"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The scream ripped from my throat, immediately snatched away by the roaring, violent wind whipping past my ears. My arms flailed wildly, grasping at nothing but empty, rushing air and scattered wisps of clouds.
Below me was a rapidly approaching canopy of impossibly massive, emerald-green trees. Above me was a sky so perfectly, vibrantly blue it looked like it had been painted by a renaissance master.
And in between those two beautiful sights was me, plummeting at terminal velocity toward what was undoubtedly going to be a very messy, very permanent splat.
"YOU SADISTIC PIECE OF DIGITAL GARBAGE!" I shrieked at the top of my lungs, tears of absolute terror streaming up my face as gravity pulled me down. "YOU SAID THIS WAS A TUTORIAL! WHAT KIND OF TUTORIAL STARTS WITH A SKYDIVE WITHOUT A PARACHUTE?! I'M GOING TO DIE! I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO DIE AGAIN!"
My stomach was firmly lodged somewhere up near my throat. The ground was getting closer. The massive leaves of the alien trees were coming into sharp focus. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the bone-shattering impact.
Record Scratch.
Freeze frame.
Okay, let's pause right here.
I am suspended in mid-air, roughly five hundred feet above a magical forest, my face locked in an expression of pure, unadulterated cowardice, and my limbs flailing like a panicked frog.
I know exactly what you're thinking.
'What the hell is going on? I just started reading this, and the main character is already plummeting to his death? Did I skip a chapter? Is this one of those weird avant-garde stories that starts at the end?'
No, no, you didn't skip anything. And trust me, I am just as confused and terrified as you are. But to understand how I ended up screaming my lungs out while falling from the sky in a world that definitely isn't Earth, we need to rewind a bit. We need to go back to the beginning.
Well, not the very beginning. Let's go back to earlier today.
Let's go back to the moment my miserable, ordinary life completely went off the rails.
RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING
The shrill, piercing ring of the final bell didn't just signal the end of the school day but the start of the single most anticipated event in a high schooler's life: summer vacation.
Almost immediately, the heavy wooden doors of Kuoh Academy's classrooms slid open in unison, spilling a tidal wave of students into the pristine, over-polished corridors. The air instantly filled with the chaotic, overlapping chatter of teenagers planning beach trips, summer festivals, and sleepovers. The atmosphere was so vibrant, so aggressively cheerful, that it practically demanded a J-Pop opening theme to start playing from the intercoms.
And if this truly were an anime—which, given the physics-defying hair colors and the sheer volume of dramatic sighing occurring within a ten-foot radius, it undeniably was—there would be a spotlight shining down on the second-floor corridor right now.
Walking down the center of the hallway was Kiba Yuuto. The Prince of Kuoh Academy.
He moved with the effortless, aristocratic grace of a runway model who had just discovered the secret to world peace. His blonde hair caught the golden afternoon sunlight streaming through the massive bay windows, creating a literal, visible sparkle effect that seemed to trail behind him.
Following in his wake was a dedicated, heavily armed battalion of female students. They giggled behind their hands, nervously smoothing down their uniform skirts, their faces flushed with a volatile mixture of adoration and sheer, terrifying desperation.
"Kiba-kun! Do you have any plans for the summer festival?" a girl in the front squeaked, aggressively boxing out her best friend to get half an inch closer to him. "My friends and I are getting brand new yukatas! We'd love it if you joined us!"
"Kiba-kun, my family owns a private beach house down the coast!" another offered, batting her eyelashes with enough force to generate a mild headwind. "If you want to come, there's plenty of room! We have a private chef!"
Kiba turned, stopping in the middle of the corridor. He offered them a smile so perfectly measured, so charmingly polite and agonizingly handsome, that at least three girls in the back row audibly gasped and clutched their chests as if they'd been shot.
"Thank you all so much for the wonderful invitations," Kiba said. His voice was smooth velvet dipped in honey. "You're all incredibly kind, and I'm deeply flattered. But I'm afraid I already have prior commitments with the Occult Research Club this summer. The President is keeping us quite busy with club activities. Please, enjoy the break for me, alright?"
It was a rejection, pure and simple. But it was delivered with such devastating grace that the girls seemed almost honored to receive it. They swooned, nodding enthusiastically and continuing to follow him like a line of devoted, star-struck ducklings.
Kiba turned back around to face forward, his polite, princely smile faltering just a fraction of an inch into a look of mild, hidden exhaustion. He was so focused on maintaining his perfect posture and so mentally drained by the endless barrage of affection that he simply wasn't paying attention to the blind corner approaching him.
THUD.
It wasn't a cute, romantic collision. There was no accidental chest-grab, no slow-motion falling, and absolutely no romantic eye contact.
It was the heavy flop sound of a bowling ball made colliding with a wet sack of flour.
The impact wasn't nearly enough to knock the athletic blonde knight off his feet—Kiba barely even swayed—but it was more than enough to send the person he had walked into tumbling backward with a heavy, ungraceful yelp.
Books, loose papers, a couple of cheap, chewed-up pencils, and a dented plastic bento box scattered across the polished linoleum floor with a sharp clatter. The lid of the bento box popped off, spilling a sad, pathetic pile of overcooked white rice and a single, lonely pickled plum onto the pristine floor.
The squealing of the fan club stopped instantly, cut off as if someone had pulled a plug. The temperature in the hallway seemed to drop ten degrees. The collective, adoring gaze of twenty high school girls shifted from their radiant, sparkling prince to the trembling heap of a student currently sprawled on the floor.
"Ew," a girl in the front row whispered. She didn't bother to lower her voice.
"Gross, he got his sweat on Kiba-kun's uniform pants," another muttered, her face twisting into a mask of pure, unadulterated disgust. She looked at the boy on the floor like he was a cockroach that had just crawled out of a sewer. "Look at him. He's so greasy."
"Why doesn't he look where he's going? God, he's so ugly..."
Kiba immediately looked uncomfortable. He didn't share the girls' malice; in fact, his expression shifted immediately to one of genuine apology. He took a quick step forward, reaching a perfectly manicured hand out to the boy on the floor.
"Ah, I am so sorry," Kiba said, his tone laced with real concern. "I completely wasn't looking where I was going. That was entirely my fault. Are you all right? Let me help you with that."
The boy on the floor scrambled backward like a frightened, cornered crab. His face flushed a deep, blotchy, radioactive shade of red that only served to highlight the severe acne scarring on his cheeks. He was heavy-set—morbidly so by the standards of this unnaturally attractive school—his uniform clinging uncomfortably to the rolls of his stomach, the collar of his white dress shirt already stained yellow with nervous sweat.
He didn't even look at Kiba's outstretched hand. He wouldn't dare touch it. Instead, he frantically began gathering his scattered belongings, his thick fingers trembling so violently he could barely pick up his pencils.
"N-No! It's—it's my f-fault!" the boy stuttered, his voice cracking painfully under the hostile, glaring eyes of the fan club. "I-I should have watched where I was walking. S-Sorry. I'm sorry! Please excuse me!"
Without ever looking the school prince in the eye, the boy scooped up his ruined bento box, hugged his crumpled, dirty papers tightly to his chest, and waddled past the group as fast as his heavy legs could carry him, keeping his head firmly ducked to the floor like a dog expecting to be kicked.
Alright, time for another pause.
You see that fat guy? The one currently waddling down the stairs, dripping sweat, looking exactly like the pathetic young antagonist of a really messed-up NTR doujin?
Yeah. That's me.
Let's get the formal introductions out of the way before things get any more depressing.
My name is Ard Voldigoad.
Go ahead, laugh. Get it out of your system. Trust me, I already did. Yes, I know. I am fully, painfully aware that my name sounds exactly like a certain ridiculously overpowered, arrogant Demon King of Tyranny from a very famous light novel series back on Earth. When I first learned my name in this life, when my so-called parents told me what I was called, I honestly thought I had hit the jackpot. I thought, 'This is it. The universe has finally blessed me. I'm going to have eyes that can destroy the universe, a sword that cuts through reality, and the power to resurrect the dead with a snap of my fingers.'
Spoiler alert for my tragic existence: I don't.
I don't have universe-destroying eyes. I have a mild astigmatism that makes reading chalkboards a nightmare. My only real superpower is the ability to sweat through a white dress shirt in under ten minutes flat. I am not powerful, nor do I have any latent magical abilities waiting to awaken in a dramatic burst of light.
You see, this isn't my first go-around at life. I'm a reincarnate.
In my past life, I was a total nobody. I didn't have a grand destiny, a rich family, or a tragic anime backstory involving ancient bloodlines of assassins. I was just a guy with a mountain of bills and a soul-crushing minimum-wage job. I worked every day, pulling double shifts, running on three hours of sleep and cheap convenience store coffee, trying to keep a roof over my head. I lived every day working until I dropped, all to support myself.
And then, one rainy afternoon, my shift ended permanently. I was walking home, dead on my feet, when I saw a little girl chasing a stray ball into a busy intersection. I heard the blaring horn. I saw the glaring headlights of a speeding delivery truck. Yep, you guessed it. The infamous, undefeated Truck-kun had come to punch my ticket. My body moved on its own. I shoved her out of the way. The grill of the truck hit me so hard my soul practically detached before my body even hit the wet pavement.
When I woke up in a new body, in a brand new world, I actually cried tears of joy. I thought this was my karmic reward. I thought I was getting a loving family, maybe an awesome golden finger, a leveling system, or some incredible magical powers. Life was going to be better. Easier.
Instead, the universe decided to play a massive, cosmic prank on me. It was the exact opposite.
My parents in this new life? Total deadbeats. The moment I turned sixteen, which was exactly two years ago, they packed their bags in the middle of the night and skipped town. They didn't leave a note, they didn't leave a forwarding address, and they certainly didn't leave any money. What they did leave was a massive mountain of debt from some very shady loan sharks, and the deed to a failing, dilapidated diner on the edge of town. For two years, I've been living entirely alone in the dusty apartment above the restaurant, dodging debt collectors, and trying to keep the lights on.
As for powers? Non-existent. Do you know how many hours I spent trying to see if I had any magic at all? I sat in the lotus position in my tiny, drafty room, sweating profusely, trying to feel 'mana' or 'chi'. I tried to study Senjutsu by doing intense breathing exercises until I hyperventilated and passed out on the tatami mats. I tried screaming power-up phrases in my living room, posing like a complete idiot. I tried begging the empty air for a "System" or a golden finger to initialize. I tried everything.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don't even have a solid enough grasp on the fundamental concepts of magic to understand how one would even begin to activate it.
But for a little while, I thought, 'Hey, at least the world seems normal. I can just live a quiet life, cook food, and pay off the debt.'
Then I got my high school acceptance letter. The name on the crest? Kuoh Academy.
Normally, this would be awesome. High School DxD. A world overflowing with ridiculously hot anime girls whom I may or may not have had a massive crush on in my past life.
For about ten minutes, I had a plan. I figured I would try to convince Rias Gremory or Sona Sitri to reincarnate me as their servant. I'd get a cool evil piece, maybe a neat magical ability, and get to hang out with them.
Then I looked in the bathroom mirror.
I'm fat. I'm genuinely ugly. I have no redeeming physical qualities, no stamina, and absolutely no magic. Devils are superficial, practical creatures; they only reincarnate those with high potential. Even if they took pity on me, I didn't want to give up on being human for anything. I valued my humanity too much to sell my soul. So, I scrapped that idea immediately. Better to stay human, stay completely under the radar.
But unfortunately, nothing ever goes as planned. And if my situation wasn't bad enough, I quickly discovered that this world wasn't just High School DxD.
No. I found that out on the very first day of homeroom.
I had walked in, kept my head down, and sat at my desk. Two rows ahead of me was Issei Hyoudou, the perverted protagonist himself. Annoying, but expected.
But then I saw the guy sitting next to Issei. Spiky orange hair and a perpetually nervous expression. Yuuki Rito from To Love-Ru.
Then the classroom door slid open, and a boy with a messy brown mop of hair walked in, yawning loudly, followed by a girl with a pony tail tied by a yellow clothe. Tomoki Sakurai from Heaven's Lost Property.
Next came a blue-haired boy with a permanently scowling face, flanked by three menacing guys in black suits. Raku Ichijou from Nisekoi.
And sitting quietly by the window, polishing the hilt of a sword she kept blatantly hidden in her sports bag, was Yuki Nonaka from The Testament of Sister New Devil.
To be honest, I really didn't want to remember how many animes were mixed in this world. Not when a simple sneeze could trigger a massive, harem-inducing chain reaction that destroyed half the classroom.
So, to be entirely honest with you... yeah. My situation wasn't great.
The rest of the final day of school passed in a blur of oppressive heat and equally oppressive isolation. I sat in my seat at the back corner, staring blankly at the chalkboard as the teachers droned on.
And all the while, I could hear the murmurs from the normal students in the class.
"Hey, do you smell that?" a voice whispered from the row ahead of me. One of the popular guys leaned over to his friend.
"Yeah. Smells like old cooking oil and sweat," his friend snickered. "Voldigoad's probably been deep-frying his own clothes again. Look at him, he takes up half the aisle."
"I seriously don't get how Kuoh let him in. It's depressing just looking at his face."
Nothing about my character. Nothing about who I was inside. Just cruel comments about my appearance. I gripped my pencil a little tighter, the graphite snapping against the paper. I kept my eyes locked on the grain of my wooden desk.
Finally, the bell for dismissal rang. The day ended, and I was on my way home. Alone.
By the time the sun fully set, painting the sky in bruised shades of dark purple and black, I was exhausted. I hadn't gone home to the restaurant. Instead, I found myself deep inside the Kuoh Municipal Park, a sprawling area of dense woods and winding walking trails on the edge of the city.
Why was I in a park at night? Was I training? Looking for a magical encounter?
No. Pure, unadulterated poverty.
"Come on... there has to be some left around here," I muttered to myself, shining the weak, flickering light of my cheap smartphone flashlight into the underbrush. I was crawling on my hands and knees in the dirt, swatting aggressively at mosquitoes.
Wild mugwort and dandelion greens. That's what I was looking for.
With my wallet holding roughly the equivalent of a chewed piece of gum and a paperclip, I couldn't afford to buy fresh vegetables for my own dinner. But the park had patches of edible weeds. If I picked enough mugwort and boiled it thoroughly, it made a passable soup. It was a perfectly normal, albeit pathetic, reason for me to be out here.
"Gotcha," I whispered, my thick fingers wrapping around a healthy patch of dandelion greens near the massive roots of an old oak tree. I pulled them up and stuffed them into a crinkled plastic grocery bag.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead, sighing heavily as I sat back on my heels.
The park was dead silent. The cicadas, which had been buzzing loudly just moments ago, had completely stopped chirping.
A sudden, sharp chill ran down my spine. When the ambient noise of the world suddenly cuts out, it means something is terribly wrong.
Crunch.
A footstep sounded on the gravel behind me. Heavy, deliberate.
I froze, still on my knees clutching a handful of dirty weeds. Slowly, agonizingly, I turned my head to look over my heavy shoulder.
Standing on the paved walking path about ten yards away was a man. But he wasn't a normal man. He was tall, dressed in a sharp, menacing black trench coat with a fedora pulled low over his eyes.
But it was what was sprouting from his back that made my heart hammer against my ribs. Two massive, pitch-black wings.
Fallen Angel.
I recognized him instantly. Dohanseek. A lower-ranking Fallen Angel. To a completely normal, magic-less human like me, he might as well be the grim reaper himself.
Dohanseek tilted his head, a sickening, unnaturally wide grin spreading across his face. "Well, well, well. What do we have here?" he drawled, his voice dripping with condescension. "A little pig, rooting around in the dirt for scraps. How utterly pathetic."
My throat closed up completely. I tried to speak, tried to form words, but only a dry, terrified rasp came out. I scrambled backward in the dirt, my back hitting the rough bark of the oak tree. The plastic bag of weeds fell from my trembling hands.
"It's truly a tragedy," Dohanseek sighed dramatically, raising his right hand.
A sphere of crackling, blindingly bright golden light materialized in his palm. The sheer ambient heat radiating from the holy magic made the skin on my face sting. The light quickly elongated, shifting and forming into a deadly, humming spear of pure, condensed energy.
"To think that the gears of God's system are so broken, so fundamentally flawed," the Fallen Angel continued, taking a slow step toward me, "that a Sacred Gear would manifest in a piece of worthless human trash like you. It's an insult."
Sacred Gear? My mind spun so fast I felt dizzy. I have a Sacred Gear? Since when?!
"Don't take it personally, pig," Dohanseek sneered, stepping closer. He raised the spear of light high above his head. "You're a threat to us. A very minor one, given your pathetic state, but a threat nonetheless. Blame God for giving a Sacred Gear to someone who doesn't even know how to use it."
Time seemed to slow down to a crawl. The golden spear hummed with lethal, vibrating intent.
I looked at Dohanseek, then down at the dirt, and then up at the spear. The absolute absurdity of my life crashed over me in a massive wave of hysterical disbelief.
"Are you kidding me?!" I shrieked comedically, my voice cracking an octave higher, echoing wildly through the empty trees. "I'm going to die AGAIN?! Truck-kun was bad enough, now I'm getting taken out by Fedora-kun?! I haven't even paid off the diner!"
Dohanseek's grin widened into a sadistic sneer. "Die."
He threw the spear.
It was a streak of blinding, terrifying gold. I didn't have time to dodge. The light spear slammed directly into the dead center of my chest.
There was a sound like shattering glass, followed instantly by an explosion of heat so intense it completely bypassed the sensation of pain. I felt my heavy body physically lift off the ground, thrown backward by the sheer kinetic force.
My vision whited out completely. The sound of the park, the hum of the spear, the frantic beating of my own heart—it all vanished.
Darkness.
It wasn't a cold, terrifying darkness like the moment I died under the wheels of that truck. It was a warm, expansive dark. It felt like floating in a massive sensory deprivation tank.
I couldn't feel my arms. I couldn't feel the aching rolls of fat around my stomach, or the sweat on my brow, or the burn of the light spear. I couldn't feel anything physical at all.
I realized, with a strange, floating sense of detachment, that I didn't have a body anymore.
In the center of this infinite black sub-dimensional void, I could somehow "see" myself. I was a pure, flawless white orb of light, wrapped in ethereal, flickering flames. I was just a soul without form.
Well, I thought, my inner voice echoing softly. Strike two.
Suddenly, the darkness around me rippled.
A sound echoed through the endless space. It was a voice—gentle, melodic, and laced with a playful, almost affectionate warmth.
"System initialization complete," the voice chimed softly in my formless mind, a gentle giggle accompanying the words. "Innovate Clear has awakened."
The darkness began to shift and change.
"Hello, Ard," the gentle, playful voice whispered, wrapping around my soul like a warm embrace. "You've had a very long day, haven't you? Welcome to your Sacred Gear. It's so nice to finally meet you Milord!"