Hiroshi blinked. Or tried to. He wasn't sure he still had eyelids or eyes, for that matter.
He was standing. Or floating. He couldn't tell.
There was only white. An endless expanse stretching in every direction, so bright and uniform it should have hurt to look at, except it didn't. Because pain required a body, and he was fairly certain he didn't have one anymore.
Because he was dead.
The truck had killed him.
That bastard in the suit had smiled while a truck killed him.
"Well," Hiroshi said, and was vaguely surprised to hear his own voice. "This is new."
The white void rippled.
Something appeared in front of him more like materialized. Just suddenly was, like it had always been there and Hiroshi's brain had only just now noticed it.
It was humanoid in shape. A shape that suggested a person without actually being one, like someone had drawn a stick figure in glowing blue light and given it three dimensions. There was no face or defining features he could make out. Just a vaguely person-shaped glow hanging in the void.
"Hiroshi Tanaka," it said. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Very pleasant to hear.
"Uh," Hiroshi said. "Yes?"
"Welcome to the Transitional Processing Space. I am your assigned Relocation Coordinator."
Hiroshi stared at the glowing figure. His brain, that wonderful overthinking machine, immediately started cataloging questions. Was this God? An angel? A demon? Some kind of cosmic bureaucrat? And why did it sound like a call center employee reading from a script?
"You have been selected," the Entity continued, "for dimensional relocation under the Intergalactic Bureau of Change's Hero Candidate Program."
"Hero Candidate," Hiroshi repeated.
"Correct."
"So I'm... what, getting isekai'd?"
"That is the colloquial term, yes."
Hiroshi laughed. It came out high-pitched and slightly hysterical. "Oh my god. Oh my god. I got Truck-kun'd. I actually got Truck-kun'd. This is insane. This can't be real."
"Your death was necessary for contract fulfillment," the Entity said, as if this were a perfectly reasonable statement. "The Intergalactic Bureau of Change specializes in crisis intervention and personnel relocation. Your case qualified for emergency processing."
"Emergency processing," Hiroshi screamed. "I was murdered by a truck."
"Expedited transfer," the Entity corrected. "Per the agreement you made with Field Agent Designation: Kuroda."
The man in the suit. That smiling bastard who'd handed him a business card and a death sentence.
Hiroshi's hands were shaking. Or would have been, if he'd had hands. The phantom sensation of shaking hands, maybe. The memory of anxiety his body no longer had.
"I didn't agree to die," he said.
"You agreed to contract terms. Transfer protocols require physical dissolution in the origin dimension."
"You could have MENTIONED that!"
"The terms were implicit in the context of the offer."
Hiroshi wanted to scream. Or punch something. Or both. But he couldn't do either because he was dead and floating in a white void arguing with a glowing customer service representative about the fine print of his own murder.
This was worse than the job interview.
"But I never received the offer documents or contract or whatever the hell you are talking about," he said, forcing his voice to stay level. "That's not possible without the confirmation by the candidate, it's impossible for the field agent to go through with the process." Entity said. "maybe there is some kind of memory error"
That scamming Son of Rachael.
"Okay. Fine. I'm dead. You killed me. What happens now?"
"Contract formalization," the Entity said. A glowing blue screen materialized in the air between them. "Please review the terms and conditions of your dimensional relocation."
Hiroshi stared at the screen.
It was dense with text. Walls of it. Archaic language mixed with magical terminology mixed with stuff that looked straight out of a legal document. The formatting alone made his eyes hurt.
"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered.
He started reading.
"Party of the First Part (hereafter 'Candidate') agrees to Soul-Binding Covenant pursuant to Section 3.2 of the Interdimensional Relocation Act, as ratified by the Council of Dimensional Oversight in Year 4780 of the Celestial Calendar..."
"Mana Integration Protocol, Section 7.3, requires adaptive resonance calibration with dimensional baseline parameters, subject to variance thresholds not exceeding..."
"Expendable Contingency Protocols shall activate in accordance with Appendix K in the event of Critical Failure, Total Incapacitation, or Threshold Violation as defined in..."
There was a page counter at the bottom.
1 of 3000000000
"You've got to be kidding me," Hiroshi said again, louder this time.
"The contract is comprehensive," the Entity said. "This ensures legal compliance across multiple dimensional jurisdictions."
"It's how many pages!"
"Standard length for Class-B relocation contracts."
"What's a Class-A contract, then? War and Peace?"
The Entity didn't answer. Probably didn't understand sarcasm. Or didn't care.
Hiroshi scrolled down. The text kept going. More clauses. More subsections. More words he didn't understand. His anxiety was doing that thing where it fixated on details because if he understood EVERYTHING, then maybe he could control the situation. Never mind that he was dead. Never mind that control was an illusion. Details made sense.
Except these details didn't make sense.
"What's a Soul-Binding Covenant?" he asked, pointing at the screen. "That sounds permanent. What does that bind my soul TO, exactly?"
"The System."
"Which system? What system? Can you be more specific?"
"The System," the Entity repeated, with the patience of something that had explained this a thousand times before. "It governs your new existence. Levels, skills, stats, progression mechanics. Standard framework."
"That's not an answer! That's a..." Hiroshi caught himself. Getting angry at a cosmic bureaucrat wasn't going to help. He took a breath he didn't have. "Okay. Okay. What about this, Mana Covenant Subsection 7.3. What does THAT mean?"
"Mana integration protocols."
"You just said the same words in different order!"
"The covenant binds your soul to the mana structure of the destination world. Integration is automatic but requires baseline compatibility."
"And if I'm not compatible?"
Brief pause by the entity.
"Contingency protocols activate."
That cold feeling was back. The one that felt like invisible hands holding him down while a truck rushed toward him.
"What," Hiroshi said slowly, "are contingency protocols?"
"Operational parameters for edge cases."
"WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?"
The Entity's glow remained. Unchanging. "If you fail to meet minimum viability thresholds, the contract includes provisions for termination and resource reallocation."
Hiroshi's brain started working overtime. "Termination. You mean..."
"Cessation of existence. Permanent dissolution. Your soul would be recycled for energy."
The white void suddenly felt very, very cold.
"So if I fail," Hiroshi said, his voice was hollow, "I don't just die. I stop existing. Completely."
"Correct."
"And you're telling me this after I already died?"
"The information is clearly stated in the contract," the Entity said, gesturing to the screen. "Section 15.8, Subsection D, Paragraph 4."
That scaming son of Rachael.
Hiroshi looked at Pages. Buried in dense legal text.
Of course it was.
He kept scrolling. Every clause raised ten more questions. Every answer he got wasn't actually an answer.
"Planar Resonance Adjustment must maintain minimal viable threshold of 40% during initial integration period..."
"Hero Protocol Compliance Standards require Candidate to demonstrate measurable progress toward Assigned Objective within designated timeframe..."
"Karmic Debt Resolution procedures shall be implemented in cases of moral transgression as determined by System arbitration..."
He was only on page twelve.
"How long do I have to read this?" he asked.
"As long as you need."
That sounded generous but wasn't. Time was meaningless here. He could read for hours or years and it wouldn't matter. He was dead. Time was just another thing that didn't apply anymore.
Hiroshi kept reading. Or trying to. His brain was starting to spiral. Certain phrases kept repeating. "Contingency." "Expendable." "Minimal viable threshold." "Resource reallocation."
They were talking about him like he was a product. Or an asset. Something to be used and discarded if it didn't perform.
"Previous candidates," Hiroshi said, not looking up from the screen. "You mentioned previous candidates earlier. What happened to them?"
"Some accepted. Some declined."
"What happened to the ones who declined?"
"They returned to death."
His stomach would have dropped if he'd had one. "Permanent death?"
"Standard death. Cessation of consciousness. The natural conclusion of mortality."
"And the ones who accepted?"
Another pause.
"They proceeded to their assignments."
That wasn't an answer about whether they survived. That was very deliberately not an answer about whether they survived.
"How many succeeded?" Hiroshi pressed.
"Success rates vary based on dimensional parameters and Candidate aptitude."
"That's not a number."
"Specific statistics are classified."
"Of course they are." Hiroshi's laugh was bitter. "Can't have candidates knowing the actual survival rate. Bad for business."
"Would you prefer to return to being dead?"
There it was again. The question.
He was dead. This was post-death negotiation. His alternative wasn't going back to his apartment and his job and his pathetic life. His alternative was nothing. Peaceful, quiet, eternal nothing.
And honestly?
Being dead had been peaceful. But
Something in him resisted. Some stubborn, stupid part of him that had always resisted, even when giving up would have been easier.
The same part that had gotten a master's degree in economics even though he'd bombed every exams.
The same part that kept showing up to work even when every shift felt like drowning.
The same part that had reached for that business card even though he knew it was probably a scam.
Maybe a second chance was worth the risk?
The Entity's glow seemed to brighten. "Previous candidates took less time to decide."
Oh. There it was. The subtle pressure. Don't be difficult. Don't make this harder than it needs to be. Just sign. Everyone else signed faster. What's wrong with you?
Hiroshi recognized the manipulation immediately. His anxiety, his people-pleasing, his pathological need to avoid confrontation, they were all pushing him toward compliance. Even knowing it was manipulation didn't stop it from working.
He was going to sign.
He knew he was going to sign.
Because refusing would mean saying no, and saying no felt worse than signing a contract he didn't understand.
His brain hated him for it.
A glowing pen appeared in his hand. It was the same pen which that scamming asshole given to him. The first solid thing he'd felt since dying.
Hiroshi stared at the signature line at the bottom of contract. His hand stopped midway.
Just sign it. Overthinking is why your life sucked anyway. What's the worst that could happen?
Don't answer that. Never ask what's the worst that could happen.
"There are so many clauses I don't understand," he said. One last attempt. One last protest. "Expendable Contingency Protocols, what does that even MEAN?"
"Operational parameters for edge cases."
"You know what?" Hiroshi's laugh was Tired. "Fine. There's a protocol for selling your soul. Of course there is. Why not? Everything else in my life was bureaucratic bullshit, why should death be any different?"
He signed.
His name appeared on the screen in glowing blue script: Hiroshi Tanaka.
The contract flared. Bright blue light, almost blinding after the white void. The pages folded inward, collapsing, condensing into a single point of brilliant energy.
Then the light shot directly into his chest.
Pain hit him then Warmth, then heat. Then burning. Something foreign settling deep into his core, burrowing into whatever passed for his soul, integrating, becoming part of him in a way that felt fundamentally wrong and right at the same time.
Blue screens exploded across his vision.
[SOUL CONTRACT BINDING COMPLETE]
[DIMENSIONAL INTEGRATION: IN PROGRESS]
[MANA ADAPTATION: INITIALIZING]
[STATUS WINDOW: UNLOCKED]
[CLASS DESIGNATION: PENDING]
[KARMIC DEBT: CALCULATING...]
Hiroshi tried to read them but they cascaded over each other, overlapping, overwhelming his senses.
"Welcome to the Nexus of Ascension, Hero Candidate," the Entity said.
Hiroshi's head snapped up. "Wait. CANDIDATE? That implies.."
The white void tore apart.
It ripped open like fabric, edges peeling back, colors and light bleeding through the cracks. Reality fragmenting. Breaking. The white giving way to something else, something real and solid and terrifyingly unknown.
"...that I can FAIL?!"
"All candidates can fail," the Entity said, already fading into the light. "That is the nature of selection."
"Wait! WAIT! What happens if I fail?!"
"Contingency protocols activate."
"WHAT CONTINGENCY..."
The void shattered completely.
Hiroshi was pulled through, yanked by invisible force, tumbling through a vortex of colors and sensation. His stomach did he have a stomach again? dropped and rose and twisted. Reality bent around him like taffy, stretching, compressing, folding in on itself.
Behind him, the entity's glowing form receded into the white nothingness.
Ahead, voices emerged, multiple voices, overlapping, speaking at once.