Chapter 1
The Soul Who Refused Reincarnation
In the Underworld, most souls caused trouble in one of three ways. Some refused to believe they were dead. They searched for their shoes, asked when dinner would be served, or complained that their families had taken too long to open the door. Others refused to admit their sins. They argued with the clerks recording their wrongdoings for days. One former official had even filed a complaint, insisting that the scales weighing his sins were unfair. But the third kind was the worst. They refused reincarnation. According to the Goddess of the Underworld, they were the most troublesome creatures ever created by Heaven.
“I refuse.”
The Goddess stared at the young man sitting across from her desk. “Say that again.”
“I refuse.”
“Louder. Perhaps my hearing has suddenly deteriorated.”
“I will not be reincarnated.”
The Goddess took a long, exhausted breath. Her black desk was covered with soul records, scrolls containing the details of past lives, and the Book of Fate, which was absolutely not supposed to be touched carelessly. Behind her stood towering shelves filled with documents. There were enough of them to make an ordinary human faint at the mere sight of them. But none of those things was her biggest problem that day. Her biggest problem was a nineteen-year-old young man who had been declared dead in the mortal world but stubbornly insisted that he had no intention of returning.
“Listen, young man.” She tapped the desk with one finger. “You are dead. Your body is being prepared for burial. Your name has already been entered into the register of souls. Your affairs in the mortal world are finished.”
“Then let them stay finished.”
The Goddess fell silent. She had dealt with thousands of souls during her time in the Underworld. Some wept. Others raged. Many begged for a little more time to say goodbye to their families. She had even encountered the ghost of a corrupt official who had attempted to bribe the person weighing his sins. But this young man was different. He did not cry, shout, or beg. He simply sat there with an empty expression, as though nothing in the world was worth staying alive for. Or perhaps, more accurately, as though everything worth living for had already been taken from him.
“Why?” the Goddess finally asked.
The young man did not answer immediately. His fingers tightened against his knees. He had been doing that since he arrived, pressing his nails into his palms until the pain gave him something definite to focus on. The Underworld was quiet, but he could still hear the sounds that had followed him from the mortal world: the crackle of burning beams, the frantic pounding at a locked door, and the voices calling his name before stopping one by one. For a moment, images flashed through his mind: a burning home, the screams of people, and bodies scattered across a courtyard. His family had been taken from him in a massacre he had never fully understood. He could still remember his mother's hand slipping from his, his father's voice vanishing beneath the roar of flames, and the terrible silence that followed.
He had survived. That was the part he could never forgive. Not because he believed he had caused the massacre. He knew, rationally, that he had been nineteen, powerless, and trapped beneath the body of his older brother when the killers left. But guilt did not care about reason. It had followed him through every year afterward, whispering that he had been the one who crawled out, the one who ate the food, the one who kept breathing while better people had been left in the ashes.
He remembered the first morning after the massacre. He had woken beneath a collapsed wall with blood dried across his face and called for his mother until his throat tore. When no one answered, he had crawled outside and found the courtyard covered in gray ash. He had spent years telling himself that surviving had been an accident. Some nights, he wondered whether it had been a betrayal.
After losing everyone, he had continued breathing because his body had been too stubborn to stop. He had eaten because hunger did not care about grief. He had slept because exhaustion was stronger than sorrow. Every morning, he woke expecting the pain to have dulled. It never did. Instead, the grief changed shape. At first it had been a scream. Then it became a weight in his chest, heavy enough to make breathing feel like work. Eventually it became quieter, settling into ordinary moments: an empty place at a table, the smell of smoke, or the sound of someone laughing in the street. He could go days without thinking of the massacre, only to find himself standing motionless because a stranger had used his father's favorite expression.
He had once tried to end his own life. He had not done it in a moment of dramatic despair. That was what frightened him most. He had planned it calmly, after washing the dishes and folding his clothes, because he had finally decided that continuing to exist was an obligation he no longer consented to carry. Even then, death had refused to accept him properly. Now, after spending half a day being considered dead by the people preparing his funeral, he had somehow awakened in the mortal world again. To him, it was not a miracle. It was a punishment.
“I have no one left,” he said quietly. “I don't want to go back.”
The words sounded simple, but they left something raw behind them. He did not want another chance. He did not want a new family, a new name, or a new life in which he would once again have something to lose. He also did not want to be told that reincarnation was a gift. A gift implied gratitude. It implied that someone had considered what he wanted before placing another life in his hands.
The Goddess studied him. For the first time since he had been brought before her, she did not immediately make a sarcastic remark. Unfortunately, her silence lasted only a few moments.
“So, you want to stay here?”
“Yes.”
“Forever?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.” She nodded as if he had just made a perfectly reasonable decision. “Then you can start working.”
The young man raised his head. “What?”
“There are plenty of jobs here. Filing soul records, cleaning the corridors, delivering documents, helping count sins. If you intend to stay forever, at least don't become unemployed in the Underworld.”
“I don't want to work.”
The Goddess's smile disappeared.
“Then reincarnate.”
“No.”
“Work.”
“No.”
“Reincarnate.”
“No.”
She closed her eyes. Somewhere far above the Underworld, the gods were probably enjoying their tea in peace. They had no idea that one of the rulers of the realm of the dead was struggling to resist the urge to throw a grieving soul into the deepest abyss.
The Goddess opened her eyes again. “Fine. Let's try a simpler method.”
She pulled a scroll from the desk and opened the page containing the young man's soul records. Then she picked up a red brush. He watched her suspiciously.
“What are you doing?”
“Administrative work.”
“That doesn't look like administrative work.”
“Are you an expert in administration?”
“No.”
“Then be quiet.”
The Goddess crossed out several lines in his records. She then flipped through the Book of Fate, searching for the entry connected to the young man before her. She was not supposed to do that without permission. She was not supposed to use a red brush to alter a soul's records, either. And most importantly, she was certainly not supposed to grin like someone who had just discovered a terrible idea. Unfortunately, she was doing all three.
“Goddess,” the young man said cautiously.
“Hmm?”
“Why are you crossing out my name?”
“Because you refuse reincarnation.”
“And?”
The Goddess closed the Book of Fate. “If you refuse to reincarnate through the proper procedure, I'll simply return you to where you came from.”
The young man frowned. “Wasn't I dead?”
“Correct.”
“Then how are you going to return me?”
The Goddess smiled broadly. That smile should have warned him that he was in serious danger. Unfortunately, grief had made him slow to recognize danger. He had spent so long expecting the world to hurt him that one more threat barely registered. Part of him even wondered whether being thrown back into the mortal world might finally give death a reason to finish what it had started.
The Goddess stood up, leaped over her desk, and grabbed the back of his collar.
“Wait! What are you doing?”
“Providing excellent service.”
“Let go of me!”
“I'm afraid I can't. Stubborn customers require special treatment.”
Before he could protest again, the Goddess raised her hand. A crimson circle appeared beneath their feet. Cold wind swept through the room, sending scrolls flying and causing several sheets of sin records to slap against the face of an unfortunate clerk passing by. The clerk stopped. He saw the Goddess of the Underworld dragging a soul toward a swirling vortex of light. Then he looked at the document stuck to his face. He decided he had seen absolutely nothing.
“Goddess, this violates the rules!” the young man shouted.
“Then report me!”
“How am I supposed to do that?!”
“Find a complaint form!”
The crimson light grew brighter. The Goddess swung her arm, and the young man's soul was hurled into the vortex. For one brief instant, he felt the cold of the Underworld fall away. He thought of the burning courtyard, of the voices he could no longer hear, and of the people waiting for him somewhere beyond death. He had wanted oblivion. Instead, he was being thrown back into the life he had spent years trying to escape.
The thought did not frighten him as much as it should have. Fear belonged to people who believed they still had something to protect. He had already watched everything he loved disappear once. The possibility of losing more felt almost insulting. Before disappearing, he caught one last glimpse of her face. She looked entirely too pleased with herself.
“YOU'LL REGRET THIS!”
“If I regret it, I'll think about that later!”
The vortex closed. Silence returned to the room. Several documents drifted gently to the floor. The Goddess straightened her sleeves, returned to her desk, and sat down as if nothing unusual had happened.
“Stubborn fool.”
She picked up her cup of cold tea. “I offered him reincarnation, and he refused. What does he think this place is? A holiday resort?”
An elderly clerk appeared in the doorway. His face went pale when he noticed the Book of Fate lying open on her desk.
“Goddess…”
“What?”
“Did you just return a soul to the mortal world without sending him through the reincarnation process?”
The Goddess blew across the surface of her tea. “What do you think?”
“That act is forbidden by the laws of Heaven.”
“Oh, really?”
“Goddess!”
“Yes, yes. I heard you.” She waved a hand. “Stop making so much noise. I'm trying to drink my tea.”
The elderly clerk looked as though he might faint. The Goddess paid him little attention. As far as she was concerned, the matter was settled. The young man was back in the mortal world, she could continue her work, and no more stubborn souls would disturb her break. At least, that was what she believed.
Far above the Underworld, in a place unreachable by humans and ordinary spirits, a bell rang once. Then a voice spoke. It was calm, cold, and far more frightening than any ordinary display of anger.
“The Goddess of the Underworld has violated the law.”
A new record appeared on a stone table. The Goddess's name was written clearly across it. Beneath her name, a single sentence slowly formed.
Punishment shall be imposed.
Meanwhile, in the mortal world, a young man who had been declared dead suddenly drew a breath. The people preparing his funeral screamed in terror. Someone dropped a tray. Another person ran outside, shouting for a physician. The young man merely lay there with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling without understanding what had happened.
He did not know who had returned him. He did not know why he was still alive. And he had no idea that the decision of an irritated goddess had changed the course of his life forever.
Back in the Underworld, the Goddess reopened the Book of Fate. She flipped through a few pages and yawned.
“Hopefully, he won't come back.”
Far away in the mortal world, the young man slowly clenched his fists. His body was alive, but his heart still felt buried beneath the ashes of his home. The voices of his family remained trapped inside him, not as comforting memories but as wounds that refused to close. He had been given back the life he did not want, and every breath felt like proof that the world had once again ignored his wishes.
He could not decide whether to call it a second chance or a second sentence. The distinction seemed meaningless. Either way, he had been forced to remain in a world that had already taken everything from him. In eyes that had once been filled with sorrow, something unfamiliar began to grow. Not calmness. Not peace. But an emptiness that was slowly transforming into something much darker.
If the world insisted on making him live, then one day he would make the world answer for it. And the Goddess, convinced that she had solved one minor problem, had no idea that one day she would meet that stubborn soul again.
The next time, she would not be dealing with a young man who refused reincarnation. She would be facing an emperor. And when that day came, throwing someone into a vortex of light would no longer be such a simple solution.
