“So what are you going to do now ?”

Wahnsinn asked me while we were walking toward the central place of the town.

“I first need to verify a few things before doing anything else.”

Wahnsinn and I were now in perfect synchronisation. It seems our coordination had developed significantly during the breakout and we had therefore no problem to walk, run or fight. Although Wahnsinn couldn’t read my mind, it seems he could guess my emotional state.

Although I didn’t specifically tell him to attack Tras and Blume, he felt my urge for murder.

That’s why he was able to take action without me ordering him, just by me emitting killing intent.

Although lately, I have started to consider myself as two different entities (Wahnsinn and I), now that we work so well together, there may be a need to find a name for “us” as a whole.

While pondering about that, we came across the only tavern in the village which was quite small in comparison to the one in Bruneciel. I had never been inside of it before, but I knew the tenant as he was a regular customer from Mother.

Just as we were about to get passed it, a loud sound could be heard and a group of imperial soldiers came out of the tavern. When they saw us, they started walking in our direction.

At this point, I feel that it is important to mention that I was finally wearing pants, that I had taken off Tras’ body. His shirt was torn though so it I was still topless.

Even though the soldiers weren’t guards, they probably felt intrigued by my weird appearance and decided to come mess with me. Well, good timing. I could guess pretty easily why these soldiers were dispatched in a small town like this one without hearing their explanations.

The soldier leading the group talked to me. He didn’t seem drunk.

“Hey you ! What’s that on your skin ? A new kind of plague ?”

“… Have you heard of the name Kreizig ?”

“What ? How do you know… Wait. No one could possibly… Hey, I’m the one asking the questions there. So, is it a plague or not ?”

He looked disconcerted after hearing my surname. That was enough to convince me. I decided to play dumb just to amuse myself a bit more before the massacre.

“A plague ? What’s that ?”

“You don’t even know what it is ? You must be an idiot… well let me tell you with simple words. A plague is something that kills people.”

“Ha, ha, ha, is that so ? Then, it is a plague indeed !”

The leader got beheaded with a quick『Shadow Cut』and died before having the time to even realise what was going on. Wahnsinn cut the one behind him with a shadow spike that extended from our left arm. This all happened in less than 2 seconds.

Only after the two first corpses hit the ground did the remaining 10 soldiers understand what was happening. They quickly readied their weapons and surrounded us.

I could have taken out several of them at the same time with creative Magic however I still hadn’t had time to rest and my Mana was therefore still running dangerously low. Therefore, I let Wahnsinn deal with them.

“Did you see that ? They died instantly !”

“What is this !? This isn’t Magic ! This guy must be a demon !”

“Kill him ! Avenge our fallen comrades !”

Seeing our unknown power, the 10 soldiers decided to attack in a smart way and all strike at the same time rather than one by one.

We fell on all fours and four black tentacles came out of our back. They pierced right through their bodies and they fell down. It looks like the third one didn’t die though.

At the same time, Wahnsinn fired both『Entrance』and『Exit』towards two of the soldiers. However, unlike when I teleported, they hadn’t expended before hitting them, so they pierced through their bodies like bullets. Which means that as a result, only a part of their body had been teleported to Void and it was now missing from their body.

Blood overflowed from the hole in their body and they fell down before being able to hit us.

That was 6 out of 10 soldiers taken out in an instant.

The 7th and 8th soldiers tried to slash me with their swords but『Shadow Skin』expanded to cover the parts of our body that were aimed at.

When their swords came into contact with it, they were swallowed to Void.

That’s essentially how all Shadow Magic worked. Any Shadow Spell was somehow related to teleporting in and out of Void. Now I understood why『Shadow Cut』could cut through anything; it wasn’t because it was sharper than Wind Magic but because instead of slashing, it teleported to Void the section it came into contact with.

After disarming them, our tentacles killed the 7th and 8th soldiers in the same way as the others.

The last two had stayed in the back and had their arms raised towards us. As I noticed they weren’t geared with weapons I understood they were Magicians.

We were still crawling on the ground and they were out of our reach. Before we could fire another『Shadow Cut』, they finished what seemed like high level spells preparations.

“Oooooh… now !『Abyssal Tomb』!”

“You won’t be able to survive this !『Deadly Chamber』!”

They cast what seemed like a coordinated spell. The first one opened a huge hole under our feet and the second one turned the ground into a very high number of sharp earth spikes.

We fell before having the time to react efficiently. I had thought about using the tentacles to catch something but it seemed like『Shadow Skin』only kept a physical entity as long as I didn’t change its shape. As soon as it was molded into something like a blade or tentacles, the effect of the self-enchantment would activate in order to teleport anything it touched to Void.

And to make sure I would die, the soldier suddenly closed the walls of the tomb. At this moment, everything around me became black. No more sound, no more light. It felt like… I had died.

***

Seeing how we got squashed by their techniques, the two soldiers left let out a sigh of relief and rushed towards their fallen comrades to check their state. The result : only 1 survivor.

“What was that all about…”

“That monster came out of nowhere and killed everyone…”

“Are you ok ?”

The 9th and 10th soldier helped the 3rd one (the one who had survived my shadow tentacle) to get back on his feet and bandaged his wound.

Surely, they thought that because they had seen me disappear, it meant I was dead. That’s probably why they didn’t bother checking their surroundings.

That was, however, a big mistake.

“Well, well… you almost had me there.”

They turned around with a shocked look on their face. Then they saw us.

The shock soon let place to an immense scare. It was an expression that had become familiar to me : the fear of death.

“Huh !? You’re not dead !?”

“Impossible…”

“How did you escape our ultimate trap !?”

Hearing such absurdity just made me burst in laughter.

“Ultimate trap ? Ha, ha, ha, now THIS is a good joke.”

I was expecting something like a big scale spell so Wahnsinn had hidden『Exit』right behind them. It was most likely the safest place, assuming that they weren’t planning a suicide attack.

We then simply teleported before hitting the ground and reappeared immediately after.

During the short moment I spent in Void I could feel a few bits of meat floating around.

Most likely the parts that had been cut from the soldiers.

I need to remember to clean later.

The three defenseless soldiers were a piece of cake to deal with after that. After enjoying butchering them for a few minutes, we made『Entrance』swallow the corpses of the soldiers and we headed back to my house.

I ordered Wahnsinn to make『Entrance』swallow Mother’s corpse and we took it easy for the rest of the day, making sure to gradually replenish our reserve of Mana.

Wahnsinn whispered to me.

“How do you feel, Zwölf ? We have avenged your family.”

“Mother… Father… Hell… they have yet to be avenged. You thought murdering these soldiers was the end of it ?”

“Ooh ? So we’re killing more people then ?”

“This world… this reality. It’s all just a game in which we are all players. However, this game lacks a game master. Which means that one can do anything and there won’t be any external impact. They can decide not to play fair and yet no one will care. Therefore, players can only be stopped by other players. If they lack the individual power to do so, they will band together to make sure that they can be undefeated by even the strongest individual. Then they can set rules favourable to themselves. Rules that allow them to suppress anyone at any time convenient to them.”

“Do you mean… like the Porcephone Empire ?”

“Yes, but not only that. Every single community works the same way. But that’s not how it should be. Take cards as an example. In a game of War, you can play as many 3 or 4 as you want, they will never ever beat a 10. But in this world, banding together allows you to disregard that. This is just plain stupid. Why should the stronger bow down to the weaker ?”

“What do you plan to do about it ?”

“It’s simple. Overthrow this world’s logic. Destroy those pitiful concepts created to please someone at the cost of someone else’s suffering. Induce anarchy.”

“I’m liking what I hear… And how do you think you’re going to achieve such feat ?”

“In this world, there is no god. There is no cheat. The only thing that can disregard logic, concepts and the established order… is a joker.”

After that, we went to bed and I fell asleep.

Being able to use my Mana would be needed for my plan so I needed to make sure it’s full.

Tomorrow would be the first day of what would later be known as “The Era of Shadows”.