Wandering Oakentown.The Village Square.Nighttime.
The freezing Northern wind howled through the empty, snow-packed streets of the village. Rudeus stepped out of the tavern, leaving the silent graveyard of the Foaming Boar behind him. His boots crunched heavily into the fresh snow, the sound sharp and distinct in the quiet night.
He didn't bother to wipe the remaining splatters of crimson from his heavy Mana Bear fur coat. Let them see the blood. Let them understand exactly what was coming for them.
He walked with purpose toward the largest structure in the center of the settlement—the two-story log cabin that supposedly belonged to the Village Elder, now claimed by the Bandit Leader.
As Rudeus approached the heavy wooden porch of the cabin, two heavily armed guards stationed outside snapped to attention. They were leaning casually against the wooden pillars, smoking cheap tobacco, completely unaware of the massacre that had just occurred mere hundreds of yards away.
When the dim light of the hanging lanterns hit Rudeus, the guards' eyes widened in profound shock. They saw a lone, green-haired man covered in fresh blood marching directly toward their leader's stronghold.
One of the guards dropped his pipe, his hand scrambling frantically for the hunting horn tied to his belt to signal an alarm to the men inside.
But it was entirely too late.
Rudeus didn't even break his stride. He simply raised his left hand, his crimson eyes glowing with a cold, predatory light in the darkness. He tapped into the well of conceptual power resting just beneath his skin.
'VOID DIVINE ART: BLACK CHAINS VARIANT:'
'A THOUSAND STABS!'
The shadows stretching across the snowy porch violently erupted.
Not just one or two, but thousands of razor-thin, needle-like ethereal black chains shot out from the darkness in a blinding, instantaneous blur of motion. They moved faster than the human eye could track, tearing through the freezing air with a sharp, hissing whistle.
The two guards didn't even have the chance to draw a breath, let alone sound the horn. The myriad of black chains pierced their bodies simultaneously from every conceivable angle, turning them into grotesque pincushions of dark energy.
Before their lifeless bodies could even hit the wooden floorboards, the conceptual erasure of the Void took hold. The two men, and another eighteen hidden sentries patrolling the immediate perimeter of the cabin, were instantly, silently erased from existence. They turned into fine black ash that was quickly swept away by the winter breeze.
Rudeus stepped up onto the porch, his boots making a soft thud against the wood.
He stood before the heavy oak door. A dark, cynical smirk touched his lips. He decided to play one final, mocking game before bringing the entire structure down on their heads.
Since the Bandit Leader inside the reinforced cabin hadn't heard his true voice, Rudeus could easily mimic the rough, uneducated cadence of the common thugs he had just slaughtered.
Rudeus raised his gloved knuckle and struck the heavy wood.
-KNOCK!
-KNOCK!
-KNOCK!
He cleared his throat, pitching his voice to sound eager and slightly out of breath.
"Hey boss!" Rudeus called out through the thick timber.
"I already killed the rat and everyone with him! Including his fellow rat—"
Rudeus paused for comedic effect, a dark chuckle escaping his lips.
"I mean, that big black wolf. It's done, boss!"
Meanwhile, inside the warm, well-lit interior of the cabin, the Bandit Leader was sitting near the roaring fireplace. He was calmly, meticulously sharpening the steel edge of his scabbard with a whetstone. When he heard the muffled voice through the door delivering the "good news," a wide, wicked smile stretched across his scarred face.
The annoying tourist was dead, and the valuable wolf pelt was secured. It had been a highly profitable evening.
The Bandit Leader nodded to the two heavily armored guards standing just inside the entrance. He offered a sharp wave of his hand, signaling them to unlatch the heavy iron deadbolt and let their victorious comrade enter.
One of the guards reached out, his hand wrapping around the iron latch.
That was his final mistake.
-KICK!
-BAM!
The heavy oak door exploded inward with the devastating, unstoppable kinetic force of a siege ram. Wood splintered into a thousand jagged pieces as the heavy iron hinges completely tore free from the wall.
The two heavily armored guards standing behind the door didn't stand a chance. The massive, reinforced timber slammed directly into them, launching their broken bodies violently across the room where they crashed into a heavy wooden dining table, shattering it into kindling.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!"
The Bandit Leader roared, leaping up from his armchair. He instantly activated his magical aura, a swirling, dark red mist of killing intent flooding the room. He was profoundly shocked. No ordinary man could kick a reinforced oak door off its hinges with a single strike.
The dust and splinters slowly settled in the entryway.
The Bandit Leader stared at the figure stepping through the ruined doorway. It was the tourist. The green hair was unmistakable, though it was now matted with drying blood. The stranger's piercing crimson eyes glared back at him with an intense, terrifying amusement, completely devoid of fear.
The remains of the door and his two broken men lay in ruins, and yet the stranger looked entirely relaxed.
"Hello~." Rudeus offered a cheerful, highly sarcastic wave of his bloodstained hand.
The Bandit Leader's lone, functional eye twitched with pure, unadulterated rage. He realized instantly that his entire ambush team at the tavern had failed.
"KILL THAT BASTARD!!!" The Bandit Leader commanded, his voice booming through the cabin.
The remaining bandits, who had been hiding in the shadows of the second-floor loft and the adjacent rooms, didn't waste a single second. They drew their weapons and jumped down from the rafters, lunging at Rudeus from all sides in a coordinated, desperate swarm.
Rudeus simply smiled as the armed men surrounded him from above and below.
"Heh!" Rudeus smirked, his grip tightening on the heavy iron hilt of his mace.
He reached into the depths of his conceptual authority.
'VOID DIVINE ART:'
'VOID STEP CASCADE!'
-VROOM!
-VROOM!
-VROOM!
-VROOM!
-VROOM!
A series of deep, vibrating hums tore through the air, sounding like the fabric of reality itself was tearing.
Rudeus completely disappeared from the entryway.
A bandit's heavy axe cleaved nothing but empty air, burying itself into the floorboards where Rudeus had been standing a microsecond before.
Rudeus reappeared in the corner of the room, then instantly disappeared again. He became a terrifying, untraceable phantom. As he kept vanishing and reappearing in rapid, chaotic succession, his highly trained crimson eyes rolled rapidly, processing the battlefield with superhuman clarity. He mapped the trajectory of every weapon, the posture of every enemy, and most importantly, he found their vulnerable blind spots.
'JACKPOT!'
Rudeus materialized directly behind a heavily armored thug who was still desperately searching the room for his target.
Rudeus swung his Six-Flanged War Mace, amplifying the dense iron head with the dark, destructive energy of the Black Death.
-SLAM!
The heavy mace bypassed the bandit's armor entirely, striking him with devastating precision right in the gap behind his knee, directly rupturing the femoral artery.
"AAHHHHHH!!!" The bandit screamed in agonizing pain, his leg collapsing as a massive spray of blood painted the wooden floor.
Before the man could even fall, Rudeus immediately summoned a razor-thin black chain from the void and sent it shooting forward, striking the screaming bandit directly through his left eye, silencing him instantly.
-SLAM!
The first bandit fell dead, his body already beginning to slowly dissolve into dark, swirling ashes.
The Bandit Leader's single eye widened in shock as he witnessed the impossible speed and the terrifying, erasing nature of the stranger's magic. Realizing that conventional weapons were entirely useless against this phantom, the scarred leader aggressively tapped into his own mana core, activating a highly dangerous, forbidden magical art he had purchased for a fortune from the black market.
"Demonic Magic Art:" The Bandit Leader roared, taking a deep breath, his chest expanding unnaturally.
"Hell Flames!"
With a roaring "Whooooooo", he opened his mouth wide. A massive, concentrated torrent of dark, crimson-black fire erupted from his throat, transforming the entire center of the cabin into a blazing inferno aimed directly at Rudeus's last known position.
Rudeus's eyes widened slightly at the sheer heat of the attack.
He didn't try to block the demonic fire. He instantly utilized the Void Step again, teleporting away from the blast zone.
He reappeared directly above another bewildered bandit who was trying to shield his face from his leader's flames.
Rudeus brought his heavy boot down, then followed up with a brutal, two-handed overhead swing of his mace directly onto the top of the man's skull.
-SLAM!
The kinetic force of the strike was so immensely powerful that the bandit's neck shattered instantly. His head was driven violently, completely downward, buried deep inside his own chest cavity. The gruesome sight caused the remaining thugs to physically recoil in horror.
Rudeus teleported again, narrowly avoiding a retaliatory sword thrust.
The Bandit Leader, realizing his flames had missed, pivoted his body and began to cast his second, highly lethal area-of-effect spell.
"Demonic Magic Art:" The leader chanted rapidly, toxic green mana swirling around his hands.
"Toxin Gales of Wi—"
Before the Bandit Leader could even finish the incantation, Rudeus materialized ten feet away. He didn't bother closing the distance. He simply raised his empty hand. He summoned a dense, heavy block of solid dark matter forged entirely from compressed Void chains, and hurled it with the speed of a cannonball directly at the leader's face.
-SLAM!
"BWAGHK!"
The heavy black stone slammed brutally into the Bandit Leader's face, shattering his nose and interrupting the spell with a sickening crunch. The sheer force of the impact lifted the large man off his feet, throwing him violently across the room where he crashed into the stone fireplace, sending embers flying everywhere.
Rudeus lowered his hand, his breathing steady. He looked around the ruined, burning room at the four remaining bandits.
They were no longer charging at him blindly. They were backing away, their eyes wide with profound, primal terror. They finally understood that this green-haired traveler was not prey. He was a natural disaster wearing human skin. He shouldn't be underestimated for a single second.
The four surviving men exchanged a desperate, knowing look. They offered each other a grim nod.
Reaching into their leather pouches simultaneously, each man pulled out a small, jagged, crimson-red pill. Without hesitation, they tossed the pills into their mouths and swallowed dry.
"AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"
All four men threw their heads back and screamed in agonizing, unified pain.
Rudeus's crimson eyes widened in genuine, unadulterated shock as he recognized the item they had just consumed.
'THAT'S THE FUCKING BLOOD RAGE PILL!' Rudeus screamed inwardly, his tactical mind racing.
He was deeply, profoundly shocked to see that highly illegal, incredibly dangerous narcotic existing here in this specific geographical location. Based entirely on the rigid timeline and lore of the visual novel he remembered from his past life, the Blood Rage Pills shouldn't even exist in the Northern Continent yet. They were an exclusive, highly guarded alchemical weapon developed much later in the story by a dark faction in the East.
"Tch!" Rudeus clicked his tongue, his face contorting into a harsh scowl of discomfort.
This was incredibly bad news. He knew exactly what those pills did. They violently, forcefully mutated the user's body, temporarily multiplying their physical strength, speed, and mana capacity to horrifying, monstrous levels by burning their own life force as fuel. He knew the aftereffects were ultimately fatal, turning the user into a mindless, dying husk.
But that didn't change his immediate problem. He didn't have the luxury or the goddamn time to simply dodge their attacks and wait for the lethal aftereffects to eventually kill them. They were about to become four highly aggressive, super-powered berserkers in a very enclosed space.
"I have no choice, then..." Rudeus muttered, his voice grim.
He deliberately, purposefully opened his grip. He let his heavy Six-Flanged War Mace drop to the floorboards with a heavy thud. He needed both of his hands entirely free for this.
He stood perfectly straight, raising both of his hands in front of his chest. He began to weave his fingers together into a series of highly complex, incredibly precise ancient mudras.
He started his hand incantation.
"VOID OF THE WORLD."
"NOTHINGNESS."
"COMPLETE ERASURE."
"COMPLETE END."
"THE CALAMITY OF THE WORLDS!"
"ABSOLUTE DEATH!"
"VOID DIVINE ART:"
"BLACK DEATH!"
The moment the final syllable left his lips, the very concept of time within the burning cabin seemed to shudder and halt.
The four bandits, whose eyes had completely shifted to a glowing, demonic crimson red, lunged at him. Their physical bodies were actively expanding, their veins bulging visibly against their skin, flaring with an angry, pulsating crimson light as the pill's dark magic took full effect. They moved with terrifying, enhanced speed, their weapons raised to butcher him.
But they never reached him.
The invisible, crushing domain of the Void expanded outward from Rudeus's position like a silent shockwave.
As the empowered, raging bandits entered the radius of the spell, their furious charge was abruptly, silently halted in mid-air.
Then, slowly, horrifyingly, they simply began to disappear.
They didn't burn. They didn't turn into ashes like the others. The raw, concentrated power of the hand incantation was far more profound. They were being actively, conceptually erased from the tapestry of existence.
With a soft, almost imperceptible "poof!", the four hulking, enraged berserkers simply vanished. Their weapons clattered harmlessly to the wooden floor. They were gone. Completely and utterly gone.
"Haah... haah... haah... haaah!"
Rudeus dropped to one knee, repeatedly, heavily gasping for air. His entire body trembled violently, sweat pouring down his pale face.
He truly, deeply hated utilizing that specific hand incantation. It was incredibly, dangerously frustrating for him to use because, biologically, he possessed absolutely no mana to fuel it.
'Goddamnit. Ever since I managed to unlock this specific technique two years ago by desperately trying to decipher the ancient hand incantations in the wasteland...' Rudeus thought, his vision swimming slightly from the exertion.
'...I nearly died just from practicing it. And now... haaah... at least I'm still breathing.'
Rudeus, before transmigrating into this harsh fantasy world, intimately knew the deep, hidden mechanics regarding the hand incantations from the original game. When playing as the main protagonist, Adelina, the player had the option to select from various magical classes. The most obscure, difficult to unlock, and undeniably most broken class in the entire game was the class known officially as the "Hand Incantation Mage," colloquially referred to by the fandom as the "Ancient Mages."
The catch was severe. You could only unlock this specific, overpowered class by having the protagonist experience a near-death scenario of extreme, agonizing trauma. Because of this strict requirement, it was generally only accessible to players during a 'New Game+' playthrough.
The Ancient Mage class was considered the most overpowered path for one very specific reason: it didn't consume a single drop of biological mana, nor did it drain physical stamina.
Instead, it entirely consumed the user's raw, unyielding Will.
The system didn't discriminate regarding exactly what kind of Will you possessed. As long as that driving purpose was incredibly strong, and you had met the agonizing near-death requirements, you could wield this broken, conceptual magic. However, the physical aftereffects on the mortal body were incredibly severe if the user was too weak, or if their soul was not on the same elevated, heroic level as the main protagonist, Adelina.
In Adelina's canonical case, her magic was fueled by the pure, shining "Will of Determination To Save Everyone"—the classic, unwavering, cliché heroic trope that Rudeus had seen a thousand times in most fantasy visual novels.
Meanwhile, even though Rudeus didn't possess a convenient, glowing status window, nor did he have a helpful player menu to explicitly confirm his stats, he knew exactly, intimately what specific "Will" burned within his own soul to fuel his magic.
It was the raw, gritty, uncompromising "Will To Survive."
That specific will might not be as morally pure or comparable to the shining heroism of the protagonist Adelina, but Rudeus knew for a fact that his desperate desire to live was already more than enough to qualify him to become one of the legendary Ancient Mages.
After all, he had already flawlessly met the agonizing requirements. He had died a tragic, painful death in his past life on Earth, and he had come within an inch of being brutally murdered by Dratkthar's hands in the simulation. His soul knew the boundary of death intimately.
Rudeus gasped, pulling a deep breath of smoke-filled air into his burning lungs. He forced himself to stand up, his boots crunching on the debris.
He looked toward the ruined stone fireplace, watching as a large, battered figure slowly hauled himself out from the thick, choking smoke and falling timber.
"You're really still alive, huh...." Rudeus remarked, his voice returning to a cold, steady rasp.
"....Foreigner?" The Bandit Leader groaned, heavily leaning against the ruined stone hearth. He spat a thick glob of blood and broken teeth onto the ground. The black stone impact had ruined the right side of his face.
The scarred leader rolled his single, functional eye around the burning, quiet room, frantically searching the shadows for his elite men. He didn't see a single trace of them. No bodies. No blood. Nothing.
He turned his furious gaze back to Rudeus.
"Where exactly are my men, foreigner?" The Bandit Leader demanded, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and rising panic. "Where the hell are they?!"
Rudeus let out a short, dark laugh, casually shrugging his broad shoulders as he scoffed at the question.
"Ehh, honestly, I don't really know for sure...." Rudeus replied, tilting his head mockingly to the left side, enjoying the man's despair.
"...Maybe they were just entirely erased from existence?"
"Bullshit!" The Bandit Leader growled, gripping the edge of the mantle to support his weight.
He refused to believe a single word of it. It was logically, fundamentally impossible for a lone traveler—a guy who was currently leaning heavily against a wooden beam and clearly struggling just to catch his breath—to completely, silently erase four elite, magically enhanced mercenaries from the face of the earth. And what made it even more unbelievable was the fact that the Bandit Leader's highly trained senses couldn't detect a single, microscopic trace of mana radiating from the green-haired stranger.
"Don't you dare give me that utter crap! You are nothing but a fucking, manaless brat! You erased them from existence? That is impossible!"
The Bandit Leader, realizing he was severely outmatched in hand-to-hand combat and his magic was too slow, made a desperate, final gamble.
"DON'T GIVE ME THAT BULLSHIT!!!" he roared.
His hand darted to his heavy leather belt. He quickly produced his own jagged, crimson Blood Rage Pill. He rapidly brought his hand up, intending to toss the pill into his mouth and trigger the monstrous, desperate transformation.
But he had severely miscalculated his opponent.
-PUNCH!
-SLAM!
Rudeus didn't stand back and watch. He completely ignored the unspoken, clichéd rules of combat engagement. He used a short burst of Void Step, appearing directly in front of the Bandit Leader.
Before the pill could even touch the leader's tongue, Rudeus delivered a devastating, bone-shattering right cross directly into the man's jaw.
The impact violently interrupted the transformation sequence, sending the red pill flying harmlessly into the burning debris.
Rudeus stood over the stunned, reeling bandit. He casually spat a mouthful of accumulated blood and soot directly onto the leader's ruined face.
"If you honestly thought I would just stand back politely and allow you the time to fully transform and buff your stats?" Rudeus mocked, his voice dripping with pure, pragmatic disdain.
"I'm incredibly sorry to disappoint you, you fucking bastard. I much rather prefer not to wait around. I'll just kill you immediately instead!"
Rudeus reached down, his hand wrapping firmly around the heavy iron hilt of his mace which he had kicked up from the floorboards.
He raised the heavy, spiked weapon high above his head.
He brought it down onto the Bandit Leader's skull.
-SLAM!
The man crumpled to his knees, his vision going dark.
-SLAM!
Rudeus struck him again, shattering his collarbone.
-SLAM!
-SLAM!
-SLAM!
-SLAM!
The heavy, sickening sound of iron crushing bone echoed rhythmically through the burning cabin. Rudeus didn't stop until the man was a broken, unrecognizable heap on the floorboards, entirely incapable of fighting back or casting another spell.
Rudeus finally stopped his relentless assault. He took a step back, his chest heaving, his muscles burning with exertion.
He slowly lifted his heavy, blood-soaked Six-Flanged War Mace high into the air with both hands, preparing to deliver the final, definitive execution blow to end the syndicate's reign of terror.
His crimson eyes flared with a brilliant, lethal light. The dark, conceptual energy of the Void Divine Art flared violently around the heavy iron head of his weapon, amplifying its destructive mass to an impossible degree.
'Die, you fucking rapist son of a bitch!' Rudeus screamed in his mind, channeling all of his disgust and wrath into his arms.
He swung the mace downward with every ounce of physical and magical power he possessed.
-SLAAAAAMMMM!!!!
-BOOOOOOMMMM!!!!
The impact was not just a physical strike; it was a localized detonation of kinetic and conceptual energy.
The sheer, devastating force of the blow striking the floorboards sent a massive shockwave tearing through the very foundations of the building. The heavy, load-bearing timber pillars snapped like dry twigs. The stone fireplace collapsed inward. The entire two-story log cabin violently, dramatically groaned before caving in on itself, completely destroyed by the sheer magnitude of Rudeus's final attack.
A massive cloud of dust, snow, and smoke billowed up into the night sky.
Slowly, a tall, imposing figure stepped out from the settling debris and swirling smoke.
Rudeus emerged from the ruined structure, waving a hand in front of his face to clear the dust.
"Cough, cough, cough!" Rudeus hacked, trying to clear his lungs of the heavy woodsmoke and pulverized plaster.
"Goddamnit...." he muttered, brushing a thick layer of ash off his heavy fur coat.
Rudeus stood in the snow, the cold wind feeling refreshing against his overheated skin. He slowly opened his left hand, looking down at his palm.
Resting in the center of his leather glove were two distinct, severed human eyeballs. One was a milky, clouded, scarred blind eye. The other was a sickly, jaundiced yellow eye. He had quickly, efficiently extracted them from the Bandit Leader's ruined skull right before the roof collapsed.
He didn't stare at them for long. He casually slipped both of the gruesome trophies deep into the secure pocket of his coat.
"Seriously...." Rudeus murmured to himself, looking back at the burning rubble.
"...Who in the hell actually managed to permanently blind that bastard's other eye in the past?" Rudeus questioned aloud, a fleeting moment of curiosity regarding the game's minor lore crossing his mind.
Then, he immediately scoffed, dismissing the thought entirely.
"Whatever. They are ultimately just irrelevant, low-tier mobs anyway, so I really shouldn't give a flying fuck about their backstory or who beat them up before I got here."
He let out a long, weary sigh, his breath pluming white in the freezing Northern air. The violence was over. The village was safe from its oppressors.
Rudeus turned away from the burning wreckage of the Bandit Leader's cabin, his crimson eyes scanning the quiet, darkened edges of Wandering Oakentown.
"Let's just focus on the objective. Time to find the original villagers from this town and get them out of those mines."