To me, he was.
The beginning and end of Biggs' first life were utterly ordinary.
Born the fourth son in a poor farming village of the common human race, Biggs left the village one year before coming of age.
And in a city with a dungeon — oh, not Hydrangea, though.
He saved up money while scavenging the Junkyard, and became a delver the moment he came of age.
Like everyone else, he carried a Relic.
I couldn't quite remember, but it wasn't a rare Relic. Right, right. Ah, that's right.
He had an Earth Relic.
Frankly, he had no talent. Not even a tenth of what Dohha had.
Well, that was a different story entirely.
Biggs himself probably — I think he used his Relic at a "good enough if it works" level.
He made steady progress but wasn't all that serious, stuck at Rank V for a long time.
A typical delver.
The end of his first life was just as unremarkable as any other delver out there.
He died in a dungeon.
That dungeon wasn't particularly high-difficulty or anything like that.
But it was the dungeon where he'd have the encounter that would lead to his strange new life ahead.
In the ruins, at death's door, he obtained a red mask.
And that was the birth of Biggs, the Death King of Earth.
The red mask was an OOPArt.
Moreover, there were no qualifications, no "chosen one" criteria, whatsoever.
It was the most irresponsible, worst kind of OOPArt, bestowing a Relic upon anyone who happened to obtain it.
The Relics given were two.
They were called "Bizarre Wonder" and "Marvelous Mystery".
To spill the beans, these two were the highest-rank authority Relics.
However, their effects... were a curse, really.
"Bizarre Wonder" caused bizarre and wondrous states to occur around the possessor.
This state spread shallowly and widely.
"Marvelous Mystery" created marvelous and mysterious states around the possessor.
This state spread deeply and narrowly.
It did not activate at will.
It occasionally activated randomly.
I know that some god created these troublesome Relics as part of a world environment experiment.
But I'm not interested, so I don't know the details.
I definitely don't remember things from before my reincarnation that didn't matter.
Oh, wait, these are memories from before my previous life before the reincarnation. Hahaha, sometimes I mix those up.
And this red mask. Without the release code, it cannot be removed.
No one in this world knows the release code. It's truly a curse, isn't it?
Well, anyway, that's how Biggs' first life came to an end here.
And so it began.
A life as an undead. Welcome to your dungeon life.
And so his bizarre, outlandish, utterly incomprehensible undead life commenced.
He wore a red mask that could not be removed, and he did his best.
With the goal of removing the mask, he did his best somewhere between "bizarre and outlandish" and "utterly incomprehensible."
He tried so hard that he ended up defeating the previous King of the Dead Earth, and Biggs became the new King of the Dead Earth.
Congratulations.
Well, from here on, he tried too hard and the Relic started acting up.
You really shouldn't mess with anything bug-related. And that's how he ended up losing his own dungeon.
Biggs. You are the King of the Dead Earth.
Not the King of Dead Bugs.
Having become the King of the Dead Earth, he discovered another property of the red mask, the very cause of it all.
The red mask cannot be removed, but it can be destroyed.
However, even if you destroy it, you still can't take it off.
So what happens then?
Well, that's basically a flaw in this world, isn't it?
You respawn at a different location while still wearing the red mask.
In other words, you come back to life, Biggs and all.
And so Biggs obtained a pseudo-immortality.
Incredible, right? Well, I wouldn't want it though.
Biggs died over and over again thanks to [Wonderful Wonderfulness] and [Unfathomable Mystery].
Eventually he figured out how to fix his revival point and stabilize his pseudo-immortality.
That part is genuinely praiseworthy. Good on him.
Still, I think it was around here that his behavior started getting weird.
Looking back, it might have been because of the curses from [Wonderful Wonderfulness] and [Unfathomable Mystery].
Though honestly, even I can't say for sure.
Either way, getting beaten half to death by Wof in the treasure vault was just the natural consequence of his life choices.
No matter how unlucky you are, no matter what Relic shenanigans are at play, a person can still become anything they want.
But Wof. He is absolutely livid.
Even I was surprised — he just up and decked the guy the moment he answered to his name.
I mean, Wof is that witch's disciple, and he's absolutely ridiculous enough to match, but still.
He's a gentle person. He almost never gets that angry.
Biggs must have done something really terrible to him indirectly.
Oh — oh dear, this is bad.
I have to protect the dungeon's consciousness — or the black spider-woman, I mean.
"Oh, hello there."
"………You're not a normal person. And you're not a monster. What are you?"
I flinched, but I kept my composure. As expected of me, really.
"This is a secret, but I'm Ambrosius. Right now I'm Edda, but back in the day I used to be the King of the Darkness of Death. Well, I'm more or less still doing that."
"Dungeon consciousness"
"Hahaha — I won't deny it, but strictly speaking, it's not quite the same. Besides, I'm a reincarnation type, so I guess I'm something similar to you."
"So what do you want?"
He's being cautious. I smile.
"Don't misunderstand — I'm on your side. Right now I'm a dungeon researcher. I was involved in the creation of this dungeon. Oh, maybe step back a little further."
"Wh-what is that—?"
I make her step back.
The edges would have bitten, after all.
My, anger really is terrifying.
Hehe — to think I'd see that form again in this life.
Oh — oh my, the two of them vanished.
"They're gone."
"Gone, yeah. They'll come right back, though."
"Wait."
"Yeah."
"Hey. I want to hear about you."
The consciousness asked, with apparent interest.
"Sure. Then let me start from two lives back. You see—"
Once I began talking, the consciousness was quite spectacularly astonished.
This might just do for staving off boredom.