1 Arc 1 - I died. I am crushed! And a god appeared...
"Shambhala. Shambali. Shamblee. Shamba ba ba ba. Shambala!"
I should start at the beginning.
Hello.
My name is Owen Ventosa. I am 22 years old and I live in Madrid. I'm just an ordinary guy, if you consider someone who dropped out of college a couple of months before graduating after having an existential crisis to be normal.
You see, my life was going great. I graduated from school with a GPA of 3.7, I was accepted in one of the best universities in Spain, the University of Salamanca. The problem? At 18, I had no idea what to do with my life, so when it came to choosing a degree, I was more lost than Christopher Columbus. I enrolled in classic literature.
Mistake.
Big mistake.
Gigantic mistake.
I hated my degree from the first month. But I kept going, mostly because I didn't want to disappoint my mother.
You see my mother is a champion, she divorced the piece of shit that is my father - sorry, my sperm donor, when I was 4 years old. She by herself made sure that I never went hungry, that I always had the best in life.She worked and worked until exhaustion to give me all the opportunities that she never had.
Me? I screwed it up.
I kept studying a degree that I hate with every fiber of my being. During covid I entered a depression, the world was gray and nothing mattered to me anymore. I started to stop eating, I barely got out of bed, I didn't even have the energy to change my clothes. In the end, it was all hell.
So I talked to my mother, after years of repressing my emotions everything erupted like a volcano. And with her encouragement I dropped out of college to focus on my mental health.
Things were going well, after years the world regained its color.
Great!
But shit happens.
Suicide....
...
...
It was just any Tuesday. I had just finished shopping when something fell from the sky. The something? Some asshole jumped off his balcony.
...
I don't have to tell you what (or who) the asshole landed on.
And that's how I died.
Crushed.
`Is raining men` is a shitty song.
One always wonders what comes after death. There are thousands of speculations about it. There are those who say that heaven and hell are the final destination, others believe in reincarnation.
Me?
No idea. I've read a lot about it but as someone once said: Death is the journey from which no traveler has ever returned. There is no way of knowing what happens after your heart stops beating. Only by experiencing it can you find the answer.
And I found it.
Nothing.
There is nothing.
Just a dark space, as if it was floating in space but with no stars or anything around.
I couldn't tell you how long I was here. Days? Weeks? Months? Years?
I just know that I had more than enough time to review every moment of my life and think about everything I could have done differently. I also spent a lot of time reviewing the plot of my favorite anime and novels. Later, I thought of plots for original novels, and fanfics. And after doing all that I did a thousand other things. The point is that it has been a long time.
After I don't know how long I resorted to goofing around to distract myself from boredom.
And that's when things changed.
"What the hell are you doing?"
I looked around and saw a figure made of pure light. It is an androgynous figure with no facial features. The holes where the mouth and eyes would be are a darker color.
I don't answer him, I just look at the being in front of me.
The being of light (blue in case you were wondering) looks at me. I look at him.
Stare.
Stare.
Stare.
"Okay, I repeat myself. What the hell!?"
I keep looking at him without saying anything.
"You've been in the CrossVerse 72 Earthly years! How come you haven't gone crazy!?" The being yells at me.
72 years. That's 50 years longer than I lived. So now I would be 94 years old. My mother and my friends are most likely dead. I'm not going to lie, that makes me sad but not as sad as it should. I have long since given up hope of ever seeing them again.
"Well, I don't know what to say about err- Who are you?"
"Oh. Apologies, I lost my cool, and my manners it would seem. I am Andros, God of Humanity."
A God. Not that it surprises me that much, after so long in this void there isn't much that surprises me.
"Andros. It's a pleasure to meet you, though I wish the circumstances were…different. But I don't think I'd ever meet a god in my life on Earth. My name is Owen Ventosa."
"Likewise Owen, it's nice to meet someone with manners for a change." I look at him a little puzzled. "Few mortals I have met in circumstances similar to yours, but they were all equally rude. Expecting me to grant them unlimited wishes and reincarnate them in their ideal worlds." Andros has an expression between irritated and angry.
Not that it surprises me, with how popular isekai are today, any otaku who ends up in such a situation expects a thousand wishes to become a godlike being with a huge harem.
"Not that I'm too surprised, with how popular isekai are" I tell him. "So I won't get a trillion wishes huh?" I joked around a bit.
Andros laughs and shakes his head.
"I'm afraid not, young man."
"Can I ask you a few things, Mr. Andros?"
"Sure Owen."
"This place. You called it the CrossVerse. What is it?"
"As the name says, it is a space between the infinite worlds that make up the Multiverse. It is a dimension in itself, an extremely dangerous place. You will see in this dimension there is nothing, no oxygen, no mana, nothing. Any being alive would die in a matter of nanoseconds from the sheer pressure of the many worlds that surround this space. The pressure is, you can think of it like the pressure that is at the bottom of the sea, the lower you go the more it crushes you, destroying steel easily at certain depths. The many worlds that make up the Multiverse exert immense pressure on this dimension, which is why only a few like beings can survive here. And you, young man, are not one of them. Which is why I was taken aback So much to find the soul of a mortal here."
That makes sense. And I don't know what to think of all this. It seems that I was wrong, I am not an ordinary guy. I am special.
"That's... I'm at a loss for words, Mr. Andros. Do you know why I'm not affected by pressure?"
Andres sighs.
"Your case is unique. You have connections with various beings from different worlds."
What?!
"Connections?! But that's impossible. I have no powers or anything! My life on Earth was 100% ordinary."
"In fact it's very possible. You see Owen, when a person dies the route their soul takes depends on several factors but in the end all souls arrive at the same destination: reincarnation. Some souls may spend decades or centuries in some kind of afterlife but in the end all souls reincarnate. Reincarnation has no limits, a soul from one world reincarnating in another is something very normal. Your connections are links with the worlds of your past lives."
Wow. That means I've lived in other worlds! That's super cool! I wonder what worlds to live in, I may have even lived in worlds from my favorite animes! But wait-
"Earlier you said beings, not worlds."
"This is what complicates the situation, in several lives you had strong links with beings of the celestial type. And in this life, when you died, your soul was trapped in the CrossVerse. As a side effect, your soul is trapped in a kind of limbo, you are Owen Ventosa but you also have access to parts of your previous lives, those parts reactivated those links."
"What's going to happen to me?" This situation is very weird, and I don't know what will happen.
"Normally it will just guide your soul to its next destination but…" Andros sighs and rubs his chin.
"Your death was unexpected, that day the one who was supposed to die was Jamie Diaz, but as you broke his fall he survived and you died in his place."
WHATEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!!?
That jerk!
Motherfucker!
Bastard.
How dare you?! If you are going to throw yourself from your balcony at least make sure there is no one passing by!!!!!
I accepted my death. I thought it was my time,- But.
"And now what?" I said in an exhausted tone.
"This isn't something I would normally do but since I like you I'll make you a deal. I'm going to revive you in one of the worlds you've lived in before. And to sweeten things up a bit I'll give you a new/old body- You will be able to choose between all the beings that you once were and I will recreate that body along with all your old abilities and powers."
So in the end I will live the Isekai experience!
Andros gave me a list with different worlds and another with my old lifes selfs.
"Take your time to choose. Remember that this is a unique opportunity, you will not have third chances. Choose the world in which you are going to live your best life."
Andros if he is a great god. Unlike a certain goddess, cough Aqua cough, who doesn't even leave time to look at the list, encouraged me to be thorough.
I read each list carefully and after much thought I narrowed it down to this:
Worlds:
-A song of ice and fire
-Narutoverse
-Harry Potterverse
-Avatar (the last airbender)verse
-RWBYverse
Past selves:
-Rhaenys Targaryen (daughter of Elia and Rhaegar)
-Riku Senju (shinobi during the Clan Wars, died at the age of 35, specialist in assassinations)
-Margot Jansen (witch who lived 1502-1598)
-Asari (firebender married to Avatar Kumi)
-Fiona (second daughter of Salem & Ozma)
