kscans

Chapter 13 - The Birth of the Vile, Kansai-Style Hero

The middle school classroom. It was a living hell.

"What, your lunch is all messed up again today? Here, you eat all of it."

"Gross... this guy's actual garbage."

"Whoa, he's crying! This guy's crying!"

Every day, Taiga Nanjo was kicked, punched, and laughed at in the corner of the classroom. His desk was covered in graffiti. His bag was filled with garbage. His lunch was thrown on the floor, and his water bottle was filled with toilet water. The teachers turned a blind eye. His parents dismissed him, saying, "Maybe you're part of the problem."

No one helped him. No one believed him.

"Why... why is it always me...?"

He broke. That day, he could only remember himself heading to the train tracks as if he were a stranger.

But when he woke up, the world had changed.

"...The hell is this, it's really inside a game."

A familiar forest. The silver armor he wore. The holy sword in his hand. It was the world of a game he had played to death, "Legend of Brave Regalia." And he had been reborn as its protagonist, the hero Ares.

"Haha... hahaha!"

Nanjo sneered. As if cursing the world, his blood boiled.

"So this is my new life, huh. Not bad... this is awesome."

The boy who was once powerless, unable to protect anything, just a punching bag, now had the form of the hero who saves the world.

"First things first... the tutorial forest cave. The boss was a Hobgoblin, I think."

"Hmph, with the me I am now... this should be a piece of cake."

Speedrun? World peace? He wasn't interested. There was only one thing. Revenge.

"Just you watch. I was... reborn and reincarnated in this game for the sake of revenge."

A grassland. A sword. Armor. A world of magic. His appearance was exactly that of Ares, the hero from the game he used to play, "Legend of Brave Regalia."

"...Huh? Is this seriously the world of Regalia? Did I... really get reincarnated as the hero?"

He laughed like a madman.

"No way... haha! Seriously... hahaha!"

I'm not that pathetic me anymore. From now on, it's my era. I can kill. As much as I want, however I want.

"Oh, found one already... an Orc, just lumbering along."

An Orc, walking along the roadside, leisurely and without a hint of malice. He snuck up behind it and drew his sword.

Zuburi. A red liquid spread across the ground. The Orc's eyes widened, and it fell to its knees.

"Killing something that ain't done nothing... what an incredible feeling."

He grinned. In his eyes, which were like a mass of malice, there was no trace of the warmth he once had as a human.

The Orc groaned and turned to look at him.

"P-please, help me... I don't want to fight..."

Begging for his life. The old me used to have eyes like that, too.

"Like I care. I'm not saving anyone anymore, and I'm not asking anyone to save me."

One flash. The blood mist rising from the fallen Orc dissolved into the wind.

"Save the world? Don't be stupid. I'm gonna be the one to rule this world."

He looked up at the sky and laughed.

"This is a game. But I'll be the one to end it. It's this world that's gonna get a game over."

A vile hero was born in this moment. The confrontation between Hero Ares and Mamoru the Hobgoblin was just around the corner.