Third Manual (1) - 8

The train was still moving when I woke up.

You see, as all the continents had combined together, even these futuristic bullet trains that could travel at about the speed of my previous world's airplanes couldn't help but take 36 hours to travel from one side of the continent to the other.

Seeing that I had caught up on my sleep, I thought about what I had to do at my next destination.

The town that I was going to was named Leonor, a town famous for its black magic users.

In this world, black magic was just any form of magic that was out of the norm, a taboo, looked down upon.

And because of this, 100 years ago, the empress at that time had issued a decree that stated that all black magic users or researchers had to move to this particular wasteland in the eastern part of the country, so that they wouldn't "interfere" with the daily lives of normal citizens, although this policy was literally just another way for the royal family to control more of the population, as when people were united in a way of thinking against a common enemy, they often became stronger and easier to influence.

Also, due to this separation, many black magicians grew "unique" personalities, which added to the fear factor to the public when they were shown videos of them.

I mean, in actuality, the black magicians weren't really doing anything bad, as they all had good enough morals to avoid human experimentation and such.

So, during my stay in Leonor, I wouldn't have to be wary of the black magicians, I would actually have to be wary about all the criminals that were hold up there.

You see, as regulations in the territory of Leonor were much more lax than the laws in other parts of the country, it became a huge magnet that drew in unsavories of all kinds.

The royal family had obviously known that this was going to happen, but turned a blind eye to all of it, kind of like their stance on "monster zones", due to the fact that it was better to know where exactly the parasites on your body were, then to have them running around freely, feeding off your blood.

(A/N: If you don't remember what monster zones are, there places where portals broke, and the government was too lazy to take care of the monsters coming out of them.)

That was also the reason why I was pretty confidant that the other transmigrator wouldn't even try to go here.

Of course, the only reason I dared to come here was because this body was very highly ranked for its age.

Most criminals were about in the (D) spectrum and I was ranked (D+), so I could deal with most people that tried to start trouble with me.

Also, to make this clear, not all bearers of angelic stigmas were good people and not all bearers of demonic stigmas were bad people, it was just a generalization that the author used to make the story easier to follow with a clearly defined "good" and "bad".

So now, you might be wondering, why the fuck is this guy going to what seems like a bat-shit crazy ass town?

Well, it was because I needed to get a certain form of black magic from here.

Again, to clear out misunderstanding, black magic wasn't dangerous or anything, it was just magic that was, I guess, more "experimental".

Black magicians tried to mess with the very concept of magic itself, oftentimes, completely destroying their own stigmas as their experiments were unusually prone to messing up, and as they couldn't experiment on other humans, they resorted to experimenting on themselves.

The black magic that I was trying to get was this type of "magic" that was so different, it couldn't even be called magic. It was also something that was never in the actual story, it was only described briefly in the auxiliary volume as a part of the world's lore.

So, or course, I would try to get this power.

Well, now that I had reviewed all the information that I had on Leonor, I tried to read my manual.

But, fuck it, I was literally brushing off every trace of dust that was falling on me and my mind was getting sooooo annoyed at all the dirtiness and imperfections on the train that I couldn't think straight.

'Okay, okay, keep your fucking shit together. Take a deep breath in, and then a deep breath out. Calm that damn mind of yours. Breath in, breath out. Repeat.'

Putting the manual down, I closed my eyes and started meditating, trying to think about things other than my OCD as I pondered in the darkness.

...

"Psssssccccchhhhhhh"

I rushed out of the train immediately after the doors opened.

Closing my eyes, I did my best to not even look at the outside world as I knew that Leonor was one heck of a dirty city.

Using my hearing, that was boosted by the sound stigma, I quickly ran towards a certain direction.

I passed by the vague outlines of alleyways, bars, and brothels before passing under the gate that led out of the city.

Luckily, during the whole time, I didn't meet anybody and it seemed like nobody was currently following me.

It took me another 30 minutes of running through the desolate wasteland before I arrived at a graveyard.

Opening my eyes for the first time, so that I could read the inscriptions, I winced, as I looked at the messiness all around me.

'Okay, don't think about that, just think about reading the tombstones and your goal.'

I searched around for a while, stopping sometimes to clean or order somethings before moving on again, until finally, I found the gravestone that I was looking for.

The only thing inscribed on it was a giant "L".

Channeling my spiritual energy into my fist, I punched through the tombstone, utterly destroying it.