Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep...
Why the fuck is the sound of the alarm not stopping? It usually stops in minutes, but this sound has been continuing for hours.
Adrian slowly opened his eyes to stop the sound of the alarm. He was very tired after a long day of work and study.
He was an average university student with average marks. In his free time, he worked as a math teacher for young children to earn some money to support himself.
But as he opened his eyes, what he saw was not his usual white ceiling, nor the comforting sight of his bed—soft and inviting like clouds—where he could forget the world and sink into deep slumber.
Instead, it was the vast cosmos filled with countless stars.
Where am I? he gasped.
He looked at his body but could not find one.
He could feel himself there, but he could not see anything. He could not breathe, yet his body—though nowhere to be seen—was not demanding air. Somehow, he was breathing.
That thought filled his mind with fear.
Fear that he might be dead and this was the afterlife.
Fear that some aliens had kidnapped him and this was their dimension.
Fear that he was drifting through the vast universe without doing anything.
No… actually, he couldn't do anything.
He was like a rock sinking into deep water, slowly losing sight of the light and drifting toward the bottom of the ocean.
But in his case, he was being pulled toward the center of the cosmos, like a magnet pulling iron toward itself.
"Hello?" he asked the vast cosmos, but his voice was trapped in his throat.
I can't speak, he thought.
He became even more afraid when he realized that fact. But suddenly, a blinding white light enveloped his entire vision, hurting his nonexistent eyes.
By the time the light faded, the area around him was filled with presences like himself—ones he could not see but could sense floating around him.
"Hello! Can you hear me?" he said in a desperate tone.
But nobody answered him.
So there is no sound here either, he said to himself.
However, sensing the presences floating around him calmed his heart a little.
The thought of drifting alone in the cosmos terrified him, but knowing others were there made him relax slightly.
"Hello souls from Orin."
A voice echoed through the vast void filled with souls from Planet named Orin.
Orin was Adrian's home planet. (You could think of it as an alternate Earth.)
"If some of you have checked, you cannot speak in this place, so don't try to ask questions. And some of you should stop trying to curse—nobody hears anything here anyway."
Who is that? Adrian wondered. Is he the one responsible for this?
He looked around the void filled with countless souls.
"Who is that, you wonder, right? Well, in simple terms for you, I am GOD—the creator of this multiverse."
The voice continued echoing through the mass of souls. GOD? Adrian wondered.
So this is the afterlife. Is he going to judge everybody here and send them to hell or heaven? He started panicking.
A moment ago, he was afraid of drifting alone in the vast void. Now he was terrified of being judged.
Because in his mind, he did not have a clean past to enter heaven.
"Why are you here, you wonder? Are you going to Hell after judgment, or ascending to Heaven?
Well, usually I don't need to be here, because judging souls is automated—you know, a rather boring burden. But you are not being judged this time."
If not, why are we here? This piqued Adrian's interest.
"In short, the reason you are here is because my young granddaughter saw that the people of your planet were fighting for resources. She couldn't watch her grandfather's creations fighting over rocks and oil."
"So she just threw some rocks filled with those resources onto your planet."
He paused for a moment after saying that, as if remembering something.
Uh… granddaughter? Adrian didn't know GOD had a family.
But this explained why they were here. In many novels he had read, sometimes a god made a mistake that caused someone to die, and that person would be transported to another world with broken powers.
So this must be something similar, he thought.
"And now I must compensate you somehow, because you died due to a death involving divinity." "So listen carefully."
"After thinking for some time, I remembered there is a world in outer space that I once tried to create but neglected. I am thinking of sending all of you there as simple gods."
"But there are only about one thousand years left until the barrier around that world breaks. If I don't provide enough energy, it will collapse." "If it breaks, outer gods and alien species will invade that world and destroy it completely."
"Create civilizations there and protect your followers." "Bye, unfortunate souls."
GOD finished speaking, and all the souls were suddenly teleported away.
After the souls drifted away, a small timid voice could be heard in the void. It sounded similar to GOD's voice, filled with majesty and energy but this one was clearly feminine and childish.
"Sorry, grandpa."
GOD looked at his granddaughter and said in a reassuring tone,
"Don't be sorry. See? Grandpa corrected everything, so you don't need to feel guilty."
"Thank you, grandpa," the childish voice replied.
---------<>---------
Adrian opened his eyes to a blue sky filled with white clouds. Below him, vast forests and towering mountains stretched as far as the eye could see. Long rivers cut through the forests, their waters flowing down from the white mountains on the distant horizon.
"Where am I?" he muttered. "This must be the world that GOD mentioned," he said.
Being one-shotted by a meteorite and waking up in another world was not part of his plans. He had only wanted to live a simple life after his mistakes, but fate had other plans for him, he wondered.
Then he heard the first sound he had heard when his soul drifted through space.
Beep… Beep… Beep…
[System initializing…]
[Energy source detected]
[Soul signature scanning…]
…
[Host detected]
[Binding initiated]
10%… 34%… 67%… 100%
Binding successful.
System reboot complete.
Welcome, Host.
GOD SYSTEM ONLINE
A strange mechanical voice echoed inside Adrian's consciousness.
For a moment, Adrian's vision flickered, and suddenly a translucent panel appeared before him.
══════════════════════
GOD CIVILIZATION SYSTEM
══════════════════════
Name of the God: None
Race: Divine Soul (Has the potential to transform into a true God)
God Rank: Lesser God (Rank 1)
Divine Energy: 100 / 100
Followers: 0
Faith: 0
World Assigned: Titanis (40 times larger than Orin)
══════════════════════
"So I really became a god…" he murmured.
He looked at the vast expanses below him and asked the system, "Hey system, what kind of planet is this?"
But instead of answering him like the usual systems in the novels he had read, another panel appeared.
[Do you want to use Newbie Information Package?]
He thought [YES] in his mind.
Information about Titanis and the system suddenly flooded his mind. In an instant, he understood the world and the basic functions of the system.
The world was a giant planet about 40 times larger than his home planet. It contained countless islands and 11 massive continents. The world was filled with magic and many different races, but because they were still very primitive, they could not properly use magic.
The system itself was created as a guide for the souls that came from the planet Orin. GOD had designed the system to help new gods understand their powers and learn about the world.
If they chose not to use the system, they could still become powerful gods, but mastering their divinity without guidance would take centuries. Because of this, the system acted like a newbie guide for them.
He also learned another crucial piece of information. Every god had one chance to draw a lottery talent, ranked from S to F.
These talents did not determine a god's divinity, because gods could create their own divine authorities from nothing. However, talents gave important advantages in the early stages, helping new gods establish themselves in this unfamiliar world.
Another rule was even more important. Until a god reached Rank 10, they could only have one main race as their followers.
If two races started worshiping the same god before Rank 10, the faith of the second race would be reduced tenfold, making it extremely inefficient.
After learning all this information, Adrian opened the Lottery Setting of the system.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed the Draw button while silently praying to himself.
____________________________________________
"If you've read until the end, add this to your library."