My brows drew tight as I scanned the clearing.

Yeah, this was definitely the same patch of forest where I had been dumped at the start of the tutorial.

The trees stood in the same too familiar pattern. The rocks sat in the exact spots I remembered. The light stayed bright and unnatural, a harsh contrast turned high while everything else remained untouched.

But something was off. Nothing obvious. Nothing on the surface.

It carried the quiet weight of a space recently disturbed, a shift in pressure that settled into the air and refused to leave my senses.

I shook the tight coil of nerves crawling across my shoulders and opened the Player Status.

________________________________________

PLAYER: AKIRA SAKAMOTO (AOI PLAYER)

LEVEL: 7

CLASS: MARKSMAN

SUBCLASS: GUNNER

TITLE: LOVER OF PEACH

MAIN STATS

HEALTH POINTS (HP): 160 — 100%

MANA POINTS (MP): 300 — 100%

STRENGTH (STR): 8

DEXTERITY (DEX): 7+1

WISDOM (WIS): 3

CHARISMA (CHA): 1

INTELLIGENCE (INT): 30

LUCK (LCK): 2

FREE STAT POINTS: 18

OVERALL PRESTIGE (PRE): +120% (MAX 1000%)

________________________________________

Everything from the earlier fight with the goblins, the rewards and stats, reflected perfectly. Nothing missing. No miscalculations. Even my inventory and currency stayed intact. I still had everything I had earned.

I double-checked my weapons and ammo. Still equipped.

My gaze flicked back toward the treeline.

The forest stretched before me unchanged. Familiar clusters of trees, rocks in their usual spots. Sunlight cut through the canopy at the same harsh angle, bright and unnatural while everything else remained untouched.

But something was off. Nothing obvious. Nothing visible on the surface.

It carried the silent weight of a space recently disturbed, a change in pressure that permeated the air and refused to leave my senses.

I opened the map just to check. The holographic panel floated to life above my wrist, flickering in and out like a sales display that had overstayed its welcome.

According to the marker, I had not moved at all. Coordinates frozen. Timestamp unchanged. Identical to the moment I first entered this world.

I squinted, a thought drifting in.

This might’ve been the staging area.

But if it was, then where were the other players? You would think there’d be more activity by now.

I tilted my head, scanning the sky, half-expecting something ridiculous to appear. Maybe a massive debug message. A scrolling banner across the clouds. A system pop-up explaining the situation.
The sky offered nothing. Only its default shade of too-blue, clouds drifting along in a calm that pretended everything was normal.

“Oi, System,” I called out, “is this some recycled content? You’re rerunning the pilot episode or what?”

The moment the words left my mouth, the underbrush stirred. Leaves shifted. A few branches creaked. Every hair on my arms rose, and my spine went rigid.

I lifted my slingshot without thinking. A kōkyū slid into place between my fingers as my stance narrowed.

“Who goes there?” I said, voice level.

And then the thing stepped out.

It was him.

The goblin from before. Jagged scar still carved into his cheek. That smug expression, untouched. I remembered that exact look. He had not changed.

Nope. No way this was real. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.

“Fear not, young warrior,” he said, voice high and scratchy. “I mean you great harm.”

Then he laughed. Full giggle. Mocking and delighted.

I blinked once. “Wow. Okay. Same line delivery, Gollum. Hope you’re ready for the encore.”

Snap. Fire.

One kōkyū, straight to the center of his forehead.

He dropped. No scream. No twitch. Just a single, lifeless thud as his body hit the dirt.

I edged forward, keeping my slingshot up. My arms stayed tense, but my attention was not on the weapon. Something pressed against my thoughts.

If this was the goblin from my first day…

Why hadn’t he recognized me? He had looked right at me and still conveyed that canned villain line.

Before I could chase the thought any further, a blue screen sliced through my focus.

________________________________________

You have killed a Common Goblin

Gold: 10

________________________________________

“That’s it?” I muttered. “Where’s the ring drop? Where’s my EXP? Why have I not leveled up? Hello? Is this a scam?”

I crouched beside the corpse and tilted his head. The scar was still there, same curve, same position.
It was him, no question. But something still refused to settle.

I pushed myself to my feet and brushed the dust from my knees. My eyes swept across the trees again. Still no movement. No sound except the weak rustle of the wind, as if the whole environment waited for a cue that never came.

What had changed?

A second was enough for me to pinpoint it.

The silence.

That deep, flat quiet that settled right before a scripted scare hit. Not peaceful. Not passive.
Empty.

I glanced up, jaw tight. The clouds rolled by in lazy loops. They did not give a hoot.

“All right, System,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m not falling for this Scooby Doo mystery. What’s really going on here?”

No answer. No glitch noise. No ping. Just stillness.

My attention shifted to the Ring of Mischief on my finger. And the tightness in my gut finally landed somewhere solid.

I had already looted the item the first time through.

That had to be it. The system was tracking my previous drop. Nothing to award if I already had the prize.

And at Level 7, I needed more than one goblin and a pat on the head to move the EXP bar. That part made sense.

But still, would it have killed the system to throw in a bonus? Something small? I had erased this guy again with flawless execution. Not even a style rating?

I sifted through what he left behind. Same stone ax. Same obsidian dagger. I added them to my Tools/Items cache without a second thought. They would sell well enough.

Hoarding was instinct by now. You never walked past gear. Did not matter if it was rare, junk, or fifty levels below you. If it dropped, it got stashed. Combat earned loot kept its value. The system tracked effort, and that counted in this game. Pick something off the floor without earning it, and the resale took a hit. Digital economy had rules, and I knew how to work them.

I stood silent for a moment and let the whole scene replay in my head, frame by frame.

Had I really restarted from the beginning? Back at square one?

Some part of me did not want to admit it. Did not want to acknowledge the rollback. But the clues were piling up.

A quiet sigh slipped out before I could block it.

I needed more to go on before I let this spiral into full red string on the wall territory. For now, I would play along. Keep moving. Observe. Pretend I was not quietly panicking inside this rerun of my own life.

Then I heard it.

A howl. It cut clean through the quiet and ripped open the edge of the memory I had been trying not to touch.

It was the same sound. That same moment where everything changed.

Suspicion turned to certainty. The Horny Rabbits.

This was the start again.

I stepped forward, following the path I had taken last time. The landscape felt like a replica, but my body remembered how it had moved here once before.

It was happening again.

I pushed into the brush. The spot was still there, tucked just beyond a crooked tree and a mossy stone. The memory pulled tight as I crouched down with the slingshot gripped firm. My focus honed as movement stirred the path ahead.

Right on schedule, the first little freak hopped into view.

“Oh hey, buddy,” I whispered with a smirk. “No humping from you today.”

I moved without thinking. Kōkyū drawn, released. The shot landed with a solid crack. The rabbit flipped through the air and hit the ground in a lifeless sprawl, limbs stiff, eyes wide. A clean kill.

I let out a whistle and cracked my knuckles, chest light with the rush.

It was on now.

More rustling. Then another burst. Then a whole chorus of twitchy bodies pushing through the brush. Their eyes darted in every direction, scanning the clearing with lost, frantic purpose.

“You guys want the smoke? Well, come on. I’ve got the whole chimney.”

I let out a low, mean laugh and let instinct take over. Shots hummed through the air. Rabbits shrieked. They leaped, scattered, fell. The forest rang with their panic. For a moment, the scene carried the grim clarity of open conflict, a battlefield under my feet instead of any game.

Then everything went still. I stood alone, breath fogging faintly, surrounded by a lumpy carpet of quiet, motionless bodies.

The system lit up in front of me.

________________________________________

Gold: 6

Stat Point: 1

________________________________________

“Yes.” My fist rose. The burst of satisfaction struck with a fierce certainty, the clean jolt that arrived when a flawless combo finally succeeded after three failed tries.

Not bad at all. One solo bunny purge complete.

With the horned freaks cleared out, the next task pulled at me. The one that had been burned into my memory since the beginning.

The cave.

An hour later, I arrived at the old base. The trees lined up just as they had back then. The breeze whispered through the leaves nearby, and a stream murmured off to the side. It felt comfortable in a way I had not expected. Not peaceful. But grounded.

Without warning, my body recalled it. The impact. The throw. The crack of bone that never quite stopped echoing.

No way I was going to experience that again.

Should I ditch this place and start over?

A pause.

Then I scoffed under my breath and shook my head.

Pfft. Nah. Not my style.

Turning away from a challenge had never been on the table for me. I had spent years grinding Time Crisis II at Komei’s Games with busted controls and greasy fries. I kept going until I beat it on nothing but pocket change and spite.

You think a roided out Shrek knockoff is going to rattle me?

No chance.

This world had given me two weeks. I was not wasting one of them sulking in the woods. I had work to do.

If I was going to square up with that ogre again, I needed to know him better than he knew his own hitbox. I would watch how he moved. Track the pauses between swings. Time his breath. Map the exact frame when his guard slipped.

I would crack that rhythm. Find the opening. Exploit it. Or I would loot something with enough firepower to turn him into a meat mural. Either way worked.

Ideas began to fall into place like puzzle pieces.

Ambush tactics. Hit and run. Traps to soften him up. A fake out or two in case I needed to bolt.

By the time the moon broke through the canopy and cast everything in silver, I had already drafted three scenarios. The chill in the air seeped through my sleeves, but I did not move. My breath left in slow clouds.

And in that quiet, I felt it. That switch flipping inside. The fear was still there. But it was edged with focus now.

Whatever glitch or divine prank had dropped me back at the start, there was no way it was going to win.

If I died again, I would get back up. And if I lost, I would break down every mistake until I knew it better than the fight itself. That is how I handled this. That is how I played.

And just as the plan locked into place, something else crept in.

I grinned. Slowly. Darkly. My hands clasped together with a soft clap that echoed louder than it should have.

Now I really couldn’t wait to carve a taste of what made Pokey tick.