Reborn
Adventurer

"A life with no adventure is boring. The least a friend can do is stir up a little trouble in your heart."
~ Tsutsugami Gai ~
~ Guilty Crown ~

Key
'We' - Thoughts
"Hit" - Speech
"500" - Nexus
Reads! - Breaks and A/Ns

~ The Next Day ~

Inside of Wolfden village's only tavern, Kaida Mytheria woke up to her first morning in another world. Without an alarm, she was awoken by the sunlight peeking through the window blinds to the side of her bed. Covering her eyes with her arm, she slowly sat up and closed her blinds.

Looking around, Kaida didn't recognize her surroundings for a few seconds until all of the memories of yesterday hit her like a baseball to the head. 'Right... I'm still on Gaia...' She thought sorrowfully.

Shifting to sit on the edge of the bed, Kaida looked around her small room and saw her two beasts, Umbra the phantom dragon and Silver the grey wolf. Both of them slept peacefully on the ground, not minding the hard flooring, though Kaida thought Umbra deserved a soft bed, at the least. As she looked at the ground, she saw her small feet and realized that her feet barely touched the ground, brushing lightly across the ground.

'How tall am I?' She thought curiously, standing up and feeling as if she had always lived in her current body.

You are 152 centimeters tall or 5 feet tall.

Title Earned
Ever-Short

As fast as the screen had appeared, it had disappeared and left Kaida with a huge annoyance from being shorter than she used to be, but she was even more annoyed by what her new title had implied about her height in the future.

Dismissing the subject, Kaida stood up in just her undergarments as she went to the closet, where she left the clothing she had bought the other day. Sifting through the bag she had put her clothing in, she decided to wear a pair of pants and a plain white tunic, both of which she had chosen out on her own. Her other clothes were mostly some sort of dress that the waitress from the tavern had picked out for her.

Once she had gotten dressed, she put all of her belongings in her barrel bag and gently shook Silver and Umbra awake. "Let's go downstairs, guys." She said as she grabbed her bag and the key to her room before she left the room.

Following after her, Umbra kept close to Kaida's side while Silver slowly followed behind them, still wary of the two. Eventually, the three made it downstairs to an empty pub where only the bartender and a few adventurers remained. Two of these adventurers were Zach and Zeke, both of them waiting at a table with two empty dishes in front of them.

Walking up to them, both of their heads immediately turned toward the white-haired girl but quickly turned to Silver right after. "Something wrong?" Kaida asked, oblivious to the situation.

Diverting his attention away from the wolf, Zach answered Kaida's question. "Sorry, we were trying to kill one more pack in around the village, but someone had already killed the pack we were looking for." He said as Zeke continued to glare at Silver and Kaida slowly started to grasp his hints. "You didn't have anything to do with it, did you?" He asked almost threateningly, causing Umbra to wrap himself around Kaida for her protection.

"Um... Umbra and I killed a pack of wolves that snuck up on us yesterday." She nervously replied as Zeke turned his attention to Kaida. "Umbra did most of the work though," she admitted, wanting to curl up and hide away from the situation.

"Well, at least we know who did it now," Zach said with a small chuckle, surprising the white-haired girl in front of him. "Might as well start heading to Ultima now." He said, getting up from his seat and grabbing his plate.

Taking his brother's plate, Zach went to go leave the plates with the bartender, leaving Zeke with Kaida. "What's Ultima?"

"It's the Capital City! Where Zach and I grew up!" Zeke said excitedly as he stood up from his seat. "The royal family lives there and it's also where the Ultima kingdom's adventurer hall is set up."

Once Zach had come back, Zeke immediately started to run out of the tavern with no regard for the other two people he was supposed to be accompanying. "Come on, Kaida." Said, Zach, as he ran after his younger brother.

Running after the other two, Kaida tried to catch up to them, but she had a little bit of difficulty due to the two brothers being much faster than her. Realizing this, the two slowed down and started to walk, letting Kaida catch up to them along with her two beasts.

With the three of them walking together, they left the village of Wolfden and headed south toward the capital. As time passed, Zach traveled beside Silver where they were behind the others. So, Umbra still stuck to Kaida's side while she walked alongside Zeke.

But as the group of five traveled through the dense forest, Zeke looked around for anything that caught his interest. He could always try to pet Umbra again, but he might've gotten his hand ripped off if he had tried that. So, he let his hormones make the decision and he looked at Kaida, who was completely oblivious to his gaze.

The first point of interest of Kaida was obviously her white hair that almost glimmered in the sunlight that broke through the foliage above them. Then, he noticed her golden eyes that seemed to glow quite dimly. Looking around, he noticed that Umbra had the very same glow and color to his own eyes, though it didn't really interest Zeke. Anyway, Zeke oddly found himself gazing down at Kaida's slim figure that seemed to compliment every other detail on her body.

Looking back up at Kaida's face, it seemed like a lightbulb just turned on in Zeke's brain. "Hey, Kaida."

"Hi." She replied awkwardly, turning to look at Zeke while still walking. "You're Zeke, right?"

"Yep!" He replied happily. "But I have a question."

"What is it?"

"You're a hero, right?" He asked as Kaida and Umbra's eyes seemed to flicker, stopping their glow for just a second.

Thinking about it, Kaida wondered about her odd hair and eye color immediately. After all, those traits are usually correlated to heroes. In theory, she would seem like one of the main characters in whatever world she was in.

After that train of thought, she remembered what the voice said to her.

The people of Gaia refer to me as the Nexus.

Noting the screen's message, she continued on with her train of thought.

She remembered the first few messages the Nexus had given her, especially right before she was about to be sent to Gaia. 'May the odds be ever in your favor, hero.' She recalled, noting the Hunger Games reference.

"I don't know," she finally answered, the messages still on her mind.

"But you have golden eyes," Zeke whined as he swung his arms aimlessly in the air. "All the heroes in stories have golden eyes!"

"Um..." Kaida hummed, trying to think of a reply. "Those are just stories, right? It's probably made up for little kids." She tried to explain, but her knowledge of this world would be her downfall.

"No, those heroes are real! There are even some of their party members still around the world!" Zeke retorted, knowing much more than Kaida, but acting much younger. "You're probably the next reincarnated hero."

"Reincarnated hero?" She asked, knowing it was probably true, but being a hero would entitle a lot of dangerous things that she would never do willingly.

"You know, someone dies on Earth and gets reborn into this world as a hero to defeat the demon lord." He answered happily, thinking about previous heroes and the paintings of their adventures.

'There's a demon lord too? Maybe this is like those Isekai stories I've heard about. But if that's true, I should have some kind of cheat or broken skill to help me.' She thought, using her own knowledge of numerous stories and also comics.

"Then the heroes summoned by each kingdom will appear next! After that, the hero of Gaia will be picked out from the best of the best adventurers!" Zeke shouted as Kaida tried to mentally note every single piece of useful information. "Maybe I'll be the adventurer that's picked!"

Thinking of what he said, Kaida sighed and looked down at Umbra and noticed he had golden eyes as well. 'You have a better chance than Zeke, don't you, Umbra?' She thought, trying to take her mind off of the whole hero business that she'll eventually get sucked into later on.

~ Time Skip ~
~ Brought To You By Umbra and Silver 'fighting' ~

After a few hours of traveling, the group of five were walking through Ultima, heading toward the Adventurer's Hall. But after so long, Kaida ended up riding on the back of Silver, who actually let her ride on his back without the need of the Command Skill.

Arriving near the center of the capital, the group entered a multi-story building. Upon entering, Kaida got off of Silver's back and looked around, only to see men and women dressed in odd outfits eating various foods and drinking a variety of drinks. "Isn't this just another tavern?" She asked, not even drawing any attention to herself from the question.

To answer her question, Zeke turned around dramatically, only allowing Kaida to see the dining area of the building. "This is the Adventurer's Hall of Ultima!" He announced as a few adventurers waved at them happily.

'So the Adventurer's Hall counts as a tavern too.' She thought to herself, unconsciously petting Silver as she did so. Once she noticed what she was doing, she pulled her hand away, making Silver seem a bit saddened but no one noticed it. "I have to sign up to be an adventurer here, right?"

"Yes, just go to the receptionist over there," Zach told her as he pointed to a wooden desk where a red-haired woman was reading through a stack of papers. "That's Laurentia, she's the receptionist and an S-Rank Adventurer, so don't piss her off."

Once Kaida had nodded, Zach and Zeke went toward a few boards filled with papers, each vastly different from another. Walking over to the desk, Kaida waited for Laurentia to finish the packet she was working on while Umbra walked around Kaida, wary of the passing adventurers, and Silver remained closely behind Kaida.

Observing Laurentia closely, Kaida first noticed her deep red hair, then her golden eyes that seemed to have faded into a darker color. Although the woman's eyes intrigued the young girl, Kaida looked down and realized that however old Laurentia was, she had a very slim figure.

Seeing that Laurentia had finished, Kaida had finally decided to speak up since she would hopefully not bother her now. "Excuse me," she mumbled softly, quite scared of the woman.

"What can I help you with?" Laurentia asked without even looking at Kaida, just focusing on the papers that she had on her desk.

"I... I'm here to sign up." She replied as the woman looked up from her paperwork for a second, taking notice of every single detail of Kaida's face.

This time, Laurentia put down all of her paperwork once she had recognized the dimly glowing golden eyes that Kaida had. "Come with me." She ordered as she stood up and opened a door leading to a hallway. Walking into the hallway, Laurentia led Kaida and her two beasts into a room filled with multiple files and papers, spread out into an orderly mess near the wall. "What's your name, hero?" She asked suddenly, her arms crossed as she looked at Kaida with a cold gaze.

As soon as Laurentia had spoken those words, Kaida had tensed up as Umbra stepped in front of her, taking account of the mood of the situation. "Kaida Mytheria... ma'am," Kaida replied, trying not to piss the S-Rank adventurer off.

'Kaida Mytheria... Poor girl. She didn't deserve to be pulled into the world of heroes. But whoever reincarnated into her body must be even more confused by these turn of events.' Thought Laurentia as she focused on select memories of her past. "Kaida, you've been reincarnated, correct?"

"Y-Yes," the younger girl replied, scared for her life.

"I'm going to tell you something important for later." She said as Kaida tensed up further and focused solely on Laurentia. "You are not alone in your body."

"What do you mean?" She asked immediately, her curiosity taking the better of her.

"Before you came to this world, Kaida was her own person. But let's say that your conscious and hers have fused to form a combined conscious." She said, completely confusing Kaida. "Never mind. You'll have to figure it out on your own. For now, let's get you signed up as an adventurer."

With a small smile, Laurentia looked through the room for a piece of paper with multiple places for someone to write their personal information on. Taking the paper, Laurentia handed it to Kaida as the younger girl immediately looked for something to write with.

"Just prick your finger and drop a little bit of blood on the paper." She told the white-haired girl as she took her thumb and pretended to bite down on it with her canine.

Thinking about it, Kaida really didn't want to cause herself pain, especially now, knowing that she was supposedly two people combined into one. But, with a deep sigh, she took her thumb and bit down on it, bracing through the pain that it caused her as she slowly felt the skin of her thumb being pierced. As blood flowed out of the small wound, Kaida flipped her thumb and let three drops of blood drop onto the piece of paper before she quickly brought her thumb back and tried to suck out the rest of the blood flowing out. Before she could do that, Laurentia took her hand and held it in the palm of her own.

With a few thoughts, Laurentia cycled through her skills list and manually used her low-grade healing spell to seal up Kaida's small wound. Once the wound was healed, both of the women's attention was brought to the paper in Kaida's hand as the blood was absorbed by the paper and a seal appeared on the back.

Within a few seconds, the seal analyzed the droplets of blood and used mana from its surroundings to fill out the information on the paper. Kaida was simply amazed by the process that was used for her to sign up while Laurentia was more intrigued by what was being written after seeing the process more times than she could remember.

Skimming through the information, Laurentia figured that Kaida must have only been reincarnated in the past week, at most. But the Beast Tamer class was still quite rare and having a dragon would help her immensely in the future. Though with very few skills, she'd be a liability until she learned how to fight properly and got some experience under her belt.

"You're done." She said suddenly, piling a few loose papers into a pile off to the side.

Looking up from her paper, Kaida gave Laurentia a questioning look. "That's all?"

"I just have to copy that information to another file, but I've already seen it, so you can take it and leave." She replied, looking for another one of the Adventurer files.

Taking a moment to put the paper in her bag, Kaida thought about Laurentia for a few seconds, remembering the woman's golden eyes above everything else going through her mind. "Miss Laurentia, are you a hero?" She asked suddenly as the woman turned to face her slowly.

"I used to be. But not one of the actual heroes, I was only part of one of the hero's parties that helped to defeat the Demon Lord. So, I was granted with golden eyes and they haven't gone away since I helped defeat the Demon Lord." She answered in full detail, causing Kaida to need a few seconds to process what the woman just said.

"Oh... I'll just be on my way then." She said as she left the room and returned to the tavern.

Left in the messy room, Laurentia retreated to her own thoughts. 'Astrid, I hope you accept this better than I hope.' She thought grimly, thinking about what Astrid would do to her daughter upon meeting her.

~ Foreshadowing! ~

A/N: Thanks for reading again! I dumped a lot of info here through some conversations, but some are more important than others. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and will stick with me through this journey because it'll last quite a while.

The next goal will be... 800 reads! Also, should I keep doing these goals or just update weekly?