--[Side quest completed: Clear all Cursed Invaders from Cairo. All participating members of the Reincarnator team receive 1 B-rank side-story, plus 4,000 points.]
Praise be to the Main God~
The announcement rang in their ears. Kobayashi and the other surviving Reincarnators were overjoyed. Whatever the next trial had in store, for now, they were happier than they'd ever been.
Regardless of the rewards from individual kills, the main quest involving Imhotep, along with this side quest, was enough to leave the entire East Sea Team rolling in wealth.
An A-rank resource pack! They couldn't spend it all even if they tried!
In the next moment, all things fell still.
Teleportation began.
Half-asleep and half-awake, Uchiha Xiu felt solid ground beneath his feet.
The Main God's healing light had already descended upon everyone at the slightest thought.
Including him.
The bill, however, was paid by each person individually.
Kaguya-hime and he had spent only 156 points in total to quietly heal the tiny internal injuries they hadn't even noticed, mainly restoring their depleted chakra.
--Main God, calculate my current resources.
Give me the full list. Check carefully for embezzlement!
The Great Light Sphere's response came as swiftly as ever.
[Calculating...]
"East Sea Team Captain Uchiha Xiu, your rewards this time are as follows—"
"Completed the newcomer briefing: received 100 points."
"Completed the main quest, eliminating the Undying Priest Imhotep: received 2 B-rank side-stories and 6,000 points."
"Killed Imhotep: received 1 A-rank side-story and 8,000 points."
"Saved Evelyn, a protagonist of The Mummy series, once: received 1 C-rank side-story and 1,500 points."
"Completed the side quest, escorting Evelyn, O'Connell, and Jonathan safely out of the City of the Dead: received 2 C-rank side-stories and 3,000 points."
"Completed the side quest, clearing all Cursed Invaders from Cairo: received 1 B-rank side-story and 4,000 points."
"Killed 5 animated Sphinxes: received 5 D-rank side-stories and 2,500 points."
"Killed 68 cursed Sand Statue Pharaoh Guards: received 3,400 points."
"..."
All the mass kills of minor enemies created by Kaguya-hime had also been recorded, but only the elite Sphinxes had granted side-stories. The rest had merely converted into points.
--[Full-body restoration: 156 points spent.]
--[Automatically combining side-stories and adding the previous balance: 1 D-rank side-story, 19 points.]
"East Sea Team Captain Uchiha Xiu, you currently possess 2 A-rank side-stories, 1 B-rank side-story, and 2 C-rank side-stories."
"38,543 points."
So what if the next trial was a team battle? In the first generation, with the Main God's approval, they'd acquired an incredible amount of resources through legitimate means. They also had two Bibles as spoils of war, plus the excavation they were about to return to...
This time, it had truly been a complete and utter bumper harvest!
"Six trials to clear the final battle? I bet we'll speedrun it before then."
As Uchiha Xiu was still musing to himself, Kobayashi Yoshito's boisterous voice came from beside him:
"Hahaha! That's enough to strengthen every skill I had before Soul Bender's Awakening! Tombstone, Kalla of the Dark Flame, Plague Rakshasa, Ghost Step, Kalla of the Dark Flame..."
The undisciplined fellow was waving his arms around, practically dancing with joy.
"An A-rank side-story, and a D-rank one too! Plus nearly 12,500 points!"
"Banzai! Hooray!"
It was understandable.
If this had happened to the Central Continent Team, their seemingly delighted guide, Brother Jie, would surely have cheered, "From now on, I'll buy two bowls of soy milk every time. I'll drink one and pour the other out!"
"Too bad the prerequisites for learning the Awakening skill, Seventh Ghost God: Evil God Blache, are so difficult. I'll have to wait until the next trial."
"Or I could follow the captain again when we return to The Mummy for a second run and get in on another high-grade group side quest. Heh."
At that, Uchiha Xiu couldn't help glancing at him, then turned his gaze to the team's healer, Kitagawa Nacai—
If he remembered correctly, before a Paladin awakened into an Evangelist, there was already a powerful resurrection skill called Light of Resurrection.
He didn't know whether she could exchange for it.
Would the Main God raise the bar for resurrection skills?
Of course, if they were talking about resurrection... the Samsara of Heavenly Life from the Naruto world could also bring the dead back to life.
Could it be used on Reincarnators? Since the Ninja World had been marked in the East Sea Team's log after he arrived, it should have been incorporated into the Main God's multiverse, right?
To be honest, Uchiha Xiu still hadn't figured out some of the mysteries.
But ever since he'd been invited to join the Reincarnation space, everything that had happened had been good news~
Once they won the final battle and transcended, everything would become clear!
Meanwhile.
In a corner of the plaza, Zhao Yingkong opened her eyes. She met Uchiha Xiu's gaze almost by instinct, feeling both expectant and uncertain.
What should she exchange for? Calling the Main God's list of available items vast as the sea would be no exaggeration.
At that moment, she quietly released the binding she had kept in place across her chest.
Uchiha Xiu had to admit honestly that, for an instant, his gaze had been drawn to her breasts.
He had seen proportions like that before—Tsunade was certainly well endowed—but this was the first time he'd seen such an astonishing combination of a childlike face and a mature figure...
"Holy crap! A baby-faced—"
A surviving newcomer happened to see it too and let out an instinctive cry.
His voice cut off abruptly.
A curved blade rested against his neck.
The cold-faced killer loli had issued her warning through action. The newcomer, who'd narrowly escaped death and seemed a little too excitable, hurriedly shut his mouth, wishing he could slap himself twice.
If he couldn't keep his mouth shut, those three idiots abandoned in the desert who hadn't made it back would be a cautionary tale!
"Here. Besides the Paladin system, take this Book of Amun-Ra and learn the powerful spells recorded in it. They'll give you a lot of useful options in different situations."
As he spoke, Uchiha Xiu tossed the Book of Amun-Ra to the team's healer, Kitagawa Nacai.
"Don't worry, Captain. I'll fulfill my role as a spellcaster."
At the same time, Zhao Yingkong sheathed her blade and quietly approached the gentle big sister.
--During the battle to curse Cairo, she'd come to trust the healer's judgment. She really was reassuring.
In the real world, it had also been Sister Nacai's timely spellcasting that gave that sharp-tongued Soul Bender a chance to fight her several times, running all the way from America to the South Pacific, then back to Neon without giving her an opening to kill him.
"Phew~ We're finally safe."
A female newcomer spoke up, trying to break the awkward silence.
Someone immediately chimed in: "Strengthen me! Strengthen me! Fuck, I'm sick of getting slaughtered by the Undying Legion... I want to get stronger!"
And so, the space that had once been quiet and deserted immediately grew lively. The East Sea Team had gained more newcomers, bringing a little more life to the place.
One, two, three, four.
Including Zhao Yingkong, four candidates had truly joined the team. The casualty rate had been a little higher than expected.
And that was with two veteran members working together and the help of the local Medjai forces.
Leaving aside the three who'd deliberately abandoned the team, were nearly half of the dead newcomers just unlucky?
Or had they brought it on themselves, with some unseen force at work, unwilling to let them join hands with me in this generation?
"Hmm, never mind."
"One's a white boxer. During his introduction, he said he'd won a regional Golden Belt, so he'd made it to the top of his field. His name's Paul."
"One's a white-collar woman. She's completely unenhanced and in her natural state. Kaguya used the Byakugan to examine her and found that her brain's mental activity was about ten percent higher than the human average. Honda Yui."
"One looks ordinary enough, with short, cropped hair and skin tanned almost black. He's a lecherous office drone, apparently a construction-site surveyor. I think his name's Mizutani... Akira?"
Under the captain's scrutiny, everyone fell silent again.
Uchiha Xiu didn't need to explain much. Kobayashi Yoshito, a veteran who'd entered the space a world earlier, had already helped them understand all the rules about life in the space and strengthening themselves.
"First of all, welcome to the East Sea Team."
"The next trial will take place in Event Horizon. Our team-battle opponents are..."
"Forest Continent Team."
"West Sea Team!"
"A three-team battle."
As expected, both teams were breeder teams. That much had been made clear in the original story.
This was a mission where they served as the Main God's blade, eliminating butcher-type Reincarnators.
No big deal... As long as we have enough resources, I can tear through these guys who raise people like livestock!
As for the horror movie itself, it wasn't particularly obscure. To some hardcore viewers, tracking down the deleted gruesome scenes was a kind of achievement.
"That movie's pretty disgusting," Kobayashi Yoshito said with a frown.
Apparently, he'd seen it too.
"I think it was also called Event Horizon," Honda Yui, the white-collar woman, said, biting her lip. Her expression was uneasy.
She'd managed to find some of the movie's deleted scenes through special channels, indulging her secret, morbid fascination—
Rumor had it that the film originally contained all kinds of cult-like imagery. But during the test screenings, the gore-loving VIP audience and Paramount executives couldn't stomach most of it, so the scenes were ultimately cut.
The footage included, but wasn't limited to, dismemberment, self-mutilation, cannibalism, and orgies. Only a few brief, pixelated glimpses had appeared in the theatrical release.
Paramount later intended to release a director's cut on disc and make more money, but much of the original film and footage had already been destroyed or lost. The plan had gone nowhere.
Instead, the film had become even more famous in certain circles.
The unattainable was always the most alluring.
"What exactly is it about?" Zhao Yingkong asked.
"Hmm, a space ghost story with plenty of elements to appeal to fans of science, religion, and fantasy. Some Warhammer 40,000 fans, for example, love it," Uchiha Xiu explained patiently.
"What's Warhammer?"
"..."
Right. He'd almost forgotten that the loli-faced female assassin in front of him was a relic from the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Back then, the internet wasn't widespread, let alone short-form videos, so people's knowledge was limited.
--Main God, project the movie.
--And prepare some snacks.
[In 2047, a spaceship called the New Frontier, which had been exploring beyond the solar system, reappeared near Neptune after mysteriously disappearing seven years earlier. After receiving its signal, an Earth rescue team immediately set out to investigate and bring it home.
Also traveling with them was the New Frontier's designer, Dr. Weir.
When they reached deep space and drew near, life scans showed signs of life throughout the ship. But once the rescue team went inside to search, they discovered that all the crew members were either dead or missing.
The crew members who'd set out from Earth also began to suffer from hallucinations. Each saw the old wounds and past sins they couldn't let go of.
It turned out that the New Frontier's gravity core really had opened a wormhole, completing a space jump—but it had carried the ship into a terrifying realm beyond human comprehension, a place of evil, chaos, and disorder.
After returning, the ship itself came to life...]
"We need to maximize our mental resistance. The stronger the healer who can dispel negative conditions, the better," Paul said firmly. He hadn't dared touch a single one of the snacks on the table.
Compared to a space ghost story like this, fighting the Jackal-Headed Desert Warriors and the Cursed Legion in Cairo had been much easier to stomach.
--Uchiha Xiu spent one point to exchange for fifty horror movies. Since he'd paid for them, the Main God had provided versions that could never be reproduced in the real world.
Khorne, Slaanesh, and Nurgle appeared repeatedly, sometimes even combined!
Could the seemingly living spaceship itself represent Tzeentch?
"We might need a spare spaceship of our own. In an extreme situation, we may have no choice but to abandon the original one..."
Mizutani Akira, the construction worker, murmured.
Throughout all this, Kaguya-hime, who was pressed against Uchiha Xiu to serve as a soft cushion, offered no opinion—
Surviving in deep space wasn't difficult, was it?
The Otsutsuki were a long-lived clan who traveled between inhabited planets to cultivate God Trees.
"We don't know how the Main God will arrange the plot."
As Uchiha Xiu searched the food section, he added, "And according to the Main God's evaluation system, the weaker a team is, the more opportunities it gets to enter the scenario early and prepare."
This one will do.
Suddenly, two large bowls of rice topped with gravy appeared, filling the air with a rich aroma. There was no dazzling light show, but merely smelling the food stirred a primal urge in everyone nearby to devour it.
Zhao Yingkong, who'd been about to speak, swallowed.
As expected of food from a gourmet world... It could ease the pressure of survival to some extent and forcefully distract them.
"Regal Mammoth Bird rice bowls!"
"Why are you all looking at me? If you want some, exchange for it yourselves. It hardly costs anything—a bowl's only fifty points, and it comes from the world of Toriko."
In the original anime, the ingredient was an exceptionally fierce giant bird with a hunting level of three. Its body was covered in incredibly tough feathers that protected the tender, delicious meat beneath.
Once cooked, the meat was rich and savory. Beneath its slippery skin, juices dripped from flesh that rivaled high-grade Wagyu. The marbled flavor spread through the mouth, and the moment it touched the tongue, it melted.
The Main God's appraisal was especially straightforward: practical. Besides providing a taste of the ultimate delicacy, it also lifted the spirit and slightly improved one's life level, with a particular effect on cell activity and the resilience of the internal organs.
"I'll try it out while studying the Six Storehouse Thief for the first time."
Before this trial, Kobayashi had returned with four nuclear backpacks and spotted an old book in the captain's hands.
So that was what it was called: the Six Storehouse Thief!
"I just checked with the Main God. Learning this ability directly costs one B-rank side-story. Its main function is energy absorption, and it comes from the Chinese anime The Outcast."
Muttering inwardly, the healer Kitagawa, who'd transformed into a little glutton, turned her attention to the ingredient section.
Now that they had money, and given their principle that food never went to waste once it was in their stomachs, the East Sea Team's thoughts, led by their captain, temporarily returned to life's great question:
So, what should we eat?
The ingredient section had plenty of options.
From peaches of immortality in the Primordial World and immortal medicines from Shrouding the Heavens to dishes from all kinds of gourmet anime.
"Captain, I don't have any particular enhancements in mind for now." Zhao Yingkong was still the exception. She casually exchanged for a Rainbow Fruit and took a small bite, then quickly suppressed her look of enjoyment and got down to business.
When Uchiha Xiu looked over, the girl instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, seeming unaccustomed to her current unbound state.
"I just feel like... none of them really suit me."
"Could you recommend some enhancements? I need a reference."
The Sharingan? Uchiha Yingkong, then.
Their compatibility was pretty high.
However, it was one of the Ninja World's specialties. Aside from asking the Main God orb to repair it through fusion, which would cost some reward points, it didn't consume anything else.
So... how could he use an A-rank resource pack to successfully create an assassin?
Ideally, it would also resolve the issue of split personalities.
Zhao Yingkong, seated right beside Uchiha Xiu, said nothing more. She nibbled at a delicious fruit, pretending to be nonchalant, but her face seemed to have a line written across it:
"Captain, I really want to be in a wheelchair."
Before you continue