Wandering Oakentown.The "Foaming Boar" Tavern - Room 4.Nighttime.
The oppressive, perpetual twilight of the Northern Continent had finally given way to the true, suffocating darkness of a winter night. Outside the cramped, drafty window of Room 4, the howling wind whipped a frenzy of razor-sharp snowflakes against the frosted glass, a relentless, freezing barrage that sounded like handfuls of sand being thrown against the timber walls.
Inside the tiny, dilapidated room, the atmosphere was entirely different. It was perfectly, magically still.
Rudeus slowly opened his eyes. In the pitch-black darkness, his irises glowed with a faint, predatory, and vibrant crimson luminescence. He didn't stretch, nor did he groan from the stiffness of the lumpy, mildew-scented straw mattress. He simply sat up with the silent, fluid grace of a seasoned combat veteran who had long ago trained his body to awaken instantly into a state of lethal readiness.
He turned his head, his glowing eyes cutting through the gloom to look toward the corner of the room.
There, resting upon the creaky floorboards, Damien slept soundly. The massive, terrifying black Dire-Wolf was curled into a tight, incredibly warm ball of thick fur, his chest rising and falling in a slow, steady, peaceful rhythm. The ambient magical warmth radiating from the beast was the only thing keeping the freezing temperature of the unheated room at bay.
Rudeus's cold, calculating expression instantly softened. He swung his heavy, steel-toed boots over the edge of the bed and stood up, his footsteps entirely silent against the wood.
He walked slowly toward the sleeping wolf. He knelt down beside his loyal companion, resting his large, heavily calloused hand gently upon the thick, coarse fur of Damien's massive head. He affectionately, rhythmically stroked the beast behind the ears, a gesture that caused the wolf to let out a deep, contented, rumbling sigh without ever waking from his slumber.
Rudeus smiled warmly in the dark. He leaned down, his green and red hair brushing against the black fur, and pressed a gentle, affectionate kiss to the top of the wolf's head.
"Sleep soundly, Damien," Rudeus whispered, his deep, raspy voice barely audible over the howling wind outside. "You have earned your rest. Let me handle the garbage tonight."
Rudeus stood up to his full, imposing height. He rolled his broad shoulders, feeling the immense, crushing power of the Void thrumming quietly, expectantly beneath his skin. He didn't bother putting his heavy Mana Bear fur coat back on; the physical exertion he was about to engage in would provide more than enough heat, and he wanted his arms completely, unrestrictedly free to move. He wore only his dark, reinforced combat tunic and trousers.
He reached down to his left hip, his thick, leather-gloved fingers wrapping securely around the scarred, heavy iron hilt of his Six-Flanged War Mace. He didn't draw the weapon, but the cold touch of the iron grounded him, centering his focus into a singular, razor-sharp point of lethal intent.
He turned toward the heavy wooden door, which was still securely, magically bound by the ethereal, jagged black chains of his Conceptual Binding art.
'Tonight's the night,' Rudeus stated inwardly, his mind perfectly calm, completely devoid of any fear, hesitation, or moral conflict. He was about to commit a mass slaughter, and he felt absolutely nothing but a cold, pragmatic anticipation.
With a mere thought, he dismissed the magical locks. The ethereal black chains silently dissolved into wisps of dark ash, fading into the shadows of the room.
He reached out, grasped the rusted iron handle, and slowly pulled the door open.
As Rudeus stepped out into the dimly lit, narrow upstairs hallway, the muffled silence of his warded room was instantly, violently shattered. The thick, wooden floorboards beneath his boots vibrated with the sheer volume of the chaotic noise rising from the ground floor.
He could clearly, distinctly hear the raucous, booming sounds of dozens of men loudly celebrating, roaring with drunken laughter, smashing heavy wooden mugs together, and singing off-key, vulgar tavern shanties. It sounded exactly like a massive, unrestrained feast was in full, chaotic swing.
'So, the pathetic, predictable charade has finally started, huh?' Rudeus remarked inwardly, a dark, incredibly cynical smirk stretching across his scarred face. He slowly, methodically began to descend the creaky wooden staircase, his footsteps completely masked by the deafening noise below.
As he reached the landing and his crimson eyes swept over the massive, smoke-filled main hall of the "Foaming Boar" tavern, the scene before him was a grotesque, theatrical display of forced merriment.
The tables had been pushed together into long, communal banquet lines. The hardened, scarred bandits—who just hours ago had been glaring at him with undisguised, murderous greed—were now aggressively, falsely acting like incredibly joyous, welcoming villagers throwing a massive festival. They were tearing into roasted meats, spilling cheap, frothing ale all over the wooden tables, and loudly toasting to the health of the Northern winds.
And right in the absolute center of the chaos, standing atop one of the sturdy oak tables to the roaring applause of the surrounding men, was Enna.
The supposedly innocent, demure village girl with the bright blonde braids was currently holding a massive, oversized wooden flagon of dark ale with both hands, tipping her head back and aggressively, rapidly chugging the fermented liquid down her throat.
The surrounding bandits were violently slamming their fists on the tables, stomping their heavy boots on the floorboards, and roaring in a synchronized, deafening chant.
"DRINK!"
-SLAM!
"DRINK!"
-SLAM!
"DRINK!"
-SLAM!
"DRINK!"
-SLAM!
"DRINK!"
-SLAM!
"DRINK!"
-SLAM!
"DRINK!"
-SLAM!
"DRINK!"
As they repeatedly, aggressively chanted the word, their voices slurring with heavy intoxication, Enna miraculously managed to finish the massive flagon. To Rudeus's highly analytical, observant eyes, judging by the staggering pile of empty wooden mugs stacked precariously on the table beside her, this had to be her hundredth—or perhaps even her absolute, biologically impossible three-hundred-and-fourteenth—beer of the evening. The sheer volume of alcohol she was consuming would have easily killed a normal human, revealing a terrifying, superhuman constitution likely born from years of hardened banditry and possibly low-tier physical enhancement magic.
-GULP!
With one final, massive swallow, she drained the absolute last drop of the dark ale.
She violently slammed the empty, oversized wooden flagon down onto the table, shattering the base of the mug.
"Ahhhh!!!~" Enna gasped loudly, wiping a thick line of spilled, foamy ale from her chin with the back of her sleeve. Her cheeks were flushed a deep, vibrant crimson, and her eyes were slightly glazed, but she remained surprisingly steady on her feet.
Suddenly, her gaze snapped toward the staircase. She spotted Rudeus standing on the landing, quietly observing the chaotic spectacle.
In a fraction of a microsecond, the hardened, foul-mouthed, ale-chugging bandit entirely vanished.
Her eyes widened in a highly exaggerated display of profound, maidenly shock. She immediately hopped down from the table, her movements suddenly adopting a delicate, clumsy, highly practiced clumsiness. She frantically smoothed down the front of her traditional, embroidered winter dress and immediately bowed her head deeply toward him, hiding her face.
"Ahh! Oh my goodness! I am so incredibly, profoundly sorry for allowing you to see such an unsightly, unrefined act from a delicate maiden like myself, Ser Rudeus!" Enna cried out, her voice pitching up into a sickeningly sweet, embarrassed squeak.
Rudeus slowly walked down the remaining steps, stepping onto the main tavern floor. He raised both of his hands, waving them in a gentle, highly reassuring, and entirely fake gesture of understanding.
"No, no! Please, it is absolutely, perfectly alright, Enna! You don't need to apologize to me," Rudeus replied, his voice projecting a warm, jovial, and entirely gullible tone. He forced a wide, charming smile onto his face. "Where I come from, in my own distant homeland, I always see the strongest, most vibrant women drinking exactly like that to celebrate a good harvest too! It is a sign of great health and high spirits!"
'Of course, that is an absolute, utter lie. The high-born aristocratic women of the Rosania Empire would literally rather drink liquid poison than be seen chugging ale on a tavern table,' Rudeus stated inwardly, his internal monologue a stark, cold contrast to his warm exterior. 'But let's play along with this pathetic, amateur theater.'
Before Enna could respond, one of the massive, heavily scarred bandits sitting at the nearest table stood up. He was a hulking brute with a dirty eyepatch and a missing front tooth. He aggressively kicked a wooden chair out from under the table, gesturing wildly toward the empty seat.
"Hey! Come over here, traveler! Come sit with us and have a proper, Northern drink with us to celebrate your arrival!" The bandit roared, laughing boisterously. He reached across the table, grabbed a freshly poured, brimming glass bottle of dark, cloudy beer, and enthusiastically offered it toward Rudeus.
Rudeus didn't hesitate. He confidently, casually walked directly toward the table of armed cutthroats, showing absolutely no fear or hesitation. He reached out and happily, graciously accepted the glass bottle.
"Thanks! I am absolutely parched!" Rudeus declared loudly.
He didn't inspect the liquid. He didn't sniff it. He simply raised the bottle to his lips, tipped his head back, and began to rapidly, aggressively chug the dark beer.
-GULP!
-GULP!
-GULP!
"Ahhh~~~!!" Rudeus gasped theatrically, lowering the completely empty glass bottle and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, mirroring Enna's earlier action.
The moment the dark, bitter liquid hit his stomach, his highly advanced, combat-trained senses immediately registered the violent, unnatural chemical anomaly hidden within the brew. The beer was heavily, aggressively laced with a massive, concentrated dose of a high-tier, fast-acting paralytic drug. It was a potent, localized neurotoxin specifically designed to bypass normal magical resistances, intended to instantly put a fully grown, magically enhanced warrior into a deep, unbreakable, comatose sleep, or at the very least, render their muscles completely, helplessly weak and unresponsive.
Rudeus's crimson eyes flashed imperceptibly.
He didn't panic. He didn't reach for his throat.
He simply, effortlessly channeled a microscopic fraction of his divine, conceptual authority inward, directing it through his own biological bloodstream.
'Void Divine Art: Poison Resistance.'
It wasn't a biological immunity; it was the absolute, conceptual erasure of the threat. The Void power violently, instantaneously identified the foreign, toxic chemical compounds circulating within his blood and simply... deleted them. The paralytic drug was completely erased from existence before it could even begin to bind to a single nervous receptor in his body.
"Thanks for the drink, friend!" Rudeus exclaimed brightly. To completely sell the act of the oblivious, drunken traveler, he deliberately forced out a loud, highly unrefined belch.
"BRRP!"
The loud, echoing belch caused Enna to burst into a fit of bright, giggling laughter, genuinely amused by his crude display.
"Ohh boy! For a refined-looking traveler from the South, you certainly act a lot like us rough Northerners!" Enna cheered, clapping her hands together delightfully.
Rudeus only smiled warmly and offered a polite, agreeable nod.
As he stood there, seemingly relaxed and enjoying the festivities, his cold, analytical crimson eyes were systematically, invisibly sweeping across the entire tavern. He was meticulously cataloging every single microscopic detail.
He noticed that despite their incredibly loud, boisterous, drunken acting, the eyes of the bandits remained terrifyingly sharp and focused. He noticed that beneath the tables, where they thought he couldn't see, almost every single one of the "drunk" men was clearly, nervously gripping the hilts of hidden daggers, checking the tension on loaded hand-crossbows, or slowly sliding heavy broadswords out of their scabbards, inch by agonizing inch, preparing for the signal to strike.
'Seriously...' Rudeus sneered inwardly, a deep, profound sense of absolute, professional disgust washing over him.
'Are these the terrifying, dreaded bandits of the Northern frontier? They act exactly like a bunch of nervous, untrained, rookie assassins who are physically shaking in their boots right before their very first kill. Their bloodlust is so incredibly dense and poorly concealed it's practically suffocating the air in the room. It's genuinely insulting that they think this pathetic charade is fooling me.'
Enna stepped closer to him, completely invading his personal space.
"Hey, Traveler! I am so incredibly sorry for completely forgetting to tell you this incredibly important detail earlier, but—"
She suddenly threw her arms wide open in a grand, highly theatrical, welcoming gesture, presenting the entire room of armed killers to him.
"This entire feast tonight... this is our official, grand welcoming party entirely dedicated to you! Welcome to Wandering Oakentown, Ser Rudeus!" Enna announced brightly, her voice ringing over the noise of the tavern.
Rudeus knew exactly what his cue was. It was time for his final performance.
He widened his crimson eyes in an exaggerated display of profound, deeply touched emotion. He forced his facial muscles to tremble slightly. With a masterclass display of acting that would have earned him a standing ovation in the Imperial Theater, he actually managed to force a single, highly visible, pristine fake tear to well up in the corner of his right eye.
He reached up and gently, emotionally wiped the fake tear away.
"Tha-thank you! Thank you all so incredibly much!" Rudeus stammered, his voice cracking with feigned, overwhelming gratitude. "Thi-this is literally the very first time in my entire life that anyone has ever done something so incredibly kind and welcoming for me on the road!"
The hardened, bloodthirsty killers inside the tavern, upon seeing the massive, heavily armed warrior supposedly brought to tears by their hospitality, immediately erupted into a chorus of patronizing, mocking sympathy.
"Awwwww," The bandits chorused loudly, exchanging dark, knowing, malicious smirks with each other across the tables. They firmly believed the paralytic drug was already heavily clouding his mind and lowering his emotional barriers, making him an easy, pathetic mark.
Enna stepped directly into his guard. She opened her arms and aggressively, intimately wrapped them entirely around Rudeus's waist, pulling him into a tight, comforting hug. She reached up with one hand and gently, affectionately ruffled his messy green and red hair.
"There, there, Traveler. Here, here. Welcome to the warm embrace of the North," Enna cooed soothingly against his chest.
While she was faking the comforting embrace, Rudeus, looking down over her shoulder, clearly, distinctly saw her right hand slip behind his back. He saw her rapidly, silently signaling the surrounding men with a series of sharp, tactical hand gestures. It was the undeniable, universal signal to draw their blades and prepare to butcher the target.
As she finally stopped faking the comforting hair-ruffling, she leaned back slightly, gazing up at him with wide, seemingly innocent eyes. She reached up and gently cupped both of his scarred cheeks with her soft hands.
"Then... since you are so tired and emotional, please, let me personally comfort you upstairs, alright?" Enna offered, her voice dropping into a low, husky, incredibly seductive whisper, intending to lure him away from the main floor to quietly assassinate him in the privacy of his room.
Rudeus nodded slowly, his expression incredibly compliant and dazed.
He slowly raised his own large, heavily calloused hands. He gently, almost tenderly reached out and securely cupped both sides of her face, his thumbs resting lightly against her cheekbones.
He leaned his head down, bringing his lips incredibly close to her ear.
Enna smiled, believing she had completely, flawlessly ensnared him in her trap.
Then, Rudeus whispered his response. His voice was no longer warm, jovial, or emotionally compromised. It was a cold, dead, terrifyingly absolute rasp that froze the blood in her veins.
"If you honestly, genuinely thought that you pathetic, amateur rats could actually fool and kill me with this cheap parlor trick...?"
Enna's entire body went rigidly, paralyzingly stiff. The realization that he wasn't drugged, and that he knew exactly what was happening, slammed into her mind with the force of a physical blow.
"You are entirely, wrong...."
Enna's eyes blew wide open in sheer, unadulterated panic. She opened her mouth to scream, desperately trying to physically signal her men to attack immediately, but—
-TWIST!
-CRACK!
Rudeus didn't hesitate for a single microsecond. With a sudden, explosive, and utterly ruthless application of overwhelming physical kinetic force, he violently, aggressively twisted his hands in opposite directions.
The sickening, deafening sound of her cervical vertebrae completely, catastrophically snapping echoed through the suddenly silent tavern like a gunshot.
Rudeus casually, carelessly released his grip on her face. Enna's lifeless body instantly collapsed, crumpling to the floorboards like a discarded ragdoll, her head twisted at an impossible, grotesque angle.
The entire tavern froze in absolute, mind-shattering shock. The bandits, who had half-drawn their weapons, stared at the dead body of their most skilled lure lying broken at the stranger's feet. Their brains completely failed to process the sudden, violent reversal of the situation.
Rudeus looked down at the corpse, then looked up at the horrified crowd. The fake, charming smile on his face hadn't faded; it had merely warped into a dark, terrifying, incredibly sadistic smirk.
He casually raised his right hand, lifting two fingers into the air.
"Oopsie!" Rudeus chirped, flashing a highly sarcastic, mocking peace sign toward the stunned room.
The spell of shock violently shattered.
"YOU-YOU GODDAMN, MURDEROUS BASTARD!"
The "Bartender," dropping all pretense of his civilian disguise, let out a furious, blood-curdling roar. He violently vaulted over the heavy wooden counter, drawing a massive, razor-sharp broadsword from a hidden scabbard strapped to his back. He lunged directly at Rudeus with incredible, lethal speed, aiming a devastating, two-handed downward cleave meant to split the stranger's skull in twain.
Rudeus didn't even flinch. He didn't take a single step backward.
With blinding, impossible speed, Rudeus drew his heavy Six-Flanged War Mace from his hip and swung it upward in a casual, one-handed block.
-CLANG!
The deafening, metallic ring of heavy steel violently impacting black iron echoed through the tavern. The Bartender's heavy broadsword was flawlessly, effortlessly parried. The sheer, overwhelming kinetic force of Rudeus's casual block completely halted the downward momentum of the strike, sending a violent, agonizing shockwave vibrating up the Bartender's arms, nearly shattering his wrists.
Rudeus stared at the struggling bandit through the crossed weapons, his crimson eyes gleaming with profound boredom.
"Seriously.... is this truly the absolute best you pathetic scum can do?" Rudeus mocked, his voice dripping with venomous disappointment.
The Bartender's furious charge was the catalyst. Seeing their leader engaged, the rest of the hardened bandits violently snapped into action. Dozens of chairs were kicked backward as they drew their axes, short swords, and heavy maces, rushing from all sides to swarm and overwhelm the lone target in the center of the room.
"KILL HIM! RIP HIM TO PIECES!"
What followed was a masterclass in absolute, unparalleled, brutal combat superiority.
Rudeus didn't go on the offensive. He simply stood his ground in the center of the tavern and allowed them to attack.
-WHOOOSH!
A heavy battleaxe swung viciously toward his neck from the blind spot on his left. Rudeus casually, smoothly tilted his head exactly two inches backward, allowing the lethal blade to pass harmlessly by his throat, feeling the breeze of the steel on his skin.
-CLANG!
Without even looking, he brought the heavy iron shaft of his mace around to his right side, flawlessly, brutally parrying a dual-wielded short sword thrust aimed at his ribs, the impact shattering one of the bandit's blades.
-SWISH!
He ducked entirely underneath a sweeping, horizontal broadsword strike, his movements incredibly fluid and entirely devoid of any wasted kinetic energy.
-CLANG!
-SLICK!
-CLANG!
For three full, agonizing minutes, Rudeus effortlessly, elegantly danced through the chaotic, desperate melee. He dodged, weaved, and parried every single one of their frantic, uncoordinated attacks with terrifying, mathematical precision. He was a seasoned, elite frontline warrior fighting against untrained street thugs. He didn't use a single ounce of magical enhancement; he was simply relying on pure, ingrained, past-life combat experience.
He allowed them to encircle him completely, drawing them all into the absolute center of the room.
Finally, the desperate attacks paused. The bandits, chests heaving, completely out of breath, backed away slightly, their weapons raised. They had successfully managed to completely surround him in a tight, inescapable circle.
The "Bartender," panting heavily, glared at Rudeus with a mixture of burning hatred and rising, primal fear. He realized that not a single one of their blades had even managed to scratch the stranger's clothing.
"YOU ARE COMPLETELY, FUCKING SURROUNDED, YOU ARROGANT, FUCKING BASTARD!" The Bartender roared, trying to bolster his men's failing courage, alongside the other bandits who echoed the threat in unison.
"IT'S EXACTLY TWELVE AGAINST ONE! YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO WAY OUT! DROP YOUR WEAPON AND WE MIGHT MAKE YOUR DEATH QUICK!" The Bartender threatened, tightening his grip on his broadsword.
Rudeus stood perfectly still in the center of the hostile circle. He rested the heavy head of his iron mace against his shoulder. He looked around at the twelve heavily armed men boxing him in.
He didn't look worried. He didn't look trapped.
He scoffed loudly, a harsh, dismissive sound of pure, unadulterated amusement. A dark, terrifying, deeply sadistic smile slowly stretched across his scarred face.
"Ohh, really.....?" Rudeus asked, his voice dropping into a register that made the ambient temperature in the tavern plummet. "You honestly think numbers matter when you are facing a natural disaster?"
Rudeus slowly closed his eyes.
He entirely bypassed his physical strength and reached deep, deep into the very core of his soul, activating the absolute, supreme, conceptual authority that had been gifted to him by the deity in the void.
'VOID DIVINE ART:'
He snapped his eyes open. His irises burned with the devastating, pitch-black power of the abyss.
'BLACK DEATH!'
There was no incantation. There was no glowing magic circle.
There was only the immediate, violent, conceptual manifestation of absolute erasure.
Instantly, erupting directly from the wooden floorboards, the walls, and the very shadows of the tavern, dozens of massive, jagged, ethereal black chains violently shot outward into the physical plane.
They moved with the blinding, impossible speed of striking cobras.
-SHLUCK!
-SHLUCK!
-SHLUCK!
The horrific, wet, meaty sound of the ethereal chains violently, brutally stabbing and impaling the surrounding bandits echoed through the room.
Rudeus had explicitly, precisely targeted eleven of the twelve men. The chains drove flawlessly through their chests, their stomachs, and their throats, lifting them entirely off their feet, crucifying them in mid-air against the walls and the ceiling beams of the tavern.
The only man explicitly spared from the initial impalement was the "Bartender."
The Bartender stood frozen in the center of the room, his broadsword trembling in his hands. His eyes widened to the absolute limits of their sockets in sheer, unadulterated, mind-shattering horror.
He watched, completely paralyzed, as his eleven comrades, his brothers-in-arms, began to scream. But they didn't scream for long.
Right before his terrified eyes, the bodies of the impaled bandits began to rapidly, violently decay. Their flesh, their armor, their weapons, and their very souls began turning into swirling, chaotic clouds of pitch-black ash. They were slowly, agonizingly, and conceptually being entirely erased from the fabric of existence. Within seconds, the screaming stopped, and the ash dissipated into the air, leaving absolutely nothing behind. Eleven men, completely deleted from reality.
"Wha-what the absolute hell have you done?!" The Bartender shrieked, his voice cracking, completely losing his mind. He gripped his broadsword with both hands, pointing the trembling, shaking tip of the blade directly at the green-haired monster standing amidst the falling ash.
"What kind of demonic magic is this?! You-you! Stay back! Stay the fuck baaaccckkkk!!!" The Bartender screamed hysterically, frantically, blindly swinging his broadsword through the air in wide, uncoordinated arcs to keep the approaching nightmare away.
Rudeus didn't rush. He didn't summon more chains.
He slowly, deliberately began to walk directly toward the terrified, screaming bandit. As he walked, he lowered his arm, allowing the heavy, spiked iron head of his Six-Flanged War Mace to drop to the floorboards.
He didn't lift it. He dragged it behind him.
-SHRRRRIIIIICCCKKKKK!!!!
The heavy, grating, agonizingly loud sound of the iron flanges slowly, deeply tearing into the wooden floorboards filled the suddenly silent tavern. It sounded exactly like the relentless, unstoppable grinding of an executioner's wheel.
To compound the psychological terror, Rudeus puckered his lips and began to whistle.
It wasn't a cheerful tune. It was a slow, haunting, chilling, and deeply terrifying melody that sounded exactly like a predator whistling a dirge to its trapped prey, welcoming them to their absolute, inevitable death.
"Whooooooo... whooo... hoo..."
"Whooooooo... whooo... hoo... hoo..."
"Whooooooo... whooo... hoo..."
The eerie, echoing whistle, combined with the slow, metallic grinding of the mace dragging across the floor, completely shattered the Bartender's remaining sanity.
The bandit's body began to violently, uncontrollably tremble. He sobbed openly, tears of pure terror streaming down his scarred face as he heard the chilling melody approaching. In a state of absolute, mindless panic, he frantically, desperately swung his heavy blade again and again.
"AAAAHHHHHHH!!!" The bartender screamed at the top of his lungs, desperately hoping to signal the Bandit Leader or any remaining guards outside the tavern.
-SWISH!
-SWISH!
-SWISH!
The heavy broadsword cleaved empty air repeatedly as Rudeus effortlessly, casually stepped inside the man's chaotic guard, finally closing the distance between them.
Rudeus stopped whistling. A dark, predatory smirk crossed his face.
As the Bartender brought his heavy broadsword down in one final, desperate, two-handed vertical strike meant to cleave Rudeus in half, Rudeus didn't even bother to raise his mace to parry.
He simply raised his left hand.
With impossible, terrifying precision and overwhelming physical strength, Rudeus caught the descending, razor-sharp edge of the heavy steel broadsword directly between his bare thumb and index finger.
The blade stopped completely dead in its tracks.
The sheer kinetic force of the impact drove the sharp steel slightly into his skin. Slowly, methodically, a few drops of bright red blood began dripping from his fingers, falling onto the floorboards.
But Rudeus entirely, completely ignored the pain and the blood. He was intimately, deeply used to suffering infinitely worse injuries. He didn't even flinch.
"Can you please, for the love of the Goddess, stop frantically swinging your goddamn sword around exactly like a panicked, undisciplined child? Alright?" Rudeus asked, his voice adopting an incredibly calm, almost polite, conversational tone. He actually closed his eyes for a second, emphasizing the polite, exasperated "please" to the terrified man.
The Bartender desperately tried to resist. He gritted his teeth, veins popping on his forehead, and tried to violently wrench the blade free from Rudeus's grip, desperately trying to "swish, swish" his weapon again.
But it was like trying to pull a sword from solid, unyielding bedrock. Because of how monstrously, terrifyingly strong Rudeus's grip was, the Bartender instantly realized with absolute, crushing despair that his physical struggles were entirely, utterly useless.
"See....." Rudeus said softly, opening his crimson eyes.
"....It's all entirely useless."
Rudeus's smirk widened into a terrifying grin.
With a sharp, casual, explosive twist of his wrist, applying an immense, targeted torque to the steel...
-SNAP!
Rudeus effortlessly, cleanly broke the heavy, forged steel broadsword completely in half with just his two bare fingers.
The Bartender's eyes widened to the size of saucers. His jaw dropped. He stared at the jagged, broken stump of the blade remaining in his hands. That specific, master-crafted broadsword had cost him nearly 200 solid gold coins when he purchased it from an elite black market smuggler in the capital. It was designed to cleave through heavy plate armor, and this green-haired monster had just snapped it like a dry twig.
"Oopsie!" Rudeus chirped again, his voice dripping with sadistic sarcasm as he casually tossed the broken upper half of the blade over his shoulder, letting it clatter to the floor.
He reached down, picked up a relatively clean corner of his heavy coat, and casually wiped the blood from his fingers.
"Let's see here...." Rudeus murmured, crossing his arms over his chest, adopting the posture of an incredibly strict, unforgiving inquisitor.
"....I have a few very specific, highly important questions for you!"
Rudeus leaned his face closer to the trembling, broken man.
"So, I highly advise you to answer them completely, absolutely honestly. Is that fully understood, alright?" Rudeus requested, his seemingly polite tone entirely belied by his ominous, glowing crimson eyes, which suddenly flared with a terrifying, suffocating intensity of pure, unadulterated killing intent.
The bandit, having his weapon destroyed, his comrades erased, and his spirit broken, had absolutely no other choice. He frantically, violently nodded his head in rapid agreement, tears streaming down his face.
'Where the absolute hell are those bastards?!' The Bartender screamed internally, his mind frantically searching for salvation. 'Wh-why are the reinforcements so goddamn late?! Where is our Leader, damnit! Why isn't anyone responding to my screams?!'
"Ohh, my apologies, I completely forgot to mention this minor detail to you...." Rudeus said, easily reading the desperate, searching look in the man's eyes.
"Before I killed your little honeypot over there," Rudeus gestured vaguely toward Enna's broken body, "I actively, placed a specialized, a Void barrier over this entire room. Absolutely no one outside these four walls can hear the screams of your dying men, nor can anyone hear your pathetic screams for help."
The Bartender's heart plummeted into the absolute, darkest abyss of despair. The horrific realization that he was entirely, utterly fucked washed over him. His eyes shook rapidly, darting around the room, desperately looking for an exit he knew didn't exist.
He knew, with absolute, terrifying certainty, that he couldn't physically escape from this monster, nor could he escape his ultimate, impending, violent demise.
Rudeus uncrossed his arms. He dragged a heavy wooden chair out from under a nearby table and casually, heavily sat down backwards on it, resting his arms over the backrest. He placed his heavy war mace onto the table beside him with a loud thud.
Rudeus then started the interrogation.
"So, let us begin with the first question...." Rudeus stated, his voice cold, analytical, and entirely devoid of any mercy or empathy.
"....Exactly how many innocent people have you personally murdered? The merchants, the travelers, the original villagers of this town? Tell me honestly, alright?"
Rudeus wasn't asking for a confession for legal purposes. He was utilizing a deeply subtle, terrifying application of his Void aura. The sheer, crushing conceptual weight of his presence acted as an absolute, unbreakable truth serum, physically preventing the man from lying.
The bandit swallowed hard, his lips violently trembling. Forced by the oppressive magical aura to speak the absolute truth, he answered honestly.
"Fo-forty..." The Bartender stammered, his voice breaking. "I've killed forty..."
"Mhhhhhmmm," Rudeus hummed, a low, vibration in his throat. He offered a slow, cold nod as he heard the staggering number. He internalized the statistic, mentally calculating the sheer weight of the man's sins. Forty innocent lives extinguished for greed.
"Very well. Moving on to the second question, then...." Rudeus continued, his crimson eyes narrowing slightly, a dangerous, dark glint appearing within them.
".....Did you personally rape women during your raids? And furthermore, exactly how many women have you and your men brutally violated?" Rudeus asked, his voice dropping into a register of profound, simmering disgust as he rhythmically, menacingly tapped his black-manicured fingers against the wooden table.
The bandit violently shuddered, but the magical compulsion forced the horrific, vile truth from his lips once again.
"Fifteen..." The bandit sobbed, his voice filled with a pathetic, cowardly shame. "I personally raped fifteen innocent women... and the others... they raped them too... like, 20 of my men... since they would violently change thei-their turn... after one of them completely finishes raping those poor women in the camps."
Rudeus slowly stopped tapping his fingers. The air in the tavern seemed to grow thick, suffocating, heavy with the stench of pure, unadulterated evil.
Rudeus nodded again, his face an unreadable, terrifying mask of absolute, glacial apathy.
"I see. I see...." Rudeus murmured quietly.
He didn't scream. He didn't rage. He had seen the absolute worst of human depravity in his past life on Earth, when society had collapsed during the dimensional incursions. He knew that monsters existed in human skin in every universe.
He slowly raised his left hand, extending two fingers. He pointed them directly toward the bandit's wide, terrified brown eyes.
"One final, incredibly important question...." Rudeus stated, his voice barely above a whisper, yet carrying the weight of a divine judgment.
"....Do you feel any genuine, profound regret for brutally killing those women you raped? Do you feel any remorse for slaughtering those forty innocent people? Answer me with absolute, unfiltered honesty, alright~?"
The bandit frantically, desperately wanted to lie. He wanted to fall to his knees, weep, and scream, "I did! I deeply regret it! Please forgive me, I'll repent!" to try and save his own miserable life.
But his mouth, bound entirely by the absolute, crushing authority of the Void magic commanding truth, betrayed his desperate intentions.
"NO!"
The bandit's eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated, mind-breaking horror as his own mouth violently forced open and the ugly, vile, absolute truth spilled out on its own accord.
"I-I ABSOLUTELY DIDN'T REGRET DOING THAT TO THEM! I ENJOYED IT! I-I WOULD ABSOLUTELY LOVE TO DO IT AGAIN TO THOSE INNOCENT WOMEN IF I HAD THE CHANCE!!!"
The confession hung in the air, a vile, toxic testament to the man's irredeemable, rotten soul.
Rudeus looked at the weeping, horrified bandit. He didn't look surprised. He offered one final, slow, acknowledging nod.
"I see... I completely, entirely see...." Rudeus whispered.
He slowly stood up from the chair.
In a movement so blindingly, terrifyingly fast it defied visual tracking, Rudeus's hand shot forward.
He violently, brutally plunged his two extended fingers directly into the bandit's left eye socket, hooking them behind the eyeball, and ruthlessly, physically gouged the man's eye out of its socket.
"AAHHHHHHHHH!!!!" The bandit unleashed a horrific, agonizing, blood-curdling scream of pure, unadulterated pain, blood instantly pouring down his cheek as Rudeus completely severed the optic nerve with a brutal tug.
Rudeus casually held the bloody, staring eyeball up in the dim light of the tavern, examining it with cold, clinical detachment.
"What a truly, biologically beautiful set of eyes you possess," Rudeus remarked conversationally, his voice entirely devoid of any empathy. "It is a profound, tragic shame that the owner of these eyes is such a vile, irredeemable scumbag and a horrific monster."
"You-you're the fucking monster here!" The bandit shrieked in agony, violently clutching his bleeding, empty left eye socket with both hands, stumbling backward.
Before the bandit could retreat further, an invisible, crushing, telekinetic weight violently slammed down onto his shoulders.
"AA-AHHHHH!" The bandit grunted, desperately trying to resist the immense pressure, but his knees buckled. His head was forcefully, violently bowed down, physically forcing him to kneel on the blood-stained floorboards before his executioner.
"Exactly when did I explicitly permit you to speak out of turn, huh?" Rudeus asked, his voice a low, terrifying growl.
He stepped closer, standing directly over the kneeling, weeping man.
"Though—" Rudeus continued, his tone turning dark, acknowledging the truth of the accusation.
"You are absolutely, factually right. I am a terrifying, ruthless monster. But, at the very, very least...."
Rudeus reached out his left hand and violently, crushingly gripped the bandit's right wrist. With a brutal, agonizing twist, he forcefully ripped the bandit's hands away from his face, leaving his remaining eye completely unprotected.
"....I am absolutely not a vile, pathetic, rapist degenerate like you." Rudeus stated with absolute finality.
Without a microsecond of hesitation, Rudeus plunged his fingers into the right socket and ruthlessly gouged the bandit's remaining eye out.
"AAAHHHHHHH!!!!" The bandit screamed again, a sound of total, absolute, agonizing darkness descending upon him. He thrashed blindly, violently against the invisible pressure holding him down, a pathetic, weeping, bleeding mess on the floor.
Rudeus slowly tilted his head, examining the two bloody eyeballs resting in his palm. With a gesture of profound, macabre detachment, he casually dropped both of the eyes directly into the deep pocket of his heavy Mana Bear coat, intending to perhaps use them later to intimidate the Bandit Leader.
But the punishment for the man's specific, confessed crimes was not yet complete.
Rudeus raised his right hand, his fingers glowing with pitch-black energy.
He silently, effortlessly summoned a specific, highly targeted cluster of jagged, ethereal black chains from the void. With a cold, calculated, and poetic cruelty designed to punish the man for his vile crimes against women, he pointed his hand directly downward toward the bandit's crotch.
-SHLUCK!
-SHLUCK!
-SHLUCK!
With a sickening, tearing sound, the jagged black chains violently, repeatedly stabbed directly through and completely obliterated the bandit's genitals, pinning his lower half to the floorboards.
"AHHHHHH!!!"
"AAHHHH!!!"
"AAHHHHHHAHAHAHAHA!!!" The bandit's agonizing screams transcended mere pain, breaking into a hysterical, mind-shattering, weeping wail of absolute, incomprehensible torment. He violently clutched at the empty, bleeding ruin of his private parts, rolling on the floor, weeping and screaming for a death that was slowly, deliberately being withheld.
"Ohh deary, deary me~" Rudeus mocked softly, shaking his head in mock sympathy as he watched the man suffer.
He had heard enough. The interrogation was over. The punishment was delivered.
"Well...."
Rudeus reached down and effortlessly picked up his heavy Six-Flanged War Mace from the table, resting it against his shoulder.
"....It's officially time for you to die. And please, do me a massive favor and send my warmest, most violent regards to your pathetic, erased fellow bandits when you arrive in hell, alright?"
Rudeus raised his left hand one final time.
He summoned a single, massive, final ethereal black chain from the void above. With a swift, merciless downward motion, he drove the chain violently, cleanly straight through the top of the weeping bandit's skull, instantly destroying his brain and ending his agonizing suffering.
The moment the chain pierced his skull, the bandit's physical body slowly, painfully began to undergo the conceptual erasure of the Black Death. His flesh, his blood, and his clothes began turning into swirling, pitch-black ash.
As his mouth dissolved into ash, he managed to utter one final, broken, gurgling word, cursing his executioner.
"Mo-monster...."
After a long, silent minute, the final particles of ash completely dissipated into the air, leaving absolutely nothing behind but a few drops of blood on the floorboards that hadn't been caught in the magical erasure.
Rudeus stood alone in the absolute, silent aftermath of the massacre. The entire tavern, which had been filled with dozens of loud, boisterous, heavily armed men just twenty minutes ago, was now completely, utterly empty.
He reached up with a clean corner of his heavy fur coat and methodically, casually wiped a few stray drops of the bandit's blood from his scarred cheek.
Rudeus turned around, effortlessly pushing the heavy oak doors of the tavern open, and stepped back outside into the freezing, howling winter night of Wandering Oakentown.
He stood in the snow, the frigid wind whipping his green and red hair around his face. He slowly turned his head, his crimson eyes locking onto the large, imposing, two-story log cabin located in the exact center of the village. The cabin where the "Village Elder" currently resided.
A cold, terrifying, genuinely excited smile slowly stretched across Rudeus's face.
"Ohh well," Rudeus whispered into the freezing wind, his voice brimming with lethal anticipation. "He's next, then."
He didn't immediately rush toward the cabin. He paused for a moment. He tilted his head back, looking directly up at the vast, clear, freezing expanse of the Northern night sky.
The heavy snow clouds had momentarily parted, revealing a breathtaking, endless canvas of brilliant, twinkling stars scattered across the icy blackness of the cosmos, unobscured by the toxic ash of the wasteland.
Rudeus let out a long, slow, deeply contented sigh, his breath pluming in the cold air. The violence he had just committed didn't weigh on his soul; it felt like cleaning dirt from a wound.
"Ahhh...."
Rudeus smiled warmly, admiring the celestial beauty of his new world.
"...How absolutely beautiful."