When you hear the word “reincarnation,” you probably imagine cheat-like powers, right? I certainly did.
It all happened just like in the stories: a flash of headlights followed by a deafening screech of tires. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a new world, ready for a fresh start… only to be granted the exhilarating job class of Villager.
No noble birth. No hidden destiny. Just another poor farmer’s kid, born into a family that constantly struggled to make ends meet. Our soil wasn’t cursed; it simply didn’t yield much. Even during prosperous seasons, evenings often brought scarce food, and hunger became a persistent, intimate tormentor in my gut.
Still, I grew up. Skinny, sure, but strong enough. By the age of fifteen, my stats and skills were so painfully average, they could’ve been scribbled onto a blank sheet of paper, and no one would’ve noticed the difference.
Let me say it again for those who hold onto false hope: reincarnation is supposed to come with cheat powers, right?
Even after drawing the shortest straw and being saddled with the Villager class, I expected some advantage—hidden talents, insane growth rates, perhaps even a latent secret skill. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself. I waited. I prayed. I searched for signs.
Yet nothing manifested. There were no divine gifts, no grand miracles—just my utterly unremarkable self, devoid of power and distinction in every meaningful sense.
Meanwhile, right next door, a true cheater was born. Three days after my birth, Cordelia Allston graced the house across the lane.
Her very name seemed plucked from a ballad. By the age of fifteen, Cordelia had already blossomed into a captivating beauty capable of mesmerizing an entire village. She had red hair that sparkled in the sunlight; sharp, fearless eyes; and an intimidating aura that caused even veteran warriors to falter. But she wasn’t just beautiful; she was terrifying in the most remarkable sense.
Her class? Hero.
Not a trainee, not a squire—a full-fledged, world-saving, battle-scarred Hero, divinely blessed and brimming with innate power. She was the kind of one-person army written of in legends, and she lived just a stone’s throw away from my own humble home.
Same village. Same year. Same starting point. Yet, the trajectories of our lives diverged so sharply, we may as well have been born on different worlds.
She was, without exaggeration, a warrior worth a thousand men. From my perspective as a mere Villager, she existed on an altogether different plane, a monstrous force I simply couldn’t comprehend.
I could still remember the overwhelming sight of her, just fifteen, effortlessly swinging a dull training sword and slicing through a massive boulder like butter. If she’d sprint a hundred meters, I wouldn’t be surprised if she completed it in a fleeting second or two. Frankly, she’d just about stopped being human.
Back when we were four or five, I used to win the occasional scuffle simply because I was a boy. But from that point, her growth had been nothing short of astonishing.
Nowadays, even in casual interactions, she exercised extreme caution, diligently controlling her strength to avoid accidentally harming me. Once, a playful smack—intended merely as a joke, really—resulted in my dislocated shoulder. Though under no obligation, she devoted three full days and nights to nursing me back to health. So consumed by guilt was she that I almost felt pity for her, the one who had inflicted the injury.
Anyway, back to the present: both Cordelia and I are now fifteen.
At the moment, I was camping out in the Great Manakis Forest. Rumors had been swirling around about a dragon living in its depths. True or not, who could say?
It’s around 7 p.m., I guessed.
Winter meant biting cold and an early sunset. Though I huddled close to my campfire for warmth, the thick canopy above smothered even the moonlight, plunging the forest into total darkness.
That’s when I heard it: a wolf’s howl, distant but unmistakable.
A chill ran down my spine as I turned to Cordelia, my voice tight with unease.
“Hey, Cordelia? Are we seriously gonna be okay out here? I mean… there are monsters in this forest, you know?”
Her waist-length crimson hair caught the firelight, casting a faint, ethereal glow. Her flawless, almost divine countenance blended delicate beauty with an indomitable strength—it was hard to believe she belonged to this world at all.
And yet, there she was, a warrior beyond compare, worth a thousand men if not more.
If you handed her a sword and dropped her into any battlefield, she would defeat even the most experienced fighters with a single, decisive stroke.
The girl, clad in a lightweight azure cuirass that seemed almost too magnificent for her delicate frame—so impossibly slender it begged the question of where such immense power resided—tilted her head slightly in response to my question.
“Huh? You’re genuinely concerned about monsters when I’m here? They don’t call me “Dragon Killer” for nothing. Shouldn’t you be worried for the monsters instead? The ones around here are all weak anyway… Oh, wait—this is your first encounter with actual monsters, isn’t it?”
“Unlike you, I’ve got the Villager class, remember? The most I can do is set a few traps just outside the village to deal with pests.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that one time,” she said, nodding as the memory resurfaced. “On the way back from a knights’ expedition, I saw you sneaking around outside the village. You were so paranoid, jumping at every little sound, glancing around like the trees were gonna eat you.”
“That’s because I’m a Villager, so give me a break already! And you’re the one who dragged me all the way out— Wait, what the hell?!”
It was massive—a wild boar.
The creature burst out from behind the trees, charging directly at us. It had to weigh well over a ton. Its eyes gleamed with an unnatural violet light—the telltale mark of corruption. Thick strands of drool dripped steadily from its gaping maw.
“Ryuto! Don’t move!” Cordelia shouted.
That was all she said before bolting toward the beast like a gale unleashed.