Do Your Own Revolution

“……What is this.”

My mind was hazy.

I managed to open my eyes with great effort, but my body felt as heavy as a water-logged cotton.

“Finally awake?”

I was lying on a bed.

Looking to the side at the gruff voice, Otto was examining my right arm while wearing a doctor’s coat.

‘I must have passed out.’

Only then did I recall last night, when I had killed Hans.

“Hee, heek?!”

“He’s dead… Re, really dead……!”

“Fuck… This fucking……!”

About 30 minutes after I killed Hans.

When Saul and his gang finally came to their senses, they collapsed on the spot in horror upon seeing Hans’s corpse.

My blood-stained arm and pocket knife, and Hans who had become a corpse.

It wouldn’t be too difficult to piece together what had happened.

When I took a step forward, Saul’s gang, their faces turned blue, immediately fell to their knees.

“N-no! We just did what, what that bastard told us to do! Really!”

“Th-that beating from before! That was all Saul’s fault! S-Saul said we needed to teach you a lesson first……!”

“Th-these bastards trying to save only themselves…! You all agreed to it too!”

“Please. Please! We’ll do anything, just please spare our lives…!”

“Shut your traps.”

At my single command, Saul and his gang closed their mouths.

Ah, so noisy.

As if my stomach wasn’t churning enough, here they were kneeling, begging, and throwing each other under the bus…

What a complete mess.

‘Still, this should work as a temporary measure.’

“Hey.”

Saul and his gang trembled at my voice.

Just yesterday they were threatening to kill me, but now they couldn’t even meet my eyes as they shook in fear.

I wanted to mock them thoroughly, but the situation wouldn’t allow it.

“Want to live?”

The gang members nodded in unison at my words.

“Fine, I’ll let you live. But there’s a condition.”

I pointed my finger at a spot in the alley.

Hans’s corpse was there.

“You handle that. Then I’ll spare you.”

What I told them to handle was Hans’s corpse.

Their faces turned pale at the sight of the cold, lifeless body.

“W-we handle the corpse?”

“What else? Should we just leave it in the back alley? Think you’ll be safe when Valks gang finds this?”

“B-but. That’s……”

Unlike the others paralyzed with fear, Saul seemed reluctant and kept beating around the bush.

Seeing this, I broke out in a cold sweat internally.

‘Tch, sharper than he looks.’

Saul’s behavior was rational.

Disposing of Hans’s corpse meant cooperating in his murder.

In other words, becoming my accomplice.

Having served under Hans for quite some time, Saul must have instinctively caught onto my intentions.

‘This could be troublesome… Should I push a bit more?’

With that thought, I spoke with the most composed expression I could manage.

“If you don’t want to, can’t be helped. Can’t leave witnesses alive either……”

I deliberately showed my pocket knife and flexed my right hand.

Of course, I had neither the strength to stab with this knife nor a drop of magical power left.

But Saul’s gang, who couldn’t know this, immediately turned pale.

“Hee, heek?!”

“W-wait, wait!”

“W-we’ll move it! To a sewer where no one goes! Th-that’ll work, right?!”

In the end, Saul was the first to give in.

“Get to it if you understand.”

“Y-yes! Hey! Hurry and grab that side……!”

Once I had established dominance, Saul took the initiative and grabbed Hans’s legs.

When their lives were immediately threatened, even the fear of touching a corpse seemed to vanish.

“Hey, lift properly…!”

“Before anyone sees! Hurry!”

And so Saul and his gang disappeared down the alley while keeping an eye on me.

Once they were out of sight.

Completely drained of strength, I collapsed and could finally catch my ragged breath.

“Al-almost got fucked…!”

Kill them with magic? Leave no witnesses? What bullshit was I spouting.

I had already squeezed out every last bit of strength killing Hans, how could I possibly kill guys bigger than me?

All I could do just now was put up a front using Hans’s corpse as leverage.

Good thing it worked, because it was a dangerous gamble that could have failed with the slightest mistake.

‘But… This will do.’

Now those guys will wander the slums carrying Hans’s corpse and dump it in the sewers.

And this slum has more eyes than it appears.

‘If by chance the Valks gang comes seeking revenge, they’ll track those guys first instead of me.’

Saul and his gang had become both punching bags to take revenge in my stead and an early warning system to alert me of pursuit.

“But, no time to relax.”

I’d removed one big problem and awakened my magical power.

However, this didn’t mean the problems were solved.

‘Once word gets out that their Action Leader is gone, Valks gang will start searching the alleys. Saul and his gang will be crushed first, and they’ll spill information about me.’

Those guys were both an alarm system and a time bomb.

I needed to escape this slum before that bomb went off.

As quickly as possible while their attention was focused on Saul.

“The question is where to go… bu……”

Just as I was thinking this and tried to stand up.

“……Huh?”

My body wouldn’t move.

No matter how hard I tried to stand up, it was useless.

My legs remained completely immobile.

“Wait. Don’t tell me?”

And only then did I remember one fact I had forgotten.

The fact that magicians who completely deplete their magical power suffer from a status condition called ‘magical power exhaustion’.

[Magical Power Exhaustion]

A status ailment that occurs when MP is completely depleted, which in the game reduced total HP by 1% per second.

Certainly, when the remaining HP reached 0, the player died, right?

And considering the time since I used up all my magical power……

“I’m fucked……!”

Only then did I realize the gravity of the situation, and crawled along dragging my unmoving body.

At this rate, forget survival or anything else, I was going to die on the street before I could do anything.

So I squeezed out whatever strength I had left and headed toward Karl Hiram National Hospital.

***

“And that’s how I ended up at this hospital.”

“And I picked you up unconscious in front of the hospital and brought you in here. Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s exactly right, doctor… Ack?!”

Back in the hospital bed.

After hearing my explanation, Otto immediately gave me a knock on the head.

“It’s only been a week since your development surgery. You fool! Using up magical power that you just awakened so recklessly? Why don’t you just advertise everywhere that you want to die!”

Though the hospital had long been closed, Otto was still guarding the ward.

It was thanks to him that I survived.

“What if I hadn’t been at the hospital?”

“What else? I’d be in the Kalhyram Cemetery next door.”

“You little?!”

This time the knock that came was even harder than the previous one.

“Sigh, how did I end up with such a troublemaker.”

Otto let out a deep sigh as he drank the coffee sitting on the table.

But even while doing so, Otto was carefully checking the chart recording my magic circuit status.

“There’s no abnormality in your magic circuit. However, never do something this reckless again. You’re lucky I found you early… Do you know how serious magical power exhaustion is?”

“Hehe, thanks to you I survived.”

“This brat grinning away…”

As Otto said, I too never wanted to do something this reckless again.

If I hadn’t killed Hans in one strike or if Saul hadn’t fallen for my bluff, I would have already been a corpse dumped in a back alley.

It was a dangerous tightrope walk even thinking about it now.

“Huh, so Hans is dead?”

I told Otto about killing Hans.

He was the only person I had any connection with, since I had no home, money, or acquaintances, so I was hoping to gain some sympathy.

Otto listened to my story with a grave expression.

“So, are you done with those gangsters now?”

“For now, yes.”

“For now?”

When Otto asked like that, I looked at my right arm with its surgical scar and said.

“I’m already as good as marked by the Valks gang. If I keep staying in Grey Quarter like this, my ending will be one of two options.”

“Die, or become a gangster.”

“You know well.”

Otto’s expression darkened at my words.

That’s generally how life went for children born in the back alleys.

Either die being exploited by gangs, or die being a gangster.

“……Eugene.”

Otto called me with a stern expression.

He was looking at my face with a somewhat troubled expression.

“What is it?”

“Let me be honest. The reason I saved you… wasn’t simply out of compassion.”

A serious voice unlike before.

I furrowed my brows at this.

‘Why is this person suddenly acting like this?’

Not simply out of compassion?

Is he saying he had other motives?

No, that can’t be.

In the story, Otto was an NPC with good alignment, and there weren’t any suspicious settings about him……

As I was lost in thought, there came a knock at Otto’s examination room door.

“Are you in there?”

A voice followed from outside the door.

“It’s open. Please come in.”

Otto called toward the door.

His voice was gravely subdued.

‘A doctor using honorifics means they must be at least nobility. But nobility in Grey Quarter……?’

Just as I swallowed dryly at the inexplicable anxiety.

The door opened, and the owner of the voice revealed himself.

Gray hair swept back neatly, a cold impression.

And even a black cloak emblazoned with a silver wolf emblem.

“Is this the child?”

As the man asked this while looking at me, I felt my heart sink.

‘Lupeon. Elcidore……?’

Lupeon Elcidore.

The game designation, [Lupel the Slaughterer]

The head of House Elcidore, ranked 3rd among the Empire’s 12 Great Mage Noble Houses, and Eugene’s archenemies in the Revolutionary Army.

But this person wasn’t supposed to appear until the middle of the main story.

Someone who shouldn’t show his face for at least 8 more years, why has he appeared now?

As I was thinking this to myself, Otto spoke to me.

“Greet him, Eugene. This is Lord Lupeon Elcidore, head of House Elcidore.”

And at Otto’s next words, I couldn’t help but be shocked.

“He has highly evaluated your talent… And has decided to take you in.”

“……What?”

He came to take me.

One of the 12 Mage Nobles.

The man who was the protagonist’s archenemy.

What… What the hell is this nonsense?