Tokyo sucked.

It was hot, humid, and filled with people who had zero concept of personal space. Hugh Johnson looked over the sea of black haired Japanese crowding the streets and pushed away jealous thoughts as the sinking sun illuminated all that glistening hair. He was only 5 foot 10 inches, but that afforded him a view that most of the people in Japan didn’t have - the top of everyone’s non-bald head.

He surveyed the ocean of humanity while sweat rolled from under his blue and white Akai baseball cap and dripped down his neck. It soaked into his favourite shirt that depicted the Endless Fantasy celebrity streamer Yuina Brightleaf wearing impossibly skimpy armour and smashing an orc’s skull with an oversized hammer. He pulled it away from his chest and fluttered it, trying to get the wet spots to dry a little. Poor Yuina was drenched. She deserved a better fate than to be drowned in his juices.

People crowded and jostled as they made their way towards Akai Plaza where the big reveal was going to happen in just another hour or so. He was completely out of his comfort zone here, alone in a city filled with millions of people whose culture was almost completely alien to him. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had won a once-in-a-lifetime trip to experience Akai corp’s new full dive equipment and spend the next month immersed in the Endless Fantasy VII beta, he wouldn’t even be here. He took another breath, filling his nostrils with the scent of strange soaps and shampoos, foreign colognes and foods, then let it out slowly and focused on why he was here.

He found the happy memory at once and smirked as he remembered the video call he’d received a month ago, and how his reluctance to leave home had left the awards committee flustered and practically begging him to come to the presentation. They ended up making him an offer he couldn’t refuse: all expenses paid, spending money, an enormous discount on the latest iteration of the Akai-Dive Mark-5 capsule, a lifetime subscription to Endless Fantasy VII, and best of all - a super cute cultural guide.

“Mr. Johnson-san,” the cute girl at his side interrupted his nervous gloating.

“Yes, Amaya-chan?” He smiled, looking down at her perpetually cheerful face. Her accent and broken English was absolutely adorable.

“We take photo now. You stand by street lamp.”

He looked at the lamp post she indicated and frowned. That was awfully close to the street itself, which was filled with completely autonomous vehicles speeding along with no traffic signals. The entire Japanese traffic system was controlled by a super-efficient AI, and it honestly freaked him out a more than a little.

“I’m not so sure about that…”

“No, no! It make good picture! You do it for Amaya-chan, please?” She pouted, a professional effort complete with trembling lip.

He sighed and slumped his shoulders, then walked over to the street lamp to pose. Traffic wizzed by just a few feet away. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned back to Amaya. “This good enough?”

“Lean on pole, Johnson-san. Make face happy!”

Hugh leaned against the pole with his left shoulder and gave his cute tour guide a genuine smile and a V-for-Victory with his right hand.

She grinned back and held up her phone. “Okay! You ready? One…Two…”

The traffic behind him screeched to a halt, tyres screaming like banshees against the hot pavement.

Jerking his head at the sudden noise, he noticed a large white truck barrelling towards him.

“Is that a Mitsubishi Fuso?” He thought, just before the world turned into pain and faded into blissful nothingness.

Amaya stepped to the side as the rogue truck smashed her client into paste between its grill and the lamp post. The crowd around her scattered, turning into a mad scramble of confused shouts and terrified screams. Standing in an island of calm while people flowed around her, she pushed a few buttons on her mobile, and held it to her head.

“Mr. Johnson has had an accident,” she said, her English flawless and unaccented. Looking at the mangled remains of his body, she nodded at the question asked by the other party. “Yes, I’m positive it was fatal.” Disconnecting the call, she hurried down the street to catch the subway back to her apartment and take another shower.

Hugh floated above his mangled body, watching his guts leak into the gutter. He was strangely calm about the matter and only a little curious about what he would do now that he was a ghost. “Huh. No driver,” he said, noticing that the truck was empty. “That makes me, what? The first traffic fatality in the last decade?” Strange runes lit up from behind the grill of the truck and he felt a tugging sensation around his navel area. Drifting towards the runes, Hugh struggled to keep his distance from the truck that had just smashed him into jelly. The tugging became stronger and turned painful. He fought against it with all his might, then wondered why he was fighting. He was dead. What was he going to do, spend the rest of eternity peeping on Amaya-chan? Only a truly sick weeb would do such a thing, and while he appreciated Japanese culture, especially the full-dive games, he definitely wasn’t a sicko weeb.

He dove into the runes with all his might.

And tumbled into a formless space where he was greeted by an angry young Asian woman in a white toga.

“HUGH ISAAC JOHNSON!” She screeched at him, shaking a tiny fist in his face. “Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused me?”

Hugh threw up his hands defensively and started backpedalling. “Whoa… whoa there girlie. What’s your beef?”

Her face turned red as a tomato with barely leashed fury. “What’s my beef!?” She yelled, chasing Hugh around the formless space as he kept backing away. “I’ll tell you what my beef is! Ever heard of the multiverse?”

“Uh, yeah? Sorta?” Hugh said, his feet shuffling backwards as fast as they could. “Like every choice creates a different universe, right? So there’s one universe where I didn’t get smashed by a truck and one where some crazy pre-teen girl is yelling at me, right?”

“I’m not crazy!” The girl yelled at him. “I’m mad! You are linked to my world! Your actions have consequences here, and you’re going to fix things! Do you know how much effort it took to get you here? How many favours I had to call in? How much divine power I spent?”

“Hold up,” Hugh said. “I have no idea what’s going on. How can I fix things if I don’t have a clue what’s wrong? Who are you and just what do you think I messed up?”

The young woman stopped chasing him, so Hugh stopped too - after putting some distance between them.

“My name is Celeste, and I’m the Goddess of Eternasy,” she said, scowling. “I’m the caretaker of the world. It’s a safe space for orphaned gods, where they can find new followers, regain their powers and then set off to establish worlds of their own. AND YOU RUINED IT!”

“How did I ruin it?” Hugh asked, confused. “The only thing I’ve ruined in the last few years are some hot pockets and maybe the expectations of my fans.” He thought about that for a moment. His death would certainly upset the thousands of fans that followed him on Mischord, living vicariously through his immersive gaming adventures.

“Your characters are directly linked to this world,” Celeste explained. “Does the name Moggalic Goldenbones mean anything to you?”

Hugh grinned. “Yeah, that’s my level 20 half-elf Lich. I’m raising an undead army in the wastelands of Montrose and I’m gonna roll over the entirety of… What was the name of your world again?”

“Eternasy.” Celeste said, popping her hands on her hips.

“Um, yeah. That sounds kinda familiar. You have a Lich problem, I take it?”

“And a Dark Cleric problem. And a Sourcerer problem. And a Shadowknight problem…” Celeste said, ticking off her fingers with each sentence.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Hugh sighed, recognising the classes of his top characters. “So you’re saying that because of some weird multiverse stuff, my characters really exist in your world and you want me to stop them?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now that I’m dead, doesn’t that solve the problem?” He asked.

“No, because now they are free to act without your influence. The oracle showed certain destruction of Eternasy if you were allowed to live or die, but the future was uncertain if you were transmigrated here. So here you are.”

“Look,” Hugh said, shrugging a half apology. “I’m sorry all that happened, but even you can see it’s not my fault our worlds are linked. Besides, I’m not some weeb looking to get transmigrated into a fantasy world to play the hero. I totally enjoy the ability to log out of the game and sleep in a bed that isn’t crawling with bugs. So, if you could send me back that would be awesome. There’s millions of other people who would love to drop dead for the opportunity to visit your world full of magic cat girl harems.”

Celeste walked up to him and held up a faded yellow card which resembled a old-fashioned bus ticket, thrusting it in his direction. Hugh took it, surprised at how heavy it felt in his ghostly fingers. “Moarti Reaping Services,” it read. “Present to your Reaper upon death.”

It had three unused punch marks.

Celeste’s thin finger poked painfully at the spirit-stuff his chest was composed of. She spat out each name, punctuating it with a poke. “Dameon Wyrm, Raven Cromwell, Ivan Wulfgard, Archeron Tenebris, Kaige Vexx, Ulric Maleficum, and Moggalic Goldenbones. You get three chances to eliminate the evil you’ve created.”

Then she reared back and punched him into the next world with a boney fist.

Hugh sat up and rubbed his aching jaw. The sun was beating down on his head, causing sweat to burst from his skin and evaporate in the slight breeze that was blowing across the yellow expanse before him. He jumped to his feet, filled with nervous energy. Looking around he could see yellow waist high grasses before him, a dense forest to his left that ran behind him and ended at a series of low hills in the far distance on his right.

He took stock of his situation.

Ten minutes ago he was sweating his balls off in Tokyo, five minutes ago an angry goddess was yelling at him to kill off his best characters, and now he was on a new world dressed in rough peasant garb with two right shoes. His pants were literally held up with rope.

His mind absolutely refused to process the surreal nature of the day, so he concentrated on the good things. He was alive, not dead, and that counted as a total win no matter what. His entire world was gone. His Akai-Dive Mark-4, his thousands of fans, the years he spent building a reputation and turning it into an income far beyond anything his parents expected.

But he was somehow still alive in Eternasy. Maybe he could go back? Did he even want to? What about his parents? Regret suddenly filled his mind and then faded away, leaving behind nothing but a vague sense of discontent.

“Maybe I’m inside the new Akai-Dive Mark-5 and this is all some sort of elaborate prank on the part of the developers,” he thought, grabbing at straws to explain the weirdness of the last 15 minutes. No, he remembered dying. His bones snapping, his… his mind skittered around the memory and it faded into something that seemed to have happened long ago. This was real and he didn’t feel like questioning it.

He shook his head, then ran a surprised hand to the shoulder length mass of dark brown hair that he now possessed. “Aww Hells Yeah!” Hugh shouted, pumping his fist. Early onset male pattern baldness still wasn’t curable and now he had his hair back. If he was inside the one of the new Mark-5’s, he never wanted to get out. He had hair again!

He did a quick inspection of his new body. It seemed mostly the same. Maybe a bit more muscle definition, but definitely a darker complexion like he had spent time outdoors. A neat beard framed his face, which was another bonus since all he could grow was patchy scraggles. Everything else from his height to the interior of his trousers, sadly, appeared completely average.

“Status!” He said, expecting a blue screen filled with his character stats to appear in his vision. Nothing happened.

“Um… Inventory? Character sheet? Stats? Attributes?” Hugh went down a list of ‘magic words’ that were supposed to invoke the characteristics of his physical body here on Eternasy. Nothing worked.

He walked over to the tree line then flopped on the ground beside a large oak and sulked. How the hell was he supposed to play the game if he couldn’t access his stats?

That was definitely a growl behind him. He turned to see what fate had in store for him now.

Narrator: The average grey wolf is about 100lbs and 4’ long. The one growling at Hugh Jackson is above average in all aspects.

Hugh reappeared in the formless space with a cheery ding, the yellowed card in his ghostly hand. He blinked several times and ran trembling fingers over his stomach, then took a deep shuddering breath.

Celest stood 20 feet away, talking with a gangly teenager clad in a black hoodie and baggy trousers. The cheery little ding had caught their attention and now they were focused on him.

“AH. A NEW CLIENT.” The gangly teen said in an impossibly deep voice, somehow vanishing and reappearing in front of him. “MY NAME IS MOARTI. TICKET PLEASE.”

Hugh’s hand moved on its own, presenting the yellowed card to the skinny lad in the hoodie. Long, thin fingers took the card and a silver punch appeared out of thin air.

“What are you doing back here!” Celeste screamed. “I gave you three chances and you died in two minutes!”

“You punched me in front of a wolf, what did you expect?” Hugh yelled back.

Moarti hesitated with his silver punch, looking uncomfortable with all the drama.

“I expect you to fix the problem you created!”

“Then your expectations are too damn high!” Hugh bellowed, clenching his fists. “How am I supposed to save the world with nothing? You’re the stingiest, most useless goddess ever!”

Celeste looked at him like he just slapped her, her mouth hanging open.

“I was mauled by a wolf because I had no starting gear. No weapons. No armour. Not even matching shoes! I couldn’t access my status!” Hugh took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then exhaled. “This problem was caused because I was playing a game, right? Well, I need the same advantages so I can go up against my former characters. You can’t expect me to start with literally nothing and fix things. I’ll just keep failing.”

Celeste stared at her feet, clenching her fists until they shook.

“This isn’t a game, Hugh.” She said, her voice so low he could barely hear it. She took a deep breath and continued. “This is reality. There are no status screens, and I’ve spent so much divine power that I’m in debt up to my eyeballs to the Elder Gods. I know I’ve been unreasonably angry with you, but this problem must be solved. I have so many orphaned gods that need followers and…and…” she wiped her eyes.

“Okay, okay,” Hugh said, raising his hands. “I get it. You have responsibilities. I had a life. Did you think about maybe sending me a message asking me to stop or something?”

Celeste looked at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Would you have stopped if I had explained things to you?”

He thought about it for a moment, all the Mischord fans and their sweet, sweet subscription money that paid his bills. “Probably not,” he answered honestly. “But right now I’ll need a miracle if I’m going to stop all my evil Alts. Can you give me a status screen, some starting gear and money? Skills? Weapons?”

She gave him a wan smile. “There are no status screens. This is reality,” she said. “People aren’t locked into classes and skills. Life isn’t about min-maxing your character, it’s about doing things you love and improving over time. Or learning to do the things you need to survive. Yes, some choices you make will deny you others, but nothing stops you from being a master farmer-carpenter-chef-soldier-druid-magi except the time you spend training.”

A large game wheel appeared behind her, divided into the four classes that he recognised; Cleric, Fighter, Mage, Thief. Each quadrant was further split into the subclasses. Assassin, Alchemist, Bard, Barbarian, Bulwark, Elemental Mage, Scribe, Songalli, Wizard...

Celeste spun the wheel hard and it clattered and clacked in a whirl of colour as it rotated. “If playing your game will help you fix the trouble you caused,” she said, fixing him with a firm stare. “I’ll be happy to assist.”

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” Hugh said. “I’d need to build a character specifically to eliminate my alts. There’s no way I can go up against them as a plain fighter, or generic mage, or a useless scribe.”

“I don’t have enough divine power to give you what you want,” she said, her voice filled with exhaustion. “By adding a touch of chaos to my divine power I can stretch what little I have remaining. Pray to Arachne that she shows you mercy.”

Hugh offered up a quick prayer up to the goddess of Fate.

The wheel slowed, each click like a hammer of doom. It stopped on Arcanist.

“Aww. Fuck Me. Can I get a Mulligan?”

“No,” Celeste said, walking towards him. “This is your new life now. Pray to the Little Gods if you need more. I can do nothing else for you.”

“Since it’s your fault I was eaten by a wolf, does this count as a use of my ticket?” Hugh said, flashing what he hoped was a winning smile.

Celeste slapped him into the next world.

Moarti cleared his throat a moment after Hugh vanished in a cloud of glittering sparkles. He held up the ticket so Celeste could see it.

She rolled her eyes. “Take care of it when you get a chance. Hopefully he’ll last longer than two minutes this time.

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