The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want a Fourth Time

Side Story Chapter 1: In a Divine Realm

In the space between worlds, Rodcorte, the god who ruled over the circles of transmigration* for multiple worlds including Earth, Origin and Lambda, had created a place that could be called a ‘Divine Realm’ and was currently sitting in there.

This was also the place that the souls of the one hundred people who had died on Earth had once gathered.

Rodcorte was currently observing Origin’s present state. As a god, he was capable of seeing many things happening there from outside the world. He was far from omniscient, but he could gain a general picture of things.

“The lapsing of Origin into chaos is inevitable. I suppose the cause lies in the existence of Amamiya Hiroto and his death,” he said, speaking to himself.

The world where magic and science coexisted, where Vandalieu had lived during his second lifetime, where Amemiya Hiroto and the others who were reincarnated there were still living. Rodcorte considered this world to be as far-developed as Earth, but it was falling deep into chaos.

The cause of this was Vandalieu… Amamiya Hiroto’s death attribute. The military nation that had used him as an experimental animal extorted death-attribute Mana out of him and produced a large number of Magic Items that exceeded common sense.

Cookware capable of fermenting food to make it reach the optimum level of maturity in an instant.

Storage cabinets that kept food preserved almost permanently.

Medical equipment that removed any poison and illness from the body without causing any harmful effects.

Pills that restored the organs with impaired function due to aging, illness or injury.

Hair regrowth medicine that restored lost hair.

Things that had been impossible through other attributes of magic and previous science… Things that had been theoretically possible but almost impossible to actually create in practice. Such things had been created at unbelievably low costs.

That death-attribute Mana had created dream-like produce and domestic livestock, led to the announcement of cures for previously incurable viruses, pathogens and hereditary diseases and even made cryogenic sleep possible.

Research had almost reached the secret behind immortality.

If one were to ask whether such things were possible with death-attribute Mana alone, the answer is that it really was.

At a glance, the death attribute may seem like a simple counterpart to the life attribute. Indeed, the things both attributes were capable of were similar, and if the life attribute transcends its highest limits, it can achieve exceedingly close results.

However, they are not completely the same. The reason is because life is energy. No matter how much energy one adds, no matter how much one tries to limit its consumption, it will run out eventually. In other words, death occurs.

The death attribute is the one that governs over death. It is able to remove the phenomenon of death from living things. It is free to accelerate or stop decomposition; in the same way, it is simple to produce things that can eliminate poison and illnesses. It is not even difficult to return failing organs and cells to a healthy state.

However, the military nation that discovered the death attribute had caused Amamiya Hiroto to die in their reckless experiments. And the others who had reincarnated in this world had thoroughly destroyed him. Not even a single fragment of his Mana had been left behind.

Nobody could create death-attribute Magic Items anymore. The research could not continue. The produce and livestock that had been created still remained, but those alone weren’t enough to satisfy mankind.

The military nation was internationally condemned for the existence of the research laboratory that had conducted illegal experiments that completely ignored human rights. Its president and the high officials that had been involved with the laboratory resigned, but that was only the beginning.

The dream-like Magic Items that the military nation had been producing and selling were now completely impossible to create.

The largest nation in the international committee that had condemned the military nation for its actions immediately began research on the death attribute. Amamiya Hiroto had killed most of the researchers in the original laboratory and consumed much of their spirits. Their souls were just barely intact, but their memories and personalities were not in a state for them to be useful, so even methods such as Necromancy were useless.

The few survivors, the remaining research materials and the death attribute Magic Items possessed by each nation were all gathered for analysis in a desperate attempt to reproduce the death attribute.

The people in power had been lured by the industrial and medical advances offered by the death attribute, or rather, the word ‘immortality’ which had almost been achieved.

The military nation had become much weaker, but as long as the powerful men of the world continued to desire immortality, the secret feuds between the federal states, commonwealths, republics and new nations would surface in a large way.

War could break out and cause the loss of millions, tens of millions of lives.

“I don’t really care about that, but…” Rodcorte had no interest in calculating those numbers. In fact, people being killed in war would be a wonderful thing; he would welcome them with open arms. He was the god who ruled over the circles of transmigration, after all.

It would be problematic if people didn’t die and come to be reborn.

Even if tens of millions of people were to die all at once, Rodcorte’s transmigration system wouldn’t have any difficulties in dealing with them. It could process up to a trillion people at a time. There would be no problem at all.

Origin had a population of ten billion people. Only a small number, not even one percent of them, would die in war and their numbers would soon increase again afterwards. Things would be back to normal in less than a hundred years.

In fact, people’s life expectancies in Origin had surpassed those on Earth by too much due to the existence of magic in Origin in addition to science, so this was just perfect.

Rodcorte did indeed desire the world’s development, but a society capable of sustaining a population of billions of people without falling to ruin could already be considered nothing but a good result.

Even if a population of seven billion were to shrink to five billion, he would consider it as only a minor decrease. Rather, if humanity underwent some kind of spiritual evolution or reached some ‘next stage’, then they would really be beyond his control.

He wouldn’t mind if they advanced into outer space, however.

With that said, Rodcorte had no intentions of directly intervening with the world and his ability to do so was limited so he couldn’t do anything about the situation anyway.

If he wanted to stop the conflict and war in Origin, it was possible for him to send a ‘Divine Message’ to those who had been reincarnated from Earth in order to guide them and give them information. However, he had no intention of doing that, either.

The reason he had sent them to Origin rather than Lambda in the first place was so that they could gain experience. He had helped them by giving them cheat-like abilities, fortunes and destinies, so he would have them do as they liked, whether they chose to stop the conflict, participate in it or simply stay uninvolved.

If war began, some of them, maybe even dozens of them, could die. That would be an experience for them in itself. There were a hundred of them after all; there would be no problem if some of them failed.

For Rodcorte, a god who was not directly believed in by humans, humans were nothing but bits in a computer. Just information flowing in a system. Good and evil, tragedy, happiness, none of that mattered. Everything would be fine as long as the system continued working with no problems.

“The problem is immortality, I suppose.”

The thing that would cause Rodcorte trouble was immortality. As he was a god ruling over the circles of transmigration, creatures that don’t die would be nothing but beings who denied his authority and hinder his system.

It would be even more problematic than Undead who continued moving after death and the resurrection of the dead.

Undead are a result of souls lingering in the world without being reincarnated, but they would still return to the system eventually. The resurrection of the dead was problematic, but if the soul was already transmigrated, only the body would be resurrected and the soul would never return. Only a small error would be caused.

However, immortal beings would never return.

If Undead were small errors that wouldn’t cause any problems even if left alone for a while and the resurrection of the dead was a bug that was slightly more difficult to fix, immortal beings would be a critical bug that would require the system to be brought down for maintenance in order to eliminate.

“Even considering that, it’s good that Amamiya Hiroto died.”

If Amamiya Hiroto had continued to live, the research had gone on and immortality had become a reality, Rodcorte would have been racking his brains over how to deal with it. Even if he were to send those reincarnated from Earth a Divine Message, he possessed no way of forcing them to obey his commands.

He couldn’t even send Divine Messages to humans other than them.

This was also because Rodcorte’s existence wasn’t known and he wasn’t worshipped by the people of any world. This was to ensure that if something serious were to happen in one world, it wouldn’t affect the circles of transmigration of other worlds, but… he was now regretting not preparing another being like a subordinate god or collaborative god.

Gods are not omniscient or omnipotent; their direct influence extends only as far as their authority allows and to those who believe in them.

No, for now, Origin would be fine. Rodcorte would let it be. Mankind would not self-destruct or decrease in numbers too drastically.

Coming to this conclusion, Rodcorte shifted his gaze away from Origin. And then he suddenly realized something.

“It has been five years since Amamiya Hiroto reincarnated in Lambda. His memories may have returned by now.”

Memories of previous lives returning while still in the body of a breastfeeding infant would have placed a huge mental burden on reincarnated individuals. In order to protect their minds, Rodcorte had set things up so that their memories would start returning from the age of five onwards.

As long as nothing hugely troublesome and unexpected occurred, memories would not return to a breastfeeding infant.

“The fact that Amamiya Hiroto’s soul has not returned here means that he was unfortunate enough to not die within the first five years of his life. It may be some time before his memories return, but I should check to make sure.”

If Amamiya Hiroto’s memories had indeed returned, Rodcorte had to drive him to suicide so that he would die before it was discovered that he could potentially make immortality a reality.

He had three curses placed on him, but even Rodcorte had been unable to erase the death attribute that had soaked into his soul and become a part of him. If he struggled and refused to give up, he would learn to cast death-attribute magic in Lambda as well.

For this purpose, Rodcorte used his system to investigate Amamiya Hiroto’s life following his reincarnation. Through this system, it was possible to look at a reincarnated soul’s past and present situation.

However, there was no information about Amamiya Hiroto.

“… What is this?”

He searched again, but there was no information. There were records of his reincarnation from Earth to Origin, but the records stopped suddenly following his death in Origin.

“Could it be that he wasn’t reincarnated? That isn’t possible. Amamiya Hiroto was definitely reincarnated. But the fact that there are no records in the system means - Oh no. He fell out of my system and entered a circle outside of my control!”

For Rodcorte, there were three irregularities in Lambda. The first was the Undead that even appeared from time to time in Origin.

The other two were the monsters that the Demon King and his subordinates had created in ancient times and the new races created by the goddess Vida.

Those two weren’t managed by Rodcorte’s circle of transmigration system.

When the Demon King created the monsters, if their transmigration fell under the categories of Rodcorte’s system, the Demon King would have been unable to reincarnate monsters’ souls and have them be reborn. For this reason, he had somehow managed to imitate Rodcorte’s circle of transmigration system and created his own transmigration system.

That was why monsters were still rampant in Lambda to this day. This was also the reason bosses and mid-bosses were unnaturally generated inside Dungeons.

Humans and other races who worshipped the evil gods were now falling outside of Rodcorte’s system and being incorporated into the now-fallen Demon King’s system instead. This was another thing causing slightly problematic errors in Rodcorte’s system.

And the problems caused by the races created by Vida were due to the hostility between Vida… or rather, all of the gods of Lambda, and Rodcorte.

When the Demon King first appeared, the gods of Lambda known as Vida and Alda had asked Rodcorte for help. Rodcorte had refused all of their requests and simply observed carefully.

If he were to get involved and the Demon King destroyed his soul, this would have effects on all of the circles of transmigration of the other worlds that he managed, not just Lambda. This was a decision he made to prevent that from happening.

To Rodcorte, Lambda was but one of many worlds. If it were destroyed, Rodcorte would feel pain equivalent to several bones being broken, but it wouldn’t be a fatal wound. He wasn’t willing to risk a swift death in order to avoid his bones being broken.

After that, Rodcorte had protested against the decision of the gods of Lambda to summon champions from other worlds in order to turn the tides of the battle. Because the champions had only been summoned from worlds whose circles of transmigration Rodcorte ruled over, this had caused errors in his system.

He requested that they quickly send the champions back or simply exploit them until they died.

Back then, Rodcorte had thought that Lambda’s destruction was inevitable, so he hadn’t wanted more trouble to be caused by a meaningless struggle.

As a result, a deep gulf formed between Rodcorte and the gods of Lambda. Rodcorte himself didn’t think much of it, but Vida in particular held a profound distrust in him.

With this as one of the reasons, Vida made an imitation of the system created by the Demon King with her own original functions included, creating her own circle of transmigration system, and then gave birth to new races including the Vampires. As she ruled over the life attribute, her divinity was quite close to Rodcorte’s. It would have been impossible for her to rule over the circles of transmigration of multiple worlds, but she probably thought that she would be able to manage one world’s once she built a system for it.

It was likely that she intended for not only the races she created, but all of the future races of people that would exist in Lambda to be managed by her own circle of transmigration system.

However, despite being hostile towards Rodcorte as Vida was, Alda, who prioritized the strict preservation of law and order above all else, defeated Vida and her followers.

As a result, only the new races created by Vida were being reincarnated through Vida’s system.

There was a high chance that Amamiya Hiroto’s soul had been swallowed up by either the Demon King’s system or the goddess’s system and he had become reborn as either a monster or a member of one of the races created by Vida.

“Muh… He isn’t here after all.”

Using his system, Rodcorte looked up all of the people who had been born around the time of Amamiya Hiroto’s second reincarnation but no information on Hiroto was to be found.

“But just why has something like this happened? The probability of this happening is less than one in ten quadrillion. Unless I am just terribly unlucky… Oh no. It’s because of that.”

Rodcorte remembered that the things Amamiya Hiroto hadn’t been given included not only cheat-like abilities, but a fortune and a destiny as well. As he had no fortune and no destiny, there was always a constant danger that he would go along a path that even Rodcorte himself wouldn’t be able to predict.

On top of that, three curses had been placed on him just before he was reincarnated. Rodcorte had done this in order to encourage him to end his own life, but the possibility that this had caused flaws in Rodcorte’s system couldn’t be ruled out.

“I have no choice. It will take some time, but I will investigate if there are any people who have encountered Amamiya Hiroto’s reincarnated soul. I should at least be able to learn of his current situation… This is a Dhampir.”

There was a Dhampir appearing in the memories of a certain merchant. It seemed that Amamiya Hiroto had indeed reincarnated as a member of a race created by Vida.

But this wasn’t the problem.

“Impossible, why have his memories returned? On top of that, he is already using death-attribute magic and controlling the Undead?!”

Rodcorte couldn’t even tell whether the Dhampir in this memory was even a year old or not, and yet he was already using death-attribute magic and speaking with a childish voice. His memories had clearly returned.

“I suppose this is because I did not give him a fortune. In that case, I have to improve my method the next time I have a chance.”

Rodcorte regretted the mistakes that he had made during the process of reincarnating Amamiya Hiroto and the others from Earth.

Back then, Rodcorte had prepared enough cheat-like abilities, fortunes and destinies for a little over a hundred people. He had prepared plenty, so that he wouldn’t be lacking any even if there were many people to distribute them to.

And just as he finished preparing the ferry had sunk with good timing and around a hundred people, not including the evil people responsible, had died. Among them, all but one chose to be reborn in another world.

Thinking that it would be a waste to not use everything he had prepared, he had distributed it all without leaving a single item remaining, only to find that he had overlooked one person.

To think that this one remaining person would become so troublesome as a result.

“Now then, the question is what to do with Amamiya Hiroto… Vandalieu. Should I warn Alda? I suppose it would be better to set the evil gods on him.”

Alda was the only attribute god who was still currently properly active in Lambda, the god who possessed the most power.

However, his relationship with Rodcorte was as terrible as it could be. Alda had no choice but to overlook Rodcorte’s actions so that the order of the circles of transmigration would be preserved, but that did not mean that he forgave them.

Rodcorte’s decision to reincarnate these people had been made without Alda’s knowledge. Because of this, if Alda were to find out about Vandalieu and the others, he would be infuriated with Rodcorte.

From Alda’s point of view, Rodcorte had abandoned him in a time of need without offering any assistance, and now he was doing these things on his own… and a hundred more people would be reincarnating in Lambda with Jinxes, cheat-like abilities that defied common sense that Rodcorte had given them on a whim.

It was more than likely that Alda would order his subordinate gods and followers to murder those one hundred reincarnated individuals.

With that said, leaking information to the evil gods to have them kill Vandalieu would also be a poor move. The evil gods had sense of values so twisted that Rodcorte couldn’t understand them. It was possible that they would make Vandalieu their ally instead of killing him.

As a result of much contemplation, Rodcorte decided to watch and wait for a while.

“A few of those reincarnated in Origin should die in the next few years. I’ll ask them to kill Vandalieu.”

Undead had always appeared in Lambda, so the number of Undead increasing by a few wouldn’t have any effect on the system now.

And for Vandalieu, whose curses would prevent him from turning his experiences into skills, reaching immortality without the assistance of the science of Origin would be an enormous task. It would be impossible to do so in decades, centuries or possibly even millennia.

In a few years’ time, once the second of the reincarnated individuals died in Origin, he would ask that person to kill Vandalieu and then there would be no problem. That person would have cheat-like abilities created by Rodcorte himself, while Vandalieu had only death-attribute magic and the 100,000,000 Mana contained within his Empty Frame. When Rodcorte analyzed the records from the merchant, it seemed that Vandalieu had succeeded in leveling up, but the other two curses should still be functioning with no problems. He would probably not become any stronger than that.

There was no problem.

Coming to this conclusion, Rodcorte turned his gaze away from Lambda.

If he had searched the memories of the adventurer Luciliano who had encountered Vandalieu through his Live-Dead, he might have felt a greater sense of danger.

If he had made contact with the evil gods, he would likely have learned that the soul of the Vampire Sercrent had been destroyed by Vandalieu and made a move before the souls involved in his own system were destroyed.

But instead, Rodcorte remained oblivious to the greatest mistake that he had ever made.