Heaven or the world of gods is boring.
Since divine entities live at least hundreds of thousands of years, they seek ways to pass their time and obtain various stimuli.
That's why it's not uncommon for gods to play with mortals, through various morally dubious means from a human perspective.
For example: living various sexual adventures with them, playing good cop and bad cop in front of mortals to mock them during their ideological debates, and various other macabre games.
Unfortunately, this kind of stimuli or entertainment eventually stopped having any effect on them.
They needed something more... exciting.
Because of this distress, there were several cases of suicide in heaven.
A situation initially neglected, because gods are by nature introverted and solitary beings in their essence, contrary to the widespread lie among mortals.
There is no pantheon among gods.
At most, there are factions, but they became few in number because of the boredom that reigns supreme in this era.
After realizing the real gravity of the situation, the gods began to take things seriously.
Unfortunately, heaven had already begun to severely lack divine beings.
It took various meetings and debates for the gods managing the domain of creation and entertainment to find a solution through a new game.
[The Conquest].
The goal of the game is simple, but potentially eternal and filled with "interesting" possibilities.
Gods must find a champion, through chance or by spending their divinity to select a specific one.
After this task, they must send the chosen one to a "zone" to conquer it or achieve sufficient influence so that the non-player characters are deemed incapable of being a threat.
You probably want to know what a zone is?
**The Zones**
These are worlds born not thanks to gods, but to mortals.
The cause of this phenomenon lies in their voluntary or unconscious beliefs about various fictional or legendary worlds.
Normally, these realities end up naturally disappearing without a god's support, at the end of their "narration".
In a way, heaven and hell are zones, but their "narration" is eternal thanks to mortals' belief and vision about them.
To prevent this unfortunate phenomenon, the gods ruling over creation fell asleep to support ordinary zones destined to perish.
An act further diminishing the divine population within divine heaven, but which no one complained about.
Creator-type gods are very often the oldest.
They find in potentially eternal sleep, rest and a way to avoid the curse of boredom.
All this story leads to now.
Hermes, the god of thieves, messages, speed, travelers and merchants, became interested in the game [The Conquest].
A normal reaction?
Not wrong, but Hermes is part of a minority in his circle of friends who know about the interest in the newly arrived game.
Thus, he couldn't count on his faction in heaven to ease his divinity dependency.
Hermes had no choice but to draw a human at random and hope to conquer a zone to gain divinity.
'But if he dies...'
Random drawing of a champion is only allowed for new players of the game.
Hermes won't be able to play after a failure without spending divinity.
"Well... here we go!"
A magic circle soon shone in Hermes' divine domain, before a man in his late twenties appeared in a confused state.
---
**Claude Moriarty**
He's a department head in human resources at a small company in his hometown.
He has no criminal record, he has no wife, and despite approaching thirty, he has few friends and feels no animosity toward anyone in his entourage.
He's an "official" blank slate, without a real story according to his already meager social circle.
Yet, he hides several bad traits that could qualify him as a pervert in the eyes of anyone normal in society.
"Damn, this day was hellish at work," he said, to no one in particular.
Claude had gotten into the bad habit of monologuing, after living most of his life alone.
Is it sad? Possibly, but the main person concerned doesn't give a damn.
Claude likes his current life, even if he doesn't have a girlfriend or fiancée, let alone a wife. The man approaching thirty appreciates his calm.
"Water at the right temperature during the bath and a bit of beer... all I need now is..."
A small smile formed on his lips as he settled in front of his new PC.
Any sensible person would think he was going to play video games thanks to this powerful machine, right?
Unfortunately, that's wrong.
Claude began watching videos on dubious websites, without an ounce of hesitation in his actions.
Yet, fate had other plans for him that night.
[Do you want to become the champion of the god Hermes?]
[Please click Yes to accept and No to reject the offer]
"Shit, I was close..."
Claude removed his hand from his still rigid lance before trying to click No to reject this annoying ad.
Too bad for the excited man: his wet hand, caused by the lotion applied during his nocturnal activities, made him accidentally click on the wrong icon.
Claude wanted to curse, but he didn't have time.
An explosion from his PC tore his head off, while he was still half-naked, his lance in the other hand.
Later, investigators would recover his hard drive to try to understand the nature of the explosion.
Unfortunately, they would discover Claude's true nature.
He would go from an unfortunate man in their eyes to a man of culture.
---
"W-what?! I'm still alive? But how!?"
Claude got up from his location unconsciously, before feeling his face and neck.
He remembered too clearly the sensation of having his head torn off by a PC screen.
"Oops, I don't have the budget to have an anti-panic option in my divine domain... you're gonna have to calm down the old-fashioned way," a man's voice suddenly resonated behind Claude.
Like any sensible person, he turned around to face this stranger.
Claude met a blonde man who could only be described as beautiful and charming.
He didn't know why, but he wanted to trust this unknown man.
It was as if he was meeting an extremely reliable and honest person.
'W-wait a minute, this man isn't human.'
Externally, there was nothing supernatural about the stranger's appearance in front of him.
Yet, this perfection itself was too illogical.
Every creature has slight flaws in their face or silhouette, but this blonde man was just too beautiful and symmetrical.
As an otaku, Claude noticed this slight detail quickly.
Yet, he chose to play dumb.
He didn't know where this place was or what he was dealing with, so he preferred to go slowly.
"You already calmed down? It seems I got a qualified champion for free."
The unknown man was addressing Claude at the beginning, but he monologued at the end of his words.
After this strange act, he took out a book to read the content for a moment before changing his facial expression while looking at Claude.
He went from a man with a good impression to a disappointed look while observing Claude.
"It seems I didn't win the lottery *sighs*" he put the book away, before finally engaging in a real conversation.
"My name is Hermes, the god of speed, merchants, travelers and messages."
Of course, he hides his title as god of thieves and liars from Claude.
An action that the man noticed, but he played dumb once again to avoid a delicate situation.
"If I summoned you here, it's because I want you as a champion," he said in a calm and banal tone.
Yet, he got straight to the point.
…
Author's note: This story already has an entire (first) arc written, but I might abandon it if I don't find the work appreciated (indifference from readers).
There's no blackmail here lol, I write fanfics to improve my writing and sometimes just for fun.
So, I'm counting on your feedback (both negative and positive), thank you.