Reincarnation Quest (1)

- KRROOOOOAR—!

The Black Dragon's roar thundered across the battlefield.

"You wretched little insects—!"

Dragon Slayer Academy — the academy RPG where all of this was taking place.

The beast was a final-boss-tier monster from that very game.

Its grade: the highest rank there was, S-Rank.

And yet its entire body was already battered and broken, because we had hammered it at every turn without mercy.

- KRROOOAR—!

The Black Dragon roared once more and resumed its assault.

All manner of magic came pouring down like rain, while the monster legions it commanded closed in from every direction.

Without a moment's hesitation, a priestess clad in white vestments clasped her hands together and recited a prayer, and a radiant barrier wrapped itself around our allies.

Against its overwhelming defense, the spells and monster legions alike simply broke and scattered, nothing more.

A small status window floated above the priestess's head, where I could read her name, class, and rank.

Next, the red-haired mage began chanting her spell in a low murmur.

Explosions bloomed across the battlefield, and flames roared skyward.

- KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM!

The rest of the party was plastered with S-Ranks as well.

Even for a dragon, facing a whole horde of equals was bound to strain its limits.

- KRROOOAR—

I could feel the power draining out of its roar.

At that, I gave a light hand signal, and the knight in black armor stepped forward.

He gripped his greatsword, coiled his body low — and then, in an instant, launched himself to a staggering height.

Then he plummeted at terrifying speed and drove his blade clean through the Black Dragon's skull.

- CRUNCH!

"To think... I would fall... like this..."

The dragon's eyes clouded over, dimming little by little until the light went out of them entirely.

And at last, its massive body collapsed to the ground.

- THUD!

Before long, the river of blood that had been spreading across the field gathered into a single point and hardened into a crimson gem.

I tossed it over my shoulder, and the woman waiting behind me received it with a respectful bow.

Sharp fangs gleamed at the corners of her mouth.

Moments later, the gem erupted with a blood-red radiance and unleashed an enormous surge of power — and Carmilla absorbed every last drop of it.

- FWAAASH—!

A short while after, her appearance had changed into something quite different from before.

Watching her, I felt the corner of my mouth curl upward.

'Another one done.'

Hero cultivation. The art of taking a wide-eyed freshman who'd just enrolled at the academy and turning them into an S-Rank graduate.

It was my favorite content in Dragon Slayer Academy — and the one I was most confident in.

'I struggled plenty at the start, though.'

If raising an S-Rank for yourself as the player wasn't easy, doing it for another character was an entirely different beast.

But I burned through countless failures and trial after trial, pouring in every ounce of effort — until, at last, I produced one S-Rank hero, then two.

Yi Seo. Hong Hyeon-ah. Go Yo-han. And countless other heroes besides.

As know-how accumulated and the pace picked up, other users eventually started giving me nicknames.

Beyond those, I'd earned plenty of other nicknames that warped the fabric of space and time just to hear — "Graduate Factory," "The Support Who's Way Too Strong" — but my favorite was always "S-Rank Factory."

'And that makes one thousand.'

With Carmilla, the S-Ranks I'd raised had just crossed into four digits.

The sense of achievement was staggering, but I had no intention of stopping there.

'Gotta keep going. Two thousand. Three thousand.'

Five digits, someday.

But just then, an icon shaped like a note began blinking in the corner of my screen.

It meant an important notification had arrived, so I checked it.

'What's EX supposed to be?'

Wasn't S-Rank supposed to be the ceiling?

Even me — a veteran so ancient I'd long since graduated from old-timer to petroleum to fossil — had never once heard of a tier above it.

I wondered if it was some kind of glitch, but the timing was far too convenient for that.

The moment I hit one thousand S-Ranks, a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠quest arrives aimed squarely at me?

More likely, an EX-Rank had just been added to the game — or revealed for the very first time.

I read over the quest details again.

'Difficulty EX, and reincarnation, huh.'

S-Rank quests were hard enough, and this was a tier above even that.

Worse, it was a Reincarnation Quest — everything would be reset.

My countless skills and traits, the legendary equipment draped over my whole body, the S-Rank heroes I'd bled to raise — all of it would vanish, and I'd have to start from a clean slate.

Throwing in reincarnation perks was, I suppose, the bare minimum of decency.

It already looked like a long, punishing road ahead, but my answer was decided.

'If an EX-Rank quest exists...'

That meant EX-Rank skills existed. EX-Rank items. And EX-Rank heroes.

'I'm going. No question.'

Who knew? This quest might even hold the key to cultivating even stronger heroes.

Give all that up just because it looks hard?

That would be no different from denying who I am.

I chose [Accept] without a moment's hesitation.

The next instant, I opened my eyes in an entirely different place.

A forest overgrown with dreamlike flora.

It was a vista I'd glimpsed now and then while playing Dragon Slayer Academy.

The problem was that this scenery wasn't playing out beyond a screen — it was spread out right in front of me.

And the bigger problem: I was standing smack in the middle of it.

'A dream?'

Had I nodded off without realizing it?

But everything was far too vivid for a dream.

- Whooooosh—

A passing breeze brushed lightly against my face.

There was even the faint scent of grass on the air.

If this wasn't a dream, then what — I'd fallen into the world of the game?

And if so, who was behind this? What was their true purpose?

One question spawned the next, but no answers were coming.

Instead, notification messages slid into view in the corner of my vision.

In Dragon Slayer Academy, rank was the yardstick of growth.

You started at F, climbed through E and D in turn... and eventually made your way up to S.

Though apparently, EX sat at the top now.

'Not that rank is everything, of course.'

How special and rare your skills and traits were, how many you possessed, how you combined them, how you deployed them — all these factors combined to determine a character's true strength.

The Sovereign, Amplification, and Copy skills I'd just acquired had been among the most powerful and versatile of all the skills and traits I'd ever held.

Befitting "reincarnation perks," I'd been handed back only the essentials.

Take Sovereign, for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠instance — a trait with a raft of layered effects, one of which was a formidable mental barrier.

My racing thoughts had already settled into a cool calm, which suggested the thing had real bite even at F-Rank.

I took a light, deep breath and thought.

'No point worrying about it now. Just push forward first.'

Something would come of it, one way or another.

Decisions could wait until then.

Having settled that, I turned my focus to the game itself.

'Perks acquired. Might as well check my status window.'

Wait — how did I even summon it?

The moment that question formed, the status window appeared on its own.

Exactly as the quest had warned, everything had been wiped clean.

A freshly created character with reincarnation perks bolted on — that was it.

There was nothing more to see, so I dismissed the status window, and another notification popped up.

Barely had I caught my breath, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it was already throwing tutorial quests at me.

The objective: simply run and hide for ten minutes.

The thing was, a proper tutorial had you surviving ten minutes in a beginner zone, weaving through a crowd of bottom-tier monsters like goblins — whereas I was standing in the middle of a forest in who-knows-where.

'Something's coming right out of the gate, isn't it.'

- THUD! THUD!

Sure enough, heavy footsteps came lumbering toward me.

Pushing through the undergrowth appeared a mid-tier monster: an Ogre.

In one hand, it clutched a club the size of a human corpse.

"Guuuuuh......"

'An ogre, from the tutorial onward.'

Its grade sat somewhere between C and D.

Meanwhile, my own grade had been all but reset — hovering around F-Rank.

With a rank gap that extreme, especially in raw physical ability, I couldn't topple this thing if I died and came back to life a hundred times.

Running wasn't an option either.

'Dodging might be doable, though.'

Ogres had monstrous physical stats but simplistic movement patterns — predict them properly, and evasion was entirely possible.

'The question is whether my body can keep up.'

Would there be a disconnect between manipulating my character through a screen and actually moving this flesh myself?

Not that I had any other choice at the moment.

It was do-or-die.

I locked my eyes on the ogre and readied myself to move at any instant.

My heart was inexplicably calm, right on the eve of a gamble with my life on the line.

Apparently Sovereign was already at work.

The ogre let out a low growl, and then—

"Guuuuuh......"

- WHAM!

It swung the club without warning.

I flung myself sideways, and the spot where I'd been standing a heartbeat ago caved in.

- WHAM!

The club came sweeping horizontally next, but I was already flat against the ground.

A sickening rush of air whispered just over my head.

After that, I simply kept repeating the cycle — predict, evade, retreat.

'Thankfully, this body moves just fine.'

No difference whatsoever from piloting a character on a screen.

What's more, abstract concepts like mana and skills were slowly starting to make intuitive sense in my head.

'Might as well try out a skill while I'm at it.'

Anything that gave me even a slim edge in getting out of this situation.

Exactly as the name suggested, a skill that copied an ability held by a target.

Copy — Skill duplicated a skill, while Copy — Trait duplicated a trait.

But it came with a few restrictions.

The most important ones: you had to witness the target's skill or trait in action with your own eyes, and you had to correctly guess its name and rank.

Luckily, as a fossil-tier veteran, I knew every monster's kit by heart.

In my experience, the trait an ogre carried was—

'Monstrous Strength, C-Rank.'

Not that it put me in any position to fight the thing head-on.

'But it's enough to slow it down, at least.'

I kept dodging the club as I retreated, and when a tree of suitable thickness caught my eye, I shoved it with every ounce of my borrowed strength.

The trunk snapped clean at the base and toppled right into the ogre's path.

"Guuuuh......"

The ogre flailed both arms in irritation, swatting the tree aside.

Next, it simply shoved through the trees blocking its way with brute force.

Still, just as I'd intended, it seemed to have thrown at least a small wrench into the pursuit.

And so a game of tag between me and the beast dragged on for a while.

When I finally checked the remaining time—

More than half the clock was already gone.

Hold out just a little longer, and the tutorial would be over.

But then—

"Guuuaah?"

The ogre flinched to a halt and shuddered violently, as if stricken by a sudden chill.

Then it whipped around in a panic and bolted from the area entirely.

'Huh? Where's it going?'

Since when was an ogre scared of anything?

Even as the thought crossed my mind—

"KRROOOOOOAR—!"

A roar split the air directly overhead, loud enough to tear my eardrums apart.

A colossal silhouette shot past in a blur.

"KRROOOOOOAR—!"

The roar thundered again.

This time, I could see the flying creature clearly.

The mightiest lifeform in Dragon Slayer Academy. An S-Grade boss monster.

A dragon.

Two of them, in fact.