As though foreshadowing all of this, one of the reincarnated souls appeared before him again, having already finished his second life. Even taking the order of reincarnations into account, this was too soon for the individual in question to have lived out a full life. Still, Rodocolte had actually expected this to be the first soul to return to him.
“You only managed a short life, Hiroto Amamiya,” Rodocolte stated. The soul before him was that of Hiroto Amamiya. The 101st reincarnated, who had no powers, no magic, no fate, and no fortune. The soul of Hiroto Amamiya that appeared before Rodocolte had suffered horrific injuries and was wreathed in a dark and terrible magical power.
“I’ll kill them!” he hissed. “I’ll kill all of them! Send me back, I don’t care! I won’t forgive them! Or you either!” Hiroto didn’t care that Rodocolte was a god, and came at him swinging….
In Origin, Hiroto Amamiya had been born into a military nation not too different from European countries on Earth. Just as Rodocolte warned him, he met misfortune from the moment of his birth. His mother was a prostitute, a woman his birth father discarded before Hiroto arrived. His mother found a new man, but did nothing to stop that new man from selling Hiroto for drinking money. Hiroto was purchased by a black site government laboratory performing illegal research. The experiments there revealed that Hiroto had far lower affinity for the magic of Origin than the average person—indeed, that he had no affinity for it at all.
Origin had a total of seven types of attribute magic: the standard earth, water, fire, and wind, and then light, life, and space. Any given individual would normally have an affinity for at least one of the seven attributes, but Hiroto went beyond a mere lack of affinity. He lacked even the basic aptitude for any of them. He was the exception proving the rule. The lowest of the low.
The researchers realized something else about Hiroto—that he possessed magical power far in excess of a normal person. He had no affinity for an attribute, but vast magical power. This was incredibly conflicting for the researchers. And then one of them realized something.
“Maybe it isn’t that this subject lacks affinity for any attribute,” the researcher posited, “but that his affinity lies with an unknown attribute that we haven’t identified yet?” This hypothesis led their research in a new direction, and it was around this time that Hiroto regained his memories of his former life.
After years of human experimentation, the researchers did indeed discover an eighth attribute: death. They taught Hiroto the newly discovered death attribute magic, modifying every part of his body, even his brain, as they continued their experiments.
Hiroto’s life was a living hell, nothing less. By the time he recovered his memories of his previous life, his captors had already planted a bomb in his body. The only people around him were researchers, who didn’t see him as a person but rather as a test subject. He received some basic education, such as reading and writing—things he no longer felt he needed—but had zero freedom. At any sign of resistance, they shocked Hiroto with electricity, leaving him convulsing on the floor. The food was nutritious but worse than prison food. His days consisted of such meals and experiments, simply following the orders of the researchers.
Even after Hiroto awakened to his death attribute magic, he was unable to leave the laboratory. With the new death attribute magic, Hiroto had acquired incredible power. That had been made possible by Hiroto’s hard work and the nature of the death attribute, only accessible by those with no affinity for any other attributes. He developed powerful magic, making a contribution to the laboratory, the researchers, and the nation they belonged to. But he was never rewarded for anything that he did.
Because, while the researchers acknowledged what he could do, they also feared him fighting back. The more useful and capable Hiroto proved himself to be, the more that fear grew.
They planted a bomb in his brain in addition to the one in his heart. They plugged GPS into him to prevent his escape and replaced his right eye with a mechanical eye containing a special camera. They fitted his ears and mouth with special listening devices that picked up every sound he heard or made. They restricted his meals to prevent him from becoming too strong. He had a tiny room and was only allowed out to participate in experiments. They modified and manipulated his body to allow him to make better use of death attribute magic, and further heighten his magical power.
In order to prevent him from finding friends and planning an escape or rebellion, and to prevent spies from other countries making contact with him, the guards and the operators giving him orders were all routinely switched around, keeping anyone from staying in his orbit for too long. In the end, the researchers resorted to truly inhuman measures, segmenting his consciousness from his body, turning him into nothing but a research puppet.
Hiroto still wasn’t even 10 years old. From that day on, he lived unable to lift a finger on his own, a hell that lasted for over another decade.
The only reason he didn’t lose his mind entirely was because of the souls of the dead that were drawn to him by his death attribute, and the hope that they might be able to save him from this hell.
But then, Hiroto died.
A new head researcher was desperate to prove himself over his predecessor and his extreme new experiments proved too much for Hiroto’s exhausted body. Ironically enough, it was death that returned Hiroto’s freedom to him. The power to control his magical power was returned to his soul upon his death.
“Power! Power rises!” he cried. “The joy of using my magic freely! The liberation of wielding my power without restraint!” Spurred on by his hatred, Hiroto controlled his undead body and went on a rampage. He tore apart the scum who had toyed with his life, shredding the researchers like wet paper as they begged for their lives, beating the military personnel to death.
“So some of you are still alive, eh?” Almost completely out of his mind, he broke through the heavy doors to a separate room. But he didn’t find more people to kill on the other side.
Instead, there were dozens of men and women, sleeping on filthy beds, locked in cages. More test subjects. Hiroto could tell what had been done to them.
“Right, there were other people here besides me.”
The spirits that gathered around Hiroto were those of other test subjects. Apparently, the researchers had been trying to create a source of death attribute magic beyond just Hiroto.
“Ah.”
Most of the subjects couldn’t move, but a girl with black hair and pallid white skin looked up at Hiroto from her bed. His warped undead form was reflected back in her eyes, but she didn’t seem scared at all. Maybe that was the reason why Hiroto proceeded to breathe death attribute magic into all of the test subjects, including the girl.
“This will let you move around. If you want to get out of here, come with me,” he told them.
They would only slow Hiroto down if they couldn’t even move. Blessed by death magic, the girl and then others recovered the power to move on their own, their modified and explosive-warped bodies coming back under their own control.
He did this out of sympathy, compassion, and gratitude for the reminder that he was more than just the enemy of the living.
“If you want to come with me, keep your distance. There might still be enemies ahead.”
The magic and bullets used by the enemy soldiers wouldn’t work on Hiroto, but they would tear these poor creatures apart. He didn’t plan on leaving any enemies alive, so they would be safe if they stayed away from the frontline.