Chapter 48- That time my vacation turned into my training arc.

hey... your probably long forgotten author here~

ahem ahem,

been a while... maybe a few weeks... maybe a few months... maybe almost or around half a year since regular uploads

Ahem Ahem

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A dark figure could be seen walking through the cold night in a remote village. Anybody that saw this person would be perplexed whether they were a man or a woman.

Their figure would seem curvy like that of an hourglass but also would look like that of a muscular man simultaneously.

Not many people in the entire world knew this person's true identity. Maybe they weren't even a person.

A human? A beastkin? Or as pretentious as it may sound, Maybe even a dragon?

Nobody knew.

Donned in a black dress that seemed to be fit for both a Man and a Woman, This figure's confident yet almost-hidden aura gave them a mysterious touch.

If Simon was here and tried to describe them, 'A really really confusing person'. But, Not just Simon, Nobody was here to describe them.

The figure kept walking through the eerily quiet village. The fire lamps on the sides of the road were the only source of light faintly illuminating the streets.

After walking for a couple of minutes, The figure suddenly stopped and turned around.

A person approached the figure before kneeling down on one knee. The figure looked at this person with a creepy look before speaking,

"Did I order you to move?"

As the cold and emotionless voice of the figure reached the ears of the person kneeling down, The kneeling man replied.

"I would absolutely not dare to move if it weren't for our Lord's order."

The man was a blonde-haired handsome man, wearing a black dress with 5 red stars around a white star on the right side of his chest.

"I see."

The figure's voice was neither feminine nor masculine. It felt like something in the exact middle. However, the tone the figure spoke in was even more unique.

If Simon heard this voice, he would find it hard to define exactly how the voice sounded. You could say it sounded like a robot speaking or mary, but unlike Mary or a robot, this voice was filled with arrogance.

"His Lordship is waiting."

The kneeling man seemed confident as he didn't fumble.

"How interesting"

Despite the arrogant tone, the robotic voice strangely sounded sweet for some reason.

Whistle.

Suddenly, the kneeling man felt a whistling sound in his ears. Before he could process anything any further, His head began tumbling on the ground.

"Know your place, a 3rd rate villain's minion."

The dark figure walked away from the corpse, completely unfazed by the unholy amount of blood on the ground. However, what was even more surprising than this were the dozens of corpses behind the dark figure.

Children, Elderly, Women, Men. People from all age groups were laid neatly on the ground. Something even terrifying was that nobody seemed to have had an easy death.

All corpses had countless cut marks. Too much to even count. As if they had been tortured...

This horrifying scene would be enough to make anybody ask a single thing

'Did the killer have to really be this cruel?'

The dark figure kept walking. However, with each step, they seemed to be fading out of existence. The loud footsteps also died down.

Squeak

With an almost inaudible sound, the figure completely disappeared. The corpses behind him also disappeared.

Every drop of blood that was nearby was gone. Now, The village was actually empty.

...

Simon slowly patted the dust off of himself as Riz slowly opened his eyes while grunting in pain. Just as Simon was about to say something, a black dragon appeared behind him.

"Shiny human!"

With a loud voice, Raon shouted while Riz was still in the middle of opening his eyes.

"Huh?- Ra- Oh-"

Simon was honestly a little spooked at the sudden arrival of the black dragon. He had almost taken Raon's name which had yet to be given to this adorable floating black dragon.

"...Wha-"

That's when Riz opened his eyes and saw Simon standing there with a Dragon. A freaking real baby dragon. Unfortunately, before the poor mage could even react to the situation, He was put back to sleep by Zero. Mind you, very.peacefully.

...

"Ugh"

Riz tried to open his eyes but found it to be very painful. So, he stopped trying to open them. Instead, he checked if he still had his limbs.

Fortunately, all of his limbs were intact.

"...Are you pretending to be asleep?"

Riz heard a voice of a young man. He opened his eyes and found it wasn't very painful this time.

"Where am I?"

"On the side of a road."

Riz, who thought he was in heaven, was brought down to reality because of Simon.

"Heek"

Riz almost had a heart attack after seeing Simon's face. He was wearing a hat that completely covered Simon's white hair.

There was an evident frown on Simon's face and many sweat beads on his forehead.

Riz, despite being way older than Simon(at least physically) had or of become sort of traumatized from Simon. It wasn't very serious but, Those pair of blue eyes were more than enough to spook him.

Especially when seeing it from so close.

"Stop looking at me like it's your first time seeing a human."

Simon wiped the sweat from his forehead before looking away, which was towards the road.

"..."

Silence followed as Riz began organizing his thoughts. For some reason, his memories were pretty jumbled.

The last thing he remembered was being slapped.

Aside from that, not a single memory was left. It felt like a hole was in his mind.

Of course, what Riz didn't know was that a certain black dragon had slightly changed his memories.

"So... You said your name was Riz right?"

Riz looked closely at the source of the voice, Simon before nodding. Riz noticed that he was lying on the ground and his clothes were dirtier than a beggar's so he immediately got up.

Despite being someone that didn't care much about his attire, Riz at least didn't want to look like a beggar.

"Ok, You seem fine at the very least."

"...Why?"

Riz asked to which Simon replied while acting dumb.

"Huh, What?"

"..."

Riz paused for a moment before asking.

"Who- no What?"

Simon looked at the confused Riz. Well, He had also been confused. The last thing he remembered was letting OG!Simon, who changed his name to Bob for their convenience, take over the body.

After that, Simon just felt like a second passed, and boom.

He woke up in a random alley, Riz being held by Zero, with more than 20 shady-looking guys dead in the background.

Certainly a weird situation.

Moreover, mere moments after that, a magic disturbance tool went off. Finally, some knights arrived at the scene.

Everything seemed like a shit-show that Cale would start. But it seemed like it was just some coincidences making it so that Bob and Riz somehow ended up in a black alley where Arm's minions were making a deal.

In the end, After Simon escaped the scene with the unconscious Riz, Raon appeared out of nowhere.

Upon asking, Raon had said that he sensed his disguise magic on Simon's body wore off, So he teleported there to check in on Simon.

The gesture was kind and Simon appreciated that. But it wouldn't have happened if some idiot kid hadn't been stupid.

: Hey, it's not that bad ok. I was just strolling but saw some shady men and followed them. How was I supposed to know that It would go that out of hand?

Bob chimed in but Simon ignored the kid's complaints while he again put his focus on Riz.

"So... Are you fine?"

"...Ah excuse me? ...Yes"

Riz answered in a somewhat disoriented voice. He felt like he had just died but was also alive.

And being somewhat responsible for this all, Simon felt bad. Look ok, As much as Simon didn't show it.

He wasn't someone with 0 emotions. Simon obviously knew that Riz had suffered a lot. And he was more than partly at fault there.

Thus, Simon felt that he should at least apologize to Riz.

"Umm, So... Riz-"

Before Simon could even begin, Riz suddenly interrupted him.

"Who were those guys?!"

Riz, who seemed to have finally snapped back to reality shouted loudly.

"No- first of all, What in the world happened?!"

The random people on the streets began staring at them so Riz embarrassedly coughed, leaving Simon speechless.

'Ah... so energetic.'

Simon suddenly felt old. Riz's energetic reaction made him feel like an old grandpa who couldn't even be shocked at absurd things.

Well... maybe it had more to do with the fact that He had died, sent to a novel world, somehow become a hero with a cheesy nickname, and was apologizing to a middle-aged man for slapping him.

"..."

The absurdity was so absurd that Simon couldn't put how absurd it was even with the most absurd words.

Ahem Ahem,

Simon coughed before speaking.

"Well..."

Simon didn't know how he could explain it properly. So he just explained it like he was a simple passerby who got involved in the incident.

Of course, In doing so... Simon had just self-sabotaged his plans to apologize...

...

"...So what you are saying is that... You went to enjoy a holiday but instead killed more than a dozen of Arm's minions in the Marquis Alian's territory?"

Cale asked with a dumbfounded look.

"Yes..."

"And in doing so, You somehow gained a minion of your own?"

Cale's usually stoic face was just screaming 'How in the world does something like this happen?'. To which Simon could do nothing but nod while acting dumb.

"...Not exactly a minion-"

As Cale fell into a deathly silence, Simon thought about a few things.

It's been 15 days since the whole incident with Arm. Simon has slowly but surely upgraded his puppets to the same level as Zero.

So, You could say that he had just gone through a training arc.

Of course, His training was writing some things on a wooden doll, falling unconscious, waking up, resting for a few days, Rinse and repeat.

The whole process was very easy for Simon. And unlike the first day, Bob didn't follow any more shady men into shady alleys.

An improvement Simon was very proud of.

: So funny.

Bob sarcastically said but Simon just ignored it. He had a much greater thing to deal with right now.

And that was Cale.

Simon basically explained everything back to Cale. Everything except Bob's existence. So, when he said the story while just omitting that part...

It made him look like an idiot that just went for enjoying the holidays but instead fought some bad guys and earned a minion.

Oh by the way,

Riz had decided to work for Simon. Not like a complete minion. But after hearing everything, Riz decided to go under Simon, who was kind of a big deal as one of the Kingdom's two heroes.

: And that concludes the story of "That time my vacation turned into my training arc." Right?

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TO BE CONTINUED

ah... been a while fellas, and as much as I want to say many things. i wont actually say them since I wont be able to live upto my words...

so I will just prove if with my actions since istg none of you will believe me if I said I would upload consistently...

Also, thanks to those that constantly donated power stones to this fic and also thanks to ppl who have actually bothered to come back and read this stupid fanfic of mine TwT

anyways, Gn~ plus all power stones, reviews, and comments are gladly accepted...(Ik I am shameless)