Giving this Angsty Teen a Voice

"...An angel?" I didn't realize, but I'm speaking out loud.

"A goddess, actually." She says with a warm smile. "I'm Eris, the goddess of fortune." And then she waits for the fact to sink into my tiny human brain.

Not an angel, but a goddess. What does it mean? To have a goddess appear before me, am I some sort of prophet? Or have I finally reached the promised land? Even after I've wronged so many people? Like that one boy in the green and red jersey who voluntarily died in my place. That may have been the worst I've done. Then is this goddess here to punish me for my sins? I'd appreciate that. She sounds friendly enough, but her words feel a little scripted. Like maybe she's new at this.

My next words may cause her to change dramatically, so I must be careful. It happens way too often, after all. I say something without thinking, and it changes people. For example:

"You have really big breasts." Ding ding. Why did I lie like that?

"Eh? Really?"

Actually, they don't look that much bigger than mine, but Eris-chan's smile transforms from calm to ecstatic, and her white face becomes tinged with pink. A small white line appears on her right cheek. Is that a scar?

"W-well, they're just B-cup though. Ah, yours are really big too!"

No, mine is true B-cup, nothing worth noting. The moment she said she had the same size as me, a metaphorical bell started ringing in my head. Oh, now I remember, since birth I've had an uncanny ability to detect lies. That's why everyone hated being around me.

"So they're not true B-cup. Then what, are they padded?"

Shock! Eris-chan's smile disappears and is replaced by a flustered expression.

"Y-you were testing me!? Okay, I'm sorry I lied about my breast size! But I meant it when I said I wanted to help!"

"I know. You have helped. I do remember. Thanks, Eris-chan."

"...You know, using -chan for a goddess is kind of..." She scratches her cheek, where the scar is. "Anyway, will you tell me? What you remembered?"

Eris-chan looks excited. I apologize, Eris-chan, but there's nothing to be excited about.

"No."

"Oh. I had a feeling you'd say that." Now she looks disheartened.

"You're not missing out. It's not a feel-good story, and I suck at telling stories anyway. But this right here. Basically, this is where I go when I die, right? So what do I do now?"

"Now you're given a choice. The first option is be reincarnated back to your original world as a new life, like you'd normally expect. The second option is to be sent to a new world to help defeat a demon lord."

"You heard me right, a demon lord." She says, smiling with a hint of seriousness.

She's not yanking my chain, this demon lord problem is the real deal.

"Ah, but we have been making progress against the demon lord recently, so it's not going to be a totally uphill battle. It's just that they're have been fewer and fewer deaths from Earth as of late, and out of those who come here, no one is choosing to help in the new world. Ah, but I'm not trying to persuade you one way or another!"

Ding ding. She's clearly trying to persuade me towards the new world. I apologize once more, Eris-chan, but I can only think of one thing that'll persuade me.

"What did he choose?"

"Who?"

"There should have been a boy around my age with a green and red jersey who died not too long ago. Do you remember anyone like that?"

"Kazuma-san? Well, he's the only one with a green jersey that I can think of. I don't know about red though. His main color is just green. As a matter of fact, it's because of Kazuma-san that I could reach this position so early in my career. He's doing really well in the new world."

Right, Satou Kazuma. That was the name the officer gave me. Speaking of which, the officer also offered me what was in Mr. Satou's bag. It turned out to be an eroge. I wasn't interested, so I offered it back to the cop. He said it was a shame, the poor bastard had good taste, and they might have gotten along. Wait, rewind a bit, no red?

"No red, huh? Maybe that was just blood then." I ponder out loud.

"What, what, what!? Blood? That's the first I've heard of this! I thought Kazuma-san's death was nonviolent and lightly comical!"

"There's nothing comical about being roadkilled by a 16-wheeler. It was devastating seeing it up close. So much that I had confused the blood for a color of his jersey for the longest time. Am I am idiot or something?"

Uh oh, I accidentally summoned a dark atmosphere. Eris-chan looks wide-eyed and frozen in place. I think she's experiencing fridge logic for the first time. Or is it fridge horror? Or maybe even fridge brilliance? She did say Satou Kazuma was doing really well now. That's good to hear. Kinda, in a way.

Maybe it'd be okay to reincarnate and forget about him. He probably forgot all about me, the girl he saved. Who does that? Is it really possible to forget something like that?

No, it wouldn't sit well with me. I want to at least apologize for taking away his life. He never got to play his eroge because of me. Yup, I've decided. I'll go to the new world, to apologize at the very least.

"Okay, Eris-chan, I've decided."

"...Senpai tricked him..."

"Eris-chan?"

"Oh! You've decided?" She's eager to know.

"Yes, I'll go to your world."

Eris-chan's visage becomes twice as bright and her eyes sparkle in admiration.

"Wonderful! I'll get everything ready right away!" She disappears into the darkness for only a second and comes back with a heavy-looking, ancient tome. "I forgot to tell you before, but to aid in their fight against the demon lord, newcomers from Earth can select a special perquisite called a divine relic to take with them. Please take your time to browse our catalog to find the divine relic you like best."

I open the tome to the table of contents. There's way too many choices. I can't even make sense of half of them. But there's one object that takes precedence:

"Can I take this chair?"

"Nope."

Destroyed.

"Actually, that's a new rule put in place recently. Newcomers can only choose from the catalog. Nothing else counts as a divine relic. Kazuma-san was also involved with this ruling. He was the one who discovered a flaw in the old system."

"What did he pick?"

"I don't think I should say. But in any case, he ultimately messed up. He made a mistake."

No bells ringing here. Poor dude, he must've chosen a chair, like I wanted to.

"But this chair..." It's a part of me, I wanted to say.

"Don't worry about the chair, there'll be chairs over there!"

"But will they be as nondescript as this one?"

"You betcha!"

Silence in my head. I guess people over there truly don't think or care much about chairs.

"So what divine relic would you recommend, Eris-chan?"

"Hm, I recently recovered a sentient suit of armor that'll always protect his owner no matter what. He said he wanted his next owner to be a cute girl, so I'm sure he'll be happy-"

"No, that sounds like something I'm not interested in."

I have nothing against sentient objects, but I'm not one to pick a defensive perk over an offensive one. Or even a battle-only perk over an all-purpose one.

"Oh. Well how about this one? [Exact Change], The ability to always pull the exact amount of money out of your pocket that you need? Of course, infinite money is built into the ability. That's one I thought up myself. By the way, the currency in this world is also called eris, it was named after me! ...Or was I named after the currency? Which came first? I don't even remember."

As Eris-chan starts having an existential crisis, I mull over her suggestion. That ability sounds super cool, and I can imagine myself looking like a badass while buying something. But I could think of some cons: you may have the money, but you won't always be able to find what you want; there are also some things you want that you won't be able to trade money for.

"But it's cool, so let's table it for now."

I flip the pages of the tome randomly until one perk catches my eye: it's a skill called [God Mode].

"You're interested in that one? I'd say that's a true cheat if there ever was one. But it's really dangerous and risky. Your body becomes like a ghost for a short period of time. You can walk through walls and float in the air and nothing can touch you. Only instead of being an undead-type, you become a pure divine-type. But it's risky because you can only use it for five seconds per activation at first, and your movement speed is halved during that time. So if the time runs out while you're in a wall or something, you'll probably die. It'll probably only be used to dodge projectiles or something until you level it up high enough. For this ability, leveling it up will gradually increase its duration and movement speed. So how does that sound?"

Yup, that sounds like me. My kinda cheat. Honestly, you had me at 'you'll probably die'. But basically, it's like the god mode code from those old pc games like Quake or Counter Strike. I believe another name for the code was noclip mode when it was used by devs during testing because it turns off clipping and collision detection. All the details of the environment are visible at once and you can just move around like a ghost to the area you want to check out. Not that I'm an expert. It was just a fun way to play (read: mess around in) multiplayer games when you had no friends.

Yup, sorry to say, but I like this one better than the one you created, Eris-chan.

"I choose [God Mode]." The moment I said that, a beam of light from above surrounded me. I'm floating up. Eris-chan, I've been caught by an alien tractor beam. Eris-chan, I'm being abducted. Eris-chaaan. Heeelp.

"Okay, so now you'll feel lightheaded for a while. Everything will be alright. Your mind is being implanted with the necessary knowledge for survival. When you wake up, you'll be in the beginner's city of Axel. I'm also giving you enough starting money for a month's worth of living expenses. Ah, and I come down sometimes too, so I'll say hi whenever I can. Then, we'll meet again! Later~!" She waves as my vision fades to white.

Xxxxx

...I unintentionally dropped a lie detection ability right on top of X-chan's background. But then I remembered that KonoSuba already has lie detection bells, so I added the ding ding sounds and it was all cool. I was thinking such an ability would fit well in a story like this and help explain a bit about the girl as well.

Eris (along with Chris) is my favorite character from KonoSuba. Just thought I'd put that out there. She's my main Kazuma ship. If she sounds the least bit ooc here, allow me to disagree. She's definitely capable of this type of carefree banter, but you have to snap her out of her solemn-looking, perfect goddess shell first. Like a pistachio or something. Yummy. Both Kazuma and X-chan do this by discovering and revealing a secret of hers. From her point of view, apparently out of nowhere. She becomes super informal if you become super informal with her first.

Speaking of informality, X-chan's use of -chan is also taken from Zaregoto, with Ii-chan doing the same for almost all girls that look younger than him, regardless of how close he is to them (he's usually not that close).

The ultimately chosen divine relic, [God Mode] is the result of a short brainstorm with a tiny group of friends. I might regret it later. Therefore, X-chan might regret it later.