The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want a Fourth Time

Side Story 6 — Kaidou Kanata

Side Story Chapter 6: Kaidou Kanata

Kaidou Kanata was a half-Japanese American. His real name was Kanata Kaidou.

But almost nobody believed this when he told them because both of his parents were of Asian descent, so his appearance was mostly Japanese.

This didn’t cause him to suffer any bullying, nor did it cause him to become noticed by others and become popular.

His grades were average, with his athletic abilities being a little better than average. The differences in English in Japan and English in his home country actually made his grades worse.

And, he lost his life in a terrorist bombing attack during a school field trip.

“Kanata, we’re reaching the drop point soon.”

Kanata, who had been reminiscing about the past, came to his senses as the pilot called out to him.

“Got it,” he responded as he checked over his parachute equipment one more time. In the past, he had once gotten full of himself and made a mistake that almost cost him his life during drop training, so he was sure to be particularly careful when it came to inspecting his parachute.

Magic and cheat-like abilities… People in Origin would call these ‘Gifts’. During the twenty-eight years that had passed since Kanata was reincarnated in this world, he understood that these Gifts wouldn’t prevent him from dying no matter what.

“Now then, let’s hurry up and sterilize these terrorists,” he said.

“Oi, Kanata, the mission is to rescue the captured daughter of the president,” the pilot reminded him. “Don’t forget that.”

“I know,” said Kanata. “By the way, do you think the president would be angry if I asked his daughter for her contact details?”

“No comment. Also, Lady Hannah is only fifteen year sold. She’s half your age, old man.”

“I’m still in my twenties! I’m not an old man!” Kanata protested.

If including his previous life, he would be in his forties, however.

“Is that right? Well then, hurry up and get going, Gungnir*.”

“I hate that code-name.”

Giving an exaggerated sigh in embarrassment over his code-name, Kanata jumped out of the helicopter that was camouflaged with light-attribute magic.

When Kaidou Kanata was reincarnated in Origin and awakened to his memories of Earth as well as his new powers, he became Kanata Smith. Though his last name was different, he had thought that the god had made unnecessary effort in allowing him to keep the same first name. He began adapting to his new environment.

Origin resembled Earth other than the fact that magic coexisted with science. The number and shapes of the continents were similar and even the international situation was the same. This helped him to adapt more quickly.

Though Kanata did his best not to use his cheat-like ability in order to keep them hidden, he didn’t hide the aptitude for magic that he had been given. Unlike in his previous life, he spent an enjoyable, bright childhood as a prodigy.

His parents were wealthier than his parents on Earth, and soft on their genius son, buying him anything that he wanted. He was always the center of attention at school, and by the time he entered his teenage years, there was never a period of time where he didn’t have a girlfriend.

It was truly smooth sailing. A dream-like second life. It seemed like he would have a hard time with his studies from university onwards, but if he kept extending his ability magic, he would easily continue being a famous person.

That was what he had thought.

However, as he approached his late teenage years, he was reunited with the others who had been reincarnated in this world with him.

Even the fact that I’m skydiving towards a house of terrorists with an assault rifle and combat knife, it’s all because of that guy.

Amemiya Hiroto. The world’s hero, the leader of the one hundred people who had been reincarnated here.

Though Kanata possessed only one cheat-like ability, Amemiya Hiroto possessed multiple. He was a man with an overwhelming amount of power.

He had been finding and gathering the other reincarnated individuals. He was a bastard straight out of American comics, with the ideal of using their powers for world peace.

With great power comes great responsibility? It’s the first time I’ve heard something like that outside of a movie.

Come to think of it, how had that movie’s sequel gone? For some reason, the green giant was more popular in Origin, so that hero hadn’t been turned into a movie yet. Was it possible that using power alone to scatter your wizard enemies was more popular?

There had been backlash from critics who complained that there was too much emphasis on ancient magic, however.

Thinking about such things, Kanata opened his parachute and cast his magic whose incantation he had recited in advance.

He manipulated the heat and atmosphere while refracting the light around him, making him appear transparent to the terrorists on the ground. He was essentially a mirage.

“Now then, this should fool them - or not?!”

Holes appeared in Kanata’s parachute one after another. Realizing that his parachute was being shot at from the ground, he cut himself free from it and fell near the suburb ruins that the terrorists had holed themselves up in.

Amemiya Hiroto and the others who were reincarnated in Origin were, in Kanata’s eyes, the worst.

Hiroto insisted that the cheat-like abilities granted to them by the god were ‘Gifts’ and organized a rescue team that operated internationally. A team of heroes, so to speak.

They dealt with natural disasters and fought mysterious Undead monsters that appeared out of nowhere, made appearances in charity parties to sign autographs for children and went on television to give interviews.

Even Kanata acknowledged that they had the ability to do this. He worked so hard that it would be impossible to believe that he had been a NEET on Earth, kicked out by his parents and was riding that ferry in order to go and live and work in a relative’s factory.

But Kanata wished that they wouldn’t get him involved. He hadn’t admired the protagonists of adventure or action movies, nor did he want to perform hard work and become covered in sweat and dirt for the sake of people whose names and faces he didn’t know. He would have been satisfied with simply relaxing, being pampered by those around him and living an enjoyable life.

The thing that he found difficult to understand was that many of his school friends from his previous life supported Amemiya Hiroto. Everyone was overjoyed at becoming superheroes. They happily traveled west to provide disaster relief and east to assist in criminal investigations. They rejoiced in their lives as they were hugely popular in the media.

Of course, not all of them were happy. There were more than a few of them who found it troublesome to be exposed to the media. However, even they still supported Hiroto. They said that it was better to stay in a single organization so that the world’s nations wouldn’t use and exploit their special, non-magical powers in undesirable ways.

Now that the organization had been created, being widely acknowledged and trusted by those outside the organization, the common people in particular, was more important than anything. That was what they said.

Because the great majority of those resurrected here supported Amemiya, making objections would require courage, and apparently the governments of each nation had already been aware that Kanata possessed a special ability even before he reunited with the others.

His name, face and Mana seal, Origin’s equivalent of Earth’s fingerprints and retina patterns, were all already known. If he hadn’t reunited with Amemiya and the others, it would probably have been people from the government appearing in front of Kanata instead.

Amemiya said that gathering into a single organization and appearing before the media was to intentionally keep all information open so that intelligence agencies and criminal organizations wouldn’t take advantage of them. But Kanata felt that his well-being was none of Amemiya’s concern.

In the group of one hundred people reincarnated from Earth, his exceptional affinity with magic, his great talent and Mana pool that was larger than other mages would be buried in the masses. He would go from being a genius to ‘just another person.’

The only affinities with magic that Kanata had been given were his high aptitude for the fire-attribute and an average aptitude for the wind-attribute. The cheat-like ability that he had been granted was quite well-suited for being used in the field.

Because of this, he had been given the exaggerated code-name of “Gungnir”, but -

“That’s why I’m forced to risk my life in these secret missions without getting paid much!”

Just before Kanata hit the ground, he opened his spare parachute. Normally, it wouldn’t have opened in time, but he used wind-attribute magic to force it to open and reduce the impact of his fall.

He somehow made a successful landing and rolled across the ground.

“Light, heat, Mana,” he whispered as he remembered the map in his mind. In the next moment, Kanata vanished.

Well, I’ve only become transparent.

With his field of vision surrounded in complete darkness, Kanata pressed forward, relying only on his memory of the terrain.

Those damn terrorists. Did they get their hands on the latest Mana sensors?

Kanata suspected that his parachute descent had been noticed because the spell that he had cast triggered a sensor. That was why he had turned himself transparent to the naked eye, to heat sensors and to Mana sensors.

This was Kanata’s cheat-like ability.

Incidentally, he hadn’t used this ability during his parachute descent because it required Mana to use, and he had wanted to conserve as much as he could. The other reason was because he was rendered blind in this state, meaning that he could have collided with obstacles during his landing without being able to see them.

He soon reached the building in which the terrorists were holding this nation’s president’s daughter captive.

“Detect Organism Heat.” Undoing his ability and regaining his vision, Kanata used a spell that only detected the heat of living creatures to search the entire building. It also reacted to the small animals living in the surrounding wasteland, but he ignored all of them.

There were seven human-sized heat sources. Four of them were moving around hurriedly. They were probably the ones who had noticed Kanata and fired their guns at him.

The other three were all close to each other. However, two of them seemed to be sitting down. The other one was standing tall.

“There’s no way that there are two terrorist guards sitting in chairs in front of a president’s daughter who’s bigger than me, is there?”

Kanata had seen a photograph; Lady Hannah was a small, fifteen-year-old girl. Even if she was in her growth period, this was impossible.

“Well, for now, I guess I’ll get rid of those four.” Because he was unable to tell which of the two seated people was Lady Hannah, he decided to dispose of the four that were moving first. “Structure,” he whispered as he pointed his assault rifle in the direction of the heat sources and squeezed the trigger.

There was a roar of gunfire, and the bullets passed straight through the walls of the building without making any impact sounds or leaving any traces.

The terrorists, having noticed Kanata’s detection spell, had already started to make a move, but then they suddenly collapsed and lay still.

They had been shot by bullets that had appeared through the walls and floors without warning.

This gunfire was truly ‘Gungnir’. No matter what obstacles were in Kanata’s way, his bullets would easily pierce the vitals of their target.

“It really is an exaggeration, though,” Kanata muttered. “And what’s the idea behind making a code-name associated with my ability? Building, metal.”

Kanata passed smoothly through the wall and floor to enter the building. In the next moment, he tightly grasped his resin-handled knife and charged through a wall into the room where the reactions of the other three had come from.

“Gungnir?!” the large terrorist screamed, but the knife made short work of him.

And then Kanata quickly checked the remaining two people.

One of them was a female terrorist firing a gun freely at Kanata’s back. Even in Origin, where magic existed, guns and knives were still the best options for making sudden counterattacks. Because magic needed incantations, they took time.

The metal bullets passed straight through Kanata’s body and pierced the large man, however.

“You’re such a pretty woman, too. What a shame,” Kanata said as he used his knife to return the favor to the Caucasian terrorist woman, whose face had turned pale upon realizing that bullets wouldn’t work on her enemy.

If the president’s daughter wasn’t here, I would have stayed in invincible-mode and given them a punch… No, the second was a pretty woman who hadn’t done anything. What a waste.

Even though this was one of the few benefits of being made to engage in fights to the death.

“Who are you?”

“Are you alright? I am Gungnir of the Bravers. I have come to rescue you.” Kanata made his identity clear, hiding his inner thoughts and adopting a gentlemanly manner.

‘Bravers’ was the name that had been given to the team of people reincarnated from Earth after a certain incident. Their official name was the ‘Hundred Bravers.’

The ‘Hundred Heroes’ would be a terribly embarrassing name, wouldn’t it?

Now that I think about it, that was the cause for us to start accepting work that involves killing like this in addition to the rescue and support work, wasn’t it?

That was when they had gone to a secret research laboratory in a European military nation to exterminate one of the experimental subjects who had become an Undead and gone on a rampage.

They had accepted missions to exterminate the Undead that occasionally appeared in Origin, as well as animals and people who had been turned into monsters by the influence of Mana, on multiple occasions before that. But this incident was particularly memorable in various ways.

First, the ‘Oracle’ Endou Kouya*, who provided predictions on what methods should be used to complete requests, had provided a very strange method of defeating this Undead.

They had to wait, completely defenseless, for the Undead to come out of the laboratory. They had to avoid showing hostility towards it at all costs. Once the Undead let its guard down, they would take it down with a combined, simultaneous attack.

They had questioned the Oracle’s sanity after being told to be defenseless before a dangerous enemy, but when they actually executed this plan, the Undead let its guard down and was defeated in a one-sided fashion.

Kanata had been truly bewildered, wondering what it was thinking, but things began to progress rapidly from there.

That Undead, or to be more specific, the Mana of the person who had become that Undead, had been the secret behind the new pharmaceutical products and medical treatments that the military nation had been exporting.

Death-attribute Mana, which had never been discovered before. Kanata and the other Bravers had obliterated the only source of this Mana from the face of the planet, leaving not even a single fragment of flesh behind.

Of course, the exports stopped. New pharmaceutical products and Magic Items were impossible to create, and the entire world began competing to do so. And in the shadows, with the information extracted from the remaining data and the few survivors of the laboratory as a basis, each nation desperately tried to search for… or create, a second death-attribute mage.

Kanata and the others were asked repeatedly whether they could use their ‘Gifts’ to recreate death-attribute magic. Kouya, the Oracle who was supposed to be able to answer this question, said, “That thing… That person was someone who shouldn’t have existed in this world. In order to save him, we had no choice but to do this.” And then he remained silent on the matter.

Feeling sympathy for a single guinea pig? This is why I can’t deal with amateurs, Kanata had thought, but as more of the illegal research facility and its investigation on death-attribute magic was exposed, he realized just how abnormal that Undead’s existence had been. If they hadn’t killed it, it might have been them who would have been killed. At the very least, over half of those who had gone to the laboratory would have died.

As Kanata attended mass at the church every week, he could sympathize with the Undead a little.

If death-attribute magic was mastered, immortality would apparently become possible, but things had become a mess because of the powerful people who wanted to obtain that immortality and the religious people who refused to accept it.

That was why the president’s daughter had been kidnapped by terrorists, and that was why Kanata had come to rescue her.

Huh? Why am I remembering this kind of stuff? Actually…

“Gehah?!” As Kanata suddenly turned around, blood came out of his mouth. “You… how do you know… my weakness… You’re not the president’s daughter, huh…”

Hannah, who had been clinging onto Kanata, had plunged her arm deep into his solar plexus. It wasn’t something that the president’s daughter was capable of doing.

“It’s me, Kanata,” Hannah replied quietly as her appearance silently changed. The young Caucasian girl turned into an Asian woman in her late twenties.

“You… Metamorph… Why…?”

It was Shihouin Mari*, one of the people who had reincarnated from Earth, a woman who was supposed to be one of the Bravers, with the cheat-like ability to transform into any kind of person.

Mari responded with a mask-like, expressionless face, but there was hatred burning in her eyes. “I made use of the terrorists in order to kill you. The real president’s daughter is probably being protected in another place by now.”

“In order to kill me?! Why, I don’t remember doing anything to be hated by you…!”

“To avenge my mother.”

“Wait! Don’t misunderstand!” Kanata was unsteady on his feet and his body was reacting to his commands surprisingly badly, but he backed off and put some distance between himself and Mari.

He cauterized his wound to stop the bleeding, desperately looking for a way to survive.

“It wasn’t me who killed that woman,” he said. “It’s true that I couldn’t save her, and it’s true that it was me who stopped her heart in the end. But she was missing her head, you know?! It’s because of me that your mother is living out there somewhere -”

“If my mother was missing her head, can you explain why her cornea was transplanted into a mafia boss?” asked Mari, interrupting him. “You piece of sheet.”

As Kanata tried to crawl backwards away from her, she quickly raised her hand towards his head.

This was the worst. Mari’s Metamorph ability was a terrible opponent for Kanata’s Gungnir ability. If Kanata was unwounded, he would still be able to somehow escape, but now that he had taken a fatal wound, it was impossible.

“Wait! Do you think that the others will allow this?! There’s no way you can keep this hidden; there’s no way that that justice-loving Hiroto would forgive… Stop, I don’t want to die yet!” Kanata begged. “That mother of yours isn’t your real parent; she’s just the woman who gave birth to you in this world, isn’t she?! And aren’t we supposed to be comrades?!”

“No. Someone like you, who cut up my mother and sold her organs, is no comrade of mine.”

Kanata vaguely heard Mari’s voice speak these words, but before he could reply, his consciousness was cut off.

Kanata Smith, one of the Hundred Bravers. Known as Kaidou Kanata on Earth.

Discovered with a fatal wound, he was rushed into a medical facility. Treatment produced no real results, and three days later, he was confirmed as deceased.

It was thought that the weakness of his Gift was taken advantage of during his mission to rescue the president’s daughter from terrorists.

Kanata Smith was remembered by the people as the first casualty of the one hundred heroes, and his death made a shocking impact on ninety-eight of the ninety-nine remaining Bravers.