Prologue

I'm currently on the way home on a rather gloomy rainy day from the nearest fast food joint I mustered up the courage to go to.

It was exhausting.

And i'm not even tired of the manual labor that is carrying a wet backpack full of individually wrapped packages of burgers responsible for all the recent diabete cases. Maybe i'll get lucky and have a heart attack today?

As i'm walking towards the prison that is my room, the thought of going back to repeat the cycle is enough to feed my brain the idea of going to my local park, and drowning myself in the lake.

Seriously, my life is just an endless cycle of waking up, going on my computer, writing spaghetti code for a company that couldn't give a rat's ass about me, stuffing my face with cow loins infused with the many chemicals nobody bothers to ask, spend the next 2 to 3 hours looking out my window, then ending the day by lying down next to my wife, who is currently a very soft pillow case of an overrated gacha game character i poured thousands of hours into.

Videogames don't even produce the happy brain chemicals like they used to.

I remember how I used to embark on sleepless nights microwaving myself mentally by gazing at the monitor in front of me for hundreds of hours trying to beat hard bosses and slamming my elbow onto my abused desk.

I've never had any friends, truth is I never knew how to even go about acquiring any.

And I have my parents to blame for that.

They never gave me the validation, the time of day, or any shred of thought throughout my childhood. My wellbeing was a chore to them, I could always tell. As a result, I had no one to talk to, no one to turn to, no one to look up to, and that may or may not have led me to becoming the awkward mess that is me.

I got throughout highschool just sitting blankly at my desk looking out the window at the local town idiot, who was some skinny old man, dance around a fire hydrant as if he was in some water park.

Heh, I'll never forget him.

I'm pretty sure everyone around me saw me as some insecure loser who preferred to be alone as to not embarrass themselves with their true nature.

And they would be correct.

I've never had a personality, I just went throughout my day the way an average NPC would, no thoughts, no motivations, no will.

Truly, I've lived my life in the most hollow way.

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I'm almost back home when a sudden shiny glint in the middle of the wet road catches my eye. And for the copious sake of seeing and experiencing something new, I decide to stroll onto the road to investigate.

Shiny objects where always something I've admired in games. Just the thought of turning a corner and having your curiosity rewarded with a shiny collectible was enough to make me feel all fuzzy and warm inside.

I kneel down in front of the shiny goodness, at this point in time nothing else exists.

I am in a trance.

I am in an absolute state of deep focus.

I am locked in.

I CANNOT afford to have this impactful moment of time be cut short or ruined in any way.

It's just me, the shiny object below me, and the loud noise of the rain hitting my shoulder and drooping onto the rough road below me.

I reach for it very slowly, for I want this moment to last.

When the sudden loud, ear piercing sound of a horn, penetrates my ear drums

I look over my shoulder behind me and move away the many strands of my wet, long black hair blocking my vision.

Before I have the time to even blink, I am met with the overwhelming, cold force of a large green truck ramming and sending me rolling along the wet road.

Blood drools down from my scalp and onto my right eye, clouding my vision in red.

The last thing I see and hear is the faint shimmer of the object I failed to inspect, and the wet hard footsteps of someone running towards me.

"Ah.. it's garbage day today.."

I utter my last words and drift off into the coldest, but comfiest sleep I'll ever have.

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A woman is running along a tight, dark corridor illuminated by torches in a panic.

She is carrying a small baby wrapped in warm, blue fabric. Crying at the maximum output its small lungs allow it to. It is however cut short as it looks up at the woman carrying it.

Before a blood curdling scream is forcibly let out from her throat as a scythe rips through the many skin layers holding her stomach together before she falls face first onto the cold dusty bricked ground

The baby is dropped onto the hard surface, embraced in the many layers of soft cotton enveloping its small body.

The blood pools from the discarded woman's stomach and meets around the edges of the blue fabric.

Then suddenly, a crimson portal materializes from the ground in front of the baby, and out slowly ascends a hooded figure.

It is wrapped in a dark red robe, with runes engraved along its chest area.

with a shift in its arms and boney fingers, it unmasks itself.

It is a skull, with a fiery haunting red glow within its empty eye sockets, with long horns protruding from its head.

It suddenly reaches out with its long schyte, shimmering with an ominous red glow, blood dripping from the edge, before reaching down and making contact with the baby's small right hand.

"You are now.. marked with death.."

It speaks out in an otherworldly echo, the force of its voice causing the torches along the dark, blue bricked walls to flicker, briefly causing the corridor to be embraced in a darkness.

The red portal below the otherworldly horror slowly closes as it descends, leaving the baby and the soulless corpse of the woman in isolation within the corridor.

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"WAAAHH! WAAAAHHH! WAAAHHH!!!"

What the hell? Whose damn baby is making this much ruckus on a Wednesday morning??

I open my eyes, and instead of being greeted by my loving pillow wife next to me, I soon realize that it is in fact coming from me, as I am being carried.

Oh right, I got headbutted by a garbage truck and am now paying for my carelessness in the form of getting taken along a dark corridor by a woman as if she has abducted her newborn after realizing it belonged to the one she cheated with, and not her husband.

Hol' up.

Before I even have the time to run that paragraph by me again, I am met with the hard surface of the bricked ground smacking against my head as I am suddenly dropped onto it.

Dude, that hurt.

But I am miraculously more or less left unharmed, as the warmth of the blue cloth is shielding my milky white smooth skin.

I start to attempt to gather my thoughts, but of course those are cut short as some weirdo in a hood appears in front of me from a badass red portal.

I look up at it to wander what this hoodlum wants with my poor innocence.

It unmasks itself to reveal it is a skeleton.. or a necromancer.. or maybe even some nameless wizard playing a prank on me, but that thought instantly perished as I look back at my kidnapper just dying behind me.

Damn.

It suddenly reaches out with its nasty, rusty schyte, and onto the perfect skin of my right hand.

The audacity...

It's pretty strange, I didn't feel any initial pain or even a scratch, it felt like one of those feelings where you're lying in bed, and the ghost of the cockroach you killed 4 hours ago with your grandmother's sandal returned with a burning vengeance, crawling up your thigh, only to not be there when you try smacking it away.

Spooky stuff.

As I'm studying the weird mark on my right hand, the wizard skeleton man thing says something about 'death' and i feel a gust of wind or something. I really don't know; I'm just trying to find out why the doodle on my right hand tickles so much.

I look back up and it's gone, poof, out of here.

I'd like to start studying my situation and see if I can come to the conclusion if this is all just some dream that is nanoseconds from ending before I'm thrown back onto my bed next to the wife.. who probably misses me very much.

But right now, I'd really like to get out here.

The ground is cold.

I roll onto my side and hear an audible *CRUNCH*

I shift to my other side and find the scattered remains of a cockroach in between the ground and my butt.

Christ.

This is not okay.

I've never been one to make friends with bugs despite my crippling loneliness. Bugs are something I will absolutely despise no matter how many emotions I'll start to lose over time from my hollow life.

Disgusting vermin.

What? Is this god's way of punishing me? Am I being played like a fiddle by being dropped onto this unsanitary establishment? Am I being laughed at from beyond as I'm wiping away the corpse of a creepy crawly on my elegant skin?

I won't stand for this.

The corridor lights up faintly in a red hue that sticks to the blue bricked walls. And the reason this is happening, is because the mark on my right hand is currently glowing, and frankly, almost gave me a heart attack.

I Suddenly start to feel lighter, a kind of warmth spreads throughout my body.

The sensation becomes muffled however, as my senses focus on something else, something tingly crawling up my arm.

A look of absolute disgust crosses my face as I smack yet another crawly that's taking a stroll on my arm, leaving a stinging sensation from the amount of unecessary force I used.

If I have to die here with all these pests hiding in the crevices of this shithole I-

Another sudden warmth envelopes within me. And the stinging sensation I felt seconds ago is gone.

Something crosses my mind.

Am I... absorbing them? Ther life essence? Or perhaps. their soul-

My thoughts are cut yet again, as the sound of heavy footsteps echo from beyond the darkness just ahead from this wretched corridor.

And out, comes a man.

He is wearing a brown coat, something pretty vintage, weirdly enough.

He's also got silver knight gloves that go up his arms.

He's also got a golden cross necklace hanging from his neck.

Oh, and he's got a pretty sick great sword on his back, pretty banging stuff.

His long gray hair sways as he looks down at me, a mixed look of confusion, fascination and horror takes over his face as he kneels down to inspect me.

See, I would have cried right now at the top of my lungs from the sight of this weirdo who's intentions I do not know in hopes some fellow adventurer will come in and swoop me before seeking human resources, but there are 3 things holding me back.

1, My lungs are exhausted. There's no telling just how long I've been crying before I gained consciousness onto this body.

2, I don't want to alarm any other monsters that could be within this area. I've more or less accepted that I'm in some fantasy world judging from that skeleton wizard hobo that vandalized my pristine porcelain skin with its filth.

And 3, I've much rather have this man approach me than said skeleton wizard hobo, so i'm just not gonna complain.

He kneels and picks me up gently.

"You... poor child..."

He takes a brief glance next to me, at the woman's entrails leaking out of her stomach and the pool of blood drying on the brick floor and covers my eyes with his hand.

It's a little too late for that don't you think?

"I will protect you... have no fear child..."

He grabs onto the blue cloth and wraps it around me as he starts walking back the direction he came. I breathe out a sigh of relief at the thought of leaving this VERMIN infested place.

There are still some things I need to ask and answer for myself. Like why I was even chosen to inhabit the body of a baby, or how long this dream is gonna last if it even is one.

Or why god would hate me to the point of having my innocence defiled by dungeon bugs.

Or why the mark on my hand still tickles.

For now, I'll sleep it off, having to go trough all this debauchery as an infant WILL tire you out.

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*THUNK* 

*THUNK*

The echoes of hard boots against the rough ground echo throughout the dungeon. A man carrying a heavy sword traverses the dimly lit corridor.

He clenches his hard, silver coated fists, as he recalls the duty given to him by the King.

He has a target he needs to eliminate, and sources lead to the corridor he finds himself in.

"I... am duty bound..." 

The thought of serving the King, the mortal above all mortals, fuels his determination.

If killing his given target will indeed prevent a 3rd calamity from being unleashed upon the Luthran Kingdom, then so be it. He will stop at nothing to pursue the taste of glory it will bring to the King and his subjects. For the target is the threat of all mortal kind.

The imminent danger to all of god's creation.

The sound of moving chain emanates from the pure gold necklace that proudly embraces his throat. For being someone that possesses a cross necklace, is a symbol that you don't fight for yourself, you fight for all that is holy, for all that you were given despite being undeserving.

A loud blood curdling, ear deafening scream echos from the darkness ahead

"Am I too late...?"

The man dashes ahead in a sudden burst of holy light that pools around his feet.

He swiftly navigates the dark, torch illuminated corridor in a fierce will.

Suddenly, he stops.

A dark, suffocating presence manifests from within the hallway.

"What?!"

When was the last time he's felt such inner turmoil?

Such a cruel, unyielding force that has him on pause? 

Then... he looks back 20 years ago, on the day of the 2nd calamity.

He gathers his hardened will.

"For the King"

FWOOSH.

He resumes on his conquest to conquer the subjects of the Devil.

He swoops through the empty hallways that showed no signs of having any type of mortal life present.

He stops.

The presence of pure evil is gone. 

Just vanished, with no trace.

What lay before him was a sight not meant for any mortal.

A baby, wrapped in a blue cloth, looking back up at him in innocent confusion.

And what remained of a now deceased woman.

Her stomach, cut open, her intestines spilled forth for anyone to see.

The man fought the urge to gag, as he picked up the abandoned baby, wrapping it with the blue cloth, and making haste out of the contaminated corridor.

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He ascends the cold, rough staircase.

Once outside, the man breathed a sigh of peace, he may not have found who he was sent to eliminate, but he saved a life.

He gazes up into the night sky, and onto the grand cathedral that was nestled high up in between the clouds. It stood big, and far from any mortal reach. A testament of its sheer presence upon all of god's creation.

Suddenly, something caught the man's eye as the baby sleeping peacefully in his arms shifted.

His eyes widened.

"A..rune? A.. a red rune? I've never seen anything quite like this..."

Such thing exists?

No, that shouldn't be the case, there is no such thing as a red rune. 

A rune is something commonly owned by those that live in power and godhood.

But a red rune was something that wasn't logged within the Luthran Kingdom's grand archive. 

It shouldn't be from this world.

The man tensed briefly as the baby opened its eyes faintly, he saw nothing in those hollowed gray eyes. Nothing but emptiness, and a deep sadness, before it closed its eyes again to resume its slumber.

Within those seconds, he saw something.

Salvation.

He saw potential.

A longing.

If he were to raise this boy as his own, and have it attend the Kingdom's divine academy, would it too become a Paladin?

A knight of the order of the King's Will?

As he navigated through the ruins of the now empty and destroyed Kingdom of Alvara, he couldn't help but wonder...

"Is this the only way...?"

Could he really be the key? 

Could he really be the next mortal among mortals?

And if so, would mankind be free? 

He cleared his head and resumed his journey back to the Kingdom of Luthran. Enveloped by a sacred light emanating from him. One of the miracles granted by the King himself that wards off any horrible monster or creature of the night.

The journey back would be a long one, but for now, he'd bask in the quiet embrace of moonlight.