Chapter Text
He, Anaxagoras, was the most renowned genius to have ever walked this Earth.
Dies from overworking.
A slight mishap, he would have said.
Anaxagoras was a philosopher, scientist, and teacher. He led numerous experiments and made discoveries that would have taken generations to complete. He held degrees and taught in all fields of science, including chemistry, biology, mathematics, physics, and several other disciplines. He was a genius among geniuses.
But he was not without flaws.
If anyone had asked the other officials at Grove University what they thought of Anaxa, they would have proclaimed him a Heretic with an even worse personality. Nothing good ever came from knowing the man, even with all his achievements. The only redeeming qualities he had were his beauty and brilliant intellect. A Blasphemer, they dismissively thought.
However, if you asked the Neosporist students about their thoughts on Anaxa, they would have sung praises of the famous Professor. For it was Professor Anaxa who taught them the world. Every word from the genius's mouth was meaningful and engaging. His lectures enchanted the students, and there were never enough seats available. The lecture hall was his theater, the podium his stage, and his very own being was part of the grand play. A Great Performer, his audience praised.
If anyone dared ask Anaxagoras what he thought of himself, he would have proudly claimed the title 'A Dromas Draped in Finery.' Then something brilliant would hit him mid-conversation, and he would leave you without a second thought. You are left in a state of wonder, scared or awed–never in between–and you wouldn't see him for weeks. Instead, you would hear echoes of his maniacal laughter coming from the vents as he worked on his latest project.
Geniuses are truly extraordinary.
However, one thing that set Anaxagoras apart from other geniuses was also his major flaw.
It was his own lack of self-preservation.
The man has the worst case of self-care. A normal human being wouldn't have forgotten that they were human in the first place, but Anaxagoras goes far beyond what a human body should have been capable of.
"For science," he said after having lost an eye.
So obsessed with discovering the truth that the scientist often skipped meals—his hunger nonexistent after the abuse he put himself through. His near-anorexic figure would have horrified many if not for the multiple layers underneath the lab coat.
So Anaxa’s assistants, who sometimes helped with his experiments, follow a strict routine—without his knowledge—just for his well-being. They would constantly pull him away from his latest project and make him sleep on the makeshift bed in the room next to the lab. At the same time, they would bring the Professor along with them every lunch break to ensure he at least ate something nutritious. While they can’t stop him from consuming inhumane amounts of caffeine, they’d at least ensure he didn’t drink coffee after 4:00 PM. By the end of the day, at least one assistant would always stay behind to watch over him.
In a way, Anaxagoras spent more time in his lab than at home.
Glorified babysitters are what others might call them if they knew.
Then, one day, as fatigue and stress overwhelmed Anaxa during a moment of inspiration, his heart gave out. The burning sensation in his chest that he had ignored on his way to work suddenly flared into a sharp, stabbing pain. Anaxa grasped onto his chest before he collapsed against the wall. The door to his lecture hall was only a few steps away.
He gasped in short breaths as his eyes widened in recognition.
A cardiac arrest.
With the lack of necessary oxygen, the researcher fell to the floor. His consciousness faded amongst the sounds of the panicked screams and distant sirens.
Anaxa's only regret was that his dear students had to bear witness to his death.
At the young age of 28, Anaxagoras is no more.
A balanced mixture of floral scents filled the air, and Anaxa's nose twitched in recognition.
Lavender, rose, and chamomile.
The smell reminded him of a time when his lab assistant had put a floral candle in his office for aromatherapy. What should have been a calming scent only irritated his nose with its aromatic compounds.
This time was no different.
Anaxa woke up with a loud sneeze and sat up. The professor held a hand over his nose and wondered who dared combine such offensive scents, triggering his fragrance sensitivity.
He opened his eyes—now able to see from both eyes—only to blink at the sight that greeted him.
Anaxa was in a luxurious bathhouse. He sat–his knees bent and drawn together on one side–in a pool of warm, shallow water that shimmered with gold. In the distance, a cascade of golden ribbons flowed down in a waterfall into the calm water below. The buildings around him felt archaic, unnatural in their architectural beauty—gold, blue, and white dominating the scene.
His long, light green hair freely flowed down his back as droplets fell from the ends of the wet strands.
The researcher now wore a sleeveless, rich white tunic that ended at the hips–his far too skinny figure in full display. The clothes resembled the attire from Ancient Greece, but the silky material felt unfamiliar. Anaxa observed that the cloth repelled water, likely due to the material's hydrophobic properties.
Anaxa noted that had his head not been lying on top of the stone edge, he would have been submerged in the bath. He absentmindedly wondered if it was still possible to drown even after death.
He moved to stand in the water, feet bare. While the pain from his heart attack was no more, the wet feeling gave evidence to the reality of his situation.
"O' traveler from afar, welcome to my domain," a woman's voice echoed throughout the bathhouse.
Anaxa turned to the voice. A tall woman with fair skin and short golden hair materialized above the steps to the waterfall. She looked beautiful in her gold and white, sleeveless dress, which exposed her long legs. Her golden laurel wreath accessories wrapped around her hair, thighs, and ankles.
The light of dawn only accentuated her beauty.
However, Anaxa only gave a minuscule frown when he gazed into her blue-green eyes.
Such cold and detached eyes.
Just like that, he instantly disliked her.
"My name is Aglaea, the Dressmaker of Okhema and Amphoreus's Goddess of Romance. Whom do I have the pleasure of speaking to?" She asked. Although almost unnoticeable, the Goddess sounded bored as though she had gone through the same procedure countless times before.
Anaxa pursed his lips-the lack of emotion in her voice only grated on his nerves. Her nature portrayed her as inhuman, for the realm itself was beyond the comprehension of what should have been normal. He just wondered why she appeared before him of all people.
"Aglaea, is it. Let's skip the pleasantries, shall we?" Anaxa crossed his arms over his chest in defiance, "If you do claim to be a goddess, then you should already know who I am."
The Goddess's eyes narrowed at his response.
"Very well, then," she answered. Without lifting a finger, she materialized a scroll in front of her in a golden light and unfurled it. The scroll floated in the air, and she started reading its contents out loud. "You are Anaxagoras, age 28, human, researcher, and professor,…"
Anaxa listened, bored himself. The words she spoke were information that was readily available to anyone who used the Internet.
"Your cause of death was recorded as a heart attack from overworking yourself." She paused for a second before she continued. "However, your true cause of death was a suicide from creating a poison undetectable by your planet's technology."
This time, Anaxa visibly frowned. Now, that was information only known to himself. It unsettled him that records of his life were so readily accessible to higher beings. His only mishap was that he had miscalculated his time of death and died in public.
"I see, the scars had never healed when your sister died—"
"Enough!" Anaxa's deep voice resonated through the domain, interrupting the goddess mid-sentence.
He didn't need to imagine her following words.
'—that you resorted to mutilating yourself.'
After the death of his sister, Anaxa had undergone a change. Gone was the naive child who saw the world through innocent eyes and cared about his own well-being. Especially, not after the one he lived for had been cruelly taken away.
Following the death of his parents, his dear sister had been his sole guardian at the young age of eighteen. They were poor, and their parents hadn't been able to leave them with anything except the house. Even with her meager earnings, his sister worked hard to provide him with the best care. Bought him advanced textbooks, even when he went through them quickly—he always made sure to reread them until he had memorized everything they taught.
What mattered to him was that they were happy.
Then all of it changed on the day he came back home to find her dead body.
He tightened his grip around himself. "You've made your point. Seeing as you have brought me here after my death, you must want something from me.-"
"-Now, what is it?" Anaxa demanded, keeping his voice leveled.
Aglaea dispelled the scroll in front of her, its purpose fulfilled. She frowned at his blatant disrespect toward her status. No mortal she had ever encountered firsthand had failed to be entranced by her beauty and ethereal presence. However, from what little she has read about Anaxagoras's life, it did not surprise her that the heretic held no love for the divine—much to her displeasure.
"You are here before me so that I may grant you another chance in life." Aglaea finally said.
Another chance in life?
"Is this opportunity given to every human that dies?"
"No, most earthlings would enter the afterlife before they go through a period of purgatory and rebirth," the goddess explained patiently. "You, however, were originally from our world. It is only within our right to give you back access to Amphoreus."
Anaxa quietly listened to her. Amphoreus. Why did that name sound so familiar?
Even then, his entire situation sounded like one of those clichéd stories Anaxa had read once. He remembered reading a book of a similar genre that one of his students had gifted him. The book had been about how a goddess gave the main character, who had died in a car accident, another chance at life. He was certain that the current generation referred to such a genre as an Isekai, which had gained immense popularity lately. Anaxa also recalled a time his lab assistant had been watching an animation during lunch with a similar story.
But like every Isekai genre, there was always a catch when being reincarnated into another world.
Anaxa had no intention of becoming a puppet for any divine being.
"In return, I want you to find Kephale's successor—,"
"Stop," Anaxa raises his voice, interrupting her, "I care not for your world or its plight. I didn't die just to live another life. If anything, I'd rather go through this so-called purgatory than have my life dictated by some gods."
He killed himself for no other reason than because he was tired.
"Even if you could see your sister again?"
What?
Aglaea explained, "Your sister had been here before me in this very same domain. Given the same chance as you, 22 years ago. And she had accepted her role."
The Goddess let the information sink in as she watched the human stand in shocked silence. His right hand covered his eyes, while his other hand was still hugging himself. She noticed the shaking of his shoulders, but could only open her mouth slightly when it was not the reaction she expected.
"Hah,…Hahahaha... HAHAHAHAHA!!"
He was laughing. The human was laughing. Another emotion bubbled within her that she had not experienced for years, and it was perturbing.
Anaxa took a few more moments to recover, "Hah, I see…" He said with an ecstatic expression, his eyes wide and a smile on his face. "Very well, I'll take your offer and live once more!"
"But do know this, I won't bow down to you gods and play by the script." The heretic proclaimed and threw out his hands as he walked out of the water and onto the steps. He stopped short of the stairs below Aglaea to look straight into her eyes. Eyes that now stirred with some emotion.
"Instead, I'll forge my own path and live by my own construct," Anaxa promised with a challenge.
Aglaea looked down on him, her words icy, "…Then so be it, Anaxagoras, The Fool," she slowly raised her left hand towards him. A large, red sigil with unfamiliar runes appeared on the floor where Anaxa stood. His figure glowed with a golden hue. The sigil was part of a powerful rebirth spell used to reincarnate lost human souls that ended up in her domain. Only specific deities were capable of wielding such magic.
And as Anaxa faded away in golden particles, the goddess's last words to him felt more like a curse than a blessing.
"May you survive the threads of destiny and find what you seek…"
A divine golden light appeared in the middle of the dark forest. As the light faded, a small, cute, mint-green kitten appeared at the center of the summoning circle. Their eyes were wide with confusion.
"Meow?"