Tokyo, 11:42 AM
Ren Kisaragi stared at the quarterly report like it was a confession letter written in numbers. Line after line of inefficiencies, red margins, and buzzword-drenched proposals that promised "innovation" but delivered nothing but debt.
He clicked his pen.
Again.
And again.
Until the intern flinched.
"You're trying to upsell a logistics overhaul to a team that handles cardboard signage," he said flatly, not looking up. "You don't need AI routing. You need to stop giving every regional manager a free expense account and a god complex."
Silence.
The boardroom air conditioner wheezed.
Ren pushed the report forward. "Scrap it. Cut the bonuses. Reassign the budget to the actual bottlenecks—inventory and dispatch. Keep the signature line empty. I'll send my own notes to the execs."
Someone muttered, "He's cold."
Someone else whispered, "He's always right, though."
Ren stood, chair creaking. "I'm not cold. I'm bored. If the company collapses from me telling the truth, it deserved to collapse."
As he walked out, the HR manager jogged after him.
"Ren! The higher-ups said your critical feedback is—well—starting to sound like threats."
Ren looked her dead in the eyes. "I don't threaten. I diagnose."
She froze.
He didn't wait for her response. He was already late for lunch.
---
Tokyo, 12:03 PM
The crosswalk blinked green.
Pedestrians surged forward like floodwater. Ren, balancing a convenience store sandwich and a coffee in one hand while texting his summary with the other, barely noticed.
He was mid-sentence:
"Their entire revenue model is built on illusionary KPIs. If we keep rubber-stamping it, we—"
"You think you're above everyone."
The voice came from behind. Low. Icy.
Ren turned, brows knitting—just in time to see a figure in a hoodie, face obscured, shove him with both hands.
A honk.
A screech of brakes.
A flash of metal.
THWACK.
The bus collided with a sickening crunch. Sandwich. Coffee. Screen. Spine.
Gone.
---
??? – ???
Ren felt… smoothness beneath him. Weightless air. Nothingness, but not empty. Like the silence between thoughts.
He sat up.
A vast, pristine white space surrounded him. There were no walls. No sky. Only her.
She stood barefoot on the blank canvas, naked, calm and unbothered—like the world was too insignificant to dress for.
Ren blinked. Then squinted.
"Am I in heaven…"
She tilted her head, curious.
Then snapped her fingers—and a white robe shimmered into existence, draping around her like woven light. "That reaction was... informative."
Ren ran a hand through his hair. "I feel like I just got hit by... oh."
"You were," she said, silver eyes calm. "Right in the chest. Bus. Pushed."
"Of course," Ren muttered. "...my sandwich."
The goddess took a step forward, her presence sharpening. "Ren Kisaragi. Thank you for your service to the corporate world of Earth. You are dead—but your work is not done."
Ren raised a brow. "This is the part where you say I'm the chosen hero and hand me a sword, right?"
"No." Her voice was cool. "You will not fight. You will not save. You will observe. Judge. And decide."
The whiteness pulsed.
"A world is dying," she continued. "Not from monsters. But from itself. It was created long ago by accident—too flawed to thrive, too persistent to perish. We've sent others before, but none returned with a final ruling."
She reached out. A black pen materialized in her palm.
"This pen will record your observations. But it cannot lie. Not even to yourself."
Ren took it.
Cold. Heavy.
"You will live there for seven years. At the end, you will submit your audit. And based on your findings… the world will either be preserved, reset, or erased."
Ren exhaled. "So I'm not a hero. I'm… middle management."
The goddess smiled.
"Precisely."
The light engulfed him.
---
Somewhere Else – ???
A gust of wind howled across crumbling ruins. Crows cawed. Bells rang from a distant cathedral where no gods answered anymore.
And Ren opened his eyes, lying on stone, as voices murmured in a language he didn't yet understand.
The pen pulsed faintly in his hand.
His new life had begun.
As the auditor of a broken world.