Young Master's PoV: Woke Up As A Villain In A Game One Day - Chapter 343: Conviction Of A Hero [I]

Chapter 343: Conviction Of A Hero [I]

The sky was so beautiful.

Although he could only see small slivers of it through the dense, interlocking canopy that blocked the view, lying there on the forest floor atop a soft carpet of underbrush and rotting leaves… Vince had no doubt in his heart that the sky was, indeed, so beautiful.

That particular crimson shade of the atmosphere reminded him of his little sister. It was her favorite color.

Or it hadbeen, at least, back when he actually knew her.

He didn’t know anything anymore.

“Agrh– Khwaa!”

A few broken coughs scraped out of his parched throat, tasting of dust.

His limbs were numb, his left ankle was bent at an angle that hurt like hell, his right hand was twisted painfully beneath his weight, and his back was sharply throbbing in spots that felt like daggers to his flesh.

He was genuinely surprised he hadn’t broken every single bone in his body. Or perhaps he had, and the shock was simply too much for him to notice the full damage yet.

He tried to shift, but gave up instantly with a pathetic sob. Okay. Something was definitely broken.

Not wasting another second, he fumbled into his quick-access pocket and fished out a couple of Cards, equipping them into his Soul Arsenal.

A moment later, they were drawn and activated.

Some of them numbed the rending pain like anesthesia, while others gave him a frantic surge of artificial strength so he could valiantly grit through the agony and stand back up.

And stand back up he did.

Even though every single vertebra in his spine protested the motion, even though every drop of blood in his veins felt like coursing liquid fire, he pushed himself upright.

Leaning heavily against the gnarled, moss-slicked trunk of a tree nearby that stood taller than a watchtower, he took a few deep breaths.

For whatever reason, this situation reminded him of his little brother.

His memory hit Vince harder than Michael’s kick.

He could almost see that little gremlin bouncing on the edge of the sofa, eyes wide and reflecting the glow of the TV screen.

That boy used to love those cliché stories where the righteous hero was senselessly beaten into the dirt, bruised and bloody, only to find some hidden reservoir of determination — or realize the power of friendship — and rise for one last round.

Back then, Vince used to roll his eyes at his little brother’s naive excitement…

Now, he couldn’t help but choke on a dry laugh.

Suddenly, a rustling and the sharp snap of twigs from the large ferns up ahead drew his gaze. An imposing figure, clad in battered dark armor, emerged from the greenery.

Michael’s busted arm was hanging uselessly at his side, so he now gripped his shadowy longsword with a white-knuckled intensity in his other hand.

The flesh on the left side of his face was still scorched and bleeding in patches, but his ashen eyes held a menacing glint as they locked onto their target.

But that target didn’t care.

Vince Cleverly kept looking up at the sky.

“I wonder what they’re doing right now,” he sighed, finally dispatching his Origin Card as Michael began taking deliberate steps toward him. “I wonder if they’re happy. They were the last time I saw them.”

That memory was the ghost that haunted him every waking hour.

He wished he could go back and muster enough courage to confess he was not a stranger, confess that he was their one and only elder brother.

He wished he hadn’t been such a coward.

He wished he hadn’t run away.

Drip—

A single tear streamed down his face… then another, then another, then another.

Drip, Drip, Drip—

They traced salty paths through the grime on his cheeks before falling into the dirt.

After a second, once Michael was within striking distance, Vince wiped his eyes with a blood-smeared sleeve. He didn’t look anything like those righteous heroes from his brother’s favorite movies — not with his tattered clothes and shaky knees.

He wondered if those heroes ever felt as terrified as he did right now, or if they were just better at hiding the fear… like he was trying to be?

He smiled. It was a toothy, defiant smile.

What did it matter?

Whether they were scared or not, they pushed through and fought. He would have to do the same.

In that regard, how was a hero’s conviction any different from someone like him?

He finally lowered his gaze to meet the dark figure of the young man who looked like an evil villain of an ill-fated fairytale.

“I’m not going to die,” Vince declared, lifting his arms to assume a shuddering fighting stance just as Michael raised his blade and prepared to charge. “I’ll go back… and I’ll have my happy ending. I’ll take my happy ending!”

Michael blurred, appearing in front of the blue-haired boy before Vince’s brain could even register the displacement of air.

…But Vince had already played his final trump card.

In that exact moment, he had made a self-imposed vow to not use his innate power for the remainder of this entire journey.

Meaning he would not call upon his Origin Card as long as he was going to be in the Noctveil Wilds, be it ten days or a month or forever.

It was an indefinite pact.

And it was the strongest pact he could have possibly made.

Why?

Well, to understand that, you’d have to first understand how Vince’s vows worked. They weren’t just magic words or empty promises that you could just utter and get a power-up.

You had to sacrifice something proportional to gain something in return. As such, the more unfair a pact was to you, the bigger a power-up you’d gain.

For example, if Vince was at home, safe and sound, giving up his power for days would still grant him only a negligible boost because he wasn’t truly risking anything.

But in a literal Death Zone, taking an oath to remain powerless for even a few hours would give him a drastic buff.

So in a place like that, where his life was forever in danger, he’d chosen to shed his main weapon for as long as he was there.

The conditions of the pact were everything.

And just now, Vince had gambled his entire survival… for just ten seconds of unparalleled dominance.

Yeah, on top of vowing to not use his powers in the Noctveil Wilds until he’d leave, he had also put a time limit on himself. A time limit of ten mere seconds.

The pact wasn’t just unfair, it was overwhelmingly unreasonable.

Michael’s shadowy blade was already mid-swing, inching toward Vince’s neck at a speed that would have been utterly incomprehensible to any C-ranker.

…Yet, Vince reacted.

That was because the fundamental gap between a C-rank and a B-rank wasn’t just their physique — albeit their physique was definitely enhanced as well — it was the mastery of Essence.

It was only because of reinforcing their bodies with Essence that B-rankers were capable of tanking hits strong enough to split entire boulders and move at the speed of sound.

A C-ranker, even with a Circulation Technique, couldn’t match that because they couldn’t truly feel the world on the level of their ascended counterparts.

They couldn’t feel Essence.

But right now, due to the pact Vince had made, his body was performing at such a transcendent level that it instinctively began to feel and manipulate Essence without the need for a Circulation Technique at all!

In simple words, for the duration of these ten seconds, Vince Cleverly was physically on par with an actual B-rank in every physical aspect save for the size of his Essence reserve.

The shadowy blade slowed to a crawl in his perception. He ducked under it and retaliated with a barrage of palm strikes into Michael’s exposed chest.

THAK, THAK, THAK—!!