Overlimit Skill Holder

Prologue 7

Screams and yells echoed. I stood up unsteadily, not knowing what I should do. Most of the slaves were trying to escape, and some of them were just quivering without running away.

Many of the fleeing slaves headed to the warehouse where the skill orbs are stored. The gates of the warehouse was opened earlier to present 【Shadow King★★★★★★】 to the duke. Conversely, slaves who had taken up dangerous skills had empty skill holder slots to absorb skill orbs. Moreover, they could sell them at a high price if they took it out of the warehouse.

There was a bloody battle between the slaves and the mine soldiers who guarded the warehouse.

…What’s going to happen to me? Even if I stood still, I will only be caught by a soldier and forced back into slavery to another “master” by contract magic.

I don’t like it. I don’t want to return to that fake life.

I got used to living in this mine and thought, “It’s not so bad here. It’s at least better than being hated by my siblings and skipping meals,” but I realized that was due to the contract magic and I never want to live under such illusions again.

Having said that, I do not want to return to my hometown either.

So what I have to do now is quite straightforward. I have to acquire the power to survive on my own.

Lark. She was the first person to obtain the power to survive. And she reached out a helping hand towards me…

Don’t think about her now. There’s only one thing I can do right now. Go to the warehouse and get myself a skill orb.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t have any skills, so I can absorb any skill at all.

As I headed towards the warehouse, the slaves seemed to have the upper hand in the battle with the soldiers. The level of enthusiasm was different between the soldiers who did not want to die in vain and the slaves who had no other way out. I also broke into the warehouse following the slaves who rushed into the warehouse.

The warehouse was large with a number of shelves. All of the shelves had holes to place skill orbs. But now most of the shelves were empty.

「SHIT! The valuable skills have already been shipped out!」

「I don’t need 1-stars!」

「If you don’t need it, give it to me!」

「Haha! I’m going to sell this!」

The slaves could start fighting with each other over the few skill orbs that remained.

「Hey, there’s a door in the back!」

The slaves turned over there all at once. The locked iron door was powerless in the face of the desperate slaves. The lock broke as they bashed their swords and shields over and over again. And the door opened.

「WOW! What the hell is this!」

「It’s full of rare orbs!」

Light leaked through the door. The slaves rushed into the small room, picked up the skill orbs, and absorbed it.

「Bastard! I want that!」

「First come, first serve, you fool– Aaahhh!」

A sword was sticking out from his side, and the skill orb fell from his hand. The dazzling blue orb rolled over to my feet.

It was the rarest skill orb I had ever seen, besides the 6-star that Lark acquired. When I quickly tried to pick it up, a kick came from the side. I flew across the warehouse, groaning in pain. My stomach was empty, but it felt like being torn apart.

「Stay away, kid! Ahahaha! Luck is finally on my side!」

It was the auntie from the cafeteria, who was laughing with the 4-star skill orb in hand. And the light was sucked into her body.

「Old Hag!」

「Give it back!」

「Ahahaha! Get lost, you fools!」

The auntie held up her right hand and launched a powerful wind attack. The two slaves were swept off their feet and crashed into the walls of the warehouse.

Wow… You can get this kind of power with just one skill orb?

The other slaves ran out of the room, not wanting to become the next target. And of course, there were no more skill orbs left.

「Shitty hag, I’ll get you back for this…」

The slaves who were knocked against the wall also got up and left the warehouse. The auntie was already long gone.

「Nothing left…」

I was the only one left behind in the empty warehouse.

I bit down the pain in my stomach and staggered towards the small room, but there was nothing inside the dim room— Hmm?

「Wha? There’s one ther—」

I immediately closed my mouth with both hands. There are skill orbs which greatly enhances human senses. It would be the worst if they heard what I was about to say.

I swallowed my saliva and approached it nervously.

It was a pitch black skill orb. There was a rainbow-colored dot in the center, rotating around as though sucking in all light.

【World Ruler★★★★★★★★★★】

A skill orb that shouldn’t exist.

I remembered what old man Hinga told me previously.

–There is a skill orb with more than eight stars. It is something which can’t be handled by humans. I’ve seen it once before… The skill orb which is slumbering in the warehouse of this mine… the Overlimit Skill Orb.

This is it! This is the Overlimit Skill Orb!

For some reason, I felt like I was being called by the skill orb.

I extended my arm, and gently touched the surface of the sphere with my fingers. I was expecting to feel a smooth surface, but my fingers slipped into the skill orb as if I was touching the surface of water.

The black surface cracked, and the rainbow-coloured light poured out from inside. The light surged like a torrent of water, parted into several rays, swirled around in the small room, and entered straight into my head.

「Ah, Aah, Aaah, AAAAAAAAAAAA!」

I could see over the walls of the room, over the cave, over the mine, over the clouds, over the atmosphere, and the cosmos beyond.

「Ah, I see…」

I found out at that moment.

「So that’s why I was able to use this skill orb…」

Even though I was in a complete mess – shaken by the trauma of the past, saw the ghastly murder of several people, being kicked in the stomach, rejecting to take my sister’s hand – I felt so refreshed.

「…I can’t believe I was reincarnated into a different world. Since I’ve had two lives, the previous and the current life, I have double skill slots amounting to 16.」

And I also have a name now.

「I am Harumi Reiji. I died when I was in high school… and was reincarnated in this world.」

* *

The sky was pitch black outside the window.

I remained alone in the classroom, typing on a keyboard that I was not used to. I then stopped and stretched my body.

「I’m finally done… I’m tired.」

A haunted house, our class program for the school festival. Even for such a common thing, our lazy and conservative homeroom teacher said, “Budget and plan it. Organize measures for risk prevention,” tossing all the work onto the students. And my classmates imposed all the work onto me and returned home.

This work was just for the sake of doing it. Even if I prepared the proper documents, my homeroom teacher would just approve it without taking a look at it.

「Let’s go home and study.」

Nobody ever did anything for me. I was just “used” and “not appreciated” by others everyday.

But study doesn’t betray me. The more I study, the more my test scores will increase, and the chances of getting into a university of my choosing will go up. The most fun thing for me right now was studying.

Isn’t that too hollow? Certainly! Well, I too want to experience a sweet and sour high school life with girls!

「But with my short height…」

I was feeling bitter about my body which didn’t seem to grow any more, as I left the school on my bicycle. And due to that, I was not paying enough attention to the road.

The bicycle slipped off the road. I got stuck in an irrigation canal that was flooded by the rain the other day and drowned.

* *

I immediately understood the effect of the skill 【World Ruler★★★★★★★★★★】.

The essence of this skill was the variety of information that flowed into my head. For example, if I looked up at the sky, I can see that this is the spring sky and that it will rain a little in the middle of the night. It was an indescribable feeling. An omnipotent feeling that allowed me to grasp everything within my sight.

「So this is… World Ruler!」