(—ነነነነ(—(—[][][][]—)—)ነነነነ—)

A/N : I'm really bored and decided to throw some satire at the wall. I'll be surprised if this sticks. I should be working on [Rising of the Four Heroes], or the second part of [Cardinal Guardians], but nah. Similar to [Cardinal Guardians], this was made in one continuous stream of consciousness starting from midnight. No pauses were taken, only to fix obvious grammar issues and other things. Uploaded at the end of the stream of consciousness, ha. Hope future me isn't regretting this. I guess there should be a dark humor warning too, I guess.

(—ነነነነ(—(—[][][][]—)—)ነነነነ—)

My name is Shin Yagami. I'm twenty years old. I live in a small city within the Kanto region of Japan, but I don't think it's big enough to be considered noteworthy compared to bigger cities like Tokyo or Kyoto. Nevertheless, I'm a university student who has been aimlessly studying within biology for no particular reason other than the curiosity of the human body. I typically keep my studying period to a maximum of eight to ten hours, depending on the day, and leave the rest of the time to abide to the essential needs of the human body or tend to my interest within hobbies. Of course, I sleep an average of six hours, the ideal amount for a student of my age, so that I wake up like a baby—without any fatigue or stress. It's to the point where the doctor believes I'm in a perfect condition.

I'm trying to explain that among the perspective of the general public, I'm seen as a normal person who wants to keep to themselves and people are able to respect that boundary. However, I would like to say for a fact that I am not such a person. There are various reasons as to why I prefer to keep to myself and generally keep a quiet lifestyle and that surrounds my preferred hobbies. As you might know, there are some people that like to share their hobbies with others and converse among the highlights or central topics of interest. Unfortunately, I don't believe I have the same luxuries as them, even if I had wanted to share them, because they would frown upon it and even go out of their way to prevent my hobby time.

What is this special hobby?

…

…

I am searching for the perfect way to die.

That is not to say that I am openly suicidal. If society wasn't frowning on such actions, perhaps I would be able to be so, but as it stands, I must keep the research a secret to prevent it from being stopped forcefully.

Of course, every human has only one life to live. This is a rule that I must abide to as nature states. That is why I make the effort to determine the best possible way to die while minimizing the time efficiency I am spending alive. If I'm to be honest, I've already spent too much on this little project.

I decided on killing myself for eight years now.

For most people, it might be odd to have such a goal. Many would try and determine the cause for such a goal and in most cases, they will find a series of depression cases and a tragic backstory that coerced them to such a mindset—that life is not worth living on, so it is much better to pass onto the afterlife if there is nothing left for them to do here.

… I am not one of those people.

Perhaps you may even call it a sin that someone like me shares a common goal with them with a normal lifestyle and a normal mindset. I simply found elegance in death, but something typical as a hanging cannot do. Absolutely not. Not only is the procedure boring, but I cannot align myself any closer to those you see suicide as a way out of their lives!

… Though, I will have to admit that the temptation of a hanging is alluring, but I fought the urge to undergo it. I only performed a 'test-run' to experience its pain, calculating the strength of the rope in comparison to my weight and altering it to snap just before I could die. Needless to say, it wasn't as enjoyable as I thought. There is no fun in a trope that is overdone.

The same goes for a truck accident. I've read reports about teenagers running into roads to be killed by trucks, but I couldn't fathom the true reason behind it. The common trope had been that some of they were reported to have said, "please take me, truck-kun," but that was ridiculous. There was no reason to add "-kun" at the end of the vehicle.

This isn't even a story that will even use those suffixes, even though I live in Japan!

… Besides, there's also no fun in allowing someone else to kill you for you. That is simply ungrateful towards the driver, who certainly didn't sign up to run a teenager over on their job. And it's lazy on the suicider's part because they're making something else do the work for them.

And thus, I concluded that the perfect suicide was something that was private, but it couldn't be anything generic. The only reason I take good care of myself is that it would be too easy to allow natural causes to eat away at my life, such as death from thirst or hunger. The perfect suicide on only be performed on the healthy subject, where no biological problems can interfere.

In fact, I was in the middle of doing some groceries. I had a tendency to zone out when doing this trivial tasks, especially with music to my ears, but I suppose I should focus on what I should eat for supper and the days that follow. Since I cook for myself, I would say that I gained quite the experience.

As I decide between radishes or carrots, I could hear some yelling occur from the front of the store. It was loud enough to penetrate through my headphones. Needless to say, it was slightly irritating to the point where I merely decided to get both vegetables and head out to the register. If it had been a one-off, I would have continued to take my time, but the yelling kept going.

I sighed as I approached the cashier, but as I came closer, I noticed that there had been a few people cowering in fear. I didn't believe there was anything to be scared about before me.

There was only a man shouting furiously at the cashier, though about what, I couldn't exactly hear the contents. I didn't really care, but if there was no one in the line, I might as well take the next spot. The man didn't look like he was buying much away, but maybe his back was blocking the things that he was buying.

Ah, that must be it. He must be mad about a price check.

The man doesn't even notice me as I approach. He's too busy with his own little complaints, but I'd wish that he would hurry up. I have a meal to make and a suicide plan to establish, after all. I'm just about done with my fifteen prototype. I would have to finish up a few tweaks and set up some experiments. If it went well, then I would be meeting the world's end in a few months. All the other fourteen prototypes failed in one way or another.

However, I began to notice the face of the cashier, one that was blocked by the man's body at my angle. She looked scared, just as the other few customers had been. If she was scared of a madman on a complaint, she should have gotten her manager to come out. It was a shame that there's only one cashier out today. Usually there would be more on Saturdays.

I brought my basket onto the cashier's conveyor belt, noticing that there wasn't actually anything that the customer was buying. I hadn't known the reason why, but I supposed if there was needless time being wasted, anyone would have been angry under the right circumstances. I groaned and stared at the man.

"Hey! Hurry up! I—"

—need to get home here.

I was only able to say the first half of my intended words.

It turned out that the man wasn't actually mad about anything. Well, he was, but it wasn't for the thing I originally assumed it to be.

Turns out, the man was robbing the damned store, armed with a gun.

… Huh.

And apparently, my shouting was enough to frighten the uneased man because he immediately turned around and fired his gun at me multiple times at my chest.

… HUH.

I couldn't scream out of the sudden surprise, but it wasn't as if I had to. Everyone else was doing a pretty good job on doing it for me.

I collapsed onto the ground and my head felt the full concrete impact, as I felt the burning blood soaking through my clothes and pouring themselves out on the tiled floor. I took my fingers, attempting to see where the bullets had landed and tried to count the holes that were punctured within me.

One… Two… Three… Wait, is that a fourth one…?

Four bullets into my chest, one of which had certainly hit my heart. The pain had came so suddenly that my body was starting to mistake the issue as heat. My lungs had been burning and so did my heart.

…

…

Look.

I know I said I would like to die.

Though, this is barely the method I would have wanted to suggest for myself. It infringed on what I thought about earlier—the fact that the perfect suicide cannot rely on a third external party other than yourself—and what even was this cause of death? Being shot multiple times? There is no sense or fragment that exclaimed suicide in this manner of death! Even shooting yourself wasn't anywhere close to the perfect suicide! You can get accidentally shot at anytime with absolutely no indication of the otive of the victim!

And to die like this!

It's such a disgrace!

Even if I live through this, my body would already be weakened from the pain!

How am I supposed to reach the perfect suicide now!?

…

…

[Shin Yagami died, whining to himself about how he was killed.]

(—ነነነነ(—(—[][][][]—)—)ነነነነ—)

I opened my eyes to see that the burning feeling had disappeared. I supposed that was what happened what you lose consciousness to pain. Your memories end from one point, skipping over until your senses start to work again. Though, it was painfully obvious that I survived. I felt disappointment, but there was a sense of relief that rushed through me. If I thought logically, my death would meet that my research and my efforts would go to waste without any links back to me. Living through this would definitely give me a good chance to provide this research to another abled-body person over the Internet—passing on the torch, so to speak.

And then, I'll execute prototype fifteen, even if it isn't perfect anymore. It'll probably be the closest thing I'll get to perfection.

However, all of those thoughts were thrown out the window within the next second.

…

…

"Oh Heroes! Please save our world!"

… Come again now?

In a surprise, I raised my head up from the surface I was lying on to see something... particular at the very least. It was a group of men in robes that had been standing around, looking at me. Not to mention as to where the hell I was! The dark room with the lit torches along the walls and pillars—I noticed that there was a slight decline between me and the group. It was as if I was lying on an altar.

Did I accidentally walk into a cult or something while I was unconscious!?

Though, it turned out that they mentioned the pluralized version of hero. I was left dazed although my brain managed to retrieve this fact already, but before I could say anything, more voices started to emerge from my right side.

There were three more people, probably around my age with a range of at most four years difference. They were probably as confused as I was, but it looked as if they had a better grasp on the situation after their united shout of disbelief. I still hadn't figured out how to open my mouth, so they were already leagues over me.

However, as the mage started to speak and the others had been responding, my mind started to dull from the environment around me. I was too focused on feeling my body since I knew that there should have been some semblance of a gun wound there. However, no matter how many times I lifted my shirt, my skin had been in the prestige condition I kept it in before I was shot. It was as if I was healed somehow, but it didn't feel all that real.

… And what was even with this shield on my arm? It didn't look like it wanted to come off.

I needed some time to recollect myself and my thoughts. I rolled through my mind with reasonable and logical attitudes. I had to if I wanted to get to the bottom of what just happened.

So I was in the grocery store. I got shot multiple times. I was bleeding and lost consciousness, then I woke up in this weird place.

Nope, none of this makes any sense.

I looked over towards the three others, who looked like they were smiling now. I don't know what occurred for them to be smiling like that, but sure as hell, it probably meant that they had some semblance of what was going on.

"H-Hey. Black hair guy." I called out to the closest to me. He had a sword in his hand, similarly to how I had a shield. "... You look like you have a notion of what's going on. Explain this to me."

"Huh? You really don't know even though it's this obvious?" he said in a smug expression. "It's easy. We got summoned to another world to help save them."

Summoned to another world…?

I shook my head slightly, in obvious disbelief. I knew I should have died by in the store. That bullet that landed within my heart should have killed me, but I started to drop the reason in my head. Summoning didn't exist back in Japan and were a term that was loosely used in fantasy novels, or at least, the ones that I've heard about from other people. That meant I needed to think abstractly.

That lead me to a single conclusion.

… This might be another term of an afterlife.

A direct summon might not have been possible for me. I would have still been on the ground, dying.

However, I still needed to check if all of this was real or not. The results I find out could be interesting. When I came to a decision, it appeared that the room was already being emptied out alongside the three supposed heroes.

"What are you doing, still sitting around?" There was a man with a blond ponytail and red eyes who had been tapping on my shoulder. I promptly stood up to his indication. "C'mon we're going to see this King of theirs."

I still needed to test if this was truly the afterlife or not.

"Uh, can you give me like a second to test out something?"

He looked at me in bewilderment as I dropped off the altar and walked over towards the nearby pillar.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

I pulled back my head—

—and smashed it against the pillar.

It was hurting like hell, but at the same time, it didn't actually hurt. It was a feeling that couldn't be described other than oxymorons. It was like there was something preventing the pain from registering within my nerves, but as I mindlessly pounded my head in, I quickly noticed an odd symbol in the corner of my perspective.

The symbol managed to slow down the rate I fired my headbutts, becoming increasingly more curious towards it. As I continued to stare at it, it suddenly expanded into something I could only describe as a menu. There, I saw my name plastered within the screen-like appearance, but there had been a little title that came with it.

Shin Yagami the Shield Hero.

That wasn't the only thing that was there. Between the menus I was used to and the one in front of me, the difference was that some of the terms have numbers attached to them. I wasn't much of a gamer, but if I remember correctly, these terminologies correlated exactly with what one would find inside of a game. I had common logic for what these terms could have meant, so I started to read through them.

Level, HP, Attack, Physical Defense, etcetera…

Wait, did all of these belong to me…?

I didn't understand why I was suddenly given stats, but I could understand that they belonged to me. Now, I wasn't much of a gamer, but the numbers felt a bit too weighted on one side.

Level had only been at 1 which should be assumed to be the weakest point. Both attack and magic attack had been at 1 as well. I was assuming I'll have to raise that as I gain more levels, but I felt like it was slightly too low for what I see. In comparison, I looked at dexterity which was at a grand old 9. It seemed a bit lacking in comparison, but this is where the messed-up part came into play.

My defense and magic defense were high.

Perhaps, they were a little too high.

…

…

… 999,999 defense and magic defense shouldn't be normal… right?

"Hey, what are you doing!?" The ponytailed man pulled me away from the pillar and looked at me as if I was crazy. He was shaking me back and forth. "Why did you just do that!?"

I stayed silent through my disorientation until I was able to speak a few words that ended up confirming what had really happened.

"... It's really weird. I could have sworn I died…"

"Huh? Is that all?"

… What? Did he really just say that?

"... I don't understand how you're this calm. Did you, perhaps, die as well?"

The man rolled his head back a bit, taking his hands off my shoulders to ponder. "You know what? I think I did…! But I don't think we should worry about that anymore."

"Worry?"

"Yeah! We're in a new world now! We must have been sent to another world when we died! It's nice to see that all of those media that talked about the fantasy of things like this were actually sorta true!"

His words astounded me. If what he said was true, then what I believed in previously was false. Humans did not simply have a single time to live. This was proof that we had lives waiting to take over when the previous live dies.

… So what you were saying is that we had an infinite amount of revives?

… Does that mean I can experiment with death however much I wanted to!?

"Anyways, we should get going?" The blond-haired man smiled at me, patting my back and pushing my along towards the door. "My name is Motoyasu Kitamura, by the way. It looks like we're fellow heroes, so let's get along!"

This Motoyasu fellow was awfully nice to me, especially when it lent me such powerful knowledge to expand my hobby. Motoyasu is someone I must respect out of my thankfulness for him, and if we ever meet again at some point in time, I will be sure to repay my favour to me.

"My name is Shin Yagami." I smiled back at him. "I'll be sure to remember you, Motoyasu."

As the doors opened up before us, the light that shined into the halls, one resembling of a castle interior, had gazed down upon us both. This was going to be an excellent time for me as Motoyasu waved towards the other two heroes to get them to slow down for us.

Motoyasu was sure a nice person.

(—ነነነነ(—(—[][][][]—)—)ነነነነ—)

Two astral beings were playing a nice game of chess among a scenery that could only be described as blinding light within the clouds. However, one of the beings had been noticeably concerned, not about the game that they were pertaining to though. The being looked up to their brethren's non-descriptive expression.

"... Was it really a good idea to give that guy 999,999 defense?"

"You understand the reason yourself. The only thing I didn't understand was that how the Shield could confuse the names 'Naofumi Iwatani' and 'Shin Yagami' so badly. One of them didn't even exist until two hours ago."

"Yeah, but… 999,999? Isn't that overkill? Even if he can't attack, no one can touch him. He's now literally unbeatable!"

"It should be fine. Honestly, I'm wondering if that was even enough."

"... Huh?"

The being shook their head. "Anyways, don't worry about it. We can leave that guy there and come back in a few months to see how he's doing. Hopefully, he'll still be there." The being took one of their pieces and moved it forwards. "It's your turn."

(—ነነነነ(—(—[][][][]—)—)ነነነነ—)

It only took me a mere seconds to figure out that Motoyasu was rather annoying, alongside some of the members of the castle staff.

"Motoyasu, let me go!"

"SHIN, WHY DID YOU JUST JUMP OUT OF THE WINDOW LIKE THAT?!"

(—ነነነነ(—(—[][][][]—)—)ነነነነ—)

T/N : Shin Yagami is a pun on Shinigami, meaning 'God of Death' in Japanese.