The Former Sword Emperor, in a Modern Classroom

The smell of iron and oil, and the stench of rotting flesh.

Ear-splitting explosions and the death cries of monsters.

In my hands, I felt the familiar weight of my beloved sword, its blade without a single nick.

Before me, an Abyss Dragon towered high enough to scrape the sky, its jaws gaping wide.

I stepped forward.

As naturally as breathing, I refined my mana.

Body Strengthening. Thought Acceleration. Sword Speed Amplification.

In that frozen instant when the world seemed to stop, I leaped toward the dragon's throat and swung for its neck.

"Hey, Kurose, wake up. Class is over."

The world flipped as my desk was kicked with a loud thud.

"… Huh?"

I lifted my head. There was no dragon, no magic sword.

All that remained was a blackboard dusted with chalk powder, cheap laminate desks, and the exasperated face of my friend Sakaki standing over me in his gym clothes.

"Out cold, huh? The Japanese teacher was glaring at you the whole time."

"… Sakaki?"

"Yeah. Still half-asleep or what?"

I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.

What reached my nose wasn't the smell of blood, but the scent of deodorant spray and the dusty air of the classroom.

From outside the window came the shouts of sports clubs and the cries of cicadas.

How peaceful.

A peaceful afternoon classroom, peaceful enough to make me sick.

(A dream… no, that's not it.)

Information churned deep in my consciousness like a raging torrent.

I am Kurose Jin. An ordinary second-year student at a prefectural high school.

And at the same time, a man once called the "Sword Emperor" in another world, an S-rank adventurer who had conquered countless dungeons.

Two sets of memories clicked together in my mind like puzzle pieces.

The end of my previous life. The mutual kill with the Demon Lord. Then drifting as nothing but a soul before settling into this body in this world.

Reincarnation, I suppose.

Or perhaps an awakening of memories.

Either way, it didn't matter. What mattered was the simple fact that I was "me".

"Hey, Kurose? You okay, man? You look pale."

"… Yeah, sorry. Just had a bad dream."

I waved off Sakaki as he peered at me with concern, letting out a long breath.

As my consciousness sharpened, I began to realize a crucial fact.

(My body… it's heavy.)

Like wearing a suit made of lead.

My field of vision is narrow. My fingertips feel dull. My heartbeat is weak.

I picked up a mechanical pencil that had been lying on my desk.

A cheap plastic thing, the kind you'd find at a hundred-yen shop.

I pinched it between my thumb and index finger and applied light pressure.

In my previous life, I could have twisted a steel rod like taffy. With that same sensation, I put just a little force into my fingertips.

Crack.

"Tch…"

The pain shot through my finger, not the pencil.

The skin on my fingertip turned red, and the area under my nail throbbed. The pencil had only bent slightly, showing no sign of breaking.

(You've gotta be kidding me…)

I stared in disbelief at my own pale palm.

The soft hands of a student, without a single callus.

The circuits meant to channel mana were completely rusted shut, blocked off.

My muscles were pathetically thin, my nerve transmission speed sluggish as a turtle's.

Pathetic.

Right now, I was nothing more than a lump of flesh.

(And what the hell is with this world?)

I narrowed my eyes and surveyed the space around me.

Maso, the oxygen of mages.

There was almost none in this classroom. No, in this entire world.

Zero maso.

I felt like a fish thrown into a vacuum.

"Hey, let's go. We're hitting the arcade today, right?"

"… Nah, I'll pass."

"Huh? That's unusual. Don't be such a buzzkill."

I slung my bag over my shoulder and stood from my seat.

Even that simple motion made me want to click my tongue at how off-balance I felt.

My center of gravity was too high. My footsteps were too loud. I was full of openings. If even a single goblin came through the classroom door right now, I'd have my throat torn out and die.

The former Sword Emperor, killed by a single goblin.

That thought alone sent an icy chill down my spine and a surge of fierce humiliation.

"Sorry, Sakaki. Something came up."

"What's with that serious look all of a sudden?"

Sakaki shrugged and headed toward his other friends.

In the classroom, girls huddled over their phones laughing, and boys horsed around.

None of them knew.

That this peace was built on thin ice.

(… This feeling.)

I glanced out the window.

An endless blue, tranquil sky.

But my soul, honed through years of battle, detected a faint sense of wrongness.

In this world devoid of maso, I sensed tiny "holes" beginning to open, like ants crawling out of cracks.

No one had noticed yet.

That the world was beginning to change.

"… Time to start rehabilitation."

I muttered in a voice no one could hear, clenching my fist.

My grip strength was probably around 30 kilograms. A laughable number.

But I had knowledge. I had experience.

Most importantly, I was the only person in this world who knew about the coming "rule change".

Carrying this pathetic body, I left the classroom.

The after-school chime rang out, sounding almost like a signal for battle.