Towards a Wider Stage

The next morning, as I left the shack to head to the dismantling yard in the commercial district, I had to stop in the narrow, foggy alleyway leading out of the slums.

"Th-that's the bastard, Boss! That son of a bitch stole the tribute money we were supposed to hand over to you yesterday and smashed our legs like this!"

It was the same guy whose knee joint I'd shattered the day before. Supported by his comrades, he pointed at me with a blood-choked voice. Blocking their path stood a man who was clearly the predator of the slums, flanked by a dozen armed subordinates.

I scanned them with the scant experience I'd gathered in Shedborax and the beastly instincts granted by my tattoos. A spiderweb of scars across his face, a chipped crescent blade slung over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his shoulder, and a voice rough as cracked leather. This man had survived at least ten years in the gutter—a true veteran of countless battles.

'The underlings are between stat 12 and 15. But that boss…'

His solid muscle mass, centered weight in his gait, and the unpleasant killing intent pressing down on me suggested his Strength and Agility were at least in the low twenties. With my base body hovering around all stats 15, even a graze would shatter my bones.

"You the one? The rat who dared touch my tribute money and laid hands on my boys?"

It was absurd. There had never been any tribute money to begin with. These scum had fed false information to the slum cartel purely for revenge. But the boss's eyes held no interest in truth—only the greed to strip my hide gleamed within them.

"Hand over everything you own and kneel. I'll leave your limbs attached."

Instead of answering, I rolled up my sleeves. Negotiations had collapsed. All that remained was minimizing risk while settling these toxic debts.

'Tattoo.'

I forged a strong connection to the Substitute Doll hidden in my robes. In that instant, the beast patterns etched across my body erupted in crimson light and surged. My muscles swelled grotesquely, blood vessels writhing as if about to burst—an excruciating agony. Yet every backlash was transferred entirely to the doll on my chest.

Accelerated by the tattoos, my Strength and Agility ballooned to monstrous levels in the late twenties.

"This fucking bastard, where the hell—urk!"

My fist smashed into the face of the first subordinate to charge. There was no technique. I simply poured the inflated strength into the fastest, hardest swing I could manage. With a sickening crunch, his jawbone caved in completely and he flew through the air.

"What the hell is with this guy?!"

"His stats just changed!"

I kicked off the ground like a beast. I knew neither swordsmanship nor footwork. I simply closed the distance with the overwhelming speed granted by the tattoos and swung the butchering bone knife in a crude, wide arc.

"Sorcery – Blind Venom Mist."

At the same time, I scattered bone powder mixed with swamp lizard blood that I had prepared in advance. The toxic dust clung to their eyes, inducing burning agony. The alley descended into chaos in seconds.

Clang—!! The boss's crescent blade intercepted my bone knife. The impact felt as though my wrist would snap. My forcibly elevated stats clashed head-on with the boss's battle-hardened ones.

"Not bad, outsider! But how long can this kind of rampaging magic last?!"

The boss was seasoned. Instead of forcing a direct confrontation, he used his subordinates as meat shields, waiting for my duration to expire. Every time my bone knife aimed for their throats, the village's 'no-killing' rule manifested as an invisible wall blocking the blade.

'Damn it. If I can't kill them… then I'll just make sure they never stand again.'

I heard the Substitute Doll scream and shatter inside my robes. There was no time. I hurled the bone knife and dove low like a beast, slipping between the boss's legs.

"Sorcery – Neural Disruption!"

I drove a prepared rat bone fragment into the boss's thigh. While he staggered with a scream, I rained technique-less punches onto his knee joint with frenzied abandon—pure, brutal strikes fueled solely by late-twenties Strength.

Crack! Crunch!

"Graaaaaah—!"

His kneecap turned to powder and the ligaments tore like rags. The village system prevented death, but it offered no protection against a lifetime of crawling on the ground.

Next, I seized the ankles of the fleeing accomplices and slammed them into the dirt.

"Save me! Brother, please!"

I looked down at them with cold eyes. They had witnessed my sorcery and knew my location. Leaving them alive was the worst possible bet against my survival odds. If the system refused death, then gifting them a life worse than death was the surest risk management.

I crushed their elbows and knee joints beneath my full weight. From now on, they would become prey for beasts in the slums, unprotected by anyone. A perfect delisting.

The alley filled with blood, pus, and the stench of urine. I rifled through their pockets, collecting silver coin pouches, daggers, and leather armor. Morals could be discarded, but capital had to be secured.

"Haa, haa…"

Emerging onto the main road, the morning sunlight of the commercial district stabbed my eyes.

Crack—! Fsssh.

The Substitute Doll, having absorbed damage beyond its limit, shattered completely inside my robes. Simultaneously, the suppressed rebound of the tattoos crashed over my body like a bursting dam. My heart pounded as if about to explode, blood vessels burning, and my vision blacked out. Covered in blood, I staggered toward the dismantling yard. In the distance, I could see Grum's silhouette sharpening his butchering knife.

"B-Boss…"

With those words, the strength drained completely from my legs. My face slammed into the cold mud as I plunged into the depths of unconsciousness.

The familiar stench of blood and acrid tobacco smoke jolted me awake.

"Kuh, cough…!"

The moment I drew breath, a tearing pain ripped through my lungs. My vision swam before gradually focusing. This was not my shack in the slums. A crude bed covered in beast hide, rough wooden walls. I was in Grum's private office at the back of the dismantling yard.

"Awake, you crazy bastard."

Grum, puffing on his pipe in the corner, creaked his chair as he turned. His murky eyes swept over my blood-soaked body sprawled across the floor.

"B-Boss…"

"Don't move. Your blood vessels and muscles are on the verge of bursting from the backlash of pushing your tattoos past their limit."

At his words, I flinched and looked down at myself. The terrible rebound after the Substitute Doll's destruction. Under normal circumstances, I would have been bedridden for days, yet the physical collapse had somehow been halted at a certain point. The sticky herbal ointment wrapped around my chest and forearms—likely Grum's emergency treatment—seemed responsible.

I carefully steadied my breathing and checked the remnants of sorcery within me—what could be called mana or inner energy.

'Sorcery Stock.'

I cheered inwardly. It was like a computer program's macro. Just as complex commands could be pre-entered and executed with a single shortcut key when needed, this method stored sorceries in advance on the canvas of my body. It was a grotesque efficiency that completely erased the fatal flaws of Primal Magic—its horrifically long casting time and mandatory medium.

"You exceeded the Substitute Doll's limit."

Grum's heavy voice shattered my thoughts.

"…Pardon?"

I reflexively lifted my head.

"You trusted a single-use doll made from scraps of beast parts and unleashed the limits of your flesh? Primal Magic is equivalent exchange. To transfer the backlash you should bear, the medium must possess vitality overwhelmingly tougher and stronger than your own body. Something like a swamp lizard is nowhere near sufficient."

"…How do you know that?"

Primal Magic was treated as bottom-tier trash that even orthodox mages refused to glance at. Yet this old dismantling yard owner saw straight through the core secret of the Substitute Doll—its principles and limitations?

Despite my deep suspicion, Grum merely snorted and avoided answering. Instead, he opened a desk drawer and tossed a piece of parchment toward me.

I picked up the parchment that had fallen to the floor and narrowed my eyes. It was neither crude beast hide nor cheap paper. I couldn't tell if it was something a mage would use, but at the very least, it was far too smooth and luxurious to be found rolling around in this filthy yard or the slums.

And then there were Grum's hands that had thrown it. Those thick, callused knuckles were clearly not the hands of a mere butcher—they bore the hardened calluses of someone who had gripped rough greatswords or heavy weapons for decades.

This old man was no ordinary beast butcher.

"If you want to use the Substitute Doll properly, obtain a Troll's heart."

"A troll… sir?"

"Yes. A monster that dwells deep within the Black Moss Forest, far beyond the northern boundary of the village. Mix its heart blood and regenerative tendons to reshape the doll. Then it will become a semi-permanent defensive barrier that melts like liquid when broken by backlash before slowly restoring its original form."

"Why are you giving me such valuable information…?"

"Because it's a hassle."

Grum rose from his chair and spoke curtly.

"You crippled that boss and all his subordinates in the slum alley yesterday, didn't you? The guards who saw those near-corpse lumps of meat have been stirring up the commercial district since morning."

Grum kicked the leather pouch containing my clothes and spoils out from under the bed.

"If the remnants of those slum thugs or their higher-ups from the lower guilds come crawling into my yard, it'll be a real headache. I'm already busy cleaning up beast blood—I don't want to deal with human blood too. So as of today, you're fired. Patch yourself up and get to the village center immediately. Once you're there, stick ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yourself in the adventurer's guild and go hack up monsters properly."

An expulsion order. Yet I clenched my molars and silently stared at Grum's broad back. This old man was not driving me out because he feared retaliation from the thugs. He was forcibly pushing me out of the flimsy safety of this dismantling yard and kicking me toward a larger stage—while also handing me a clear milestone toward the next stage of Primal Magic: the troll.

"…Thank you for everything, Boss."

"Tch. Stop with the annoying words and just get lost. Don't die in the forest and get discovered as monster dung."

I gathered the bloodstained spoils pouch and silver coins, then stepped out of the dismantling yard that had been my cradle of growth for the past month. I stopped by my shack in the slums to retrieve all the hidden mediums and miscellaneous items. There was no longer any need to cower like a rat.

My destination was the true wilderness of Shedborax—the arena where might ruled through the logic of power—the Adventurer's Guild located in the village center.

Before long, I arrived before the massive stone building towering in the middle of the village. The moment I pushed open the heavy oak doors—

"…Hup!"

I nearly gasped and stepped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠backward. The instant the door opened, an overwhelming wave of bloodlust and dense mana crashed over me—on an entirely different level from the beast blood stench of the dismantling yard. The natural aura radiating from the dozens of mercenaries and mages filling the lobby was the very embodiment of a gathering of the strong.

The moment their gazes all turned toward me as I opened the door, the venomous beast tattoo engraved on my heart began to throb violently, sending frantic warnings. The powerful beast instincts within me recognized the beings before me as 'far superior predators' compared to myself.

The hairs on my body stood on end and cold sweat poured down.

'I'm still far from ready.'

The meager sense of accomplishment I'd gained from crushing the slum thugs yesterday cooled rapidly in the face of this atmosphere. I was still barely scraping the bottom of this massive food chain.

Yet even as the tension pressed down my spine, the calculator in my mind continued turning coldly.

'Still, if I can obtain troll blood to create a new Substitute Doll, inscribe tattoos with the blood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of even stronger monsters like trolls, and add the stock function like a program macro on top… it might be worth attempting.'

I thoroughly erased the timid modern man Mokwon that had been suppressed within me. Taking a deep breath, I suppressed the fear granted by my beast instincts and firmly pulled the pale, sinister mask of a sorcerer who willingly embraced poison for survival over my face.

Into the gazes of the veterans scrutinizing me, a single outsider carrying poison stepped forward in silence.

The true survival story in Shedborax had begun.