The sound of feet pattering against dry grass and dirt echoed as Reoloy weaved through the forest.
"Fuck!" he yelled, narrowly ducking behind a tree as a red beam shot past him. "Small stampede?! Does this look small to you?!"
Reoloy panted lightly, feeling the exhaustion of the last hour despite his recent stamina training. He dove down an incline in the terrain and quickly pushed himself back to his feet, peeling away from his pursuers and trying to maintain the distance.
Small, grotesque, wooden-looking creatures crawled on all fours, leaping off trees and whatever platforms were available to them to give chase.
Timber scouts.
They were goblin adjacent creatures that only appeared in the south. While they visually resembled aged children's toys with voodoo-doll-like facial features, their bodies were actually rubbery, meaning they absorbed most hits that weren't piercing attacks.
If it were them alone, Reoloy would have managed to dispatch them the moment they attacked him, but they were accompanied by sabre wolves and rift eels, putting him in a tough spot.
He veered out of the way of another red beam that came from ahead.
"This is about as hard as I thought it would be," he said, grunting as he drove his claw into a black-purple eel monster, catching it off guard as it swam around a tree through distorted waves of air.
The scouts tracked his every movement, cutting off any chance of escape. The sabres piled on the pressure with their spinning attacks whenever they got close. And the eels covered long range with their beams, inadvertently boxing him in.
"Even monsters have team comps in this world..." Reoloy muttered, barely deflecting a spinning sabre by pure luck. "RON was a lie. It was basically a scenic vacation compared to this."
He glanced down at the only weapons available in his hands—a small mana knife that may as well have been a woodcarving tool, and the glove-claw relic that realistically couldn't do much here.
The knife would also only last so long before it overheated and went into cooldown mode.
"This thing was supposed to be my golden ticket..." he murmured, lightly curling the clawed middle finger. "But it's actually the more useless of the two!"
He swung the green mana blade with a strained exhale, cutting into a lunging sabre wolf's side as its edge tore through the black sleeve on his left arm and into his flesh.
Reoloy winced, but reversed his grip on the weapon, burying it into the wounded creature and finishing it off.
Immediately after, he swatted away a scout, its sharp fingertips slightly digging into his arm before it fully went flying.
They weren't letting him rest. Another scout leapt onto his back, ripping through his shirt and gnawing at his flesh.
Reoloy screamed and threw it off, stumbling forward.
A beam—thin and concentrated—pierced through his right calf, forcing him to drop to one knee.
"Huh?" he muttered, disoriented as groups of all three monsters closed in to turn him into their next meal.
Still struggling to rise, he poured every last bit of focus into his mana knife, pushing the faux relic beyond its limits.
The reincarnator then hurled it into the crowd, watching as the tool underwent extreme overheat and exploded.
A few beasts died instantly, while others scattered—some wreathed in green flames, others retreating to avoid the unnatural fire.
Shakily straightening, Reoloy's gaze swept across the dark woodland stretch. He counted dozens of inhuman, leering eyes before abandoning the effort entirely.
He no longer had a weapon—aside from one with an effective range the length of his finger.
The boy chuckled.
The growls, cackles, and bubble-like chirps should've felt alien, but oddly enough, he felt right at home. In some twisted way, this was still just another playthrough to him.
And this was his tutorial stage.
"A scrub that can't even make it past the start..." he started, his injured arm hanging loosely at his side as he pointed the claw forward. "Can only ever be described as a loser!"
His roar set off a cascade of monsters—he didn't care, however.
He forgot about safety. About calculations and strategy. Instead, he fought with the animalistic drive to kill all threats and survive.
Driving his relic into a timber scout's head and bursting it open with sickly green blood, he surged forward, intercepting a sabre wolf before it could begin its spin.
He slipped past a beam and sank his teeth into the wolf's neck, tearing out its flesh before tossing it aside and continuing his charge toward where the blast had come from.
Before he could deal with the disturbance, two rotating sabre wolves came at him at once, forcing him to react at the last second—barely managing to fend them off by grabbing two scouts as meat shields.
With the orange beasts still sawing through the now dead flesh in his grip, he twisted his arms, redirecting their momentum and sending both sabres tumbling into the dirt.
Reoloy drove his claw through one's eye, then moved immediately to the other, stomping it again and again—each impact met with wet crunches and sharp yelps—until it finally fell still.
His senses sharpened, and a frown creased his face.
He hadn't felt anything this vivid since that night—days ago—when he first unlocked his "sixth sense."
Following the flow of element in the air, he picked up on unusual concentrations beginning to blend into mana.
'Rift eels!'
A barrage of blasts tore through the trees, shredding bark as they shot straight for his vitals.
He dropped onto his back, red light reflecting in his green eyes as the beams streaked overhead.
Miniature explosions rang out as the attacks collided with unintended targets—including a good number of other monsters.
That onslaught gave him a clear read on the most irritating creatures on this battlefield.
"It's not as bad as I thought," he muttered, a grin creeping in as adrenaline surged through him. "There's only five of you... But I just need to get one!"
He pushed himself up, faintly registering the ache in his punctured leg, and broke into a run toward a tall grey tree in the direction he had originally come from.
Extend your world.
Reoloy dodged scouts and sabres, batting them aside when they got too close, earning a light cut beside his right eye in the process.
Still, he pressed on.
He leapt over scouts hidden in the shrubbery, trying to trip him, and made it about ten metres from his target before much larger orange wolves burst from the woodwork on both his sides.
Their jaws clamped down—one on his left arm, the others on his legs—dragging him to the ground and pinning him in place.
Without hesitation, Reoloy reached into his pocket and chucked his mirror toward the tree. It cut through the air before it impacted against an invisible wall just before it hit the grey trunk.
The obstruction shimmered, revealing a much larger eel than the one from earlier.
It was an alpha.
Though not the one he was meant to be looking for.
He took it for the miracle that it was, however.
In the game, killing an alpha monster sent all its underlings into a panic. It was quite a stroke of luck that the boss of the most annoying enemies was here.
If he killed it, he would be rid of all of the eels.
"Hey, Gaiskas," he grunted, eyes fixed on the mirror lying in the grass beneath the creature. "Do your part."
In a flash, sickly purple mana sprang from the relic and enveloped the rift eel. The feeling it gave off as it seemingly devoured the creature was so eerie and unsettling that even the wolves recoiled in caution.
Reoloy rose slowly, hair swaying lightly in the breeze stirred up by the commotion.
He watched as the beast struggled against the purple energy, its midsection and tail end locked in a vice-like grip.
Steam hissed into the air, filling the space with a foul stench of rot and death. Not long after, the rift eel alpha went limp.
"Haaa…" Gaiskas exhaled, as though it had just finished a hearty meal.
Its form had grown more distinct, the once-faint spirit body was now tinted with a light purple hue.
With a snap of its fingers, the monster remains dissolved into steam, the wisps of mana retracting back into the mirror.
"I haven't felt this in such a long time," it said, a hidden menace glinting in its eyes. "Oh, how rich mana really is!"
Gaiskas laughed, its power fluctuating with the shrill sound.
Reoloy walked over and picked the relic up from the ground, regarding it with faint disdain. He sighed and began his blurred, unearthly chant.
The laikern writhed, its grandiose display cutting off instantly.
"You'd better keep releasing that mana if you know what's good for you."
"Even if I did," Gaiskas groaned, voice strained as it begged for relief. "My mana capacity would remain expanded!"
That gave Reoloy pause. He had acted before thinking, dragging the mirror entity into this. Now he had a new problem to deal with in the long term.
Distant blasts and scattered cries echoed through the woods. He caught them, tension easing slightly as events unfolded just as he'd expected.
"Such stupid things," Gaiskas remarked, drifting up beside him. "Their leader dies, and they start attacking mindlessly?"
"Gaiskas."
The laikern flinched. "Hmm?"
"For better or worse, I upheld my end of your bargain from earlier," Reoloy said, casting it a sideways glance. "So give me the rest of your information on true relics."
"Ah..."
~ A while ago ~
"In your eyes," Reoloy started flatly. "Does it look like I have time?"
Gaiskas trembled, caught between frustration and humiliation.
Thousands of years ago, it had been arguably one of the hundred strongest beings in the world, and now it was being forced to kiss the boots of a brat that couldn't even muster up mana.
"I'm trying to get the words right," Gaiskas blurted. "It's not a simple topic, so—"
"Say 'so' one more time," Reoloy interrupted, lifting the mirror. "Come on. Go ahead."
To any observer, the great sage would've looked utterly pathetic.
"There are limits to what I can reveal," it explained, forcing composure while suppressing a creeping, mischievous smile. "I wasn't meant to be able to interact with the world like this..."
It leaned into the performance, layering its tone with just enough gravity to sell it.
"I can tap into the disappointing bits of power in my vessel—that's what allows me to act at all. But if I overstep… and meddle in things that could introduce real chaos…"
Its voice dipped.
"My bindings will tighten—dragging me back into a far harsher prison."
Reoloy suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.
"Distraction tactics only work when the target actually cares enough to get swept up in the bullshit—"
Growl
He frowned. 'They're here.'
He drew the mana knife he'd received as a "kindness" from Leno before this trial began.
'Lots of scouts and a few sabres,' he assessed. 'I can handle that much, but there's more coming...'
A glint of red immediately blitzed into his awareness, slamming into his raised right palm.
Recovering from being pushed back, he glanced at his shaking arm, outright surprised that the glove had been able to withstand the shot.
"Rift eels too...?" Reoloy murmured in disbelief. "I'm running."
He pocketed the mirror relic, then shot an expectant look at the floating entity.
"Keep talking while I move."
Gaiskas clicked its tongue, floating alongside him as Reoloy burst into motion.
"You really are insufferable," it muttered, cutting itself off when Reoloy shot it a glare. It coughed, straightening up. "Look... You—and the rest of this current age—are misunderstanding what relics really are."
It lazily watched as Reoloy ducked under a low branch, kicking off a tree trunk to change direction mid-sprint as claws and snapping jaws tore through the space he'd just vacated.
"That's why you've only managed to produce cheap imitations."
"Everybody knows that faux relics don't compare to true relics from the ancient era," Reoloy grunted, kicking a scout off its trajectory. "Nothing you're saying so far is new."
Gaiskas's laugh echoed in his ears.
"Impatience doesn't look good on you."
The laikern took advantage of the chaos—of Reoloy being occupied—to stretch itself a little, testing the leash around its neck.
"True relics are much more. Objects unlike any that came before or after," Gaiskas elaborated. "They function independently of their users' powers. But that's not all."
It paused, letting the weight of its words hang.
"Within them are fragments of will. The greater the relic, the more defined the identity of its will becomes."
"And?" Reoloy asked, after a moment of silence.
"And I can't say anymore without a deal," Gaiskas smirked, its vague features turning serpentine.
The reincarnator hit the ground hard as three sabre wolves pinned him, their weight crushing down as they snapped at his throat.
"Deal?" he bit out.
"Yes, a deal," Gaiskas sang, drifting closer. "Like I said, I'm limited right now, but if you help me expand my powers..."
A thin trail of purple mana coiled through the air.
"I can tell you more than you could ever imagine."
Reoloy wrestled his way out of the bind, slashing the monsters back and running once more.
"No."
The entity's face twisted. "...No?"
"Helping the evil clown spirit regain strength," he said, deadpan. "Does that sound logical to you? Either you talk willingly, or I force you."
Silence.
"Gaiskas."
Some cackles, snarls, and chirps started sounding a little too close for comfort.
"Gaiskas?"
All traces of the being had disappeared as if he were never there. It was just him and the beasts that sought to kill him.
"Gaiskas, you piece of shit!"
He took off, clumsily weaving out of the way of a blast.
~ Current time~
"You left me for dead," Reoloy said casually. "We'll settle that later, too, but for now, start explaining."
"Well, you see," Gaiskas said coyly. "We never struck the deal. That just now was you asking for help, and me assisting out of my own volition."
The three sabre wolves began approaching, slow and wary.
"I'll drop you in the ocean," Reoloy replied, settling into a rough, uneven stance. "Remember well who lives in it around these parts."
The purple laikern's expression tensed as the sensation of the massive mana that manipulated the ocean and brought Reoloy to the shore flashed in its mind.
'I can't do anything against that right now...'
"Fine," it said grudgingly. "To keep it short, true relics have identities, and they tend to be egotistical. They respond to attention because that's what they like."
Gaiskas circled behind him, gaze lifting through the canopy as if lost in thought.
"Now think about this, if true relics have scattered identities, then what about Regalia?" it finished simply.
Reoloy's eyes widened just as the monsters lunged at him, finally overcoming their fear.
He raised his hand, middle finger aimed at the one in the centre.
A burst.
Violent. Immediate.
The wolf's head detonated mid-charge, its body crumpling lifelessly before it even hit the ground.
The other two recoiled instantly, skidding to a halt as something primal told them to stay back.
'...He figured it out,' Gaiskas stared blankly. 'Just like that...?'
Reoloy smiled faintly, flexing his hand.
"Forgive me, my golden ticket..."
A translucent, plain claw had formed around the actual thing on his finger, fluctuating as it snapped back to being around a metre in length.
"I drastically undervalued you because of my own ignorance."