Novice Reincarnator

Reincarnation. It was supposed to be a fairytale-like event that I could only hear about on the news or read about in stories. Reincarnate in the Upper Realm and start your life over again as the new you. Such slogans were commonly said by those that wanted a second chance at life.

Appearance, race, and even gender changed at the whims of reincarnation. That might sound like a scary thing, but in reality a reincarnated person’s life didn’t change that much. A soul held the record of a person’s life and these records controlled the shape a person took when they reincarnated.

The soul shaped the body and the body shaped the soul. This fact meant that even though everything could change from a reincarnation, usually very little changed. Even if Elizabeth’s potion turned me into a girl, the records my soul had collected overwhelmingly belonged to my time as a man.

It didn’t matter what appearance I had before I reincarnated. I had lived my whole life as a male human and my reincarnation as an Explorer would be the same. My soul records wouldn’t lie.

I woke up in a torch lit stone room. I had seen this scene thousands of times on the news. This was the start of the Explorer’s qualification exam. As long as I cleared this beginner dungeon, I would be granted access to the Upper Realm. My eyes darted downward to look at my new appearance.

I was no longer wearing the frilly long sleeved shirt Elizabeth had dressed me in. My clothing had been updated to the standard beginner explorer outfit that all new explorers reincarnated in.

“No way…”

A stunned gasp leaked from my mouth. It was impossible to avert my eyes from the truth. The towering peaks attached to my chest could not be explained away as anything other than a pair of large breasts. I was a girl even after I reincarnated into the Upper Realm and became an explorer.

The torches in the stone room lit up one by one. The door to the dungeon would be opened as soon as all the torches were lit. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and readied myself for the upcoming trial. According to the Explorer’s handbook North Star High School forced me to memorize, the first thing a new explorer should do is to check their status.

“Detailed Status.”

A transparent, blue screen appeared in my vision.

 

Name: Ash

Gender: Female

Race: Hornless Demon

Class: Novice

Level: 1/10

Personal Skills (0/3):

Racial Skills: [Contract I]

Class Skills: [Novice]

 

My heart sank. It was only the first few minutes of my new life and I knew I had already messed up. A max level of 10 meant I had the most ordinary talent, known as Common. Everyone with a Common talent was given the Novice class.

In comparison, the status of a new explorer with an Uncommon talent might look something like this.

 

Name: Explorer A

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Class: Swordsman

Level: 1/20

Personal Skills(0/5):

Racial Skills: [Bravery I]

Class Skills: [Swordsmanship I], [Step I]

 

An Uncommon talent had 2 more personal skill slots than a Common talent and their class even provided 2 class skills. The level cap of an Uncommon talent was also twice as high. The disparity was even greater if someone had a Rare or Epic talent.

“Wait a second, I am a Hornless Demon?”

The shock of being a demon momentarily overrode my horror at being a girl. Demons and Angels were the two rarest races to reincarnate as. Forget getting your favorite character in a gacha game, the odds of reincarnating as a demon were comparable to the odds of winning the lottery. A Demon was a Demon, even if it was the weakest Hornless Demon.

The last torch lit up in the room and a scraping sound filled the room as the stone door at the entrance opened. I nearly cursed. I had wasted too much time in shock over my situation. I raced to the weapon rack at one of the walls of the stone room.

I only made it 2 steps before I lost my balance and tumbled to the ground. Something was odd. My body wasn’t moving the way I expected it to. The changes from my reincarnation were much more drastic than whatever Elizabeth had done to me before. My balance and gait were drastically different than what I was used to.

An angry snarl whipped my head to the entrance of the room. A small, diminutive green humanoid stumbled into the room wearing only a dirty loin cloth. I gasped in horror.

“A Lesser Goblin.”

I panic scrambled to the weapon rack and picked up the first thing that caught my eye. It was far too heavy for me to hold, let alone wield. Metal clanged to the ground, instantly drawing the ire of my approaching enemy. The Lesser Goblin broke into a run.

I barely got my tiny hands on a dagger when a strong impact knocked me to the ground. My head banged against the stone floor and stars filled my vision. An ugly, blurry green face appeared on top of me.

“Ahhh!”

My instincts kicked in. My dagger stabbed into the mass of green on top of me. A deafening scream pierced my ears. Sharp claws raked across my body. Something wet spilled onto me. Uncaring, I continued to hysterically jab my dagger into the Lesser Goblin.

There was an unmoving body collapsed on top of me when I came to my senses. My heart pounded so much that it hurt. For some reason, my hands wouldn’t stop trembling. I pushed the small body off of me and staggered to my feet.

“I-It hurts…”

Tears formed in the corner of my eyes from the pain of several deep red cuts all over my torso. Murky, dark green blood covered my body and my beginner tunic had deep tears into it. I looked at my shaking hands that were stained in the blood of my first kill.

I had almost died. The realization hit me with the weight of a sledgehammer. No matter how many game elements explorers had, being one wasn’t a game. If I had not gotten my hand on a dagger in time, then the one collapsed in a pool of blood right now would be me.

“This isn’t like those games at all.”

I complained to myself. The protagonist in a game easily dispatched his victims without ever getting a drop of blood on him. Once again, I realized I would never be the hero. I was a Common talent that could be found everywhere in the world.

“Status.”

 

Name: Ash

Class: Novice

Level: 1/10

Personal Skills (0/3):

Racial Skills: [Contract]

Class Skills: [Novice]

 

“...Nothing has changed.”

I fought with my life on the line and yet, my status didn’t change one bit. I stumbled over to the tower shield by the weapon rack and looked at my appearance in the reflection. A low chuckle built up into my throat until I was laughing uncontrollably.”

“Haha. Hahahaha!”

Tears spilled freely down my blood stained cheeks. The girl in the polished tower shield’s reflection had short ice blue hair and golden eyes. The characteristic that stood out the most after her overwhelmingly large breasts was her short height.

“I reincarnated as a big-breasted loli character.”

It was so bad that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The proper term for this body type was a petite, lolita body with large breasts, but it was more commonly known as a big-breasted loli. I had taken the appearance of something that I thought only existed in video games and anime.

My emotions spilled out of me uncontrollably. Too many things had happened in a short period of time. Leo confessed to me, I reincarnated as a girl, and I almost died. When it was put like that, it was understandable that I was having a total meltdown.

“..!”

I only managed to reign in my emotions at the sound of a distant snarl. I hastily wiped my tears with my bloody hands, making my face even dirtier in the process. This was a dungeon. As I had already learned, a moment of inattention could be fatal.

My hand tightened its grip on my dagger. Now that I knew about my short, childish body, it made sense that a sword was too heavy and cumbersome for me to wield. The explorer’s entrance exam consisted of three Lesser Goblins and one Goblin. I had already killed one Lesser Goblin, meaning I had three foes left.

“If there are only goblins, then a dagger will work just fine.”

I really wanted to use a spear and poke at my enemies from a distance, but it wasn’t in the cards with how short and weak I was. I grabbed a second dagger and gave it a few practice swings.

“Tch.”

This body was already cumbersome to begin with and now I was even injured. Every swing sent a fresh wave of pain throughout my body. The goblin had done a number on me with its claws, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it at the moment.

My chest bounced with each swing. The extra weight that seemed to have a mind of its own. It  consistently threw off my balance and got in the way of my movements. Really, there was nothing but downsides to this failed reincarnation.

After a few minutes of practice, I grew confident enough to journey deeper into the dungeon. With my current wounds, I would only continue to lose more blood and stamina the longer I waited.

Torches lit up as I traveled through the stone corridor. My eyes peered into the darkness ahead of me, hoping to catch sight of the next Lesser Goblin before it pounced on me. Sweat spilled down my chin and my knuckles were white from tightly clenching the handles of my daggers.

My nerves were on edge from having to be ready to react to life-threatening danger at a moment’s notice. It felt like an hour had passed while I nervously advanced through the tunnel, but in reality it couldn’t have been any more than five minutes.

“Yah!”

An angry snarl was all the warning I got as a small green figure darted out of the darkness at me. I was ready this time. I may be short, but a Lesser Goblin was even shorter. I would win if we competed in weight too.

Elegant and fine movements were well beyond my abilities in this foreign body. As such, I kept my plan simple and stupid. I met the Lesser Goblin’s dash with a dash of my own. When two objects collide at similar speeds, the one that weighed more won.

I tackled the Lesser Goblin to the ground. The force of our collision nearly sent my daggers flying from my hands, but my desperation proved stronger. My daggers struck first. Cruel light glinted as they plunged into the soft flesh of the foe underneath me over and over again. I continued stabbing the goblin until a sudden surge of warmth filled my body.

“S-Status.”

 

Name: Ash

Class: Novice

Level: 2/10

Personal Skills (0/3):

Racial Skills: [Contract]

Class Skills: [Novice]

 

My breath came in harsh pants, but that didn’t stop my lips couldn’t help but form a giddy smile. I did it. I leveled up. The stinging pain of my wounds seemed to lighten, if only by a tiny bit. Additionally, energy filled my body like I had gotten a second wind.

“Good fight.”

I got off the Lesser Goblin and spoke a few words to honor my kill before continuing on my way through the explorer’s qualification dungeon.