Reincarnated Hero System

“It’s scary how this conversation keeps changing tangent, but no. I have not.”

“Really?”

Artemisia ignored his comment and zeroed in on his answer, genuine surprise colouring her expression.

“With a face like yours, I assumed girls would be throwing themselves onto you.”

Her words were a blunt, almost clinical observation, but they hit the truth.

Arthur was self-aware of his attractiveness—’flawless’ was a word he’d heard many times. His features often drew attention, particularly from the opposite sex.

He even had a Fanclub amongst the Gozonian demonesses who always squealed in delight even when he did little things like returning greetings.

“Well, I did spend my first 13-14 years not giving two fucks about romance so I never responded to any of the advances made towards him.”

When he said this to Artemisia, she took note of the time frame he spoke about and asked.

“What made you change your mind after 13-14 years?”

“Would you believe that the guy who says he “doesn’t care about romance”, ended up falling for someone?”

Clearly, this ‘guy’ he was talking about was none other than himself.

“Oh, so you have a crush. Is it unrequited?”

“No, it’s not. That’s precisely where the problem lies.”

Artemisia tilted her head, confused. How could mutual feelings be a problem? But then, after a moment of thought, her eyes lit up with understanding

“Could it be that the target of your feelings is someone you’ve known for a while and has had feelings for you, but since you were doing your ‘No Romance shtick’, you didn’t respond, only to end up falling for them in the end and now things are awkward because you don’t know how to tell them you’ve fallen for them?”

“…”

Her explanation hit the nail on the head and drove it deep into the wood. Deep enough that Arthur gaped at her in shock for a good five seconds before he asked.

“Are you psychic or something?”

“I don’t have any abilities related to what you’d consider’ Psychic’, but maybe I could try acquiring some.”

Artemisia wasn’t joking; the girl could actually manipulate her Existential Evolution to gain such powers if she wanted.

Arthur chuckled at her reply as they entered his suite, where he quickly headed to the shower to wash off the lingering scent of the dryads.

Artemisia borrowed the other shower in the suite, deciding to change her plans and forgo the gym.

The two headed to the restaurant where he had taken Rachel before, had a meal and discussed a lot of things before heading back to her room where they saw Evan lying deflated on the couch

Beatrix was on the bed, humming to herself as she jotted down notes in her notebook.

“Looks like someone’s had a rough time.”

“I can relate.”

Artemisia added, nodding with a sombre expression. She walked over to Evan and tapped his shoulder gently

“First time, eh?”

“…”

The Rogue Hero responded with a silent nod and Artemisia, rather than offering comforting words, opted for pragmatism.

“Don’t worry, you’d get used to it.”

“But I don’t wanna get used to it!”

“Haha, you don’t have a choice.”

Artemisia saw that Beatrix was satisfied with what details she had extracted from Evan after such a ‘short time’.

It was over an hour, but compared to the hours she had spent being hounded for advice despite having zero relationship experience, it was short indeed.

Artemisia urged Beatrix to dress up so they could return to Southern Gledea with Arthur and Evan.

It had been 3 days since the Welcoming Ceremony for the new additions to the Army, so the two goddesses were clear to return to Militopolis without the risk of encountering any random High-Rank Demons.

Upon their return, Alvey summoned them to his office and the instant they stepped inside, Arthur froze in his tracks.

Alvey, McEnda, Artemisia, Beatrix, Evan and him.

The six of them were in the room alone, and it was as if some sort of ‘condition’ was met as Arthur just silently stood there and gazed forward blankly.

The others noticed this and called out to him but he didn’t seem to hear them. Suddenly, his lips curled upwards and he burst out into laughter.

“I fucking knew it!”

His sudden outburst startled everyone, but Arthur ignored their reactions, sinking deeper into his thoughts.

“?!”

Within seconds, Alvey and McEnda’s eyes widened in shock as if their visions weren’t glitching, they were seeing faint projections of past events in the office manifesting around Arthur.

This wasn’t a conscious act—the law of time was reacting to the epiphany Arthur had just experienced.

“Alvey, what did you call us for?”

Arthur’s voice was strangely devoid of emotion. He was actively suppressing his Pseudo-Authority’s power, keeping the law energy from spilling into his words, and this suppression left his voice eerily flat.

“…I wanted to speak about our plans going forward—the Agenda for Plomux.”

“Oh? That…”

Plomux—the continent across the Chatane Ocean, protected by the Leviathan, Yedrist.

It was Alvey’s next target for conquest and hearing this, Arthur rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a few seconds before speaking again.

“Round everything up into a Memory Gem and keep it for me, I’d go through it when I’m done.”

“Done with wh-?”

**VUP!

Before Alvey could finish his sentence, Arthur vanished, leaving the room in stunned silence.

◇　◇　◇

Alvey traced Arthur’s spatial signature to his assigned room, only to encounter a spatial barrier immediately after entering. Arthur sat motionless in the room’s centre, his eyes closed and he didn’t seem conscious.

The sight of the barrier around Arthur made Beatrix raise an eyebrow in surprise, but her reaction went unnoticed; the others were far more concerned with the overwhelming amount of Time Law energy gathering in the room, so potent that every Transcendent in Militopolis was immediately aware something extraordinary was happening, prompting them to rush over and investigate.

McEnda had to step outside to explain the situation to the newly arrived High-Rank Demons and other Transcendents, all of whom were dumbfounded when they learned that this phenomenon was the work of a single person.

One High-Rank Demon, who had Time Law comprehensions nearing 50%, found himself completely unable to manipulate the law. It was as if all nearby Time Law energy had been dominated by someone else, making it impossible for anyone to control it without their permission.

This was exactly what Arthur had done—unconsciously.

Arthur deduced that the barrier Arthur had created around himself was designed to contain his law energy and keep out threats, but the first feature didn’t seem to be doing its job.

But when Alvey and Evan walked into the barrier’s range, they realised that the barrier was indeed doing its job. What they had sensed outside was merely 30% of the actual Time Law energy enveloping Arthur.

The sheer density of the law energy was staggering; even some Half-Deities couldn’t gather this much in such a short time. Evan found it hard to breathe after only a minute and had to run out of the barrier.

Alvey stayed longer, channelling spatial law energy into his eyes to observe the space within a one-meter radius of Arthur.

‘It’s stagnant…? No…space is stagnant by default, however, energies can still flow.’

Alvey fired a small bolt of light law energy and the light froze the instant it entered the radius.

‘This section of space is frozen. The light emitted is also frozen, hence all I can see is this frozen image of him when he sat down—not his current state.’

Standing in front of Arthur, he could see a book on a table behind him.

However, when he moved to the side and looked at the table, he saw that it had been blown over and the book was now on the floor.

This led Alvey to the inevitable conclusion: Arthur’s body was currently frozen in time.

‘Still, the time law energy is continuously flowing into him…is this how people with Time affinity comprehend the law of time?’

He quickly dismissed the notion; this wasn’t a typical process. Arthur was simply built differently.

Sighing, Alvey turned away and exited the barrier, briefly glancing at Arthur’s sword, Lostvayne, which was stabbed into the ground exactly 1.5 meters away from its owner.

There was no need for anyone to inform him that the sword was in auto-defence mode. One wrong move and it would automatically strike.

You would think that as a Transcendent, Alvey should not be worried about it, but the man knew all too well what kind of weapon Lostvayne was.

The sword didn’t originally belong to Arthur but to his great-grandfather.

A Devil King.

The former ruler of the Hell Universe, a man even the 72 Demon Kings of Gozon feared.

The Sword’s name was Rule Breaker: Lostvayne.

What “rules” did the sword break? Alvey had no desire to find out. Rule Breaker weapons were dangerous things Deity Level existences both feared and coveted.

Each one was an Ego Weapon, endowed with its own consciousness and the ability to choose its wielder. If the weapon didn’t like you, then there was absolutely nothing you could do.

Alvey knew this best as he possessed one of such weapons.

Rule Breaker Number 93: Morphic Edge.

That was Alvey’s sword, a weapon that never truly accepted him. Every time he wielded it, the blade would attempt to escape, often succeeding in its efforts.

As for how he finally got it to obey—well, the truth was, he never did.

Rule Breakers had ranks. Their Serial Numbers denoted their ranks.

Three-digit Rule Breakers were the weakest, while two-digit Rule Breakers, like Alvey’s sword, occupied the middle tier. The rare single-digit Rule Breakers, of which only nine existed across the Cosmos, were the most powerful.

The hierarchy among Rule Breakers was absolute. Arthur’s sword, being a single-digit weapon, could command Alvey’s Morphic Edge to comply without question

Lostvayne was a dangerous blade, capable of slicing through Alvey’s durability, and its soul-devouring ability wasn’t something Alvey wanted to be on the other end of.

Alvey silently turned and left the barrier. As he stepped out, he noticed that the others had barely moved. McEnda’s presence was still in the cluster of High-Rank Demons, likely explaining the situation to them.

It was then that Beatrix came up to him and posed a question.

“Alvey…how long were you in there?”

“Hmm?”

Alvey found Beatrix’s question puzzling and glanced at Evan, who was sipping from what appeared to be a magic potion before replying

“Not too long. About 5 minutes or so.”

“…”

“Kpftt!!”

Evan spat out his potion and looked at Alvey dumbfoundedly, while Beatrix nodded to herself, muttering something under her breath.

“What’s wrong?”

Alvey asked, directing his question at Beatrix, but she was too absorbed in her thoughts to respond. Instead, it was Artemisia who answered him, holding up her wristwatch.

“It’s barely been 30 seconds since you went in there.”

“…what?”

Alvey’s shock was evident as he looked down at his watch, which showed a time that was about four minutes ahead of Artemisia’s. The pieces clicked into place as he processed Evan’s reaction and Beatrix’s earlier question.

“Time Dilation? Time passes a lot slower inside that barrier.”

That was the only logical explanation for why his 5 minutes inside there equated to 30 seconds outside.

Understanding this, Alvey couldn’t help but wonder how long Arthur intended to remain in that state. However, there was no one to give him the answers he wanted.

Whatever he wanted to say to Arthur would have to wait until the boy emerged from his trance, and there was no telling when that might be.

He only hoped it was before they began their plans for Plomux.