The Game of a Blood Mage

Chapter 92

Title: New People…

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A small group of twenty people traveled over the unforgiving land of the Wayne Kingdom. At the head of the group was a dead-eyed female with disheveled dark hair, and even though her face was sunken in there was still a semblance of her past beauty.

"Nymeria, it feels like we have been walking for days, yet there has been nothing but monstrous trees and animals that have attacked us," complained one of the men in the group. His face was sunken in too and he looked like a walking skeleton. "We… is this Soul Sect even real? Maybe-"

"You are talking as if we have a choice," the leader of the group, known as Nymeria interrupted the man. "We will die either way, so the least we can do is to move with a purpose. There can't be just endless wastelands with no hope in this world."

Though she said that, Nymeria herself was worried about the situation too. 'Some of the people have already starved to death. The children were the first to die, I wish we had been infected from the beginning. That way we wouldn't have to suffer anymore. No one speaks of what we had to do to the corpses to survive. Some ate their wives and sisters due to hunger, only the children's corpses were left intact, no one had the heart to do anything to them. Even with starvation clouding our minds and making us go mad.'

Hunger and thirst had made them vomit acts that they never would have dared to do before. Most of them vomited suicide by now, the ones here were those with the strongest wills and desire to survive.

Everything around them had become poisoned, the plants were no longer edible, and rarely any of the water drinkables either. The animals who were able to resist the corruption are too strong for them to hunt. There was no food...

Suddenly, they saw a person walking in the distance, it was a silver-haired woman. Her beauty was visible even from so far away, and the men immediately got excited. They hadn't become monsters enough to rape another person, they were desperate and a source of food just who seemed uncorrupted showed itself.

As the woman came closer the weird thing that Nymeria noticed at first was that while the other woman seemed to walk normally, her speed was unnatural. She moved too fast for someone just walking normally.

In an instant, she was close enough and her figure was clear. The first thing that everyone noticed was just how unnaturally beautiful the woman was.

"Target sighted," said the woman in a monotone voice. "Conditions, starving, dehydration, depression, survival tactic… cannibalism."

Everyone froze in an instant, though they might be a little delirious from hunger… everyone knew that this kind of information gathering was unnatural. The woman in front of the most likely had supernatural powers, if she was a Rank 1 Warrior, then a dozen or so people could defeat her. But she seemed more like a Mage and that would be troublesome to deal with even at her weakest Rank 1. Because, unlike warriors, Mages kept their distance and shot out spells so normal people couldn't do anything against them until their Mana ran out.

"My name is Zweihundert, and I am from the Soul Sect," her words brought relief to everyone as some dropped to their knees with relief.

'Our journey hasn't been for nothing.' Nymeria dropped to her knees.

"Now we will move into group transportation," a crack in space appeared, and out of it came a giant crocodile that seemed to be fused with a house. "Also, I have a final question..."

At this the group got nervous. After all, they had done some of the worst kind out there. No one would want to live with a cannibal in close vicinity.

"This…"

"There is no way we can tell the truth."

"We will be thrown out immediately."

Everyone whispered amongst themselves, it wasn't something they could contend with any longer. It had developed into a situation where they might not just be saved, but killed too.

"The question is, does anyone amongst you have a Special Skill or Ability?" Asked the homunculi, surprising everyone else.

Nymeria stepped forward. "I do, though I am unranked and can't use either Mana or Ki, I can create barriers."

Zweihundert nodded. "That is good, get in."

The crocodile's mouth opened and it revealed a door inside of it. Everyone was surprised by this but didn't refuse the homunculi as she walked in first.

"This place is called a transport house," said Zweihundert. "It is an inanimate object fused with a Rank 4 Monster."

Once everyone went inside and they were amazed. Nymeria couldn't tell that they were inside a monster, it looked more like a luxurious house than a carriage. There were even baskets of fruits and a full feast was on the table.

"So this is the work of Thousand Spell Blood Mage?" Muttered Nymeria, catching the attention of Zweihundert.

"Ah, master has many nicknames, but his real name is Alex," the homunculi said with an emotionless face, but in her eyes was a strange sense of pride. "He told me that himself and said that I could call him by name when alone."

Nymeria didn't say anything but could tell that this was something that should have been kept just between Zweihundert and the Blood Mage.

But at least made him seem a little more approachable, and more like a normal person in Nymeria's eyes. Also, she now planned to get as close as she could to Zweihundert, after all, the Blood Mage seemed to be quite close to her.

Though neither of them knew that Alex had said to every homunculus that they could call him by name when alone. To him… none of them were necessarily special as he could create another one easily.

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At the same time, in the deepest part of the Soul Sect, Alex oversaw some documents in his office/lab as homunculi were born from the dozens of capsules at the other side of the room. They moved synchronized and in a robotic manner at first, even Alex didn't know how to create emotions, though he already gave them sentience and the knowledge they needed.

'True sentience can only be gained by interacting with other people, that is how kids learn and how the homunculi will learn. Essentially they are kids… no, they are grownups who haven't interacted with anyone for their whole life.' Alex concluded as he read a report on how much grain they had made. Most boring paperwork was done by other people below him, so he usually just oversees the final result.

*bzzzzt*

Suddenly a holographic screen came to life in front of him, and a homunculus with its signature red eyes and silver hair was on the other side. "Sir, I would like to report that a group of people has approached us. They are men who were forced into cannibalism due to hunger, how do we deal with them?"

"We bring them on board of course," Alex said as if it was obvious. Though in movies people liked to criticize the cannibals, usually hunger would lead most of them to suicide, cannibalism would be just something that they were forced to do. 'But once they get enough food in their stomach, each of them will feel disgusted at what they have done. Traumatized people are not useful. So how do I take care of this?'

His mind worked at incredible speeds as he tried to discover these things. Normally the right answer would be to give those people professional psychological help or assign a psychiatrist. None of which were a realistic approach to the situation, not only don't psychiatrists exist in this world or aren't widely known. But why would Alex even try to help the people by getting them professional help? After all, he was only worried about how well they could do their jobs and how soon they would start working. Having freeloaders wasn't something a group in an apocalyptic situation could accept.

By now though, Alex already knew what had happened due to the spy artifact he had inside every homunculus. Each of them was like his eyes, what they knew he would also know. After all, what Alex chased after was true sentience from his creations and that meant one day one of the homunculi would betray him.

'Just like the Devil betrayed God. The day one of the homunculi betrays me, that will be the happiest moment in my life. I had done something that only God could do.' Alex had a different notion of God, unlike the people in this world who had a symbiotic relationship with Gods who each of the Deities had to give a part of their powers to the priests for their miracles to appear in the mortal realm.

After all, why would someone follow a God if they didn't give you something in return? Everyone would choose a God that would give them help instead of one who wouldn't.

Though all of this was different with Alex, in his view God is someone who knew everything and was all-powerful.

In this world, the closest existence to that was what he remembered from the Game as flavor text.¹ The Overgod, someone who made sure the Gods played by their rules and didn't do something out of their niche. That was why no God of good ever dared to do something evil or go against its pantheon. A God of Nature would never burn down a forest, and a God of Peace could never purposefully create War.

Though now that the world had become reality, the Overgod had become something that Alex was very intrigued about.

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*Flavor Text¹ - Lore in the game that doesn't have an impact on the gameplay and was only there to give the world more depth.

A/N: Did the text come out okay as I uploaded this my PC? I usually upload chapters with my mobile phone, so if anything is wrong, tell me.