Chapter 309: Raising Hell (Halloween Special) |
When the Panda thought he saw the women raise hell up at Taiga's words, it turned out to be a little more literal. Many of the women were noticeable and were retained in the memory and heart's of the audience but there were those who stayed in the background.
A literal wallflower.
Or something more akin to a ghost.
There was said to be a small kernel of truths in all stories, myths and legends. Whether it was because words contained power, memory gave birth to it and the act of passing it down made it more prevalent and thus things came to be or there was another thing entirely that accounted for such things...
All of that was in the past and this was what happened now.
Thana the Grim Reaper who was supposed to be more affiliated to a more highly Western work force and expertise in the afterlife—those relating to Nordic afterlife which she had stated to be her speciality—was now being summoned to travel to the Eighteen Hells and its Ten Courts of Hell Administers.
Except Thana was currently delaying it by staying with her fellow workers in one of the afterlife taverns. A place where some spirits decided to conceal themselves, get a few drinks before their next afterlife or gather information as some astral projectors did.
A place for people bumming it out.
"I knew that associating with that wretched but handsome CEO was bad news to me," Thana bit down her lip and shot down a glass of spirits to calm herself down.
"Isekai, Mortimer. Repeat it after me, isekai protagonists."
Thana rolled her eyes. "I think the goddesses have all taken turns in doing that out of boredom."
"As long as it helps lessen our workload, I don't really care," another said.
Thana rubbed her face. "Don't you get it? When we deliver them back to their new afterlife, we don't give them wacky powers or anything strange so they grow up normally. Those in the higher ranks give gifts that just result in more people dying easily."
"I mean, don't they usually choose heroes?"
"Incompetent ones?"
"Hey, it's usually a reward after they sacrificed their life for someone."
"Haven't you seen other people pour hours of their life into helping other people?" Thana asked as she remembered a time where she saw a nurse cry after her patient died. "I mean, if you're going to reward people with a better life, why not them?"
"Hah, you're just delaying your trip, Thana." One of the Grim Reaper managerial positions pulled out a ticket stub and gave it to her. "Come on and just visit the King Yama or whatever you call him and see what you need to do."
Thana took a deep breath, swiped the ticket off from the dark countertop and rose to her feet. She placed her Scythe across her back and headed for the Afterlife Train.
While it was true that Grim Reapers worked non-stop in collecting souls not only for humans, but different beings across the entire realm of the universe, they also developed their own desires after watching other beings exist millennia upon millenia.
—-
If you ventured into the river Styx and its sisters, then there was a need to pay a drachma to Charon in order to be ferried to the afterlife and meet the king and queen of their underworld. Nowadays, with the advent of a more standardized and universal currency, it was now much easier for those who lived in the spiritual realm to hop from one hell into another.
Hell was probably a wrong name to use if you asked finicky individuals who might have insisted it to be referred to by their original names, but Thana didn't bat an eye as long as she was taking them to some afterlife punishment.
This time however, in the golden stub she received after the ticket taker came about, Thana stared at the words and read them aloud. "One ticket to King Yanluo Wang's Judgement Court in Youdo, Capital of Diyu. 96,800 Hells."
Weren't there supposed to be only eighteen levels?
Thana groaned to herself and swore to choke Li Yang if she ever got the chance to visit him after this ordeal. If she tried to pull up the curtains of the train and stare out the window, she could only see an unending amount of darkness.
"Diyu, Narakas… What's the difference and how are they even divided? And is this the same guy as Azrael mentioned earlier?"
Thana glanced at the wall close to her upholstered seat and saw a bunch of pamphlets sticking out for all of the passengers in the train. She picked one up and there was a friendly basic introduction to different underworld realms and even a special edition that featured rulers.
"King Yama. King Yenma. King Yeom-ra."
Thana tossed them and looked around the sole cabin she found herself in. It was a lot safer to travel across with highly specialized trains made to travel in a blink of an eye and also kept a great portion of Soul Eaters out of the way of the traveling Souls.
"Not bad for someone solo."
...there was a small television that allowed you to tune in universal networks and even gave glimpses into the more exclusive shows that were hosted primarily for the high-ranking deity demographics.
"Hahhh…" Thana boredly opened the television and paid attention to one of the heavily advertised series.
"Love among the Stars! LSO is proud to present the reality show of an ordinary man stuck in the vast universe alone—or at least that's what he thinks. Assuming that his life on earth is already over, Ken Watanabe finds himself in the premier interstellar spaceship with six lucky women from the galaxy. And yet which one of them is an imposter? Is there really a trap hidden? Stay tuned on who gets chucked into space!"
Thana switched the channel and saw another pervasive show produced by the LSO.
"The Ancient Ones."
A distortion appeared on screen as an unholy scream pierced Thana's ears and the sight of a woman appeared on screen. There was a crazed look on her eyes as she clawed through the 'camera'.
"Chut—"
Blood splattered on the screen along with tentacles covering the entire second before it was erased into a white screen.
"Next up is a show inspired from the lives of the grand beings that show no remorse or attention to the billions of lives existing in one domain. Chut Dreams are coming up next!"
[ Passenger in Cabin #669 have arrived at their destination! ]
"Fuck," Thana said as she rushed up to her feet and closed the television screen.
She quickly stepped out of her cabin and opened the door, but instead of seeing the other cabins or the familiar train interior, it was the sight of an ominous eastern-style building in the distance.
A lot of shadowy figures appeared in the corner of her vision, and though she wore a tattered cloak as well as had her weapon on her back, she didn't stray from her destination and headed right ahead to the court.