The Unlimited Ascension: Reborn as an Extra

The dark, empty hall stretched out silently. Where the massive mountains of gold coins and sparkling treasures once stood, only an empty clearing remained. There was nothing left inside the vast room except for the flickering light of the dying embers on the wall. The faint flames illuminated the hall just enough to prevent the space from descending into complete darkness.

A silver-haired boy stood at the very center of the large clearing, busy collecting every single penny of the gold coins without letting even the smallest piece go to waste. His shadow stretched across the floor and swallowed everything right inside it.

After he collected every last penny and stored it safely inside his shadow inventory, he looked across the vast, empty hall. Suddenly, his sharp gaze caught sight of one single, remaining gold coin lying on the floor.

He smiled a little, a cunning expression crossing his face.

”Hehe... It seems one of the gold coins still remains behind. It seems this little guy didn’t want to come with me... Don’t worry, I am not going to forcibly take you with me if you really don’t want to go... I will keep you right here as a fond remembrance that this empty place was once a grand treasury...”

He then looked toward the front of the room, where a large exit door could be seen waiting for him.

”It seems I have to cross through that door next. Is there another massive pile of treasure waiting for me there?.... Well, it will be incredibly fun if there is. Hehe... Let’s go loot some more then!”

He stepped forward and started walking toward the heavy door. He stepped a bit closer to the exit, but he suddenly paused in his tracks as he looked back over his shoulder at the one remaining gold coin sitting alone on the floor.

”Shit! I will not be able to sleep peacefully just because of that single left-behind coin... I will regret not taking it with me for my whole entire life. F*ck it, let’s just take the coin then!...”

He turned around and walked all the way back toward the lonely coin once again.

”Sorry, Mr. Gold Coin. I am really sorry, but you have to come with me for the sake of my own peace of mind. I apologize for forcibly taking you away, but it really can’t be helped right now.”

He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly and threw the remaining coin down at his feet. His shadow quickly absorbed the coin inside it. Feeling satisfied, he turned around and started walking toward the exit door once again.

[What a greedy scumbag. Are you seriously apologizing to a non-living thing after looting it completely? If that massive pile of treasure had even a little bit of consciousness, they would have cursed you to death!]

A familiar, childish voice could be heard echoing through telepathy directly into his mind. But Alen focused entirely on walking forward, easily ignoring the little weapon’s angry talk.

[Hey, I am talking to you right now, you f*cking asshole!]

Alen kept walking with a perfectly calm face as he replied to her in an innocent tone.

”Hey, can you stop using such bad words while speaking to me? Can’t you see that I am just a young teenager? I might pick up a bad habit because of your foul mouth....”

[Huh? What did you just say to me? Are you trying to make a joke right now? If you are, then shut your shitty mouth, you silver-haired asshole! You are talking right now like you are some kind of pure saint or a god of purity!]

Alen tilted his head thoughtfully, smoothly changing the topic of the conversation.

”Hmph... Does a ’god’ of ’purity’ really exist in this world?”

[You little shit, don’t you dare try to change the subject on me.... It was just a metaphor! I don’t know if such a god actually exists or not!]

”Hmph? Why don’t you know the answer to that? You bragged and said you were once a near-Transcendent weapon. Did you lie to me about your past?”

Ravena’s voice paused in his head for a few long minutes. She was really considering sacrificing her own existence rather than staying bonded with this annoying boy. But she finally sighed in defeat and replied.

[You greedy boy, listen closely. I was a near-Transcendent weapon in the past, but I told you last time that every single time a new wielder held me, most of my old memories were erased. So I don’t know if some higher being interfered with my mind or not... So yeah, I honestly don’t know...]

[But, don’t you dare look down on me! I am at least much better than some weak-ass greedy boy who would forget about surviving in a trial and instead choose to loot the treasure room. Truly pathetic!]

Alen just shrugged his shoulders and kept walking. He didn’t seem even the slightest bit offended by her harsh words. He fully accepted the fact that he was a very greedy person. But just because he was greedy, it didn’t mean he was walking on the wrong path in life.

He hadn’t stolen anyone’s personal treasure. There was no living owner existing to steal it from. He had simply found it abandoned during the trial, and there was no rule existing that said you couldn’t bring the artifacts or other treasures you got from the Ascension Realm back outside. If such a rule had existed, then he wouldn’t have gotten the ’Grimoire of Darkness’ from his third trial in the first place.

Besides, he was already completely broke with absolutely no money left in his hands. And he needed the money the most right now in order to spend his future life in comfortable peacefulness. He was not some kind of overly kind, righteous protagonist from some fantasy novel where the MC might just take a little bit of what he needed and leave the rest behind. He was not like them. If he wanted a treasure, then he would take it entirely. Or if he didn’t want it, then he would not even glance at it twice.

So, at least from his own perspective, whatever he had done was for his own benefit and was therefore right. Whatever other people might think of him did not concern him at all. Because he knew he was selfish, the judgment of others meant nothing. What really concerned him right now was to not live the exact same miserable life like his first one, constantly depending on other people to survive.

As he walked forward, he also remembered another important thing in his mind.

’Oh shit! It seems I forgot to give the storage ring back to L, the one which I snatched from Kalos that day! Sigh... It seems I will have to return it to him later whenever we meet again...’

[Why? Are you not planning to use that money for yourself?]

Alen replied calmly while keeping his steady walking pace.

”Of course, I will return it to him. I don’t like to owe anyone for taking their things...”

[Oh, wow. You have a very weird kind of morality. You will loot an entire treasury without a second thought, but you will return a storage ring to its rightful owner just because you don’t want to ’owe’ anyone for their things.]

”Hehe... Thanks for the sweet compliment...”

[That was not a compliment! Besides, I don’t think Lyr—I mean, I don’t think L will even take the ring back. He is too kind; he is not going to take the dirty money scammed by you...]

”Hmph... You seem to know him quite well. Did you two become that close in just a few days of staying near each other? And why are you constantly behaving like a shitty kid in front of me? What is the actual reason for that?”

[Hmph! All men are exactly the same!]

Alen heard her angry voice, feeling deeply confused by her sudden outburst.

”What do you mean by that strange comment?”

He waited patiently for a few seconds, but no reply came back from the weapon. This meant there were only two reasons it could be. Either she had fallen asleep, which she mostly did nowadays, or she might just be ignoring him, which was a bad habit she had also learned from a quite a long time ago.

Alen then shook his head to clear his thoughts. He finally reached the giant door at the end of the corridor, which looked exactly the same as the one from which he had initially entered this place.

”Sigh... I really hope there is not going to be any deadly trouble hiding behind this door...”

He pushed the heavy door open and stepped into the next room. But before he could even see through the gap to figure out what was inside there...

*Thud!*

A massive, terrifying slash of pure Darkness crashed down onto his neck from above the head of the giant door. The blade directly slashed clean through his fragile neck. Before he could say a word, think a single thought, or even realize what had just happened, his head was already severed from his body. His head rolled down onto the floor, sliding across the stone, and before his eyes could even process anything else, total darkness claimed his vision.

...

Back on the First Floor, in the exact same place from where he had first appeared upon entering the spire.

The silver-haired boy appeared once again. He fell hard onto the floor, desperately clutching his neck with both hands as he frantically searched for his severed head, a completely shocked expression plastered on his pale face.

”Where—where am I?!...”

He couldn’t hold back the nausea. He threw up whatever was left in his stomach onto the floor as he tried his hardest to calm down his chaotic mind.

He sat there on the floor of the dark corridor for a long while, gasping heavily for air. After a while, he finally calmed down. He looked around the area, and it didn’t take much time for him to fully realize exactly where he was right now.

He was back at the exact same starting place from where he had begun walking earlier.

He immediately checked his system interface to check the remaining time limit.

[Time Remaining: 363 days... 21 hours... 37 minutes... 36 sec.]

Alen finally realized what had just happened to him.

”Now I have to start from the very beginning again? It seems if I die here on this floor, then I can be respawned again? Sigh... It means at least I don’t have to worry about dying, as I can be respawned. But I can’t be one hundred percent sure if I will be respawned again the next time...”

As he touched his unbroken neck, right where it had just been severed moments ago, he still strongly felt the phantom feeling of his death. It seems he still possessed a powerful will to live.

”I really don’t want to die like that again...”

Alen suddenly remembered something extremely important. He closed his eyes as he looked through his Shadow Inventory using his mind connection. But there were no gold coins existing inside the inventory anymore.

’It seems the spire really got reset when I died.... Wait a minute....’

He suddenly noticed a small, floating wooden chest resting safely inside the inventory. He pulled back his gaze from inventory and snapped his eyes open in surprise.

”Well... Why is that wooden box still in there? It should have disappeared along with all the other looted treasures, right?... Sigh... Let’s think about that mystery later. I have to climb the floor all over again... I don’t even remember what exactly was hiding behind that door before it killed me... Let’s start the climb again then...”