I didn't expect Death, despite its clingy obsession with me, to come so quickly.

What's it been? A month and a half since I transmigrated?

And I was already dead.

I was currently floating in a void, similar to the one before I transmigrated but this one was different.

This was Limbo.

The waiting room for the damned, the undecided, and the especially screwed.

Unlike my old world, where the underworld was just myth, this world had real gods.

And no, that's not a mistake.

I said underworlds, plural.

I had no idea which one I was going to.

I didn't care.

Because I had a plan.

I may be dead, technically.

But I wasn't done.

Not after what that overgrown fire-breathing bastard did to me.

That smug, blue-eyed, lizard-supremacist S-Rank piece of scaled trash…

No.

He doesn't get to win.

Not while my soul is still doing fine.

I wasn't the noble type or some shitty chosen one.

I was a petty, spite-fueled bastard and I would die a thousand more times before I let that overgrown furnace forget my name.

The plan I had was reckless, dangerous and possibly soul-shattering.

But hey, beggars can't be choosers.

And I was already chosen for death once.

Now it was my turn to return the favor.

When the void finally threw me out, the first thing I felt was cold.

An unnerving amount of chill spread through me as I scanned the surroundings.

I blinked.

The world around me was desolate.

The ground beneath my feet was ashen and cracked with veins of ice.

The sky was too pale with a single moon hanging like a silent spectator.

A frozen river flowed nearby despite being frozen, as if the laws of nature had taken one look and noped out of this realm entirely.

But hey, who was I to question divine architecture?

I looked around.

So it's Helheim…

The second I saw the sky, I knew.

This wasn't just any underworld.

This was the quiet and cold one.

The one that waited.

Ruled not by flame or rage or screaming pits of torment but by silence, stillness and ice.

The realm of the forgotten, ruled by the goddess whose name it bore.

Hel.

Just then, something—someone—appeared before me.

A figure stepped from the fog.

A sickly pale person.

Hell, I could even see bones and vessels clearly.

And his eyes… were completely empty except… at the center of those hollow sockets burned a cold, flickering blue fire.

Then he opened his mouth.

And the words that came out weren't speech.

They were verdict.

"The Ruler of Helheim has demanded your presence."

I didn't flinch.

Honestly, this worked out. I was planning to scam or blackmail a reaper into getting me an audience with her, but this?

This was better.

I didn't know why she called me…

… but I didn't care as long as I could get what I wanted.

—

The reaper guided me through the underworld ruled by Hel.

Unlike the many myths in this world, where she was simply the ruler of a quiet afterlife reserved for those who died without honor or glory—mostly peaceful deaths, old age, illness, the forgotten—the real Helheim was different.

In this world, there weren't just one or two underworlds.

There were five.

And while people liked to believe their souls went to the realm of the god they worshipped, that was just comforting fiction.

The truth was that, the Heavenly Principles—those cosmic, invisible laws older than the gods themselves—that chose where you ended up.

And they didn't care about faith, sacrifice or how many goats you offered on temple steps.

They sorted you into whichever realm they felt like.

So Helheim didn't just take the quiet dead.

It took sinners.

Cowards.

Warriors.

And everything in between.

Naturally, that meant there were different punishments.

As I followed the reaper, we passed through grand halls, each more elaborate and more horrifying than the last.

Screams echoed through every corridor but they weren't just loud.

They were layered.

Each one was more desperate.

Some voices cried for mercy.

Others prayed to gods who had long since stopped listening.

And some… just laughed.

Laughter that didn't belong to joy.

The kind that came after hope died and madness took its place.

And the deeper we went, the more I realized, this wasn't just a realm of the dead.

It was a kingdom and its queen had called me personally.

I just had to hope that whatever she saw in me…

Wasn't a reason to keep me here.

Not that it mattered because, if I failed… I was going to be here anyway.

Maybe even suffer more than anyone else.

But meh… what's the point of surviving if I can't even take my sweet revenge against that overgrown lizard…

There was one thing at the edge of my thoughts.

Ru.

That tiny gremlin with those big, star-bright eyes and fists full of chaos.

She believed in me with all the misplaced confidence.

I told Ru I would never leave her alone in this world.

That I wouldn't vanish like my mother did.

So yeah.

Dying was not an option.

There were too many things in this world I hadn't done yet.

Like finding and punching that bastard Noah, just once, solidly, preferably in the jaw.

Not because I hate him…

Okay, maybe a little.

And then, one day, becoming a god.

Just so I can personally take that rusty pole and jam it straight into the gears of that smug, manipulative, chaos-loving bitch called Fate.

I got plans.

I got many grudges.

I got so many reasons to survive that giving up just… doesn't compute.

If life's a war, then fine.

I will be the cockroach with a grudge.

Because until I burn this world brighter than the gods ever dared…

I'm not done.

—

Just then, the cloaked reaper stepped through the door of another hall but unlike the ones we had passed before, this one was different.

It was far grander and more importantly… quieter.

Unnaturally so.

There were no screams here.

Just an overwhelming silence that rang in my ears like I was underwater.

My body, or more accurately, my soul, felt like it was freezing in real time.

I looked around me.

The grand archway was carved from black stone.

Runes I didn't recognize glowed faintly across the walls.

This wasn't a hall of punishment.

This was a throne room.

And something ancient was waiting inside.

Something that didn't need to release pressure to make its presence known.

Even the reaper, who had guided silently through every corridor like he owned the place, paused at the edge of the hall.

He didn't enter.

He bowed.

And then, without a word, he vanished.

Leaving me alone at the foot of whatever judgment awaited.

I took a deep breath, calming my mind.

Because whatever came next… I would need every ounce of focus just to survive it.

Then, without any hesitation, I raised my head and walked forward… with the same polite smile plastered over my face as always.

It seems my damn flaw didn't want to leave me alone, even in death.

And when I reached the center,

when I felt that distant, divine pressure curl around my body,

I spoke.

"Oh Ruler of the Underworld,

Great goddess who presides over the souls of the dead,

I come not to beg…

But to negotiate."

"I wish to negotiate my death with you."

Slowly, I raised my eyes toward the throne.

And there she was.

Hel.

The ruler of this frozen afterlife.

The goddess of the forgotten.

The queen of the cold.

She sat on a throne carved from obsidian and bone.

And the moment I looked at her.

I felt it.

An immense pressure.

My soul screamed and my thoughts blurred.

And for a moment… I felt something deeper than pain.

I felt my soul starting to disintegrate.

A primal part of me wanted to drop to my knees in reverence.

But I didn't.

I clenched my fists.

Or… I think I did.

I wasn't even sure if I still had fists.

The pain didn't even last a moment before it stopped completely.

Something within the hall shifted as I was teleported to a completely different location.

I found myself in a different place entirely.

A white room with a table and two chairs around it.

A woman sat on one of the tables, her form too humane now…

And before I could speak, before I could even think,

Her voice cut through the quiet room.

"So… the Successor of the Forgotten Trickster.

Tell me, what is it you hoped to negotiate?"

As I looked at her the smile on my face deepened.

Time to scam a Goddess.

—

Meanwhile, in the realm of the living, two beings felt a shift as Rael died in the second layer.

The first to notice was Bearlo.

The ever-faithful assistant paused mid-step at the mouth of a mountain cave, the same one his liege had sent him to find.

The second was the cloak.

The traitorous bastard fluttered violently on its own as if it was panicking but trying not to show it.

An invisible bond they shared with Rael started to fade…

Bearlo's hand instinctively clenched.

"…Did something happen to my liege?"

The cloak didn't answer, but it trembled once.

Bearlo took a deep breath, his eyes narrowing.

"…No. No, he must have a plan."

His voice was quiet but steady, filled with faith more than fact.

He didn't know how it had happened.

Or why.

Or even what his liege had planned.

But he knew one thing:

His liege never moved without five backup plans and at least two escape routes.

So whatever just happened…

It wasn't the end.

It couldn't be.

Bearlo exhaled and turned back to the cave.

"No matter what happens… I'll finish the mission you gave me, my liege."

And with that, he stepped into the darkness.

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