Chapter 1: Fragments of an Endless Death
The classroom shook as a deep blue light swallowed everything in sight. Yuichiro Takada barely had time to blink before the floor cracked open and the world folded in on itself. When his vision returned, he stood in a grand marble hall under a sky fractured like glass. Strange runes glowed above them, whispering faintly in an unknown tongue.
"Welcome, chosen heroes," a man in silver robes announced, his voice echoing through the hall. "You have been summoned to aid our kingdom. Each of you shall receive strength according to your potential."
Light screens appeared in front of everyone. Students gasped and cheered as they read their results.
"I got A-rank fire magic."
"Knight class. This is insane."
"Yo, mine says dual affinity."
Yuichiro glanced at his own screen.
Name: Yuichiro Takada
Class: Swordsman
Potential: F
Skill: None
A silence spread. Then laughter.
"The weakest swordsman."
"Bro can't even get a single skill."
"Guess every class needs a mascot."
Yuichiro smiled faintly, scratching his neck. "Yeah, that's me. The tutorial mob."
The knights escorted them to a training field the next day. The instructor, a scarred man with a blade across his back, tossed Yuichiro a wooden sword. "Your turn, weakling. Let's see what you've got."
A small slime oozed forward. It wasn't threatening. It looked harmless, until it lunged. Yuichiro swung, missed, and felt acid burn into his chest. His scream was short. The world turned dark.
When he opened his eyes again, the slime was in front of him. The same field. The same instructor. His chest was whole.
He blinked. "What the hell..."
The slime lunged again. He froze. Death came fast.
Then, light again.
He gasped, his heart hammering. Ten minutes before. Same spot. Same moment.
He died again and again, panic turning into confusion, then disbelief, then exhaustion. But something strange began to happen. Each time he returned, his movements became cleaner. His grip firmer. His breathing steadier. The fear didn't vanish, it just stopped controlling him.
After countless loops, he noticed it. The slime's tiny twitch before attacking. The faint sound it made when preparing to jump. On the next attempt, he sidestepped and swung. His sword cut through the slime's core, shattering it into dust.
He stared at the dissolving light. His hands trembled, not from fear this time, but from realization.
He didn't just get lucky. He learned.
His body reset to ten minutes ago, but his instincts didn't. His mind remembered every motion, every death. He was adapting. Faster. Sharper. Stronger.
He looked around the field. The instructor hadn't noticed anything strange. To everyone else, he was still the weakest swordsman.
That night, when he slept, his dreams were fragments of his deaths. Acid, claws, teeth, pain. But when he woke, his heart was calm. His sword hand no longer trembled.
Days passed. He trained in silence, learning faster than before. His classmates laughed when he stumbled, not realizing he had already died dozens of times perfecting that same swing.
Weeks later, when he finally cut through a beast that had killed him seven times before, the world flickered and everything went white.
When he awoke, he was standing fifteen minutes before the victory. Not the same point as before. The loop had changed.
He exhaled slowly, piecing it together. His death didn't always send him back to the same moment. Success could trigger a new loop too, sending him somewhere else. Sometimes minutes earlier, sometimes hours.
His lips curled into a faint grin. "So it's random, huh."
He tightened his grip on the sword, eyes calm. "Fine. Then no matter where I end up, I'll learn faster than this world can kill me."
The weak swordsman walked back toward the academy, unnoticed among the others. To them, he was still a failure. But only Yuichiro knew what he was becoming, something built from pain, memory, and countless fragments of an endless death.