Eyes Open

"AGH!"

Yuna opened his eyes, sitting up fast, breathing heavily. He started to feel his own chest, thinking, 'I'm not dead? Or injured? I was sure that I got ambushed…'

Yuna looked down at his hands, exclaiming, "Whose hand are these?! And why do I sound like a child?!"

Yuna stood up fast, and noticed he was near a lake, and he immediately ran towards the water stream. He looked at his own reflection, seeing his face was completely different.

Yuna had dark purple in a messy ponytail, light purple eyes, and a scar on his neck.

Yuna felt his own face, saying, "This isn't me…what's going on..? I'm a boy, I have a private part in this body, but I'm super pretty! I look better than most females I've seen! That's kinda weird, I should stop talking."

'How did things get like this? Why am I in a new body? Wait…I remember I got ambushed…by them. The same ones I trusted to have my back. Did their dirty work, and they stabbed me in the back at the last minute. I remember me, ranking from a high ranked Dark Order Assassin to a king of my own kingdom like the other high ranked members. I remember sitting in the castle, laughing with my commanders and subordinates, until high ranked members invaded, and killed everyone. There were thousands of them…why did they feel the need to put so many of the Dark Order members on me..?'

Yuna took a deep breath, and he said to himself, "Crap. I really worked so hard to climb the ranks in the Dark Order. And when I finally got what I wanted, they cast me aside. I did everything they asked. Now…now, I have to restart everything. I have to rebuild my kingdom again, and regain all that I lost. And on top of that…I'm finna kill every member of the Dark Order. Wait..this has got to be a dream. HAHA! Yeah, that's what this is. Oh, I'm going crazy again, haha. Because-."

[Yuna]

A system window appeared in front of Yuna, continuing :

[Kingdom stats - No landscape or kingdom (Level 0). Subordinates - 0 (Level 0). Soldiers - None (Level 0). XP points gained - None]

Yuna stumbled back, saying, "W-What is this? A screen? Magic? I've never seen magic like this before…and my name isn't Yuna! My name's Kohnzael. At least…that's who I was…"

[Your soul has been placed in a new body. With a new name. You were killed by those whom you thought were your allies, but they weren't. You have chosen yourself that you will rebuild your kingdom from the ground up and get your revenge. The system was designed to help you build your kingdom faster and more conveniently. The more XP points you gain, the more you can spend them on kingdom upgrades, make you stronger, or your subordinates and army stronger. But, the system cannot create the kingdom for you, but can be built by you or your own men with material. But you cannot use XP for upgrades if you do not have a firm established base to start your kingdom off. But the XP points can get you caravans, horses, items for your kingdom, materials, etc]

Yuna started walking backwards, saying, "T-This can't be happening…a system? What category of magic is this in?"

'There are 13 categories of magic in this world: Energy - (Fire, Ice, Lightning.) Matter - (Earth, Air, Water). Celestial - (Sun, Moon, Stars). Particle - (Dust, Ash, Sand). Elemental - (Light, Shadow, Darkness). Sensation - (Pain, Pressure, Pleasure). Communication - (Animals/Beast/Insects, Plants, Humanity). Creation - (Artifice, Scribing, blacksmith). Life - (Growth, Necromancy, Healing). Oneiromancy - (Dreams, visions, nightmares). Sensory - (Thermo, Vision, sound). Telepathy - (Transmission). Atomic - (Radioactivity, Plasma, Quantum). All of these categories…I could suspect that it would be in the Sensory or the Atomic category, maybe? I don't know. Am I really..not dreaming?'

Yuna asked the system, "Um…hello? System thing, I have a question. How old am I?"

[You are 19 years old]

"So I'm the same age I was before once I was betrayed…I'm glad I'm not an old man."

Yuna looked down at his outfit, seeing he was wearing a white dirty T-shirt, baggy dirty brown pants, and no socks or shoes.

"Ugh. I'm filthy. And this is really unhealthy for me."

'Why am I not panicking right now? Is it because I'm relieved I get a second chance? A second chance to do what? Prove to the Dark Order that I don't need them. I only joined them because of the loss of my parents, and they took me in, and made me stronger than I've ever been. I just wanted somewhere to lay my head, I didn't wanna be without anything. I never really batted an eye to their villainous deeds of trying to spread their dark influence through the world, even when they sent me out to kill important people. They betrayed me…when I thought they all were family, family who wanted something to benefit us. I'm not panicking as much right now because I get to live again and teach them what it's like to feel true pain..'

Yuna was smirking menacingly, clenching his fingers together.

"I'll rebuild the kingdom that I had, recruit strong people, and create an army, while destroying all the Dark Order members…one by one. They're all branded with a tattoo on their face, it's easy to spot. I guess I won't reveal who I really was before to others, even then they probably won't believe me anyway since I'm in a new body."

Suddenly, Yuna heard meowing, and he reacted, saying, "A cat?!"

In less than a second, Yuna dashed towards the sound, and he was already where the cat was.

'I'm..faster than I was before..?'

Yuna looked down, and saw a white and orange cat, with its tail stuck under a rock.

Yuna smiled, "Oh, haha, I'll help you, mister cat!"

Yuna lifted the rock, and the cat ran off, and Yuna watched it, waving and smiling, "Byeee!"

Appearing behind Yuna, was a bandit, wearing dirty armor and holding a glowing silver blade in both hands, ready to strike Yuna.

He hit Yuna in the head with the blades, but they shattered. The bandit gasped, panicking in fear.

Yuna stood up while smiling, and he turned around to the bandit with that same smile, saying, "Hmmm? You don't have the mark on your face, you're not part of the Dark Order."

"W-W-What are you?! Those blades were forged by a powerful blacksmith of a king!"

Yuna smiled more, "Huh? Can you say that again?"

"I-I-I-I.-"

Yuna stabbed his hand straight through the bandits chest, ripping out his heart as blood splashed everywhere, and then Yuna smashed the heart on the bandits face, sending him flying backward, blowing up trees and cracking the ground as he flew back because of the force, blasting wind and blood everywhere.

[XP gained - 2000 points]

Scattered throughout the woods, more bandits large and small began to stand up. They began to say:

"That sounded like an earthquake!"

"Or a crack of thunder!"

"What the hell was that?!"

"I told you guys we shouldn't be resting right now. It might be a survivor of that small village we slaughtered hours ago!"

A big bandit walked brough them, holding two giant axes that were glowing red. His name was Garth, he had a bald head with a long red braided goatee, yellow eyes, and muscular build with scars all over his body.

"We've seen more power than whatever the hell that was. And it seems it's only one person…one brat."

Yuna was walking towards them all, his eyes were pitch black with small black flames coming out of them, and his body had a black flaming aura flowing off of it peacefully.

Garth said, "He has dark magic, be careful. He doesn't have the mark of the Dark Order, so we don't have anything to worry about-."

Yuna slashed past Garth, holding a black sword with black flames on it. Garth's head flew off, and half of his body disintegrated into the ground like acid.

All the bandits gasped, yelling:

"In one hit!"

"It's only one of him! Kill that brat!"

Yuna turned around to them, now holding two black daggers that had black flames coming from them. The bandits were rushing up to Yuna with magic brimming from their bodies, but Yuna just stood there as a large blast of black wind shot from his body, sending the bandits flying. Most of them crashed into large rocks, with their bodies splattering brutally on them from the force of the black wind.

Some remaining bandits were blasting their magic at Yuna, but Yuna used his speed to appear and reappear all over the place m, dodging the magic blasts, allowing them to destroy the terrain and platform.

Yuna darted through the field, and the force from the speed blasted bandits high in the air, cracking the ground more.

Yuna was slashing through the bandits with his daggers, dismembering them over and over, with their blood spilling all over the ground.

Yuna jumped in the air above a few bandits, turned downward, and started spiraling down really fast. But as he spiraled down, a giant hurricane of black flames covered him all over, and once Yuna stabbed his black daggers into the ground, a large thud went off, creating a large blast and hole in the ground, decimating and dissolving the enemies.

The bandits exclaimed:

"Who is this kid?!"

"He's a dark magic user! But he doesn't bear the Mark of the Dark Order!"

"He has to be a high ranking member or something! Only the Dark Order can use dark magic!"

"What the…"

They were surrounded by a black fog, with their skin boiling and bursting, and heh screamed.

Yuna was slowly walking through the fog, and then vanished within it.

Yuna's fists had black flames on them, and he would dash around in the black fog, and punch the bandits. But each punch would blow up a body part, leaving the corpses dismembered in a pool of blood on the ground.

"Agh!"

"He's insane!"

"Run!"

KATHOOM!"

Yuna spun and slid on the ground at the same time, holding two staffs made out of darkness, and he sat up straight, with the black fog clearing, and bodies laying on the ground.

Yuna's magic weapons started vanishing, and his eyes were going back to their normal color.

He turned around, and saw the damage he caused.

'Eh. I'm so used to doing this, I don't feel anything anymore. I don't feel bad, and I don't feel sad for anything; I can't even be happy for anyone. I can truly say, being a part of the Dark Order really tormented my own emotions, putting my sympathetic and empathetic feelings in a cage, not letting them come out because of the constant killing they made me do, promising to bring back my parents. If I were able to have my other feelings and emotions, I can be normal, like everyone else. At this point, I'm used to feeling like an outcast to society, I sometimes wonder if I'm really human. And because of all that, it keeps me from getting attached to anyone. I've never even been in love before.'

[XP gained : 4000 points]

Yuna looked at the systems message window, asking, "Um, sorry to interrupt, but what can I spend these points on for right now?"

[Total XP points - 6000. Right now, you are able to do nothing with them if they aren't being spent on yourself, for the things you can buy or upgrade requires a stable established platform to start your kingdom. But you are able to spend your XP points to make yourself stronger by 6000%.]

"Oh, haha. So I need a firm established base platform to start my kingdom off, which will then allow me to spend my XP points on upgrading the base and adding things to it by the system, which will upgrade it into a kingdom."

[Correct. Would you like to spend all your XP points to raise your power by 6000%]

"Mmmm, that would be really really nice. But I'm fine for now I think. I really wanna save as much as I can."

[Understood]

"Wait! Wait…do you know who put me in a new body?"

[That type of question is beyond the reach of the system]

"Oh, s-sorry. Then can you tell me about myself?"

[Yuna Zelleheart. 19 years old, recently given a new start in life. Your personality is complex, you are very kind, sweet, and nice towards people, but during conflict, you personally and intentionally allow your dark magic to consume your feelings, letting your sinister side out. In your past life as an assassin for the Dark Order, you killed over 7 million men on behalf of the Dark Order, making your name famous amongst Dark Magic users, Assassins, and Kings. Once a King over the Ezrael kingdom, with one of the largest kingdoms on the other side of the world. The system only knows what you know about yourself, Yuna]

Yuna thinks, 'This system thingy only knows what I know about myself. Interesting I guess. Seems like some questions are beyond this things reach. It's a mystery, this whole thing. For now, I'll play along, I figure down the line as I progress, the system will expose itself, or I'll expose it for what it really is for myself.'

"OH MY!"

Yuna gasped, and he turned around, seeing someone staring at him.

"THAT WAS INCREDIBLE!" The man exclaimed.

Yuna tilted his head with a confused smile, asking, "Haha, hey, who are you?"

The man smiled, "I'm a merchant! Well, I was a personal merchant for the bandits you just killed! They kept me with them by force, threatening to kill me if I ran! I tried multiple times to run, even when they pillaged villages and killed everyone there for their goods and material!"

"Why were they pillaging?"

"After a Dark Order member destroyed their base of operations for some kind of crystal looking thing that the bandits found in a temple, they went around trying to make a living!"

"Crystal looking thing? Why would they be looking for something like that?"

"I don't know! But I'm glad you took down those bad guys! You killed them because of the village massacre, right?"

Yuna smiled, "Sorry, I killed them because they attacked me first, haha. And I know if I killed one of them, the rest were going to come after me. So I slaughtered them too."

"Ohhh, okay! Sorry, haha!"

"If you say they forced you to join them, then I have no reason to kill you," Yuna continued to smile.

"EEP!"

"What's your name?"

"My name's Kunai! 18 years old, and a blacksmith of magic weapons! And I can create potions! Well, weak ones I guess. I'm not that strong yet to make powerful weapons or potions, haha. It's pretty sad!"

Kunai had messy white hair that reached his shoulders, light gray eyes, he never wore a shirt, he had baggy dark blue pants, and no socks or shoes.

Kunai stuck his hand out to shake Yuna's hand, while his other hand was holding the strap of a large backpack with magic items in there.

Yuna looked down at the hand, and shook it with a smile, saying, "I'm Yuna, 19 years old, and I'm looking to build a kingdom."

"Build a kingdom?! That's cool!"

"Yeah, haha. I just started working on it today."

"You're definitely gonna need help! Tell you what! If you help me with something, it'll help us both! Since you're strong and stuff, you can help me with a lot of things! And in return, I'll be your subordinate and personal merchant!"

"I'm extremely dangerous though, wherever I go trouble may follow, you're up for that?"

"Haha! Are you kidding?! I'm built for stuff like this! Plus I've been trying to settle down somewhere, I wanna build a foundation of my own too!"

"Mhmm. Alright then! So what do you need help with?"

"Walk with me! And follow me!"

Yuna and Kunai started walking through the woods, stepping over dead bodies.

Kunai said, "There's an underground tomb not too far from here that the bandits were going to try and raid. Rumors say there's a bunch of valuables down there, valuable enough to get us tons of gold coins! With that, I can really make more magic weapons and potions, and you can use it to get things for your upcoming kingdom building journey!"

Yuna thought, 'A tomb with valuables…that's something that could kickstart my way up! Awesome!'

Kunai komtrejd, "But there could be a few dangers though-."

"Doesn't matter. Whatever is down there, If anything is down there, I'll kill them."

"Oooo scary! Let's do this!"

Yuna smiled, "Yup!"

….

Minutes later, a girl was walking along the field where the dead bandits were. She was looking around, wearing a mask that covered only her mouth and nose, but exposed the top half of her face. She kneeled down, touching the dead body of the old bandit leader, Garth.

The girl had long red and white hair, but it was in a crown hairstyle, but from the sides, it was in long braids with golden pins in the middle of her braids. Her eyes were light green, and she had purple line tattoos under her eyes.

Her name was Nel.

She said to herself, "Slaughtered in cold blood. The ones I called friends, killed mercilessly."

She pulled her mask down a little and sniffed, saying, "Found you…murderer.."