In this world, there are those that are fortunate and those who are not. Ethan Bellrose is neither; he is cursed. At nineteen, he has lived his entire life sheltered in his home as his fragile body blisters under sunlight, breaks under the slightest impact, and falls to any sickness. However, the arrival of a world-changing digital service catches the hopeless young man’s eye: “Reincarnation Online”--a virtual reality experience that gives a new fantastical life to those who are unfulfilled with their current path. For Ethan Bellrose, the choice is simple. Without hesitation, he orders the virtual reality headgear, choosing to abandon his current life and live forevermore in the world of fantasy, magic, and endless adventure–”Arcadius.” Though what he finds is a world not full of leisure and trivial triumph, but a world just as alive and full of darkness, glory, and grandeur as Earth–if not greater. Starting from square one as an infant, given a new name and family, this is the eventful life, full of dreadful lows and exhilarating highs, of “Emilio Dragonheart.” [...Booting System…] [Welcome to Reincarnation Online.] [You will henceforth by the recipient of the Dragonheart System.] [Please, enjoy your stay.]
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In this world, there are those that are fortunate and those who are not. Ethan Bellrose is neither; he is cursed. At nineteen, he has lived his entire life sheltered in his home as his fragile body blisters under sunlight, breaks under the slightest impact, and falls to any sickness. However, the arrival of a world-changing digital service catches the hopeless young man’s eye: “Reincarnation Online”--a virtual reality experience that gives a new fantastical life to those who are unfulfilled with their current path. For Ethan Bellrose, the choice is simple. Without hesitation, he orders the virtual reality headgear, choosing to abandon his current life and live forevermore in the world of fantasy, magic, and endless adventure–”Arcadius.” Though what he finds is a world not full of leisure and trivial triumph, but a world just as alive and full of darkness, glory, and grandeur as Earth–if not greater. Starting from square one as an infant, given a new name and family, this is the eventful life, full of dreadful lows and exhilarating highs, of “Emilio Dragonheart.” [...Booting System…] [Welcome to Reincarnation Online.] [You will henceforth by the recipient of the Dragonheart System.] [Please, enjoy your stay.]
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“I’ll support you,” Emilio said, focusing up.
Roan nodded, “‘Preciate it!”
Though it hardly seemed necessary to lend his aid as with swiftness like a bolt of lightning, the red-haired adventurer left the bounds of the carriage and broke the distance between himself and the hog-beasts.
Though it wasn’t that Roan simply moved like lightning; the man swung his magically-manifested claymore towards one of the tall beasts, cleaving through it with sharpened flames before flicking his fingers towards the other, expelling a bolt of crimson lightning that blew its torso apart.
...
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“…I can’t die…not yet…” He mumbled weakly.
It all felt futile; the shreels of arachnids echoed throughout the forest-like park, following behind him as he felt his body hardly responding to his commands anymore.
“–Is that so? Then stay down for a moment, wouldja?”
The voice that spoke out to him was vaguely familiar; a masculine voice that was oddly optimistic for the situation.
As he looked up, his blurry vision could only make out the silhouette of the man standing over him, who had a flowing, black cape on his back and an arm that was gathering crimson flames.
Vandread…? No…who are…? He questioned.
....
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“No, no, no…!”
He frantically swatted his arm in a panic, backing away and picking himself up before slipping right into a curtain of webs.
“Gah…!”
It certainly wasn’t there before; the net of webs that entangled him as he thrashed his limbs about. The cobweb was made out of scarily powerful threads; they were adhesive, sticking to his clothes and skin as his physical strength alone wasn’t enough. In fact, it seemed the more he tussled, the more he was caught in the webs.
...
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“…This is what it means to be an adventurer, right…?” He questioned to himself in a whisper.
Just then, the silver-haired beasts made their move; shuffling through the treeline with unarthodox, zig-zag movements, they closed in on his position with swiftness.
There wasn’t a single droplet of fear that entered his bloodstream as he stood his ground, standing still as he waited for the beasts to come.
They moved carefully, but with speed that made them blurs–to normal eyes, that is. As one leapt towards him with its chest-mouth clamping down, he lifted a single hand in response.
...
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The rumbling was now greater than ever; what was once coming from deep below the sand as if coming from the trenches of an ocean, the vibrating approached quickly.
As he rose to his feet, a look of relief washed over Joel’s face as he closed his eyes, laying against the blue sand and relinquishing himself to whatever was coming.
…Melisande, I’ll be joining you soon…Joel thought.
Just as the azure grains of sand hummed with a frequency that tickled the back of the adventurer’s neck, he was suddenly lifted.
“Huh…? What is…?” Joel said weakly.
...
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“Hold on–!” Ethan yelled out.
It was impossible to maintain any stable footing to support his own strength in the life-or-death tug-of-war as the grains of blue sand continued to slip beneath his boots. So instead of utilizing magic to directly try and combat the issue engulfing Joel, he conjured stone footholds that shaped around his boots.
These rocky molds were directly rooted in the sand, embedding deep and allowing him to maintain his balance while knelt down, extending his arms and holding on with all of his strength.
“…It’s doing something to me! Hurry, Ethan–!” Joel cried out.
“I’m trying…!” Ethan yelled out.
....
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“I’ve got a question,” Ethan said, folding his arms over his chest.
“Y-yeah?” Joel looked over at him, hiding his arm.
Ethan raised an eyebrow, ignoring his companion’s odd behavior, “…Have you seen anybody with dark-brown skin and silver eyes? Wearing all-black clothes and kind of a sour attitude?”
“Huh? No, sorry, that doesn’t ring a bell,” Joel shook his head.
...
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The sheer volume of the blade-like hairs made it impossible to completely defend against, resulting in lacerations being etched on the hot-headed adventurer’s body, though he pressed on.
“Do it, Ethan…!”
“Yeah!”
Gathering his mana from the core of his being and spreading it throughout his body, he envisioned the stalwart nature of rock and the flowing element of water, mixing it together.
...
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“Are we good?” Ethan asked, catching his breath as he looked around the room.
It was an abandoned home, though it wasn’t as in poor shape as the shop he’d been in prior; the furniture was in order, except for a dark-wood table that had been toppled over.
Joel scratched his head, “Err, for the minute, yes…but, there’s a reason I wasn’t inside of a building when we met.”
“What’re you talking about?” He asked.
...
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Ethan accepted the man’s hand before looking at him, “Tell me—what’s really going on around here? It’s completely different from outside—I mean the sky, and well…everything.”
“You mean…the Foundation didn’t tell you?” Joel asked.
As he shook his head in response, he answered with a simple “No.” This seemed to frustrate Joel, who was a hot-headed fellow by the looks of things. It was difficult to tell how reliable of a fighter Joel was, but from his age and demeanor, he didn’t feel like ‘Vandread’ at all. He could see his adventurer badge; the dragon crest that bore a silver gem in the middle.
So he’s a B-rank adventurer?…That’s not reassuring, he thought.
...
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Though it lacked eyes, it was staring right at him; hollow and devoid of anything remotely ‘human’, though it continued emitting those words like a lure.
“Help me…please, please…anybody.”
It was perplexing to him; though he knew its words were shallow recreations of what it had heard, the fact it was repeating them was an odd behavior that he hadn’t yet experienced from a foe.
Soon, its calls shifted, rising in pitch as the holes on its body expanded, “…Help…me—!!!”
...
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As he looked around, trying to gather as much information as he could before delving into the belly of the beast that was Larundog, the blatant display of death from those tasked to protect the city made it clear that whatever lurked within its walls was something extraordinarily lethal.
“Ghh…”
There was a disorder felt secondary to the state of his body; a new magical signature was felt, completely different from that just outside of the gates. It was dark, cold, and malignant.
…What is this? He thought, I need to see the city…something isn’t about this sensation.
...
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The gates had already been opened by Vandread, who quietly slipped through, closing the metal-reinforced entrance behind him.
Alone, he was left with his thoughts, worried about what Vandread could’ve found within the bounds of Larundog.
A nauseating wait ensued; he could only sit there against the tree, listening to the silence of the lifeless road while watching the front gates, hoping to see the abrasive man return from their threshold.
He hugged his knees close to his chest as it began to cool down; the sun shifted, settling from daytime into dusk as the little sunlight that bled through the leaves had been whisked away.
It was that time.
“–” He looked towards the gate.
...
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What made this the obvious choice was what was found on the road, hidden behind one of the desolated carriages on the road: a few men dressed in chainmail were lying on the paved road–dead. They were mangled and eviscerated by inhuman means; their innards strewn out.
“This is…!” Emilio covered his mouth in shock and disgust.
Vandread didn’t bat an eye, only kneeling down to check the lion sigil that was on the guards’ backs, “These are the city guard for Larundog. We can cross out the idea of an illness or other men doing this; injuries like this are the result of something not human.”...
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It was a rare occurrence for him to reach the limits of his personal mana reservoir, but it did happen at times; it was finite, and especially when casting more potent spells, it happened faster. Still, the incredible amount of mana he had used against the chief had still not recovered itself the past couple days.
He jumped back, moving near the stallion again as the swift goblins gave chase.
If I keep tossing magic around, I might end up hurting myself…if I compromise myself in the middle of a fight, that could be it…! I’ll have to rely on my sword for this! He planned.
Luckily, Vandread was taking the brunt of the raiders; he made efficient use of the goblins’ own weapons as projectiles to slay approaching reinforcements. If this were a competition, Emilio would be losing sorely.
While he ran a bit more to put space between him and the chasing goblins so he could get his bearings, throwing knives were tossed towards him, embedding into the stone tiles of the road by his feet.
“Gah!” He let out.....
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With the leisurely pace in which the steed moved, and the relaxing scenery of the verdant, luscious mountains and the light mist of the rising noon that allowed the temperature to be brisk and slightly wet, the journey turned from tense to comfortable.
“Julius thought he had all the game in the world. Though most girls did give him the time of day because of his status and looks, they realized pretty quickly that underneath all of that, he was nothing more than a perverted geezer in the body of a young man.”
Well, that’s one way to put it…Emilio thought.
“I wasn’t any better, I guess. Back then, we had little competitions to see who could pick up more girls,” Vandread said.
“Wait–you?! You did that, too?!” He asked in shock.
Vandread scratched his head, “Ah–well, this was a long time ago. Things…change,” the man seemed gloomy as he said that.....
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“–You’re not going anywhere!”
Just before its entire body vanished into the solid wall, he managed to grab onto its tail, yanking it out without any mercy. The stench of a kobold was strong, even if it wasn’t directly in front of him; their odor was similar to that of a wet dog, only mixed in with rotten eggs and meat.
As he pulled it from the wall of mud, the creature growled and chucked another few rocks his way, but he brushed it off and used his other hand to guide his blade through its chest.
“Grah!” The kobold cried out.
He had to be quick to disengage from one and onto the other, as he slid the felled kobold off of his steel in preparation as another leapt towards him with a pickaxe being wildly swung.
“How’re you holding up back there?” Vandread asked.
“–Fine!” He replied....
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“Don’t do that–!” Vandread yelled.
“Huh–”
He was perplexed by what the man was warning him about, but he realized it the moment the light gave off from the flame; unintelligible growls and murmurs echoed from all around.
It was out of the corner of his eye that he saw it; something like that was so otherworldly and unknown to him that it made him freeze as he failed to register what it was: a stone, like the endless amount in the ravine, sticking in the mud walls, shifted into the form of an unsightly creature.
As the stone morphed, the creature’s complexion was the same as the gray, rigid stone for a moment before becoming a dull, bleached red; its skin was covered with boils and scabs, layered with stringy hair that seemed to cover it from head-to-toe.
It had an animal-like face with a snout and buck teeth, along with beady black eyes, but a humanoid body of a similar size to a human child.
Is this a kobold?! He realized.
In its hand, it wielded a small weapon made out of sharpened stone, which it plunged towards the surprised young man....
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It was high above the two that rode quietly on the stallion; the enigmatic overseer of balance watched as she walked on the sky itself as if the invisible air bore platforms beneath her heeled boots.
Crescentia quietly hummed to herself as she spectated the slumbering Emilio from the sky, “He grows with each encounter. If this continues, he may become a force of destruction soon enough. If that’s the case, I will eliminate him without hesitation.”
There was no falsehood embedded in those golden eyes that belonged to Crescentia; the woman of a youthful appearance spoke only the truth in those words.
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After the festivities quieted down, it was time to finally continue the journey that had come to a standstill.
“As I promised–this is the most reliable steed in the village,” Alekkai said.
A Verma villager, responsible for tending to the horses within the land, brought the lead to Vandread’s hand, who looked at the ginger-furred stallion, petting its hair as he sized it up.
“He’ll do nicely. Thanks,” Vandread said, hopping up on its back.
Alekkai hoisted up a large sack that seemed filled to the brim, “Don’t forget this. You’ll need to eat to survive such a long journey. My wife made sure you had plenty to fill your stomachs with”...
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