Rawr! I'm a Super Strong Dinosaur!
What is immortality? It is the grand dream humanity has carried since the moment it first took into its hands the ember called civilization — a cherished wish that, even now, no one has ever fulfilled.
Humans fear death. No matter how great the achievements one leaves behind, no matter how many millions come to remember your name, the flesh in the end grows old, sickens, and returns to the dust. Before death, kings and tycoons and geniuses are all perfectly equal. How utterly unreasonable. Especially for a human such as myself.
My name is Rosenkraus. Lee Ha-neul, technically — though the world knows me far better by the name Rosenkraus than by the one I was born with. The super-genius who solved the World's 7 Millennium Prize Problems at the age of twenty-one. The man credited with dragging the entire field of modern science decades into the future. A genius among geniuses — the genius beyond all geniuses. And, if I may be so bold as to say it myself, the living treasure of humankind.
And I was expected to grow old and die? Absurd. Humanity losing me would not end as the mere death of a single man; it would mean the disappearance of the dozens, the hundreds of discoveries I had yet to make — which, to put it with only a touch of exaggeration, amounted to a loss for the entire world. In any case, I had not the slightest intention of dying.
And the first fruit of that grand ambition was sitting right before my eyes.
"...At last."
Inside the transparent flask, a blue liquid swayed. With trembling hands, I lifted it. The Elixir of Immortality.
It was still nothing more than a test sample; never mind clinical trials, even the safety verification remained unfinished. In theory it should suppress the aging of cells and restore damaged tissue to its youthful state, but no one could say what variables might arise in a living human body. And yet — so what? What mattered was that the first step had been taken. All that remained was a little more research. Correct a few flaws, secure its stability, eliminate the side effects, and humanity would at last hold the wish it had dreamed of for thousands of years. For the first time, we would raise the banner of rebellion against the absolute law called death. And the one to accomplish it would be none other than I, Rosenkraus—
"...Huh?"
My vision swam. I pressed hard at the corners of my eyes. My head felt heavy — presumably the fault of several nights without proper sleep. Genius or not, so long as the body remained human, fatigue did not simply vanish.
"Good grief... staying up this late has left my body in a sorry state."
My eye fell upon the coffee pot sitting at the edge of the desk.
"I suppose a cup of coffee is in order."
I set the flask down and turned away. One step. Two steps. Three—
Slip.
"...?"
The world tilted. My right foot — having landed with pinpoint precision on a puddle of some liquid I had no idea had even spilled — shot straight out in front of me.
"Wai—!"
I flailed my arms. My fingertips caught the edge of the desk. Or, to be precise, the flask I had set down mere seconds ago.
Tap.
The flask tipped over.
"..."
So did I.
It lasted only an instant, but the brain that had solved the World's 7 Millennium Prize Problems calculated, flawlessly, what would happen next. The glass flask would strike the floor. It would shatter. The contents would splash. And my face, at this very moment, was directly beside the impact zone—
Crash!
Blue liquid swallowed my face.
"Noooooo!!"
It burned. I tried to throw myself upright on pure reflex, but not a single finger obeyed. My whole body flared as though I had been plunged into a furnace, my joints twisted, and my vision whirled into chaos.
It had failed. Side effects. Concentration. Cells. The nervous system. Something had gone wrong. I had to think. Had to analyze— Think... have... to... My head...
"Ah......"
It felt as though everything crammed inside my head was drifting away into the distance. What was I trying to do, again?
And then my body shrank. The clothes I wore went loose and baggy, my fingers dwindled small, and sky-blue hair — grown long enough to sweep the floor — swayed at the edges of my vision. Sitting slumped on the floor, I murmured, very, very small:
"Uu......"
Hot. No like.
And then—
Flash!
"Whoa?"
Light bloomed beneath my bottom. Something round had appeared. It sparkled. It was pretty.
"Ooo......"
The instant I reached out to touch it, the light exploded.
The Goddess had been waiting. The savior she had finally found after long ages of searching — the human who could put an end to the Demon King's menace as it spread across the other world of Rand. After poring over countless worlds and countless human souls, the one she had chosen was a single genius of overwhelming intellect. Rosenkraus. Lee Ha-neul, in truth.
At last, a Summoning Circle unfurled across the center of the Chamber of the Oracle. Brilliant light surged upward, and the figure of a person appeared. With a gentle smile, the Goddess began the words she had prepared.
"You have been chosen, O bearer of great wisdom. It is I who have called you to this place — called you to be the Hero who shall deliver the other world of Rand, now gripped by the cruel menace of the Demon King—"
The Goddess's voice stopped.
"...Eh?"
Sitting on the floor was a tiny little girl who might, generously, have measured 140 centimeters tall. Dragging clothes far too big for her, she was gazing blankly up at the Goddess through a curtain of sky-blue hair.
The Goddess's eyes narrowed, slowly.
Ha-neul, for her part, sitting there on the floor, found the woman before her far more wondrous than the question of where exactly she had fallen.
So pretty.
Her hair sparkled and her clothes sparkled, and best of all, her feet never touched the ground — she simply floated there, bobbing in midair. Ha-neul stared up at her, mouth slightly open, then tilted her head to the right.
Floating. Sparkly. Pretty.
Then she must be Floating-Shiny Big Sis.
Ha-neul liked her.
"Hehe."
Laughing, Ha-neul reached out her hand. She snatched at the empty air several times, trying to catch the glittering light, but nothing remained between her fingers.
"Uu?"
She grabbed again. Didn't catch it.
This time she pushed herself up from the floor and tried grabbing at a slightly higher spot — only to step on the huge hem draped over her body and stagger forward.
"Whoaah."
A heartbeat before she fell, she barely caught herself on both palms.
The Goddess's eyebrows twitched.
Ha-neul, as though nothing at all had happened, plopped her bottom back down onto the floor. Whether she had already forgotten nearly toppling over, she turned her gaze back to the Goddess and went back to admiring the sparkling light.
Pretty Big Sis.
Ha-neul nodded to herself, thoroughly satisfied.
The Goddess looked down at the girl without a word. The majestic oracle she had prepared mere moments ago was already fading from her mind. However she looked at it, she could hardly believe that the greatest intellect humanity had ever produced — the one she had wandered existence searching for — and this little girl waving her hands through the empty air, trying to catch the light before her eyes, were one and the same person.
After a long stretch of silence, the Goddess asked, cautiously:
"...Who might you be?"
The little girl tilted her head. Then she beamed.
"Hiya!"
"..."
The Goddess could not manage a single word. She hurriedly raised her divine power and scrutinized the being before her. The body hardly mattered. A human's outward appearance could change any number of ways; it was the essence of the soul that needed confirming.
Brilliant light swept over the girl. And the result that emerged was—
Lee Ha-neul.
No doubt about it. This was the very human she herself had chosen — the soul that had plumbed the laws of the world and unraveled problem after unsolvable problem, the soul that had shown just how far the species called humanity could reach in its wisdom.
The Goddess looked at Ha-neul again. Ha-neul looked back at the Goddess.
"Hehe."
A thin line of drool slipped from the corner of her mouth.
"..."
The Goddess pressed a hand to her forehead. Something had gone very, very wrong. But the summoning was already complete. And sending her back would be no simple matter, either.
"Hero—"
The Goddess opened her mouth, then stopped.
"Hero Ha-neul...?"
Ha-neul tilted her head.
"Hm?"
She tilted it the other way.
The Goddess's lips trembled.
"...Hero Ha-neul, sir."
That seemed like the most correct answer.
"Y-you are to be granted a special power for the salvation of the other world. If there is a weapon or an ability you desire, please, speak it. Swordsmanship, magic — or even a power beyond those, anything within the bounds of what I can—"
Flash!
Ha-neul's hand shot up.
The Goddess's expression brightened a little.
Yes. At heart, this was still that Rosenkraus. Her intelligence appeared to have suffered some mishap, but perhaps the genius-level mind itself remained intact, simply hidden from view. If humanity's greatest genius could choose a single transcendent power from another world, what would it be? Control of time? Dominion over space? Absolute magical power? Or perhaps she would demand the knowledge of this world—
"Dinosaur!"
"...Pardon?"
Ha-neul thrust both arms high into the air. The blue eyes that had been blank and dazed only moments ago now sparkled as though she had just discovered the single most important thing in the world.
"Dinosaur!"
"...A dinosaur?"
"Uh-huh!"
Ha-neul nodded with all her might. Then she curled her little hands up small and held them out in front of her.
"Rawr!"
"..."
"Dinosaur super strong!"
The Goddess closed her eyes.
I chose humanity's greatest genius. I definitely did. Then why? Why did something like this come through?
Oblivious to the Goddess's inner turmoil, Ha-neul waved both hands in delight.
"Rawr! Rawr!"
And so.
The super-genius scientist Rosenkraus, solver of the World's 7 Millennium Prize Problems. Lee Ha-neul, twenty-one years of age, in truth. The treasure of present-day humanity and the hope of its future. And—
140 centimeters tall.
A dinosaur.
Thus began the grand adventure of a new Hero.