An Unborn Hero

Bright afternoon sun streamed in through an open window, illuminating a cluttered bedroom. Pale walls were covered in posters, a few depicting muscular young men holding unrealistic swords in unlikely stances, with even more unrealistic hair in just as unlikely colours, but most displayed groups of girls in colour-coded outfits and seriously cheesy poses. Brown, glass-fronted cabinets contained not clothing, but intricate models. Six-inch tall swordsmen, mages, priests, rogues and monsters occupied every available patch of space, but pride of place, at the front of the display, was given to a row of girls in short, brightly coloured dresses, each holding raised magical rods with cheerful expressions on their faces. Wardrobes were filled with intricately detailed costumes, most matching one of the models, with actual day-to-day clothing stuffed untidily into drawers or shoved under the bed.

Our protagonist had a very rigid order of priorities, and magical girls lived firmly at the top. Perhaps that wasn't completely sensible, but it wasn't like anyone at her day-job cared if her hoodie was slightly wrinkled, while the slightest misplaced crease was something that any serious anime convention attendee would spot instantly from a mile away. Perhaps many would disagree with her, but as far as she was concerned, such people could go screw themselves. It was her life, and no-one had any right to tell her how to live it.

The protagonist in question—who shall remain nameless for now because this is a reincarnation story and hence she's obviously going to die shortly—was sitting at her desk, her face a picture of concentration as she ran a pair of triangles of furred fabric through her sewing machine, doing her best to keep the fur out of the stitches. Having seen the trailer of a new animal-eared magical girl show the day before, there had literally been no choice but to make the outfit of the female lead immediately.

She was happy, content, a productive member of society inside of regular working hours, and, as previously mentioned, about to die.

Far above the house, a heavy-lift helicopter was, for some reason, transporting a truck through the air. It wasn't the normal way for a truck to get from A to B, given that they were well known for having their own built-in engines and wheels, but everyone knows that the start of an isekai adventure requires being hit by a truck, and given that the protagonist was ensconced in her bedroom with no intention of leaving for the next few hours, the truck needed to be arranged somehow. Maybe it was a publicity stunt of some kind.

Whatever the reason for its presence there, the cable securing truck to helicopter chose that moment to snap, sending the truck tumbling below.

Our protagonist's crafting time was loudly interrupted as truck met roof, with neither party coming out of the altercation looking good. Tiles shattered, windows smashed and walls crumbled as half the house peeled away and debris from both truck and structure scattered across the street below.

The protagonist froze up and looked to her right, where there was suddenly a considerable amount more daylight than she was used to.

"What the hell?!" she screamed, just as gravity spotted the tortured structure and claimed the floor beneath her.

"Phew. For a moment there, I thought I'd missed," came a voice.

"Missed?!" she shouted. "That was deliberate?!"

"Oh? You heard me? You sure died quickly."

"Died? What do you... mean...?"

Some rather unusual points about her situation suddenly made themselves known to the fresh ghost. Most notably the fact that the floor seemed considerably further away than she was used to. Additional credence to the claim was given not only by the way she suddenly seemed rather more transparent than was healthy, but also by the way it was being made by an angelic, winged lady, standing calmly in mid air. She had a subtle glow about her, clad in a plain white dress and with pure white hair stretching down as far as her knees.

Of course, the biggest bit of evidence for the claim of her death was the corpse below, still seated in a chair, but with several bars of rebar poking through various points, piercing through furniture and flesh alike. One was coming out of an eye socket. The eye itself had popped out and was speared on the end of the bar.

"Ouch. Yeah, okay. Definitely dead. Why is that sight not making me sick?"

"Because you don't have a stomach to be sick with."

The protagonist blinked as she realised she was focusing on the wrong thing.

"Wait. Never mind my stomach. You just murdered me!"

"I would prefer you to think of it as 'conscripted'."

"What do you mean, conscripted? What part of... conscripting... someone..."

The complaint died on her ectoplasmic lips as she finally put two and two together. To be fair to her, her speed of thinking was pretty good considering the organ she normally did her thinking with was currently oozing out over her desk.

"Wait, this is an isekai situation?"

"Exactly. You see, I'm a goddess from another world, and it's soon going to be threatened by the armies of the demon lord. We need a hero to fight him and, for some reason none of us deities have managed to work out, people reincarnated from this world always end up with silly high stats. So please, save my world from the invading demons."

The self-proclaimed goddess bowed down in front of the protagonist, and thus missed the giant, dopy smile that formed on her face.

"Well, why didn't you say so?! I'd be more than happy to help! Do I get to design my character? What race will I be? How old?"

The goddess, who was rather low ranked, and completely new at this sort of thing, hadn't been expecting the sudden burst of enthusiasm. "Uh... you don't get a 'character'. You're just you. And you'll be reborn at age zero, like... well... everyone. Wouldn't it be weird if you were born any older? How would you fit?"

"Well, obviously, but in that case I wouldn't be born naturally. You'd create a body for me."

"If I could interfere in the world like that, don't you think I would have just killed this demon lord myself?"

"But you just interfered in this world..."

"Trucks are easy. Any deity worth their salt can manipulate trucks. Alas, my world doesn't have any."

"Okay. So I'll just be born normally. You mentioned stats, so does this world at least have a proper system? And will I be human? What about the language? Oh, and magic!"

"Well, I was assuming you'd want to be human, but I suppose I could arrange for you to be one of the other races if you really want. And you'll need to learn language normally, like any other baby. As for the system and magic..." the goddess sighed; despite being a relative newcomer, she could guess what was coming next. "Yes, it's just like you're imagining."

"Yes!" yelled the dead protagonist, punching the air and managing to leap a metre higher in the process, despite not standing on anything. "Okay. I want to be a cute cat-kin magical girl. Like that outfit I was just making."

She pointed down, where a half-finished white dress had become somewhat redder than the design called for.

"That's... not a thing...."

"Oi, you said I could be another race. No take backsies! Think of it as payment for spoiling my hard work."

"Yes, but it has to be a race that exists. There are humans, which are no different from you. The jellax are a race of sentient slimes. Zycrians are squat, squishy things with lots of flexible appendages. Finally, there are the grachen, which... no, forget them. You don't want to be grachen."

"Slime girl!"

"Sorry?"

"I'll be a slime girl!"

"Jellax... don't have girls though? Or boys. They're blobs of slime. They reproduce by mitosis..."

"Uh... Could I at least make myself girl-shaped?"

"If the girl in question had the shape of, say, a blob, then sure."

"What's with this world? Okay, zycrians. By 'lots of flexible appendages', you mean tentacles, right? Interesting, but not really my thing. Anything with tentacles generally isn't on the side of justice. They're more likely to be an antagonist. Not even a recurring one. Probably just a monster-of-the-day."

"Why are you so fixated on being a magical girl?!"

"Isn't it the romance of every serious magical girl lover to want to be one?"

The goddess tried to keep her composure, wishing that when picking heroes, her superiors would put more weight on personality and less on potential. Yes, it was nice that they tried to pick hero candidates that wouldn't freak out, would cooperate, be capable of performing their assigned task and would only abuse their powers within socially acceptable norms, but it would be nice if they found one a little more... grounded.

Unfortunately, that was unlikely. People who wouldn't complain when they got murdered and thrown into another world's war had to be a bit strange practically by definition.

Every single hero summoning ended the same way. The hero would slay the demon lord, putting together a harem of followers in the process, things would devolve into a giant orgy, hero spawn would pop out all over the place and then, if whatever kingdom had been under threat had been stupid enough to let a princess join the harem, there'd be a big civil war over the succession.

The chaos that had followed the previous hero summoning was why her superiors had decided on a heroine this time. Alas, she turned out to be just as crazy, in her own way.

"Yes, zycrians have 'girls' insofar as their species has two genders. As for 'magical girl'... You're right. Probably not. They're basically slugs. I don't think the costumes would fit, even without the tentacles."

"Yeah, that's no good then. What about the grachen?"

"You do not want to be a grachen."

"How do you know? Maybe I..."

"You. Do. Not. Want. To. Be. A. Grachen."

"Then why did you mention them at all?! Now you've got me all curious. What's wrong with them?"

The goddess, lacking the patience to explain, snapped her fingers, causing the ghost's spectral eyes to briefly unfocus.

"Huh? What was I..."

"You phased out for a moment there. I know a sudden death can come as a bit of a shock, but please try to hold yourself together. Anyway, the closest I can get you to what you think of as a magical girl is to have you be born to a couple of human mages. Any accomplished mage is more or less guaranteed a minor noble title, so you should have quite a comfortable childhood. Your memories will start to return once you finish puberty, after which..."

"Wait! Wait, wait, wait! I won't get my memories until I'm a teenager? Isn't that far too late?"

"What would you prefer? Being fully conscious while sucking at your mother's breasts, incapable of any sort of independence, unable to speak or even comprehend the local language?"

"Well, yes, that's all a downside," she replied, "but you said this world had a status system just like I was imagining. That means I need to start grinding skills as early as possible! Of course I need my memories from the start. If I don't get my memories until puberty, that's over a decade wasted!"

"It's not like the time would be 'wasted', but fine. I'll arrange for you to have your memories from the moment your soul implants," agreed the impatient goddess, pulling a slightly malicious grin that the soon-to-be heroine was too excited to notice. "You certainly deserve that much. Anything else before I send you on your way?"

"You could explain how the system works and what skills I can get?"

"Sorry, but there are rules against that sort of thing. If I could give you information, I'd just shove the local language into your head while I was at it, or at least would give you more details on the demon lord you'll have to face. You'll need to get the mortals to teach you. But, like I said, rich parents. You'll get a good education."

"But that means I'll need to wait for my education before I can start."

"Then work it out yourself. It's not complicated, and it's not as if you're going to accidentally kill yourself by picking up a cursed skill or something. Just... try not to accidentally set yourself on fire while experimenting with magic. I don't want to have to find another hero just because you got overenthusiastic."

"Okay, fine. I'm ready. Bring on my awesome isekai adventure!"

The goddess clicked her fingers again, resulting in the ghost shrinking until it became a miniscule point of light. She carefully scooped it up before making her way back to her own world, implanting it in a woman she'd previously scouted, hoping that despite the apparent eccentricities, the new hero would do her job, so that she didn't have to go back to that weird other world for a long while.

The protagonist herself woke up some minutes later, using a few brief seconds to take stock of her situation. There wasn't really much to take stock of. She couldn't see, couldn't move, couldn't hear, couldn't feel.

"Why can't I move? Babies may be helpless, but they at least have some senses," was what she would have said, if she was the sort of person to talk to herself. And if she had a mouth. Or vocal cords. Or lungs. "Did something go wrong? Did my soul get lost somewhere? Or... Is this the sort of situation where I haven't been born yet? I should try to view my status. Status!"

A little blue box popped up in the protagonist's consciousness, completely bypassing eyes and brain, which was fortunate given that she had neither.

Unnamed Human

Age: -9 months

Occupation: Hero (L)

Skills: None

Achievements: None

"Oh? Looks like I've only just been conceived. No skills, though? Well, I'll soon do something about that."