I opened my eyes and looked outside, the sun had not rose yet and it was still dark outside, but I could still see the remains of the ruined city nearby confirming that I had actually been transported to a different world.
'Status'
A translucent blue window appeared in my vision, listing my attributes. The novel was my reality now and if I wanted to survive, I would have to learn to use mana which meant learning mana circulation techniques and spells but it was risky to try it before I was in the city. If I did something wrong and was unable to get to the city in time, I was mana beast food. There was a slight chance that the heroes would save me, but the chances were low and relying on them would be a mistake. For now, I had to do everything I could to ensure my own survival because I was afraid of being sent back to the void for eternity.
I began to prepare to leave, packing as many water bottles and boxes of food as I could and freshening up using the guilds bathroom which still had running water. Carrying the sheathed dagger on my hip, I climbed to the top of the guild building. Looking around I was able to spot a cluster of lights in the distance in a direction I assumed was north. That was most likely the city border which had strong spotlights to detect enemies approaching in the darkness. Going back down to the streets of the city I began walking in the direction of those lights.
I was now able to traverse the city at a faster rate than before, as I was getting used to my newfound strength and speed. At the pace I was traversing at, I would be able to reach the border within a day or two if I was not interrupted.
Moving through the city, I began to think about other possession novels and how the main character would behave in them. In most novels, the main character would use their knowledge of the novel to become stronger by using cheats meant for other characters. I had some ideas in mind, but I couldn't steal from the main characters of the novel, as if I made them weaker, the world would most likely be doomed even more than it already was. The idea that was the most feasible was stealing from the villains as I would make the opposing forces weaker and myself stronger but that was also tricky, as most villains were corrupt awakened who gained power by contracting with forbidden beings and lost their sanity in return and were mostly powerless beforehand. So, I had narrowed it down to two candidates.
First was Rollins who was a minor villain in volume 2, better known by his villain name 'Unseen Death' a sadistic individual who wielded one of the most dangerous dagger arts in the story and was only defeated due to his sadistic tendencies getting the better of him.
Second was Katz or the 'Devil Archer' a major villain in volume 3, who as the name suggests was a wielder of a bow art that allowed him to kill and severely damage a lot of the main characters party.
Both of these villains have chapters detailing their backstory in which they find their respective weapon arts and contract with a forbidden one in quest for more power. I could use this information to eliminate major threats while also bolstering personal strength.
As for learning mana circulation techniques and spell, I was not sure. It was essential to being an awakened but I either attempted to do it myself with vague descriptions from the novel or was taught by someone else. Both options were not favorable, as finding someone to teach me would be difficult and incorrect mana circulation could cause me to harm myself in the future. Whatever it was, I needed to figure it out soon.
After hours of traversing through the ruined city, I had made good progress and could barely see the guild building. The closer I got to the border the more the destruction had intensified as I could barely even tell that this area used to be a city but among the destruction, I could now see traces of dried blood. I wasn't taken aback, I was more surprised it had taken this long to find such traces.
I know from the prologue that multiple corrupt organizations began planning a surprise attack on Ironguard using a small force of higher-ranking individuals in the range of C-A rank. They amassed a force of around 20 such awakened but the Monarchy Of Steele and its hero organization had informants in these organizations and began evacuating the city by spreading fake news of a deadly natural disaster. By the time the assault by the corrupt awakened was ready to go, the city had been evacuated and the heroes had a counter force ready. The corrupt awakened were enraged by their plans being spoiled but began causing as much property damage as they could, razing the city to the ground in revenge for not being able to kill the civilians and heroes rushed out to stop them, resulting in a long battle of attrition that ended with the corrupt awakened mysteriously retreating.
Of course, the retreat was just them preparing the 'hell gates' to spawn hordes of corrupt mana beasts to make the city uninhabitable and deal a massive blow to the monarchy after having seemingly lost to them. I couldn't stop this as even if I were to warn the heroes of such a plan, they wouldn't believe me and would cast suspicion on me instead.
As I got closer to the border, I found large pools of dried blood that gave off a foul stench. This was most likely the result of a corrupt awakened being killed as their body disappears shortly after death, returning to the forbidden ones as nutrition. Only a short distance away from these pools I found a skeleton that was charred black wearing a suit of armor, the armor had melted and fused with the skeleton, there were pools of melted flesh beneath the skeleton and maggot like creatures were surrounding the corpse. From the looks of it a hero who had been hit with a fire spell far too strong for them to handle, incinerating them on the spot. It seemed I had found the main point of confrontation between the two sides as I found even more grotesque looking corpses.
There was a relatively fresh-looking corpse of a man wearing mage robes, whose body had been split in half with his torso and head being 4 feet away from his severed legs. Viscera was spread in between the two parts of the body with a large pool of blood. His spine protruded from his severed torso and his skin had many cuts on it indicating that he had fought for quite some time before falling.
I tried to avoid looking at them, but they were everywhere. One had been decapitated, the other had been drowned with water leaking from his agape mouth and one looked as if her face had been melted using acid as parts of her falling apart skin clung to her face.
I began running, these images burning into my mind. I closed my eyes to avoid looking at anymore corpse but in doing so I tripped and fell getting slight cuts on my hands and feet. Looking back on what I had tripped on was a severed head with an eyeball coming out from its socket.
That was the final straw as I knelt on the ground and emptied my stomach as I felt an awful burning sensation in my throat.
'Pathetic.'
If I wanted to survive here, I would have to get accustomed to seeing such things but here I was stumbling at the first obstacle. What the hell was I doing? I needed to get back up. If I stopped here, then I would just be returned to the void.
Standing up on wobbling feet I took a few minutes to collect myself before beginning to walk at a slow pace and tried to distance myself from the grotesque scenery but after taking just a few steps I stepped on what felt like a puddle.
*Splash*
'Fresh blood?'