For as long as humanity can remember, every person on this planet has lived at least once before.
Reincarnation.
Since the dawn of time, humans have returned, again and again. Through countless lives, they've honed skills, mastered crafts, and perfected their magic. Death isn't an end—it's just a pause, a chance to pick up where you left off.
Over the centuries, humanity grew strong. So strong that demons like the one afrw hours ago wouldn't stand a chance.
Any random person could face down a typical demon without breaking a sweat.
And demons aren't weak by nature. No—they're lethal. But against humans who have spent lifetimes perfecting themselves? They're outmatched. This is a world of endless reincarnation, and the people who live it are terrifyingly skilled.
Which is why Benige is always terrified. For some inexplicable reason, he hasn't reincarnated. He can't even tell if he had a past life. That uncertainty gnaws at him—it's his greatest fear, his deepest secret.
While everyone else casually tears through monsters with decades of experience, Benige is starting from zero. One annoyed stranger could flick him aside like a bug.
A ripple of movement behind him caught Benige's attention. Carla Victine, peeked over her holo-tab.
She hesitated, then murmured a greeting, her voice barely audible over the soft hum of the hovering display panels.
Her fingers hovered over the digital pen, tracing symbols she'd drawn absentmindedly on the tablet surface, glancing at him again before quickly looking away.
Benige didn't notice—or rather, he didn't want to notice—the subtle way she leaned slightly forward when he looked up, as if trying to catch more of him than she should. Every time their eyes met, her lips pressed together, suppressing a smile, a faint blush threatening to rise, and Benige.....was oblivious to it all.
The lesson pressed on, full of floating 3D spell diagrams, interactive magic schematics, and mecha component simulations. Tabs hovered midair, streams of data scrolling faster than the human eye could follow. Benige ignored the whispered chatter from bored classmates, the faint whir of drones delivering reference tablets, and the soft chime of spell simulations activating.
He scribbled furiously with his digital pen, capturing every holographic detail, every marginal note, every tiny adjustment in the floating schematics. He had to catch up in a world where decades of experience acounted for everything.
Still, even as he buried himself in knowledge, he felt the faint pull from behind, Carla's presence, the way she lingered near him, a subtle hope in her expression that he wouldn't fail to notice her. Too bad for her, Benige Loriyan was as dense as a rock.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, shifted her weight, and glanced at him again, heart hammering in sync with her own quiet anticipation.
By the time the lesson ended, Benige's hand ached, his eyes burned, yet his mind reeled with everything he had absorbed.
The classroom emptied around them, but Carla lingered just a heartbeat longer, a silent smile brushing her lips before she finally turned away.
Professor Milmur's voice cut through the hum of the holographic panels. "Benige. Or Vice Class President, if you prefer." The words felt heavier than usual, carrying the weight of expectation. Benige suspected..a heavy duty was about to be imposed on him, a duty which would require someone who had reincarnated at least once before.
Benige followed the professor down the hallway, the soft glow of floating holo-tabs reflecting off the walls. Each step hammered in his chest.
...
..
.
"Ahem. Mr. Loriyan. It's no secret you were a knight in several lives before. That said, I believe you would be skilled in sword and—or shield—play," Professor Milmur said, settling into his chair with the calm authority of someone who had seen far too much.
"Yes, sir," Benige replied, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. He didn't like where this was going.
The "knight" story was a conveniently crafted lie.
From a young age, Benige's parents had noticed something… off. Their child never regained past-life memories like everyone else. By the time Benige was twelve, they had already deduced the truth: he probably had never reincarnated. Or maybe his memories simply hadn't returned yet.
Either way, it was a fact they had quietly decided to embrace.
Especially his mother. She could vividly imagine what giving birth to a past life eighty-year-old man who had reincarnated eight times would entail.
The thought alone was enough to make her shudder....and blush, for reasons Benige never wanted to think about.
So, with careful planning and a touch of parental mischief, they crafted the perfect lie: Benige was a warrior, a knight, in several lifetimes. It was sugarcoated, polished, rehearsed, a legacy written for him before he even knew it existed.
The professor let the fluff hang for a moment, a pause heavy with expectation, before finally coming clean.
"I want you to captain the upcoming inter-school mecha battles."
Benige's stomach plummeted. His jaw dropped. "W-what?"
"Now now," he said with a patient smile, though the edge of command never left his tone. "I know you're going to say your body isn't ready yet. But that's the point of this school."
Benige swallowed hard, the tension in his jaw tightening. "But I could die there, sir. Some people… usually do." The words came out shaky, haunted by such rumours of past students collapsing mid-battle, bodies failing before their minds could even register the blow.
"That is correct," Milmur replied evenly, though his eyes twitched ever so slightly, betraying the slightest hint of amusement. "But it's against the rules to do so. Those were just… small hiccups."
Here killing wasn't actually forbidden for moral reasons.
No, it was far simpler, far more mundane.
People avoided death because learning to walk, talk, eat, and adjust to a new body over and over again was tedious, frustrating, and, frankly, boring. But because death happens anyway, schools were made.
One might ask: what are these schools even for?
The answer is deceptively simple, yet elegantly structured.
First, they taught the "children"—the term applied loosely, given their often centuries-long histories—the intricacies of mecha, now fully integrated with magic and optimized for battlefield efficiency. Every lever, every spell conduit, every reactive system was examined, simulated, and drilled into their minds until mastery was near instinct.
Second, they helped the "children" adjust to their new bodies. For new returnees, the flesh was unpredictable. Muscle memory sometimes failed, reflexes lagged, and magic could misfire if the body wasn't properly in sync. A fresh start often meant literal trial and error, and the school offered a safe, monitored space for that adjustment.
Third, to help the "children" catch up with current world affairs.
Fourth and most importantly, the school provided a controlled training ground for returnees. Magic in public spaces was heavily restricted, its destructive potential was catastrophic. Here, under the careful eyes of teachers like Milmur, the "children" could push themselves without destroying half the continent.
Benige stared at the floor, feeling the weight of it all settle like a boulder on his chest. He could almost hear the ghosts of returnees whispering from past battles, taunting him for being an empty vessel without a single memory to lean on....something stirred in him, a flicker of defiance buried beneath the panic.
Perhaps this was the chance to be more than he had ever been, to claw his way from zero to something resembling competence before the world crushed him entirely.
After much convincing, much pacing and pleading and staring at holo-simulations of mecha in combat, Benige finally nodded. Not with full confidence—he would never claim that—but with enough resolve to accept that doing nothing was worse than risking a punch he might not survive. He wanted to survive a punch.
He would learn. He would grow. And maybe he wouldn't die in a single hit.
With that fragile agreement, he was sent off to assemble his team.