Rodocolte stayed quiet for a while and then prompted Kanata to continue. “What conditions?”
“First, a reward. If I lop off this Vandal’s head, I want you to put me into a world, either Earth or one like it, without any magic or monsters or fantasy bullshit. Just memories and personality intact. Not Origin, either. I want to belong to a rich family, with all the good stuff in life. You can make me handsome too.”
“You want a fourth life? But you will have to die on Ramda for that to happen.”
“So I have to die, so what? I’ll kill myself the moment Vandal is dead.” I’m not interested in another backwater world. As soon as I’ve done this task, I’ll off myself, and head on over to an Earth-like world to live it up in fun and games until I die. Let the others crawl through the muck in a world of crap.
Rodocolte knew exactly what Kanata was thinking, of course. Among the 100, Rodocolte knew that Kanata hadn’t done much to improve things on Origin, meaning he probably wouldn’t have much effect on Ramda either. All he had going for him was his combat abilities, making him the perfect card to spend and discard on resolving this particular issue. Furthermore, the reward that Kanata was asking for was something Rodocolte could easily realize.
“Very well. I can promise such a reward. What is your second condition?”
“I need proper backup, of course. First, that means putting me in Ramda in an adult body.”
“Rather than being reborn normally?”
“Of course, rather than that. How many years were you planning to wait for me to get this job done?”
Kanata was skilled at man-on-man combat, but that wouldn’t matter in the body of a baby or child. It could take a decade, fifteen, even twenty years before he could move around and get away from his parents enough to go off on a murder mission. If he started out as an adult, he would also have an advantage over Vandal, who was still a child. He wouldn’t have any parents looking over his shoulder, either. But most of all, Kanata wanted to avoid having to live for two decades on some crappy fantasy mudball.
“Very well. It will take a little of my strength, but it isn’t impossible.” Rodocolte wasn’t a fan of this idea, but there also didn’t seem to be much choice.
“I’m also going to need resistance to poison, sickness, and this death attribute magic. And if I do get killed, I need you to collect my soul at once, so I don’t get turned into undead.”
“The souls of all of you resurrected are set up to return to me upon death,” Rodocolte replied. “Hiroto Amamiya turning into that undead was an exception due to his own magic. I’ll also make it so that you receive skills relating to poison, sickness, and death attribute magic, as you asked. But resistance to death magic isn’t normally a skill humans can learn, so the highest you’ll be able to get is Level 5.”
“What do you mean, skills?”
“They have skills and Jobs on Ramda and stats you can check to see them.”
“What? That sounds like a video game! Maybe they aren’t making any progress because they’re too busy playing around with stats?”
“Anything else you require?”
“Combat gear, for sure. A gun and a knife—”
“Hold on. It isn’t possible for you to bring anything that doesn’t exist on Ramda.”
“Seriously? Not even, you know, a sniper rifle?”
“Why would you think that might be okay, of all things?”
“Bah!” Kanata had been hoping to play this mission on easy mode with a long-range kill. He clicked his tongue.
But Rodocolte could not bend on this matter. If such a thing were possible, he would have been sending all sorts of things from other worlds into Ramda already. The power he commanded simply didn’t allow for it.
In the end, Rodocolte was the Reincarnation God. Nothing more.
“You can at least give me some clothing? You aren’t asking me to be reborn naked, are you?”
“. . . Everyone is normally born naked. But fine, I should be able to make some adjustments. I’ll also tweak your destiny so that you’ll encounter Vandal—”
“Hold it! You’ll need to adjust that too. Can’t you make it like, a radar or something? I don’t want to bump into him when I’m not ready or not expecting it!”
“Okay.” Rodocolte agreed to this too, although the growing list of demands was starting to anger him. At least that last adjustment was easy to make. “I’ll give you a radar that can search out powerful death attribute magic and a fate that will lead you to encounter him. That should do it.”
“Great. That’s all I needed.”
So that was finally the end of the laundry list.
“In that case, I will send you to Ramda at once. Once you are alive, you should register at the adventurers’ guild and the other guilds, take a Job, level it up to improve your stats, and learn how to use your skills.”
“Like I said, I’m not going down there to play games. I’m gonna kill him quickly, without any of that stuff.”
And with that, Kanata was off into his next life.
Standing before the villagers of the Second Pioneer Village, Vandal started to cook the ingredients he had gathered. He felt like he was making a cooking video to post online.
“First, you need some goblin meat and some gobgrass. For the meat, you can use breast, thigh, or even heart. You’ll need at least one goblin’s worth. Ah, the liver works too. For the gobgrass, you’ll want about half the weight of the goblin meat.” Vandal pointed at the piles of goblin meat and gobgrass that he had prepared.
Some of the villagers responded with unpleasant groans. That response was to be expected. While the meat of humanoid monsters like orcs was regularly consumed here on Ramda, goblins and gobgrass were treated as lower than wild beasts or even waste matter.
“Next,” Vandal continued, “you need to crush the gobgrass. The juices that will spurt out smell bad and will stain your clothing, so try to keep them under control. I’ve prepared a special pestle to use exclusively with gobgrass.” He had made the pestle in the night, using Golem Creation. He carried out from where it had been lurking in the shadows, causing gaps of surprise.
The reaction was actually to the fact that this massive pestle, which even an adult would have trouble carrying alone, had been picked up and carried so easily by a child. Vandal thought it was that his pestle craftsmanship was just so good.
He proceeded to crush the gobgrass down, with the stinking juices collecting in a trough at the bottom.
“Then we cut the goblin meat into suitable pieces. I don’t have a knife with me, so I’ll be using my claws, but they are very clean. You have nothing to worry about.” With that, he briskly chopped up the meat. More sounds of surprise. “Once the meat is all chopped, we put the meat and juice into a barrel. At this point, make sure all the meat is submerged in the juices. Once that’s done, put on the lid, leave it for three days, and it’s ready. I have one here that I made earlier.”
“Huh? Earlier—when?” One of the villagers was a little too quick on the mark.
“It must have been a divine messenger,” Vandal replied. He didn’t want to reveal that he had used Elapse Time, so he just made something up. “Here is some finished gobgob. Please, give it a try.”
Vandal opened the second barrel, taking out some of the now purple meaty substance and serving it on plates.
The villagers didn’t look especially excited by it. Again, a very normal reaction to purple meat.
“This is . . . really edible, is it?” The village chief stared at his plate.
“I promise you it is,” Vandal responded. “Shall I eat it with you?”
“No, that’s fine! I’ll try it!” The chief firmed up his resolve and grabbed some gobgob, closing his eyes tight and taking a bite. After he started chewing, however, his screwed-up face gradually started to relax. “This . . . isn’t delicious, by any means, but it’s also not disgusting. It doesn’t smell bad, either.” This three-star review by the chief was enough to get more of the villagers to timidly reach out and put some gobgob in their own mouths.
“Oh, he’s right! This is at least edible!”
“Much better than the tree bark dumplings and grass soup we had last winter!”
“Yeah, much better!”
They’ve had quite the diet, Vandal mused. He felt a rush of sympathy at them for actually finding gobgob more than palatable. During the harsh winter months, they had been eating disgusting food with no nutritional value, purely to stave off their hunger.
“It’s much better than eating regular goblin!” It sounded like some of them had tried that as well, probably out of sheer desperation. If a slave merchant had come along, they may have sold off their children rather than let them starve. But now, they had found a way to use goblin meat, which they would otherwise throw away, and gobgrass to make rations that last. Nutritionally speaking, it was still meat, so loads better than tree bark. Of course, they were going to be overjoyed.
“Okay! If you’re willing to make a shrine to Vida, I will provide the pestle and twenty wooden barrels. I’ll also throw in some salt. If you apply it to the meat before putting it into the juice, you’ll find it tastes a lot better. What do you say?”
“Wonderful! I’ll convert to the Goddess Vida at once!”
“No,” Vandal quickly said. “No need to convert—”
“You’re even giving us precious salt! Thank you so much!”
“We didn’t build a shrine out of respect to the duke and the priest who does the rounds here, but we have been praying to Vida. It seems our prayers were heard!”
Vandal felt so bad for these people that he decided to give them the Talosheim sea salt he had brought along in case he needed to pay an entry toll. He still had the rock salt, plus some coin from the bandits, so it should work out.