A Side Villain…

“Yes.” 

 

As usual, a black swirling vortex formed in front of him and engulfed him completely in seconds, leaving high-tiered individuals with mana shocks. The surroundings around him changed and when he opened his eyes he was standing on a hilltop present inside the fifth floor of the origin dungeon.

 

"Not bad, this dungeon profile works like a charm for newbies like me," he thought to himself before proceeding.

 

The fifth floor was special because it marked the official start of one's adventurer career. The first four floors were designed in such a way that those who did not have genuine intentions of becoming adventurers were forced to fallout leaving only the real ones behind.

 

Except for the main cast, most first-year students would take at least two months after the mock dungeon run to arrive here because they would try different permutations and combinations regarding their group compatibility and coordination before coming here.

 

“Woah! It really is the land of fog.” Akira exclaimed when he saw the land beneath him.

 

His eyes could only see the misty fog covering the entire scenery beneath him from the top of the hill, as if the clouds had descended from the sky to become a blanket for the land.

 

As mesmerising the landscape was he knew the hidden dangers it embraced, the land of fog was actually a place in the hinterlands of the origin continent but that was wayback when there weren’t any kingdoms and people lived in tribes.

 

One such tribe made this fog-covered land their home. Members of the tribe developed extraordinary sensory abilities as a result of their surroundings, such as being able to see far away despite fog, shooting targets with only a slight disturbance, and guerilla tactics.

 

However, they became extinct over time, and the game's developers decided to include them in a floor, specifically the fifth floor. Individuals who were not high-tiered would find this floor somewhat more difficult than others.

 

The only reason Akira was here instead of going for his bloodline upgrade was that his current Iron bloodline had not yet exhausted its potential, and potential exhaustion was a necessary condition for the method he knew.

 

Akira had came down from the hilltop as the tribesmen were hidden deep within the landscape and wouldn’t come out. They would patiently wait for the target to come near and then bombard it with their attacks.

 

“Hmm? This fog is distorting my mana sense?” 

 

The fog wasn’t a normal one but laced with mana particles that were designed to interfere with the mana sensory abilities and with prolonged interaction it could also lead to hallucinations and  

apparitions.

 

The tribesmen were already aware of Akira's presence and had dispatched several of their warriors to intercept him when he was thinking of the fog.

 

A warrior hidden behind a bush fired a sheaf of arrows in his direction, the arrow points coated with poison that could block the target's central nervous system.

When Akira heard the sound of incoming arrows, his legs sprung into action and drew his body away from the incoming projectiles.

 

"Damn you," he cursed, hurling fireballs in the direction of the assailant.

 

Not giving away the momentum Akira quickly followed after the fireballs but the hidden warriors had already changed their location and merged with the fog.

 

"How am I supposed to kill these people when they are so good at hiding?" He was contemplating something when another warrior crept up behind him and slashed his chest with his dagger.

 

“Aarghh…” he cried in pain while holding his chest while the warrior showed his smiling face.

 

“Hehehe.” The warrior laughed and several of his fellow tribesmen came out of hiding. They all had a smirk on their face when they were circling around him.

 

One of the warriors came closer and bent down with the dagger swinging in his hand. He was close enough for the kill when something unexpected happened.

 

“Hahaha…” Akira started laughing uncontrollably while clutching his chest.

 

The warriors were amused, thinking that this guy had lost his mind and decided to finish his job quickly, but Akira's body vanished from the spot, spooking the warrior who was in a crouching position.

 

EEEKK..

 

One of the bald men in the back shrieked and fell to the ground, drawing everyone's attention. The remaining warriors looked back, terrified, as the tables had been turned.

 

They were now the target, and their natural advantage of attacking from the shadows had been reversed. The assailants were killed one by one by Akira, who remained hidden and only came out to kill.  

His concealment skill displayed its full potential, after levelling up to the fourth tier not only the true concealment time had increased but also the fake mana flow had become more difficult to differentiate from the real one.

 

The last warrior had fled quite a distance as he stood in the front, certain that the human wouldn't be able to pursue him here, but what he didn't expect was that Akira had left a small strand of mana on his shoulder and was able to locate him even after the distortion caused by the fog.

 

HUFF HUFF

 

“Haah haah…” he was gasping and grunting due to pain in his legs.

 

“Why are you running?” Akira came up right behind him and attacked with his fireball ending the warrior’s life.

He then deactivated the concealment and sat on the ground; these warriors, despite not using mana to nourish their bodies, were extremely agile and could outrun someone who was not as strong.

 

“Status.”

 

“A mere level can actually push my bloodline potential up by 4%?” He asked himself.

 

The bloodline was a unique thing; the higher the grade, the faster the individual levelled up, and the more you reached its potential, the slower your growth would become. 

 

The Obsidian dragon and Phoenix possessed the best bloodline in the world, which contributed to their status as the game's most powerful characters, of course there were a lot of other factors but bloodline was the most important to begin with. 

 

If Akira kept his current bloodline, the fourth tier would be the strongest he could ever be, which would be terrifying given what was yet to come. Many D and E section students with bloodlines similar to his would try to cling to a group for their future and that was the right choice.

 

But he couldn’t do that.

 

“Twin blades of origin? Did the dwarves actually think of such a name?”

“Well as long as it’s powerful it doesn’t matter what their name is. I would love to use the twin blades but my swordsmanship style sucks to be honest, It’s the elementary version of Kirschblüten style.” 

 

The swordsmanship style that was prevalent in the Von Astrom empire was kirschblüten style made by one of the ancestors of the royal family a thousand years ago and till date the majority of adventurers and soldiers were taught this.

 

CLANG

 

A warrior with a machete in his hand came from behind for a sneak attack but it was met by his twin swords, the attacker took some steps behind and channelled mana to coat his weapon.

 

“You could use mana?” That surprised him as the fog warriors weren’t supposed to use that.

 

The warrior dashed forward and tried to slice off Akira’s face using the machete but something was wrong, the attack had decent strength but the speed was so awful. It was as if it was in slow motion and midway the warrior also knew that.

 

"Too slow," Akira said, moving out of the way with  blitz bolt and slashing at its neck with the twin swords.

 

He carefully picked up the machete from the ground and examined it. It turned out that the warrior was able to use mana because the machete was enchanted, but because the warrior couldn't control it well, it went out of control.

 

“Let’s finish this first.”

He wanted to plan the upcoming adventure, but this was not the place to do so because the fog warriors were hiding on the fifth floor, ready to ambush the adventurers.

 

"No rest for me," he grumbled as he moved on to the next kill. 

 

Aurora's worst nightmare came true when she went to find Kei earlier today and found her nowhere. Then she used all of her resources to find any information about Kei, and the results were not good.

Someone had seen Kei leave the academy with two of her friends the night before, and after reviewing the camera footage, it was confirmed. When the portal stations were contacted, they stated that a portal for the border town was situated near the Romanov empire.

 

Portal stations were built on the same principle as dungeons, and every city, no matter how small or large, had at least one portal station from which citizens could travel throughout the empire, which spanned millions of square metres.

 

And Kei's use of one of them to travel to the border town only suggested one thing.

 

"She's probably going to try to cross the border," Samantha informed her.

 

"Yes, because the Romanov empire has closed its borders, the only way to get there is through the border towns," Aurora responded.

 

“Then what are you going to do?”

 

“I am going after her.” She replied naturally.

 

“And I am not going to allow that.” Came the voice of Richard who barged into his room.

 

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice cold.

 

"Stopping you from doing anything you might regret," he said firmly, creating tension in the room.

 

“You intend to stop me?” Dangerous amount of mana began condensing in her hands.

 

“Uhh guys don’t you think it’s too much?” Samantha asked awkwardly.

 

“Shut up!!” Both of them said at the same time.

 

Richard's strength was also on the verge of exploding; he knew how strong she was and didn't want to fight her, but if she insisted on doing stupid things, he as her friend would have to.

 

"All right, let's see if you can stop me," she said before charging forward with her ice elemental attack.

He also activated his spear arts to defend against her but at that moment a sword curve blast came in between and halted both of their attacks.

 

“Aurora I would have never stopped you even if you heckled him to death but this time please stand down.” Drake came forward with the entirety of his group.

 

His special blade was unsheathed and ready to detain her if she went ahead with her attack.

 

"Excellent, excellent. Samatha, prepare to attack." Suddenly, the temperature in the room began to drop rapidly, ice formed on the floor, and her skin began to glow with a white hue.

 

"Shit, that's dangerous," Drake said as he wrapped his entire body in mana to protect himself from the cold.

 

“Okay that’s enough.” Evelyn’s voice from outside instantly breaking all the tensions.

 

"Do you think you can do anything inside the academy?" She stepped forward and asked, her voice harsher than when she speaks with Akira.

 

“But we weren’t doing anythi-” Richard tried to explain himself but stopped when he felt her pressure.

 

“Ichi round them up and bring them to the student council, all of them need to be disciplined.” 

 

“Yes onee-san.” Ichinose, who was standing beside her, quickly followed her instructions.

 

“I miss appa pies.” She muttered to herself before regaining her former posture.

 

When all of this was going on with Akira and the others, the Romanov empire's situation was not looking good. The capital city of Muscovy was placed under martial law, and various other sanctions were imposed.

 

All this was happening because the emperor was afraid that the rebels would succeed in freeing the imprisoned prince, at first he didn’t wanted to imprison him but the clear denial of royal decree was too much for him to ignore.

 

"My liege, the information is that the rebels have been gathering in underground caverns," said Dmitri Odesa, minister of imperial court.

 

"Hmm, Dmitri, tell me what we should do?" Alexander the emperor inquired.

 

"My liege, we must advance there and completely destroy them so that this does not happen again." Sergey Gorbachev, Minister of War, stated enthusiastically.

 

“What about you Dmitri?” The emperor asked again.

 

"My liege, I believe we must proceed with caution because there appear to be some discrepancies in the information that we have been receiving." Dmitri carefully crafted his response.

 

“Discrepancies?” The emperor frowned upon hearing that.

 

"Yes, my liege, it appears that some of the nobility are passively supporting the rebels with money and other resources." When Dmitri said this, the entire hall erupted.

 

All of them were yelling at him, asking how he could charge the nobles with such draconian charges and what proof he had, but he remained silent and waited for them to finish.

 

“Enough!” The emperor’s loud voice silenced them all.

 

“Boris?”

 

“Yes my liege?” The minister of internal affairs responded.

 

“Look into this matter.” The emperor said and dismissed the court.

 

The royal court had been dismissed here, and a meeting of the rebels had just begun somewhere in an underground tavern; the underground tavern was named 'strelka’ and it was one of the main meeting places for the rebels.

“What is our plan?” An old man in full plate armour  asked.

 

"We'll free the prince from the imperial prison in two days," a red-haired youth responded, causing the entire crowd to erupt in joy.

 

“Yes we will free the prince.”

 

“The tyrant has to die.”

 

“The people will not tolerate him.”

 

The crowd said and continued on drinking.

 

"Comrades, the time has come to show what we the people are capable of; the emperor thinks of nothing but ants who can't do anything and must work for him, but now is the time to show them that this isn't true."

 

"That tyrant must step down, and the only person capable of doing so has been imprisoned in the imperial prison, which houses only the worst of the worst criminals." 

 

"Are you willing to overlook this? Will you do nothing and remain as you are? You are oppressed, subjugated, and coerced into doing things you do not want to do. Do you want to be like that?" The red haired youth asked with vigour.

 

“NOO” The crows collectively answered.

 

"Good, we will bring change, we will bring glory, hail motherland!"

“Hail motherland!”

 

“Hail motherland!”

 

“Hail motherland!”

 

Back with Akira, who had just emerged from the dungeon and was on his way home, paused and said,

 

"Why do I have the feeling something is wrong?"