A Side Villain…

"Ughh Amico, you really shouldn't buy that thing." Roberto's face contorted, and his feet attempted to move but stopped when he remembered his condition.

 

"What's the harm? It can be quite useful in certain circumstances." Akira's mind was wandering to the future, to the events that had brought him here in the first place.

 

The shopkeeper, on the other hand, was overjoyed. The dragon's turd had been sitting on his shelf, taking up space and making a bad impression on the onlookers, but rules were rules and he, like everyone else, had no choice but to follow them.

 

"Uhh fine, but please put that in your storage, it stinks," he said, pinching his nose and quickly paying for the item with his special card.

 

"That makes me think of the swipe machine.” Akira couldn't help but mutter when he saw that. 

 

"Swipe machines? There's nothing like that here, Amico." That was the sixth time he'd had to say something along those lines.

 

His first client had this strange habit of muttering about things he had never seen, let alone heard, which perplexed him because there were very few things he had not seen in his life given the kind of place he worked in.

 

"Welcome, welcome little adventurer, take a look at some of our best-selling talismans." Unlike the others, this guy did not pass judgment on the duo based on their appearance.

 

"Do you have the explosive ones? The ones that explode after a few seconds of being set?" 

 

"Ah, you're talking about the third rail, right? Don't worry, little friend, I've got you covered." 

 

Another misnomer, Akira thought.

 

"You now have the power of a tier one attack spell in your hands; simply break this card whenever you want and it will do its job. Oh, and remember to take a few steps back; you don't want to injure yourself, do you?" The shopkeeper had a wide grin on his face.

 

"Umm, can I take five of them?" Akira asked, putting on the most innocent face he could muster.

 

"Sorry, little friend, the rules are the rules. Three pieces per person unless you can show me your adventurer's ID," he said, shaking his head.

 

And Akira knew exactly why he was asking for it; this was the time when he realized how important it was to transcend the first tier and enter the 'real world.'

 

"Then three pieces."

 

“Great.” 

 

The transaction concluded, and they both proceeded to the location. Roberto wanted to show him some of the best things he knew, but there was a small issue that prevented Akira from going.

 

He had run out of money; Ivan's allowance was more than enough for anyone else to comfortably last an entire month, or even longer if they were frugal, but he couldn't afford to be frugal in the least.

 

"No, we can't; I'm almost out of money." 

 

Roberto's commission and the price of the two items were already skyrocketing, explaining why only the big adventurers and not someone in his own league would come here.

 

"Then what do you recommend?"

 

"Let's go hunt some monsters; we could trade their cores for money." He wanted one more thing from the place before leaving for the sake of the good of the place.

 

"It's not really my thing to say, amico, but do you really want to do that? Why not return when you're a little stronger?" These were the most polite sentences he could have crafted.

 

Akira understood what he meant and simply shrugged; sometimes an individual's strength is measured by his or her ability to pick his or her fights.

 

"Fine," Roberto said, not happy with his decision, but there was nothing he could do about it.

 

Coming outside the safe zone of sector X was like stepping into a dungeon in the outside world, except on a much larger scale and magnitude. Dungeons usually started on the easy level, but this place screamed danger.

 

"Why are you so terrified? Don't you have a teleportation talisman that will transport you back if something goes wrong?" Akira asked while going forward.

 

"You know about that?" Roberto yelled, his steps stumbling slightly.

 

"Of course I do, what do you think I am?" He laughed and looked at the eerie visage of the place.

 

Death and destruction could be the place's very pronouns; the land was charred beyond recognition, with not an iota of the greenery it once had, and the air was impregnated with the stench of rotting flesh and dried blood from both monsters and humans. Being there was a battle in and of itself, one that hardened the individual's mental resistance.

 

"Yuck... This place is really as bad as everyone says," he sprayed some shots in the air while pulling a perfume from his storage ring.

 

"That's a lot better." Akira couldn't understand how someone could do something like that in such a critical situation where even the slightest disturbance rendered one helpless.

 

‘Whatever.’ 

 

“Concealment.”

 

"Oh, that's nice; the monsters will see you as a normal human now." 

 

"And that's exactly what I'm looking for."

 

“Aarghhh..”

 

They were caught off guard when a woman's agonizing voice rang out from a distance. They glanced at one another and nodded before their feet picked up speed and carried them to the scene of the massacre.  

 

The screams and wailings grew more horrifying the closer they appeared to be. All those cries for help stopped once they arrived, and were replaced by the sounds of something being gobbled up and down.

 

They didn't have to go down that rabbit hole to find out what had happened. Adventurers being killed in dungeons was a common occurrence that had existed since the inception of dungeons themselves. 

 

The monsters in this dimension, however, didn't just kill the explorers; they also devoured them to fill their stomachs and fortify themselves.

 

Akira had seen gore and slaughter on the internet, but seeing it in real life—watching someone's limbs be snipped off, their internal organs puckered out and trampled upon, their brains being chewed, and their blood being sucked directly from their veins—was just too much for him.

 

“We should head somewhere else.” Roberto gave him a shoulder pat. 

 

Regardless of how he appeared to others—his detached and dismissive attitude toward their opinions, his unwavering dedication to staying out of the plot—below all those protective layers was a boy who merely desired to lead a happy and content life.

 

However, he was also aware that things did not always work out that way and that his objective would not be served to him on a silver platter.

 

“Yeah you are right.” he said, standing up and dusted off his armor.

 

After some time spent walking and running, he had reached a location to the east of the safe zone, where the scenery contrasted sharply with that found immediately outside the zone. The air was much cleaner, there were trees and tall grass covering the ground, and one could hear a small brook gurgling in the distance.

 

"It gets more dangerous the quieter it gets," was a saying once. 

Roberto stayed behind as his teleportation talisman didn’t have a long range.

 

“And there’s my target.” 

 

He was hiding in plain sight, the pinnacle of concealment. The fact that the monsters were standing close to the brook only served to highlight the fact that they had slime-like bodies that glittered whenever the sun's rays passed over them.

 

"So this is what a Pester mana beast looks like, no shit they were hard to kill in the game."

 

The monsters would dive into the brook, their jelly-like bodies creating ripples as they hunted for fish with their tapered ends. If one of them managed to catch a fish, they wouldn't eat it. 

 

The fish would be placed in their splinter-like mouth, and the intricate mechanism inside would perform the necessary operation to drain out the blood and other bodily fluids, resembling a knotted whipcord on a dried skeleton. 

 

Akira's muscles tensed as he experienced a tinge of fear and felt a surge of adrenaline and mana inside of him. Prescience was his partner, but only in the head; his body still needed to move and complete the task.

 

The Pesters were a formidable opponent in the game, but they always brought in the most money when their cores were sold, and the fact that their slime-like bodies were extremely vulnerable to true fire made them a crucial kill for him.

 

The dried-out fish would be thrown back into the river, but instead of drowning, they would ricochet off the surface and land on the other side, where they would become a meal for some of the green insects. The insects would chew off the carcass loudly, but the pester would not be unperturbed—in fact, they wouldn't even be aware.

 

The dry orange leaves burnt under his feet as he materialized the fire bow whose glint in the brook looked even more raveled and searing. The birds perched on the branches took flight, unable to withstand the heat. 

 

He moved forward while stooping down, his reflection in the brook sparkling brightly. The arrow's fins were released by the middle and ring fingers, dancing in the air before touching the pester's starfish-shaped mouth.

 

The arrow, which would have made any other monster writhe in pain, had no effect on him physically, but the fire did, the blue flames spreading across its entire body like ants on a sugar cube. Its very existence was stoking the fire, which didn't go out until it vanished in the brook.

 

The asinine mana beasts had no time to react or get out of the way as another tetrad of arrows descended, with the same outcome of melting away in the brook.

 

As he said, "Phew it's over, the mana consumption in firing these arrows and conjuring the bow is astronomical," beads of sweat began to form on his head.

He believed it was over when two of the Pesters emerged from the brook and moved quickly behind him. The dried leaves rustled as they moved in a serpentine pattern. Though it did catch his attention, it was already too late.

 

Without giving him a chance, the first pester bound his legs with its tapered tail, and the other bound and immobilized the rest of his body. Then, using the combined motions of their splinter mouths, they started sucking his blood and bodily fluids.

 

'How the tables have turned,' he thought, laughing at his carelessness in letting his guard down inside this place.

 

His fingers brushed the ground as his back landed on it, the pesters were going crazy as if they had found the meal of their lives, the strength of his hands was fading and his consciousness was blurring with each passing moment.

 

Similar to the fish that had previously been thrown out by the pesters, Akira's once well-built body had now been transformed into that of a sickly man, with the mana beasts sapping all of his vitality and life force. His eyes had lost their shine and death seemed evident.

 

‘It’s of no use, I am no protagonist who would get the powerup from the ‘legendary friendship’ or his love. 'Do I even have any friends to begin with?' his thoughts wandered off.

 

The pesters were slightly shaken by the sudden outburst of his mana cores, but it didn't stop them from gulping down the delicacy under their control.

 

When all of the lights in the tunnel seemed to go out, his thoughts turned to his virginity, which was ironic given that this was his second time dying as a virgin. 

To die a virgin again in the second life, you must have some extraordinary bad luck.

 

"FUCK everything, I'm not going to die a virgin, not again," sparks flew from his body, igniting the objects around him.

 

The pesters slumped down from his body and hollered out animalistic voices, Akira didn’t miss a beat and rained down three fat fireballs on their tails which were running away. The brook's channel had been blocked by a small circle that had grown in its path.

 

Fireballs had grazed down the ground to the last inch, causing his butt to land softly. He was panting and huffing, but he managed to remember to turn off the death plan so that he could immediately consume the best health and stamina potions.

 

It took him no less than an hour to regain his previous physique; the top grade potions, while expensive, were great, but they couldn't treat the soreness and fatigue caused by the death plan settings. 

 

“Where the hell is Roberto when you need him?” 

 

Back in town, the group was working under Sophia's direction to set up the transmitters that would allow them to locate Kiara. Her strategy was fairly simple: set up sixteen transmitters throughout the city, which would then channel their signals cohesively into one big receptor in the main church.

 

"So this will really help us?" Aurora asked as she knelt to set up the transmitter.

 

Wind brushed against Sophia's veil as she adjusted the transmitter to fine-tune it.

 

"Yes, sister Aurora, once anyone enters this town, the defensive talisman records their mana signature, and we can use this to track their whereabouts." 

 

"How do you do it, though? Like how does it work?” Alexandria couldn't help but wonder when she heard that. 

 

“Uhh… I-I don’t know the exact mechanism, mother does but she had never taught me that. All we have to do is think about it, and the talisman works.” This was the most Sophia had said to Alexandria, as she usually kept quiet.

 

"After that, I'd like to look for someone," she stated firmly.

 

"O-okay, sister Alexa," Sophia said, stepping back and concentrating on her work.

 

This continued for a while until Aurora inquired, "Sophia, are you a godkin?"

 

The only remaining testing ground for the godkins was in Aurora's nation, but even she was unaware of her existence, which shouldn't have been possible if a test had ever been conducted.

 

"No, sister Aurora, I haven't been tested yet, but mother said she might take me to your country at the end of the year." Sophia replied.

"That's awesome; we'll do a lot of things together. I'll show you every nook and cranny of the capital; you'll love it." Aurora spoke up, which is unusual for her.

 

"Can we first concentrate here?" Alexandria asked, irritably.

 

“So-sorry sister Alexa.”

 

All of the other transmitters were being set up in the same manner in various parts of the city, with each team doing their best. Evelyn and Ichinose being the most handy out of them.

 

Finally, only one place remained, a small chapel on the city's outskirts, very close to the Romanov empire's line of control.

 

“Again why are we going there?” Ichi asked.

 

"I'm sorry, sister Ichi, but the transmitter there hasn't been changed in a long time, and it's been causing some issues."

 

‘Sigh’

 

“Let’s just get this over with.”

 

At the same time, back in the alternate dimension's safe zone, Roberto was juggling the six mana cores of the pester mana beasts as they made their way back to his small office.

 

"You were extremely fortunate that these monsters were children; if they had been a couple of years older, you might not be here."

He responded, "I wouldn't fight them to begin with."

 

"After all deductions and cuts, these will only get you eight to ten platinum coins."

 

Beads of sweat formed on his brow; he had risked his life for that? For this minuscule amount? 

 

"I know you're thinking it's not much, but hey, it is what it is, and the next time you put your life on the line, it might get you something good." Roberto cheered him up.

 

Sigh

 

‘No, I did that to hone my skills, to get done with this place and go back home.’

 

“Give me the money.”

 

“Sure here you go.” He was a rich man now but for how long that remained a question.

 

Roberto joked, "So what do you say? Wanna grab some drinks?"

 

“Fruit juice.”

 

"Ah, yes, you are only a teenager."

 

"The legal age is fifteen, so no, I am a fully mature adult," his virgin ass would disagree.

 

It was then that he noticed the glint of a familiar face on the shattered glass of a shop; his body was still aching from the last bout, and it was no less than a  surprise that his attention was drawn to her fleeting figure.

 

His eyes widened, his feet pushed the ground faster than before, and his figure vanished from the scene as if it never existed.

 

"Hey, don't run in here; it's dangerous." 

 

"Tha-that mask, quickly," he said, his finger trembling as he pointed to the simple yet crude design.

 

"Excellent choice, mate, this one was dropped by an A-tier spider mana beast-"

 

"Yeah yeah... just give me the mask," he said rudely, but the seller didn't care.

 

"Seven platinum coins," he says. 

 

Money and the mask exchanged hands at breakneck speed, with both parties satisfied. Given its infamous past, the mask was gathering dust on his shelf, and for Akira, it was the final item on his intended shopping list.

 

“Yo amico, what the hell happened to you?” 

 

Akira was unable to respond because another voice arrived before him.

 

“Excuse me?”