Reincarnation Roulette
Do you know the word reincarnation?
It refers to the life one lived before the present, before being born again into this one.
People used to talk about it, whether through so-called reincarnation experiences or something else entirely.
There was a time when many believed that a person lived seven lives.
What was a past life that no one could remember, anyway? In the end, death was the end.
It was only a story for the hope, not quite hope, that something else would await after a hard, grinding life was over.
That was what everyone had thought. None of them could have known. No one could have known just how important that damned past life would turn out to be.
“...”
Hoo-
It was the season when even my breath turned to mist.
Feeling the weather slicing at my cheeks, I turned off my phone screen.
There was no point looking any further. It wouldn’t help.
Under the dim night lights, the road stretched ahead in a neat row, the same road I always took home.
- Jinwoo, I understand what kind of dream you’re chasing, but... there are some things that just aren’t possible.
As I walked, the teacher’s voice from earlier kept echoing in my ears.
- If you really can’t give it up, I’ll contact the guild side and see whether there are any related openings.
- But you should give up on becoming a knight, the way you dream of it. For your future, too.
I could understand what kind of feeling had driven him to say that.
He must have been sorry for a student who was pouring his whole life into something that would never happen.
So he told me to give up now, while there was still time.
That was enough, he meant. More than enough.
At the thought of it, I found myself scratching my head hard enough to hurt.
“Damn it, my life’s fucked.”
A bitter laugh slipped out. I wanted to become a knight.
I’d poured the last several years into that dream, but now I didn’t even have a full day left to chase it.
I.
For the love of hell, I couldn’t remember a past life.
* * *
Traditionally, in order to become a knight, one had to pass through a stage called awakening first.
From the age of ten to nineteen, over the course of ten years, a very small number of humans would undergo awakening by sheer chance.
Those who did were granted special power and could become superhumans.
There was one thing to know here.
When a person awakened, they recalled their past life. It sounded absurd to bring up reincarnation out of nowhere, but...
That was the way it usually went for those who became superhumans.
Reincarnation.
It sounded sudden and ridiculous, but in reality, that was exactly how it worked.
The special power a superhuman possessed was the same power they had held in their past life.
As an example, Hale Irene, the world’s number one superhuman and a knight in the United States, claimed that she had been a great mage in another world.
And in fact, the power Irene used was magic.
As you could see, reincarnation was not limited to this world alone.
There were fantasy worlds.
Martial arts worlds.
Meaning all sorts of strange worlds existed.
And humans who underwent awakening would recall the lives they had lived in those other dimensions.
The irony was that while fantasy and martial arts worlds existed like that, there were also people whose past lives came from this world, or from ordinary worlds.
Even if they awakened, some of them had no special power at all.
In the end, if your past self had been unremarkable, then even awakening meant nothing.
And among those people, a knight was...
The title given to awakened individuals whose granted power was exceptional.
A knight.
It was the condition for entering Gates that appeared every five days across dimensions, and their existence was the reason the present era could remain at least somewhat peaceful.
And me...
The man who wanted to become one of those knights would, by tomorrow, become someone who couldn’t even cling to that hope anymore.
Awakening could happen only between the ages of ten and nineteen.
If you reached twenty without awakening, you could no longer recall your past life.
That was what all the statistics said.
In more than ten years, there had never been a single case of someone awakening after turning twenty.
Click.
When I opened the front door and stepped inside, the empty house was all that greeted me.
“I’m home.”
No answer came, but I said it anyway.
Even something like that felt like it would make me a little better.
I didn’t turn on the lights.
“I’m home.”
In the dark room, I greeted my parents’ memorial portraits in the corner.
It was a habit born over time.
Tomorrow... I’ll have to stop by school, then head to Seoul.
Even after learning there was nothing I could do, I had to end the despair quickly.
I had to live.
And if I knew I couldn’t do it, then I needed to find another way now.
What if I don’t get accepted? Should I look into the army?
Do they still take civilians these days? I heard you can’t even enlist if you don’t awaken.
How much money do I have left?
Ah, rent’s due tomorrow too.
If I fail the interview, I’ll have to look for more part-time work.
What was I supposed to do now?
Those thoughts filled my head so completely that they left me feeling cramped and exhausted.
When that happened, there was only one thing to do.
...Let’s sleep quickly.
Even thinking was tiring.
At times like this, the best thing was to fall asleep as fast as possible.
As always.
Creeeak.
I opened the bedroom door.
“Ugh... it’s cold.”
Wondering why it was so cold, I saw that the window was open.
What the hell? Had I left it open when I went out?
My memory was fuzzy.
I’d been so busy in the morning.
It could happen.
Then—
Sssss...
I sensed someone’s presence behind me.
Before I could figure out who it was or think through any plan, I grabbed the mood lamp on the desk and swung it backward.
Whoosh!
The lamp cut through the air fast, but...
Crash!
It only smashed into the wall and shattered.
“...Huh?”
When I looked back, there was no one there.
Strange. I had definitely felt someone.
Was I just imagining things because I was sleepy?
Maybe.
I looked down at the lamp in my hand.
“Ah, this... was a gift.”
Great. One of the few luxuries in this house, and I’d gone and broken it.
What was I supposed to do with the shards?
I’d clean them up and go to sleep.
As I was thinking that, I checked the clock.
11:59.
One minute left before the day ended, and one minute left before my hope disappeared with it.
“Haha.”
This really was hard.
Just as I was thinking that and reaching for a broom...
Ting-a-ling-!!!
“Huh?”
Some strange sound rang in my ears.
What was that?
Wait.
“Oh, this...”
My eyes widened.
I’d heard of this somewhere. They said an odd alarm would sound at the moment of awakening.
“Uh...”
My heart began to pound. The instant the thought crossed my mind...
The Reincarnation Roulette will now begin.
“...!”
A notification window I had never seen before appeared in front of my eyes.
That was it.
Reincarnation Roulette...!
What you were supposed to see when you awakened.
It let you draw one of the past lives you had lived.
My breath shook. With less than a minute remaining, I had awakened.
How could I even describe this feeling?
Clutching my pounding chest, I focused on the window before me.
Rumble-rumble-!!!
The notification window spun, and several cards came into view.
Cards numbered one through seven.
“...Am I supposed to choose one of these?”
With trembling fingertips, I stared at the cards.
Which one should I pick? What if the past life I had lived was useless? Then it would all be meaningless.
Please.
Please let it be a decent past life.
After agonizing over it for a while, I finally chose one card.
Number five.
Ting-!!
The alarm flared.
The card turned and burst with light.
Orange light. The moment I saw it, I was startled, and...
You have selected a past life.
Knighthood Monarch (S)
You have chosen the past life of the Knighthood Monarch.
“Hngh...”
I clapped a hand over my mouth.
S-rank.
There were only eleven of that rank in Korea, and fewer than three hundred in the entire world. It was an absurdly high rank.
Would you like to select it?
...It’s here...
It was here.
My life was finally about to turn. It felt as if I could reach out and grab the wind itself.
Thinking that, I stretched out my hand.
There was no hesitation. I had to choose immediately.
But then—
Tap. Tap.
“Huh?”
For some reason, pressing it with my hand did nothing.
What?
“It said it would press...”
I had heard that once I selected it, that past life would be chosen and its memories and abilities would begin to flood in.
“What is this?”
There was no response.
Something was wrong. Had something gone awry? The moment unease surged through me...
Crackle-
Crackle-crackle-crackle---!!
“Ah...?”
Cracks began to spread across the Knighthood Monarch’s notification window.
What?
Just as I was about to gasp in confusion—
-That won’t do.
A voice came from somewhere.
-You mustn’t be satisfied with something so trivial.
Who was that? Where was it coming from?
In that sudden situation, I wanted to at least look around.
...My body...
My body had suddenly stopped moving.
Was it a superhuman?
A psychokinetic type?
Or magic?
If it was really a superhuman, then what possible reason would they have for coming to me...?
Countless thoughts flashed through my head.
Even then, the voice kept speaking.
-After all those chances, you finally found it.
The voice was rough and rasping.
And yet, from the thickness of it, I could tell it belonged to an old man.
Because my upper body had gone rigid and my gaze had fallen slightly downward, I couldn’t see who he was.
A thin, wrinkled hand reached toward me.
It was headed for the notification window in front of me.
He brought both hands to it as if he were holding it in his arms. What was he trying to do?
Crunch-!
“...!!!”
My eyes flew wide open, and blood vessels bulged in my neck.
That hand crumpled the notification window as though it were a sheet of paper.
My chance vanished right before my eyes.
The S-rank past life disappeared like that.
“No...!”
I forced open lips that wouldn’t move and let out a strangled breath.
-The path you must walk is not some petty thing like that.
The old man tossed the crushed window aside.
Then he reached for the seventh card among the remaining six floating in the air.
Creaaaaak-!!!
The card spun. It did not emit light.
Its response was completely different from the orange glow of the Knighthood Monarch.
The white card gradually darkened, staining itself black.
The Reincarnation Roulette will now begin.
...Tt-tik... tt-tik...
The notification window kept crackling, showing signs of instability.
Then it revealed the name of my past life.
War God (??)
...War God?
It was a simple name. But the rank was hidden.
-You should widen that grain-sized vessel on your own.
The old man’s voice cut into me.
-It’s too much power for you, so that much you’ll have to manage yourself.
-If even that is beyond you, then take your own life.
The moment he said that—
My body, especially the area below my navel, felt as if something were being sucked inward.
“Hhk...!”
It was an absurd pain, as though thousands of needles had driven in all at once.
My eyes squeezed shut.
It felt as if the veins in my body might burst on the spot.
I couldn’t think of anything.
The pain was that severe.
And yet—
-Open your ears. My useless descendant.
The old man’s voice was clear.
Clear, and yet some of the words vanished here and there, as if they’d been muted.
The old man didn’t seem to care. He simply kept speaking.
-Everything I have built will flow into you.
-If, after receiving it, you still choose to live as something pathetic, then I will crush your heart myself.
As the flesh was pushed past its limit and could no longer bear the pain, my consciousness began to drift.
I don’t want to die...!
I still had too much left to do.
I had to get my revenge.
I turned my gaze. Newspapers were piled all over the floor, along with photographs of someone, and I gritted my teeth at the sight.
What had I been grinding myself into the ground for, if not this? I couldn’t die here.
Inside the gradually blackening field of vision, the voice that seeped into my ears said—
War God.
It was carved into my brain.
-Remember this. From now on, you are the War God.
-Whatever name your life may have carried until now, you must become the War God from this point forward.
With those words, my mind snapped.
And before I lost consciousness, a notification window floated in front of me.
To stabilize the dimensional order, the rank has been revised.
War God (???) > War God (EX)
Dimensional attention is advised.