High in the mountains of the Dragon Kingdom stood a village belonging to the Oni Clan, a demi-human race that sat at the very peak of its kind.
The place was quiet. Peaceful. Life drifted along at an unhurried pace, as if the chaos of the outside world had never existed. A sanctuary straight out of a fairy tale.
And yet, in the dead of night, a small boy lay sprawled across a boulder by the riverbank, staring blankly at the moon hanging overhead.
Time passed.
Finally, he let out a long sigh, far too heavy for a child his age, and muttered under his breath, irritation bleeding through every word.
"My stomach's killing me… If this world has child protection laws, I swear I'd sue those two for abuse. They forget I exist, don't make lunch, and when I grab a piece of fruit myself, I get dinner taken away? That's just cruel, isn't it?"
The targets of his complaints were his parents.
More precisely, his parents in this world.
Because yes. This world.
The boy now called Carlos had lived another life before this one. Back then, he was just a university student who'd become an unwanted extra after his parents' marriage fell apart. He moved out early, worked part-time, scraped by on his own.
Then one night, exhausted after a late shift, he missed a turn on his electric scooter.
A van driving the wrong way did the rest.
Reincarnation should have been a blessing. At first, he'd been thrilled, dreaming of a second life where things finally went right. Maybe this time, he'd be one of the lucky ones.
And honestly, he'd had reason to hope. He'd crossed worlds with what called itself an Intelligent Support System.
Sounded promising.
That optimism didn't last long.
The moment he was born, reality came crashing down.
He realized he could understand the language of this world before he even opened his eyes, and before he could celebrate, the first words he heard weren't blessings.
They were shouting.
His mother and grandmother, arguing fiercely.
About him.
Specifically, about the fact that as an Oni, he'd been born with only a single horn.
From their argument, everything clicked into place. He hadn't reincarnated as a human at all, but as a member of the Oni Clan, a demi-human race identical to humans in every way except one.
Their horns.
An Oni's horn was a unique organ formed of condensed energy, something they could freely manifest. Normally, it only appeared when an Oni entered Oni Form. At birth, however, horns briefly surfaced before vanishing as the child grew, making them indistinguishable from humans.
The horn was everything. Power. Status. Identity.
Lose it, and you lost your place in the clan.
Being born without one, or worse, with a damaged horn, was taboo.
Which was why Carlos, born just before dawn, found himself placed atop a sacrificial altar that very same night, alongside twin sisters born at noon, both Single-Horned.
Execution awaited them all.
If fate hadn't intervened, that would've been the end.
One of the twins, just like a protagonist ripped from legend, unleashed overwhelming power the moment her younger sister began to cry. The eruption spared them all.
They lived.
But survival didn't mean salvation.
Marked as cursed children, the three were treated with open disgust. The clan didn't bother hiding it. Even their parents kept their distance, cold and detached, as if the children were little more than inconvenient objects.
That shared isolation bound them together.
The three grew close, until they entered the village school and began formal magic training.
That was when the elder twin, Ram, revealed astonishing talent. Overnight, she overturned the clan's expectations, elevating both herself and the sister everyone had pinned their hopes on, Rem.
Carlos was left behind.
Alone.
"What kind of joke is this…? I'm happy they're doing well, sure. But me? I'm their older brother. If I'm this pathetic, what kind of authority do I even have left?"
He stared at the moon, bitterness seeping out with every word.
He'd thought he could lean on knowledge from his previous life. Become rich. Powerful. Someone important.
Too bad the Oni Clan lived in seclusion. Leaving the village without special permission was forbidden.
Fine. He could work with that.
After all, he still had his Intelligent Support System, and a rare gift of this world: a Divine Protection.
Unfortunately, his was Berserker's Divine Protection. The more injured he became, the stronger he grew. For someone who hated pain, it left him deeply conflicted.
But the system was the real prize.
According to its stiff explanations, it had been created by the War God Artosh, assembled from vast quantities of Ex-Machina remnants and refined across multiple models. Its purpose? To help Carlos defeat Artosh himself.
Gods, apparently, didn't think like people.
. . .
Carlos was chosen for one reason: across countless worlds, he was the only soul compatible with the modified Divine Essence now fused to him.
Gods were embodiments of concepts. Divine Essence was their origin, the source of their power. The essence bonded to him had once represented something else, though what, no one knew. Artosh had reshaped it into something resembling a War Divine Essence.
By absorbing negative emotions directed at him, he could slowly activate the dormant Divine Essence. Once fully awakened, any negative emotion in the world would fuel his growth. For now, his range was limited to about twenty meters, and the emotions had to be aimed at him specifically.
Each absorption granted him Energy Points, a currency governed by the system's rules. The system's Ex-Machina Core could manufacture any weapon in its database, and could even analyze attacks used against him and recreate them as new weapons. All it cost was points.
. . .
The irony wasn't lost on him. Absorbing hatred felt… complicated. But in a village where everyone despised him anyway, it was practically ideal.
The problem was cost.
After filtering out low-tier magic he could learn at school and weapons not worth the investment, the cheapest worthwhile offensive armament cost twenty thousand Energy Points.
He had saved nineteen thousand eight hundred twenty-five.
So close.
Normally, he should've been born with two horns. After absorbing so much negativity, he ought to be stronger than any other child his age.
But before birth, the system had intervened, using Divine Essence to modify and merge his horns so they wouldn't become liabilities during his travels across worlds. It even built pseudo-neural circuits into them, capable of efficiently driving both Pseudo-Scripture and True Scripture.
The Divine Essence prioritized sustaining the horns, given their overwhelming adaptability and burden. That allowed them to grow properly, but left far less power for him.
All told, he was only slightly stronger than an average adult human.
"Figures… ninety-nine percent is always the worst part," he muttered. "Maybe I should burn down the house of the guy who threw rocks at me this afternoon?"
The number floated in his vision, visible only to him.
A dangerous thought.
Then,
"N-no! You can't! If you do that, they'll beat you to death!"
A panicked voice rang out behind him.
Soft. Young. Urgent.
He clutched his stomach, struggling upright as he turned.
A blue-haired girl stood there, no more than ten years old, holding a roasted sweet potato with both hands. Her hair was cut short at the chin, and she wore a white kimono traced with blue patterns. Over-the-knee white stockings peeked out beneath it, the mix of old and new somehow fitting perfectly.
Her face was delicate, her expression gentle, soft enough that she looked like she might cry at any moment.
Easy to bully.
Which was precisely why no one ever did.
She was one of the only two people in the village who treated him kindly.
The younger twin.
Rem.
He hadn't gone into the forest or down to the river to find food.
Because he knew she'd come.