From what I mapped out, the city of Dravemont, where the Amberwood Forest is located, is more than twenty kilometers away from my city, Arvessia. Crazy, that's really far. I guess this has something to do with the writing style: 'Three hours later, he arrived'. So well, I have to bear the consequences.
Fortunately, there are already trains here that still use steam power. So, I looked for one, and after finding it, I got in and sat down.
A few people in the train glared at me. I'm not surprised though, my appearance alone is quite eccentric–a white shirt overlaid with thin armor and a sword at my waist(Maybe also, because I'm handsome) while they wore normal clothes from the steam engine development era.
But I don't care at all. This is for my safety. Just because these NPCs are giving me nasty looks, I don't want my safety threatened.
After passing through several cities and transferring trains, I finally arrived in the city of Dravemont, or rather, its outskirts. This city has a green landscape with mountains as its background.
Getting off the train, I continued my journey on foot to head towards the Amberwood Forest, which was already visible from here.
Reaching the edge of the forest, I was a bit impressed because the scenery of this forest was exactly like my imagination when I wrote its description. The trees here are almost all over twenty meters tall with huge branches that block the sunlight from entering. Rattan vines intertwine among the trees, serving as paths for creeping animals–maybe, I could swing on them too.
Now inside the forest, I just have to walk randomly to find the cheat, and if I encounter monsters, I'll kill them to get their crystals before the MC comes here. But I also hope to meet the MC because he has the cheat tracker, I will take it.
Just a few steps into climbing the foot of the mountain, I felt a killing intent. Enough to make my body tremble a little.
On reflex, I drew my sword from its sheath and pointed it at the source of that killing intent. From that direction, the bushes began to rustle.
"Come out."
The growl of a creature was heard along with a snout emerging from the bushes–
The creature revealed its full form.
Surprise, surprise, it was a mutated wolf. The wolf had a body as high as my chest. Its spine, ribs, and joints protruded from its skin. Its body was covered in rotting wounds, and from those wounds, a purple light emanated. Its sharp teeth were now foaming.
For a moment, I experienced Deja vu, then I snapped out of it and regained my focus.
From its physical description, I think this is the wolf that was supposed to be killed by the MC. So it's not dead yet, huh? Good then.
"Hehe, sorry, but I'll be the one killing this wolf."
The wolf slowly stepped closer. Then it increased its speed. Gaining momentum, it pushed off its legs to pounce.
Without being intimidated in the slightest, I raised my other hand, condensed wind magic, and released it...
–Swoosh!
My wind magic slammed into it. The force of the wolf's pounce made the damage caused by my wind twice as strong, to the point it seemed like all the air was knocked out of its lungs.
Its body rolled rapidly, then came to a halt against a tree.
Before the creature could move, the ground beneath its body began to rise, locking its body in place.
I approached it and attacked with small-scale fire and wind magic to test the damage my magic would cause on a living creature. For some reason, the wolf's groans of pain sounded like sweet music.
With my current strength, fighting this wolf was extremely easy for me, especially since I had trained this far. But of course, the majority of this advantage was due to this body's talent.
Julian Von D'Arclaine was a talented mage who possessed an Affinity for four elements at once. He was stronger than the MC. That was why I killed him off at the beginning of the story, his potential was too great.
However, even so, there was one thing Julian had yet to achieve in his life. Namely, the mastery of Deviant Elemental.
Deviant Elemental is the combination of main elemental magics to create a new element. For example, the combination of fire and wind that I'm about to do–
–A blue magic circle started to appear in front of my hand: When hot air interacts with another air mass in rapid motion, static electrical charges are created and released as lightning–
–From that magic circle, lightning blasted out at incredible speed. It struck the wolf's head until half of it shattered.
The purple light from its wounds began to fade, then the wolf lost its movement, and finally, it died.
"Sigh… damn this is too easy."
Even though I was an outsider, for some reason I felt like I had already memorized how to use magic. Maybe this had something to do with Julian's memories returning by [25%] after my head regeneration reached [100%]. So it felt like second nature. Just like when you do something without thinking about it.
Also, I had something that no one else in this world possessed, namely a status screen that could be pulled up whenever I wanted.
With this status screen, I could monitor my own progress and increase my stats with points obtained from killing monsters.
It made everything feel like a game. I guess it's true, I am here to conquer this world.
After dissecting the wolf's corpse, I took its heart, which had now crystallized. It was a defense mechanism of mutated creatures. When a mutated creature is on the verge of death, it automatically condenses all of its mana into its heart until it crystallizes. With that, they can still exist even if they become just a lump of crystal. For them, that was enough.
They too are living beings who are afraid of ceasing to exist.
"One mana crystal collected. Hehe, this should be worth fifty crowns. Well but this is still not enough. I have to collect more until I have enough money to build a Villain base."
The best way to conquer this world 'again' is by becoming a Villain. Taking the Hero route would be very difficult because it's bound by a rigid morality that could slow down progress.
Besides, it's no longer my style to do things out in the open. I had already done that on Earth, but look at what I got? Just bullshit suck-ups, they were all just using me. I won't repeat the same thing. By becoming a Villain, at least my existence can be considered terrifying, and it also makes me free to express myself according to my heart so that I can toy with both sides: Protagonist and Antagonist, and then after that, all of humanity will acknowledge my existence.
Just think of it as a massive revision.
But unfortunately, it seems I have to shelve my intentions for now because I don't even have a good name yet for the organization I'm going to create, hehe. Plus, I need to have a vision that can make the members loyal.
…
Not more than an hour after continuing my journey, I had fought dozens of wolves that were no larger than the previous one.
Of course, it was an easy task. I killed your boss without it being able to do a thing, let alone small fry wolves like you guys.
In a single slash, they were split apart.
In a single magic shot, they were paralyzed.
I know killing these small wolves drained a lot of stamina because they sometimes ran around instead of attacking. But they were useful enough for making money, so I didn't let a single one of them go. If I could, I'd want to make all the monsters in the Amberwood Forest go extinct.
"What are you doing here?"
A man's voice came from behind me just as I finished killing a wolf and taking its crystal.
I think I know who he is.
Turning around, I saw a handsome man with whitish-blonde hair. He was wearing a thin vest like mine with a sword in his hand. He glared at me sharply.
He is the Main Character of this Novel, Lumian August.
Once again, I felt the same Deja vu as when I saw the wolf I killed the first time. Now I realize why that happened. The reason is because Lumian's figure and the wolf were exactly like my imagination. When I saw him, it felt like the imagination that had been vague in my brain all this time was suddenly laid out into reality right in front of me.
He is alive. HE IS REALLY ALIVE.
"Without me needing to explain, you already know, right?" I finally answered his question in a pretentious tone.
"Wait, I think I recognize you. You are…"
'…The person who was attacked by the Demon cult at the Academy.' I finished his sentence in my head. 'Of course you know, I wrote it.'
"Yeah, you're right. Hmm, let me guess… you came here to look for an artifact, didn't you?"
"Huh, h-how could you know?"
"Heh, I'm also looking for it right now. I know you have a tracking device, so hand it over to me."
I pointed my sword at him.