2 Chapter 2: enemy has been identified: destiny

""Wait so that means...if I let things continue as they are, I'll be inevitably killed by the main protagonists?""

Although he has already come to this conclusion ages ago Markus still asked that rhetorical question as a "really!?" To both himself and whatever force decided to play this fate on him.

""Don't screw with me!!!! What kinda bullsh*t game is this?""

He wanted to shout that sentence out loud but as always his monotonous voice betrayed his mood as it made him seemed unnaturally indifferent about this situation, or maybe he IS indifferent about this and is only saying this to reaffirm his newly acquired humanity.

((Calm down...just because this world looks like fires of Valentia doesn't necessarily mean that things will have to turn out exactly like the events of the game, there are multiple ways I can go about avoiding my death))

The effects of Exforia instantly kicked in and suppressed his anxiety and fear, leaving only rational thoughts behind.

""Throughout the six endings of fires of Valentia 3 there is only one ending where I survived and it's considered by most to be the bleakest ending""

Markus began to rummage through his memories.

((In that ending Markus and the other 4 surviving members of the 6 great world powers (which are the overall antagonist of the game) successfully outsmart, overpowered the heroes subsuming the order of the world and either enslaved or slaughtered all of mankind, each of the antagonist had their own reasons for doing this and so did Markus, by accomplishing this feat Markus successfully regained his humanity for a moment but went mad when realising what he had done and decided to discard it again anyway, consigning him to the destiny of being a cold, heartless engine of logic and cruelty, ruling the world along with his compatriots for an indefinite amount of time after that))

""So if this world would run it's course like it's supposed to, my fate is to either rule/commit genocide on all of mankind as one of 5 vile beings, or die?""

Markus concluded.

""Fvck that! I ain't some bdsm toy for destiny to torture for it's perverse fun! I'll prevent that from happening even if it's the last thing I do""

Markus shouted, or at least tried to as always his voice just came out as a half hearted statement.

There was one thing that both the Kazuki and Markus side of this body agreed on and it's that they want to live, Markus because he just recently reclaimed his humanity from experiencing Kazuki's life and Kazuki who just died and got reincarnated as Markus, neither of them were going to pass up on this chance to wrangle their fate back from the hands of destiny.

((Looking at it from an objective point of view, aren't I actually in an extremely advantageous position right now? I have both the Meta knowledge of this world from my past life and the practical knowledge from my extensive and excessive training from this life...if I play my cards correctly I should be able to...))

Even though the Exforia drug no longer suppressed Markus's humanity, it still had enough power to suppress negative feelings and promote state of minds that were beneficial and efficient to solving problems that popped up, doing things like suppressing anxiety and increasing focus, ironically the thing that's been restraining Markus will now become one of his many tools to achieve freedom.

A plan begins to be drawn out in Markus's head as he lifts up his left hand and pulls off the fingerless glove that he was always wearing.

On the back of his hand was a symbol or should it be called a magic formation?

((My starting classes are: alchemist, elemental mage, blood mage, silent assassin, swordsman, martial artist. Exactly like what was in the game))

What Markus is looking at right now is called an insignia, in the world of "fires of Valentia" an insignia is much like a person's resume, it records their class, race, sex, personality and basically everything that is to know about that said person.

((It is as expected of a recurring boss but really? 6 starting classes? Even the main protagonist Reinhart only had 3 starting classes, my specs are abnormally high))

((My personality traits are: decisive, ruthless, goal oriented, non expressive, uncharismatic, aloof, compassionate, lonely etc.)

In the game, one of the features of the battle system is the personality defects, where a character's personality traits can affect the flow of battle, this caused some interesting results like a character suddenly got controlled by the computer and did a specific set of actions or a character suddenly refusing to follow the player's instruction, not adhering to the strategy given in battle due to thinking "it's too underhanded" among many other things.

((In the game Markus's personality traits were set as: "none" since he literally had no personality and was only taking actions out of fleeting notions after he gained freedom from Friendrich's orders. This made him the most strategically flexible character in the game as he literally would go through h*ll and back if the player ordered so which is what made him so popular during the PVP tournaments and during single gameplay, so much so that the developers had to up the difficulty curve of the game about 4 times just to make the Markus DLC of all three games not seem like a wish fulfilment power fantasy))

((None of these personality traits I have are too disadvantageous for me so I'll leave it here for now))

Next Markus checked out his physical and mental stats and as expected they were absurdly polished to the point of perfection.

((Okay, for now I think it's better to follow the story and pack my stuff but this time, unlike the original game, I think I'll leave Friendrich a present))

Markus said as he put his fingerless glove back on his left hand again and packed his stuff.

Markus had decided to eliminate Friendrich here and now because he was only an optional boss and thus wouldn't affect the flow of the story too much if killed earlier than usual and unlike what his boasting might suggest, he is far from being a big shot in "Executor" so an investigation on his murder and punishment for his killer by the organisation is unlikely especially since Executor is incredibly understaffed and disorganised currently in this point of the story.

Plus Markus's had a personal axe to grind with the master so these conditions were just perfect for Markus to make a break from both Friendrich and Executor.

So with a goal in mind and determination in his heart Markus began his journey to defy destiny.