"Would you like to?"
Of course she would.
Shizuka Hiratsuka, who loved reading passionate shonen manga, always dreamed that one day she could become one of those characters with unbelievable powers—punishing evil and upholding justice.
A hero. A warrior.
Well, it was just a dream... probably!
Alright, in truth, she couldn't quite tell whether it was a real dream or not. But if it was a dream, then agreeing didn't really matter.
And if it wasn't a dream? Well, she figured there wasn't really a problem either.
After that, the goddess presented her with two choices.
The first option was a temporary contract, allowing her to experience being a B-rank hero using a trial card (with infinite magic—essentially powered by the goddess's divine energy).
As long as the goddess remained fine, she would essentially be immortal.
However, the trial card came with a time limit, which would be determined by her own natural aptitude. Staying under divine power for too long would cause her body to crystallize from divine energy—definitely not ideal.
The second option was to have the goddess elevate her power directly through divine support to the most suitable level.
Given her potential, she could instantly reach B-rank—and a serious B-rank, one that could even challenge A-rankers. But this route didn't come with infinite magic—no direct divine energy support.
Her magic capacity would rely entirely on her natural talent.
Unlike the trial card, this would be the real deal—a legit B-rank power-up. Like playing a game where, while everyone else starts as a beginner, you get a cheat and skip several levels.
Of course, with this second option, death would mean actual death. However, the goddess would grant her three resurrection techniques. Once she used them up, the goddess promised to arrange for her a new and happy life in another world.
As for why she couldn't return to her original world—well, that was tied to some sort of agreement between the gods.
All in all, Shizuka felt this goddess was being almost too nice.
Then the goddess added something else,
"This is a female-only privilege, by the way. If you were a guy, I wouldn't be this generous. The options would be a lot more… mediocre."
In short, this goddess was clearly biased toward women.
"Um, may I ask something?" Shizuka asked, curious. "Goddess-sama… you're not from our world's pantheon, are you?"
She could tell by the goddess's words and behavior that she wasn't a native deity, but one from another world.
"That's right~ In a sense, I'm not a god from your world."
That answer only made Shizuka more confused. Her world did seem to have gods, so why bring in a deity from another world just to appoint a hero?
Were the local gods on vacation? Was there a staffing shortage? Were foreign gods just better? Were her world's gods slacking?
"It's not what you're imagining, Miss Shizuka," the goddess smiled. "This actually ties into the origins of the hero profession."
"The origins of the hero?"
"Yes. To this day, it's still a phenomenon even the gods themselves don't fully understand…"
The goddess began to explain.
First, let's talk about heroes. Typically, the term refers to brave individuals who save people from crises—most commonly, threats like a Demon King who seeks to destroy the world.
These heroes are the ones who step up in times of dire need, possessing strong hearts full of justice.
That justice is often the very reason they become so powerful.
Such heroes are loved by the gods, who grant them powers to fight against enemies like Demon Kings—those who disrupt the balance.
That brings up another question, Why don't the gods just fight the Demon Kings themselves? Why rely on heroes at all?
The answer's a bit complicated. Gods can't act recklessly. If they did, they'd no longer be gods, but corrupted beings—Evil Gods.
Most Demon Kings are, in fact, born from the influence of Evil Gods, who seek to plunge the world into chaos. Meanwhile, the gods of order can't make any careless moves, because they're always being watched by these hidden threats.
Many Evil Gods hide among the gods who appear to uphold order, waiting to ambush anyone who makes a misstep. One wrong move could be catastrophic.
Because of this delicate balance, the gods can't interfere directly. If they act first, they could end up being the ones who lose everything.
That's where heroes come in—as a countermeasure to the Demon Kings created by Evil Gods, the gods of order created the hero profession as a balancing force.
This kind of situation isn't unique—it's the same in various different worlds. But eventually, the gods of order noticed something:
The native heroes of their worlds were hitting their limits.
No matter how powerful the local heroes became, the Demon Kings kept growing stronger—stronger than ever before. It was only a matter of time before the heroes would start losing.
For the gods who rely on humans as a foundation of their existence, this was an extremely serious issue.
Then one day, while a god was experimenting with a new spatial transfer magic circle, something went wrong—and it accidentally became a summoning magic circle. That circle summoned dozens of humans from another world.
"Another world? You mean our world?" Shizuka asked.
"That's right~"
The summoned humans shocked the gods.
Compared to their world's average humans, these people had talent ten to even a hundred times greater. And yet, in their original world (Earth), they were just normal people.
This discovery led the gods to focus on these otherworlders.
If they could make people from Earth into heroes, they could finally break past the ceiling.
So the gods refined the summoning ritual, actively calling in more people from Earth. But this eventually caught the attention of Earth's own gods, and nearly led to a divine war.
The gods of Earth were just as baffled. They tried sending their people to the other world in exchange, but didn't get the same results.
After much negotiation, the two sides reached a mutual agreement:
– It would be allowed to summon people from Earth to other worlds to become heroes, but only with their consent.
– Two summoning methods were allowed:
Live summoning, where the person is transported while alive. They must be allowed to return home after their mission.
Reincarnation, where they are reborn in the other world and become its citizens.
Similarly, people from the other world could also reincarnate into Earth—forming a sort of reciprocal reincarnation system.
That's how those reincarnated hero protagonists with past memories came to be.
Most never regain their memories and just live normal lives. But for the rare few who do awaken their past, they can wield that former power—and even surpass their previous selves.
So, as more and more other worlds were discovered and integrated, the number of heroes increased as well.
Of course, not all summoning cases followed the rules. Some were illegal, and caused many tragedies.
That, in short, was the answer to Shizuka Hiratsuka's confusion.
So… which option did she choose?
Naturally, she went with the second one.
Up until that point, she was still half-suspecting that this was all some strange dream. But when she woke up—and felt the solid reality of a gift given by a classmate who had already reincarnated into that world—she finally realized:
This was all real.
And so, with a kind of resolve akin to marching to the battlefield ready to die, she made her choice—and leapt into her new destiny.