Prologue - The death of a loser
He was an eighteen-year-old guy with no job and nowhere to live.
Before that day, he had been the classic, stereotypical NEET who wasn't doing anything with his life. A long-time shut-in, "Not in Education, Employment, or Training." He had lived as a NEET for so long that the concept of "job" had become more theoretical than practical, like quantum physics or the idea of having a girlfriend.
He wasn't a bad guy, but being on the heavy side, lacking in the looks department, and now homeless wasn't doing him any favors.
Well, he wasn't technically homeless yet—it had only been three hours, and he could have gone to the police and caused a fuss, but why bother?
What would he tell them?
The reason for his current situation? That wouldn't get him any sympathy. Even he knew that.
He had skipped his own birthday celebration, specifically the family gathering his parents had meticulously planned as one last chance for him to change his ways. Being the shut-in that he was, he obviously didn't attend. And then, all of a sudden, his parents kicked him out.
It had been quite the scene.
He hadn't exactly endeared himself to anyone with his behavior around the house. He was the type who'd bang on walls and floors to get people's attention without leaving his room. On the day of his birthday, he was halfway through jerking off, his body arched in the air when his parents barged into his room and delivered their letter formally disowning him. When he ignored them, his mother introduced his computer— which he valued more than his own existence— to a wooden bat. Meanwhile, his father stormed over in a blind rage and beat the crap out of him with an enthusiasm that suggested he had been waiting for this opportunity.
He just let it happen, sobbing uselessly and hoping that would be the end of it. But his parents hadn't been so merciful. They forced him out of the house with nothing but the clothes on his back. He had no choice but to wander around town, nursing the throbbing pain in his side. He was sure his father had broken a rib.
The biting words they hurled at him, the kind of verbal daggers that carve themselves into long-term memory, still rang in his ears. The things they said as he was thrown out cut him to his very core. He was completely, totally heartbroken.
He hadn't done anything that terrible. All he had done was skip his own birthday party to indulge in uncensored hentai.
What in the world was he supposed to do now?
He knew the theoretical answer: look for a part or full-time job, find himself a place to live, and buy some food. Simple, right? Except he had absolutely no idea how to even begin looking for a job.
He understood the basics. The first place he should check out was an employment agency—except he had no idea where any of those were. Also, he was pretty sure those agencies only handled introductions to job opportunities. He'd then have to take his résumé to the place with the job on offer and sit for an interview.
And here he was, wearing a sweatshirt caked in a mixture of sweat, grime, and his own blood. He was in no state for an interview. No one was going to hire some weirdo who showed up looking like he did.
Oh, he'd make one hell of an impression, but not the kind that led to employment.
Then there was the whole résumé situation. As in—he didn't have one because he was 18 years old with no prior job experience.
But what if he could take care of all that? With some luck, he could borrow some money from a loan company or something, buy himself some new clothes, and lie on his résumé.
Then he remembered: You can't fill out a résumé if you don't have an address or anywhere to live.
That's when he truly realized it — it was over. Right at that moment, his life was completely ruined.
Then it started to rain, because of course it did.
"Ugh," he grumbled.
His worn-out old sweatshirt soaked up the cold rain like it was trying to win a competition for making him miserable.
"If only I could go back and do it all over again," he muttered, the words slipping out uninvited.
He hadn't always been a garbage excuse for a human being. He was born into a well-off family, the youngest of four children, with two older brothers and an older sister. Back in elementary school, everyone praised him for being smart for his age. He had a knack for academics and got along with everyone — he was the heart of his class, if anyone could believe it.
It wasn't until high school—well, the last year of middle school, he supposed—that his life got all messed up. Ever since he first became interested in video games and anime and other otaku pastimes, he had given them more of his time than he gave his actual studies.
His parents knew this about him, and so they gave up on him early on. Instead, they sent his siblings to a famous prep school in an effort to "secure their future."
In hindsight, that was probably what led to everything else. He didn't think he needed to study to have a future. He thought it was pointless. The result? He failed to qualify for the private school his parents wanted to send him too and he ended up at what was widely considered the worst high school, where delinquency wasn't just common—it was practically an elective course.
even then, he thought it was nothing. He figured he'd be fine. He could do anything he set his mind to, after all. He felt like he would succeed if he got serious, and that he was different from those other idiots.
That was what he thought.
There was this one incident from back then that he still remembered with crystal clarity. He was in line for lunch in the cafeteria when someone cut in front of him. Being the morally upstanding young man he was, he decided to make a stand. He gave the guy a piece of his mind, getting in his face, and striking what he thought was an intimidating pose.
But as luck would have it, the guy wasn't just an upperclassman — he was one of the real nasty ones, competing for the title of "most likely to end up in prison."
That guy and his buddies pounded his face swollen and puffy, then decided that wasn't enough. They stripped him naked and hung him from the school gate, practically crucified for everyone to see.
They took a ton of photos and passed them through the school like they were trading cards. His social standing, already questionable, plummeted to rock bottom overnight. He got laughed at by others and even earned the nickname "Pencil Dick."
He stopped going to school for over a month, making his room his fortress. His father and older brothers saw the state he was in and gave him irresponsible advice like: "Keep your chin up, this won't last forever."
You know, the kind of patronizing advice that only people who've never been publicly embarrassed can give.
He ignored it all.
It wasn't his fault. Who could bring themselves to go back to school after something like that? Nobody, that's who. Anyone facing circumstances like his would do the same. So, no matter what anyone said, he refused. The whole school had seen those pictures and they were still laughing at him.
He was sure of it.
He couldn't leave the house, but with his computer and the internet, he was still able to enjoy all his hobbies. The video games, magazines, light novels, and manga—he could get them all online. His mother would give him whatever money he asked for, almost like she was supporting him in all this.
Back then, she was the only one on his side. She was so horrified by his situation that she spoiled him even though he didn't do anything to earn his allowance.
With nothing but free time, he developed an interest in various things thanks to the internet and did all sorts of things as well. To an outsider, it probably looked like he was just having fun, exploring different interests.
In reality, he was trapped behind the walls he built around himself.
No. Looking back, that was just another excuse. He could have done something meaningful. He could have decided to become a manga artist and posted some amateur web comic online, or tried his hand at being a light novel author and serialized stories or something like that.
There were plenty of people in circumstances like his who did that sort of thing.
Those were the people he made fun of.
"This stuff is crap," he'd snort derisively mocking their creations, acting like it was his place to be a critic when he hadn't done anything himself.
Now, standing in the rain, homeless and alone, he wanted nothing more than a do-over. Grade school, junior high, even last year—he'd take any starting point. With just a little more time, he could do something worthwhile. He might have half-assed everything he'd ever done, but he could pick up where he'd left off. If he really applied himself, he could be good at something, even if he couldn't be the best.
He sighed. Why hadn't he ever bothered to achieve anything before now?
He'd had time. Even if that time was all spent trapped in his room with just his computer, there was plenty he could have done. Like manga or writing. Maybe video games or programming. Whichever the case, with the proper effort, he could have gotten results, and from there, he could have made money. Even if he wasn't the best, being halfway decent at something would have been better than being excellent at nothing.
No. It didn't matter now. He hadn't made the effort.
Even if he could go back to the past, he'd trip up again, stopped in his tracks by some similar obstacle. He couldn't make it through things that normal people managed to breeze through without thinking. That's why he was where he was now.
Suddenly, over the downpour, he heard people arguing.
"What now?" he muttered. Was someone having a fight? That wasn't good. He didn't want to get involved with that sort of thing. Even as he was thinking that, his feet kept carrying him in that direction.
"Look, you're the one who—"
"No, you're the one who—"
What he saw when he rounded the corner were three high schoolers in the middle of what was clearly a lovers' quarrel. Two girls and a boy, dressed in more modest versions of outfits famous on the Hub. The scene was almost like a battlefield, with one of the girls, an especially well-endowed blonde, in a verbal spat with the other girl while the boy tried to play peacemaker. His attempts at placating them were about as effective as the protagonist's life choices.
Yeah, he'd been in situations like that himself.
This sight brought back older memories. Back in middle school, he had one friend who he had a huge crush on. She wore her hair very short since she was on the track team, and there was this one anime he was super into at the time, so he thought the track team and short hair thing was cute. Even her less attractive attributes were fine by him.
She lived nearby, so they often walked home together. They had plenty of chances to talk, but wound up arguing a lot. Come to think of it, he heard rumors she'd gotten married already. And by "rumors," he meant overhearing his siblings talking in the living room.
They certainly didn't have a bad relationship. They'd known each other since they were little, so they could talk to each other pretty openly. He didn't think she ever had a thing for him, but if he'd studied harder and gotten into the same high school she did, or if he'd joined the track team and confessed his feelings, maybe they could have ended up dating.
Anyway, they'd get into fights on the way home, just like these three kids.
And then, he noticed something: There was a truck speeding right toward the group of three students!
The driver was slumped over, asleep at the wheel, and the kids hadn't noticed yet.
"H-hey, look…look out!" he shouted—or tried to, anyway. He had barely spoken out loud in years, and his already weak voice was made even weaker by the pain in his ribs.
He knew he had to help them. He couldn't just stand there. Watching three teenagers get turned into paste by a speeding truck was something he would regret.
Better to save them.
In all likelihood, he'd end up dead on the side of the road, but he figured that, if nothing else, having a heroic death wouldn't be so bad. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life drowning in guilt.
His body lurched forward before his brain could finish listing all the reasons this was a terrible idea, and he stumbled as he started to run.
The rain-slicked ground fought him with every step. Years of his most strenuous activity being jerking off made his legs slow to respond. His busted ribs weren't helping either, sending shocks of pain through his chest with every uncoordinated step.
But he ran anyway. He was capable of running.
Time did that weird thing where it suddenly went all Matrix-style slow-mo, except he wasn't some leather-clad badass — just a pathetic overweight NEET making his first and probably last meaningful life choice.
The busty girl who'd been yelling finally noticed the truck approaching and pulled the other girl close to her. The boy who'd been playing peacemaker was still looking at them and hadn't spotted the truck yet, completely focused on what he probably thought was a heated embrace between two cute girls.
He grabbed the boy by the collar and yanked him behind him, pulling him out of the vehicle's path.
Good. Now that left the girls.
Using all the momentum he had built up running across the street and pulling the boy out of the way, he shoved them as hard as he could in the other direction, putting himself in harm's way. But that was unavoidable, and had nothing to do with the fact that he weighed over a hundred kilos; running at full speed, he'd simply stumbled a bit too far.
The instant before the truck made contact, the headlights hit him full force, turning everything white. Was he about to see his life flash before his eyes, like people said? It only lasted a moment, so he couldn't tell. It was all so fast.
Maybe that's what happens when your life is hollow and half-lived.
He was struck by a truck more than fifty times his weight, and the impact felt exactly like you'd expect getting hit by several tons of metal to feel. His body went flying, and for a brief moment, he had the absurd thought that this must be what it feels like to be one of those NPCs you deliberately run over in GTA.
He hit the ground. "Hurgh!" The air was forced from his lungs, which were still spasming for oxygen in the wake of running flat out.
The pain was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, which probably wasn't a great sign. His vision started going dark around the edges, like someone was slowly turning down the brightness settings on reality.
"Did I actually manage to save them?" he tried to ask, but what came out was more like "Nnngh."
He couldn't speak, but he wasn't dead. His ample fat must have saved him.
"Oh my god!" a girl's voice suddenly pierced through his fading consciousness. It was one of the teenagers he'd saved-the blonde one.
He felt hands on his broken body and looked up at the hazy figures crowding around him. The three high schoolers were there, but they weren't alone. Other strangers had noticed the commotion and gathered around. Most were holding up their phones... but they weren't calling for help. They were recording.
He was dying, and they were filming it like it was some viral video in the making.
What the hell was wrong with these people?
"Someone call an ambulance!" the boy he'd pulled away from the truck shouted, his voice cracking with panic. At least the kids he'd saved weren't complete monsters.
"You saved us," the second girl whispered, kneeling beside him. "Why would you...?"
He tried to answer, but all that came out was a wet cough. The pain was starting to fade now, replaced by an intense cold that crept through his body from head to toe.
That... that's probably not good. People die when they lose too much blood, don't they?
The blonde girl was crying now, clutching her friend's arm. "He's not going to make it, is he?"
He wanted to tell her it was okay. That saving them was worth it. But the words wouldn't come. The cold was everywhere now, and he knew with terrifying certainty that this was it. He was going to die here, on this rainy street, having accomplished exactly one worthwhile thing in his entire useless life.
It wasn't FAIR!
There was a sound like jingling bells and a translucent box appeared floating in the air above him.
Do you wish to live?
Yes or No?
What is that? He tried to speak. And failed. He tried to reach out and touch the box, but his arms weren't listening. They wouldn't move.
The three teenagers were still there, but they didn't seem to notice the floating box. They were saying something, but their voices seemed far away now, like they were underwater.
He summoned up his remaining strength, striving to whisper one more word.
"...yes..."
Confirmed.
Reincarnation requested.