He waited in that hole for about five hours. He could not hear much because his ears were underground. All he had heard was the beast pass by, and that was it, no screams of pain or anything. He didn’t see anything either. The village was quite far away from where he was hiding in the ground anyways, he doubted he would hear anything.

He slowly lifted his head above the ground so that his eyes were clear. He opened them and tried to look around.

He blinked until they were clear, then proceeded to look around with his eyes, not moving his head. He could see no sign of the giant beast anywhere. There was some blood a bit farther away.

The little church choir was probably dead.

He lifted his head until it was fully out of the ground and strained his ears to listen for any signs of life.

Hoot-

“FUCK!”

That scared the shit out of him. He looked to where he heard the hoot. It was the same damned owl from earlier. He gave it the middle finger as he struggled to get out of the hole.

He looked around once more, then inspected his body. His veins were still under his skin. They were just so visible since he assumed that his blood had turned into that black substance that fell out of Nona’s mask. Nona had given him Blight. Which means that she had Blight.

He sat on his rump and began to go over what was going on. And what he would do next.

Blight was infectious. How Blight was an affinity exactly, he did not know. But whatever the interface was, classified it as such. Blight turned people into monsters, or so the church says. Nona did not seem like that much of a monster to him. She was still civil. The monster part is pretty compelling though, these veins were not making him look any younger. Blight cuts off mana. As in, you start channeling mana, and the closer it comes to completion, the more effort it takes. Eventually, failing to channel mana to complete the skill or spell. It’s like the mana used to be a clear flowing stream and turns into tar, becoming harder to move and becomes solid near completion.

Blight makes it almost impossible to use magic. This is why a Ronin class is such a good matchup for someone who has Blight. He does not know the specifics of how a Ronin fights without using mana. Perhaps they just gain more stats than normal classes and use their natural swordplay to win fights. That seemed logical, but that class was still at a disadvantage. Skills could do impossible things like move someone very fast forward and boost arm strength for a second to create a superhuman stab. Not to mention more magical effects, such as drawing an enemy’s attention to yourself, along with allowing a sword to phase through a blade blocking it, allowing the wielder to slash through a block. Some effects just can be emulated no matter how skilled a person is.

Back to himself now. Why are his stats so high? He went over all the factors in his head and only one stood out as the probable cause.

It could not be the Perpetual affinity as he had been told many times that it was garbage that just drained him of mana whenever he used it. It must be the Blight. Blight turns people into “monsters”, and if it’s one thing he knew about monsters, it was that they were strong. Blight must be an affinity that stops mana but boosts physical stats through modification of the body. The origin of Blight must be so powerful that it changes the body to fit its law. Case in point, black blood, very weird. That blood must be packed full of fantasy world goodness to nourish his body and make him stronger. Blight will probably even make more changes to his body if the affinity levels up and get’s closer to the origin of itself.

Nona had Blight and she was freakishly tall. Maybe he would grow to be that tall, possibly even taller for all he knew. He could grow to be 2.75 meters, 9.0 feet, tall, the average height of a male Asian elephant.

He had just come across a possible solution to his dilemma. To dumb it down for himself, positive plus negative equals neutral.

He nodded his head to himself then stood up, dusting himself off.

“Time to get my loot on.”

He headed towards the village, following a trail of bloodstains. He came across a helmet on his trek back, it looked to have come from the lead paladin.

“First loot of the day.”

He bent down to pick it up and put it on his head.

Squish

“Eeew.”

When he had tried to put it on his head, it wouldn’t go on. Turns out this guy had been decapitated. He shook the blood and gore out of his hair, then grabbed the spine that was left and pulled the head out of the helmet.

He tried again.

“It fits! But it limits my field of vision... I don’t need it.”

He threw the helmet to the side and kept walking. He found the paladin’s body just a little ways away. He searched it looking for the spatial bag he thought they would have. He found a plain-looking black satchel that seemed to be it. He could not see any other bags so it must be it.

He reached inside and pulled out a rubber duck.

“Uhh. Not what I was hoping for. Also, do they even have ducks here? Maybe there’s some in the capital.”

He reached inside again and pulled out a long spear.

“Ok, definitely a spatial bag. Since I don’t know what’s in it and just reaching randomly, it must be giving me random things. I’ll just keep pulling things out to see what I got.”

He nodded to himself and began to pull things out of the bag. A sword, another sword, three more swords.

When he finally emptied it he was excited.

He was looking at twenty assorted weapons, five shields, and about three months’ worth of food. Also, a couple of class books for some reason? The guy must have been a collector. Along with other miscellaneous items.

He kept walking towards the village and he thought along the way.

He remembered what they did to him. He can’t believe he had forgotten. Maybe the Blight had something to do with him remembering. As soon as he got it, the memories had come rushing back. The gods of this universe just loved to be loved. They suppressed any negative thoughts about them throughout their respective planets. They don’t enjoy playing with souls from their universe, but they had no qualms about playing with his. That is how he had gotten here. The gods had pulled his soul from his universe into this one of magic. Then they had tortured his soul for their amusement. He also remembered them explaining exactly what would happen to him when they were done with him. Psychological torture. He remembered he had been completely broken by then. They had told him they would send him to a world of magic, but with his damaged soul, his affinity would be useless and everyone who lived there would spit on him. Just thinking about their smiling faces made him want to gouge their eyes out.

“I’m starting to like this affinity more and more, ha.”

Thanks to this Blight, he could remember that he had to kill those bastards.

“I will kill the gods.”

He was way too weak to do anything against them now.

As it turned out, a God was watching him. But not one from that universe, but one from the universe containing earth.

“You get ‘em, kid.”

This was a minor god that just happened to catch a glimpse of Zelhauts soul getting stolen. Of course, there was nothing he could do about it. He was just a minor god in a minor universe. But what he could do, was enjoy the show.

The God popped over to earth to say hi to a fellow minor god.

“Hey Zeus, got some of those famous earth snacks?”

“Seese, can you not send a note before coming by? I’m busy.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Fine, I’m not that busy. So what do you want?”

“I just said it didn’t I? Snacks.”

“You just want snacks?”

“Yeah. Also, do you want to enjoy the show of your boy?”

“You mean that kid the others snatched from my planet a few years ago? He’s not dead yet?”

“No, no, he’s still alive. It also looks like we got a fighter on our hands.”

“Ooh. Sure, that sounds like fun.”

Zeus conjured a couch and he and Seese sat down.

“Popcorn?”

“I’m more of a chips fan myself.”

While all of this was happening far away, Zelhaut finally arrived at the village.

“Whistle.”

He had never quite mastered how to whistle. So he just said it instead.

The village was destroyed. Every building was knocked over, even his shack.

He took some rope out of his spatial bag and put it on his shoulder. He also got a rapier out and carried it with his other arm. He walked among the rubble searching for survivors and anything of value.

“Help me.”

A weak voice was coming from up ahead. He walked forwards towards the source of the voice and found Slaver A with a gash across his chest. He looked to be saveable if he bandaged it right away.

“Zelhaut, get down here now and bandage m-

He was interrupted by a point sticking through his heart.

He had tried to aim the rapier at the gash so the wound would be less noticeable.

Once he was dead he moved on, killing anybody left, aiming for open wounds to try and convince people that the beast did it. He collected any food or coin that he came across. Much of the food had been ruined, a shame.

While finishing his search he headed towards the church to find Maelstront. It was in ruins as well but with quite a few more survivors.

He was currently finishing off the survivors when he found his target in what used to be the prayer room. He was looking almost dead but was still alive.

Zelhaut put the rapier away and took hold of the rope. He looped it around Maelstronts neck and pulled tight. Maelstront began kicking, fighting against the rope trying to break free.

“Still got some fight in you? I thought about stabbing you, but I have to allow for at least one indulgence, right old pal.”

Maelstront continued to struggle for a few minutes and then went limp. He kept the pressure on a few minutes more to make sure he was dead than let him drop to the floor.

“That. Felt. GREAT!”

He was all smiles as he got the rush of satisfaction from such a personal form of murder for someone he hated.

“Do bodies fit in here?”

It turned out that this spatial bag did fit bodies. What a plus. He was a bit worried though. He did not see Lily or Jack among the bodies.

“Well, nothing I can do about it.”

He walked back towards his ex-grave and re-dug the hole. Then dumped Maelstront in there and covered him up.

“Onwards and eastwards.”

He set off to the east towards the old forest.