Kays Translations

Volume 1: Reincarnation

Prologue

Ren Shiina loved worlds of swords and magic.

Ever since childhood, he had played almost nothing but fantasy games. Fantasy novels were also his favorites.

When it came to stories set in fantasy worlds, he was confident he could stay awake for days and still enjoy himself.

That was the kind of young man Ren Shiina was.

Of course, gaming was not the only thing in his life.

He was a fourth-year university student, and lately his days had been hectic as he searched for a job. On top of that, he worked part-time four days a week to fund his gaming hobby.

One weekend, Ren cleared three entire days for a new game he had been eagerly awaiting.

He downloaded it the moment Friday began and played for half a day plus several more hours.

That evening, he shouted in delight in front of the television.

“I reached the ending!”

The game was a role-playing game with no competitive mode.

He was not competing against anyone, but after playing without a break until evening, it felt good to post part of the ending screen on social media while the excitement was still fresh.

Naturally, he took care not to spoil anything. That was basic etiquette for a gamer.

“Could this be the fastest clear in the world?”

As though answering him, words appeared on the ending screen.

“System: Congratulations on clearing the game. Would you like to record your clear time on the server? Yes / No.”

“Of course! Okay, and… done!”

Not long after Ren selected “Yes,” another system message appeared.

It proved his hunch correct and included a sentence that made his heart race.

“System: As a reward for placing first in the clear-time rankings, you have obtained special downloadable content. Would you like to download it? Yes / No.”

“Special content…? Of course I do!”

Ren hurriedly selected “Yes.” A progress indicator appeared in the corner of the screen: one percent… then, several minutes later, two percent…

Watching it fill gave Ren a pleasant sense of superiority.

He had no idea what the special downloadable content contained, but the message called it a reward for first place. In other words, he was receiving data no one else had.

No gamer could remain calm about that.

“…I should settle down a little.”

Ren leaned back against the sofa and tried to calm his pounding heart.

With nothing to do while he waited, he picked up his phone and opened the official website for the game he had just finished.

The Legend of the Seven Heroes II.

As the “II” suggested, it was a sequel.

It was a fantasy RPG popular around the world, and its developers had announced that it would be a trilogy.

Its story followed a fairly classic path.

Several centuries after seven heroes defeated the Demon King, their descendants attended an academy, overcame many hardships, and grew stronger.

The protagonist was a country boy born to commoner parents.

When a hidden power awakened within him as a child, he was sent to the Imperial Academy in the capital, the finest school in the empire. There he met six young men and women said to carry the blood of the Seven Heroes, and together they became entangled in a struggle to stop those plotting the Demon King’s resurrection.

The story was enormous, partly because the player could also pursue a romance with a heroine of their choice.

At the end of the first game, the protagonist was revealed to be the last surviving descendant of one of the Seven Heroes, whose bloodline had supposedly died out.

Players could see the revelation coming, but Ren still believed there was nothing wrong with a classic story told well.

“Still, the second game was incredible…”

The sequel he had just completed contained the greatest upheaval in the series so far.

The protagonist’s friend murdered a girl known as the Saint and even killed the academy’s headmaster, who was hailed as the strongest mage alive.

Afterward, the friend vanished.

From then on, incidents broke out throughout the empire.

The missing friend would appear at the scenes of those disturbances, make cryptic remarks, and sometimes fight the protagonists.

Yet the game reached its ending without revealing either his true objective or his relationship to the people trying to resurrect the Demon King.

In the final scene, the emperor ordered that the friend be hunted down, leaving the rest of the story for the third game.

Simply remembering it made Ren excited all over again.

Unable to calm down, he set aside his phone and picked up the controller instead.

“Hmm… what should I do?”

He had been playing since morning, but strangely enough, he was not tired.

The special content was still downloading, so he returned the game to the title screen and decided to start fresh while he waited.

“I want to try the New Game Plus features anyway. I might as well start another run.”

The game had a wealth of replay content.

“What skill should I use this time?”

The protagonist’s appearance could not be changed, but his skills could be customized freely.

From the second playthrough onward, the available options increased dramatically.

Players could rename skills in Japanese and even combine up to three skills to create an original one.

There were restrictions, of course. Statistics and effects were adjusted to preserve the game’s balance, and renaming Nature Magic to Spirit Arts, for example, would be rejected because a descendant of another Hero already possessed that power.

In short, the player could not create a unique skill reserved for a special individual.

“The magic swordsman build everyone liked online… No, maybe I should make a holy knight instead…”

In the first game, the protagonist began with the Swordsman skill, unlocked Advanced Swordsman partway through the story, and gained access to Guardian on a second playthrough.

In the second game, the player could begin as a Guardian, choose another starting skill, or create an original one.

Players had researched countless combinations, and detailed guides described their compatibility and effects.

There were even hidden skills, giving the game an impressive amount of depth.

“Nothing feels right… Since I’m doing this, I want to find a hidden skill.”

A hidden skill appeared when the correct skills were combined, automatically filling in the class name.

Ren spent the next several dozen minutes searching for one.

He found nothing.

He tried dozens of combinations, then hundreds, without success.

At last, exhausted, he reached for his phone and searched social media to see whether anyone else had cleared the game.

“Oh?”

Several posts caught his attention.

“That guy is definitely the boss of the third game.”

“He’s the mastermind. He’s probably the one trying to resurrect the Demon King.”

“Near the end, he felt like the black-clad member of a sentai team. Honestly, he was cool.”

Apparently, a handful of other players had already seen the ending.

Ren had spoken with some of them online before, so he decided it was safe to message them.

“Did any of you find a hidden skill? Send.”

Replies arrived in less than a minute.

Unfortunately, none of them had found one. Ren was disappointed, but the news also strengthened his determination to discover it himself.

After using eye drops and refocusing, he noticed that the download had reached ninety-nine percent.

“Finally.”

The special content reached one hundred percent just as he spoke.

“Download complete!” flashed on the screen for a few seconds, then vanished.

“What was that…? Nothing was added to the list.”

Ren’s shoulders sagged.

He had been looking forward to it, but nothing seemed different. Assuming it might be a bug, he sighed deeply and returned to testing skill combinations.

Then–

Several dozen minutes later, he stumbled upon a hidden skill.

“Magic Sword Summoning?!”

The three combined skills were Swordsman, Black Magic, and Summoner.

Ren tilted his head in confusion.

“That’s strange… I’m sure I tried this combination already.”

They were all commonly used skills. There was no reason he would have overlooked such an obvious combination.

The only explanation was that he had entered it again by mistake.

After testing hundreds of combinations, accidentally repeating one was inevitable.

That must have been all there was to it.

“Or… did the special downloadable content unlock it?”

He did not know the answer, but a smile spread across his face. Delighted to have found a hidden skill, he pressed the confirmation button.

However–

“System: Magic Sword Summoning is a unique skill and cannot be used in Normal Mode.”

Ren’s head dropped, and his forehead struck the desk with a solid thud.

He wanted to shout, “Are you kidding me?!” But the next moment, he looked up sharply at the screen.

“Was there any character who used a skill called Magic Sword Summoning?”

Even while rushing for the fastest clear, there was no way he would have missed a skill like that.

It might have belonged to a hidden character or appeared in a secret event, but…

Ren stared at the system message still displayed on the screen.

“What does it mean by ‘cannot be used in Normal Mode’?”

Come to think of it, he had never seen that wording before.

When a player selected a unique skill, the game normally rejected it with nothing more than a statement that unique skills were unavailable.

Curious, Ren changed the difficulty setting and tried again, but the result was the same at every difficulty.

Still puzzled, he opened the description for Magic Sword Summoning.

“Allows the user to summon a magic sword. A magic sword’s abilities can be strengthened by using magic stones to increase its proficiency. Additional types of magic swords become available when special conditions are fulfilled.”

Magic stones were crystals found inside the bodies of monsters in the game.

For characters with close-combat skills, they were mainly sold for money. Characters with magical skills could use them to restore mana or gain buffs that enhanced magic. Particularly beautiful stones were also used as ornaments by nobles.

Even after reading the description, Ren could not remember any character who possessed such a skill.

After several minutes of frowning at the screen, he noticed a line of text glowing in one corner.

“Start a special story.”

Ren selected “Yes” without hesitation.

“There it is–huh?”

A large system message filled the screen.

“System: Would you like to begin a special story using the skill Magic Sword Summoning? Yes / No.”

Again, Ren chose “Yes” without hesitation.

A brilliant white light began to swallow his vision, and his consciousness rapidly faded.

He slumped sideways onto the sofa and lost consciousness completely.

TOC | Next chapter