Some very tall and mysterious figures stood around an unconscious male human. There were three of the huge figures in total, one being a woman, and the others men. All of them were at least twice the size of the unconscious person.

"I believe the mortal is coming around." Said one of the men as he raised an eyebrow.

".. ughh.. what... why did I ju-"

The female figure bent down, her dress tucking under her knees. She spoke in an angelic voice.

"Shhh, calm down. You passed out after you finished the Test…” Her facial expression turned complicated, “.. or didn't finish. I don't know. I still haven't decided."

Pain and fatigue made it difficult, but the human on the floor struggled to see what was going on. He turned his head and opened his eyes to see an impossibly white world all around him. After quite a few tries to get his eyes to adjust, they finally let in some details. Three very tall figures surrounded him. They were currently chatting with each other. Due to his senses being completely turned around, and how strange this world was, he couldn’t seem to make out what they were saying.

The human prioritized his vision above his hearing, so he rubbed his eyes in an effort to see more of what was going on. The first thing he saw clearly was the figure of a woman.

Other than being incredibly tall, he immediately noticed that she had brunette hair which floated as if she was underwater. It wasn’t stiff as if it were charged with static electricity. Each hair seemed weightless, and every movement she made rippled through it in a delayed reaction. She also wore a headband, but it wasn’t meant for her hair. It wrapped itself around her eyes, and cut off her vision completely. Her slender figure covered by a greek style white dress was incredibly attractive. She also carried a set scales which never tilted to either side no matter where her hand moved.

The man felt an incredible amount of comfort from just looking at this woman. A mysterious warmth surrounded and invigorated him. With the extra energy, the man decided to look at the other people as well. As soon as his eyes landed on the other two huge figures, he instantly buckled over in pain. All he could feel was an indescribably powerful sense of dread. Nausea overwhelmed him and he nearly passed out again.

The first of the male figures scoffed. "Ha. The fool thought he could lay his eyes on us. Our sister might see something in him, but look at him! He just got lucky."

"Be quiet you imbecile!" The second male figure scorned, "The fact that his soul hasn’t already been extinguished from existence proves he is more than worthy. Truly unworthy souls would decompose on the spot if they saw us. Our sister chose wisely, as always." A sliver of reluctant acceptance dripped from his last two words.

"Tch." An annoyed look appeared on the first figure's face. "Whatever. Our sister can dabble in whatever tomfoolery she wants."

The human on the ground was still trying to understand what had happened to him, but he kept his vision firmly leveled at no higher than their feet. Nobody would want to go through that nausea a first time, never mind a second time.

"Brothers, you should be on your way," The woman said with concern, "I refrained from asking you to leave sooner because I didn't think he would wake up so fast. I'm glad his soul is still intact."

The man who defended the human nodded his head, "As you wish sister. I shall let the others know you plan on handling this... anomaly.”

He then turned, and walked away with the other man. Once both figures were about 15 meters away or so, they vanished into thin air. Now that they were gone; the man finally felt he had the strength to stand, so he decided to try. It was a struggle, but he managed to make it to his feet. The first thing he did was look around.

White. White as far as the eye could see. Only him, air, and a beautiful... blind woman? At least he assumed so.

“Why else would she wear a blindfold?” He thought.

The woman raised an eyebrow, "I am not ‘blind’ as you perceive it. I merely do not require vision to carry out my sworn duties."

A sense of pride was laced in her words.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to offend. I only made an observation... in my head," The man apologized.

A smile cracked on the woman's face. "No need for apologies Peter. Every mortal soul thinks that when they first see me. I suppose I can’t blame them. The saying does go ‘Justice is Blind’ after all.” She let out a small laugh, "It is just a figure of speech, though. I assure you.

The human looked at her strangely, "You... you called me Peter. Is that my name? I like that name."

"Haha, liking your own name is only natural I suppose. You will need to be a rock for the trial ahead. You may keep the name in your next life as well.. if that is what you wish." The lady said cheerily.

"Next life?... So I am dead then..." Peter said sadly.

"Oh, well yes I suppose. But do not fret Peter. Death is not a sad thing. For you actually, it is a very good thing."

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Well, for one: it is why you are here. The more important reason though is because you were not a good person in your last life."

Peter's heart sank, as he immediately charged to his own defense.

"No, please! You have to believe me. I didn't mean to kill the Godlings! They attacked me first! I had no choice. They were consuming me and I couldn’t stop them any other way!"

"Peter, calm yourself. That memory you have wasn't your last life. It was only a test beset upon you by the Gods. Oh dear, I still haven't introduced myself."

The lady cleared her throat. "My name is Adrestia. I am the Goddess of justice, vengeance, balance, and sister to those two lovable dolts you met earlier."

Peter forced himself to calm down, and processed the information for a moment. He then did the only thing he deemed logical in the situation where a mortal meets a God: he fell to his knees and begged for forgiveness, and begged to not have his soul extinguished for his transgressions.

"Hahahaha, that's a new reaction." Adrestia giggled. "Or maybe it's not. I rarely appear to mortal souls and introduce myself. In any case, rise, and know you have in fact atoned for your past life… I think."

Peter felt relieved knowing he wasn’t going to be destroyed, but also felt embarrassed that he groveled like such a coward, and was now being laughed at by a Goddess.

"Do not fret child. Stay quiet now. Keep your thoughts steady as I will now impart you with some knowledge so that this explanation could be kept brief. We actually have little time left."

Adrestia reached out her hand that held her scales and touched Peter's forehead with her index finger. An overwhelming flood of information suddenly entered his mind all at once. It took only a split second, yet felt like an eternity.

***

Peter actually was a horrible man in his past life. Not the worst, but a bad man indeed. He was responsible for many deaths, and a huge amount of misery. The specifics of what he did to cause that misery were not imparted to him though.

Like all men, good or bad, Peter eventually died. Souls of people who were good throughout their lives got a free pass right into the reincarnation cycle, but those who committed enough wrongdoing are all given a test. The same test Peter had just been through.

The test was supposed to go like this:

The the evil person’s soul has its memories erased, only leaving the baser instincts, and enough basic memories to function.

This test was a way to see whether the soul was inherently evil, or evil because of the circumstances it faced in life. The only way to test that was to take away any memories of the circumstances of the soul’s last life.

Once that was done, the soul was supposed to find itself in the void that Peter was in. It was to complete the first quest 'Find your legs', then immediately be given the karma quest which lets it choose to consume the Godlings for the pleasure it offers or save them from the reaper.

If the soul chooses to consume the Godlings it means they are inherently evil because only the baser instincts are left to govern what the soul does. Souls deemed evil would be thrown into a pit of despair for a number of years. The total time spent in the pit was determined by the Gods based on the wrongs that soul committed in its previous lifetime.

If the soul chooses to save the Godlings, then it must pass the test of the Reaper. The Reaper was made specifically to scare souls to make the test difficult. If the soul chose not to interfere with the Reaper consuming the Godlings, then the soul would fail the second test.

In that case: the soul made the ‘good’ choice for the first test, so they would be given half of the time in the pit that it would have gotten if the soul had chosen ‘evil’, and decided to eat the Godlings.

If the soul was not frightened by the Reaper in the second test, and wanted to save the Godlings anyways: It would undergo an extremely large amount of pain, and eventually be destroyed by the Reaper.

The Reaper was always supposed to win in a fight between it and a soul. That was the point. The soul would feel incredible pain and fear, but that would be enough punishment for the Gods because the soul chose to sacrifice themselves to save the innocent Godlings. It was arguably the most noble action anyone can take.

If this was the case, then the soul would be reformed and sent on its way to being reincarnated into its next life.

This method had saved countless innocent souls from years of torment, and had worked wonderfully since nearly the dawn of time.

Except for in Peter's case that is.

Normally, the Godlings would avoid hitting the soul while the soul completed the quest "Find your legs", but the reaper was released into the void-realm far too early. The reaper spooked one of the Godlings right into the Peter’s before he received the Karma quest. Once Peter ate a Godling, the rest of them automatically attacked. Normally, a soul would have already learned how to move by the time they eat the first Godling, so they can avoid and 'Kite' the Godlings around to pick them off one by one.

Peter, who had not learned how to move his soul yet, had been dogpiled and could do nothing to escape. Normally the soul wouldn't stand a chance at living with 98 Godlings attacking all at once, but somehow Peter fought back and survived. Only one Godling was left, and it was too afraid of the reaper to approach Peter.

Only at that point did Peter finally move and trigger the karma quest, which was already 99% finished in the evil direction. Peter had reasoned that he should finish it and thought the Reaper killing the Godling would hinder his chance at finishing the quest. He then fought the reaper after finding he could save the last Godling, and, unbelievably, he won!

The only reason Peter had a chance to win was because of the power he gained from the rest of the Godlings, and his soul's unusual willpower.

But that's where the major problem started. In order to complete the Good side quest, you need to suffer for your evil actions in your last life by dying to the reaper. Peter was still very much alive, and with no reaper there to scare the final Godling, it attacked him. Attacking Peter who was powered up with the strength of 99 Godlings and a Reaper soul was suicide.

The condition to complete the evil karma quest was the soul had to kill all of the Godlings, which happened! But according to the quest log, Peter had started down the Good quest line. The parameters were confused, and the whole test crashed.

***

Peter gasped. He bent over in pain, holding his head in his hands.

"AHHHH... haaaa... that hurt!!!"

"My apologies,” Adrestia said flatly, “I didn't have enough time left to explain all of that with words. Direct knowledge transmission was the only way."

Adrestia thought of something and chuckled, "Actually, you may thank me for doing that in the future."

"Jeez, just please no more of that," Peter begged.

"No more needed. All you need to understand for now is what happened. And no, nobody is sure why the reaper was released into your test before you decided to save the Godlings. It has never happened before, which leads me to conclude you were sabotaged by a God who isn't revealing themselves."

Peter rubbed the back of his neck, "What God would dislike me enough to sabotage my test?"

"Good question," Adrestia replied, "We have no idea either. Even if I did know I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you."

Peter nodded. "I figured there would eventually be things you couldn't tell me."

Adrestia smiled. "Yes, that was a wise deduction. There is much I cannot say, but I must say this."

Adrestia cleared her throat and spoke loudly. "My judgment is absolute, and without bias. You passed the test to the best of your abilities, even under the circumstances you were unfairly given. I hereby pardon you of your last life's transgressions."

A soft glow enveloped Peter, and he felt a crisp breeze blowing past his face. It was as if a burden that even he didn’t know existed had been lifted off of his shoulders.

Peter was overjoyed. "Thank you Adrestia! I'm so glad you saw my intent was pure. I'll admit I was scared there for a sec--"

Adrestia continued before he finished, "And… I, the Goddess of Justice, also wish to extend to you the honor of being my next Avatar!"

...

The silence went on for an uncomfortable amount of time. Peter had a dumbfounded look on his face.

"Huh?"