…
In the same place filled with flying monsters and black pillars, a young boy stood motionless, staring into the horizon.
"What am I doing here? Who am I?" He muttered to himself in a strange tone; his previous voice was filled with either motivation, humor, or laziness. Now it was filled with confusion.
"What's this place?" He asked again, but was only met with silence.
"Home."
Or so he thought before an ethereal voice answered him from his left. Surprised, he quickly looked to the side, only for his left eye to explode and splatter blood everywhere.
"This is not the first time. Do you like injuring your body?"
The same ethereal voice responded, but this time, Dante didn't try to locate him. His eye was already healing, but as he heard the voice more and more, he felt his nose tickle and his ears scratch.
When he tried to look at what was happening, the hand with which he tried to feel his nose and ears was covered in blood.
"Who are you?" He screamed out, still completely confused and scared by what was happening.
"Don't you remember your purpose, ô Great One?"
"W-what do you mean?! Get me out of here!"
The voice stayed silent for a long time, and Dante didn't say anything either. He was trying to understand what he could but couldn't make any heads out of it.
"It seems 'they' have done something to your memory. I can't let your incarnation handle itself alone without supervision. I guess I will land a hand."
When it said that, Dante remembered his whole old life before he died. Everything elapsed before his very eyes.
"Got it now? I thought you would notice faster than that, but I guess 'those' got you somewhat confused."
Until now, Dante had been living this life as if it were impossible for him to have known what it was. He didn't try to make any connections between his old life and this new world.
But now, this otherworldly being had specifically shown him a book, a novel he had read—something he hadn't liked reading for a short time.
Now it all made sense; novels with a world where beasts, elves, and dragon peoples existed were way too common and used, so he didn't make any connection between the two.
"What do you want me to do?" He asked to hear the voice.
"I wonder, your Highness."
"Why are you talking so formally to me? I am no king or ruler."
"For now." That was all he heard before he suffered from a head-splitting pain that made him blink.
However, that was all it took for the environment to instantly change to one with a white ceiling. He felt as if he had dreamed for a long time; his body felt extremely weak, as if a doctor had used anesthesia to relieve pain.
To his side was an open window that let in the beautiful scenery of the dawning sun—a scenery he had already seen before. But it now looked kind of strange, as if everything had grown...
This made him fear what he thought he had understood; he hoped against it but started to fall into a slight depressive mood.
As if sensing something, he could see a flying black mass in the distance quickly making its way toward him. He got tense at first, then felt relieved.
When the black mass flew to the edge of the window, he recognized Skull. It had grown almost double its original size, and its skull-like face looked more ferocious.
If before it could have been misunderstood as just a small scavenger bird, now it truly looked like a predator.
"What happened…" In a depressed state; he had been trying to remember the novel he had read and was shown by the voice, only to discover that he almost couldn't remember anything.
Even his past life was extremely blurry. Like when people tried to remember a dream they had just woken up to.
Just as he was about to get up, he noticed a small crystal blinking at his movements.
"System."
He tried to recall the system, which had been offline for a long time now, but was met with silence. It was extremely strange; something was happening to it, but he couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Just as he was thinking, he noticed the silent Skull turn its head toward the door as if sensing something. He thus turned his head toward the door and asked. "Doc, what happened to me?"
Figuring out that he had been discovered, the person opened the white door and entered the room. Dante easily recognized him as the vice principal.
"You're finally awake." The bald man spoke.
"What happened to me?"
"The real question is how you are still alive."
"I'm a strong cockroach."
"Even a cockroach would die if it had its head crushed and pierced. I still remember coming to the healing facility only to see a lump of flesh.
Before you ask, I don't know how, but your flesh just started reforming by itself."
"It's just one of my skills; nothing that extro-"
"That's the problem; a skill stays a skill. What you have shown is abnormal, even for a skill."
Dante thought of an explanation or an excuse but fell short, so he had to appeal to the magic words.
"I don't know."
…