Reincarnated Hero System

The three teenagers were silent.

Evan turned slowly toward the two goddesses, their expressions filled with disbelief. Even Artemisia, usually composed and unreadable, looked visibly shaken.

They all knew that name.

Evan initially didn’t know, but upon coming to Aramis, he had discovered it.

The talk about the ‘EMPEROR’ on the previous page confirmed that it was the same ‘Craig’ all three of them were thinking about.

One of the Five Race Emperors, the god Emperor.

The Aramis Faction of god Kings was involved in this existence who sat at the highest point in the divine hierarchy.

Whoever this writer was, they were quite sharp despite their declining sanity.

They somehow figured that even the god Kings of Aramis were being controlled by some higher force and though paranoia had crept into every corner of their mind, they adamantly insisted that the god Kings were pawns, turning this entire Artificial Divine Project into a vast conspiracy.

The journal explicitly named Craig, who was one of the Five Race Emperors and the writer’s descent into madness and final scream of “CRAIG!!!!” indicated that the Emperor was not just passively involved but directly responsible for the horrors of the project.

This elevated the crisis from a planetary problem to a potential galaxy-wide conspiracy.

Evan didn’t know this, but he had just discovered the early steps of a sequence of events that shaped the future he had come from—events that would ultimately lead to the deaths or disappearances of a huge number of Race Kings across the Universe.

The Rogue Hero slammed the book shut with finality, then turned to Artemisia and Beatrix and spoke.

“Alright everyone, repeat after me: I did not see anything.”

“”…””

The two goddesses were silent, their minds still processing what they’d just read. But Evan wasn’t in the mood for hesitation.

His eyes narrowed dangerously, his tone dropping another octave.

“I said, I did not see anything. Repeat.”

Beatrix tried to laugh it off, the tension snapping with her usual nonchalance.

“Seriously, Evan—”

But even though she could only see half of Evan’s expression, it was anything but joking.

“I am not joking, Beatrix. I saw nothing. This book? It doesn’t exist. The shelf? Perfectly fine. No dust disturbed, no books misplaced.”

He shot her a sharp look.

“Use your time magic and rewind this whole room if you can. Reset everything back to normal. We did not see shit.”

Evan’s voice was hard, with no hint of his usual light-hearted tone. He wasn’t messing around.

He’d only tagged along with the goddesses to kill time, not to stumble upon some interplanetary conspiracy involving Race Kings and Emperors.

They’d honestly seen too much.

Artemisia didn’t need convincing. At first, she’d planned to report everything to her father, but now, she hesitated.

The god Emperor’s involvement complicated things—especially with her father already at odds with him due to his neutral stance on the Interstellar Stage.

“…lp…e!”

Just then, they heard an unfamiliar sound. It was quiet but stood out starkly in the silence.

All eyes snapped to the door. Evan dropped the journal, instinctively summoning his sword, while Beatrix extended her spatial power to scan the area beyond the room.

‘There’s nothing?’

“…lp…meeee…! Some…oooooone…!”

Then they heard it again, this time more distinct and they immediately realised what it was.

“Was that…a voice?”

“There’s someone else in this place?”

Evan raised an eyebrow at the faint, desperate voice echoing from the halls, surprised to hear a voice that wasn’t theirs.

Was there perhaps another person like them who decided to get a bit adventurous and came to the Forbidden Outlands to explore, then fell into this place?

Or, judging by the cries for help, maybe the poor soul had been caught in some kind of trap—or worse, hunted by one of the forsaken divines like the ones that had attacked them earlier.

He turned his gaze towards the two girls and met their eyes. No words were exchanged, but it was clear that they were all thinking the same thing.

After some minutes, Evan finally decided.

“Well, let’s check it out.”

And so, he stepped forward, heading for the door.

◇　◇　◇

They followed the sound, winding through the metallic, grey hallways of the abandoned facility.

The cries for help came intermittently, each one guiding them further down the nondescript passages. Occasionally, they stopped to check the rooms they passed, but the voice was never inside.

Finally, they rounded a corner, and there—lying on the cold, metal floor—was a person trapped beneath a pile of fallen rocks. Blood pooled around their legs, and they frantically tried to free themselves, clawing at the ground with desperate, shaking hands.

From their attire, they looked like an adventurer in light armour, and there was a short sword lying on the floor not too far from them.

Their head was bowed, and their muffled voice continued to cry out for help.

“Aaaah… Heeeelp me! Please, someone, heeeeeelp meeeeee!”

Evan sheathed his sword, stepping forward as he called out to the trapped figure, taking care to make his voice calm and reassuring.

“Hey!”

He knelt beside them, gently placing a hand on their shoulder.

“It’s alright, I’ll help you. Just stay still.”

But as soon as his hand made contact, the person twisted around violently and turned to face him. Except that wasn’t the right word, as the person had no face.

There was just a pulsating mass of meat and blood where their face should have been.

“I fooooound you.”

The person’s long bangs were drenched with blood and stuck to the wet mass in the centre of their face.

Some of the blood gurgling from the person’s face spattered onto Evan’s cheek, and what was left of their mouth turned up in a disgusting smile.

Grabbing Evan’s arm tight with both hands, the figure leaned in close.

Evan’s breath caught in his throat and before he could react, something soft engulfed his arm.

“What the—!”

The softness turned rigid in an instant, tightening around him with a grotesque wet squelch. Evan’s left hand up to his elbow had been consumed by the thing.

He froze for a moment at the bizarre sensation of being enveloped by the warm, fleshy organs before the sheer terror of what he was experiencing caught up with him.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaugh!!!”

A scream tore from his throat as the creature latched onto his body, its hands pulling him closer, trapping him in its grip.

Much to his surprise, he couldn’t yank his arm free even with his SS+ Strength stat.

He kicked and struggled, but it was strong, too strong. It seemed to savour the sensation of devouring his arm, its divinity flaring as it tried to pull him further into its grotesque maw.

But then, something changed.

The creature paused, its squirming, unnatural head turning as if in confusion. Evan realized it too.

“Oh, you noticed? Too late, though”

His voice was unnervingly calm, a complete shift from his earlier panic.

The creature focused on his arm, confused as to why it hadn’t been able to consume anything and Evan’s eyes gleamed with a dangerous calm as he uttered.

“Mesarthim; Red: Flammable Arm.”

In the next instant, the monster’s head exploded.

**BOOOMM!!!

A fiery burst sent chunks of flesh and bone flying in all directions, but Evan conjured an Elemental Sheild to protect himself from the grisly aftermath.

As the smoke cleared, Artemisia and Beatrix peeked out from around the corner, their eyes fixed on Evan as he stood over the now-scorched remains of the creature.

In his hand, a glowing orb pulsed faintly, swirling with intricate circuit-like markings that radiated divinity.

He turned towards them, holding it up as he spoke.

“I guess this is the Artificial Divine Core.”

As Evan held the artificial divine core in his hand, something felt off. He’d taken down the creature, yet the system didn’t register any experience points.

This made him frown and he inspected the orb in his hands more closely, noticing that it was still pulsating.

Artemisia reached out, curiosity gleaming in her eyes as her fingers hovered toward the core, but before she could touch it, Evan clenched his fist, crushing it.

A faint pulse of energy surged through him, and a familiar notification flickered in his vision—he’d levelled up.

He turned around to glance at the body of the creature and saw it was motionless, and only now was the energy in its body slowly escaping.

“I wanted to study that. Why destroy it?”

Artemisia’s voice pulled his focus back to her and he responded while dropping the broken shards on the floor.

“It wasn’t really dead until I destroyed the core. I didn’t get any experience until I crushed it, so… that tells me these things are only finished off once the core’s gone.

Plus, I levelled up. I’m at 582 now.”

Artemisia’s lips twisted in a small frown, while Beatrix looked over at him, unimpressed.

“So, that’s the ‘master plan’ you were talking about?”

“What, never seen a master plan like that?”

Evan puffed his chest after he spoke and Beatrix’s hand met her forehead with a sigh, exasperation plain on her face.

To understand her reaction, we need to rewind a few moments—back to the exact instant they first heard that eerie voice calling for help…

◇　◇　◇

As Evan looked at the two of them, they shared a brief, unspoken understanding before he broke the silence.

“That is suspicious as hell!”

Artemisia rolled her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Beatrix chuckled. “Definitely suspicious.”

The eerie cry for help in this long-abandoned place set off every red flag.

This place, abandoned and forgotten for years, wasn’t the sort of place where they’d expect to find anyone alive. Sure, there could be someone who had gotten trapped here, a reckless adventurer needing rescue.

But Evan wasn’t buying it.