The world I opened my eyes to was clearly no ordinary place, at first glance.
Buildings made of pristine white marble and transparent crystal.
And supporting them, white clouds.
The moment I took in the sight of this place, along with the memory of that orange No. 1700 bus I'd seen right before my eyes, realization dawned on me.
Ah, so this is heaven?
The world people are said to come to after death.
A place to receive judgment for the deeds done in one's previous life,
and for those who lived righteously, a realm of eternal happiness.
Well, honestly, I didn't live like some saint or anything...
But at least I never caused trouble for others while I was alive.
I hardly ever went to church, but I'd studied the Bible pretty diligently out of academic curiosity.
I had some faith in me, in my own way.
They say believers go to heaven and nonbelievers to hell, so honestly, doesn't this qualify me for heaven...?
With such idle thoughts, I slowly tried to rise from my spot.
[...Huh?]
And at the same time, I felt an utterly bizarre sense of wrongness.
Moving my body was no problem.
But the sensations this body gave me...
It was this profoundly alien feeling, like it wasn't my body at all.
The strangely shaped hands that triggered that sense of dissonance.
The six pristine white wings covering my entire body... no, that were practically the body itself.
The countless eyes providing an impossibly wide field of vision.
And the abundant power I could feel as naturally as breathing... something I supposed could be called Holy Power.
Puzzled by this unmistakably inhuman sensation no matter how I thought about it, I looked at my reflection in the crystal wall nearby.
Right then, a single word popped into my mind.
It emerged all too naturally from what could be called my mouth—an organ resembling one of my eyeballs.
[Goddamn...]
A body about 100 meters tall,
composed of six wings and eyeballs in the most grotesquely bizarre form imaginable.
I already knew what to call this from internet memes I'd seen plenty of.
An angel.
More precisely, the Seraphim, known as the highest rank among angels, the Great Seraph.
Visually, it evoked not so much an angel as some demon or mutant alien lifeform, but in truth, many biblical descriptions of angels were far removed from the common image of a winged human.
Beings with four faces and four wings.
Entities structured like wheels within wheels.
Or like me now, with six wings covered in eyes all around and nearby.
These grotesque forms that blurred the line between angel and monster were the true angels, and there were even quite a few Western religious paintings depicting them as such.
In any case, the problem was that I had become one of those grotesque beings.
Confused by that fact,
and wondering what I should do from here on out,
I began slowly exploring this massive palace-like place.
Scattered everywhere were shattered angel statues, or so they seemed.
A few matched the familiar human-with-wings image, but most bore bizarre forms like mine.
Sometime after wandering through the palace grounds like that.
I realized something.
The only living, moving being here... was me alone.
Not even a tutorial NPC like in games— I'd been thrown into this completely by myself, with no one to explain the background.
At least there was a library in one corner, but it was filled solely with tomes on holy magic.
Of course, that would be helpful, but there was no book explaining the current situation of this place that I was so curious about.
A fucked-up appearance and a equally fucked-up predicament.
A twinge of irritation at that fact,
and I decided I should leave this ghost-town palace and head out into the world beyond.
Fortunately, down on the ground below, villages and cities dotted the landscape here and there.
I could head down there and figure something out... but...
'...This is insanely high. One slip and I'd die on impact from freefall, right?'
Even with wings, I could only manage basic movement for now; free flight was beyond me.
I didn't know how tough this body was, but jumping down thoughtlessly might really send me to the true 'heaven' this time.
Maybe I'd respawn since this was heaven, but banking on that and attempting freefall was pure madness.
In the end, descending to the ground would have to wait until I could fly freely, at least.
And on top of that, one more thing.
I realized there was another reason I needed to stay here for a while, even without the fall risk.
This place looked anything but normal to anyone.
It might be the result of some attack, and
that meant the world below was likely crawling with all sorts of dangers.
And in such a situation, what I needed was obvious.
[Power... I need power.]
Enough power to at least not drop dead.
Fortunately, I could vividly feel the potent Holy Power coursing through my entire body even now.
And conveniently, the library was overflowing with books on holy magic.
At this point, wasn't it obvious? Don't get cocky—train up here and then set out.
Being an angel, even after a day or so, I felt no hunger or fatigue.
A body needing neither sleep nor food.
That made holing up here for training more than feasible.
Having made up my mind like that, I turned my steps... no, my wings, and headed straight back to the library.
In my previous life, I honestly wasn't great at studying,
but I had a real interest in practical knowledge like this and some confidence in it.
I sucked at math but aced tech and home ec every time.
So for survival,
and to explore this new world I'd have to live in from now on, I spent time rigorously training myself for a while.
How much time passed after that...?
Honestly, no calendar, didn't count, so I have no idea.
But conservatively, at least several years.
Maybe even a decade or more.
The library held a vast array of holy magics,
and mastering them took considerable time.
Fortunately, even spending time alone like this, perhaps because it was an angel's body, I didn't feel particularly lonely.
Nor did my concentration waver while absorbing knowledge.
For someone weak at studying like me, it was a huge blessing in many ways.
And finally, now that this training was complete.
At this moment when I'd reached a level I could be satisfied with.
I finally spread my wings and hurled this massive body toward the ground.
My target: the area directly below this empty heaven.
From an altitude of nearly 1,000 km, I plummeted toward the surface at near freefall speed.
Something no sane person would ever do.
But now, I was no human—I was an angel.
With six wings for flight, and mastery of Holy Power near perfection.
Naturally, I knew exactly what to do in this situation.
At that moment, the ground began to come into view, unlike before.
To this, I conveyed my will to the Holy Power enveloping my entire body.
And.
-Flash!
In an instant, brilliant light burst from my body.
At the same time, my body, which had been plummeting at insane speed, began rapidly slowing down.
The reliable landing method I'd perfected through practice sessions.
The altitude was so high that a sliver of doubt crept in, but things went mostly as expected.
This body was only subject to gravity by my will.
By wielding Holy Power to control it, I could drastically reduce fall speed and even levitate this massive form effortlessly.
In any case, I arrived on the ground emitting that intense light.
The ground air after so long,
that nostalgic sensation filling me with strange emotion, I immediately began surveying my surroundings.
Unlike heaven's perpetual daylight, this was pitch-black night.
Yet these angelic eyes were utterly unaffected by the dark, seeing everything as clearly as broad daylight.
And into these eyes came a scene.
It was a bloodied woman crouched before me, where I'd descended to the earth.
'What... what's this? Encountering a human already?'
A meeting far sooner than anticipated.
That fact left me quite flustered.
But the next moment, I easily recalled the most fitting line for this situation.
The canonical angel dialogue straight from the Bible.
The opener to reassure humans, from a being with an objectively terrifying appearance.
[Fear not.]