An Unordinary Man in an Ordinary World

Fifteen broken ribs. Both hands shattered. Dislocated shoulder. Fractured skull. A concussed brain. Left leg gone. Right leg is in surprisingly good condition. Destroyed vertebrae. Herniated discs. Painful ligaments. Aching joints. Torn muscles. A punctured lung. And damage to my soul itself.

I was doing well, all things considered. I was lucky not to have died. Then again, I would have to heal my injuries before saying that again.

To explain what led me to this state, let's go back to the beginning of the year. It all started on the way home from the imperial New Year's ball.

-----

-Some time ago-

"Ughhh." I covered my eyes from the rays of the setting mid-evening sun. Squinting against the powerful light that seemed to go out of its way to blind me, I sat up.

"Finally awake?" A voice asked from across me. Blinking away the sleep, I remembered where I was. Today was New Year's Day, and after the fatiguing activities of the ball, I couldn't help but fall asleep on the carriage ride back.

"How long was I asleep, dad?" I asked.

"Only a couple hours. We're almost back." The voice from before, my father, answered.

Looking around, I could see my mother was also asleep, and my twin younger sisters were fast asleep in her lap.

"If you're still tired, you can go back to sleep. I asked the driver to go slower, not to wake you, and we still have a three-hour journey." Father commented. Even with a top-of-the-line carriage, the suspension wasn't enough against the rocky roads of the mountain.

"It's fine. I'm up, and it's no use trying to sleep again." I responded. With my eyes finally adjusted to the evening sun, I looked up at Father.

He was young, in his early thirties now. He was a rough yet graceful man, full of confidence and sharpness. He was also a doting father who smothered his children with love (I have first-hand experience with this). In front of me sat the patriarch of the Bellmont family, Duke Johnathon Bellmont.

Father had long black hair tied in a ponytail. With a sword sheathed across his lap and his pure aura, he was the very definition of a master swordsman. He was well-built, tall, and robust, with muscles visible under his heavy formal clothing. Father was a reliable man who was always steady and a pillar of the Empire.

Next to me, my mother, Duchess Katherine Bellmont-Cassinova, heir to the Ducal Cassinova family and Matriarch of the Bellmont Duchy, lay fast asleep. She was the same age as father and had similar long black hair flowing down her back. She was even more of a doting parent than father, but on the outside, she was a cold, influential figure who easily swayed the imperial court.

My twin sisters, Rosan and Teresa Bellmont, lay fast asleep in my mother's lap. At three years old, they were toddlers, ten years younger than me. They had inherited my family's traditional long black hair and were sure to grow into beauties. Both the Cassinova and Bellmont families were renowned for their beauty if nothing else.

Looking at their peaceful slumber, I could not help but remember my childhood. Unlike regular babies, I gained full consciousness at around four months old. I could not remember much of my early days, but I remember my first memory of being held in my mother's arms as I looked up at her face.

I also remember a lot of confusion and fear. Because my thoughts overwhelmed my infantile brain, I slept a lot. My body started catching up to my consciousness when I was one. It was then that I also started gaining, or rather 'remembering,' knowledge of a world different from the one I was in.

To this day, I have no idea where my knowledge comes from, but I have never revealed it to anyone, nor do I plan to. This influx of knowledge helped me adapt to the world. I don't think I could have done nearly as well in my early days if I had gained consciousness without it.

I guessed the knowledge had something to do with my soul, but I couldn't be sure. Using soul magic, I knew my soul was different from others, but my research only got that far. While a genius in magic, I wasn't nearly at my prime.

"Lost in thought?" Father broke me out of my trance.

"Sorry, bad habit," I replied. I always seemed to get lost in my thoughts as I spaced off.

"It's fine, but I'm worried that a kid your age is already so thoughtful. When I was your age, the only thing I thought about was practicing swordsmanship and having fun. You're like an adult already." Father sighed. "I want to have fun, y'know. I barely saw you playing with the other kids, even at the ball."

I stared up at my father. He was genuinely worried, but I didn't think it was a big deal.

"I don't fit in with them."

"Yeah, yeah. You'd rather study magic alone all day. I don't even think your mother was like this, and god knows how much of a killjoy she is." Father sighed again.

"Mother might hear you," I warned.

"I've got thick skin. I'm used to it." Father brushed me off.

"Used to what, dear?" Mother asked sleepily. It seemed our conversation had woken her up.

"Nothing, dear. Go back to sleep," Father responded calmly, keeping a poker face, but I could see he was panicked. Mother gently nodded before going back to sleep.

"Told you." I grinned smugly as Father let out a breath of relief.

"Just go to sleep, you cheeky bugger."

Feeling tired again, I accepted my father's suggestion and cuddled beside my mother.

-----

I woke up once again as night arrived. Only a sliver of the sun illuminated the horizon. This time, I felt on edge. Unlike before, something had woken me up.

I looked at my father, and seeing his alert face, I knew something was up. It was small, but I felt a slight tremor vibrating the carriage wheels. Something apart from the bouncing of the road.

For the next minute, I heightened my senses. It was a moot point, given that Father would wake me up anyway, but it cleared away any brain fog from my nap.

Before long, the tremors started building, coming in waves. Sensing something awry, Father instructed the coach to stop. I spread my mana like a web, trying to detect abnormal mana signatures.

We were just outside the Duchy's capital, so there shouldn't have been any trouble, but it was to make sure. As my mana sense spread out, I felt nothing unusual. There were the animals in the forest and grass and an occasional monster farther away, but nothing that could have caused the tremors.

I thought it might have just been an earthquake, but we weren't near any fault lines. As Father stepped out of the carriage to look around, I put more mana into my sense, spreading my web wider to over a mile radius.

Mother was also stirring from her nap. I barely felt it as I pushed my mana sense to the limit. There were a couple of monsters in the direction of the city. That was nothing unusual itself, but they were clustered together.

I focused my mana in that direction and extended the range. As I continued to expand my range, I saw more and more monster signatures. There was something fishy.

I looked at my father standing outside, and he looked back at me. "You felt it too, Alex?" He asked.

"Monsters, well over 50, all in the direction of the city," I responded.

Father nodded. "The soldiers should be able to handle it, but I don't want to leave anything to chance. I'll check it out and come back after assessing the situation. You wait here with your mother."

After giving some instructions to the coach, Father dashed off toward the city.

"Where's your father going?" Mother asked, now fully awake.

"Monsters are surrounding the city. He went to assess the situation." I answered.

Mother narrowed her eyes. I felt her mana rush past, discerning the situation. Mother's mana sense was better than mine, and she could see more than I could.

As she assessed the situation with her mana, I could see Mother's expression getting grimmer.

"Is it bad?"

"I don't know, Alex. I think it might be a stampede." My mother grimaced.

Monster stampedes were dangerous, and the bigger ones could wipe out entire countries. It wasn't that long ago that a monster stampede had surrounded the imperial capital. I was barely two at the time, but I remembered the stampede. We were at the capital for an event when the stampede hit.

The sounds of fighting and the monsters' roars stuck with me even now. Thankfully, the stampede was eventually suppressed, but not without sacrifice.

The final blow that repelled the monsters was one of my Grandfather's greatest magicks. In his final moments, my Grandfather, Noah Cassinova, sacrificed his life to save the country, my father, and my grandmother.

A single monster stampede against one of the best-defended places on the planet required the sacrifice of the number one power of the Empire to repel. While far and few, monster stampedes were not events to be joked about. And now, one had arrived right at our doorstep.

"Alex, I'm going to help your father. You stay here and take care of Rosan and Teresa. Sebastian is already heading this way, he'll help you." Mother looked at me. She looked nervous but quickly steeled her resolve before jumping out of the carriage.

Before leaving, she quickly planted a kiss on my forehead. "Love you, Alex. Stay safe." She muttered. Then she was gone.

-----

It wasn't long before our butler, Sebastian, came. He fussed over me and my sisters for a while. He had already set out when the monsters came, so he didn't know the full situation, but it wasn't good. We decided to move somewhere safer as we waited for news.

My sisters were still asleep, so the driver rode slowly. We decided to wait in the forest for now, as being in the open was even more dangerous. We avoided the monsters, only driving around the outskirts of the city.

We quickly ran out of drivable road, so the carriage driver and Sebastian carried my sisters as I scouted for a safe place. I found a nice, safe cave to set up shop. I'd often trained in these woods, so it wasn't hard to find a good place.

My sisters woke up from the rough terrain, but Sebastian easily cared for them. After settling into the cave, my sisters fell back asleep, and I set up formations for safety. Out of the group, I was easily the best magician at rank five. Sebastian was in second place as a rank three magician.

Magic formations were also my specialty, so I was sure that no monsters would be able to break through. After ensuring everyone's safety, I ran back to the carriage.

We had left the carriage and animals at the edge of the woods. I unhitched the animals to allow them to run in case of danger. Two wolf beasts pulled the carriage and could defend themselves, but I would have felt bad if I had left them hitched to it.

I hopped on one of the wolves for my mount and ordered the other to stay around the area. Beasts had a higher level of intelligence due to being mutated by mana and, as such, understood higher-level commands.

With a mount, I rode towards the city. My formations were of the highest level, and I could be sure of my sister's safety. Even if somebody broke my formations, there would be nothing I could do against an opponent of that level.

I didn't want to wait, so I thought I'd try to pick off the weaker monsters in the stampede and maybe save some people while there.

-----

For the next hour, I wandered the woods, slaying monsters and helping any people I could find. I directed them toward the cave, where my formations would protect them.

I didn't see much of the city, but the destruction was already unimaginable. From what the survivors told me, thousands had already died.

After doing all I could on the outskirts, I decided to head inside the city to see what else I could help with. As the heir to the Duchy and a decent human being, it was my duty to help people in need when possible. And right now, they desperately needed any help they could get.

I entered the city from the south, opposite the road to the imperial capital. The survivors said the stampede came from the west, and many of the strong monsters were still there, so I stayed away. I was a genius in magic at thirteen, but the city's knights were still far stronger than me.

When I entered the city, the destruction wasn't too bad at first, and many people had already evacuated or were evacuating; however, as I got closer to the source of the stampede, the destruction worsened.

I killed any monsters that had escaped the knights and wandered further in. The mana in the air was thick with the scent of blood, and I could see my mount was getting scared. The wolf beast was only a rank three and couldn't withstand the pressure.

I dismounted and ordered it to stand guard. I continued on foot, heading deeper into the city. The fighting was audible now, with swords and magicks clashing against fangs and claws.

Without getting too close, I climbed on top of the nearest building. Flames and winds of destruction were all that remained of the western quadrant. The knights were fighting back the monsters, some more successfully than others, but it was already too late. Tens of thousands had already died.

I could see the bodies of men, women, and children. Blood flowed down the streets. What was even worse were the bodies I couldn't see—the smell of burning flesh, the bodies hidden under mounds of rubble.

The monsters had not breached the imperial capital during the attack, so the casualties weren't nearly as bad.

I fell to my knees, the sight too much for my stomach. I hadn't eaten much, so I only threw up what I assumed to be stomach acid, but it felt like all my organs wanted to escape through my mouth.

Casting a healing magick, I shakily stood up. I surveyed the scene again, trying to ignore the more horrendous sights. The knights were slowly cutting through the hordes of monsters, but I didn't see my mother or father anywhere.

I watched for longer, searching for any signs. I didn't have to wait long before a rumble shook the city. A pillar of fire erupted from the west entrance to the city. Only my mother was a good enough magician to pull off a magick of that scale. She was one of the top ten powers of the Empire, a rank nine magician at only 34 years old.

I quickly summoned binoculars from my shadow storage magick. Zooming in on the scene, I saw my mother and father fighting a single opponent, and they were struggling.

My mother was a rank nine mage and a rank six fighter. My father was a rank eight fighter and a rank seven mage. Both were eighth-rank warriors, losing to a single person with their combined strength.

Only the Great General of the Aeulus Empire could fight my mother and father together, and even then, it would be a close draw. Someone was pushing them back, and easily, at that.

Their opponent was hard to make out, but I could roughly see the outline of a humanoid man with big horns on his head. It wasn't Beastman, judging by the less animalistic figure. And I was sure we'd know if the Beast Empire had someone that strong.

'Is it a daemon then?'

Daemons were a race of humanoids with monster-like appearances and physiques. Unlike Beastmen, daemons could have attributes of many different animals and monsters, while beastmen were only of specific types.

However, no daemon had come to the main continent since the Great War 200 years ago, and part of the treaty ending the war was that they would be confined to the Forbidden Continent. I knew other countries still traded with the daemons, and even Aeulus had sent some envoys every couple of years, but daemons weren't supposed to come here.

I kept my eye on the strange attacker as I activated my magick. One of my original magicks was a formation that would allow my eyes to see mana and the level of mana a person had.

With the mana sight applied, I analyzed the attacker. It took me a while as the distance between us was huge, but I could see he had a blue mana core. He was a rank ten magician and probably a fighter of the same or even higher rank. And his mana signature was definitely what a daemon was described to have.

All the ranks after eight had exponentially growing power, so I knew my parents could not beat him at the rate they were going. The daemon was toying with them. I had to do something. I couldn't even scratch him with normal magic, so I had to do something different.

It would need to be a surprise attack, but it could give my parents the upper hand they needed to win. I couldn't watch them die. 'Not again.'

I'd been experimenting with space attribute magic for a little bit. It was one of the attributes that had the most destructive potential. So, I made a formation with space-attributed mana. Unlike the elemental manas that required an affinity, I could use my knowledge of space and reality to use the space attribute. That was one of the reasons I was so good at space magic.

Summoning my sword from my shadow storage, I applied my formation to it. I would send out a blast of pure space mana with one swing. It would be a conceptual attack. I wasn't skilled enough to make a black hole or tear through space, but I could imbue my mana with the idea of space.

As I settled into an Iaido stance, I started my chant.

"Most plentiful in the universe,

From the expanse between atoms to the expanse between stars,

You alone occupy all. We all lay on your grid. Help me with this attack,

Give my slash power and speed,

Ouranos, God of Space, I dub this attack in your name, 'Null Slash.'"

Finishing my chant, I drew my sword and cut.

In the blink of an eye, space shortened and stretched as my slash traveled almost instantaneously, nulling the space between me and the daemon.

While seemingly childish, chants called upon the power of the gods. I didn't know if gods existed, but chants could increase the power of your magick. And this time, my attack worked way better than I thought.

I cut straight through the daemon's right arm. Space shortened as I was transported right next to him. For a little bit, I reveled in my success before a yell broke me out of my stupor.

"ALEX!" I turned to see my mother yelling before a big, furry hand grabbed my neck and lifted me.

"Huh, that tickled." A deep, rumbling voice came out of the horned daemon.

"Your breath smells." I responded weakly.

"GET OFF MY SON!" My father rushed forward, sword swinging.

The daemon tossed me aside, and I gasped for breath as he raised his remaining arm to stop my father.

A loud clang resounded as Father hit nothing but a mana shield. My mother rushed forward, sending attack after attack, and quickly scooped me up in her arms.

"Are you hurt?" Mother asked.

"Just go after him." I choked out. There wouldn't be another chance like this, and my mother understood. She left me a fair distance away and turned her attention to the daemon. The shield was cracking under my parent's pressure.

"To think some humans would be able to do this to me." The daemon laughed, his voice booming through the rubble and destruction.

The shield around him broke, and my parents rushed forward. With a swipe of his hand, he sent Mother and Father flying. He then calmly bent down to pick up the arm I'd cut through. I'd cut clean through his elbow, leaving his forearm and hand to fall.

"I'll get this reattached later," he mumbled. You," the daemon looked at me, "are coming with me." The daemon stored his arm in a spacial storage magic and lunged at me.

He grabbed me by the neck and jumped, flying out of the city. He jumped west, his pure physical strength sending us miles away.

As we landed, he threw me to the ground. I had enough time to strengthen my body with mana, but it wasn't enough. I created a crater, my bones snapping and breaking on impact. I'd landed on my butt, protecting my head but crushing my pelvis.

The daemon landed gracefully next to me, a coat I hadn't noticed fluttering in the wind.

"It's been a long time since somebody snuck up on my like that." The daemon looked down at me, sprawled out in the crater.

"Certainly not a weakling like you."

"Maybe you ought to get out more." I forced out, spitting up blood. Even in a state like this, I refused to let my spirit be broken.

"Maybe you're right, but the 200-year-old pact and all that doesn't give me a lot of chances." He responded. "Though, I'm surprised you're still in a joking mood."

"Never meet a thirteen-year-old this resilient?" I joked again, stalling for time. If I let him go now, the entire country was in trouble.

"Can't say I have." The daemon knelt next to me. "But, we'll see how you fare." He knelt on my left leg, crushing it.

I bit my tongue, choking back a scream.

"Ho, not bad." He stood up and, taking out an axe, completely separated my leg.

The clean cut didn't leave me much immediate pain, so I was able to speak. "Why are you attacking us?" I asked, dropping my act.

"Being serious now? Out of respect, I'll answer your questions for now, Alexander Bellmont." The daemon grinned at the confusion on my face.

"Wondering how I knew your name? I'll tell you, but at a price." The daemon grinned sadisticly. He knelt next to my head and put his hand over my face. "How about… one eye per question?" I saw his finger reaching down…, and then I screamed.

"Ahh, how I've missed the screams. The emperor banned me from torture, but here, I can do whatever I want." I opened my remaining right eye to see the daemon standing over me.

"Now, to answer your questions. The reason why I attacked is you, Alexander Bellmont. I was just intrigued at first. A rank-five mage at only twelve years old, a once-in-a-lifetime genius. I wasn't even a rank five until I was fifteen. So, I went to check you out.

And you know what I saw? An anomaly. You are an anomaly, not of this world. I can see your soul, anomalous as the night is dark—a wrench in our plans. You had to go. You might not be the one of prophecy, but we cannot ignore anomalies. Not when we are so close.

So I attacked. I knew the capital was too much trouble, so I attacked here under the guise of a monster stampede.

All the blood spilled, your townspeople, your friends and family, was all to get at you, Alexander. It is all on you." He paused to let his words sink in.

"I wasn't even here for you. I was sent here to scout. I only came across you because of your fame, Alexander. You really should've known better to hide your strength. Only idiots would go around flaunting their strength.

Peace has softened the world. I was there during the war when there was backstabbing and spying. Now, it's just nothing." He paused as if reminiscing.

"Sorry, tangent. But as to why I was here in the first place, I guess I can tell a dead man. I'm here because of a prophecy of a child of destruction born to humans, destined to lead the world to ruin.

Of course, the said child won't be born for another fifteen years, but I was here to scout, just in case. Consider it your bad luck I found you." The daemon grinned sadistically.

"You talk too much." I muttered weakly.

"People have told me that." He sighed. "Well, I guess it's time for you to die." He raised his axe above his head. "Remember your executioner as Zulran, from the House of Tennak, the Hell General of Daitya. However, you won't have to remember it for long. Any last words?"

"Fuck you."

As the axe fell toward my neck, I exploded. After stalling for so long, I had finished my ace in the hole. I blew up my mana core, imploding the pure energy to create a mini-nuclear reaction. I sacrificed my life to take his.

'And, I'm sorry.'