Soon, the utter void was lit up with an unrelenting light.
The white illumination seemed to get wider and wider as the seconds—or eternity—went by.
Was the expanse of it all getting closer, or was Stiletto shooting toward it with fierce speed?
It was too hard to tell, especially with the bizarre nature of it all—coupled with the fact that he had only just begun to stir in the cosmic abyss. His body seemed to be floating in some sort of strange space.
Stiletto tried to screech, but his voice seemed to disappear into the emptiness.
'What... what the fuck is going on here? What was that shit earlier?!'
Taking a moment to gather his bearings, he took the opportunity to slow his mind down and analyze the situation—a talent he had nurtured after years of competition.
'The last I remember was the sound of something... bad. Something that shouldn't ever happen... And.... there was, there was a massive...'
He felt his body shudder as he finally recalled the exact moment before everything dimmed.
'...truck. Am I... dead?! There's no way I passed away just as things were getting good! I finally met someone away from my parents—one that was into me! FUCK! I really died a virgin...'
Stiletto almost felt tears conjure in his eyes, but there were more pressing matters.
'Where am I headed? Heaven?'
Suddenly, as he continued to surge forward, the ethereal blaze grew far too bright for him to bear. He instinctively squeezed his eyes shut before the light could blind him.
However, only seconds later, Stiletto felt something tug at his very being, dragging him off his predetermined path. In the span of a moment, he slammed against what felt like solid ground with a dull thud.
The white brilliance vanished, replaced by the confines of a strange room.
Still, a humanoid, glowing mass stood at the center of the room, pulling all his attention away from everything else.
"Are you... an angel? Wait..."
The gleam of the figure dwindled slowly in front of him.
"Ms. Librarian?! What the hell are you doing here? Hold on... WOAH!"
Stiletto quickly averted his gaze.
The woman standing before him was certainly the gorgeous librarian from earlier—she even had the same lollypop—only now... she was not in her professional attire.
She was wearing a set of deep purple, lacy lingerie—open-cut. Her large areolas were completely exposed, as well as her femininity below.
"Wha... uh, wh— uhmmm... so..."
"Why am I here? And dressed like this, to boot?"
He heard a slight chuckle at his side after those words, followed by the woman's footsteps drawing closer.
Still making an effort not to look, Stiletto replied:
"Yeah... that."
"First, stand up, will you?"
Stiletto's cheeks turned red as he sprang up with quick, fluid ease.
"Ooooo~ As expected of a world-renowned gymnast!"
'So she does know me...'
Stiletto cleared his throat before turning his head back to the librarian. Before he could even get a word out, he almost fell back down again.
She was incredibly close.
But that wasn't the issue.
From his earlier observations, the woman before him was incredibly busty, with all her flesh mounding beautifully in all the right places.
But why...
Why was she more enticingly built than before—immensely so?
And so much taller.
The woman he'd met in the library on Earth had only been about 5'6, but the one standing before him now forced Stiletto to crane his neck upward. She had to be at least 6'4.
Looking down at him as she pulled the lollypop out of her mouth, she grinned—soon, amused laughter followed:
"Hahaha! This was priceless, I'm so glad I decided to surprise you this way!"
Seeing Stiletto's confused, and flustered, expression—the woman collected herself before speaking:
"I will answer your second question first since it is the easiest to explain..."
She snapped her fingers, and her attire transformed back to the one Stiletto knew.
"I wanted to mess with you! Just thinking about seeing your cute face's reaction was too alluring an opportunity to pass by~"
Stiletto felt his heart calm, seeing that her clothes were way more modest. His little brother downstairs, though, had grown quite a bit.
Trying his best to pull attention away from it, he spoke as his tent slowly declined:
"Oh, uh... okay, sure. So then answer my first question. And on top of that... tell me why I am in a library of all places? I gathered I died, no? Is this heaven? Are you my soulmate who also tragically died? Why are you taller? How—"
"OKAY, okay! Slow down there. I'll stop messing around and tell you everything..."
The curvaceous stallion before him swiveled her hips as a desk spawned out of thin air.
Stiletto felt his breathing pause, his eyes glued to her plump ass swaying with every step.
Taking a seat on the edge of the desk, she returned Stiletto's gaze, giving her candy pop a slow lick before continuing:
"Yes... you have died. Yes, you are in a library. No, I am not your soulmate. As for everything else... it's quite simple actually. I am a Goddess. The Goddess of Knowledge, Good and Evil, Books, and Imagination to be exact! So—"
Staring across at the proud woman puffing out her chest, spewing information—Stiletto felt a surge of adrenaline. He was no stranger to this situation—after all, he had read countless novels that align with this exact same scenario.
In between licks, the Goddess continued:
"...among my peers, however, I am called the Library Goddess~"
"Wait, what? The 'Library Goddess'? What kind of lame shit is that... they couldn't come up with a better name?"
The Goddess choked on her lollypop for a moment, caught off guard by Stiletto's interjection.
"HEY! It's a cool name! My friends always either call me that or the Nerd Goddess..."
Stiletto stared blankly at her.
"Get new friends."
In a fraction of a second, a massive book was hurled straight toward his face, slamming directly on his nose.
"AHH! OKAY, OKAY! I surrender..."
Stiletto held his nose.
'But seriously... out of all Goddesses, I get the Librarian? What about the God of War? Or the Goddess of Love?'
On top of the desk, the Goddess snapped her head sideways with a harumph, her plump lips pouting as she took a deep breath—then turned back to the boy.
"I'll have you know you're extremely lucky... Whether you think it or not, I am one of the strongest divine beings in all the universe. What else would you expect of a Goddess who champions concepts such as knowledge and imagination?!"
"Well... I guess it makes sense. It just seems less grand when all of that gets packed into a librarian..."
Her forehead twitching slightly, the Library Goddess continued speaking:
"Hmph! Anyway... let me tell you exactly what's going on. You asked me earlier if this is Heaven, and to put it clearly—no, it isn't. You were actually on your way to that place, but I dragged you away!"
The Goddess put an innocent, cutesy look on her face as she playfully darted her tongue outwards.
Stiletto felt his stomach cave in.
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
"No, not hell... Calm down please, I'm still explaining!"
An exasperated expression formed on Stiletto's face, but he let her continue.
"When humans die, their souls transcend the physical plane and shoot up toward Heaven to rest in the embrace of the Creator. Up there, the souls of the dead reside in a resort of sorts... but of course, there are strict rules to keep the place holy and pure..."
The Goddess licked at her lollypop before continuing.
"All the other Gods and Goddesses live in a separate realm, barred off from anything beyond it. Occasionally, however, one of them will slip away to perform a miracle for humans—usually out of boredom. In fact, the remnants of those events became the myths you humans pass on today. Nonetheless, the Creator doesn't take lightly to such behavior, and so if they are caught, he resets their memory and very being... transfusing it into another God or Goddess."
Sighing deeply, she continued.
"The result of that is a Divinity like me—a Goddess who carries multiple domains. Before all of this, every God and Goddess possessed only a single divinity: the God of Water, the Goddess of Life, and so on. Those still exist, of course—they are actually my friends—but I just happened to become one who inherited the divinities of Good and Evil, Knowledge, and Imagination. Originally, I was the Goddess of Books only."
Fighting the urge to tease the powerful Goddess—Goddess of leather and paper or not—Stiletto furled his eyebrows, catching something that didn't quite make sense.
"So if this 'Creator' wiped the memories of all these beings, how do you still remember? And if Heaven was the place I was supposed to go... why did you drag me here instead?"
The Goddesses somber face suddenly lit up as she enthusiastically answered:
"Well, that's simple, really... it's because I inherited the divinity of Knowledge. I believe even the Creator doesn't fully understand how powerful it is—he can't erase it, not even with all his authority. Heh... you know what they say: knowledge is power~!"
She paused once more, her smile widening even further.
Pushing off the desk, the shapely, alluring Goddess approached Stiletto once more, tracing a finger down his collarbone and chest as she spoke:
"As for your second question... I'd like to grant you three wishes~!"