‘help’ this little guy a bit.

“Well, he already had nice talents, but let’s edit these body physical stats a bit… considering his personality, it will be boring if he spent decades in one place and died of old age after all.”

After he finished fiddling around with the panel, he ended it by setting James’ resurrection point at a certain forest.

“Hmm… should I also put an ability seed? But there’s already one there…”

His finger tapped rhythmically at the panel’s screen, then he paused.

“What about… I just pull out his ability seed and put the one I choose there?”

He stood up, “Brilliant! Now, this is a high-level procedure, so I can’t exactly do that with just this panel… I have to go in person.”

And just like that, just as the young woman before him, the young boy too disappeared, leaving the three-seater sofa floating aimlessly in this alternating black and white vacuum.