There is a saying that goes: the way you live is the way you die.
Warriors fall on battlefields. Scholars collapse mid-sentence over books they never got to finish. Great lovers perish reaching for someone they couldnt quite touch. Its poetic. Its the kind of thing that makes a person feel like life has meaning, like even death is part of a grand narrative arc.
My name is Rymur Kaito. I was twenty-four years old. And I died because I tripped over my own shoelace and fell off a train platform.
Thats it. No robbers. No heroic sacrifice. No final words of wisdom. I was standing on Platform 3 of Shinjuku Station at 11:47 PM slightly tired from a job interview that had gone absolutely nowhere, and I looked down at my left shoe, noticed the lace was undone, thought hm, I should probably fix that and then completely failed to notice that I had already started leaning forward to address the problem while standing exactly one centimeter from the edge of the platform.
I remember the wind from the incoming express train. I remember the sound it made. I remember thinking in what turned out to be my final conscious thought as a living human being: well, this is bad.
And then I died.
I know what you're probably thinking. You're thinking at least it was quick. And yes it was quick, I'll give it that. Dying by express train is extremely efficient and I cant deny that. What I can wont let slide is the dignity of the whole situation, because as I learned in the moments after death when consciousness does this strange thing where it doesnt quite stop but also isnt exactly running properly, the last thing anyone on that platform saw was a young man in an interview suit doing a slowmotion nosedive into an oncoming train because he was trying to tie his shoelace.
Nobody should go out like that.
Nobody!!!
The darkness after death is not dramatic. I had expected something. Lights maybe. A hallway. A very calm celestial being in white robes with a clipboard. What I got instead was a specific kind of silence that exists when absolutely everything, including the self, has been switched off. It is the silence of an empty apartment at 3 AM times infinity. I floated in it. I thought about my life. I thought about the interview. I thought about the fact that I had skipped breakfast and therefore died on an empty stomach which felt like adding insult to injury.
And then a voice spoke to me.
It was not a dramatic voice. It didnt boom. It didnt echo. It was the voice of something vast and old trying very hard to sound reasonable, like a deity who had read a customer service manual once and was doing their best.
"Rymur Kaito," the voice said. "Your life has ended."
"I noticed," I told it.
"You are being offered the opportunity for reincarnation into an alternate world. The terms of this offer are as follows."
"Sure," I said. "Why not. Its not like I had plans."
A pause. The void considered me.
"Your attitude suggests you are taking this less seriously than intended."
"I just died by tripping over my shoelace," I said. "I think I've used up my capacity for seriousness for at least the next several months."
Another pause. Then and I could have sworn something in the void sighed:
"The reincarnation parameters have been set. Due to the... unusual circumstances of your death, the system has encountered a minor error in processing your soul's destination data. As a result you will not be reincarnated as a human. You will be reincarnated as a homeless person."
I took a moment to process this.
"Hang on," I said. "Homeless isnt a species. Homeless is a socioeconomic condition."
"The system does not make editorial distinctions," the voice said. The tone was that of a customer service representative reading from a script. "Your new form has been registered under the classification: Vagrant, Wandering, Status: No Fixed Abode. Your starting location will be an alley in the city of Caldenmere, Kingdom of Velthas. Your starting equipment will be one cardboard box, partially intact. Your starting stats are..." it paused. Like it was genuinely sorry about what it was about to say. "...minimal."
"Great," I said.
"However," the voice continued and there was something in that word, a weight to it, a subtle shift in tone that suggested what was coming next mattered a great deal, "due to the processing error several abilities have been incorrectly flagged as your base skills. These abilities would normally be distributed across multiple high-ranking entities. As a result you will begin your new life with access to them all. The system apologizes for the inconvenience and assures you this is not standard procedure."
I stared into the void.
The void stared back.
"So," I said slowly. "I'm going to be a homeless person. In a fantasy world. With a cardboard box. But I'll have powers that were accidentally given to me."
"So this is what I deserve!!."
I thought about this. I thought about the train. I thought about the interview I had failed. I thought about my apartment which was probably going to remain un-cleaned because I had been meaning to clean it this weekend and now that was not going to happen.
"Alright," I said. "Fine. Lets do it."
"Very well. One additional note."
"What."
"The world you are entering is currently in a state of an escalating crisis. The Demon Lord Valgrax has begun the second stage of his thousand year plan to unmake the boundary between the mortal and divine planes. Seers across the kingdom have prophesied that a Celestial Hero will arise to stand against him. The stars, the ancient texts, and the magical detection arrays of seven different nations all point to this hero emerging from the city of Caldenmere, in the alley behind the fish market, approximately thirty seconds from now."
There was a very long silence.
"Thats the alley you're putting me in," I said.
"Yes."
"I see."
"Good luck, Rymur Kaito."
And then I was falling. ACTUALLY FALLING through darkness that had suddenly developed texture and temperature and the very specific smell of fish guts and rain. I had exactly enough time to think: I really wish I had fixed that shoelace earlier, maybe none of this would have happened, before I landed on something soft. I opened my eyes to see for the first time, the fantasy world that was apparently my problem now.
My name is Rymur Kaito. I was reincarnated as a homeless person. And somehow, I am apparently supposed to save the world.