Tring~! Tring~!
The familiar sound of my alarm clock woke me up, and confusion slapped my face as a sharp sting reached my cheek.
I jolted up as if I had just awoken from a bad dream. My memories were jumbled and I couldn’t even think straight, but at the sight of my surroundings, bits and bits of my memory started to return slowly.
I was currently in a one-bedroom apartment, the familiar furniture and appliances around the room put my mind at ease, but at the same time, it evoked a feeling of displeasure.
It was at that moment that I finally realized that there was another presence in the room.
A familiar face faced me, long black hair and light green eyes that seemed to reflect the world and beyond. She also wore a familiar-looking uniform, the prestigious Rezen Academy uniform.
For some reason, the moment our eyes met, my face suddenly steamed and my head became light right afterward.
The unfamiliar warmth of tears rolled down my face as an indescribable feeling assaulted me.
She was by no means dead, so why?
Why did it hurt?
“Huh… w-what?… did I hit too hard.” The girl murmured under her breath with confusion plastered across her face.
The moment her voice reached my ears, my heart sank and all the feelings I couldn’t feel when I died suddenly came back rushing like a truck and struck me at the core of my heart.
The feelings I couldn’t show because I was on the battlefield.
The feelings I couldn’t show because I was the leader.
“Ahhhh~!”
An inaudible scream left my mouth, though it was probably due to my head being so light that I didn’t hear the full volume of it.
Only the ire ring of silence attacked my ears.
An awkward silence floated in the spacious room.
I was currently sitting in the living room with my little sister opposite me.
My little sister, Lily Dragnok stared at me in silence as if her brain hadn’t processed what had just happened a few minutes ago.
We were having breakfast together, scrambled eggs and bacon with toast, but as time went by, neither of us touched our food. It seemed the earlier scene left a bad aftertaste for both of us.
All we did was wrestle with the food using our forks and occasionally flip a piece for some plate action. However, Lily would occasionally glance at me with a worried expression.
“It was nothi—”
“Did the family do something?”
In the suffocating atmosphere, I tried to put her mind at ease, but she cut me off and asked a question with a serious expression. She seemed to think that what I had gone through had something to do with her adoptive family — the all-powerful Dragnok family.
This little stunt wasn’t worth causing friction between them, since Lily had only been adopted 5 years ago, it was still hard for her to trust them. By the way, I wasn’t a part of that family and Lily was simply a blood relative to me.
“It has nothing to do with them. Plus, they are trying to get on your good side, why would they compromise that?”
The apartment I was currently staying at was one such example of my claim, and it seemed she also somewhat believed so because I could see her nodding to herself as if trying to convince herself.
Thankfully, she started to stuff her face with food afterward as if nothing had happened.
Seeing her familiar habits play out in front of me, memories of the past came back to me -memories of my previous life. The Dragnok family really had an eye for scouting talent, as one of the few individuals who was closest to reaching S-rank, she was truly a force to be reckoned with.
To put that into perspective, there were only four S-rank humans in the whole world at this point in time. Ten years from now, the number remained the same, though many like Lily were close, it would have taken a few more years for another S-ranker to appear.
“The car is here, let’s go.”
Lily’s words cut me from my thoughts, as she was thoughtlessly staring at her cellphone. At her words, we both stood up and went down the stairs.
08 April 2990 of the Draconic Calendar.
08:34.
I had really traveled 10 years into the past. Until now, I had only assumed so based on the young Lily who woke me from my sleep, but it didn't take long for my suspicions to be confirmed. A mere glance at the TV or my cellphone provided enough proof.
We finally reached the ground floor and left the building. The bustling sounds of the morning rush filled the city air, with multiple cars and people intermingling everywhere as far as the eye could see.
On the ground floor, a limousine was parked parallel to the entrance. All that was missing was a red carpet and every passerby would have immediately gathered to pay respects to whoever was due to enter it.
A man in a black suit and sunglasses opened the door the moment he saw us and motioned for us to enter. I hesitated as I looked at the interior of the limousine which seemed to scream, ‘No Commoners Allowed!’
Since I was now back to my 16-year-old self, my previous rank and achievements were all nonexistent.
“Don’t worry, it won’t drop us directly at the academy, so we will walk the rest of the way.”
Lily seemed to interpret my worry differently as she pushed me into the car and I reluctantly entered.
I started to think. If the current iteration followed the previous one, then today was the placement exam for the new first-year students at Rezen Academy. It seemed my memory was pretty good as Lily let out a cheerful voice,
“I can’t wait to live at the dorms.”
It was a strange thing to be excited about, but knowing her, she probably felt suffocated living under the same roof as the Dragnok family. As a member of high society, she wasn’t allowed to live with a lowly commoner such as myself, but she would visit every chance she got.
It was only natural, the mighty Dragnok family would rather have adopted me as their pet and kept me in their basement if it meant Lily could live at their mansion, but now; she would finally be free of that.
For like 3 years though.
Seeing her cheery attitude, I spoke up to her,
“Shouldn’t you be more worried about the placement exams?”
“Huh… that? well, I will probably be thrown into the higher classes even if I dragged my feet.”
She replied with a pout, her competitive nature made her dislike her position more and more. She then continued before I could speak,
“What about you? If you drag your feet we won’t be able to have our rematch.”
She thrust her fist forward and stopped it next to my face.
Ah, that’s right. We made such a promise, didn’t we?
It felt embarrassing to remember such a thing, especially since I wasn’t even able to keep up with the weaker students after getting assigned to the middle classes.
However, I wasn’t sure what was more embarrassing, the fact that I barely made it into the middle classes or that Lily still kept her strange sense of rivalry against me.
“We might really settle the score this time.”
I muttered without much thought, Lily seemed taken aback by my response, which was different from what I had said in the previous iteration, but as if I had picked the correct dialogue in a romance game, she gave a cute smile and nodded to herself saying,
“Of course.”
The rest of the trip was silent, though not as awkward as the last silence in the living room, it was a more comfortable silence. Because of this, I took the opportunity to look at my stats.
We still had at least an hour before we could reach our destination.
“Status.”
A blueish, almost transparent window opened up in front of me. Lily seemed a bit surprised by the sudden action and also muttered the same under her breath. She turned to me with a small smile that seemed to say, ‘I won’t lose.’
Emm, Isn’t that a bit too competitive?
It wasn’t like anyone else could see the status window of another person, so her behavior was scaring me.
If I suddenly started stabbing my face with a pencil, she might just join me and stab herself harder.
I shrugged my shoulders and cleared the scary thoughts from my head as I glanced at the window in front of me.
================
Ian
Title: Regressor
Strength: 22
Stamina: 24
Speed: 21
Agility: 25
Intelligence: 39
Magic: 34
Authority:
[Time Perception Lv. 9 (Evolved)] — Allows manipulation of how the user or targeted individuals can perceive time.
[Time Lv. 1] — Allows the user mastery over all time-related magic.
Special Skills:
[Status Lv. 5] — Allows the user to view the status of everything in universal numeric metrics.
Unique Skills:
[Object Perception Lv. 9] — Allows the user to directly manipulate how objects perceive time through acceleration or deceleration.
[Regress Lv. 1] — Allows the user to revive after death. [Restriction] — memories of the past life are completely erased.
[Recall Lv. 1] — Allows the user to perfectly recall everything they have seen, heard, or experienced at least once in the past.
[Future Sight Lv. 1] — Allows the user to see 0.5 seconds into the future.
[??? Lv. ??] - ???
[??? Lv. ??] - ???
…..
====================
A pleasant surprise was all I could think of.
Though I was regretfully back to being an F-rank knight, I started to analyze the new additional information I had never seen on my status.
One complaint I would have was that all of my special skills except [Status] had disappeared completely.
What a huge waste of money.
The most noticeable change was at the top of the status window, my title had changed from “Vice Commander of the Human Alliance” to “Regressor.”
Such a title would naturally have brought up multiple questions, but thankful the status window had all the information I needed.
It seemed regression was really possible because of the [Regress] skill, but I didn't like the restriction placed on it.
‘Memories of the past life are completely erased’
That on its own would be an unpleasant problem to deal with, but fortunately or unfortunately, another unique skill directly countered this.
[Recall Lv. 1] — Allows the user to perfectly recall everything they have seen, heard, or experienced at least once in the past.
Instead of ‘counter’, it just felt like this skill and the [Regress] restriction directly contradicted each other.
Everything I experienced in my last iteration was something I had ‘experienced at least once’, so that meant I should be able to remember it with [recall].
It's probably best not to overthink it.
Hopefully, I would never find myself in a situation that would lead me to die again.
There were only a few more minutes before we would arrive at the venue so I decided to look at my last unfamiliar skill.
It was more practical than the other new ones I had received because I could apply it to battle at any time I wanted.
[Future Sight Lv. 1] — Allows the user to see 0.5 seconds into the future.
Combining that with [Time perception] and [Object Perception] filled my head with some interesting applications.
As for the question marks, I had no idea what that meant. There wasn't anything about it in the manual when I purchased the skill.
Better research it later.
I decided to catch a quick power nap before arriving at the academy.
“We're here.”
The calm voice of a man reached my ears and I looked up to the front of the limousine.
The small window revealed the suited man with glasses as he stared at us. Lily and I awkwardly left the car, he had dropped us directly at the Academy entrance gates despite Lily's request earlier.
I didn't mind it too much though. Since the academy would officially start operating 2 days from now, the number of students who saw us wasn't that intimidating.
The familiar sight of Rezen was burnt into my vision as I once again marveled at its huge size which exceeded even that of multiple universities across the empire.
We walked into the large gates and made our way to the exam site, it didn't take long for us to reach it.
As we entered a spacious gymnasium, multiple students - all clad in academy uniforms - greeted us on the other side.
“Wow~, you are pretty good with directions huh.”
Lily muttered but I simply shrugged. It wasn't my first time navigating the grounds of the academy.
In the gymnasium (or hall), 900 students easily filled the space and every one of them had already passed the entrance exams.
However, even in such a chaotic environment, a few students still stood out from the rest.
Future leaders of powerful clans or large conglomerates that had been featured on TV since a very young, took the eyes of everyone present. They were even social media celebrities at this point.
Only someone who wasn't exposed to the internet wouldn't know them, it was painful to admit that I knew one such person standing in this room.
Screech~!
The jarring noise of a mic's feedback dragged everyone’s attention. At the elevated stage - visible to everyone - a neat-looking man with a grey suit and a black overcoat stared down at us with sharp eyes while holding onto a mic.
He wasn't someone most of the students would know, but behind him - 8 other individuals wearing a similar fit with different colored suits stood in a single row.
They were the professors of Rezen Academy.
One of them stood out from the rest, particularly because she looked like the youngest there.
“A good morning to everyone present. I am Senior Professor Edward Pierce. I will go straight to the point. We will divide each of you into groups of 100 students and you will undergo the placement exam with one of the professors behind me.”
He pointed his thumb behind him as some of the professors gave small winks or waving gestures to the distressed students.
But the senior Professor didn't waste any time. In the next moment, a blinding white light emerged from the floor as it engulfed every student present.
There wasn't even enough time to scream as everyone was forcefully teleported instantaneously.
The familiar floating feeling engulfed my body as the scenery in front of me changed.
We were currently standing on a stage and surrounding us were elevated seats in a circular pattern.
It was a small stadium built to mimic a coliseum, though a bit smaller than the main one, it still had around 400 seats.
“Wow~”
“What's going on.”
Surprised gasps and amazed sounds came from the students around me as they looked around the coliseum.
I was more amazed by something else — the senior professor's powers.
Despite being a B-rank knight, Edward's authority was given 10/10 points for its massive war potential.
It was the highest rating an individual could get from the strategic table, one which even some A ranks failed to achieve.
By the way, my war potential was also 10/10 (mostly because I was more or less in charge of that system)
“Hey everyone.”
The soft voice of a woman seemed to surprise everyone as they frantically looked around. It took a bit of time (seconds) for everyone's attention to focus on a single person.
She wasn't as tall as most of the students here so the only thing that separated her apart was the red suit she wore with a black overcoat.
“W-woah. It's the scarlet arsenal!?”
“Ah, she's so pretty.”
“Hehe, I wonder if she could stab me if I asked.”
As with the comments, she was indeed pretty. Her pale skin and long red hair highlighted her attire even more.
One of the youngest and arguably the strongest D-rank knight in the entire empire, with her magic stats being in the C-rank range, paired with her authority, she truly earned the title of ‘Scarlet Arsenal’.
She was smiling from ear to ear, listening to the students praising her and likely getting a big head from it.
A few minutes of this went on and it seemed to have turned into some kind of celebrity meet-up event.
It was understandable though, all one hundred of the students here were ‘commoners’, simple nobodies that came from simple towns.
The kind-hearted Scarlet Arsenal had voluntarily chosen to assess such a group because of her similar upbringing.
Almost all the students had gotten a handshake from her and if it wasn't for someone asking about the exam, I feared she wouldn't have stopped. (I was that someone)
“Ah, right! OK, everyone. For those who might amazingly not know me, I am Professor Eliana Bloodthron. I will now explain the rules of the placement exam. It's simple really, all you need to do is demonstrate your authority against me then I will decide if you go to either the low, middle, or high classes.”
She gave a cheerful explanation but the students weren't all that happy, they were pretty much confused.
“Against… Eliana?”
“Fight… you?”
They muttered words as if they wanted to convince themselves of something.
It was only natural, the minimum rank required to enter the academy was just an F-rank, so telling us to fight a D-rank with double our stats points was a bit unfair.
Even the broken talents were still borderline E-rank.
“Now now, don't worry about that. I will hold back as much as I can, so please try your best.”
Eliana gave an enthusiastic smile which seemed to have easily worked as the students clenched their fists and voiced some words of agreement.
The students then occupied a single side of the makeshift coliseum and as we did, a huge holographic screen appeared at the top of the center stage. It showed a zoomed-in version of what was happening on the stage with much clearer detail.
“Alright! Let's start from the first row on the left.”
Eliana's amplified voice reached us and a heavy silence floated in the air.
The exams began.
