Chapter 2 This can’t be paradise!

Ring! Ring!!! Ring!!!

Aspen grumbled in a groggy voice, rubbing the sleep from his face and groping for the clock.

But the alarm continued ringing, getting louder every second.

Finally frustrated, Aspen opened his eyes and looked up. His heart pounded in his chest as he thought he had just woken up from the most bizarre nightmare.

However, his perception changed completely as he looked around.

Aspen was no longer in his bed or even in his truck. Instead, he was sitting at a wooden desk with a computer in front of him, its screen inches from his face.

As he looked around, his eyes widened in disbelief.

A sea of white shirts and black pants stretched as far as the eye could see, and everyone was busy typing away at their keyboards without even making the slightest hum of conversation.

“What the hell is this? Where the hell am I?” he asked, getting up from his chair.

And as soon as he turned around, he was greeted by a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in a pinstriped white suit and inky black tie.

“What’s going on here? What is this place?” Aspen asked.

The suited man smiled and shoved his gloved hands into his pockets.

“You are living the dream. Welcome to the afterlife,” he informed in a cheery voice, offering a sharp contrast to the dread around them. “Better start working if you want to become the employee of the decade.”

“What? Is this some kind of joke?” Aspen questioned in an annoyed voice.

But the man in the suit shrugged his shoulders. “Why would it be a joke? Wasn’t it always your dream to be employed in a multinational company and make millions?”

“I am not playing your stupid game anymore!” Aspen cried out exasperatedly and got up from his seat. “I am going back home.”

The suited man chuckled and shook his head.

“There is no home. You just died. It’s only been three hours, seventeen minutes, and sixteen seconds. This is where you belong now.”

A cold shiver ran down Aspen’s spine as he imagined the worst.

“Please tell me this is a prank?”

The man moved closer and whispered, “So you really don’t remember the accident?”

That horrid scene immediately flashed before Aspen’s eyes. He thought it was just another nightmare, but as he remembered every single detail, it became clear it was indeed his stark reality.

“If…I am dead, then you must be God…or…the devil himself!” Aspen mumbled nervously. “Is this hell? I am so sorry for everything. I didn’t think there was an afterlife.”

But the suited man shook his head and sighed, “I am not God. I am just one of the nine Celestial Beings. Each of us manages a particular group of people. I supervise the atheists.”

Aspen looked around him again and asked, “What is this place? How can the afterlife be like this? It’s dreadful!”

Hearing this, the man smiled, and his eyes turned serpentine. A long, forked tongue slithered out of his mouth, and he asked, “How should the afterlife be then?”

With a snap of his fingers, the Celestial Being swept the dreary office away, painting a new illusion.

Aspen now found himself inside a palace floating on the clouds, surrounded by giggling women clad in bikinis and swimsuits.

“Perhaps this is what you had in mind?” a feminine voice called out to him.

Aspen turned around and saw a winged beauty sitting on a golden throne, her angelic face radiating a soothing aura.

“Are you happy now?” she asked.

“Where did he go? The Celestial Being in charge of the atheists?” Aspen asked in a timid voice.

Suddenly, the angelic beauty transformed back into the man in the pinstriped suit and cackled at him.

“We are one and the same, my dear boy!” he exclaimed. “Unlike you humans, I do not have any gender or even species constraints.”

Still coming to terms with his grim reality, Aspen felt nervous. He could feel his heart pounding rapidly, even though his spectral form was nothing more than an airy nothingness now.

Seeing Aspen scared and anxious, the Celestial Being reverted to the feminine form again.

“Relax, little one. You will get used to it,” she said, almost too casually. “You can spend the rest of your afterlife here if you want. Isn’t this better? I mean, it isn't as cozy and permanent as heaven, but you could still have plenty of fun!”

Aspen, however, felt suffocated in here. He knew everything around him was just an illusion, and the Celestial Being could whisk it all away with one snap.

“You mean I can just be lazy and spend my afterlife ogling girls all day?” Aspen asked.

The Celestial Being laughed at the ridiculous suggestion.

“Of course not! This is just your lunch break. Once the bell rings again, you will be back at your desk, ready to resume your daily grind and meet targets,” she said with such gusto that it almost felt like she took great pleasure in watching people rot away in front of their work screens.

“I don’t like this place!” Aspen exclaimed in a defiant voice. “I want to go back, please!”

The Celestial Being sighed and replied, “That is impossible now.”

“Please, I know you can do it. I had so much left to accomplish!” he cried out. “You know I didn’t deserve to die. It wasn’t my time yet!”

The Celestial Being thought about it long and hard, her lips puckering and pursing as her eyes moved all over the place, as if trying to figure out some difficult equation.

“Well, you were a completely pathetic loser in your previous life and a total jerk as well. But I suppose you did die trying to save another life,” she sighed. “Maybe you do deserve a second chance.”

“Yes, just send me back home!” Aspen exclaimed excitedly.

But the Celestial Being had other plans.

She grinned from ear to ear and replied, “You deserve a second chance in another world! Terms and conditions fully applied!”

Suddenly, an airy hand grabbed Aspen and plucked him up like a flower. The floor parted under him, and he stared at a tuft of white clouds, several feet below him.

“How about a world where humans are the weakest among all races? Wouldn't that be fun?” the celestial being chuckled. “I bet that would be a learning experience for sure!”

“No! Please, no!” he exclaimed.

“Good luck! Live your best life!” the Celestial Being giggled as the hand let go, dropping Aspen.

“Argh! No!”

Aspen screamed as he fell through the air, flubbing through the clouds and landing onto something soft and cushy.

“God damn it! That’s the worst way to get Isekai’d!”  he exclaimed. “He couldn't have been serious about humans being the weakest here, could he?” he mumbled nervously.

But as he felt the soft, smooth skin under his face, his tension dissipated like smoke. Clinging on like a sly snake, he grinned mischievously.

“Alright. I already know what’s going to happen here. A pretty young girl will call me ‘baka’ and then accuse me of being a pervert,” he chuckled, groping the thick thigh. “But I know she is eventually going to fall in love with me and give me whatever I desire.”

Aspen slowly got up, expecting to be greeted with a soft slap to the cheek and a shrill feminine cry in his ears, but as he looked up, his smile vanished instantly.

He hadn’t landed in a pretty young girl’s lap. He had landed right on top of a sweaty old goblin whose eyes were mad with lust!