The Forsaken Hero

… Geh… where am I…?

I can’t feel my body.

Memories of what happened started flowing through my mind.

Samejima deceiving me. Turned into fodder by my cla.s.smates. Killed by demons.

What a harsh life…

But I guess it’s alright? I finally got away from them…

If we ever meet again, I’ll kill them no matter what.

I’ll torture them before I kill them. I’ll torment them just enough so that they don’t die. I’ll crush their fingers like they did to me, I’ll cut their feet up, I’ll crack their skulls.

That should make me feel better. I don’t care what happens after that.

… That aside…

Right now… I’m conscious? Does that mean I got reincarnated into my next life!?

That’s the only explanation!

I can’t think of anything else it could mean!

This time I’ll get an overpowered ability and make a harem!

Even if I don’t get that, please at least let me marry someone and live a happy life!

Alright, let’s go.

Let’s reincarnate!

Full of antic.i.p.ation for that, I opened my eyes.

I was surprised. I didn’t think they’d open. That wasn’t the only reason, though.

It’s what I saw when I did so.

“—Huh?”

It’s because I was in Rigal Den, the dungeon that should have been the place I died.

Katsuragi Daichi, sixteen years old.

Just when I thought I’d died, I was alive.

No, no, no!

“… What’s going on…?”

I was confused. It gave me so much of a shock that I couldn’t think properly.

Let’s calm down and sort through it. It’s times like this where taking deep breaths help.

In, out, in, out.

“Pheeeeew…”

… … Alright, let’s make sure if I’m still in Rostalgia or if I’m in some other world.

Fortunately, I have a way to check that rather easily.

I spoke the word—

“Open.”

—and the answer appeared before me.

Katsuragi Daichi
Job: Hero Lv. 2
Stamina: 1300
Mana: 2520
Strength: 3400
Resistance: 2600
Dexterity: 1400
Special Abilities:

Unique Abilities:

“… What!?”

I rubbed my eyes. This has to be a joke, there’s no way.

I closed my status and opened it again.

The values it showed were no different.

“The h.e.l.l’s going on with these stupid values!?”

They were in the four digit range. All of them.

Even though not even Samejima had went over five hundred, mine went well beyond a thousand.

“What’s with this unique ability…?”

If its explanation is to be believed, I can’t die. My level didn’t go up, so it should be safe for me to think of it as giving me overpowered stats. It looks to be different from special abilities somehow.

Rather, I’ve already died five times…?

W-well, it’s the present that’s important. I won’t dwell on the past. Right now, I’m alive. That’s good.

Setting that aside, I have several new special abilities as well. They’re all incredibly strong.

Indomitable Mentality and Lich King in particular.

My mana can’t go below a hundred. I can use as much magic as I want.

I wonder what kind of things I can enslave?

I don’t know anything else about it since it doesn’t say, but I’ll figure it out as I use it.

“Setting aside my stats, I guess that I’m still in Rostalgia…?”

I died and revived five times. I a.s.sume that means I was revived, eaten, and revived again… in a loop.

So long as I have this Revenge of the Grudgebearer thing, I won’t really die.

The only thing I’m sure of right now is that I’m alive, so I’ll trust my unique ability.

Hmm?

Then does that mean that my stats are real too?

I’ll have to give them a shot, experience is important.

Just in case. This isn’t the Earth, the place I actually get. This is Rostalgia, another world.

“Next on the list is to confirm what happened.”

I looked around.

The floor around me wasn’t brown, it was covered with red. A liquid.

When I tried touching it, I heard a water-like splash.

It wasn’t water, though.

It was blood.

“… I guess… that’s my blood, huh…”

There was a ton of blood. I did die five times, so… yeah.

… But really… I’m actually alive?

I felt all around my body. I even rolled my clothes out of the way to look at my skin directly. I didn’t even have a scratch on me.

My clothes are all red from soaking up the blood though… it feels horrible.

“… Well then.”

I stood up and stretched to loosen up my body.

“What should I do now?”

My first objective should be getting out of this dungeon.

I’d like to use the stairs to go up to the previous floor, but I can’t use them since they were blocked up by ground-type magic.

The only weapon I had on me was a bronze sword. Moreover, it had fractured halfway down the blade. Probably the demons’ doing.

Some of the equipment I had on me just before I died like my robe were alright, so I guess that’s a small mercy?

“—So I guess I’ll be heading back unarmed?”

I didn’t feel safe. But it’d be the same thing if I did nothing. I’d just starve from lack of food.

I don’t want that. I don’t want to just stay here.

I’ll make something of my life.

This time, I’ll fight back. I’ll go with what I think is right.

So I’m going to take my revenge on them. I will kill them all.

I’ll vent my grudge from them killing me and everything else they’ve done to me on them, all of it.

That’s what I’ve decided.

Now that I’ve decided to do it, I should see it through.

“I suppose I should focus on raising my level and stats first…”

No matter how much my stats rose, they have twenty-nine heroes on their side.

I don’t know how to take on so many people alone. h.e.l.l, I don’t even know magic.

Even after becoming this powerful, taking them all on sounds like a bad idea.

Besides, I might be able to head back to the surface after defeating the boss of this dungeon’s lowest floor.

I’m only thinking that because of mechanics added to all of the dungeon games I used to play allowing players to teleport straight outside after clearing a dungeon, but it’s worth a shot at least.

“Alright, guess I should look for the stairs down.”

After repacking and shouldering a bag that had been abandoned, I walked along the path.

I eventually reached a huge room with its doors left open.

“Woah…”

My mouth dropped open.

There was green and red blood all around the room. The green blood is from the demons, leaving the red blood to be from Samejima and the others.

“Doesn’t look like there’s anything here… hmm?”

As I looked all throughout the room, I found a corpse in the corner to the left of the entrance.

As well as the silver-colored wolf eating it.

“Geh—”

The grotesque sight caused me to blurt out.

It was enough to draw the wolf’s attention.

“Grrrr!!”

The wolf immediately shot over to me. It closed the distance between us like a gale wind—and leapt.

“Woah!?”

I punched at the wolf who jumped straight at me like a bullet.

At that instant, I heard the sound of my fist striking against bone.

The wolf’s head exploded.

“D-did… did I kill it?”

My arm had pierced into its head all the way to its neck. My fist made its way entirely out of the neck.

The wolf convulsed, soon dropping down limply.

It was dead. By a single amateurish punch.

“… Haha… hahaha! Awesome! This is so awesome!”

Realizing the significance of my feat, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

I killed the monstrous demon Samejima and the others were all afraid of.

By myself. With a single punch.

It was the first time I’d felt anything like it, there’s no way I could stop myself.

“Hmph!”

Pulling out my left hand, I threw the corpse back. I walked ahead to the other body that was being eaten until a moment ago.

“This girl is…”

Black hair that extended to her waist. Large b.r.e.a.s.t.s disproportionate to her half-eaten body.

There’s no mistaking her. There’s only one person I know who matches these looks.

The dead person laying before me was Hamakaze Shuri. A popular mascot-like person for our cla.s.s.

“… Well, she’ll work.”

Not how she was right then, of course. I’m not that perverted.

She’s the best. The best thing to test my special ability on, that is.

“The explanation said creatures that have died, right…?”

I thought back to what it said.

“Let’s take this as an experiment, then. Experience is the best teacher.”

I started to invoke my special ability, Lich King, with Hamakaze as my target. Upon doing so, the incantation for it flowed directly into my mind.

“I shall bestow you with new life, a second life. Make a pact with me and become my servant. Contract Resurrection!”

A sparkling blue light came from my hands and descended into Hamakaze. A hexagonal magic formation appeared under the girl.

“So it heals wounds too!”

I was a little excited.

Her body was damaged, but it was quickly being mended.

Really, it would have been disgusting if she stayed like that with her organs all hanging out.

The light stayed there for around ten minutes before finally vanishing.

That was probably the signal for her being revived.

“H-hey, Hamakaze? Wake up.”

Timidly poking her cheep, I checked to see if she was alive.

With that, she opened her dark-colored eyes.

They weren’t clouded. They were eyes with a soul backing them.

She was breathing. Their fair skin exposed to the very limit, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s faintly moved up and down.

“Experiment… successful!”

“H-huh? I’m… alive? Didn’t I die?”

The first words Hamakaze spoke were shaky.

Not even looking at me standing right next to her, she hurriedly checked her body’s condition.

… Her reaction gave me deja vu.

“Hey, are you alright?”

I wasn’t exactly in a situation where I could just wait on her.

Nothing would change if other demons came, but it would be a waste of time.

Which is why I called out to her and presented my hand.

She’ll probably just say I’m gross or something.

And I would punish her for doing so.

… But that isn’t what happened.

“Oh… o-okay…”

Hamakaze responded to me with a slight blush on her cheeks. When she took my hand and stood up, she stared at me blankly.

Like a maiden in love.

… No, no. That’s not what I should be thinking.

“U-umm!”

“What?”

“I-I’m Hamakaze Shuri. Umm… c-could I know your name?”

“… … Huh?”

What’s with her question? Doesn’t she know that I’m Katsuragi Daichi?

“U-umm, did you not want to tell me? S-sorry.”

Hamakaze looked down, tears forming in her eyes.

H-huh?

What’s going on?

I think I might need to check what I look like after this.

“Hey, Hamakaze.”

“Sh-Shuri is fine.”

“Sorry, but I don’t think I’m someone you want calling you that.”

It would be annoying for her to accompany me without telling her my name though.

I might as well tell her. I don’t know why, but it looks like she favors me now.

“I’m Katsuragi Daichi.”

“… Eh? Katsuragi Dai… eh?”

Hamakaze opened and closed her mouth, pointing at me. It was pretty funny to see.

“Yeah. I’m the very same Katsuragi Daichi that was summoned with you all.”

“N-no way…!”

Hamakaze plopped down on the ground.

Looks like her hopes just got smashed. Hah, serves her right.

I started to feel a bit better.

“You know, Hamakaze, there’s something I want you to tell me.”

“… … …”

“Hey.”

“… Don’t talk to me, know your place.”

“… Hoh?”

When she learned who I really was, she went right back to how she really was. My cla.s.smates never change, do they?

But this time, our positions have been reversed.

I am the strong one, you’re the weak one.

“Hamakaze. That wasn’t a request. It’s an order. You will answer my question.”

“What are you saying? Don’t you know your place?”

Saying that, she chanted an incantation.

“Fire spirits, burn him! Fireball!”

The fireball that should have appeared in the air didn’t appear. Hamakaze blinked, dazed.

“W-why!? I should have had enough mana!?”

“Why don’t you check your status to find out?”

I smirked. I probably looked close to a villain.

“O-open!”

Katsuragi Daichi
Job: High-Grade Slave Lv. 12
Stamina: 620
Mana: 520
Strength: 190
Resistance: 200
Dexterity: 320
Special Abilities:

Special Abilities:

Special Conditions:

“W-what is this…?”

Hamakaze was dumbfounded.

By the way, it seemed as though that I was able to see the status of anyone who was my slave.

I saw Hamakaze’s status appear in front of me as well.

“Understand now, Hamakaze? I’m your master, you are my slave. You cannot go against me.”

“Th-there’s no way I’d accept that!”

“It’s the truth. After all, isn’t this just divine retribution for everything you’ve done to me?”

“I-I didn’t do anything!”

“True, you didn’t torment me personally, but you didn’t try to help me either. That is your sin.”

“No way…”

“Do you know how much I suffered? You don’t, do you? Every single day, I was beaten, I was abused. Do you think you could understand how that feels?”

“… …”

Hamakaze was unable to respond at all. Of course she couldn’t. Even if she could understand, she wouldn’t be able to.

I would have been mad if she went ahead and said she understood so carelessly.

“… Tch, just cover up your chest and answer my questions… and here.”

I give her the robe that I was wearing.

“W-what?”

“My robe. Use it to warm up a bit. You were dead there for a bit.”

“I-I don’t need your charity…”

“Even though your legs have been quivering for a while now? Don’t hold me up.”

“… Hmph.”

Hamakaze took the robe from my hand and reluctantly put it on.

After glaring at me sharply, she stopped as though changing her mind and whispered something.

“Huh? Did you say something?”

“No! And don’t look at me!”

“… Whatever.”

When I walked out of the room, Hamakaze fell in beside me.

[… Thank you.]

That I heard those words that I hadn’t heard in so long… I’ll keep a secret.