Novice Reincarnator

“...don’t go.”

An earnest voice broke through all of my defenses and sank deep into my heart. Unfortunately, it was too late. I had ignored that voice and ventured into the dungeon alone. My favorite voice continued.

“...You don’t have to do it alone. Let me join you or get a party of skilled explorers to help.”

She was right. There was strength in numbers. It was impossible for me to do everything at once. I wouldn’t be in nearly as much trouble right now if I had brought a party with me. I had nothing but regrets.

“Idiot. All of the nutrients must have gone to your chest, leaving your brain empty. Only an idiot would challenge...”

The voice of the person I longed to see faded from my mind, leaving me in the silence. I opened my eyes and muttered her name.

“Cecilia…”

I absentmindedly stared at the dirt ceiling of my fox den. It was a miserable excuse for a room that was incomparable to my place back in Cecilia’s mansion. I missed my true home so much that it was painful.

Cecilia and Byleth were both incredibly busy girls, but that only made the little time that we got together even more precious. I held up my tanned hand before my eyes. It was hard to believe that this hand had spent an entire afternoon connected to Byleth’s hand.

I didn’t like waking up to a silent home with a dirt ceiling. I let my hand fall and pondered my situation.

“Got it. I’ll add waking up next to Cecilia and Byleth to my list.”

My mood finally settled after I added a ridiculous item to my list. I sighed and decided it was time to evaluate my latest reincarnation.

“Detailed Status.”

Name: Fang

Gender: Female

Race: 2 Tailed Fox Beastman

Class: Adept

Level: 1/20

Personal Skills (3/5): [Ash Demon Princess], [Fox Fire II], [Naked]

Racial Skills: [Instinct II], [Agility II]

Class Skills: [Adept], [Growth II]

My worst fears came true. I had been saddled with yet another useless skill. [Naked]? It was true I hadn’t been wearing anything, but that was because all of my clothes burned up in the Six-tailed Red Fox’s fire during my first death.

Sure, I spent nearly every waking moment feeling completely exposed and naked, but that didn’t mean I wanted a skill to help ease my mind. That was precisely what [Naked] did. All of my embarrassment and unease about my lack of clothing had vanished, leaving me completely comfortable with my nakedness.

Even imaging myself naked in front of Cecilia or Byleth did not embarrass me in the slightest. Being naked was my new norm, just like how the monsters in this dungeon walked around without any clothing.

...Heh. I wanted to see that one professor at the academy try and fail to find a use out of my new failure skill, [Naked].

I had kept my proficiency in my racial skills and class skills, but I lost nearly all of my other hard work. It was a pleasant surprise that I kept [Fox Fire II]. Still, losing [Ki III] was painful. Eventually, my eyes rested on my race, 2 Tailed Fox Beastman.

As far as Beastman evolutions went, they typically followed the path of Tailless Beastman, Tailed Beastman, High Beastman, Elder Beast, and Ancient Beast. Having more tails wasn’t a sign of strength. The Beast King’s clan was composed entirely of one and two tailed Beastman. There were many Beastman clans that had more tails and were far weaker than the Beast King’s clan.

I sat up and hugged my two black tails to my chest. It was like my pillow had doubled in fluffiness. The soft warmth of my tails helped me shake off my chilling brush with death.

I hadn’t let down my guard for a moment. Even so, all it took was a gust of wind to mask the Fork Tailed Viper’s approach and I instantly found myself knocking on death’s door. I had failed to sense the monster because my ki sense wasn’t nearly as strong without the skill to back it up. Additionally, I wouldn't be surprised if the Fork Tailed Viper's in this dungeon had some kind of stealth skill to help their ambush attacks.

[Ki] was practically mandatory for my 4th skill slot, leaving only one open skill slot. What that skill would be didn’t matter to me right now. At the moment, all I cared about was drowning my sorrows in food.

I had prepared an ample amount of poisonous fruits in my fox den on the off chance I ran into a dangerous situation that forced me to reincarnate. I took a few breaths to regain the [Ki I] skill and then sank my teeth into the first purple dragon fruit.

[Gluttony] consumed the fruit and converted it into ki. I followed my [Instinct] and allowed [Fox Fire] to rush towards my tails. One fruit wasn’t enough to satisfy me. I ravenously devoured the rest of my stock of poisonous fruits, allowing a steady stream of fox fire to fill my two tails.

It wasn’t until a ki core formed in each of my tails that I realized something was off. Each tail had its own ki network and core, effectively doubling my total ki. If I gained a third tail, would I have three times the total ki with three ki cores..?

It didn’t make sense. The number of tails a Beastman had wasn’t supposed to influence their strength.

“Status.”

Name: Fang

Class: Adept

Level: 1/20

Personal Skills (4/5): [Ash Demon Princess], [Fox Fire II], [Naked], [Ki III]

Racial Skills: [Instinct II], [Agility II]

Class Skills: [Adept], [Growth II]

[Ki III] sat in my status like there was nothing strange about having two ki cores. It wouldn’t normally be so easy to reach [Ki III], but I was only level 1. It took far less life energy to advance to the next rank of ki at level 1 than it did at level 20.

Leveling up followed a similar principle. Legendary talents were much stronger, so they required more experience to level up. As a side effect of this, the amount of strength they gained was far greater for each level up than somebody with a Common talent.

Having [Ki III] slowed down my leveling speed as a portion of the experience I gained was diverted towards strengthening my ki cores. Now that I had two ki cores, my speed would slow down even further. Thankfully, I had [Growth II] and [Gluttony] to offset the loss.

I let the beautiful flames of my [Fox Fire] bloom in my hands. The drain from maintaining my flames was more than when I was level 20 with 1 ki core, but it was noticeably less than when I was previously level 1.

My two tails swished in the air from excitement. One or two ki cores wasn’t enough for me to compete with the stronger monsters in this dungeon, but what if I had six of them? Was six tails even my limit?

I didn’t rush off into the forest and go on a mad hunting spree to raise my level as quickly as possible. Instead, I sat down in the peace and quiet of my cave and went about figuring out a way to survive a Forked Tongue Viper’s ambush.