When I came to, I found myself standing in the middle of a dungeon with a sword and shield in my hands.
“Huh?” I muttered, confused.
I looked down at the weapon I was holding—it was a western-style double-edged sword, the kind you often found in RPGs. The blade was perfectly polished, and the hilt was decorated with a lion motif. All in all, it was a helluva nice sword.
I’m not exactly in a situation where I can sit down and admire it, though, I thought, eyes flickering over my surroundings. And beyond that, I’m just a normal white-collar office worker. I’ve never held a sword like this before in my life!
“I... What the heck’s going on?”
My surroundings were as unfamiliar to me as my new sword and shield—as far as I could tell, I was in what appeared to be a natural cavern. Crude murals had been painted on the walls, and some manner of light source had been embedded into the rock at regular intervals. If that was all I could see, I might have believed that I’d just materialized in a set of unexplored ruins in some unknown corner of the world, but the open treasure chest at the end of the corridor swiftly ended that illusion. Wherever I was, it wasn’t anywhere on Earth.
“I’m in a friggin’ dungeon!” I shouted, mind blown. My voice echoed loudly off the walls of the cramped cavern.
Maaan, I thought, I’ve got absolutely no clue what’s going on. But, wait, hang on... If I’m remembering things correctly, I... I got run over by a car and died! The whole world faded to black, and then...I think I saw a small flickering flame appear right at the very end. And there was that voice! It was so faint, but I think it said—
“Graaaaah!”
I jumped, the feral scream that had come from over my shoulder snapping me back to the present. I gingerly turned around.
“Wh-What on earth is that?!” I gasped, chilled down to the bone.
A diminutive, green-skinned creature was making its way toward me from the cavern’s depths.
There’s no way that thing’s human!
“It’s...a goblin,” I realized, my legs turning to stone.
In most RPGs, goblins were weak monsters who were typically used to get new players accustomed to a game’s combat system. No matter what video game I’d played, I’d never once felt scared of the creatures. If anything, I’d been glad to fight them, since they were a good source of experience. Not only had I not avoided them, I’d actively gone out of my way to kill piles of them! But now that I was facing one in the flesh...it was different.
I could see the goblin’s sharp, dirty teeth, and the dangerous glint gleaming away in its yellow eyes. I could see the heavy club clenched between its hands.
I...I can’t stop shaking... I thought, terrified. Why are they so intimidating in person?!
I gasped for air, my breath caught in my throat. I knew I needed to run, but my legs refused to move. The sword and shield in my hands suddenly felt impossibly heavy.
“Ke ke ke!” the goblin chuckled, sensing my fear. It raised its club high, then launched forward, charging straight toward me.
How is such a tiny creature so fast?!
The goblin’s ugly face contorted with triumph as it drew closer, as if it was certain of its victory. I let out a horrified shriek as it brought its club down, sure that I was dead. But, to my utter surprise, the moment the goblin entered my sword’s range, my body acted on its own.
I stepped forward, moving far more fluidly than I’d have ever thought possible from myself, and ducked under the goblin’s swing. The monster let out a confused, “Gyaaa?” but it was too late—I sliced down with my sword, cutting its head in half.
The goblin’s lifeless body crumpled to the ground, its club rolling across the floor. And I... I just stood there, stunned, my brain unable to process what had just happened.
“H-Huh?” I mumbled through numb lips. “Did I...do that?”
I’d definitely never learned how to use a sword, so the fact that I’d wielded the blade as deftly as I had came as a shock. But the surprises didn’t end there—as I stood frozen, the goblin’s body began to glow. Seconds later, it disintegrated into a thousand tiny particles of light.
I let out a startled “Wha—?!” as the particles darted toward me, heading straight for my left hand. I watched in confusion as they vanished into the center of my palm, as if sucked into me by some invisible force.
The dungeon fell silent once more. The goblin had completely vanished—if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I would have never even known it had existed.
“What the heck? It’s just like a video game,” I said, letting out an incredulous laugh. But then it hit me. “Hang on...is this Braves and Blades?”
In BB, defeated monsters turned into pure mana and were absorbed into the left hand of whoever defeated them. That piece of lore was how the game had explained the process of gathering experience points.
It’s kinda hard to believe, but...this sword does look awfully close to the ones I saw in that game. The goblin looked the same too...
Panicking slightly, I brought the flat of the blade up to my face to examine my reflection. When I saw what I looked like, my eyes nearly popped out of my skull.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I muttered in disbelief.
The face reflected in the blade’s surface looked absolutely nothing like me. Instead, it looked exactly like Rex Tauren—also known as the Aloof Adventurer, and the video game character who I’d been staring at an illustration of just moments before I’d died.
“No way,” I mumbled to myself. “This can’t be happening.”
But I couldn’t ignore my reality—somehow, after I’d died, I’d ended up in Rex’s body in some unfamiliar location.
Wait, I thought. Don’t tell me I got reincarnated into the world of Braves and Blades because I was thinking about the game right before I died! Th-There’s no way something that insane actually happened.
And besides, even if I was willing to accept that I’d gone through the cliché light novel trope of reincarnating into my favorite game, there was still one thing that didn’t make any sense.