Sitting in a large but mostly empty hall are two figures. A tall androgynous frame sits in a large white chair with one leg crossed over the other, however, any and all details regarding their appearance is obscured and blurred. Sitting opposite to this shrouded figure is what appears to be a young girl with long hair that stretches down to her waist, a child-like face with jade green eyes, her skin slightly pale from a lack of exposure to the sun. It wouldn't be strange for people to refer to this girl as a doll.
This girl's name is Huang Luan and contrary to her child-like appearance, she is a 32-year-old office worker. Yes, Huang Luan is a bonafide legal loli. And this legal loli is, unfortunately, recently deceased. And the cause of death was not the fabled Truck-kun, but instead, too much overtime. Huang Luan, at age 32, was overworked to death.
Heaving out a great sigh, an androgynous voice reverberates throughout the hall causing it to shake slightly, "How regrettable, for someone so young to die such a death."
"Despite my appearance, I'm not really that young," Huang Luan says, inwardly lamenting over her height. Standing 123cm tall or just barely over 4ft tall.
"I am aware that by human standards, your age wouldn't be considered young by most. But as far as I'm concerned, even your great grandparent's great grandparents would be children in my eyes. Regardless, are you not surprised to have died?"
"To be honest, not really. I worked for two weeks on unpaid overtime and over those two weeks, I had minimal meals while only getting a few hours of sleep the whole time. Hell, even before that, for the past month I had been working overtime, but at least I got paid for that part. It would be stranger if I didn't drop dead under such conditions. Although I would say it's regrettable I died before I could be any more than a wage slave."
"Well don't be too sad. For starters, I should congratulate you. Young Huang Luan, you have been chosen to reincarnate in another world."
"Then I take it you're some kind of God or something? This isn't some kind of trap or anything right? Or some deal with the devil that I'll regret later?" Huang Luan asks, giving the supposed God a sharp glare.
"Now, now, calm down, no need for any attitude. But to answer your first question, yes, I am a God. I'm the current God on staff for the next shift for dealing with matters related to samsara. You're actually the first soul I'm dealing with since my last appointment a few centuries ago, this is the reason why I chose to reincarnate you in another world, and with your memories intact too. But if it was the Big Boss doing this, He might reincarnate you, but He'd also pull the rug out from under you with various pitfalls and traps."
'So it's one of these situations. I've only read a handful of web novels that uses this scenario but so far it's been pretty standard, according to my knowledge in this field the next thing this God will do is either give me 3 wishes, 5 wishes, or a scaling amount of wishes based on my karma,' Huang Luan thinks, crossing her arms while giving the God a nod to indicate for it to continue.
"You'll be getting 5 wishes and you also won't need to worry about your memories either. Unfortunately, I'm just a Lesser God, so I'm not as powerful as the higher-ups and even some of my peers. As such, there are some restrictions on your wishes. First off, a single wish can't contain too much, in the sense that you can't bundle things together, for example, you couldn't wish for all the dojutsu of Naruto in a single pair of eyes, but you could pick and choose as separate wishes. However, if what you intended to bundle are closely and directly related I might be able to grant it, like a set of jewellery for example. You also can't do anything too overpowered, for example, you can't just wish to be a God, but you can wish for a method to eventually achieve Godhood, but whether or not you achieve it is up to you though," the God explains.
"Well you're awfully generous, ain't ya," Huang Luan says the first thing that comes to mind.
"I do pride myself on not being nearly as sadistic and mean-spirited as some of my colleagues. Do you need time to think about your wishes? Or are you ready?"
"Nah, I don't need any time, I got this. Originally, I wanted to wish to be an Above the Sequence or a Sequence 0 from Lord of the Mysteries but considering the restrictions, these should be off the table, right?"
"Indeed. It seems you've already considered how to change your wishes around the restrictions."
"Yeah, for my first wish, I want a full set of ingredients for the Black Emperor Pathway from Lord of the Mysteries. These are both closely and directly related to each other, thus this should qualify under the bundle restriction."
"That is correct, this is within my power to grant."
"Good. Then for my second wish, I want to be born with the Uniqueness of the Black Emperor Pathway, just like how Amon was born with the Uniqueness of the Error Pathway."
"That's actually pushing the very limits of what I can do, but it is still within the realm of possibility for me."
"That's good, I'm surprised that went through honestly. I thought I would have to spend time to accommodate the Uniqueness like Will Auceptin. Now my third and fourth wishes are similar to my first two. For the third wish, I want a full set of ingredients for the Justiciar Pathway. And my fourth wish is just like my second wish, I want to be born with the Uniqueness of the Justiciar Pathway. Then for the final wish, I want to be immune to the negative effects of being a Beyonder, meaning no risk of losing control, no corruption from the Outer God that influences my Pathways, and no latent wills hiding inside my Beyonder Characteristics," Huang Luan says, slightly winded.
"Your third and fourth wishes can be granted. But I can only partially complete your fifth wish. Immunity to corruption from Outer Gods and nothing hiding inside your Beyonder Characteristics, but not losing control isn't something I can do in tandem with the former two. You will have to choose one or the other. Another thing I should mention, to be able to grant your second and fourth wishes, I needed to give up some control as to when you will arrive in your new world. Should you be unlucky, you might be living amongst dinosaurs or perhaps even further back. Is this alright with you?"
"If this wasn't alright with me, I wouldn't be able to call myself a gacha gamer nor an Ork player, so naturally, I'm fine with this arrangement. As for the matter of my fifth wish, I'll take immunity to Outer Gods corruption and no latent wills in the Beyonder Characteristics. Losing control is something relatively easy to prevent compared to unseen threats like the former two, and I really don't need the Son of Chaos knocking on my door."
"Are you sure? The Son of Chaos and other Outer Gods from Lord of the Mysteries might not even exist in your new world."
"Well can you tell me what my new world is going to be like?" Huang Luan asks.
For a moment the God remains silent before answering, "No. Unfortunately, I am not privy to this information. This world you're going to, like many others, was made by the Big Boss in his sleep. No one really knows what's in them, you could be in a replica of your previous world with a few differences, some world based on a story the Boss has seen or read, or maybe if you get really lucky you'll end up back in your previous world."
"Then go with my previous answer. It's safer since it's as I said before, preventing myself from losing control is easier than the other option."
"Very well, then I shall accept and grant your five wishes. But if you don't mind me asking, why these two Pathways?"
Standing up from her seat, with her arms still crossed, Huang Luan says with pride, "Because I am Huang Luan. Surname Huang, written with the character for Emperor. Given name Luan, written with the character for Chaos or Disorder."
"Indeed, quite fitting indeed. I am glad I got to speak with someone who's reasonable and intelligent rather than someone who tries to make impossible demands. I wish you luck in your new world and as a bonus, I gifted you something else, but just as before, I don't have knowledge on when you'll receive it or what it actually is. Farewell."
As Huang Luan's soul is fading from the grand hall, she says, "Guess I got 'nother thing to look forward to. Hope I don't need to see you again, Oldie."
Once Huang Luan's soul has completely dissipated from the hall, the God shakes its head saying, "While I admit she was easy to speak to, her attitude could definitely use some work. I'm not surprised her co-workers and superiors always tried to dump work on her with that attitude."
…
After spending a couple of centuries signing off paperwork and moving souls around, the God finally gets a break as he prepares for the end of his shift after all this time and thinks 'Might as well check to see what's happened since I sent her off. Time is displaced here, so while only a few centuries have passed for me, quite a bit of time should have passed for the young Huang Luan.'
A computer-like object materialises in front of the God as it goes to check the records. It doesn't take long before it finds that Huang Luan was born around the year 100,000 BCE. 'At least she got to live amongst humans, albeit just barely, and it seems she really lived up to the title of Emperor, establishing a global empire during that time is truly an impressive feat… actually that should be near impossible. Oh, I see how it is, she used her power as the Black Emperor and the Justiciar to singlehandedly create and upkeep a global empire in the stone age. But what is she up to now?' Curious, the God scrolls through the history of the world Huang Luan is in. It finds that after arranging her death to retire. The Black Emperor can effectively revive infinitely, so dying means little to her. Huang Luan's empire collapsed and the Earth entered a dark age for thousands of years before civilisations began to appear once more. During this time, Huang Luan hadn't actually been doing much of anything, spending her time sleeping in her secret mausoleums or wandering aimlessly. She spent her time like this for tens of thousands of years until the modern era approached and started to integrate into human society once more. From the 1950s onward, Huang Luan spent her time enrolling in various schools, graduating, then finding a new school to repeat the process. At first, she played the part of a studious student, but as time went on her attitude progressively got worse.
'Better than wasting her life sleeping and wandering aimlessly. Then what were her most recent feats?' the stalker God asks itself. Finding the more recent records, it finds that about a couple of decades prior in Huang Luan world, she disguised herself as a boy and managed to enter Otokojuku, she even managed to successfully graduate. But the most recent event in her life takes place just a few days prior in Huang Luan's world, having been expelled from the school she was attending at the time for poor conduct. Most notably, skipping class, poor academic performance, getting into fights, and smoking.
'Oh, I forgot I gifted her a free system before she left, although I was never able to see what it was or when she would get it yet. But I should be able to see it right now. Let's see… so she got a Dimensional Chat Group, or rather, she'll get one soon. From the looks of it, the Chat Group should be given to her in a couple of hours. Better late than never though. I wonder what she's up to right now?'
But before the stalker God can look, its replacement arrives. So it shuts down the terminal after wiping the search history. Greeting the next God to take over the shift, the stalker quickly packs up and leaves.
As for what Huang Luan is doing right now. She's enjoying some tea in a temple with one of the strongest humans in her world, Kawakami Tesshin.
I read through it before uploading, but if anyone finds something that looks grammatically wrong or is spelt wrong, feel free to leave a comment and I'll see if it was a mistake or I purposely did something.
Have a nice day everyone.