"Renas | 23 Points Remaining"
As Renas looked at the pale blue, glowing transparent screen in front of him, his eyes confessed that he couldn't make sense of what he was seeing.
Who? Who would give him 27 negative points? A herd of 27 fools voted out an innocent person? No one saw him kill that knight!
Wasn't this voting system meant to eliminate the bad and keep the good? Why were they trying to ditch Renas, an innocent?
And at that moment Renas realized something.
Good and Evil are qualities society imposes. Good is what dominates; Evil is what is suppressed.
But now the scale had tipped the other way.
In Village D, in his house's comfortable bed, lay a young man.
He wore a large robe and had jet-black hair.
All the lights were off; similarly the curtains and door were shut, so the room was literally deprived of light and plunged into total darkness.
This person was Cuhlun. The blue-glowing screen before him was the only thing he could see in that darkness.
He hadn't used the game interface, yet. still. Though he knew he wouldn't. He browsed the interface anyway. When he thought he had looked enough, he closed his eyes, took some pills from his pocket, and fell back asleep.
A day passed. Renas left his home. He knew that if he did the same thing next week, he wouldn't survive — so this week he'd try to "fall under" the people who would vote for him. At least that was his plan.
Renas moved forward with his rifle in his hand and a knife at his belt. His glasses were broken, so he couldn't see far — which was a big problem. Yet he muddled through.
Today, unlike yesterday, there was no group of people fighting on the street.
Walking through empty clean streets, he noticed something. He wasn't sure why he hadn't noticed before… some houses were missing? The signs of the missing houses were still there, but the names were scratched out.
Likely they were the houses of the dead.
That wasn't the only oddity. After yesterday's battle, corpses should have been everywhere, but strangely none were, not even a drop of blood. The street was truly clean — its cleanliness was very abnormal, because he remembered dozens of broken fences the previous day and those broken fences too! Everything was fixed.
Okay, fences and buildings might be repaired day by day, or dead folks' houses vanish — plausible — but yesterday he killed someone: that knight he didn't understand. Still, after the knight died his body hadn't vanished; the corpse remained. That meant all corpses were being collected to one place.
Which meant someone was gaining power from corpses; judging by his past experience, if he were to say anything… that person, whoever they were, must be very powerful.
A dangerous power. Probably within these three months he'd meet the owner of that power.
As Renas walked lost in thought, he noticed something slowly approaching him from the street ahead; likely the other person had spotted him long ago, but Renas only just realized — his glasses missing.
Renas calmly continued toward the man. If the man attacked, Renas could respond — but for now no need.
As he strolled along the clean street, the man drew nearer; when about ten meters away, Renas could describe him clearly.
He wore modern clothes — a sort of jacket and trousers. Also a snow-white mask, with a crack at one corner.
Where his mouth should've been there was no opening; the mask bore no expression. Just the crack, a flawless white surface, two eye-holes.
In his hand was a type of pistol.
When the man stepped even closer, Renas saw a bomb on his belt. Still the man made no aggressive move; instead when within range he raised both hands and finally spoke.
"#############"
Renas found the garbled voice strange and said, with a surprised expression:
"W-What are you trying to say, I don't understand this language?"
Then the masked man spoke again. His voice resembled a friendly soldier's.
"Ah, sorry, I saw you from afar and though you looked at me you didn't show aggression. A well-intentioned man like you doesn't belong in a place like this. Come with me — I want to bring you to our group. The ownerless are being hammered by bad votes from many groups, so we know your situation. Don't worry, we'll welcome you into The Nameless group."
The man was suspiciously polite — of course rejecting someone that polite was tough. Renas was already looking for a group, so he accepted the offer.
On the way Renas asked the masked man his name. It turned out his name was "Farah", and Renas shared his own name.
Their base wasn't far — in the forest outside the town, at the boundary, was a large cave. The cave of course was not natural, but how it was opened remained a mystery. If he joined the group, he'd ask how they opened the cave — but not now.
Renas and Farah descended together. Farah proved a good guide.
Inside the cave they encountered dozens of forks in the path; along these paths were wall-torches and winds that felt artificial, accompanying them. Apart from the torches there was no sign of habitation anywhere.
At least until a point.
They reached a large metal door. When Farah arrived at the door he did nothing — the door opened by itself.
Whoever opened the door must have known they were coming.
Beyond the metal door was a large chamber. Six pillars supported the vaulted ceiling and dozens of better-quality torches blazed compared to what they'd seen in the tunnels.
A red carpet stretched to the far end, then up a few stairs to a throne made of pure white bones. The white bones appeared to be the ribcage and shoulder bones of an ancient creature. The left side of the throne, made of big bones, extended upward while the right side broke symmetry and remained smaller in comparison.
Seated on the throne was the leader of The Nameless group. He wore a plain white mask; like Farah's mask it had cracks — but not just one; dozens. The mask looked as if it might shatter any moment, because it had so many… or no — an uncountable number of large and small cracks. It was a miracle it stayed intact!
The masked man was very muscular; behind the mask his eyes shone sky-blue; his hair was short and black. The cut of his hair hinted he was someone sinister. A large scar ran from his neck toward his chest, but since he was wearing a jacket only the neck part was visible and the true size of the scar couldn't be judged from outside. All Renas could say about the scar was that the tattoo covered a large portion of the man's torso.
The leader of The Nameless wore modern military attire, though it was clear he was not a regular soldier. By his style and tattoos he was likely someone with a criminal past who had grown to admire soldiers. Renas, not a novice, had removed the patches on his own uniform — but this man's uniform still bore insignia. The insignia didn't match any army Renas knew — meaning there were other worlds with modern tech.
Not only that, because the ceiling was a little dark it took Renas time to notice: the man also had two deer antlers.
Of course all that didn't mean Renas was stronger than the leader of The Nameless. At first Renas had fallen into that thought, but it didn't take long to realize it was wrong.
Next to the Bone Throne, right beside the red carpet, a sword was embedded in the ground. It looked like it was made of pure gold and blood.
The sword had no hand guard; the grip was poorly made, covered only with a few rags. The blade however was a true work of art. The edges, the more cutting parts, were pure gold — maybe not pure gold but a special type of gold unique to one of these worlds — Renas didn't know.
Towards the centre of the golden blade things jutted out like savage fangs, but it didn't cover the entire blade smoothly; in the middle of the blade was a glass compartment preserved by the gold on the cutting edges and adjoining bones. That chamber was filled with blood. Pure human blood.
The muscular man stood slowly from his throne, took hold of the sword. He was primed and ready to draw it at any second.
Flanking the carpet on both sides and around the pillars of the room were dozens of people — each dressed differently: some wrapped in rags, some in knight's armor, some in modern clothes like their leader.
Yet they all had one thing in common: almost all wore white masks like Farah's and their leader's. They all had cracks.
Still none of those masks had as many cracks as the leader's; Renas wasn't sure if the cracks signified power but it was obvious in one respect: their leader was better than the rest.
Renas thought of using his signature ability to escape, but this could also be an opportunity. After all there were people without masks too, and from their movements it was clear they too had come later — they were just like Renas. So there was a way into this group.
Right at that moment the leader of The Nameless group spoke.