In This Reincarnation Stream, I'm a Player

"If I'm not mistaken, the dungeon anomaly has something to do with you. You dragged us—and Li Dan—into this mess."

Mai and Hayasaka Ai didn't spare him any face. Their ambitious companion was left awkwardly speechless. A moment later, the two girls exchanged a glance and stood up at the same time.

One patted Yuki's shoulder, while the other ruffled his hair.

"But I admit you're an expert. There's no arguing with that."

"Yuki, we're counting on you this time. We'll be in your care from now on, too."

Their voices were sincere, and their gestures gentle. No matter how urgent things had gotten or what they thought of Yuki, they'd seen the man's strength with their own eyes.

In the dangerous Reincarnation Game, good looks, elegance, and kindness were all worthless. Only strength could make someone feel safe.

Yuki narrowed his eyes, enjoying the gentle touch. He caught a faint, delicate fragrance and saw the black stockings and short skirts before him. Along with the joy of surviving, another thought began to surface.

Maybe I can play a dating sim even with the Reincarnation Game around?

"Uh, I just had an idea." Yuki's lips curled into a very suggestive grin. "Would either of you be interested in being my wings?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the hands on his shoulder and head froze. Then they moved to his cheeks and pinched them until his face looked like a flatbread.

"Not a chance!"

Chapter 2: Going Home! (Revised)

Tsk, how heartless. I worked so hard to carry you through, and I don't even get a little reward.

Yuki rubbed his cheeks and looked at the two girls, who watched him warily. One line had sent them retreating three meters. Did they really find him that repulsive?

Of course, it had only been a joke. The three of them had been a team, helping one another. They could hardly have managed without any one of them—not even past Thomas.

None of them had been dead weight. Every person had contributed everything they could.

"Ahem. Let's get back to the point. This settlement space is here to prepare us for the next dungeon."

"Really?"

"Then what kind of person do you take me for?"

"A pigheaded boy with nothing but naughty thoughts on his mind."

Oh, so this was how it was, Bunny Girl Senpai? You'd turned on him and forgotten everything. She'd been so anxious when they left the dungeon, she'd nearly cried.

Yuki couldn't forget the look on the two girls' faces as the horde poured into the hall and they dangled from the ropes. At that moment, there had been no pride and no mask. They'd wanted nothing more than to jump down and pull him to safety.

Forget it. There was no benefit in making them lose their composure.

Under their fierce stares, Yuki rubbed his cheeks again and decided to take his time.

"What were your mission evaluations?" he asked.

"S-rank."

"Mine too. That's a really high completion rate."

That made sense. The two of them had been involved throughout the dungeon and cleared every side mission. They'd been key supporting characters. Judging by my original SSS-rank evaluation, they should have earned S-ranks.

Yuki thought he'd more or less figured out how the final evaluation worked: it was an overall assessment of a player's performance throughout the dungeon.

How much had you participated? Had you been carried? How much had you contributed to each side mission? How much of a presence had you had in the final boss fight?

If Li Dan had survived, his evaluation probably wouldn't have been as good as theirs. Before the boss fight, he'd been nothing but dead weight, focused on turning the team against itself.

As he considered the game's mechanics, Hayasaka Ai asked curiously, "Yuki, what was your evaluation?"

"S-rank."

"That's impossible." Hayasaka Ai shook her head firmly, displeased. "You were the real protagonist. Your evaluation had to be higher than ours."

"I'm not lying." Yuki opened his player panel and showed it to her. Hayasaka Ai and Mai Sakurajima looked over. At first, they seemed a little envious.

Because the dungeon anomaly had affected every player, Yuki's rewards were still far greater than theirs. Several Chaos Items in particular made them green with envy.

No, he also had two Transcendental Grade skills. The two of them still had nothing at all.

"Your panel might even be better than Thomas's. You're like a veteran with two dungeons under your belt—more experienced than the two of us combined."

"We're all newcomers, so how are you so much stronger? You even gave me the Death Knell." Hayasaka Ai raised the silver revolver. Fairly speaking, it should have been Yuki's spoils.

The girls' astonishment filled him with pride. Yuki grinned. If he hadn't been trying to keep a low profile and develop quietly, he could've been even stronger. With the rewards from an SSS-rank evaluation, he could've taken down Li Dan—with his three-dungeon experience—using the advantages of a single dungeon.

"Crime pays, huh? If the game won't give me what I want, I can take it from other players. Just look at your final evaluations."

Wait, it really was S-rank.

"Right. You've offended the Reincarnation Game." The two girls edged away as they spoke, leaving Yuki speechless.

This was his secret. He hadn't said anything, but Hayasaka Ai had figured it out. Still, unlike Li Dan, she wasn't someone he could just kill to keep quiet.

"The Reincarnation Game is targeting me. I don't know why," Yuki said. He didn't mention that he'd crossed over from another world; that wasn't enough to explain it anyway. "But the game can't kill me. We all made it back in one piece, didn't we?"

"If it fails once, it can try again." Hayasaka Ai shook her head, her eyes full of reason. "We can't fight against it."

They were on entirely different levels. The dungeon was built by the Reincarnation Game; how could they possibly fight it? The worst part was that the game didn't care who got caught in the crossfire.

"If that's really how it is, I'll find somewhere to sit and wait to die. Senpai, do you remember what I asked you?"

Mai Sakurajima thought for a moment before answering. "You mean how you had one more option than we did when you unlocked your trait?"

"Actually, I had a choice just now, too: take an SSS-rank evaluation or remove the tracking." Yuki spoke frankly. Some things needed to be made clear now. He had to bind these two to him if he wanted another option besides killing them to keep his secret.

Remove the tracking?

"You think someone's interfering with the game's hostility toward you?" Hayasaka Ai immediately caught on. That kind of interference would also come from another dimension.

"Exactly. Have you noticed that, even though we didn't get many rewards afterward, the Reincarnation Game didn't spawn some super boss and crush us?"

It was true. The Reincarnation Game had a thousand ways to kill players, but the difficulty had always stopped just short of utter despair. It wasn't as if the Reincarnation Game had suddenly changed its mind.

"No wonder you got an S-rank evaluation. That explains it. But can this kind of interference really work?"

"I don't know. We'll have to wait until the second dungeon to find out." Yuki spread his hands and smiled wryly. "By the way, could the two of you come a little closer? You're making me feel like I have some contagious disease."

Being collateral damage was even scarier than catching a disease!

Mai and Hayasaka exchanged glances. After thinking it over, they decided they could believe what the man was saying. The fact that they'd survived was hard to argue with.

Without Yuki, the dungeon might not have changed at all. Even if it hadn't, could either of them guarantee they'd have made it back alive?

Phew. I've got them settled for now. I don't want to turn evil, either.

Yuki breathed a sigh of relief. Their trust had been forged between life and death. Hayasaka Ai and Mai Sakurajima weren't just his anime waifus; they were comrades who'd faced death together.

He didn't know what he'd face after returning, but from a purely rational perspective, only the dead could keep a secret.

"Let's sum up what we know. The Reincarnation Game is a growth-oriented infinite dungeon system. Rewards come from two sources. First, players can grow stronger while clearing dungeons. Second, they receive an overall evaluation after each dungeon."

"Right. But something went wrong in this dungeon. Li Dan probably noticed that there weren't enough rewards for clearing it," Hayasaka Ai said with a nod. Looking back, she could see that Yuki had been a clear suspect.

The divide before and after the traits were unlocked had been too great. A veteran player wouldn't miss a change in the game's mechanics like that.

"That's a good thing. Growth means we get more cards to play. In the end, I used the dungeon's own power to kill him." A trace of ruthlessness flashed in Yuki's eyes. Some things had been set in motion like clockwork long ago. He began to put the details of the game together.

Hayasaka Ai pressed her lips together. She didn't know what Mai Sakurajima thought, but as far as she was concerned, along with trust, she also felt wary of his ruthlessness.

Yuki Sorajima was a ruthless man. He'd already proved that through his actions. Team up with him and you could survive; oppose him and you'd die. You couldn't afford to be ambiguous about your stance with someone like that.

But when it came to a struggle on the game's dimensional level, she was torn. All she could do was listen quietly as Yuki explained.

"First, our guns and body armor disappeared. That shows that, apart from Chaos Items, nothing from the dungeon can be brought back. And Chaos Items can come from all sorts of sources."

"They can be drawn, stolen, picked up, or awarded for achievements. They don't discriminate between users, and their powers and side effects are all over the place."

Hayasaka Ai and Mai Sakurajima nodded at the same time. They'd both used Chaos Items many times. But the Frontal Lobe Fragment had been lost, so each of them had only one item left.

Hayasaka Ai raised the Death Knell Revolver and grinned. "Even among Chaos Items, items of the same grade can vary in power. This is a lot more useful than the Frontal Lobe Fragment."

It fired unlimited bullets during normal shots, with about the same power as a large-caliber handgun. A charged shot generated one bullet every two hours, with a maximum of six stored at a time. Each bullet hit harder, but the side effects stacked up too.

Luck was a real part of the Reincarnation Game's mechanics. Take Li Dan, who'd fired five shots in a row, only to get his skull smashed by the sightless Giant's chain from dozens of meters away. The game had judged him unlucky, so the hit had been inevitable.

"It really is a good weapon. Even better than my Chainsaw Sword." Yuki gave it an approving look, then looked away. "That's why, except for combinations like the Chainsaw Sword and Quiet Dew, more Chaos Items aren't necessarily better."

"Right. You've got bad luck dogging you, a splitting headache, a berserk state, and distorted perceptions. You don't need anyone else to kill you; you'll be done for on your own." Mai Sakurajima counted them off on her fingers, then tilted her head slightly.

"But wouldn't the extras be useless? And if you carry them around, someone could steal them."

"That brings us to the third notice: the adjustments to our permissions after clearing the beginner dungeon. Take a look for yourselves."

Yuki saw the two women focus on the panel. Their expressions quickly grew animated, and he let out a quiet sigh.

The Reincarnation Game was more complicated—and more chilling—than he'd imagined. He'd thought it simply chose players from the real world, then put them through an endless cycle of dungeons and reality. Now he saw how naive that had been. There were three types of missions alone:

Random Mission: Triggered when a player touches a special object. Success grants a reward; failure carries no penalty.

Standard Mission: Must be completed. Failure results in elimination.

Epic Mission: Hidden

No wonder the first line of the prompt in the Ancient Castle's hall had included the restriction "[Standard Mission: Bloodthirsty Red Moon]." What did the ellipsis mean? Were there other types of missions?

"Got it? After clearing the beginner mission, we've only uncovered the tip of the iceberg. Take these random missions..." Yuki paused, then asked slowly, "Do you think they're hidden in the dungeons, or in our real world?"

No one could answer. They didn't even want to guess. It meant the game could interact with reality—and the people around them could be dragged into it, too.

"We don't have enough clues, so let's set that aside for now and deal with three important things first." Yuki had scared them, then broke into an easy smile.

"First, some good news. After clearing the beginner mission, we unlocked team mode. We can keep working together. From now on, we'll share both good fortune and trouble."

His tone was light, but the atmosphere grew heavy. None of them was stupid. They knew the choice they made now could decide whether they lived or died.

If they'd learned this secret at the beginning, Mai Sakurajima's decision might have been unclear, but Hayasaka Ai would definitely have helped Li Dan deal with Yuki.

But now they'd been through a nightmare. They'd returned safely, gained a lot, and made memories that were etched into their bones, impossible to forget.

"If I say no, will you make sure I never speak again?" Hayasaka Ai asked coldly.

"No."

"Just because you trust me?"

"Yes. I trust you. If it gets out, the only consequence is that some curious players might start watching me. I'll kill anyone who comes after me." Yuki looked perfectly calm, clearly having prepared for this possibility.

"But following you is dangerous. No one knows whether your choices will work." Mai Sakurajima wasn't as relentlessly dark and ruthless as Hayasaka Ai.

"That's true. It's beyond my control. But I think comrades I can trust with my back are precious. Someone like Li Dan is more dangerous." Yuki remained calm. Gazing into the pure-white space, he spoke as if to himself:

"Anomalies aren't necessarily bad. It's mediocrity that means despair. What's happening to me will eventually have an answer. Maybe that answer can solve the core problem."

"What problem?"

"How to escape the Reincarnation Game. So far, we haven't received any information about that."

Hayasaka Ai and Mai Sakurajima froze, suddenly realizing they'd overlooked something. That was right. The Reincarnation Game had never said how many dungeons they'd have to complete or what achievements they needed to earn to escape.

Neither of them was interested in supernatural powers. The Bloodthirsty Red Moon had felt like a nightmare, leaving them instinctively sick of the whole thing. They just wanted to go back to their old lives.

Yuki had a point. His secret was rooted in the game's dimension, supporting the idea that mediocrity meant despair.

Should they take the gamble?

The two girls hesitated. One nightmare had been enough, but when they looked back on the two days that had nearly taken their lives, the decision seemed less difficult.

It had nothing to do with Yuki's personality, or his flirtatious remarks. It had even less to do with him being a hero who saved the day, or with his refusal to abandon anyone. It was simply because—

This man really was capable. He'd gotten them out of hell once; he could get them out again.

If his choices worked, wouldn't he grow at a terrifying speed? He'd surpassed Li Dan in a single dungeon. How many Li Dans would two dungeons be worth?

"Fine. I'll wait until the second dungeon and see what happens. If your choices don't work, we'll go our separate ways then." Hayasaka Ai gave a small nod. After thinking it through rationally, she decided to take the gamble.

"I'll trust you one more time, too." Mai Sakurajima was simpler about it. After one dungeon, she still had little fighting ability, and she wasn't as sharp as Hayasaka. If she ran into someone bad like Li Dan, she'd probably die even more horribly.

"Great. Thanks for trusting me. I look forward to working with both of you."

Yuki finally smiled. He'd been waiting, too. If they'd refused, he wouldn't have forced them. He would've used the Soil-Offering Contract to bind them, then become a happy lone wolf.

But, well, who could refuse Bunny Girl Senpai and a blonde maid? Besides, the three of them worked together seamlessly. They were perfect for someone as devious as him.

"Ahem. Should you be the team leader?" Mai Sakurajima asked quietly. She had a feeling she'd boarded a pirate ship, and getting off might not be easy.

"No need. The three of us are equals. But keep in mind, if someone is doing another mission, they can't join the team." Yuki's smile faded. Time was limited, so he didn't tease Senpai.

"Oh, you mean random missions?"