Dead bodies.
Dead bodies everywhere, smashed or ripped apart by an unknown force, the gruesome sight filling one of the dungeon rooms, a space with only one entrance and exit. Among the carnage was the body of a lean and athletic man, his jet black hair matted with blood, and his doberman ears and tail lay lifeless.
His head had been sliced clean down the middle, splitting his face in half, with one of his red-brown eyes dangling grotesquely from its socket, while his exposed skull and brain glistened under the dim dungeon ceiling light light. Blood and gore pooled around him, drenching his clothes, yet his hand still gripped the hilt of a broken magic sword.
Then, suddenly, the corpse twitched. Slowly, his split skull began to knit itself back together, Brains shifted and fused, bone met bone, and the torn flesh began stitching itself closed. His dangling eye shifted and moved back into its proper place, snapping into focus. Within moments, his body looked whole again, as if he had never been injured.
Then—
"HAAAAA!" The man gasped, sucking in air as though surfacing from deep water. His eyes shot open, his chest heaving. "Haah... haah..." He gripped his chest, feeling the frantic pounding of his newly beating heart. "What the fuck?!"
The last thing he remembered was walking down the street after another exhausting 9-to-5 shift at McDonald's. He had been thinking about dinner when a loose tire from a truck came hurtling toward him—and then… nothing.
And now…
"Where am I?" he muttered, his voice shaky as his eyes darted around the cave-like room. Blood painted the floor, walls, and looked down at himself to notice his clothes, drenched in gore, thick and sticky.
"Wh-WHAT THE FUCK?!" he roared, stumbling to his feet, but before he could process anything further, something hit him like a freight train.
Memories.
Memories that weren't his own came flooding in.
"Gaah!" He cried out, gripping the cold stone wall for support as the overwhelming torrent consumed him. Scenes, emotions, and knowledge, flashed before his eyes.
It took a few seconds, but eventually, the storm within his mind began to settle. The foreign memories slotted into place, his thoughts working instinctively to sort and integrate them. Breathing heavily, he pressed his bloody palm against his face, grounding himself.
He exhaled deeply,closing his eyes. "I'm not on Earth anymore." The memories left no room for doubt. They showed him a world of elves, cat people, dwarves—and gods. Literally, mythological gods walking among mortals.
And then he realized. This wasn't just any world. "Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon..." he murmured, lowering his hand to survey the blood-soaked dungeon room around him. "I'm in Danmachi..."
It was an anime he'd watched a few years ago. He could recall bits and pieces—general plotlines, the protagonist, and snippets about the world. The details were fuzzy, but it was enough to confirm where he was.
"How…" he whispered, closing his eyes briefly, trying to rationalize how he had crossed worlds, but he couldn't even begin to theorize.
And after crossing over, he took over a body. Rex Magnus, a member of the Soma Familia—a quiet, money hungry man like everyone else in the Familia who died to a Minotaur wandering on the upper floor.
'What the fuck is a Minotaur doing on the upper floor.' He groaned, massaging his neck, and then he remembered. 'Ah, right…' He nodded, 'I am either during the beginning when the loki familia came back from an expedition or I entered the body furring the time Ottar trained that Minotaur to kill Bell.'
He thought back. "It's the latter," he mumbled. Bell has already killed that silverback monster, so it was way past the beginning of the show, at least he believes. 'Whatever, I need to get out of here.' He thought, looking around.
Escaping shouldn't be a problem. Based on the memories of his stats, his highest attributes were Strength and Endurance at E-rank, making him more than capable of handling the challenges of floors 7 and 8. However, the Minotaur was likely still wandering nearby, so there is a chance he would run into it and that would almost certainly lead to his third death—or rather, his second.
'Shouldn't I have a cheat skill like other reincarnators?' Rex wondered, his thoughts drifting to the manhwa and manhua he'd been reading recently. 'Am I in a fanfiction!?' he thought briefly, before shaking his head and deciding to try his 'golden finger.' "Uh… Status?" He muttered.
To his surprise, a translucent screen materialized in front of him:
— — — — — — — — — —
[Name] Rex Magnus
[Level] 1
[Strength] E459
[Endurance] E447
[Dexterity] F319
[Agility] F363
[Magic] I2
[Development Ability] None
[Magic] None
[Skill]
Scavenger
— Scavenge a dead corpse to gain up to 10% of its stat points.
— Chance to acquire skills from the corpse.
— Low chance to acquire magic and properties from the corpse.
— Stats, skills, magic, or properties can be declined.
— Status automatically updates.
— Treasure Detection
— Sense and judge the quality of anything, including abilities, people, objects, locations, or even abstract concepts or properties.
— — — — — — — — — —
"...Okay..." Rex mumbled, staring at the screen. This Scavenger skill hadn't been part of his original memories. It must have been his gift from reincarnation, and rightfully so. This thing looked overpowered. "And I guess the sub-ability to 'sense and judge the quality of people' is what gave me this status power."
His eyes drifted to a dead body nearby. A faint aura seemed to radiate from it, drawing his attention, so he moved closer. The body was headless, blood still pooling from its neck in thick, dark streams. He gulped hard, looking away from the sight. Fortunately, his strong stomach—along with the memories of the original Rex—kept him from vomiting whatever was left in his gut.
Let's see, he thought, crouching beside the corpse. He placed a hand on the drenched, blood-soaked torso. Scavenge.
The aura he sensed flowed into him, and multiple notifications appeared in front of his eyes:
[+18 Strength]
[+3 Endurance]
[+11 Dexterity]
[+11 Agility]
[+1 Magic]
He could decline or accept the gains, but like any sane person, he accepted all of them. A warm, invigorating rush coursed through his body as his stats updated.
'Nice.' He clenched his fist, feeling the subtle improvement in his strength. "An overpowered skill indeed. Really fucking overpowered." WIth this, it wouldn't take him more than a month or so to max out his stats and level up. Even faster than that 'Ais' from Loki. Granted, the original Rex has already been adventuring for five years so he wouldn't be breaking any record.
He scanned the room, spotting another corpse—a teammate of the original Rex—but this body didn't emit the same aura. It seemed too much time had passed for scavenging to work. However, that didn't mean the body was useless.
Walking over, Rex rifled through the man's belongings. After a brief search, he removed a utility belt that held a sheathed dagger, a pouch containing magic stones, and another pouch with three healing potions.
He fastened the utility belt to his waist and pulled out the dagger, the blade completely dark and straight with a double edge, and the hilt wrapped in brown leather. 'Quality inspect,' he thought, and a blue screen appeared:
[War Shadow Dagger: A 35 cm double-edged dagger crafted from War Shadow finger blade by a Goibniu Familia highsmith with the Blacksmith Development Ability. It is a second-class weapon with an excellent edge and durability. Market Value: ~175,000 Valis]
"Eh?" Rex blinked at the screen. "This expensive weapon was hiding in plain sight?" The dagger looked so ordinary that he had assumed it was just a regular blade. The dagger's previous owner had picked it up off the ground and only used it to threaten others. 'Who knew it would be this good? Nice.'
He added the dagger's sheath to his belt but kept the blade unsheathed, holding it securely. After another quick scan of the room and finding nothing else of value, Rex closed his eyes to concentrate.
After gaining a blessing from a god, all adventurers experienced heightened senses, and as a doberman Chienthrope, Rex's hearing was already exceptional. Though his sense of smell was vastly better, he rather not use it in a place filled with blood and dead bodies. Focusing, his ears twitched slightly as he focused on the faint sounds of the dungeon, trying to gauge how many monsters might be nearby.
'None?' There were no sounds of movement, no growls, no skittering claws. 'Did the Minotaur kill all the monsters in its rage?' That was good—he wouldn't have to fight. I should head up.
Strong light spills down from the phosphorescence in the ceiling, lighting up the pale green walls in every direction around me, and as he advanced, his eyes scanned the ground. Monster corpses littered the path—most of them ants, with a few of the bodies still carrying the faint aura his skill seemed to detect.
'Don't mind if I do.' He approached the nearest ant, squatting down and placing his hand on its abdomen. 'Scavenge.'
The aura flowed into him, followed by a notification of modest gains.
[+2 Strength]
[+3 Endurance]
[+1 Dexterity]
[+6 Agility]
[+0 Magic]
"So bad," he muttered, frowning slightly at the numbers. Still, he couldn't complain—this was better than what most adventurers could achieve after a full run. And there were two more bodies to scavenge nearby. He muttered to himself, "And I can't forget the magic stones."
However, when he turned back to the ant, he saw it turning to ash. "Eh?" Monsters in the dungeon only turn to ask when their magic stone is removed so… "Hmmm…" he went to the next body and removed the stone, watching the body turn to ash, and the moment the stone was in his hand, the aura became unmistakable.
"Ah," he realized aloud. The stone is what carries the aura, not the body itself. Placing his palm on the stone, he triggered his skill again. Scavenge.
[+1 Strength, +4 Endurance, +3 Dexterity, +5 Agility, +0 Magic]
He nodded, satisfied, and moved to inspect a third ant body. This one had no aura—neither from the corpse nor the stone. "I guess I can't go around scavenging every magic stone I find," he muttered. Like human bodies, the stones seemed to have a timer before their power faded and the aura disappeared.
"Sacrifice money for power," he mumbled. "I don't mind." With that, he moved on to the next ant body.
He continued cautiously, following the path of destruction left by the Minotaur. Along the way, he scavenged more corpses, learning something new about his skill when he encountered two adventurer corpses. Both had died at roughly the same time, judging by the state of their blood and bodies, but he could only scavenge one of them.
The difference became clear after closer inspection: the corpse he couldn't scavenge was too damaged. The same rule applied to magic stones—if they were cracked or otherwise destroyed, his skill wouldn't work.
Now, Rex stood before the door leading to the eighth floor. The trail of blood clearly showed that the Minotaur had gone down, likely chasing an adventurer. He stared at the door, weighing his options.
"Should I follow it down?" he muttered.
He glanced at his updated stats:
— — — — — — — — — —
[Strength] D580 | [Endurance] D548 | [Dexterity] E476 | [Agility] D500 | [Magic] I12
— — — — — — — — — —
In just 15 minutes of cautiously scavenging around 15 bodies, he had gained 457 points. If he went down to the next floor, the monsters would undoubtedly be stronger, and their stats would yield even greater rewards.
'But that would be stupid.' The thought hit him hard.
The Minotaur could be waiting just beyond the door. Even if it wasn't, encountering it would spell his doom. It was a level 2 monster, and it was also trained by Ottar himself. Bell had defeated it to reach level 2, but Bell's stats had all been at S by then, while Rex's highest stat was D.
If it came after him, the odds of escape were slim at best.
"Fuck." He rubbed his hands together, trying to decide. 'Play it safe and go up? Or take the risk and head down?' If he died within an hour of entering this world, it would be game over. 'I could just head up and mass-hunt ants for stats…'
After several moments of agonized thought, he made his decision.
"Let's go down," he said firmly. "Besides, I could loot the bodies I find along the way."
He still wore a light-blue shirt, a light-brown sleeveless vest, and a dark purple cloth draped around his neck and right shoulder—all of them stained with dried blood. However, he had looted some additional equipment along the way. He now wore black shin-high boots, a leather knee pad over his blue cargo pants, and a sword strapped to each side of his utility belt. One was a basic longsword, cheaper than his dagger. The other, however, was a magic sword capable of shooting fire—its market value was a staggering 897,000 valis, according to his inspection.
In total, his current gear was worth 1,205,500 valis, with the magic sword being the most expensive item. If he sold all his current equipment, he could buy a good house and live well. That is, if he managed to sell them for their market value, which he doubted he would be able to since they are used items. So if he went down and looted more corpses, it would undoubtedly be worth the risk.
"Let's go," he said, gripping the hilt of his dagger tightly as he walked down.