Everyone was born with a duty—that was the thought that once occupied a certain young Japanese man.

He’d lived his life following this mantra. He did well enough at school, got a decent job, had his hobbies in games and exercising, and while he never found a partner to spend the rest of his life with, the man was fine with it. However, there was still something amiss within him.

Throughout his life, he felt like he was meant for more. Perhaps not some grand adventure, or a world-saving action, but he wanted to at least make someone’s life better. That it was the “duty” he was missing in his purpose.

One day, he felt like it was finally his chance.

It was during one of his late night shifts, when he was returning home. As he strolled through the riverbank, there was a loud splashing sound, a weak yelp from a pup, and the desperate screams of a boy.

His mind immediately rushed to the thought of saving them. The moment he had been waiting for all his life was here.

With his current strength, honed by proper diet and workout, the man would have had no trouble taking both the boy and his dog to safety. That was also his thoughts when he jumped down the cold night water. However, he had made a grave calculation on his part.

No one could have predicted how much of a ticking time bomb the boy was.

When the man reached out to the boy and took him to his arms, their eyes met. Though the water was cold, it could never freeze the man’s heart as much as those eyes.

The boy’s glare was intense like a raging fire. However, it only burned for the things he cared about, and in this case, it was for the fate of a pet that wasn’t even his. This flame of obsession was enough to suck all the heat from his surroundings, as if trying to devour everything else to fuel his own selfish heart.

The man couldn’t help but feel his limbs shiver. He didn’t know this boy, but he was dying to know just what had happened for someone this young, this unknowing of the world, to have such twisted views on things.

Deep down, he knew. He was jealous of the boy. Even though he had thought his chance was finally there, his eyes couldn’t bring the sparks of brilliance, the undying obsession that burned within that little body. He didn’t know since when it happened, but the thought of a mundane life had sucked his passion away, unable to ever burn again.

And so, he let go. He could have restrained the boy with his superior strength, but he chose to let the boy have his wish, even if it was at the cost of his life. Of both their lives, even, as when the boy sunk to the bottom of the river, his own heart died along with it.

Perhaps… it’s better for me to rest now. Those were the man’s final thoughts as he removed his final attachments to the mortal world.

What he didn’t expect, however, was that he woke up in another.

The man, despite his look might otherwise suggest, was versed enough with modern media that he could navigate through his current situation. When the sight of a skin-like black armor on his arms and legs caught his attention, he knew what world he was in right away.

The hit MMO, Omushi, named after the titular monsters within the game. To be precise, he was reincarnated in an NPC—Kurogiri Urame, a Mujin with the power of the strongest Omushi in terms of raw strength, the Herakabuto. But that wasn’t all he was given.

[Welcome, ‘Player’ Kurogiri Urame. Would you like to open your stats menu?]

Accompanied with him was a mechanical voice in his head, seemingly the head of a higher “system” in this game world like how it was in real life. Naturally, the man soon embraced his identity as Kurogiri and decided to live his life to the fullest. However, he soon realized that games and reality were still different beasts.

For one, even with his skills, he couldn’t beat the monsters as simply as when he was playing on a computer. Knowing how to punch, landing said punch, the timing to release his punch, everything was on a different dynamic from “click one button and do the action”. And there was no level in this game-like world either—even with the system by his side, it showed nothing beyond skill names, descriptions of how to use them, a world map, and the background “story”. In order for him to get better, Kurogiri needed not to play, but to learn inhuman movements and powers. And because of that, he was stuck. At least, until he met his current family.

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His avatar was part of the Mujin village—the starting point for all players. Kurogiri, however, was lucky enough to have an avatar that was already in the five most powerful people within the village—the group of leaders known as the Rangers. Following their lead, he slowly but surely found his way back in their society, once again becoming a cog in their wheel.

But once again, his life turned into an empty husk. Between wasting his life away sitting by a desk with a stack of paper, he was now wasting his life away picking fruits and occasionally beating up monster bugs. There was no difference—even life-threatening situations were the same, only one was mentally draining, while the other was on the physical side.

Once again, Kurogiri Urame was stuck in a rut in his life. And once again, he met his reason to change.

He himself didn’t know how it happened, but as soon as a boy in a shoddy, wet hoodie appeared in front of him on one of their expeditions, Kurogiri knew that it was the same boy that he once tried to save. Their reincarnations might have been de-synced, but those fiery eyes were the one thing he could never forget.

And once again, Kurogiri felt fear.

Will those eyes swallow me whole this time as well?

He wanted to get rid of the boy as fast as possible. He didn’t even want to save him in the first place, but his leader said otherwise. When one of his teammates suggested killing the boy, he agreed as well. For Kurogiri, the boy was a living nightmare, biding his chance to bite off everything that he had worked for.

Things became even more apparent as he learned about the boy’s true role in the world, when his teammates revealed the story behind the game that he once deserted. The notion of the “chosen one” was too blinding, too radiant for him, now that the boy had taken everything that he ever wanted.

But what could he do? After all, he was nothing but a mob character. He didn’t have the courage to challenge the protagonist—if he had, he wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place. There was only one choice for Kurogiri, and it was to fade away in the background for the main character to continue on his path. It was painful. It was unfair. But after two lives, he had finally realized that his value wasn’t worth anything. No matter the circumstances, no matter the situation, he would only be there as fodder. Perhaps he would survive to the end. Perhaps he would perish in a skirmish later down the line, but he was yet another cog in society—a fate he would never escape.

The man had given up. He was done with finding worth in his life. He didn’t wish to partake in the current struggle. Kurogiri Urame would then live on forever as “that one member of the Rangers”, but nothing more.

Yet, when he heard about a certain teammate’s plan, something cracked within him.

Midorikawa Ryuuji, codenamed Green. Kurogiri thought that the man was loud and boisterous, but all of it was a facade he had built up to slowly crumble away when the situation worsened. In truth, Green was the first to notice this chain that held them back, and was the first to suggest that they pushed away from letting the boy carry the burden of the chosen one. He soon gathered his like-minded comrades—or rather, the rest finally broke out of their shells when he told them his plan to destroy the threat before it could manifest. In Kurorigi’s eyes, Midorikawa was nothing more than just another NPC. But for some reason, within him shone a spark that only the main character could bear.

Since when… did I forget?

Kurogiri, for the first time, admitted. He wanted glory. He wanted to take the spotlight. To be something more than just a background character. It didn’t have to be big, but it had to be there. And that compelled him to act.

Breaking the boy free. Causing a commotion in the village. He didn’t care about any of that. The only thing in his mind was how alive he felt, about how, for the first time since his rescue of that boy, did he finally choose his own actions again.

It was an act of pure selfish desires. But it was what had kept him going.

He knew that it was pointless from the start. That they would never make it to the end—it couldn’t be helped, since that was how the “story” was supposed to go. But, as the three of them escaped their captive, and was promptly stopped by the monster that was once their leader, Kurogiri couldn’t help but form a smile.

This was it. This was the life he had always wanted. A pointless struggle, sure, but one that he could finally escape his fate as a cog.

It was a life that he could proudly look back on and laugh out loud. And so, he was the first to step up and confront the terror.

“I’ll keep him busy here. You guys go on ahead.”

“But, Black…” The boy cried out.

You bastard. Your legs are already moving.

It was his thought, but the man wasn’t angry.

“Consider it my overdue debt from before, boy. How I couldn’t save you back then—well, you don’t exactly need saving now, but humor this old man one last time.”

“Black, you’re…”

“Get out of here, punk. I’m not dying because of you twice.” In his last moment, Kurogiri flashed a grin.

It was the same result, but it couldn’t be more different. The caged bird had finally been free, and it planned to soar as high as it could. If the sun burned it down, that would be it, and it would have no more regrets.

Even as Akabane’s scythes pierced his body, the smile didn’t disappear on Kurogiri’s face.

Well, it still beats drowning in a who-knows-where river, that’s for sure.