Chapter 2
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: A Warm Piece of Bread
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On the barren, parched land, an ominous dark cloud hung.
The dark cloud, which neither drifted away nor shed rain, merely watched the dying in silence.
The stench of blood permeated every corner of the city. Its source—rotting flesh and chunks of meat of unknown origin—could be found scattered everywhere.
“The end is here! The end has come! God has forsaken us! The devil's minions are coming for our flesh, so cease your meaningless resistance and pierce your own throats with your spears!”
From atop a pile of corpses in the collapsed square, the voices of the broken-minded echoed.
“……”
Hans, the captain of the city's few remaining guards, could only look at them with pity.
His short-cropped hair left his forehead exposed, revealing numerous scars. Most were torn gashes, but among them was a scar that looked as if it had been made by a blade.
Hans's armor, a testament to the fierce battles he had fought over the past few weeks, was little more than a heap of scrap metal.
The plate on his left shoulder had been completely torn off, exposing the leather underneath, while the plate covering his right arm clung precariously to its leather backing.
As if that weren't enough, Hans's armor was smeared with a green liquid. It looked like blood... but given its color and viscosity, it was certainly not human.
Hans tossed aside the cloth in his hand, picked up a nearby scrap of torn clothing, and began to wipe the green blood from his armor again. It was disgustingly sticky and hard to remove, but it was a task that had to be done to survive.
“...When did they say the reinforcements would arrive?”
“In about three days... You asked the same question ten minutes ago.”
“...Dammit.”
Upon hearing his subordinate's words, Captain Hans threw the rag he was using to clean his armor to the ground and collapsed where he stood.
A groan escaped from his every joint. It had already been three days since he'd last slept.
“...How are the men?”
“Not good, sir. Our numbers are halved, and of the remaining half, eighty percent are wounded.”
“Tell the men to thoroughly wipe off the mutant's blood. If a plague breaks out in this situation, we'll be annihilated.”
With that, Captain Hans leaned against the city's collapsed outer wall and closed his eyes for a moment. If he didn't catch these brief naps, he knew he might one day end up like those screaming men in the square, completely losing his mind.
“...Excuse me.”
Just as he was about to drift off, the voice of a young boy reached his ears.
Hans forced his heavy eyelids open and, with a creak of his armor, turned his head toward the voice.
It was a boy with striking silver hair and piercing blue eyes. His clothes were torn to shreds, little more than a collection of rags, and his bare feet were covered in cuts and dirt.
...Although his deep, almost mystical eyes were impressive, his attire suggested he was just another one of the vagrant children commonly seen in the city.
“...There are mutant corpses all around. You could catch a plague. Get to the inner city, now.”
Hans sighed and gestured for the boy to leave as he spoke.
“……”
The boy placed a slender hand on the completely demolished city wall, then turned his head toward the reeking pile of corpses.
This time, he showed no expression as he looked at the mountain of bodies and the madmen screaming atop it.
The boy slowly approached Hans's side.
“It seems there are no mages stationed in the city. Burning all the corpses would be much safer.”
“If you were in charge, would you waste a valuable asset like a mage defending a shithole like this?”
“……”
Hearing Hans's words, the boy glanced back the way he had come.
Sewer rats devouring one another, a prostitute lying dead in the street with a knife in her back, a bank long since burned to the ground, and a church destroyed by the frenzied mob.
“Straderth is finished.”
“...Then why are you still defending it? What's to be gained by protecting a city that's already lost?”
At the young boy's question, Hans let out a hollow laugh. It was a ridiculous question.
“Does the city guard need a reason to defend the city?”
Hans answered the boy's question without a second thought.
“...I don't know much about war, but even to my eyes, the situation looks grim. It doesn't seem like you can hold out for more than a few days... Aren't you afraid of death?”
“I am.”
Hans answered the boy's second question just as quickly, without hesitation.
“Then why don't you run?”
“Because I am the captain of this city's guard.”
He answered the boy's third question just as promptly.
“……”
The boy seemed to fall into thought at the man's unhesitating replies.
Hans, on the other hand, showed little interest in the suddenly appeared vagrant. The city was full of them.
“Don't just stand there spacing out. Hurry up and get to the inner city. There's too much foul blood here.”
Hans was the captain of this city's guard. He needed no other reason to lay down his life.
He hadn't spoken with the man for long, but the boy could quickly tell what kind of soldier stood before him.
After a moment's thought, the boy sat down right next to Hans. It seemed this was probably the safest place in the city.
“...What are you doing? I told you to go to the inner city.”
Hans frowned slightly, as if the boy were a nuisance.
With the mutant's blood still clinging to his armor, he seemed worried he might accidentally infect the boy.
“If you lose, citizens like us will die anyway, whether we're in the inner city or the outer districts.”
Hans couldn't fathom what the boy was thinking, sitting beside him.
His expression was too serene for him to be giving up in despair, and his eyes were still too sharp for him to have lost his mind.
“Well, you're not wrong about that.”
In the end, Hans gave up on shooing the boy away.
After all, as the boy said, it was hell here and hell in the inner city. There was no difference.
“...What a shitty era.”
Hans said, looking up at the black clouds hanging high in the sky.
When Hans was a child, a mere thirty years ago, the world wasn't like this. Orcs to the west and those damn elves to the east might have picked fights over every little thing, but at least a semblance of common sense and logic existed.
But with the sudden appearance of a certain mage, even that bare minimum of sense and logic vanished.
The warlock, Toker.
The man summoned an ancient demon and wished to become a transcendent being in exchange for offering the world. As a result, the ancient demon descended upon this world in its complete form.
Since that day.
The stench of death has filled the world, and not a day has passed without screams. Every moment has been a struggle for survival, and words like 'hope' and 'future' have long become obsolete.
“Well, even in this shitty era, this city is probably the shittiest place of all...”
“And yet, it's a city that must be protected.”
“Ha! That's right.”
Hans laughed heartily at the boy's response and went to pat his back, but stopped his hand.
The boy's body was alarmingly thin.
Vagrants were all skinny, but this boy was exceptionally emaciated, even among them.
He felt that if he patted the boy's back with his gauntleted hand, he might just snap his spine.
“Hey, there's an outpost behind the burnt-down bank. There's a little bread left... take some if you need it.”
“Isn't that for the soldiers?”
“If you say you've come for Hans's share, they'll give it to you without question.”
“That would be a waste of food. I am not a soldier, just a mere vagrant. Even if I eat to regain my strength, I can't contribute to the city's defense.”
Hans sighed at the boy's cold, rational assessment.
“...You're right.”
He couldn't bring himself to deny it. Food was already scarce, so much so that even the few remaining soldiers couldn't get a proper meal. Giving it to a vagrant who would do nothing would indeed lead to a loss of combat strength.
“Take it anyway.”
Despite that, Hans insisted.
The boy adamantly refused, so Hans, unable to watch any longer, dragged his heavy plate armor to the outpost behind the bank and returned with a thick, hard piece of bread.
A thin slice of bread, not even enough for a snack, let alone a meal, was placed in the boy's hand.
The bread was covered in dust and what looked like mold, but it was the only food left in the city.
“She will be watching. This will not be a meaningless act.”
Hans said, his gaze shifting between the cross of the collapsed church and the boy's eyes.
“If the citizens we're sworn to protect all starve to death, what meaning does the city guard have?”
“……”
In the end, the boy silently put the bread in his mouth.
It was the first food he had eaten since his new birth.
It was horribly hard and had a musty smell—clearly a moldy piece of bread that hadn't been stored properly. But in this city, there were many who starved to death, unable to find even a rotten piece like this.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
The moment the boy began to carefully chew the bread, a large warning bell outside the city began to scream frantically.
“Multiple mutants spotted 400 meters ahead! Their numbers are incomparable to before!”
“A report from the scouts confirms a Mazoku has been sighted with them! Mobile units, return to the front lines and prepare for battle immediately! All forces, assemble in the center!”
From atop a crudely built wooden bell tower, a young soldier shouted desperately, spittle flying from his lips. The soldiers who had just managed to fall asleep sighed with despair in their eyes at the sudden alarm, while Hans quietly looked to the sky and cursed.
“...Damn it all.”
Despair clouded his face, but his eyes, having not lost their will to fight, still shone.
“Run.”
“Didn't I tell you it's the same here as it is in the inner city?”
“Run anyway. There's a small hole in the northern outer wall. Escape through there and run with the sun at your back. If you're lucky, you might break through the Mazoku's encirclement and run into the reinforcements heading our way.”
“Isn't it possible for the guard to win?”
“Didn't you hear them say a Mazoku has appeared?”
“I did.”
“Do you know when a Mazoku shows itself on the battlefield?”
“When its victory is one hundred percent certain.”
The Mazoku are cunning. They usually hide deep underground or in dense forests, slowly draining their prey's strength by sending armies composed solely of mutants created from captured beasts and local inhabitants.
Only when their prey is sufficiently weakened and their victory is assured do they finally reveal themselves on the battlefield—to deliver the final blow and seal their triumph.
The appearance of a Mazoku on the battlefield was tantamount to a death sentence for everyone there.
The wise among them would take their own lives, plunging blades into their own throats. The foolish would be captured by the Mazoku and forced to watch helplessly as their bodies were twisted into hideous mutants.
“If you know that, then run. Survive, and tell people that we fought bravely.”
And Captain Hans, the man who gave the boy a piece of bread, was one of the foolish.
He tore his gaze from the boy and turned to his soldiers.
“Today! Death has come for us! They will torment us with monsters made from our own brothers and sisters, and they will tear our surviving neighbors to shreds!”
Hans shouted, his heavy plate armor clanking.
“The situation is hopeless! Our equipment is rusted, while their fangs and claws are laced with poison!”
One by one, the eyes of the guards, filled with fear and despair, began to gather on Hans.
“Courage has vanished, and only fear consumes us! They have pushed us to the brink and taken all our arrows and weapons!”
“……”
“……”
“But! There is one thing they could not take from us—our rage!”
“……”
“……”
“Do not forget the sight of our children being torn apart by their claws! The sight of our comrades and friends being twisted into hideous mutants at the hands of the Mazoku!”
Slowly, a fire returned to the eyes of the guards who had been consumed by despair and fear.
“Those who wish to flee, run north now! But those who wish to preserve their pride as humans to the very end, to show their will to fight, will glare at those vile servants of the devil with eyes full of hatred...!”
Pride as humans began to burn within their chests. The heat made their hearts pound, and soon, frenzied roars erupted from all corners of the ranks.
“Follow me to this wretched battlefield, and we shall meet our end as honorable warriors! For Astella!”
“For Astella!”
“For Astella!”
Despair vanished in an instant, replaced by a sense of elation among the few remaining guards. They threw off the splints on their arms and legs, donned their armor once more, and gripped the hilts of their broken swords tightly.
The boy shoved the rest of the bread into his mouth and thought.
‘Normally, I'm supposed to run while these guys are dying.’
The Mazoku that would soon appear before them was level 15.
An enemy designed to be impossible for a typical level 1 character to defeat, no matter what they did.
That's why a newly created human vagrant starts the game by fleeing from the Mazoku and mutants that appear in the city.
It was a good tutorial, a standard one that offered a glimpse of the chaos just before the world's end and helped players immerse themselves in the game's world, but...
The boy had long held a great dissatisfaction with this kind of tutorial.
‘I always wanted to kill that bastard at least once.’
In the tutorial, the player's character must flee. The option to fight is completely blocked by the system.
No matter how unique your character build was, nothing changed.
The fundamental premise that 'the game truly begins when the human vagrant abandons the collapsing city of Straderth and embarks on a long journey to the central city' was something the player could never alter, no matter what they did.
But in reality... no such system limitations existed.
The boy carefully placed a hand on the crumbled wall and rose to his feet.
This boy with his shimmering white hair could escape whenever he chose.
He had the terrain outside Straderth memorized down to the last pebble.
Avoiding monster zones or finding a safe place to spend the night were things he could probably do with his eyes closed.
And yet, the boy's steps were not heading north, but toward the battlefield.
There was no grand reason for it.
The bread Hans had given him was terribly hard and coarse, but strangely, it was as warm as if it had been freshly baked.
It was odd. A piece of bread that had been sitting in a food storage should have been on the verge of rotting, its baking date long forgotten.
A single piece of horribly tasteless, yet strangely warm, bread.
That alone was reason enough to risk his life... but this boy had one more reason for heading into battle.
‘Oh damn, this is kind of exciting.’
...If anyone could hear the boy's inner thoughts, they would have called him a madman.
The boy wasn't excited by the heat of battle or the soldiers' grim resolve.
The boy felt a sense of elation from something a little different from others, no... very different.
The chance to try and kill a 'monster that could never be killed.'
‘This is an opportunity. A rare and unique opportunity that only I, in the entire world, can experience...!’
In truth, just by entering the game world, he was already having a special experience no one else on Earth could have, but this mad boy, it seemed, was not satisfied with just that.
It's hard to say how this boy ended up so twisted.
It's a common trait among those who call themselves hipsters, but this boy was one who felt excitement from things that were particularly bizarre and twisted.
...Well, anyway.
For a piece of terribly hard, tasteless bread and a deeply twisted desire.
“Blooming.”
The boy summoned a great thunderbolt to the battlefield.