Which Games Benefit Most From Upscaling?

His father disappeared; his brother committed suicide. Thomas Mayo, the God of War, returned, and he swore that he would take revenge…

If you had a chance to be reborn into a new world, would you change anything? A series of stories of being reborn and changing ones fate.

After my family and I are dragged into a roguelike horror simulation, they favor my cousin, Julian Clark, over me. In a lobby of blood-soaked players, he always manages to stay spotless, earning their praise as someone who has "kept his humanity". He's unlike me, the brute who willingly throws himself into melee combat and hacks down monsters just to keep everyone else alive. During one dungeon run, a terrifying entity targets my younger sister, Millie Larsson. I draw my blade and move in for the kill, but Julian stops me with a sorrowful smile. "Every creature has a soul. Gabriel, if you kill it, you'll only enrage it and burden Millie with the sin of bloodshed." Millie believes all the nonsense he says and begins resenting me for interfering. Later, when a veteran player steals Julian's life-saving loot drop, I nearly die reclaiming it for him. Instead of thanking me, he takes pity on the woman robbing him and hands the item back to her. He condemns me for being too ruthless, claiming I know nothing about showing mercy to women. Then comes the advanced raid. Cornered by the final boss, I beg Julian to activate the high-tier talisman I've given him, buying me just one second to escape. He recoils from my bloodstained hand in disgust and turns to my parents instead. "Gabriel provoked the boss himself. He's too violent. I can't risk wiping the whole party just to save him." In the end, I die in the boss' jaws. Julian steps over my shattered bones and blood to clear the raid, eventually becoming the server's most celebrated player for being the Untainted Saint. But fate grants me a second chance. I awaken once more in the game's central lobby, right before everything begins. This time, I want to see how long their precious humanity lasts in a world overrun by horrors when the blood-soaked blade that always carries their party is no longer there to protect them.

After I got pulled into the horror game, my nearsightedness made everything blurry. I ended up treating the creepy girl in the blood-stained dress like my own daughter, the final boss like my husband, and the old creepy ghosts like my loving parents. The first time I met the boss, I grabbed his abs and said, “Nice body. Shame you’re kind of short.” He actually laughed in anger, picked up the severed head in his hand, put it back on his neck, and ground out, “I’m six-foot-one. Still think I’m short now?”

I was always sick as a kid. My parents were desperate. They’d try anything. So they got me a bunch of "guardian angels." Next thing I know, I'm set up and tossed into a horror game. Turns out, Medusa is my godmother. The ghost girl? My childhood playmate. And the final boss, a vampire? He's my fiancé. The first time we met, I was in a blind panic. I tripped and fell right onto his chiseled chest. "Oh—I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking—" I gasped, looking up at him. The words tumbled out in a rush. "And you're really handsome—but I didn't mean to fall on you! I have a heart condition!" The boss let out a laugh. He wiped the blood from his hands and swept me up into his arms. "Don't you worry," he purred, his voice dangerously smooth. "As your fiancé, I promise... I'll fix you right up."

I finally hit the jackpot and won ten million dollars. But in my excitement, I slipped on a stray beer bottle and freakin' died! When I opened my eyes again, I had reincarnated as the useless heir of a washed-up, ruined noble family. Suddenly, a voice chimed in my head. [Cold-Hearted Empress Conquest System initiated! Host, please present flowers to the Empress!] I absolutely lost my mind. "Screw off! I hadn't even cashed out my ten million dollars, and you want me to play some stupid dating sim? This is a scam. I’m out!" With no other choice, the system reluctantly compromised. [If you can make the empress fall madly in love with you, your reward will be one hundred million dollars and a ticket back home!] Hey, who actually turns down that kind of cash? Game on! I will be the ultimate simp if that’s what it takes. Armed with world-class strategies and modern tech, I launched a national development plan. Building infrastructure and saving the kingdom? Easy money. Soon enough, the empress’s look of pure disgust turned into absolute obsession. She was practically begging me to rule the empire right alongside her. Just as the system announced my victory and prepared to send me home, I realized only kids choose between options. The cash, the empress... I’m keeping both! Smirking, I used my maxed-out system points to rewrite the source code and force open a permanent portal between our worlds. "Hey, are you the manufacturer? I need ten excavators delivered straight to the portal coordinates. My wife needs to expand her palace!"