The leader's lips slowly curled upward once more, though this time there was no humor left in his expression.

"So you really are the ruby-eyed monster, Lucen Thornehart," he said, his voice low and rough, as if he were forcing the words through clenched teeth. "That explains why five of my men fell so quickly."

He held up the small object he had taken from his pocket. It was a dark red pill, almost black in the dim light of the alley, with faint silver lines running across its surface like cracked veins.

Jay's eyes widened the second he saw it, and he shouted. "Are you insane!"

The leader ignored him completely. He kept his gaze fixed on Lucen as he rolled the pill between two fingers.

"I would never expect that I would need to use this thing here. Then again, I was not expecting to run into the ever-victorious himself in some filthy alley because of this rat."

Lucen's eyes narrowed. He had seen a similar pill before, back when this world was a game. It was similar to the pill that a few desperate students would take in chapter two of the game, bought from Edrim Lysark, the boss of chapter two.

Still, the pill was not completely the same as the one in the game, and as for Edrim Lysark, he was no longer part of the equation, as he left Norvaegard a few years ago to seek his fortunes elsewhere.

'Still, he could have returned or sent a proxy... It is also possible that due to my intervention in certain events, a different person started selling the drug... Now that I think about it, even in the game we never did learn who the original creator of the drug was.'

While Lucen was thinking, the leader gave a crooked grin and spoke as though introducing himself properly for the first time.

"My name is Gared." He tapped his chest lightly with the hand holding the pill.

"Gared Voss. You should remember it, Lucen Thornehart, because I am the man who is about to beat the ruby-eyed monster into the ground, and end your legend of being ever-victorious."

"Heh, what a third-rate villain line," Lucen spoke with amusement.

Gared's grin twitched when he heard Lucen's words, but instead of growing angry immediately, he started laughing.

It was not the laughter of someone who had been mocked and lost face. It was the laughter of someone who had already decided that the other party would soon regret every word they had said.

"Maybe it is," Gared replied, his voice filled with a strange excitement. "Still, even a third-rate villain only needs enough strength to crush a hero."

Without another word, Gared tossed the pill into his mouth and bit down. The moment the pill shattered between his teeth, Jay's face lost even more color.

"He really ate it..." Jay muttered, his voice trembling.

For a brief moment, nothing happened. Then Gared's body suddenly jerked.

The hand holding his weapon tightened so hard that veins bulged along the back of it. His shoulders trembled violently, and a harsh, animal-like sound escaped his throat. It was as though something inside his body had been forced awake and was now rampaging through his flesh.

Lucen's eyes narrowed even further. He could feel it. The pressure around Gared was rising.

It was not the smooth and steady pressure of a warrior who had trained his aura through years of discipline, battle, and hardship.

It was rough, unstable, and violent, like a flood breaking through a dam that had not been prepared to hold it.

Gared lowered his head, and when he lifted it again, his eyes had already turned bloodshot. A murky aura burst from his body.

The stones beneath his feet cracked with sharp sounds, and the walls of the alley trembled slightly under the sudden pressure.

His rank shot up from someone at the first mantle into one at the third mantle, though the aura coating him was not clean.

It flickered in ugly waves, thick and violent, as if it had been dragged out of his body by force rather than awakened properly. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Not only that, but even his body seemed to have grown quite a bit; his muscles looked like they were about to explode.

'The effects of that pill are slightly similar to the game, but also different. His current state looks like when I use RELEASE, but unlike my technique, this one is just being forced out of him.' Lucen analyzed the current situation, and he became even more focused than before.

At the same time, Jay, who had been standing frozen in fear, finally found his voice again.

"T-That thing drags everything out by force," Jay said hurriedly, his words coming out almost as if he were choking on them. "Strength, speed, aura, all of it. It pulls out power that the body was never meant to handle. The more he uses it, the more his mind gets eaten away."

Lysette's deep blue eyes remained fixed on Gared. Her fingers tightened around the hilt of the short sword hidden at the back of her dress, but her expression stayed calm.

"To gain power in such a way. How unsightly," she spoke, looking at Gared with utter disgust.

Gared's bloodshot eyes snapped toward her, and for a brief moment, the madness within them flared even brighter.

"Unsightly?" Gared repeated, his voice already sounding rougher than before. His breathing was ragged, but surprisingly, it would seem that he's able to somehow keep his sanity, for now. "Say whatever you like. All that matters is that this power is real."

The instant those words left Gared's mouth, the stones beneath his feet shattered.

There was no warning, no gradual build, no obvious gathering of force. One moment, he was standing there wrapped in that ugly, violent aura, and the next, he was already in front of Lucen, his body tearing through the narrow alley with such speed that even Lysette found it hard to follow.

Lucen's battle instinct was working as usual as he sensed where the attack was coming from. When he decided to parry and counter, his battle instincts screamed at him.

'EVADE!'

The second that thought came to mind, his body was already moving as he jumped backward.

Gared slammed his fist into the position where Lucen was. When his fist made contact with the ground, the ground seemed to have exploded as stones came flying out.

He created a crater a few meters large with that single punch. The power of the attack was rather surprising, coming from a third-rate like Gared.

'Should I use Acting Adept, and copy a character whose good at dodging and countering?... Or do I just use my gun mage skills and finish him? Wait, why do I even need to keep him alive? It seems that Jay already has the information I need, and if not, Lysette can find something out... So, should I kill him, or do I capture him?'

While Lucen was thinking he was continuously dodging Gared's attacks, which were becoming more aggressive by the second. Lysette and Jay had already distanced themselves from the fight.

It was at that moment that a familiar voice came from above. "I finally found you, Lucen!"

The moment Lucen heard that voice, he looked upward.

Above the narrow alley, between the gaps of the rooftops, a shadow passed over them. Steam hissed softly, followed by the creaking of reinforced metal and wood. A small airship had stopped above the alleyway, just high enough that it could be seen between the buildings.

Leaning from the side hatch with his spectacles slightly crooked and his violet-dark hair a mess from the wind was none other than Robert Duskwell.

Robert's eyes instantly lit up the second he saw Gared, who was fighting Lucen. The thrill in them was so obvious that even in the middle of the fight, Lucen, who had evaded another attack, sighed.

"What is that?" Robert shouted from above, his voice full of manic curiosity.

"That reaction in his body is far too violent to be natural! His muscles are swelling, his aura is being dragged out by force, and his blood vessels look like they are about to burst. Hoh... Interesting, very interesting! I knew following you, Lucen, would always bring about great surprises."

He leaned even farther out from the side hatch of the airship, his spectacles slipping lower on his nose as he stared at Gared like a starving man who had just discovered a feast of knowledge.

"I can't take it anymore, I need to see it up close." Robert suddenly jumped down from the airship.

As he was falling to the ground fast, he tossed a vial. The glass shattered the moment it struck the stones below.

A bright yellow liquid splashed across the alley floor and hissed. Stone rippled upward in a violent surge, rising like a living wall before folding inward on itself.

In the span of a breath, it became a jagged platform of hardened rock and alchemical resin. Robert landed on it in a crouch.

The impact cracked the edge of the newly formed platform, but the force had already been dispersed. Steam rose around him in white clouds, and bits of broken stone slid down into the crater Gared had made earlier.

Then Robert stood up. His coat fluttered behind him, and his spectacles gleamed faintly through the drifting steam.

One hand adjusted the glasses on his nose, while the other reached down and touched the transmuted stone beneath his feet as if checking whether his own formula had performed to his standards.

"Hm," Robert muttered. "The hardening speed was a little too fast. I should adjust that later."