My Wish Is…
Having taken an uncountable number of unjust hits from the cradle all the way to the brink of death, I'd long since leveled up to the point where I could laugh off most of life's cheap shots.
But this one? This one wasn't laughable.
Every single unfair moment of my entire life, and it had all started with one botched piece of paperwork from some blockheaded goddess?
It was so, so unbearably unfair.
"This really isn't okay…."
I was never one to cry easily. Not even close.
And yet the tears just came, before I even realized it.
"Sniff… hic…."
Resentment, grief, rage, injustice… every emotion I had seemed to come pouring out through my eyes and lungs at once.
The goddess must have heard my sobbing, because her tightly shut eyes eased open a crack, and she cautiously peered up at me.
"Eep, uh, um… e-excuse me…."
"Hic! J-just shut, shut up! Waah, you—you awful woman, waaah!"
Foul words I hadn't let past my lips since the day I'd resolved to live decently, to never stick out in anyone's eyes.
"Do you have any idea, waaah… how hard my life was! Sniff—and now, only now, you tell me it was a mistake? Don't make me laugh! You—you incompetent, stupid—hic—woman…! Waah!"
….
The goddess couldn't manage a single word, just worrying at her lip with a dark expression on her face.
Even when I drummed my frail little fists against her, she quietly took it all.
Then, slowly, she reached out with both arms and drew my head into her embrace.
"Waaah… huaaah…."
I buried my face against her chest and cried even harder.
I could feel her hand stroking gently through my hair.
Pat… pat….
"There, there… I'm sorry, sweetheart…."
Squish.
After that, I simply kept crying, exactly as twenty years of bottled-up injustice commanded.
Pat, pat.
"It was so hard, wasn't it? I'm truly sorry. It's all my fault. There, let's clear that nose up too. Good boy."
"Hnnngh! I-I really do hate you…. Sniff."
Plush.
Tears, snot, all of it—I smeared everything against her as I poured out my grievances.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart. Truly, I'm sorry…. Mommy's holding you now…."
Squeeeze.
"Huuaah, huaaah… You're really the worst…. Y-you don't think I'll forgive you just for this…?"
Something warm and prickly bloomed in my chest.
…I just might end up forgiving her without meaning to.
And so I cried and cried, held in that squishy, plush, toasty-warm embrace, until every last drop had drained out of me—until my tear ducts throbbed dully and my body finally went still.
"Huuu…. hooo…. I'm… I'm okay now."
Having sobbed my heart out with no sense of the hours passing, I'd finally come back to myself a little.
And then it hit me.
While fussing like a baby, I had… utterly drenched that part of her—the part radiating a goddess's divine majesty—in my bodily fluids. Every last inch of it.
The moment I flinched back a step in private horror, I finally saw what state the goddess I'd been clinging to was in.
Huh.
Something felt off.
Everything was soaked. And not just the spot where I'd been buried, either.
I'd been too out of my mind to notice, but apparently the goddess had been crying right along with me.
Was she that sorry…?
Somehow, I actually felt a little better.
A ticklish, fluttery feeling I couldn't quite name.
Well—no one had ever empathized with me or comforted me like that, not once in my life before I died.
…Who knew I was such an easy man?
I didn't.
"…Sniff."
"…Hnngh."
Two pathetic faces plastered with tears and snot simply gazed at each other for a while like that.
Then I was the first to break the silence.
"…S-so, u-um… Mom—n-no, I mean. Goddess. You're the goddess, right?"
"…Yes, swee—…no. Yes."
With things settled somewhat, it was time to talk about what came next.
"Having you cry along with me really helped, Goddess. I feel a bit calmer now."
"…."
"It was your fault, of course, but… I feel like I got some comfort about my life, too…."
"…Sniffle."
"And that was the first time anyone ever held me like that…. It felt nice."
At those words, the goddess's eyes began brimming with tears all over again, brimming with guilt or pity or something I couldn't name.
Uh-oh—was she about to cry again?
We'd waste another whole chunk of time to sobbing if I let that happen, so I just cut to the chase.
"Anyway, so, here's the thing…."
My wish.
"Please let me be born again."
Her clerical error had stolen an entire lifetime; surely she could manage at least this much?
"Wealth would be… nice to have, I suppose, but I can live without it."
"…."
"I just want to be ordinary—live with an ordinary family, be loved in the most ordinary way, and be happy."
But the goddess's expression had turned strange.
She'd been teary-eyed with an I'll grant your every whim look, then she tensed up—and the instant I finished speaking, her face drained to ash-gray and cold sweat beaded on her brow.
What now.
Ugh, the anxiety.
My 20-Years-of-Hardship Misfortune Radar was going off again!! Wailing and whining away.
"Goddess? Are you all right?"
It wasn't all right, was it? …But it was still doable, right?
"Th-that's the thing…!"
"I seriously don't need anything else. I'm not after some separate reward—just let me be reborn into a home with parents who'll love me. That alone is enough."
Please. That's all I want.
"Please? I'm begging you here. It's not allowed?"
"…."
Wow. Get a load of that expression.
The odds this wasn't happening: 58,000 percent.
"It's just… there aren't enough… so it can't…."
Haaaaah.
Knew it.
Honestly, I couldn't fathom how she'd ever become a goddess.
Was the divine seat something you inherited, ability be damned…?
I stole a sidelong glance.
…Or maybe the position gets decided by looks alone.
Ahem. Anyway.
"…You're saying it's not possible? What exactly is the problem?"
Might as well hear the reason.
"Urk! Umm…. Well, you see…! The bad Kim Dasom who was originally scheduled to arrive… you know the one…?"
She seemed to mean someone other than me—the person who'd originally been slated to receive the misfortune, die, and end up here.
"…Right. What about that person?"
"W-well, originally! If they had come, all I'd have needed to do was confirm their repentance and pack them straight off to the Pit—they'd never be allowed to reincarnate again—so, um, once you died, I handed the newly vacated soul slot on Earth over to… a reincarnator arriving from another world."
And then she added in a small voice, "Earth is really popular with people from other worlds, so the slot filled right up."
Excuse me—every planet? Every dimension? had its own separate soul quota?
"Huh…? So I can't reincarnate, then?"
"W-well…. Only Earth! You can't only on Earth—everywhere else is fine! All I have to do is put in a little effort!"
"Another place, then… you mean another world?"
"Yep!"
Hm… okay. Thinking about it, that's not so bad.
It wasn't as if I had any burning attachment to Earth.
There wasn't anyone I could really call a bond back there to begin with,
and it wasn't as if being loved was something you could only manage on Earth.
"Another world works for me. …I read plenty of web novels, so I'd secretly wished for something like this anyway."
When lying flat on your back was all you could do every day, there wasn't much else to pass the time.
The goddess's face lit up in an instant.
She must have been worried I'd be disappointed.
"Oh…! Really?! We even have fantasy worlds straight out of the novels! One moment! Let me show you the catalog!"
Fwaaaaash!
The goddess snapped her fingers, and a long parchment scroll unfurled out of thin air.
One rough glance told me the list was longer than I'd expected. There were really that many?
Hard to believe this was the same goddess who, mere minutes ago, had been cowering with her eyes rolling in her head—she launched into her pitch practically sparkling with excitement.
"You said you read a lot of web novels? Then this'll be easy to follow! I'll walk you through it like a novel's setting notes! For world types we've got classic fantasy, steampunk, fusion-punk, cyberpunk, murim martial-arts, hunter worlds, and more—and for eras there's modern day, medieval, ancient, industrial, near-future, or even an ultra-future straight out of sci-fi! You can pick your subgenre too: in classic fantasy, for instance, there's the timeless masterpiece hero-versus-Demon-King setup… and would you believe sci-fi murim pairs beautifully with a cosmic Righteous–Demonic War between the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult and the Murim Alliance… and also, and also…"
What was with this goddess.
Unlike a moment ago, she was absolutely radiating passion.
Did she just like this worldbuilding stuff?
"Hmm… I'll go with classic fantasy."
Classic fantasy was the standard, after all.
And prejudice or not, I had a feeling that in a murim world you'd be fighting nonstop, morning to night.
If circumstances forced it, fine—but a life where most events boiled down to brawls felt like a bit much.
"Oh! Excellent choice! And the era?"
I wanted to feel the cozy warmth of a medieval family home, so I was leaning toward medieval… but one thing nagged at me.
"If I pick medieval, what would the average commoner's standard of living be like?"
"Uh… just, y'know, medieval…?"
Hm. The countless horror stories about medieval hygiene I'd seen online came flooding back.
"Like… flush toilets…?"
"Aw, normally not! You'd have to poke at the sub-options for that."
Yeah, figures there wouldn't be any—hold on.
There was even a setting for that?
By now the goddess was giving off the full aura of a door-to-door saleswoman.
In that case.
"For the sub-options—could you keep the atmosphere medieval, but set just the standard of living, hygiene, and everyday convenience to modern levels? Say, with a setting where people use magic tools?"
If that was possible, that was the one, no contest.
"But of course it's possible!"
Nice.
"Perfect! Then that's the one!"
"Fair warning, though—if you land in a rough spot, enslaved or destitute, you might not get to enjoy many of those perks. Magic tools run a bit pricey in that setting, you see… Still, by that world's standards, once you make it to high-rank adventurer or lesser nobility, you'll be living at modern comfort levels without any real inconvenience compared to Earth."
"Right. Well, that's only natural. Same as it is on Earth."
So they even had adventurers there. Classic fantasy through and through.
And having to earn money to enjoy those perks struck me as decent motivation. Actually, even better.
"So we're settling on this one?"
I nodded.
"Yes. Please do."
"Got it! Base medieval, magic-tool conveniences added~ As for the rest of the details, I'll analyze your deep subconscious and set everything to your tastes~."
Besides, I had plenty of… desires I'd have rather died than say out loud, so it was a relief she'd handle those without me having to speak.
Truthfully, I had been hoping to go to a gender-reversed world—one brimming with beautiful women. Or, to be precise, overflowing with gorgeous onee-sans and mommies.
My hunger to be loved must have surfaced in my tastes like that.
"Oh ho, so that's our baby's type, hmm? Fufufu, wonderful~ Mommy will set it all up just right for you~."
Wha—.
Ghk—when had she even figured out my thing for older women?!
She really was a goddess, all right….
My face burned hot. From embarrassment.
"Ahem. So—is it time for me to go?"
"Not yet! An isekai reincarnation comes with cheats, no exceptions! This whole mess was my fault, so I'll compensate you beyond that! I'll spoil you rotten—everything top-of-the-line!"
Snap! Fwaaaaash!
The goddess snapped her fingers again, and this time a parchment appeared bearing a list of cheats.