Mushoku Tensei: A different path

(Rudeus POV)

As I flew further away from the glacier, I made sure that the spell on Death God pushed him away with me.

Having flown a good distance, we landed.

Death God landed on the ground like an athletic professional doing something like it was second nature.

I folded my wings and let them stay in place.

"Could you perhaps be a Demon Dragon? You look as much of a freak of nature as you are strong."

"… your name."

"Huh?"

"I never asked for your name, and I would like to know it before I fight you again."

"Ah, right. Never got the chance to."

He then placed the blade of his sword on his shoulder while placing his other hand on his hip, a smug smile growing on his demeanor.

"Death God Randolph Marianne, number five of the Seven Great World Powers. I-"

"That's all I need to know."

The speech he was about to give me didn't interest me in the slightest.

With a wide [Flame Slice] I shot in his direction, he jumped up and the trees behind him got cut down and incinerated.

"Damn brat. Can't even let a man finish his sentence?"

"You talk too much."

I shot a bunch of [Rock Bullet] spells at him in rapid succession to keep him moving.

This guy knows Water God Style and that requires more stationary positioning before advancing to the enemy.

"The god of death is always behind you."

It's that weird short incantation again.

Right before he vanished, I could tell that he manipulated his mana around his body.

It wasn't simply just vanish from sight, he vanished from my detection as well.

And in a split second after, he reappeared behind me.

My instincts reacted fast enough to cover my whole body in Touki before he tried slashing my wing off.

Hovering over the ground, I put back the distance we had earlier before and turned around.

He was already advancing towards me, so I returned a [Burning Place] with additional ambient mana.

The whole place started to catch fire and Death God vanished into the flames AND my radar.

Both snow and wood got eaten up by fires coming from all over me.

I made sure that the snow only melted into water to go into the ground instead of vaporizing.

Landing, the ground became a mud pool from all the snow. This is precisely what I was looking for.

This vanishing technique of his makes it hard for both my eyes and detection to get a good hit on him, and presuming he is a veteran, he probably mastered to make it as soundless as possible.

The ground is supposed to make it as hard as possible for him to accomplish.

Unless he manages to jump far enough without losing much force to get a good hit at me, I'm at the advantage here.

I was carefully listening for any sound that would reach my elf-like ears.

Ruijerd gave me a rough description as to what I look like in this form. I get the scales, wings, fires and eyes and all, but why the ears?

Let's hope they aren't just for show and can be better sound detectors.

Like a rabbit on the lookout for the predator, my ears and eyes went for every angle they physically can.

*Splash*

'The right.'

Instantly dashing to the direction I heard the splash from, I formed my left hand into a sword and attempted to stab him before I could stop myself.

There was definitely something I pierced with my hand but the next moment I was hit on head with a sword.

The sound of metal colliding against each other rang and my brain felt like a ping pong ball. This could specifically be a technique for damaging a person wearing an armor. Orsted might have used that against me when crushing my lungs.

With a [Sonic Boom] I pushed the man away.

As I landed back on the muddied ground, there was something I was still having on my hand.

It was a left arm with a gauntlet on.

I looked over and saw that it was indeed Death God's arm.

He was tending to his wound by stopping the bleeding by strapping a piece of cloth around it.

Not wasting this chance, I ran before him and was about to attack before he removed his eyepatch.

A wall of solid mana manifested before me and I crashed against it.

Not this again. How can a single eyeball create such a wide barrier? Seriously, in my normal form, I wouldn't be able to detect that far.

It wasn't shaped into a dome, it was more like a wall. Meaning, there is an end and beginning. I will use this for a surprise attack from nowhere.

"Hehehe. You sure are an outstanding brat."

I calmed down and just let him talk. Eventually, he will have fewer options on him anyway.

"What did he tell you about me?"

"Who, the assassin guy? He just rambled about you making a fool out of their masters and wanting to take revenge."

"… The one I asked you about earlier."

His smug grin became a grim grin. He knows who I meant.

"Not much. Just that he gave a relative of mine the advice long ago. Ever since then, he has been telling people to not trust him whatsoever."

"So… you're not an apostle?"

His choice of words… it's the one thing that made me think he was sent by Hitogami.

Wait. One of the underlings guys must've gotten contacted by him and went to a specific bar for the reason to meet Death God.

That nifty bastard. If he can just contact anyone he wants to, how am I supposed to deal with his apostles?

"What's wrong? Why don't you break the barrier of my Demon Eye?"

"…"

"Oh, I see. You are running low on mana and try to preserve it. Smaller spells would have been better when fighting those monsters. Wouldn't it have been better to use that magic prowess of yours to distract them and run?"

"…"

"How naive. You believed that you could beat them anyway because of your confidence in your magic. It must have been a challenge to have people around you. And that's your default. You are a fighter who needs solitude if you ever want to reach your full potential."

The more he mocked me, the more I clenched my fists. I kept eye contact despite narrowing my eyes.

Just a little more. Keep him talking, and his smugness comes to an end.

"What is it that made you require these powers? Money? Woman? Fame?"

"Fame."

He looked surprised by my answer because I responded quickly.

"Fame to let the person I'm looking for here in the Northern Territories know that I'm here to rescue her. There is nothing more to that. People can say whatever they want about me and I wouldn't care in the slightest. As long as I can accomplish what I need to, then so be it."

"That a bit selfish and unrealistic of you, isn't it? Who says you are destined to be successful on this mission and handling all that trash talk about you?"

"I won't know unless I try."

And with that, I have reached him. The required work is ready to go.

"Hey Death God."

"Hm?"

"You said I was being naive how I used my magic."

With my spell in position, there was only one thing to do now.

"You are the naive one for blabbering for too long."

He went wide eyed confused for a moment before I used [Specter Force] to grab his Demon Eye.

In the time we were having our conversation, I sent out a mana arm all the way to the end of his barrier wall and towards him.

His attempts to slash my mana arm off were futile as they separated his eye from his head.

A little bit of blood sprayed around and the barrier wall dispersed.

After I froze the Demon Eye I used [Rock Bullet] to shot him through the head and give him a painless death.

But in a last second effort, he tried to block the bullet but only managed to deflect it.

As he lost his footing and neared to fall on his back, I used my Touki to crush his head into a pancake.

But in the split second at which I had made contact, my hand stopped. The force of the punch was still strong enough to swipe him away from the spot.

He went far enough away to end up in the woods. And as he disappeared from my sight, he used his camouflage to disappear from my detection as well.

I looked at my hand to see that it was trembling.

This doesn't make sense. Why am I still being hesitant on killing a person? I managed to care little against [Tri-Daggers], so what is stopping me from it now?

I shook my head and when flying within the forest to find Death God.

He is already gone from sight and the trees can make it harder for me to find him as his stealth technique is perfectly set here.

Burning it down as well would make things easier but not certain enough on hitting him.

Carelessly using my already near depletion manapool is a bad idea. But he is more wounded than before with his left arm and right eye missing.

*Clang*

Something just hit me at the back of my neck and I lost balance in my flight. Even as I turned around, he was already gone.

*Clang*

Another hit. This time directly in the face. I haven't sensed anything. How is he doing that?

As soon as I picked myself up again, I tried to determine his more exact position. This proved to be more difficult than I thought.

The guy left his previous tactics behind and got on all or nothing. He now uses his camouflage technique continuously, which makes him seem virtually invisible.

This confrontation between his sword strokes and me repeated itself for a little while.

Whenever I tried to back away, he would come at me and strike. Whenever I thought I had located him, he would dodge and strike me in a random place on my body.

Retreat or attacking have both become impossible at this point.

Only one last option left.

Guarding my head from any incoming attacks, I concentrated my mana into my vocal cords. Then, I removed my arms from my head and exhaled a powerful roar with Voice Magic.

The air vibrated, and the ground rumbled from my bestial thunder.

It took only a few seconds after my roar before I got a signal back from Death God.

He was still on the move, advancing from behind me, despite the paralysis I inflicted upon him.

Quickly turning around, I saw him…

'… what?'

His stance was… I've seen it before but I… huh. He was one all fours… no, threes? And he has his sword between his teeth?

It was the same kind of stance Paul had used against me in the warehouse but back then I just assumed that he used that out of a drunken spur.

But to see a person of the Seven Great World Power level do this is… something else.

Despite that, he wasn't slow by any means and I didn't know what he would do next.

Once he was before me, he grabbed the hilt of his sword and lunged an upper cut with it.

I was fast enough to evade his attack but the moment the tip of his sword reached a high point he swung it back for a downward cut.

With my left wing, I paired his sword, and it got stabbed into the ground. But it wasn't over yet. He used his sword as a prop to swing his body forward and kick me in the face.

With my right wing, I blocked that off as well. There was a moment of imbalance in his aerial position. This was my chance.

I shot out a [Wind Slice] and separated his right arm from his body. In the sense of the word, he is now disarmed.

As he intended to give me a kick in the face himself, I returned one of my own.

He flew off in the air while his second stomp sprayed his red juices around.

This is it. I made it. It was hard but I managed to defeat him.

His green double edged sword was still here, so I took it out of the ground and slowly stepped before my now living opponent.

Standing at his side, I looked down to see his condition. He was coughing up a bit while bleeding slowly out.

Kicking him to turn him on his back, I put my left foot on his chest, curling the claws on it down into his flesh, and placed his sword nearly touching his forehead.

As agreed with Kagami, I will end his life and claim the title of Death God myself, making me the number five of the Seven Great World Powers.

As he laid there, defenseless and barely clinging to life, he smiled.

"*Cough* *Cough* This was one hell of an experience. You even made me use techniques from styles I usually never used again. For a long time, I felt bored from fighting. I'm glad to get such an ending."

I see. He is the type who enjoys having some thrill added to the fight. Since I haven't met any other chantless Magician or cursed children before, I assume he hasn't had such a fight before.

The moment he disappeared from my radar was probably when he went on a frenzy. I'll never understand people like him… or in general.

"Any last words before I end you?"

I tried to look as tough as possible since my mind is still clear enough away from the influence of my curse.

"You said you wanted fame to find a person. And if you kill me, that would make you the new Death God after me."

Ah, right. That was also the idea. If I do that then-

"That plan will fail."

I flinched.

"Explain."

"No one will believe that a child, not even an adult yet, has become Death God. You aren't even a proper God class fighter yet, only high King or low Emperor."

I see his reasoning. True, I can't really say that I could handle anyone of his caliber without my curse's power, and my overall abilities won't be enough when others like him came after me.

But the people stronger than him are the upper rank Greta World Powers. Two of them missing, one of them roaming around somewhere, and the last one being sealed away.

Sword God and North God could be difficult but once that come so will have to depend on Kagami to make me desperate enough to want to unlock my powers.

"The other God classes will turn out to be stronger than I. Do you think you can handle them?"

"… so the monuments really are incorrect?"

"Hah. You guessed it." He retorted.

Why did I forget about this? Oh, right. Hitogami was the first one to tell me about it.

So what that piece of trash said really is true.

"Your specialty merely lies in the unpredictability it has like the North God Style but on a larger scale. If it wasn't for that then I would have lost. And that will be undoubtedly what will happen if you fight them."

Can I… trust him? He wasn't exactly aiming to kill me, he wanted to feel his warrior spirit flare up again. And now after having gotten that feeling, he doesn't feel the need to come up with a lie anymore.

"… then as my predecessor, do you have some kind of advice for your successor?"

He was a bit speechless. Even with all this unreliable power of mine, any advice given from someone of his caliber would help.

He closed his eye for a moment to think. After a few seconds, he opened it and looked at me with a serious look on his face.

"First off, create more special magic tactics. As I said, the unpredictable nature of it is what makes it unique. But be careful to not use it too carelessly despite your large manapool.

Second, get your Touki in better control. I'm assuming that you only have better control of it in that form, so try to get a better hang of it without it.

Third, get yourself a weapon. Just relying on your magic could turn out to be difficult should you deplete too much from it like just before. It can be any weapon as long as it suits you."

Unlike a certain mosaic face, his advice was as well thought as it was well meant.

The first one does seem logical. I should think of more methods to use my Magic this time. But for fighting purposes rather than support.

The second and third ones are problematic. My Touki still has the massive damaging effect if overused and the dull effect on swords.

Wait. I think I could use the parts from the dragons I just got. Unless the guild inquired to investigate them further, I should be able to make some great weaponry out of them.

Well, that settles it then.

"Thank you. Do you have any final words to say?"

"There is. I'm my pouch should be a ring. I want you to have it."

As he mentions it, I used [Specter Force] to grab his pouch and let it float before me.

From within it, I took it out.

With the base of it made of metal, the outer layer was adorned with bone-like accessories.

"It is called [The bone ring of Laxus], an object the Death God before me created. Should you encounter someone from the Kalman lineage or perhaps someone who claims to know me, show them this, and they might believe you."

I'm not sure how this weird urban jewelry is supposed to prove that, but should it really belong to a previous Death God, then I'll take it.

I put the ring into one of my pockets and looked back at him.

He closed his eyes again and awaited for his end to come, but it wasn't happening, so he opened them once more.

The was that I was still trembling at the thought of killing a person clear minded.

"You… you're not gonna survive like this. Being a coward. I have noticed that hesitation when you lost your hand. And even when you threw me off into that forest."

I gritted my teeth. Even though I was the one with the sword aimed at him, he was casually saying words that felt like daggers stabbing into my ears.

"It's alright. This… is perfectly acceptable." A sad smile decorated his face now. "Many mistakes were made by my selfishness. Mistakes that made me lose track and end up becoming dissatisfied. But I can say with confidence that I don't regret going for the path I longed."

Now things have become twisted around. Is this still considered murder or has it become indirect suicide?

All of this just because of a critic against his horrible cooking. What the hell?

No. I made a deal with Kagami, and that's what I should be thinking about right now.

I raised the sword up and held it with both hands. He saw this as me having made up my mind and closed his eye again.

"Goodbye, Randolph Marianne."

With those words said, I swung the sword in my hand and decapitated him.

His head rolled off a bit away and the stomp on his neck leaked out the last bit of circulation.

I stepped off from the corpse and immediately removed the sheath of his sword from it and put the sword in my pocket dimension.

Next, I went and grabbed his head to put it together with the rest of his body.

Conjuring a black tombstone with the Death God symbol, I let the ground beneath the corpse sink into a 2-meter deep hole before throwing some Treant wood into and putting on a fire.

I looked up at the sky, virtually feeling my long ears drop, thinking about what I should feel at the moment.

I have achieved something many people aspire, yet this accomplishment isn't a well-deserved one.

'The overpowered baldy was right… strength can feel so… empty…'

***

(Third POV)

At a mountain, a bit far away from the spot Rudeus previously had casted the forest fire, there lied the main threat.

The creature wasn't in the need of a slumber. For from it. It was a simple matter of boredom.

For the last few days it had fought the Sea Dragon and Black Dragon simply in a battle of strength comparison.

As a creature symbolizing strength, it desired to know what its rivals were made of.

To its disappointment, the two dragons weren't what it was looking for.

Ever since then, they were degraded by it as nothing more than toys to kill time with.

But as it ignored them, those creatures, something unexpected happened.

A new opponent to have a contest of strength against. The sudden surge of mana being flown through the area peeked the interest of it.

As it ruffled up from its nap, the creature seemed interested but remained preserved.

It witnessed the massive amount of mana being used to create the glacier, stretching over a wide scale over the previously burning forest.

If it were physically possible, the creature would have smiled.

Finally, after patiently waiting behind the curtains, it found an opponent that may bring it the glorious pleasure of coming out on top.

For now, it would wait a little longer, to give its new target time to rest. And when the time comes, it shall be a spectacle.

///