The Northern Continent.Wandering Oakentown.Late Afternoon.
Enna, with her artificially bright smile and exaggerated, bouncy steps, cheerfully led Rudeus and his massive black wolf through the winding, snow-packed streets of the village.
From a distance, Wandering Oakentown had painted a perfect, idyllic picture of a peaceful frontier settlement. But as Rudeus walked directly through its heart, his highly trained, veteran combat instincts began to scream at him. The facade was incredibly, laughably thin.
He noticed the microscopic details that a weary, ordinary traveler might easily overlook. The chopping blocks outside the cabins were stained with dark, irregular splatters that looked distinctly more like dried blood than tree sap. The purported "villagers" they passed completely lacked the calloused, weather-beaten hands of honest lumberjacks or farmers; instead, they possessed the shifty, predatory eyes of hardened mercenaries, their hands instinctively hovering near the hilts of hidden blades whenever Rudeus and Damien walked past.
"Here we are! This is exactly where our esteemed Village Elder lives!" Enna announced brightly, stopping abruptly in front of a large, two-story log cabin that looked slightly more well-maintained than the surrounding structures. She spun around, beaming at Rudeus with a smile that felt entirely pasted onto her face.
Rudeus offered a slow, polite nod, seamlessly playing the role of the exhausted, naive tourist.
"I appreciate the guide, Enna," Rudeus said, his voice dropping into a tired, raspy register. "But... can I perhaps meet with him a little later on? I have been traveling through the deep snow for weeks, and I desperately need to find a place to rest my head for now."
Enna gasped, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth in a highly theatrical display of exaggerated guilt.
"Ahh! Oh my goodness, I am so incredibly sorry! How completely rude and inconsiderate I was being!" Enna cried out, immediately bending at the waist and repeatedly, frantically bowing her head toward him in a frantic apology.
Rudeus raised his thick, leather-gloved hands, waving them in a gentle, placating motion to stop her dramatic performance.
"It's perfectly alright, it's alright. There is absolutely no need to apologize," Rudeus reassured her, his tone mild and forgiving.
Internally, however, Rudeus was rolling his crimson eyes so hard it physically hurt.
'She genuinely acts well enough to fool a completely brain-dead merchant, I suppose. But for a goddamn, bloodthirsty bandit? This is amateur hour,' Rudeus mocked inwardly, keeping his face perfectly neutral.
He lowered his hands and asked, "Is there a nearby inn or a boarding house located here in the village? I am looking to spend perhaps two days here to recover my strength before resuming my long journey toward the capital."
Enna immediately stopped bowing, her bright, bubbly persona snapping back into place with unsettling speed.
"Yes! Of course! There is a wonderful, cozy inn right here in our village!" Enna replied enthusiastically, pointing a finger back down the main snowy thoroughfare. "Just walk straight down this path, take a sharp right at the frozen fountain, and when you see a large, swinging wooden bar sign featuring a foaming mug... that is our local inn and our primary tavern too!"
"I see, I see..." Rudeus nodded his head slowly, committing the directions to memory.
"Thanks for the directions, Enna."
Rudeus turned his head slightly, looking down at the massive, terrifying Dire-Wolf sitting patiently in the snow beside his boots.
"Let's go now, Damien. I want to finally get some solid rest inside four walls."
He turned his attention back to the blonde woman standing on the porch.
"Oh, before I go and settle in," Rudeus added, his tone incredibly polite. "Can you please do me a favor and personally tell the Elder that I would be honored to meet with him later this evening? And please, convey my deepest apologies that I cannot physically manage to meet with him right now due to my sheer exhaustion."
Enna waved her hand frantically through the freezing air, dismissing his concerns with a bright laugh.
"I-it's completely alright, it's absolutely alright! You don't need to worry about a thing!" Enna assured him warmly. "He will entirely understand why you need to have a proper rest first. After all, you clearly seem to have traveled here from a very, very far away land."
Rudeus smiled brightly at her. It was a perfectly executed, entirely fake smile that masterfully hid the lethal, calculating predator lurking just beneath his skin.
"Thanks again," Rudeus said.
Without another word, Rudeus turned his back on the "village girl" and began to walk heavily down the snowy path, his massive black wolf following silently at his heels.
Enna stood perfectly still on the porch, maintaining her bright, innocent smile, waving cheerfully until the tall, green-haired man and his monstrous beast completely disappeared around the corner of a large timber storehouse.
The absolute microsecond Rudeus was completely out of her line of sight, Enna's bright, bubbly, innocent personality vanished into thin air.
Her posture instantly slouched. The rosy, cheerful warmth drained entirely from her face, replaced by a cold, hard, profoundly cynical sneer. Her eyes narrowed into predatory slits.
Without bothering to knock, she turned around, grabbed the heavy iron handle, and pushed her way inside the cabin where the "Village Elder" resided. Or rather, the cabin that had been violently seized by the brutal Bandit Leader who had successfully invaded and subjugated this isolated trading post.
-CLICK!
The heavy wooden door swung shut behind her, cutting off the howling wind.
The interior of the cabin was dark, smelling strongly of stale ale, unwashed bodies, and cheap tobacco. Sitting in a massive, stolen velvet armchair positioned directly in front of a roaring stone fireplace was the man in charge.
As the door clicked shut, the Bandit Leader slowly looked back over his shoulder.
He was a terrifyingly rugged, physically imposing man. He possessed greasy, shoulder-length black hair and a thick, unkempt beard. But his most defining, horrifying feature was his face. A massive, jagged, horrifyingly deep scar violently bisected his features, cutting diagonally straight down across his right eye. The eye itself was completely milky white and blind—a permanent, brutal souvenir indicating that he had once been viciously attacked and narrowly defeated by an incredibly strong, lethal opponent in his past.
"It seems our new, heavily armed guest was simply too tired to pay his respects right now...." The Bandit Leader rumbled, his voice a gravelly, menacing growl.
He reached out with a scarred, calloused hand and gripped the polished wooden head of a walking cane leaning against his chair. Even though he was in perfect, lethal physical condition, and this entire village setup was a meticulous, bloody act, he still strictly forced himself to utilize the cane twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He used it as a necessary prop to flawlessly sell the illusion of a frail, elderly village leader, ensuring that if any actual Arendelle Kingdom authorities or wandering Templars passed through, his cover wouldn't be immediately blown.
"...Do you happen to have any idea exactly where this stranger comes from?" The Bandit Leader asked Enna, his single, functional dark eye examining her sharply.
Enna walked over to the fireplace, holding her freezing hands out to the flames to warm them. She shook her head in the negative.
"No, Boss. I couldn't get a specific location out of him," Enna replied, her voice stripped of any fake cheer. "Honestly, this is the very first time in my entire life that I have ever seen a guy walking around with vibrant green hair like that."
Enna was genuinely, deeply confused by his physical appearance. The ethnic demographics of the Northern Continent were incredibly rigid and localized. The vast, overwhelming majority of the native populace in Arendelle only possessed dark black hair, various shades of brown, or blonde hair. The incredibly rare, highly coveted silver hair was an absolute, genetic exclusivity belonging strictly to the members of the Royal Family.
Green hair was a massive, glaring anomaly in this snowy climate.
"Given the exotic coloration, he might be traveling from the Rosania Empire down in the central continent, though..." Enna deduced aloud, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
The Bandit Leader slowly raised his hand, thoughtfully stroking his thick, scarred beard. He gave a slow, measured nod of agreement.
"Hmm... you are more than likely right about that. With that specific hair color and those crimson eyes, he might very well be a noble or an exiled mercenary from that southern empire. But the absolute, glaring question remains—"
The Bandit Leader leaned forward in his stolen armchair, the firelight casting demonic, dancing shadows across his scarred face.
"Why in the absolute hell is a Rosanian citizen willingly traveling alone into an actively hostile, enemy country? And infinitely worse, why is he explicitly marching his way directly toward the capital of Arendelle?"
Enna nodded her head, fully understanding her boss's deep, paranoid suspicion.
"Exactly, Boss. He asked me specifically about traveling to Wisteria," Enna confirmed.
The Bandit Leader turned his head, staring deeply into the roaring flames of the hearth for a long, calculating moment. He rapidly weighed the risks and the potential rewards.
"We cannot afford to take any risks. Kill him immediately after he comes to meet me this evening, Enna," The Bandit Leader commanded, his voice cold and utterly devoid of mercy.
"We absolutely should not, under any circumstances, let anyone outside this perimeter know that we are organized bandits who have taken over this territory. If he is a spy, or a trained investigator, and he somehow manages to figure out that the people currently walking these streets are fakes... and if he discovers the real, original villagers that we currently have locked away and imprisoned in the abandoned silver mines below the town..."
The Bandit Leader tightly gripped the handle of his fake wooden cane until his knuckles turned white.
"....Then we must brutally, swiftly kill the rat before it even has a chance to expose our entire, lucrative operation to the Royal Guard."
Enna nodded sharply, a cruel, bloodthirsty glint appearing in her eyes. She reached down, resting her hand on the hilt of a curved dagger hidden beneath the folds of her traditional winter dress.
"Understood. Yes, Boss...."
The Bandit Leader smiled wickedly, his scarred, blind eye catching the firelight, giving him a truly demonic appearance.
"Yeah...."
".....And immediately after we successfully slit his throat and bleed him out... we will systematically rob every single piece of valuable loot he is carrying in that enchanted satchel, strip his armor, and brutally kill that damn, overgrown black wolf that is traveling with him. The pelt alone will fetch a massive fortune on the black market."
***
Wandering Oakentown.The "Foaming Boar" Tavern.Five Minutes Later.
A short distance away from the Bandit Leader's cabin, Rudeus and Damien finally arrived at their designated destination.
Standing before them was a large, two-story timber building. Hanging above the heavy oak double doors was a massive, swinging wooden sign depicting a crudely painted, foaming mug of ale resting next to a roasted boar's head.
"Sigh...."
Rudeus let out a long, highly exasperated sigh as he stopped in the snow, staring directly up at the swinging wooden sign.
He didn't just see the painted boar. He saw exactly what the bandits had desperately, pathetically tried to hide.
"If these utter morons genuinely want to successfully act like they are innocent, peaceful commoners from this specific, isolated village... they really should have spent an extra hour actively cleaning up and erasing all of the glaring, undeniable physical evidence that they violently attacked and raided this settlement in the first place."
Rudeus pointed a gloved finger up at the sign.
The thick oak wood of the sign was absolutely covered in deep, jagged, violent slash marks. They weren't natural weathering or cracks from the freezing cold. They were explicitly, undeniably deep sword gashes and axe clefts, inflicted by heavy, sharpened steel weapons during a chaotic, brutal melee. Furthermore, if one looked closely, the dark, reddish-brown stains splattered across the bottom edge of the sign were completely unmistakable to a veteran soldier. It was dried, oxidized human blood.
"These absolute, pathetic rookies...." Rudeus muttered under his breath, physically shaking his head repeatedly as he reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose in sheer, unadulterated disappointment. He was almost insulted by how sloppy their cover operation was.
He lowered his hand and looked down at Damien. The massive Dire-Wolf was currently entirely ignoring the tactical analysis of the building, preferring to happily, enthusiastically lick a fresh patch of pristine snowflakes off the side of a frozen wooden barrel.
"Sigh... alright, let's just get inside before I freeze to death. Come on, Damien, stop licking the damn snowflakes. You're going to get a brain freeze."
Damien immediately stopped, offering a sharp, obedient nod of his massive head, and dutifully fell into step directly behind his owner.
-CLICK!
Rudeus pushed open the heavy oak doors and stepped out of the freezing wind and into the stifling, overheated interior of the tavern.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the ambient noise of the room completely, abruptly died.
Rudeus stood in the doorway, slowly, methodically sweeping his cold, crimson eyes across the dimly lit room.
The interior was a textbook, stereotypical definition of a wretched hive of scum and villainy. The air was suffocatingly thick, reeking of spilled, cheap ale, stale sweat, and the pungent, burning scent of raw, unfiltered pipe tobacco.
But it was the patrons that truly gave the game away.
Every single man sitting at the heavy wooden tables looked like a hardened, violent criminal. There were absolutely no farmers, no merchants, and no honest laborers. Almost every single "villager" in the room possessed massive, jagged facial scars, missing teeth, or wore a dirty leather eyepatch. Furthermore, despite being indoors in a supposedly peaceful town, they all wore heavy, battered leather armor, and they had massive broadswords, wicked daggers, and loaded crossbows openly, brazenly displayed on the tables or resting against their chairs.
'Damn, pathetic rookies,' Rudeus repeated inwardly, suppressing a dark, violent smirk. He slowly walked forward, the heavy floorboards creaking under his steel-toed boots.
He approached the long, polished wooden bar at the back of the room.
Standing behind the counter was the Bartender. Out of everyone in the entire room, this man was the absolute only one who actually, physically looked like a somewhat normal, unremarkable commoner. He was a balding, portly man wearing a relatively clean white apron.
However, Rudeus's lethal instincts instantly saw through the disguise. The way the man held the rag, the callous patterns on his knuckles, and the cold, dead look in his eyes... Rudeus knew with absolute certainty that the bartender was just another highly trained bandit playing a designated role.
Rudeus leaned heavily against the bar, maintaining his weary traveler persona.
He asked the Bartender, "Hey, excuse me. Is there an available, private room upstairs where a traveler can properly rest for, say, the next three days?"
The Bartender, who was currently lazily wiping down an already clean, thick glass mug with a dirty rag, stopped his motion. He slowly put the glass down on the counter and leaned forward, resting his thick forearms on the wood, a greasy, entirely unwelcoming smile spreading across his face.
"Yeah... we definitely have a vacancy for you, stranger....."
The Bartender paused, his small, greedy eyes darting down to evaluate the quality of Rudeus's expensive Mana Bear fur coat and the heavy, enchanted leather satchel slung over his shoulder.
"....But, given the severe winter weather and the high demand for supplies, it is going to cost you a premium. Thirteen solid gold coins upfront."
Rudeus let out a long, heavy sigh inwardly.
Even though they were violent, bloodthirsty bandits occupying a stolen town, they absolutely shouldn't be so stupidly, egregiously overpricing their shit! In the standard economic lore of the Arendelle Kingdom, thirteen pure gold coins was an absolutely massive, borderline aristocratic fortune. It was enough money to buy a small farmhouse, let alone rent a cheap, bedbug-ridden room in a rural frontier tavern for three nights. The sheer audacity of the extortion was almost comical.
But Rudeus didn't argue. He didn't want to blow his cover just yet.
He casually reached into the deep, magically expanded pocket of his trousers and rummaged around. He pulled out a heavy leather coin purse and smoothly, casually counted out exactly thirteen gleaming, heavy gold coins, letting them clatter loudly onto the wooden counter.
"Here. Keep the change," Rudeus said, his voice flat.
The Bartender's eyes instantly widened with sheer, unadulterated, greedy delight. He didn't hesitate. He shot his hand forward like a striking snake, violently snatching the small pile of gold coins directly from the counter. He held one of the coins up to the dim candlelight, inspecting the imperial mint mark, and a massive, wicked smile broke across his face.
"Yeah, thanks for the business, stranger. Here's your iron key. You can go straight up the stairs to your left. You are in the fourth room at the very end of the hallway." The Bartender instructed, letting out a dark, raspy laugh as he entirely ignored his customer, completely focusing his greedy eyes on counting his newfound, easily extorted treasure.
Rudeus picked up the heavy iron key. He turned around to face the room and raised his hand, offering two sharp snaps of his fingers to signal Damien to follow.
As he turned, he realized that the entire, silent tavern of heavily armed bandits was currently staring directly at him. Or rather, they were staring with undisguised, predatory greed at the massive, incredibly valuable black Dire-Wolf standing by the door, and the heavy coin purse Rudeus had just displayed.
Rudeus stopped. He didn't draw his mace.
He simply slowly, deliberately turned his head and locked his piercing, vibrant crimson eyes directly onto the staring crowd.
He dropped his exhausted traveler persona completely. For one fleeting, terrifying microsecond, he allowed the pure, unadulterated, apocalyptic killing intent he had forged in the Barren Wastelands to bleed into his gaze. It was the cold, dead, utterly ruthless glare of a supreme, frontline veteran combatant who had slaughtered monsters the size of mountains.
The temperature in the tavern seemed to instantly plummet.
The hardened bandits felt the crushing, invisible weight of his stare. One by one, a primal, deeply ingrained instinct of self-preservation kicked in. They rapidly, nervously shifted their heads, looking down at their ales, suddenly finding the wood grain of their tables incredibly fascinating. Not a single one of the cutthroats dared to maintain eye contact with the green-haired stranger.
'Fucking, pathetic bastards,' Rudeus promised inwardly, his jaw clenching tightly.
'I absolutely swear to God... after I finish systematically killing every single one of you tonight... I am personally going to gouge all of your greedy, thieving eyes out!'
With that dark, violent promise echoing in his mind, Rudeus turned on his heel and confidently marched up the creaky wooden stairs, Damien following silently behind him.
***
The "Foaming Boar" Tavern.Room 4 - Upstairs.Shortly After.
After navigating the dark, poorly lit hallway, Rudeus finally arrived at the heavy wooden door marked with a rusted iron '4'.
With a loud, metallic "click," he turned the key and pushed the door open.
He stepped inside and immediately let out a massive, disappointed groan.
The interior design and layout of the space was exactly, precisely what you would expect to see in the most rundown, cheapest, flea-ridden inns across the continent. The room was incredibly cramped and claustrophobic. It possessed exactly one rickety, splintering wooden table, one highly questionable, lumpy straw mattress resting on a wooden frame, and one small, incredibly drafty window that barely kept the freezing wind out. And, infinitely worse, the ceiling was so low that Rudeus practically had to duck his head to avoid scraping his hair on the beams.
"Sigh...."
Rudeus dropped his heavy leather satchel onto the rickety table with a loud thud.
"....Honestly, what else did I actually, realistically expect to find in a fake, bandit-occupied frontier village located hundreds of miles away from the civilized capital of the Arendelle Kingdom?"
He quickly closed the heavy wooden door behind Damien.
Rudeus absolutely did not want any sudden, unwanted intruders or lock-picking assassins to try and sneak inside while his guard was down.
He didn't bother locking the flimsy iron deadbolt. Instead, he raised his right hand. His fingernails momentarily flashed with a glossy, pitch-black sheen.
He silently, effortlessly channeled a microscopic fraction of his divine power.
'Void Divine Art: Black Chains.'
Instantly, from the very shadows of the room, several jagged, ethereal black chains silently manifested into physical reality. They wrapped tightly, securely around the doorframe and the iron hinges, completely, magically sealing the door shut. He cast another set of black chains over the drafty window, ensuring absolutely nothing could enter or exit the room without his explicit, magical permission.
Satisfied with his impenetrable security measures, he let out another long, heavy sigh of relief.
He unbuckled his heavy weapon belt and unceremoniously dropped his massive, exhausted body directly onto the lumpy straw mattress. Even though the bed was small, highly uncomfortable, and smelled vaguely of mildew, Rudeus was already profoundly, entirely satisfied with the arrangement. He was incredibly tired of surviving and camping in the toxic ash; his spine was already aching immensely from sleeping directly on the freezing, hard ground with nothing but a thin bed sheet to protect him.
Damien immediately found a comfortable, shadowed corner of the cramped room. The massive Dire-Wolf turned in a tight circle three times before collapsing heavily onto the floorboards, curling into a massive black ball to rest. Rudeus gladly let the beast sleep; his loyal companion desperately needed the rest before the bloodshed began tonight.
Rudeus lay flat on his back, staring up at the stained, rotting wooden ceiling beams. His highly tactical, encyclopedic mind began to rapidly piece together his strategy for the night.
"If I explicitly remember the game's specific, programmed event triggers correctly..." Rudeus muttered quietly to himself, his crimson eyes tracking the patterns in the wood.
"...These specific bandits will always, inevitably host a massive, seemingly welcoming 'Dance Party' and feast down in the tavern hall later tonight. It is their standard, canonical operating procedure. They use the loud music, the warm fire, and the heavily drugged ale to completely lure in and lower the guard of any wealthy travelers, merchants, or strangers who wander into town."
A cold, incredibly lethal smirk slowly stretched across Rudeus's face in the dim light of the room.
"And then... the exact moment those unsuspecting people completely lower their guard and become intoxicated... that is the precise, scripted time when those goddamn, cowardly bandits strike. They sneak up, brutally kill their helpless victims from behind, slit their throats, and systematically loot their bodies of every single valuable artifact and coin."
He chuckled, a dark, dangerous sound that made Damien's ears twitch in his sleep.
"But... I am fundamentally, different than a wandering merchant."
Rudeus slowly lifted his right hand, staring at the palm that had erased Giant Trolls from existence.
"I will be the absolute last thing they ever expect. I will be the one to actively catch them entirely off guard. I will gladly accept their invitation to the party, and then... I will violently, systematically slaughter every single one of them in that tavern. I will personally hunt down their leader, completely wipe out their operation, and finally free the innocent, original people of this village who are currently locked away in the mines."
He lowered his hand, his mind shifting to the tangible, highly lucrative rewards of his impending massacre.
He vividly remembered the specific, canonical loot drops associated with completely clearing this specific "Wandering Oakentown" side-quest in the visual novel.
If a player successfully saved the village and rescued the true Elder from the mines, they were rewarded with a highly coveted, unique-tier artifact: The 'Amulet of the Northern Wind'. It was a powerful, enchanted accessory that provided a massive, permanent statistical boost to both overall physical damage output and movement speed. It was an essential piece of mid-game gear.
"Yeah... that's exactly right. And there is an even bigger prize waiting for me. There is the overarching 'Bandit King' who technically rules this entire northern territory..."
Rudeus's crimson eyes gleamed with undisguised, mercenary greed in the darkness.
"Based entirely on the deep, economic lore of this game, if a player successfully manages to track down and violently kill the Bandit King in his primary stronghold...."
"....You are instantly, automatically rewarded with absolutely all of the hoarded, massive stockpiles of gold coins that his entire syndicate has violently robbed from raiding aristocratic caravans and murdering wealthy imperial merchants over the last decade."
Rudeus smiled wickedly, his teeth flashing white in the shadows. He could practically hear the heavy, satisfying clink of thousands of gold coins.
"Ahhhh...."
Rudeus let out a long, deeply satisfied sigh of anticipation.
"....I absolutely cannot wait to get incredibly, obscenely rich from that filthy bastard's hoard!"
He was going to need a massive, undeniable fortune if he wanted to operate freely and effectively in the capital.
"Hahahahaha, yeah. I am absolutely going to brutally, methodically kill that scarred bastard sitting in the Elder's house right after I completely wipe out his entire crew of lackeys down in the tavern tonight."
Rudeus slowly, tightly clenched his hands into iron fists, feeling the immense, crushing power of the Void thrumming quietly just beneath his skin. He was a force of nature, a localized apocalypse waiting to be unleashed upon deserving scum.
His smile softened slightly, the mercenary greed fading, replaced by a deep, profound, and absolute resolve.
"After that...."
He turned his head, looking out the frost-covered window toward the dark, freezing horizon of the Arendelle Kingdom.
"....I can finally, officially travel to the grand capital of Wisteria and officially meet her."
The image of a beautiful, tragic, icy-haired villainess flashed vividly in his mind.
"Just you wait, Elsa...."
Rudeus closed his eyes, sealing his absolute promise in the darkness of the ruined inn.
"....I'll save you."