Inside the suffocating density of the Dark Scily Forest, the air was sharp with the scent of ozone and freezing sulfur. Hermes Archnemesis—the young Don of a mafia family now forced into the role of a desperate survivor—lunged through the underbrush, his lungs burning. Behind him, the forest was literally shattering under the weight of a madman's fury.
Arak the Great Tamer, his mind fractured by the humiliation of their previous encounter, was no longer hunting for a prize; he was deconstructing the landscape in a fit of pique.
"Kid, you have nowhere to go! Surrender and meet your maker!" Arak roared, his voice cracking with a manic, high-pitched edge. He snapped his fingers, and three jagged arrows of ice whistled through the air, carving white streaks through the gloom.
Hermes didn't look back. He relied on the sensory feedback from the Demon Box and the subtle vibrations in the air. He pivoted his hips to dodge the first arrow, spun past the second, and ducked his head a fraction of a second before the third could take his ear off.
"Why are you running? Why are you running away, huh?" Arak screamed, the magical cooldown of his staff clicking over with a metallic hum. "Where's your confidence now, huh? You know you won't escape. You're just making it harder for me to end your misery with ease!"
"Because I don't want to die, you fuckin' idiot!" Hermes barked back, his voice strained as he leapt over a moss-covered log.
"I'm very glad! So glad you decided to face me again after using that pitiful girl as a shield!" Arak's face twisted into a mask of righteous fury. "Have some shame, you fuckin' rascal! Just die!"
Hermes dove into a thicket of thorns, sliding behind the massive, ancient trunk of a Gnarled Oak. An instant later, a large explosion of ice detonated against the other side of the tree, creating a large crater in the forest floor and sending wooden shrapnel flying like daggers.
He heaved a deep, ragged breath and exhaled, forcing his racing heart to steady. Then, he resumed his escape.
'Shit, this guy is really mad,' Hermes thought, his pragmatic mind already calculating the distance he needed to maintain. 'How much does he actually loathe me?'
"Where are you now, Hermes? Come out, come out... you want to play hide and seek?" Arak's voice drifted through the trees, eerily calm one moment and shrieking the next. "Then I'll play along. In the count of three, you need to dodge this attack, okay? One... two... THREE!"
A pillar of frost erupted next to Hermes, obliterating a boulder the size of a carriage. Dust and freezing smoke covered the area. Arak waved his hand, his magic washing the haze away to reveal the destruction.
"Hey, old man!" Hermes' voice echoed from the fog, dripping with mockery. "Haha, you missed!"
Arak's forehead pulsed with visible veins. He rolled his eyes left and right, desperately searching for the current position of the boy.
"Child, show yourself! Fight me like a man! Is this how you fight?" he asked, his voice trembling with rage.
"Well, yeah," Hermes responded sarcastically from the shadows. "You just realize it now? How pathetic."
"W-What did you say?" Arak's voice hit a shrill note. "I am Arak! Arak the Great Tamer! No one has ever tried to insult me like that before. Nobody dares to mock my abilities—ever! Do you know why? Because they are all dead! Death is the only price for my enemies!"
Arak chuckled, covering his face with sudden, manic excitement.
"Be grateful, child. Take this honor today. You've achieved the top spot on my blacklist. Hermes Archnemesis, the last Don of the Archnemesis clan... your death shall be the end of your generation. Imagine the history: died because of his insulting remarks to the Great Tamer. How shameful. How sinful. This is how it ends!"
"Oh my, you're really desperate, old man," Hermes murmured, wrinkling his eyes in disgust at the speech.
"Shut your fucking mouth, Hermes! One more word and I won't just cut your limbs in half—I'll tear your sharp tongue into pieces!" Arak demanded.
"Oh, really? Then try it," Hermes challenged, standing up from his spot and breaking into a full sprint toward the heart of the woods.
"I guess I'm getting closer," Hermes murmured, suddenly changing his course. He abandoned the path toward the riverside, darting instead toward the dense, suffocating center of the forest.
'This man is an NPC,' Hermes thought, his mind shifting into a cold, mechanical gear. 'So he should die by the hands of an NPC then.'
"Master, I can sense a powerful force coming from that direction," the slime warned, its translucent body vibrating against his skin.
"Oh, nice. We're almost there, huh," Hermes simpered, his pace quickening.
"Master, what are you planning? That place is extremely dangerous for you to step in," the slime pulsed with worry.
"Good. That's perfect. Slime, I want you to alarm me when I'm almost one meter next to its border, okay. Don't fail me, or else your master will perish," Hermes panted, his sweat cold against his skin.
"Yes, Master. But if you die, I will absorb the world with my full power," the slime replied casually.
"Wuhahaha! You won't escape from me, Hermes!" Arak's voice boomed as he leapt over a jagged rock formation. "No one has ever survived with my incredible and enormous power. No one!"
Arak jumped to the other side and leveled his staff, casting a massive Cannon Ball Spell of condensed ice in Hermes' direction.
"Master, stop! You're already within the boundary!" the slime screamed.
Hermes skidded to a halt, his heart hammering against his ribs. "Fuck. I'm screwed."
The young Don covered his face just as the aftershock of the magical impact hit. The explosion of ice sent a wall of force through the clearing, throwing Hermes back against the trunk of a massive tree. Thankfully, he didn't get hurt at all because of his slime's shock-absorbing power.
Arak stepped into the clearing, chuckling as he looked down at Hermes' current state.
"Take a look at that. How pathetic indeed. As Master Seraph said, you're nothing but a pathetic child," Arak sneered. "You don't have the courage to face your enemy nor the power to face reality. If you were only below twelve years old, I would gladly keep you alive. I'm sure we'd enjoy our time together in the torture chamber, the seashore of death... and not only that, I would let you taste my hotdog in the bed every night. But you're already past the requirements, and the Visigoth cult wants you dead. This is how the world works, Hermes. This is how unfair the world we are living in." He guffawed sarcastically.
"Slime, can you do me a favor?" Hermes said, his voice a low whisper that only he and the slime could hear.
"Yes, Master," the slime answered quickly.
"Can you mimic music? A piece of terrifying boss music is what I want you to do," Hermes requested.
"Oh, I can do that. But I can only mimic the sound of a piano, master. Oh, how about this? I recorded the song that Lord Justin composed. He named it a 'Vicious Villain OST'. You'll definitely like it," the slime suggested.
"Then, do it," Hermes ordered.
Arak continued to gloat, unaware of the shift in the atmosphere. "Hermes, Hermes, Hermes... the sole leader of the Archnemesis clan. The first of his kind to reach the sky and fall in hell, and the last of his generation to meet his end. How stupid it was. Nobody will witness your upcoming death—no one but only this forest. I guess your fifteen years of living is unworthy for the historians to write down. How pathetic."
Suddenly, the whole forest fell into a deathly silence. The birds flew away from the area in a panic. At that moment, a haunting C-minor melody from the piano started to play, resonating through the trees.
"Wait, what's that sound? A piano? W-What's going on?" Arak asked, his confusion mounting.
Hermes slowly stood up from his position. He covered his eyes for a moment, then burst into dark, mocking laughter.
"Aw, you try so hard to impress me, Arak the Tamer," he chortled.
"W-Why are you laughing? You should be crying in despair, child!" Arak exasperated.
"Oh, you made the biggest mistake of your life, you fuckin' freak," Hermes laughed, holding his stomach as the music swelled. "You should have seen this coming. Man, I feel disappointed by how stupid you are. You underestimate the power of gaming knowledge, you freak."
Hermes looked up at the sky, and a shimmering piece of parchment—the newspaper—appeared in front of him. He caught the thin material and checked the newest update.
"Show him the bad news, newspaper," he commanded.
The paper rushed its way in front of the Tamer, snapping open with an ominous glow.
'W-Wait, why is that thing here?' Arak asked himself, his instincts finally screaming.
The headlines stated:
[Warning: You have entered the danger zone.]
[A bisexual madman entered the Hidden Boss arena. He died by getting eaten.]
"What a waste of talent," Hermes sighed once again, his voice echoing through the unnatural stillness of the clearing.
Arak stood frozen, his eyes bulging as he stared at the spot where his most potent ice spell had simply vanished into the air, leaving nothing but a faint, shimmering ripple. "How did you do it? It can't be... That was my most powerful spell! How?! You're not even a mage!"
"I don't know how to explain it either, but I guess an NPC like you must learn the fundamentals of this world," Hermes replied, his pragmatic tone returning as he smoothed out his clothes. "This universe ain't that simple. The world itself has been created with different areas of understanding. But common sense is a must. The common logic won't be easily understood by someone like you. But I will tell you this once: you fell into my trap. This area is a dangerous place that you won't be able to win over. No one has ever escaped it, and this is why the fandom community created a forum to warn the players to avoid this area."
"W-What are you talking about? Players? Universe? I don't get it!" Arak begged, his voice cracking. He dashed forward, fingers hooked like claws to grab Hermes' neck, but he slammed into an invisible, powerful barrier that blocked his way. He began frantically casting forbidden spells, hurling ice and sulfuric fire at the air to escape, but it was futile.
"It's futile. You won't escape," Hermes said, watching the Tamer's desperate struggle with clinical detachment. "Even the best players of the world with cheat abilities failed to conquer this area. Try it or leave it. You're already dead because the boss of the area you're stepping in is the most vicious existence in this world. Hmm, let's say that you fell into a large quicksand. How unfortunate," Hermes smirked.
"The boss? Is there something more powerful than the entity that protects the Dark Tree here?" Arak's voice became a thin, terrified shrill. "Are you fucking telling me that there is another terrifying beast residing here?"
"Yup. But your time has finally come to end here," Hermes heaved a disappointed sigh, checking the timer in his mind.
"D-don't underestimate my power, you fuckin' rascal!" Arak complained, his body sensing a terrifying aura behind his back.
"I ain't," Hermes declared, a cold, sharp smile playing on his lips. "But believe it or not, you're already dead in my sight."
The bushes and trees shook violently as a dark aura, like a black smog of living miasma, began to drift closer. The shadows surrounding the entity made it look like the matted fur of a giant, obscured wolf, but its true form remained hidden in the gloom.
"W-What the hell is that?" Arak screamed, panic-stricken.
"I don't know. Only my junior who created that freak knows for sure," Hermes shrugged his arms, referring to the developers of the world he now inhabited. "Oh, well. Try to tame it, if you want to."
'J-Junior? Created by his junior?' Arak grimaced, his mind unable to process the scale of the threat.
"Are you perhaps trying to act as a hero in this world?" Arak denounced, his face pale with sweat as the shadow loomed over him. "Remember this, Hermes! When I die, my brothers will take vengeance against you! You and your goddamn clan will meet its final end because of you!"
"Oh, you're completely wrong about that," Hermes corrected, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous register. "I ain't a hero of this story, but a villain. The villain who is the only man who knows the most but cares the least."
The music coming from the piano reached its chaotic, crashing climax.
"W-what do you mean?" inquired Arak with a confused face.
"Oh, well. You don't need to know," Hermes said, smiling. "The more successful the villain is, the more successful the picture is." Then, he put his mask back on his face. "Well then, it's been fun to chat with you, but you're an obstacle to my whole plan, Arak. This is the end for you and the organization you're leading. By the way, thanks for the latest information about your brothers. I'll take it as a good consideration for a fellow victim of this world. Farewell, fuckin' freak."
The music ended thereafter.
'Good luck defeating it, bastard. You're lucky if you manage a win against that monster,' Hermes said inside his mind as he disappeared from the area.