"Welcome to the afterlife, Satou Kazuma"
"H-Huh?"
A sound of pure confusion was the only thing I could muster in response. I looked around for the source, my eyes falling upon a girl on the other side of the barren room. She was a blue-haired beauty, her manicured nails tapping in sequence against the arm of her throne in an almost impatient manner.
I had no idea who this woman was, but she was without a doubt the most gorgeous girl i had set my eyes on. Easily outclassing the likes of models and idols. Curves placed in just the right places accompanied by a shimmering body of thick, azure tinted, hair and a pair of striking cyan eyes.
"The afterlife?" I parroted as I took in my surroundings.
It certainly didn't look like the afterlife. In all honesty, I have no clue what an 'afterlife' would look like but im fairly certain it wouldn't be just two chairs in a dark room with no other defining features to speak of.
"Yes, the afterlife, seeing as you died" The beauty announced formally.
I was about to refute her claim, considering I was quite literally still breathing, but my previous confusion had subsided a little and I was able to recall what had happened only a few moments ago.
I remember seeing a girl, someone I recognized from my high school, walk out into the road without noticing the looming truck-shaped shadow speeding towards her. The last thing I can remember before waking up here was lunging at her to push her out of harm's way. Just like that, it clicked. I must've died saving that girl, that was the only reasonable assumption I could make.
"I see…" I said finally. "Was she okay? The girl I saved; I mean"
Before my apparent death, I had lead a life of laziness and self-interest. Perhaps though, If I did save that girl, then I was able to achieve one good thing. Also, if she had died, then my death would be completely in vain. That wouldn't be good.
Hearing me ask this, the girl's lips started to quiver frantically, her shoulders were shaking too.
"Y-Yes! The girl lives! Even though she did fracture her leg" She answered, beginning to giggle like a school girl when she looked me in the eye.
I narrowed my eyes at the snickering girl, my face heating up ever so slightly under my skin. Was she? She was laughing at my death, wasn't she?! What sort of bitch does that?
"Wha- "
"But it wouldn't have mattered if you had pushed her!" She blurted aloud, continuing to laugh some more after her words. "It was just a tractor after all!"
"What?!" I exclaimed bewilderedly, gripping the arms of my chair in frustration.
"It wasn't a truck! It was a tractor!" She squealed with amusement.
Seeing her laugh so hard and so much at my demise made me want to give this rude brat a hard slap around the face.
Regaining my composure, a little, I inquired:
"So, how did I die?"
"You died of shock, had a heart attack right there and then" She replied, trying her best not to launch into another laughing fit. "Even the doctors and nurses were laughing at how pitiful you were! I've been doing this gig for a while but you're the first to die in such a bizarre manner"
"Shut up! I don't want to hear something so cringy!" I retorted as I covered my ears from her hurtful words
"Even your own parents laughed!" The girl cackled as he continued her verbal assault. "Your own parents~!"
"Shut your mouth already!"
Deciding she had her fill of fun, she sat up straight on her throne.
"Well, that ends my de-stressing session. Satou Kazuma. My name is Aqua, the Goddess of water. I am a deity that guides young people who die in Japan… Now, putting aside how funny your demise was, you have two options."
Even though I was ready to lunge at my verbal attacker, I decided to set aside my anger to listen to the mentioned options. At least for the moment.
"Option one would be reincarnating and beginning a new life on Earth as a baby. The other option would be staying in a place sort of like heaven that closer resembles the life of a pensioner at an old folk's home"
"Eh, how can a place be 'sort of' like heaven?"
"Heaven isn't all it's cracked up to be" The apparent goddess explained. "No television, no manga and no games, there are only other people who died before you. Since you are dead, you can't do anything kinky because you literally don't have a physical body~. The only thing you can do is bask in the sun with your predecessors and chat. Forever"
That sounds horrible! No entertainment in any form except talking to my ancestors who would no doubt would berate me for wasting my private school tuition too play games. Sure, reincarnating to a baby isn't ideal but it's a heck of a lot better than that sham of a heaven.
"However, there is a third option!" She proclaimed grandly, standing up from her chair. "Do you like games? Of course, you do! You are a HikiNEET after all."
Before I could answer, and more importantly fire back by calling her a bratty bitch, she continued:
"What if I told you that there was a world similar to the ones portrayed in fantasy games and novels, a world that needs your help!"
"I would say; 'What's the catch?'" I replied with a raised eyebrow.
"For a useless NEET that died from shock, you sure are a perceptive NEET" She complained, ignoring my protests of the overuse of the NEET label. "This world is under threat from a villain titled the Demon King. The young men and women that die in that world refuse to be reincarnated in their own world due to fear of the Demon King and his army, therefore we are being forced to use young people from Earth such as yourself to keep the wheels turning, so to speak"
What a shit immigration policy, this world already sounded troublesome.
"You will keep your original body and memories, and we will also give you one 'Cheat'"
"A 'cheat'?" I echoed.
"A brilliant ability, a powerful weapon, a strong suit of armour" Aqua listed as she grabbed a pile of cards from seemingly thin air.
The woman then approached me, placing the bundle of brown rectangular cards on my lap.
"Take your pick"
Things seemed way to convenient, there had to be some sort of risk that she was purposefully hiding.
"One thing first; will I be able to speak the language of this world? Or write for that matter?" I quizzed, trying to avoid committing to something without fully knowing the situation.
The annoying 'Goddess' smiled deviously as she waved her hand in front of my face dismissively.
"That won't be a problem. With the powers of us gods, the ability to read and write will be automatically uploaded into your brain" She answered happily. The goddess then coughed awkwardly and continued in a much quieter tone. "Of course, there's the chance of your brain going poof but that's rare"
She just said something very strange. Very strange indeed. I narrowed my eyes at her, frown tugging at my lips.
"What do you mean 'poof'?"
"Don't know what you mean~. All you need to do now is to choose a powerful ability or weapon. Go ahead and look at the catalogue"
10 Minutes later…
"Can you hurry up~?" The self-proclaimed goddess moaned as she lazily pushed a crisp into her mouth. "No one is expecting much from a shitty hikikomori nerd like yourself, it really doesn't matter what you pick"
"One, I'm not a nerd! Two, I died outside which therefore means im not a hikikomori either!" I fired back in a voice so shuddery it belied any confidence I had in the words I spoke.
I had been staring at the myriad of choices for a while now, each ability or weapon appearing to be just as, if not more so, overpowered than the last. With such a laundry list of broken cheats, it's easy to understand my dilemma.
"Ugh, whatever, Shit-NEET" The rude goddess sighed. "Just hurry it up already, I've got stuff to do"
I looked back down at the wide range of choices, but not before cursing that rude bitch under my breath.
So many damn choices… Okay Kazuma, think about this logically. An item or weapon can be powerful but it relies much more on the skill of the user than an ability would, and Im guessing I'll be pretty weak to start with. Additionally, an object can be stolen or lost while an ability can't be stripped from you. With this in mind, I should pick an ability.
Scanning my options thoroughly within those parameters, I found a certain entry that caught my eye. A familiar, perhaps somewhat cliched, entry.
"Hey, urm… Aqua, is it? Can you tell me about this one?" I inquired, pointing to the entry.
With a flick of her hair, the goddess stood up from her seat and walked over.
"Ah, 'Brainwash'?" The blue haired girl confirmed. "Well obviously you can influence people into doing what you order them to do, it's so effective in fact that people won't be able to detect it"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
The girl then rolled her eyes dramatically, as if to say; 'Do I have to spell it out for you, you shitty NEET'.
"You know how in cliched films, when the big bad villain brainwashes someone, they basically become zombies right?"
I nodded my head.
"Well, with this ability, the person will act completely normally as to not make people around them, like their friends, suspicious"
"That's broken" I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck in thought.
"I know right!" The goddess remarked with a grin. "On top of that, you can even use this ability to have more lethal effects. You can make someone a complete vegetable for however long as you please with practice, and you can also use it confuse, disorientate and so forth. It's a very versatile skill!"
I hummed slightly, stroking my chin with the back of my finger. It seemed like a great power, but she seemed way to enthusiastic about it for someone who was trying to push me out of the proverbial door only a few moments ago. Im sure of it, there must be a hitch.
"Alright" I challenged. "What's the downside?"
"W-Who said anything about a downside?!" The Goddess retorted uneasily, fake smile plastered on her lips.
"I knew it, im not signing up for some monkey paw"
The goddess rolled her cyan eyes with an annoyed sigh.
"Such an annoying nerd… Alright, all the abilities come with their disadvantages. For example, the 'Creation' ability is directly affected by the resolve of the user. Something you have very little of"
"Hey, you bi-!"
"The 'Brainwash' skill has its own problems. Firstly, like most abilities, it needs mana to use. If you run out of mana, you won't be able to use it until you rest. On top of that, if you spam this ability exclusively for an extended amount of time, say a week, then you run the risk of going blind"
"B-Blind!?" I exclaimed.
"Oh hush, its only temporary… I think"
Oh, that's fine… Wait what?
"You think!?"
The goddess brung a finger to her lip, thinking for a moment before nodding passionately.
"90% sure"
For a goddess, she sure was an ignorant arsehole.
"Is there anything else?" I asked, head hanging dejectedly.
"Well… it's a single target so you can't control a group at one time… It has a small cooldown before uses…And the target needs to be sentient, so you can use it against animals, monsters and humans but not robots or the undead"
Huh. I can practically feel my blood simmering under my skin.
"You were going to send me into a dangerous world with such a defective skill!?" I shouted at the top of my lungs.
"All the abilities have their problems you shit-NEET! It's called game-balancing!" Aqua screamed back, getting far too close into my personal space for me to be comfortable. "But It won't matter what ability you pick, you'll die on the first day in some pitiful way and come begging for my forgiveness~!"
Yeah, my bloods boiling now.
"Oh- ho! You wanna bet?! I'd be a lot better than you, I can tell you that!"
"No, you wouldn't you useless nerd! I am a literal Goddess, G-O-D-D-E-S-S" Aqua yelled, grabbing the collar of my tracksuit.
"Self-proclaimed! If you were a half-decent Goddess then you would be able to give abilities that weren't completely flawed" I snapped back. "In fact, im so confident id be better than you that id be able to do it with that flawed 'brainwash' ability"
"We'll see about that then!"
Before I could figure out what she meant by her words, a cobalt coloured barrier surrounded me.
"Have fun in your new world, Satou Kazuma!" She guffawed evilly.
Aqua raised a silvery staff with a budding rose on the end, the sigil on the floor beneath me obviously responding to her command as it began to glow with holy power.
However, before I was whisked away to my new world, I saw the very same shroud that was surrounding me enclose around the very Goddess that I thought was casting it.
"Huh?"
A burst of amber appeared from the ceiling, and a winged woman descended from it. She seemed way more 'Goddess'-esque than the blue joke that greeted me upon my death.
"Aqua…" The winged woman addressed. "The higher-ups within heaven have noticed the poor treatment you have given the souls you've ferried to the new world, non-more so than this poor boy here"
Ah… An actual Goddess here to protect me. Thank goodness.
"As punishment, you will accompany this boy in his quest to defeat the Demon King"
Ah… Thank you Miss Godde-… Wait hold on a damn second.
"What? … What did you just say?" Aqua said listlessly, confusion as clear as day on her face.
Finally noticing the glowing magic beneath her slender boots, Aqua squealed in surprise.
"Y-You can't do this! I demand a rule-check!" The wannabee Goddess panicked in a tone painful for my ears.
The angel didn't seem all that concerned with the girl, instead continuing to explain the situation.
"Once Satou Kazuma defeats the Demon King, you will be allowed back to continue your job as a Goddess. Hopefully by then you will have learned some humility. In the meantime, I'll take your task on in your stead"
In all honesty, seeing Aqua, who had treated me so poorly, get punished was great fun to watch. However, I didn't want my fate intertwined with her whatsoever.
"Urm Miss Ange- "
"Satou Kazuma. You will be heading to another world now and become one of the candidate heroes to defeat the demon king. If you and Aqua are able to defeat the Demon King, you will be rewarded with a great gift"
"A gift?"
The angel flashed a warm smile at me, causing my poor hikikomori heart to start pounding.
"That's right, a gift befitting a hero… You will be granted a wish, it can be anything your heart desires."
With that wish; I could a live in Japan, be as lazy as I damn well pleased, all the while surrounded by beautiful women.
Yes… This wish was worth it. Even if it meant putting up with the crazy-bitch-ess.
Speaking of her, she was now in full emotional meltdown. She pounded the barricade with limp wrists, tears pouring from the water Goddess' eyes.
Seeing this sight, I couldn't resist letting out a maniacal chuckle.
"How does it feel, to have your godly status hinging on the man you continually berated?!" I crowed as we started to ascend upwards to the large warp pool, near where the angel appeared from. "Since you are a goddess, use your godly powers to make my life as easy as possible!"
While she seemed like the useless sort, she was still a Goddess. She must be some use in this dangerous new world, right?
"No way~! I don't want to go with this guy, no way~!"
Just before the white abyss swallowed the two of us whole, I heard the Angel say her parting words with a devious smile pointed at her fellow Goddess.
"Hero! May you, for Aqua's sake, be victorious among the many hero candidates, and become the one to defeat the demon king… Well then, I bid you farewell!"
Then, just like that, we were gone.
Authors Notes (Please read fam):
Thanks everyone for reading the first chapter in 'The Misadventures of Satou Kazuma'. My name is Kuda and I mainly do Danganronpa related stuff but I watched Konosuba earlier this year and I've pretty much been hooked ever since, leading to where we are now.
Just at the end here I wanted to take the opportunity ask and explain a few little things.
First off, this story will probably just be the main 4 dicking around the world of Konosuba, nothing too serious. There are times where the tone might change or get serious if the plot calls for it, but it will mostly just be Kazuma n friends having a fun old time. Honestly, don't take this story too serious.
Speaking of plot; I've got a lot of ideas for this. So, you may have noticed that I gave Kazuma a new little ability, I wanted to give my story something a little different, rather than it just being a Konosuba copy-paste. I just feel like the extra ability gives me a little more space to be creative. In regards to future plot, the story won't be following the original LN's exactly but I definitely want to use events from the LNs and give them a little twist, for example im already thinking about ideas for when they meet Verdia the Dullahan.
Now for some quick questions:
What ships do you want to see? Like do you want to see Harem? Or Kazuma with one girl in particular? I like pretty much all the girls in their own ways.
Did Kazuma or Aqua seem out of character? As I've said this is my first-time writing Konosuba so I definitely don't have my characterisation down to an art, in addition to the problem that im also a mediocre writer at best to begin with.
(kinda unrelated to this story) Would you guys wanna see some one-shots? If so perhaps slide in my DM's and give me a ship or scenario. I'd be interested in doing some one-offs.
Anyways, I think im done. Don't worry, A/N segments won't be this big in future. Please comment and fav if you enjoyed so I know where im going with this inevitable train-wreck.
Have a good weekend ladies and gents, hopefully I'll see you soon.