[ ~ Chapter • Start ~ ]

'... He is still doing that?' A hooded boy(?) with an effeminate appearance wearing a yellow hood and a blue backpack stared at a red haired, brown eyed teenager who was still training for hours in shock. This effeminate boy(?) was Cola, the hero's companion.

"Arios, shouldn't you be focusing on doing a hero's work?" He half-shouted towards Arios, who visibly was in excruciating pain by pure training alone.

"One-thousand-nine-hundred-ninetynine... TWO THOUSAND!!!!" Arios yelled, dropping down to the ground, breathing heavily in exhaustion by pushing himself through his limits.

Cola stared at him for a moment, before contemplating his decision of making Arios the Guardian Hero of this time.

No, this wasn't really the time to be contemplating over something stupid. Guardian Heroes were supposed to do their jobs, after all.

So, without much to do, Cola helped Arios up as his self-inflicted wounds already started healing.

"Thanks, Colas..." Arios spoke in a daze, not knowing that a slight flinch was present on his guide.

"Anyways, why are you still doing this? You're still Level 1, Arios-dono. You won't get any stronger with that amount of training." He criticized the one whom he was supposed to guide.

The hero shook his head, before kneeling down and picking up an irritating monster that climbed up and rested on his head.

"Don't worry about that, I still have spare time to prepare against many things, right, Lisbeth?"

"Kyuu~!" The small Lis agreed, and Cola could not help but sigh. He was a strange one doing strange, yet completely hopeless stuff.

It has been a few months since they met and Arios became the Guardian Hero because Cola was ordered by his higher ups to do such a thing, and after they started their journey, Arios immediately walked towards a specific dungeon around the town of Gaya and under Ylapu, the floating island.

And what did Arios do? He picked up a few rings, one with a strange aura and the Happiness Ring, a ring that is a complete cheat that for some reason, allowed Arios to gain ten times more EXP and GOLD mysteriously. Of course, he didn't just gain them on the same dungeon, he had to risk being knocked out unconscious by monsters and fellow humans, plus it seems like fighting a powerful hidden boss for hours, risking most of his clothing and limbs just for the sole reason of gaining both rings!

... Is he already abusing his status as a a hero...?! Does he even know what he is doing right now?

Cola shook his head. All souls that die, whether good or bad, are cleansed at Hell until they become purely nothing but pure blank souls that will go back to the Creator God, Ludo-Rathowm, ready to be reincarnated without memories and are nothing more than raw data.

He's already killed many tens of monsters stronger than him with pure skill effort, and with the help of Escudo's Dust State in mere months since he became a hero, yet he refused to go to a Level Shop and try actually leveling up.

How intriguing.

Not that it matters, anyway.

They actually rescued a Lis who refused to leave Arios's side, and without much to do as a hero, Arios obviously declared the Lis as his partner.

Because the Lis were the rarest and are 99.9% extinct aside from the less rarer yet still rare subspecies of the Round Ones known as the Circles and Mag Balls, the people who encountered Arios, either the ones who he had done a small, good deed with, or just met, had fully accepted that the monster was tamed by Arios himself.

If he recounted the era and year at this moment, it would be around the end of GI1013, and the current Demon King, Gi has his own powers waning, meaning that the hero would gain an advantage against him. However, Cola refused to tell that to Arios.

But, what if we delved into the reincarnated Arios's mind?

[ PoV: Arios Theoman, The MC ]

This world definitely is the world from the Erotic MMORPG, Rance Online (*1).

That's right, Rance Online, a game split by an Erotic Version known as the Rance Online Full Experience and a Non-Erotic, 16 Global Version released both at the same time in A.D. 20XX.

It definitely was a smash hit for Ludo Soft, though there are many complaints from the beta testers, the game was still good, and the Global, Non Erotic version was sold online even more (*2). The MMORPG had different difficulties in each server, one of them was the infamous [Max Suffering Mode] in the [RA-0015] Server and different other servers.

Tried that once, and died after 30 minutes with my server account reset. I'm not the most hardcore player, but I definitely am a hardcore completionist, achieving as many achievements and completing many side quests plus being the Top 2 player for years has its own benefits.

After several years of updates, it had to end by the final, biggest Update to both versions, known as the Final Showdown Event that lasted for an entire year.

It could be said that after that, all the servers closed, leaving a final message known as:

{ The Devil King, Rathowm has fully awakened and is in the process of overthrowing Ludo-Rathowm with an army of 12 Billion Devils. Sorry for your inconvenience. See you later. }

{ From: Ludo Soft }

It was theorized that there would be a sequel, but I think I died at the age of 35 by... the truck-kun.

Not the greatest thing to die from. At least my family is safe and sound.

For now, I have a lot of training to do, plus, a lot of exploiting must be done around this flat continent to benefit me, just not too much or I'd be banished to the "Diavolo Loop Zone", as me and 75% of the other players called, for being a complete cheater.

[ ~ Chapter • End ~ ]

Notes:

*1: This game doesn't exist... yet, lol. Let's just pretend it does exist in an External World different from ours and Miki's world... for some reason.

*2: Alternate Version Alicesoft. That's all.