“Wait, what? No,no, did you just say you’re a god? Isn’t a god supposed to be like, I don’t know, have wings and emit a divine aura surrounded by angels?”

I ask with a slightly raised voice..

“Ooh that’s quite interesting, coincidentally, I read the same setting, in this book I found in your world, I guess that’s how most gods appear to you humans, but I’m different.”

Is this god right in the head?

Wait, this is not the time for that..

“Different? How are you different?”

“Didn’t I just say it just now, I’m a hidden god.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Let me explain, but first, I have to start from the beginning..

The one who created this world, The One True God, called his creation, “Quadra” and then proceeded to divide it into four continents, namely, the Human Continent, “Myriad”, due north; the Beastman Continent, “Feriad” in the direction of the east; the Elves Continent, “Neriad” in the west; and finally, the Demon Continent, “Heliad” located in the south..

Due to the size of his creation, he decided to create “The Four Great Gods to govern it..

Wherein, each God watches over 1 continent:

Solaris, the Sun God who commands light, and the human realm..

Memphis, the Earth God, who moves earth by his will, and governs the demi-humans..

Avaceris, the Nature Goddess, who creates spirits, protecting the forest-dwellers..

And finally, Polaris, the Goddess of the Moon, that rules over the demons, but due to recent circumstances, she is now called, The Demon God”

“Wait, recent circumstances?”

“Yes, but now’s not the time to elaborate, moving on..

The True God, used most of its divine energy in creating said world, the great gods, and its various inhabitants, so as a result, he had to go back to the divine realm, to recover.. The divine realm is located at the center of the world, interconnecting the continents.. But this is a hidden realm wherein only he, and whomever he permits has access to..

It was there he waited, recovering his divine energy, bit by bit, while watching his world grow..”

“Yeah, so? What’s that got to do with how you’re different?”

“I’m getting to that, might I ask why you’re in such a hurry? Because even though you’re already dead, you’re still in a rush? But to tell you the truth, you don’t need to worry about the time, since we are, after all, in a place where time, has stopped moving. So this might be strange to say, but... We have all the time in the world right now”

He said that while having a calm smile present on his face, but as I have somehow developed a habit of sensing auras due to my body’s disposition, I can certainly sense a slight tinge of anger at getting interrupted..

So, I decided to keep quiet, for both of our sake..

“I’m sorry, please continue”

“*Cough* I see, now where was I..

Oh, that’s right, over the years, the four Gods have done as they pleased, and the One True God watched over them, as they slowly grew into stronger supreme beings, by gathering the faith of the different races, but one day, the Gods grew bored over governing for about a million years, so they sought excitement, to save them from their dull existences, they decided on wanting to have fights, competition, and battles with strong beings such as themselves.

But since the four Gods can’t fight each other, they collaborated in a project to create stronger beings that they can fight, in other words, a whole new race, when they succeeded, they called the new existences, the Dragon Race”

“Dragons, huh, yeah, I guess they do sound strong”

I say in a matter of fact tone due to my knowledge of the fantasy creatures, which usually appears as last bosses in games, and mighty beings in novels..

“Overwhelmingly strong, over time, the Gods and dragons fought each other, leaving much destruction in their wake, using their powers with reckless abandon, thereby, breaking the dimensional plane, which in turn, caused various disasters to the various races, but when the One True God noticed what was happening, he immediately went out of his divine realm, even though he has yet to completely recover, to rectify the situation..

When he arrived, he commanded them to stop, and then told them that what they were doing was being harmful to the entire world of “Quadra” even if they noticed it, or not, finally, he told them to go back to doing their original purpose, watching over the continents, but it didn’t happen the way he wanted it to..”

I listen to the predictable twist at the end, and continue keeping silent, waiting for the continuation of the history of the other world..

“He expected it to happen, mostly because he knew, that over time, the gods have grown conceited, and overconfident, drowning in the arrogance that comes with gaining an enormous amount of power, That they started to get consumed by the desire to gain more. Maybe due to them knowing that the One True God was still recovering and is now in a weakened and vulnerable state, they decided to rebel..”

” So they betrayed their own creator..”

” Yes, they were truly blinded by their own hubris, to have the gall to do that, but what happened next was nothing short of disastrous, because even though the One True God was weakened, he still fought evenly against his own creations, though this all changed when the dragons decided to enter the fray, because due to the fact that he didn’t create these beings, he let his guard down, thinking that their power had to be weaker than the four great gods, but what he didn’t account for, was the unpredictable group known as, the “7 Dragon Kings of the Elemental Sin”, the seven heads of the the Dragon race.

When they joined the opposition, things took a nasty turn for the worse, entire towns, settlements, and countries were utterly destroyed, chaos was rampant in all four of the continents, races were forced to do battle and join the fray, since mere mortals cannot oppose the will of divine beings, the battle consisted of the One True God, fighting against everyone in the entire world, this would be later called, the Heavenly War Sabaki”

“Wow, what happened next?”

This One True God must have unfathomable strength to go against an entire world..

I thought to myself, praising the other world’s creator..

“The war lasted for a decade, before it reached a stalemate, and with the Gods and Dragon Kings weakened, the One True God retreated to the Divine Realm, but in the eyes of the world, the enemy has run from them, so they didn’t pursue any further since it was futile to try and enter the absolute stronghold, the Divine Realm.

The gods grew even more conceited, thinking that they have now beaten the unbeatable existence, their creator, and now headed back to their respective continents to celebrate and make peace, but the One True God, in his dying moments knew that another war in the future was unavoidable, with him disappearing, leaving the seat of the One True God vacant, they would surely fight for it, once again, to feed their greed and ever-growing ego..

So he devised a plan to stop them, risking his life, and the world itself, he opened the [Gate Dimensions] to the other worlds, using the last of his divine power, in order to create a war involving a proxy instead of the gods themselves, the method of summoning other people from another world, the so called chosen ones.

They were to fight each other whilst each hero being given a fragment of their god’s powers, but he needed something else, someone who would keep the balance of the fate of the world. So he made an existence that won’t let the world fall to ruin once more..”

“And, that was you?”

“Fumu, that is slightly incorrect..I am just a fragment of the consciousness of The Hidden God, since the Hidden God has three sub-forms, The God of Life, The God of Death, and me, The God of Fantasy. The one who brought you here was the God of Death...”

“The Gothic-Lolita-scythe-wielding girl?”

“The very same, since she does have that strange preference of wearing those type of clothes, and because she noticed something in you, that she thought we could use as a game changer, so to speak, and “sent” you to me..”

If “sent” meant, chopping your head off, next time, please pick another candidate..

I thought she picked the wrong person, but I now see what she was talking about, you, you are terrifying, so much, that I have to use [Fear Nullification] in order to somehow contain you, but I digress..

We were tasked to find someone to bring peace to this world to fight the other Gods through their proxies, the Gods Apostles, the main body, the Hidden God, God of Fate, has the task of deciding the winner of the battle, and conceding the throne of the One True God to the victor, but he, no, we wanted to find someone to face them, and bring balance to the future war-stricken world, and we chose you..”

“What? Why me? I’m just a high school student with no friends!”

I exclaim towards the unreasonable explanation..

But I still felt bad saying it out loud, as expected..

Anyhow, I could not accept a reason like that, forcing me to fight gods and whatnot..

That’s just like saying, you picked up my name from a lottery box, or something..

“That’s exactly why, someone like you, who can’t be affected by the world’s prejudice and religious views is someone we desperately need as of now, an uncertain factor, so I predict that during the period of 100 years after you are reborn, the Apostles are fated to be born whether you like it or not, so we need you to handle it since we can’t do it ourselves, for we are forbidden to interfere with the affairs of the fight itself..”

“That’s kind of irresponsible don’t you think? Can’t I refuse and go back?”

I plead for my rights but to no avail..

“Well, we will naturally give you a skill to help you out in the new world, but it’s entirely up to you and your choices in life, so work hard to reach the Gods, don’t worry about it”

He ignored me? Did my words fall on deaf ears?

And what do you mean, don’t worry about it?

Saying things like reaching the gods with hard work, as if it was as simple as pressing a button and ordering a coffee..

This guy is really starting to annoy me..

“No, I still don’t want to, send me back!”

I try to throw a tantrum like a child..

“Well, you see, oh my, my, would you look at the time, I think it is about time you get going, don’t you think so? Off you go then, enjoy the new world”

He starts looking at his imaginary watch on his wrist dodging the question..

And he made a shooing gesture towards me like I was some stray cat..

But, wait a minute..

“Wait, didn’t you just say time is stopped here? Wait!”

A sudden white light enveloped my body and my consciousness faded..