The door to Helga's office was locked. This was not, in the grand scheme of things, a particularly intimidating obstacle. A month of sneaking through the orphanage had taught me that every lock in this building was roughly as secure as a wet paper bag. The only thing keeping the orphans out of Helga's private quarters was the fact that no one wanted to go in there. The woman radiated an aura of sour disapproval that made the Curse of Fear look like a friendly handshake.
I knelt in the dark hallway, the faint moonlight from a grimy window my only illumination. The hour was somewhere between midnight and "why am I awake," which was rapidly becoming my default state of existence. The Transparent World painted the world in ghostly blues and greens, showing me the slow, rhythmic pulse of Helga's mana signature in her bedroom on the floor above. She was asleep. Deeply, blissfully, ignorantly asleep.
I pressed my ear to the door. Nothing. My Sense Intent, honed to Level 57 by a month of forest paranoia, registered no hostility, no awareness, no danger. Just the quiet hum of a building that had long since given up on being anything more than a container for unwanted children.
The lock was a simple pin-and-tumbler mechanism, rusted with age. I retrieved a small piece of wire I'd found in the yard—a fortunate discovery my Luck stat had probably engineered—and slipped it into the keyhole. The Stealth skill didn't directly help with lockpicking, but the steady hands and patient focus it cultivated certainly did. Thirty seconds of gentle probing and the mechanism clicked open with a sound that was, to my paranoid ears, approximately as loud as a thunderstorm.
I froze. Listened. The building remained silent.
Good. Now, let's see what skeletons you've got hiding in your closet, Helga.
The office was exactly as depressing as I'd imagined. A rickety desk, covered in stacks of yellowed paper. A single shelf of ledgers that looked older than the kingdom. A chair that appeared to be held together by spite and questionable carpentry. The whole room smelled of dust, old tea, and the faint, lingering odor of a woman who had given up on joy somewhere around the reign of the previous king.
I moved to the desk, my bare feet silent on the creaking floorboards. The Transparent World sharpened my vision in the dim light, letting me read the papers without needing a candle. Ledgers. Expense reports. Official documents stamped with the seal of the Kingdom of Sapin's Department of Child Welfare.
I started reading. And the more I read, the colder my blood became.
The orphanage was supposed to receive a stipend of two gold coins per month. Two gold. That was two hundred silver coins. Enough to feed and clothe every child in this building with plenty left over for proper bedding, medicine, maybe even a tutor or two. It was a generous allocation, the kind of funding that should have made Whistler's Rest a haven rather than a hellhole.
Instead, the ledgers told a different story. According to Helga's own meticulous records—because of course the woman kept records of her crimes, the arrogant fool—only four silver coins per month were actually spent on the orphanage. Four silver. Two percent of the total. The rest was siphoned off into a personal account, the transactions hidden behind a maze of fake expenses and forged receipts. "Roof repairs." "Structural maintenance." "Emergency medical supplies." All lies, every single one, written in Helga's cramped, efficient handwriting.
The woman had been stealing from orphans for years. Decades, maybe. And the kingdom, in its infinite bureaucratic wisdom, had never bothered to check.
I stood there in the darkness, staring at the papers, and felt something cold and hard settle into my chest. It wasn't anger. Anger was a hot emotion, a fire that burned bright and fast. This was something different. Something that calcified into resolve.
You're not going to get away with this.
DING!
A quest window materialized in front of my face, so abruptly that I nearly knocked over a stack of papers. I mentally steadied myself and read the notification.
[NEW QUEST: THE TRUTH WILL OUT]
A crime has been committed against the innocent. Embezzlement, neglect, and the systematic abuse of those who cannot defend themselves. The matron of Whistler's Rest has betrayed her charges, and the evidence lies before you. Expose her crimes to the proper authorities and ensure justice is served.
Quest Requirements:
*- Deliver the incriminating documents to the office of the Mayor of Ashber [0/1]*
[Quest Rewards:
*- 10 Gacha Points*
*- 3,000 EXP*
*- 2 Gold Coins*
*- 1x Uncommon Weapon Ticket*]
Time Limit: 48 Hours
Failure Penalty: The guilty go free, the innocent continue to suffer, and you'll know you could have stopped it.
The rewards were staggering. Ten Gacha Points. Three thousand experience—enough to push me to level 10 and beyond. Two gold coins, which was more money than I'd ever seen in either of my lives. And an Uncommon Weapon Ticket, which sounded suspiciously like a guaranteed upgrade from my current arsenal of sharpened sticks and stolen kitchen knives.
But the real reward was the one the system didn't list. The chance to do something genuinely good. To leave this place better than I'd found it.
I accepted the quest without hesitation. Then I carefully, silently gathered every incriminating document on the desk and slipped them into my Inventory. The papers vanished in a shimmer of light, tucked safely away in that extradimensional pocket where no one could find them. I left the office exactly as I'd found it—minus the evidence—and crept back to my closet-room with the quiet satisfaction of a job well done.
Tomorrow, Helga's empire of neglect would come crashing down.
The Mayor's office in Ashber was a squat, unimpressive building in the center of town, distinguishable from the surrounding shops only by the faded crest painted above its door. I arrived there just before dawn, a tiny figure wrapped in a threadbare cloak that I'd "borrowed" from the orphanage's lost-and-found pile. The streets were empty, the townsfolk still asleep. Perfect conditions for an anonymous evidence drop.
I left the documents on the front step, wrapped in oilcloth to protect them from the morning dew. On top, I placed a brief, unsigned note explaining exactly what the papers contained and who they incriminated. Nothing fancy. Nothing traceable. Just the truth, laid bare for whoever found it first.
Then I vanished into the pre-dawn shadows, my Stealth skill rendering me all but invisible as I made my way back to the orphanage.
The waiting was the hardest part. I spent the morning in my room, pretending to be the same quiet, forgettable orphan I'd always been. Breakfast came and went—a stale bread roll and a cup of water that tasted faintly of rust. The other kids shuffled through their routines with the hollow-eyed resignation of the chronically neglected. Helga barked orders from the kitchen, her voice a constant, grating presence that set my teeth on edge.
And then, around midday, the guards arrived.
I heard them before I saw them—the heavy tromp of armored boots on the orphanage's creaking floorboards, the authoritative knock on the front door, the sudden, stunned silence that fell over the building like a shroud. I crept to the top of the stairs and watched through the banister as four town guardsmen, led by a stern-faced captain with a magistrate's writ, arrested Helga in the middle of her own kitchen.
The woman's face was a masterpiece of indignant fury. She sputtered. She raged. She tried to blame everyone from the cook to the gods themselves. But the guards had the documents. They had the ledgers, the forged receipts, the undeniable proof of years of systematic theft. Helga was dragged out of the orphanage in iron shackles, her curses echoing through the halls like the dying screams of a wounded animal.
As she passed the staircase, her eyes found mine.
It was only for a second. A fleeting, electric moment of contact that sent a chill racing down my spine. There was no fear in her gaze. No regret. Just pure, undiluted hatred—the look of a predator who had just realized which mouse had sprung the trap. Her lips curled back from her teeth in a snarl that promised retribution.
And then she was gone, hauled out the door and into the waiting wagon that would take her to the town jail.
I stood there for a long moment, my heart pounding in my chest. The quest completion notification chimed softly in my ears, followed by the triumphant fanfare of a level-up, but I barely registered them. All I could feel was relief. Deep, bone-weary relief that the woman who had made so many lives miserable was finally facing justice.
It's done. She's gone. The orphanage is free.
DING!
[QUEST COMPLETE: THE TRUTH WILL OUT]
Justice, though delayed, has been served. The orphans of Whistler's Rest will receive the care they deserve, and the guilty will face the consequences of their greed. You have done a good thing, Alexander. Hold onto that feeling. It will serve you well in the trials to come.
Quest Rewards:
*- 10 Gacha Points (Total: 79)*
*- 3,000 EXP*
*- 2 Gold Coins*
*- 1x Uncommon Weapon Ticket*
DING!
[LEVEL UP!]
[You are now Level 10!
*- All stats increased by 5*
*- 10 Status Points awarded*]
I closed my eyes and let the notifications wash over me. Level 10. A milestone, both literal and symbolic. I was no longer a single-digit weakling. I was a double-digit threat. A very small, very terrifying double-digit threat.
The other orphans were buzzing with confusion and cautious excitement. The guards had left a clerk behind to organize temporary care until a new matron could be appointed. For the first time in years, there was hope in the air—faint and fragile, but undeniably present. I watched from the shadows as the children whispered among themselves, their faces slowly shifting from hollow despair to something that almost resembled joy.
You're welcome, I thought, allowing myself a small, private smile. Consider it a parting gift.
My plan was simple: leave tomorrow. The chaos of Helga's arrest would provide perfect cover. With no one watching the quiet, weird kid, I could slip into the forest and never come back. I had two gold coins now, plus nearly two hundred copper. I had supplies, skills, and a core that was no longer an embarrassment to magic-kind. The world was waiting, and I was finally ready to meet it.
But first, one last training session. A farewell to the clearing that had been my sanctuary for the past month.
I slipped out of the orphanage in the late afternoon, Stick XV—a sturdy ironwood branch I'd been using for the past week—clutched in my hand. The forest welcomed me as it always did, the familiar mana trail guiding me through the trees. The bird was still there, chirping its usual greeting. The moss was still soft. The fallen log was still waiting.
Everything was exactly as it should be.
And then my Sense Intent screamed.
It wasn't a sound. It was a primal, instinctive warning that blazed through my nervous system like lightning. Danger. Hostility. Death. The signal was so intense, so overwhelming, that I nearly stumbled. My Transparent World flared to maximum intensity, scanning the treeline for the source of the threat.
There. About fifty meters to the northeast. A mana signature that burned like a cold blue sun, so dense and powerful that it made my newly-evolved Dark Red core feel like a candle in a hurricane. The person—and it was definitely a person, not a beast—was standing perfectly still, partially obscured by the shadow of an ancient oak. I couldn't make out details, but I could sense their intent as clearly as if they'd shouted it across the clearing.
They were here for me.
My blood ran cold. The Curse of Fear was still active—I could feel it humming beneath my skin—but this person wasn't affected. They stood their ground without a flicker of hesitation, their mana signature steady and unperturbed. That meant one of two things: either they were a non-native of this world, like me, or they were so powerful that the curse simply didn't register as a threat.
Neither option was good.
"Who's there?" I called out, my voice steady despite the adrenaline surging through my veins. I tightened my grip on Stick XV, knowing full well that a wooden branch was about as useful against this opponent as a sternly worded letter. "Show yourself. I know you're watching me."
A figure stepped out from behind the oak.
They were tall—adult-sized, which immediately put me at a disadvantage—and clad in dark, form-fitting leathers that looked both expensive and practical. A mask covered the lower half of their face, leaving only their eyes visible. Cold eyes. Calculating eyes. The eyes of a professional who had done this many, many times before.
"You're perceptive," the figure said, their voice a neutral baritone that betrayed neither gender nor emotion. "Most children your age wouldn't have noticed me until my blade was already through their heart. But you're not most children, are you, Alexander?"
The use of my name sent a spike of ice through my chest. This person knew who I was. They'd been watching me. For how long? How much did they know?
"Who sent you?" I demanded, buying time as I cycled mana through my channels. If I was going to fight—and every instinct told me I would have to—I needed to be ready. "Helga? Is that it? She hired you from her jail cell?"
The figure tilted their head, a gesture that might have been amusement. "The matron was quite insistent. She wanted all the loose ends tied up. The orphans. The building. Everything reduced to ashes. A tragic accident, the report would say. A candle left unattended. Such a shame."
My stomach dropped. Helga had hired an assassin to kill everyone. Every child in that orphanage, burned alive to cover up her crimes. The sheer, monstrous selfishness of it was staggering.
But there was something else in the assassin's words. A detail that made my skin crawl.
"How did you know I'd be here?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Your routines are predictable," the assassin said. "Every morning, before dawn, you slip into this forest to train. The matron mentioned it. She'd noticed you were never around during the day. She didn't know what you were doing, but she knew where you went. It was simple enough to track you from there."
I felt the blood drain from my face. Helga had known. She'd been aware of my absences the entire time. I'd thought I was invisible, a ghost slipping through the cracks of a neglectful system, but I'd been wrong. I'd been seen. Watched. Catalogued. And I'd never even noticed.
Stupid. Arrogant. You thought you were so clever, didn't you?
The assassin drew a blade from their hip—a long, curved sword that gleamed with a faint blue luminescence. Mana-forged steel. The kind of weapon that could cut through armor like butter and through a five-year-old's neck like tissue paper.
"I'll make this quick," they said, almost gently. "You're just a child. A remarkably talented child, but a child nonetheless. It's a shame, really. With proper training, you might have become something extraordinary."
I dropped Stick XV. It was useless against a weapon like that. Instead, I reached into my Inventory and retrieved the knife I'd stolen from the orphanage kitchen—a six-inch blade of cheap iron, dulled from years of cutting vegetables, but still sharp enough to kill if you knew where to strike.
"I'm not dying here," I said, settling into a low stance. The Sword God Incarnate trait hummed in my soul, flooding my mind with combat knowledge. The knife wasn't a sword, but the principles were the same. Distance. Timing. The geometry of violence. "Not today. Not to you."
The assassin's eyes crinkled—a smile behind the mask. "Brave words. Let's see if your skills match your spirit."
They moved.
The assassin crossed the distance between us in the span of a heartbeat, their blade arcing toward my neck in a strike that would have beheaded me instantly if I'd been even a fraction of a second slower. But the Transparent World had been tracking their every muscle twitch, every shift of weight, every minute adjustment of their grip. I saw the attack coming before they'd even fully committed to it.
I ducked. The blade whistled over my head, close enough that I felt the wind of its passage ruffle my hair. In the same motion, I lunged forward and stabbed at the assassin's exposed knee. It wasn't a killing blow—I wasn't tall enough to reach their vitals—but a severed tendon would slow them down.
The assassin sidestepped with fluid grace, my knife missing by inches. "Good instincts," they commented, their voice still infuriatingly calm. "Your form is excellent. Who taught you?"
"I'm self-taught," I growled, pressing the attack. Slash, stab, feint, slash. The knife was a blur in my hands, each strike flowing into the next with the seamless precision of a Level 68 swordsmanship skill. The assassin parried every blow, their curved blade ringing against my cheap iron with a sound like a funeral bell.
"Self-taught," they repeated, a note of genuine admiration creeping into their voice. "At your age? That's remarkable. Truly remarkable. You have the talent of a prodigy, child. It's a crime that you have to die."
"Then let me live!" I snarled, launching into a furious combination. I could feel my mana surging through my channels, desperate and uncontrolled. I needed more speed. More power. I needed—
Mana Reinforcement.
The knowledge came to me in a flash of desperate inspiration. I channeled raw mana into my muscles, my bones, my skin. The technique was sloppy, inefficient, wasteful. I could feel mana bleeding out of me with every second, a torrent of power that I was too inexperienced to control properly. But it worked. My movements became faster, sharper, more explosive. The knife in my hand began to glow with a faint, flickering light.
DING!
[New Skill Acquired: Basic Mana Reinforcement Lv 1]
The assassin's eyes widened slightly. "You're reinforcing your body? In the middle of combat? Without any formal training?" They shook their head slowly. "I take it back. You're not a prodigy. You're a monster."
I didn't respond. I was too focused on the fight, too consumed by the desperate calculus of survival. The mana reinforcement was draining my reserves at an alarming rate—I'd already burned through several hundred MP—but it was the only thing keeping me alive. The assassin was faster, stronger, more experienced. Without the boost, I'd be dead in seconds.
I needed another edge. Something they wouldn't expect.
Fire. Wind. You have the affinities. Use them.
I'd never consciously cast a spell before. The Basic Mana Manipulation skill had taught me how to channel mana, but shaping it into elemental attacks was a different discipline entirely. I didn't know the incantations. I didn't know the proper techniques. I only had instinct and desperation.
But sometimes, instinct was enough.
I thrust my free hand toward the assassin's face and pushed. Mana erupted from my palm in a chaotic, unfocused blast of superheated air. It wasn't a proper fireball—more like a fiery sneeze—but it was enough. The assassin flinched, momentarily blinded by the flash of flame.
DING!
[New Skill Acquired: Basic Fire Magic Lv 1]
I didn't waste the opening. I lunged forward, knife aimed at the assassin's throat. At the same time, I channeled wind mana into my legs, propelling myself forward with a burst of speed that caught even me off guard.
DING!
[New Skill Acquired: Basic Wind Magic Lv 1]
The assassin recovered faster than I expected. Their blade came up in a desperate parry, deflecting my knife at the last possible instant. The tip of my blade scored a line across their cheek, just below the mask, and a thin rivulet of blood trickled down their jaw.
They touched the wound with their free hand, staring at the blood on their fingers. For a long moment, they didn't move. Didn't speak. When they finally looked at me again, their eyes were different. The cold professionalism was gone, replaced by something more dangerous. Respect.
"You actually cut me," they said softly. "A five-year-old child with a kitchen knife actually cut me. Do you have any idea how long it's been since anyone made me bleed?"
"Hopefully not long enough," I shot back, already cycling mana for another attack. The reinforcement was eating through my reserves—I'd burned nearly twenty thousand MP already, a fifth of my total—but I couldn't afford to stop. "Because I'm about to do it again."
The assassin laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "I like you, Alexander. I really do. Which is why I'm going to stop holding back now. Out of respect."
They sheathed their sword.
For a single, bewildering moment, I thought they were surrendering. Then they raised both hands, and the clearing erupted into chaos.
Ice spread across the ground in a crackling wave, freezing the moss solid and turning the soft earth into a treacherous sheet of black ice. I leaped backward, wind mana propelling me into the air, but the ice kept coming, climbing up the trees and encasing the fallen log in a crystalline shell. The temperature plummeted, my breath misting in front of my face despite the afternoon sun.
Ice magic. Of course they have ice magic. Why wouldn't they have ice magic?
Before I could land, the assassin slammed their foot against the frozen ground. A cloud of dust and debris exploded outward, a billowing brown fog that swallowed the clearing in an instant. Earth magic, used to create a smokescreen. Clever. Against anyone else, it would have been blinding.
But I wasn't anyone else.
The Transparent World pierced through the dust cloud like it wasn't even there. I could see the assassin's mana signature, a blazing blue beacon in the chaos. I could see their circulatory system, their muscle contractions, the subtle shifts in their stance that telegraphed their next move. The dust was a hindrance, but it wasn't a blindfold.
I landed on the ice, my bare feet skidding for purchase, and immediately launched myself toward the assassin's flank. Wind magic howled around my legs, accelerating my movements to a blur. Fire magic kindled in my off-hand, a roiling ball of flame that I hurled at their face. The assassin swatted it aside with a wave of ice, but I was already moving, my knife slicing toward their ribs in a strike that combined all three thousand two hundred stabs I'd practiced over the past month.
The assassin twisted, impossibly fast. My knife grazed their armor, leaving a shallow scratch in the leather. Their counterattack came in the form of a kick—a brutal, mana-enhanced strike that caught me square in the chest. I felt ribs crack. The world spun. I slammed into a tree trunk hard enough to send splinters of frozen bark flying in every direction.
*HP: 8,743 / 10,000*
I wheezed, struggling to breathe through the pain. The mana reinforcement had absorbed some of the impact, but not enough. Another hit like that, and I'd be dead.
"You're still alive," the assassin observed, walking toward me through the settling dust. "Most adults don't survive that kick. Your reinforcement technique is crude, but your mana reserves are enormous. Where is all that power coming from?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," I gasped, pushing myself upright. Every breath was agony. My ribs ground against each other with a sensation that was deeply, profoundly wrong. But I couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. If I stopped, I died. And if I died, the orphanage died with me.
I raised my knife again. The blade was chipped now, the cheap iron already failing under the strain of mana reinforcement. It wouldn't last much longer. Neither would I.
The assassin studied me for a moment, their head tilted in that same curious gesture. Then they sighed. "You're going to make me work for this, aren't you? Fine. Let's end this."
They drew their sword again. The blue luminescence seemed brighter now, the mana in the blade responding to its wielder's intent. They settled into a stance I didn't recognize—something formal and ancient, the posture of a true master.
I didn't wait for them to attack. Wind surged around my legs, fire blazed in my palm, and I launched myself forward in a final, desperate assault. Slash, stab, feint, blast. I threw everything I had at them, every technique I'd learned, every trick I'd discovered. The clearing echoed with the clash of metal and the roar of flames and the howl of wind.
And none of it mattered.
The assassin moved like water, flowing around my attacks with effortless grace. Their blade wove a web of steel around them, deflecting my knife, dispersing my flames, turning aside my wind-enhanced strikes. I was fighting at the absolute peak of my ability, pushing my five-year-old body far beyond anything it should have been capable of, and they were treating it like a warm-up exercise.
"You have the talent of a once-in-a-generation prodigy," the assassin said, their voice calm even as they parried a thrust that would have skewered a lesser fighter. "Your swordsmanship is already at the level of a seasoned knight. Your magic, while untrained, shows incredible potential. Your instincts are sharper than any I've ever seen. In ten years, you would have been unstoppable."
They caught my knife between two fingers and twisted. The blade snapped in half with a sound like a dying scream. I stumbled backward, disarmed, my chest heaving, my mana reserves depleted to a dangerous level. I had nothing left. No weapons. No tricks. No hope.
"But you're not in ten years," the assassin said, raising their sword. "You're now. And now, you die."
I stared up at the blade, my mind racing through a thousand desperate possibilities and finding nothing. This was it. This was the end. After everything—the void, the reincarnation, the month of training, the core breakthrough—I was going to die in a frozen clearing at the hands of a hired killer, and there was nothing I could do about it.
No. Not nothing.
I had the Reincarnation Technique. If I died here, I'd just come back. Same day. Same orphanage. Same lumpy mattress. I'd retain all my memories, all my skills, all my power. The assassin would have no idea what had happened. I'd have another chance. Another loop.
But the other orphans wouldn't. If I died, the assassin would go on to complete their mission. The orphanage would burn. Every child inside would die. And when I woke up in my reset timeline, they'd still be dead in this one.
I couldn't let that happen.
"Wait," I said, my voice ragged. "Before you kill me—just tell me one thing. Did Helga really hire you to kill everyone? Even the children?"
The assassin paused, their blade hovering inches from my throat. "Everyone," they confirmed. "The matron wanted no witnesses. The fire was meant to look like an accident—a candle left unattended, a tragic misfortune. No one would question it. These things happen in old buildings."
I closed my eyes. The cold of the ice seeped through my bare feet, up my legs, into my chest. Or maybe that was just the dread. The knowledge that, in this timeline at least, I had failed. The children I'd tried to help were still going to die.
"I see," I whispered. "Then I guess I really can't let you win."
The assassin tilted their head. "You're disarmed, injured, and outmatched. What exactly are you going to—"
I didn't let them finish. I lunged forward, not with a weapon, but with my bare hands. Wind mana screamed around my body. Fire mana exploded from my palms. I threw myself at the assassin with every ounce of strength I had left, not trying to kill them—I knew I couldn't—but trying to buy time. Maybe someone would hear the commotion. Maybe a patrol would investigate. Maybe a miracle would happen.
The assassin's blade flashed.
I felt the impact before I felt the pain. A moment of pressure, of wrongness, of the world tilting sideways in a way that didn't make sense. Then the pain came, a white-hot lance of agony that consumed everything. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. My body wasn't responding. My vision was fading.
The last thing I saw was the assassin's face, their mask now splattered with my blood. Their eyes held something that might have been regret.
"A shame," they murmured, their voice distant and echoing. "You really were something special."
Then everything went black.
YOU HAVE DIED.
The void. Endless. Featureless. Cold.
But this time, I wasn't alone with my thoughts. This time, I had memories. A month of memories. Training. Growth. Pain. Fear. And beneath all of it, a single, burning certainty:
This isn't over.
The system's voice echoed through the darkness, cold and clinical:
[Reincarnation Technique activated. Returning to designated save point...]
Light exploded in my vision.
I woke up on a lumpy mattress that felt like it was stuffed with rocks and disappointment.
For a single, disorienting moment, I didn't know where I was. The room was dark, the window grimy, the air heavy with the smell of dust and neglect. My body felt wrong—too small, too weak, too fragile. I tried to sit up, and every muscle in my chest screamed in protest, a phantom echo of ribs that were no longer broken.
Then the memories hit me. The office. The documents. Helga's arrest. The training clearing. The assassin. The ice. The blade.
The death.
I sat bolt upright, my heart hammering against my ribs, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps. My hands flew to my neck—intact. My chest—unbroken. My body—whole. I was alive. I was alive, and I was five years old, and I was back in the orphanage on the very first day of my new existence.
The Reincarnation Technique had worked. I'd died, and I'd come back. The save point had held.
A notification chimed softly in my ears, and I pulled up my status screen with trembling hands. The numbers were all there. Level 10. Dark Red Core. One hundred thousand mana points. Every skill I'd earned, every stat I'd gained, every item I'd collected. The Gacha Points. The gold coins. The weapon ticket. All of it, preserved, unchanged, waiting for me.
I stared at the screen for a long, long moment. Then, slowly, a smile spread across my face. It wasn't a happy smile. It was the smile of someone who had just been given a second chance—and who intended to use it.
Alright, assassin. Round two. Let's see how you handle a target who knows you're coming.
Outside my window, the first pale fingers of dawn began to creep over the horizon. The day was just beginning. And this time, I knew exactly what I had to do.
STATUS SCREEN - POST REGRESSION
[Name: Alexander (LEX)
Race: Dragon-Human Deity Hybrid
Lifespan: 5 / 2,000
Level: 10
EXP: 480/4,000 (To Next Level)
Class: None
MP: 100,000 / 100,000
HP: 10,000 / 10,000
Elemental Affinities: Wind, Fire
Trait(s): Curse of Fear, Slowed Mana Regeneration, Mana Recovery Lv 10 (2,000 MP/hour), Reincarnated, True Demon Slayer Mark, Sword God Incarnate
Core Stage: Dark Red Core (100% Purified)
Template Integration:
Dragon God Orsted: 0.51%
Yoriichi Tsugikuni: 4.10%
Stats:
Perception: 125
Strength: 73
Constitution: 88
Agility: 75
Resistance: 63
Charisma: 78
Vitality: 80
Stamina: 86
Luck: 1055
{Status Points: 200}
Skills:
Basic Mana Manipulation Lv 62
Basic Mana Perception Lv 61
Basic Swordsmanship Lv 68
Basic Transparent World Lv 61
Minor Core Refinement Lv 47
Stealth Lv 58
Climbing Lv 55
Running Lv 60
Sense Intent Lv 57
Basic Mana Reinforcement Lv 1
Basic Fire Magic Lv 1
Basic Wind Magic Lv 1
Special Skill(s):
Reincarnation Technique (From Orsted) (MAX)
Inventory:
Gacha Points: 79
Small Mana Potion x82
Small Stamina Potion x28
Copper Coins x187
Gold Coins x2
Uncommon Weapon Ticket x1
Broken Kitchen Knife (damaged, requires repair or replacement)
Wooden Training Sword x1]
{Store: Locked - Requires Level 25 & a Class}