Reincarnation Stream Player

The Death Knell fired its sixth bullet, the impact far more violent than the one Li Dan had used to blow off a head. In the blink of an eye, a thick arm spun through the air, tearing away half of the chest cavity along with it.

Great plumes of steam boiled up. Having lost its left arm and lacking any sense of pain, the Giant struggled to climb back to its feet. Yuki, meanwhile, had vaulted onto the Giant's back in a single bound the moment Hayasaka Ai pulled the trigger.

He did not consider the possibility of missing; he seemed certain of the outcome. He stepped onto the slowly rising "long slope" and moved forward, spotting the right arm lifting as if to shield the back of its neck.

"Don't even think about it!"

Whirrr—

The Chainsaw Sword let out a shrill scream, carving a straight, bloody path across the back. Before the palm could slam down, he sliced off a chunk of flesh from the nape of the neck with light, precise, and perfect movements.

The palm that had reached Yuki's head suddenly froze. The seven-meter Giant radiated high-temperature steam. Hayasaka Ai and Mai Sakurajima stood side by side, watching the falling Giant without blinking.

This second stretched out into an eternity, until a black-haired man burst out from the steam.

Yuki's exposed skin was bright red and burning with pain, but he couldn't afford to care about that now. He slung the Chainsaw Sword back onto his shoulders and gave the two girls a fierce shove.

"Run!"

He had lost count of how many times he had said that word in this game, but this was the only time it was filled with joy. Even though the collapsed tunnel had been completely cleared, countless heads were already swarming inside.

Mai Sakurajima and Hayasaka Ai ran at full speed. Even covered in wounds, their steps had never felt so light. They leaped up, grabbed the cable, and looked back simultaneously to see Yuki fishing several items out of the gore-strewn ground.

"Hurry up! Do you want to die?" The two were on the verge of tears, both reaching out their hands at once.

The corpse tide had flooded into the hall. The Smoker extended its long tongue, and the Tank picked up a boulder. Yuki felt as if he had become some peerless delicacy, locked in the gaze of countless monsters.

He jumped forward with all his might, hanging from the cable with one hand. Looking back, he saw several massive rocks tracing parabolic arcs through the air.

Thud, thud, thud.

The walls were pelted with debris. From this distance, the Tank couldn't aim accurately, so they picked up more boulders to adjust their trajectory, while a Smoker, thrown through the air, whistled past overhead.

Using Living Corpses as cannonballs and then lashing out with tongues mid-air—this was clearly pushing their limited intelligence to the Limit.

It was too late. Yuki clearly saw a tongue wrap around his wrist, but as his body passed through the thick, blood-red wall of fog, crossing the boundary between night and day, that long tongue vanished without a trace.

The corpse tide was gone, and the tunnel had disappeared. Amidst a blinding white light, he could only see the equally bewildered Hayasaka Ai and Mai Sakurajima, followed by a voice that sounded like music from heaven.

[Player Yuki, you have survived the Third Night.]

[Bloodthirsty Red Moon main quest complete. Quest evaluation: Make your choice after returning.]

[Novice (Abnormal) Instance complete. Personal panel updated. Player permissions adjusted.]

[Preparing to return.]

Volume: Intermission I

Chapter 1: Return and Settlement (Revised)

Is it over?

A long string of text flashed through his mind, but Yuki didn't catch it all; he only heard the words "Preparing to return."

That sentence was like magic, causing his tensed muscles to slacken in an instant. He plopped onto the ground and looked left and right. Hayasaka Ai and Mai Sakurajima were in even worse shape, simply lying flat on the floor, unwilling to move a single finger, their heavy breathing the only proof they were still alive.

They were exhausted. Excluding the final night they had just survived, it had only been a few dozen hours, yet it felt like years had passed.

Constant running, fighting, plotting, and reversals—these two days and two nights were far more than just "eventful." The massive influx of information had been compressed, leaving his nervous system with almost no chance to relax.

You actually know this is an "abnormal" instance, huh? Is that supposed to be rigorous and honest?

Yuki moved his lips silently. His tension had actually begun to fade the moment that prompt appeared; it was more like a stress test that had finally reached its Limit.

If this pace and difficulty were the standard, he doubted there would be many players left in this Reincarnation Game. A single novice quest was enough to eliminate 99.99999% of ordinary people. Even a player with high-quality stats like Li Dan couldn't have survived the newcomer phase.

Regarding the abnormality of the instance, Yuki already had a theory:

First, a series of coincidences collided, and Li Dan sabotaged him.

Li Dan had intended to "farm points," using his experience from three instances to leech off Thomas's quest. In any kind of Infinite Flow scenario, this would increase the difficulty. If it were just old players fighting each other, that would be one thing, but the Bloodthirsty Red Moon only had the two of them as veterans.

That spelled disaster for the newcomers. Under normal difficulty, the Ancient Castle wouldn't have been so oppressive; everyone could have maneuvered using the terrain to find a way out, and Yuki wouldn't have needed to jump out and make his presence known.

Second, most of the blame lay with him, and the turning point was when he unlocked his trait.

Beyond the choices, the sighs, and the gazes—now that things had calmed down, Yuki realized a key point: the "Ego" in "Ego Trait." It was a backtracking of a player's origin, and the Reincarnation Game had discovered his.

From that moment on, the instance entered a different kind of alienation. Everything shifted toward "eliminating the player," not even bothering to hide its killing intent, which even Li Dan could clearly perceive.

"But why?"

Yuki still couldn't figure it out. Just because he was a transmigrator? That didn't make sense; his cheat wasn't even that powerful. At most, it allowed him to prepare in advance and judge people by their appearance.

Could it be because he received news of the Reincarnation Game's existence ahead of time? Was he being killed for leaking secrets?

But that diary from back then only said "Survive." He had thought he was facing the end of the world. No, his choices had been flawed from the start. Why had he spent ten years working hard because of a single sentence, never once questioning if it was just a hallucination from a dazed state?

A massive puzzle lay before him. His red eyes gradually lost their luster. After a while, he gave a start and hurriedly patted his cheeks.

"Stop overthinking. Don't fall into meaningless self-doubt."

Thinking required clues; otherwise, the more he thought, the more wrong he would be, wasting brain cells for nothing. He only needed to summarize the current situation:

"For some reason, the Reincarnation Game wants to erase me. This killing intent is intense, to the point of disregarding the lives of all other players in the instance. But it cannot intervene directly, nor can it break the framework to drop some super Boss on me."

The former represented despair, while the latter revealed a glimmer of hope.

At this moment, Yuki saw lines of information flashing before his eyes, somewhat like a game settlement screen, replaying his highlight moments in a loop.

[Killed the Newbie Guide, Enhancement Point +1, Player chose to draw a prize, obtained Reinforcement Magecraft (Entry Level)]

[Slew the Licker, harvested Bloodthirsty Red Moon gift, obtained Chaos Item 'Long Blade' (Alienated Grade)]

[As a new player, led the squad through the first night, reward Enhancement Point +1, Ego Trait unlocked, Player chose to enhance skill, Reinforcement Magecraft (Mastery Level)]

[Player killed the Giant Living Corpse, obtained skill: Vitality Shift (Mastery)]

[Player Yuki killed Player Thomas, looted Chaos Item Chainsaw Sword (Chaos Grade +1)]

[Player Yuki looted Chaos Items Soil-Offering Contract (Chaos Grade), Distortion Kaleidoscope (Chaos Grade), Death Knell Revolver (Chaos Grade)]

[SSS-rank mission evaluation or Remove Tracking, please choose]

Vitality Shift? Directly at Mastery level? This must be an unexpected windfall from harvesting the Bloodthirsty Red Moon gift; converted, it's worth at least three Enhancement Points.

"Wait a second, what does that last option mean?"

Yuki's pupils slowly contracted. The words 'Remove Tracking' were so conspicuous that he hadn't even noticed the SSS mission evaluation.

A massive influx of information filled his brain, confirming a previous hypothesis.

Yuki had wondered where those reward points went and why he had the opportunity to choose when unlocking traits; the Reincarnation Game clearly had no reason to go through such unnecessary trouble.

Remove tracking? Is someone actually protecting me?

Yuki widened his eyes and scanned this pure white space. There was nothing there, nor did he see anything watching him, yet he felt as if his heart were being gripped, radiating a terror invisible to the naked eye.

[Please choose.]

[Please choose.]

[Please choose as soon as possible.]

The whispering voice sounded again, only this time it was much weaker, as if it lacked the patience to wait for him to make a choice.

[Please choose...]

The voice was now barely audible, much like the feeling of a power source running dry; the whispering had never been so feeble.

"I choose to remove tracking." Yuki didn't even think about it and answered immediately. The 'why' could be searched for slowly, but if he missed this opportunity, it might never come again.

If he were to end up in another perverted dungeon like the Bloodthirsty Red Moon, he would be ninety-nine percent dead.

As his voice fell, Yuki held his breath. There was no celestial upheaval, nor any multicolored light; there was only a sensation, as if a vague, lingering gaze had vanished.

When the whispering voice sounded again, the volume had returned to normal, restored to its impartial tone.

[Player Yuki, Bloodthirsty Red Moon main quest completed, mission evaluation: S, reward Specialization Point 2, Enhancement Point 2]

Thank goodness. I thought choosing one over the other would wipe out the main quest evaluation entirely; wouldn't that have been a massive loss?

Yuki breathed a sigh of relief. As long as he was still alive, this mystery would be solved sooner or later, and no matter how he looked at it, the former option felt like a trap.

If the basic settings of the game were flawed, what did an SSSS-rank matter? High risk with no high reward, and temporarily spiking the difficulty—any one of these things was lethal enough.

How did he manage to survive the Bloodthirsty Red Moon? It was because he had laid a solid foundation in the Ancient Castle before the settings went haywire, transcending the mortal, which gave him the qualification to use his brain.

"Interesting. The mysteries surrounding me are growing more and more numerous."

The contradictory choices, that diary that vanished into thin air, and the anomalies after awakening his trait—many things were tangled together like a spiderweb, and he could even smell the scent of inevitability.

If there were no dungeons and no anomalies, would I have walked the path of a lone wolf?

No, the root cause was that I had been in this world for too many years. After recognizing Mai Sakurajima and Hayasaka Ai, I naturally approached them and felt another path through them.

This dungeon made him feel the power of a team. Every player had a unique role; relying solely on Yuki's own abilities, he would have undoubtedly died.

Thinking of this, he turned his head to the side and saw Mai Sakurajima slowly sitting up, looking dazed at this pale space.

"Where is this?"

The pure white space seemed infinitely large, yet it contained nothing. Fortunately, she saw Yuki and Hayasaka Ai, who were also sitting up, and her expression relaxed before she hurriedly patted her body.

"Eh? Why are my clothes back to normal? Where's the gun?"

She had changed back into her bunny girl outfit; the bulletproof vest was gone, and the heavy rifle had vanished without a trace.

"It's not just the clothes; even the wounds are gone." Hayasaka Ai also quickly checked her body, her face full of joy.

Previously, she had been covered in wounds and looked incredibly disheveled, even her pretty face had been scarred. No girl would want to be covered in scars.

It wasn't just the wounds; the fatigue and hunger had all been swept away. My condition was even better than when I first entered the game.

Yuki calmed down a little and finally discovered one advantage of the Reincarnation Game: it wasn't as stingy as a certain Main God; at least it didn't charge for healing or anything like that.

"Relax, it's safe here." Yuki smiled. There were some things he didn't need to tell them; it would only add to their worries.

"Then what kind of place is this? We aren't going to have to wait until the next mission and go straight into another dungeon, are we?" Hayasaka Ai frowned, causing Mai's expression to change drastically as well.

Having just finished a deadly newbie dungeon, only to be locked in a pure white space immediately after—there would be no point in struggling anymore. Dying in the next dungeon would be a relief.

"That won't happen. This should be the settlement space after a dungeon is completed; we will return to reality." Yuki shook his head firmly.

"A beautiful hope?"

"Idiot, you didn't notice that the voice said 'preparing for return' at the end."

The two girls froze. Their entire focus had been on the word 'return,' and they had indeed failed to notice the modifier preceding it. Not bothering to bicker with Yuki for calling them names, they plopped back down onto the ground.

Phew, it's finally over.

The three of them sat with their knees pulled to their chests, exchanging glances. If not for the terrifying memories serving as a reminder that this wasn't a dream, it would have felt as if nothing had happened at all. Looking back on it now, the mix of emotions was indescribable.

Anger? Numbness? The joy of surviving a catastrophe? Or perhaps the longing to see their loved ones again?

It seemed there was a bit of every emotion, yet no one could quite summarize it. Mai Sakurajima moved her lips, then lowered her head to stare at her palms in a daze.

Just minutes ago, as they were about to enter the fog wall, a projectile had sliced off two of her fingers. Now, looking at her fair, unblemished hand, she could still vaguely feel the piercing pain.

"It really was... so long."

Long, yes, it was indeed long.

Yuki nodded subconsciously. He had spent a full ten years mentally preparing himself, yet when the final exam truly arrived, he still felt a lingering fear.

The sight of the tide of hideous Living Corpse filling his vision, the sensation of being coiled by a long tongue, the impact of being struck by bullets, and Li Dan's broad, kind smile...

All of these things, seen and heard over a mere two days, had crowded out the memories of his previous ten-plus years of transmigrating, making it feel truly excessive.

"But we won in the end, and we survived." He slowly raised his head, his eyes burning as if with flames. "We survived by stepping over the bones of monsters and the heads of Li Dan and Thomas."

So what if the game wanted to erase me? Regardless of whether someone was protecting us from behind, I not only survived, but I also obtained significant rewards. If I were to meet Li Dan again, I wouldn't be much weaker than him!

"Hmm, but this is only the beginning. Li Dan cleared three instances, yet he still ended up buried within the Crimson Moon." Hayasaka Ai reminded him. She was impatient to return, yet simultaneously terrified of doing so.

Because every reunion could potentially be a final farewell.

"Don't be so gloomy. He is him, and I am me." Yuki waved his hand, his tone bold. "Although I can't guarantee anything, with me around, the probability of you two surviving will increase significantly."

"Boastful. We only escaped by the skin of our teeth."