Mushoku Tensei: A different path

{Rudeus POV}

I was now back at my inn. Lilia, Aisha and Ginger were with me, Eris, and Ruijerd.

Eris was entertaining Aisha with some of our adventuring stories. I was afraid she might tell her some scary stories, but Aisha was actually excited with sparkling eyes over our trip until now.

"I'm glad to see that you are alright, Lord Rudeus."

I shifted my attention back to Lilia, who was sitting with me at a table.

"I'm more than glad to see you two back in safety. Who knew that guy was getting jealous over how Roxy treated him over me."

"He just misunderstood her method of teaching."

"I don't think so. While I was in that Barrier Circle, I had a lot of time to think."

My gaze went downwards to the ground. The dark and cruel things Kagami told me came into MY mind.

"Master Roxy might have had it too easy with me. Everything went so smoothly with me as a student that she didn't experience any sort of struggle within me. There was only one such struggle, but it had nothing to do with our lessons."

My gaze went back to her, albeit with narrow eyes.

"No matter how you look at it, I am the source of the problem that arose here."

"…"

She just stared at me with a sympathetic face.

I went over to her and hugged her. This was for my mind's sake as I can't help it. She was surprised, but after a while she just hugged me back.

"If I ever hear from Aisha that you taught her some personal maid or criminal stuff, I will be mad." I whispered her some threat for Aisha's sake.

Tightening my grip on Lilia as she stiffened a bit.

In no way am I letting her make Aisha into a genius super-villain. She seems smart enough, so the time when she still is a child will be crucial for us. and the world.

After I separated from her, I asked my next pair of questions.

"I found the box you intended to send for my 10th birthday. Did you make that wooden pendant that was in it?"

"…"

She didn't answer and just gave me a sad smile.

"Please, tell me who made this."

I had a bad feeling something terrible was about to be told.

"It was something Lady Sylphiette made. She made it as a birthday gift for you."

"Sylphy?" Bad feeling confirmed. And gosh does it hurt.

I see. I haven't found any Leads to her current location or if she even was alive. This pendant might be the last remain of what I got of her.

Damn it, I can't take this.

She was the first friend I made in this world. And although we had a traumatizing experience with me thinking she is a boy, until I undressed her, I still hold her dear.

"Big brother?" It seems that Aisha is concerned about my mood.

'Such a sweet girl. It's sad that she may never see her true brother for the rest of her live.' There he goes again. Like a running gig, he repeats my daily plaguing thoughts.

My eyes were getting fixed on the fatass in the window reflection.

"Big brother, why are you looking annoyed at the window so often?"

"He has been doing that a lot lately. Even at other inns." Ruijerd snitched on me. How could he?

But, have I? Well, Kagami has been showing in reflective surfaces whenever he could to mock my actions so far.

"Lord Rudeus, are you alright?"

Now Lilia is worried as well. But looking around, everyone is looking at me worried, even Ginger.

I just shook my head and headed to the door.

"I need to get some fresh air."

"Lord Rudeus, wait."

"And stop calling me your lord. You're part of the family." I said as I exited the room.

My senses were telling me that Ruijerd and Eris tried to follow me.

"You two better not follow me. I need some time alone." I screamed.

I couldn't see their expressions since I was in the hallway, and they were still in the room.

Proceeding to find a place where I could be alone, I exited the inn.

***

{Lilia POV}

"What is happening to him?"

"He has been acting like this ever since his fight with his father."

The man whom I was told is a Superd answered me. I was still wary of him, but since he helped Lord Rudeus so much, I can see past that.

"A fight? With Paul? What was the reason?"

"Rudeus hasn't started looking for any of your family until he met his father in Millishion. And his father got mad at that, but later saw his mistake and tried to apologize. However, Rudeus got himself-"

"Ruijerd."

Suddenly, Sir Ruijerd got interrupted by lady Eris. They look at each other in the eyes and come to some sort of mutual understanding.

Could it perhaps have something to do with changed appearance?

"Rudeus avoided him most of the time, but decided to listen to him in the end."

Sir Ruijerd was now looking at Lady Eris, who was having a difficult expression.

Looking back at me, he proceeded his explanation.

"Some hard to deal with secrets have been exposed, which angered him too much. That anger still lingers through him, but he doesn't fully realize it."

Even though I would have liked to hear what those secrets are, seeing the young misses face already tells me that it also involves her.

"Mother, is big brother gonna be alright?"

My daughter asked me worriedly if the young master will be alright. I should be saying that he will find a way to fix everything, just like he did for me when I betrayed Zenith.

"I do not know, dear." I shouldn't lie to her, since she is smart enough to see if I tried to hide the fact.

I hope Lord Rudeus will be alright.

***

{Third POV}

Running through the streets, a young boy dashed through the hoards of people until he was outside the city.

Rudeus was now out of sight from anyone who would interrupt his next action.

Standing in a plain grass field, he took his chance of being alone.

Putting his hand on the ground he started casting a 2 by 2 sized wall… is what he intended.

But the wall ended up being ragged with a 5 meters height and roughly seven meters width.

He cursed inwardly at his still incapability to cast something that should have been easy for him in the past.

Dealing with that later, he used Water Magic to give the wall a reflective surface. And again, the spell went too big and also froze the ground around the stone wall as well.

Ignoring that, Rudeus looked intense at the mirror.

"Kagami, show yourself, right now."

He ordered at his reflective past self, and just as he said those words, he showed up.

This time in full length. It was for this purpose Rudeus decided to make a mirror this big.

'You called?' Just like always, Rudeus was displeased at the sight of him.

"Answer me. What are you? And why are you in my head?"

'You know it best. I'm just what reminds you yourself about all the bad things you have committed in this and the previous world. Your reflection of your bad influence on other and yourself.'

"I know that I'm not perfect. Just like everyone else, I have flaws I have to deal with one way or another. Nobody is perfect."

He may only be aware of that fact until recently, but learned from it and tries to better himself.

"I'm tying the best I can to live a life without any regrets. And I know that it's an unachievable goal."

'And how did that end up? You disappointed Paul, made Lilia so indebted to you that she trained her own daughter to become your Maid, realized how much of an asshole you were towards Zenith, and to top it all off, failed to search for any of them when you were at the Demon-continent.'

"Stop it!"

'What if Zenith is over there? Probably missed her because of your carefree adventure.'

"Stop!"

Rudeus was getting irritated at his constant reminder of his mistakes that he started clutching his head while shaking his it in denial.

'Oh? Angry because you stole Rudeus's life. A life that would have possibly been somewhat normal.'

Calming halfway down, Rudeus looked back at his mirror self.

"Maybe he would have been blessed with the talent I have. Nobody can tell what might have come out. Perhaps he would have ended up dying right after the teleportation disaster."

'That would make only sense if it weren't unpredictable. You never know where he would have landed.'

The more they talked, the more Rudeus wanted to punch the real Kagami.

"Get to the point already. What is your purpose here?"

'What do you think might be possible causes for Paul dying in that future vision of yours?'

Rudeus's face scrunched at Kagami avoiding his question with his own. Coming to the conclusion that it's just what Kagami wants, he answered him.

"I'm not certain. It might be someone who has something against him, or some sort of accident."

Kagami started to put on another one of his disgusting leech smiles.

"What? Why are you smiling?"

'You.' Kagami simply answered.

"Me? What about me?" Rudeus said confused.

'The other possible cause might be you.'

"Are you trying to mock me? Why would I try to kill Paul? In the vision, I was clearly shocked at his corps."

Kagami put his hand on his chin and looked up to nowhere.

'What would a father do if he had to choose between letting his son die, or sacrificing his own life to save the son's life?'

It took him a few seconds until he came to the possible scenario. Rudeus froze. His anger was completely replaced with shock.

"N-no…he…"

'You saw it yourself, you lost your left hand. Something or someone will attempt to kill you, and Paul saved your life by sacrificing his lower body in the process.'

Rudeus went silent. It was slowly starting to add up, even if he attempts to deny the words Kagami is telling him.

'You see? Because of your weakness, Paul will die. And you can't do anything about it except wait for the moment to arrive.'

Cursing inwardly at his lack of seriously training his fighting prowess, he stared at his reflective self.

"No."

'Hm?'

Slowly and lightly, Rudeus punched the stone mirror's surface.

*Thud*

"I will not let him die."

*Thud*

"If the day comes, I will be ready to save him."

*Thud*

"I will train, putting the hell out of this talent I was bestowed with."

*Pow*

Each of his punches started to increase in power as he looked up to Kagami.

"The future was shown to me, so I got a chance to change it."

*Crack*

After a while, the ice started to crack from all the impacts.

"So go stick your comment up your atrocious fat ass-"

*crack*

" and go to hell, YOU STUPID ILLUSION OF MY PAST!"

*BOOM*

His last punch was so powerful that the whole frozen stone wall ended up crumbling.

'Good luck' those words echoed through his ears.

Dusting off his sleeve, he looked down on the crumbled mirror with eyes full of disgust.

"Go vanish in the fires of hell already, you-"

Rudeus froze yet again. Not because of the colder temperature thanks to his oversized water spell, but at the sight of his right hand.

The hand's skin turned into an ash gray color with the fingers having white rings on each joint.

The bandages seemed to have burned off, showing his veins glowing in an emanating dark purple.

The sleeve of his robe grew some black transparent scales that went up to his elbow.

He was starting to panic and attempted to scratch off whatever that stuff is on his arm.

But when he tried to reach his right arm with his left hand, he saw that it also turned into the same as the right one.

"Wha... what ... is..."

Inside his head was nothing but panic. Not being able to comprehend the current circumstance, he just trembled while only stuttering the things he tried to voice out.

This stasis went on for another minute, and he panicky started casting another mirror, not caring how big it may end up.

This mirror ended up being 2,5 times bigger than the previous one, giving him a full sight over what he looked like. The worst possibility he never imagined came forth.

The skin color of his face stayed the same. His teeth have become sharp fangs like a beast. Under both his eyes were transparent white scales.

And both of his eyes changed again. The white part turned into a deep black, while his pupil turned into a metallic golden color and the iris formed a slit.

His hair was white from the roots to the half and the rest silver.

Touching it with his transformed hands, he tried to confirm it, only to be hit by reality. He has turned into a monstrosity.

Now being both inside and outside his true self. A monster. But there was more.

Smoke came out of his forehead protector, so he removed it to see the source.

There were lights of gray energy in the shape of diamonds before his forehead that fumed white smoke like fire.

He tried to touch it, but his hand simply went through them and only touched the skin of his forehead.

It was the last straw that put his mind into chaos, which concluded with him falling unconscious and hitting the ground with his back.

In another world, a god was snickering at the monster's reaction, as he foresees the next step he needs to take.

***

{Rudeus POV}

When I woke up, I was surrounded by a white void.

I hate being here, but the apprehension of what I turned into was still there, so my movement were set to a minimum.

My sensing abilities aren't here, and I didn't bother looking for Hitogami.

"Are you awake? Hello~. Can you hear me?"

His annoying voice was so loud that I decided to lay on my left side with my back to him and cover my ears with my hands. I don't have the energy to talk to him anymore.

"Aw, someone not able to handle his curse?"

"..."

"Tell you what. I know for certain that you can control it now that you realized it exists."

He said some odd things and my attention came back.

"...explain."

"Forgot your manners? Don't act like you're the only suffering person in the world."

"..... hnnnnnnggg."

I hate it if he's right. There is no time for me to contemplate about my condition. Zenith still needs to be found.

Sitting up right, I looked at Hitogami with narrow eyes.

"Please explain to me what you know about what I just saw." My voice was rather strained.

No wonder. I never want anything to do with him just ignore him. That is if I could.

If his self proclamation is true, then he surely knows about the abnormal changes I'm going through.

"Well, that's more like it." He then coughed into his fist and put both his arms behind his lower back.

"Listen well Rudeus. You already know about the existence of the Miko's and their unnatural blessings.

However, there is also the opposite. People call them curses. Those have negative effects on the user or their surroundings. Like causing everyone around them to fear them.

Yours, however, is mostly affecting yourself.

From what I could tell, you turn into a hybrid between Demon, Dragon and Human Race. It's a unique mix that never existed before.

These new abilities you gained lately are the result of your curse constantly growing.

The demon side helps you conjure spells more easily while not damaging your body. It's the one that allowed you to sense the mana in and outside of you, as well as sense the feeling you needed to learn chantless Healing Magic.

The dragon side is the least developed, and you haven't grasped it's power much. Its main power lies in enhancement of your physical capabilities, like strength, speed and defense. It's a different form of mana manipulation than magic, better known as Touki. To execute this method of mana manipulation, you envelope yourself in a layer of mana.

Now, both of those have their own reason why you couldn't do those things before.

For the magic part, your body is that of a human, so it's less compatible than a demon's body who naturally have larger mana pools than humans.

For the enhancement part, your mana pool is so vast that your body had trouble forming a Touki naturally. But thanks to your Dragon part, it started building up slowly. There seems to be some problems on keeping your muscles in shape as you only now developed a Touki.

It's frightening and exiting how much you could achieve with all these new abilities once you learn how to control them. So, I hope you show me something entertaining."

His explanation may have been excruciatingly long, but there were certainly some interesting part on it that piqued my interest.

The Dragon part of my curse in particular. Now I can use the same technique Eris and Ruijerd are using as well.

I'm gonna have to ask around how to control it so that I could improve it. But that answers something sad as well.

Paul intended for me to become a swordsman in the past. And if what Hitogami says is to be believed, I never would have become a decent swordsman.

"*sigh*"

"Hey. Don't tell me that I bored you with my speech. Do you even get what numerous possibilities you have now? Becoming one of the Seven Great World Power before the age of 20 would be a cakewalk for you."

"You mean becoming one of the strongest in the world? That might sound tempting for someone who is a fighting obsessed maniac."

Fame isn't something I desire anymore. All the people will just run away from the possessed freak.

But I never meet any of the Seven Great World Powers before, but I know that the first four of them are missing, while the other three are roaming around somewhere.

If I remember correctly, Sword God should be residing at the Holy Land of Swords in the north-west of the Central-Continent.

I don't know anything about the current North God or Death God. Maybe asking about them to him might bring some answers?

"Do you know more about the current Great World Powers? Like the person themselves and what their history and specialties are."

"Oh? How come you are so interested?"

"I know from Ruijerd that the term fell old long ago, and there isn't much to heard from that, so I'm curious."

"Well, you actually met one just a while ago."

"Really? Which one was it?"

Was there ever a person who could be considered stronger than Ruijerd?

As much as I thought about it, I couldn't think about who it was.

"Remember the cook you yelled at, back in the King Dragon Kingdom? He is Death God, number five of the Great World Powers."

The gloomy skull-face? He is the god of death? The Shinigami of this world?

He does fit the image of his title, but who would have thought that he is one of the strongest in the world?

"It's good that you remember him, since he also remembers you."

"What is that suppose to mean?"

"He will be after you soon. You probably should tone it down a bit with your difficult food preference."

Aw, crap. The things I said. The harsh criticism. But that can't be all, right?

"It went so far that he gave up on his restaurant, inherited from his ancestors, which had a lot of deed in it. And his only choice was to join the Royal Army, which he hates very much so."

Fear struck every part of my body. I made a terrible mistake.

I hope he doesn't know my name. If he does, all he needs is to get his notebook and write my name in it to give me a heart attack.

"Any chance you have some advice?"

Hitogami swiftly to put his hands on the sides of his heads and exaggeratedly gasped.

"No way. YOU are asking ME for advice?"

I swear, his attitude makes me so mad.

"I know alright. It's just… your last advice… it helped a lot."

Without him telling me to go take a stop at Shirone, I would have missed Aisha and Lilia completely. That idiot prince would have kept them as long as some information 'accidentally' slipped out.

Maybe Ginger would have done something soon, but that's just speculation.

What matters now is to get a hold of myself and continue searching for Zenith, the last person missing from Paul's family.

If possible, I would like to see Sylphy and Ghislaine too.

Sylphy may know chantless magic, but after remembering the reaction from the people in Rikarisu, my worries go towards her possible execution. That green hair is too troubling.

Ghislaine doesn't worry me that much. She realized soon enough how important arithmetic and reading are, even if she isn't as good at it.

She is a Sword King, so the self-defense front should be little to no problem.

Although, even if I ask him, he wouldn't answer unless he gets his amusement from it.

Sick bastard. He should change his name into Villain God.

"Well, my friend, you're in luck today."

"Before we proceed, I have some questions relating to your contact timings."

"*Groan*. You are always so uptight."

"It's your own fault. Now, can you tell me if there is a way to contact you when I need to talk to you?"

"I'm afraid there is none. You see, there are factors that have to be met for me to contact someone. Some of which I don't know of."

"And you can't tell what those are?"

"Not exactly. It's more of a 'Ah. He is the one.' kind of feeling I get."

Well, that's inconvenient. Guess my oh so good luck has to save me once a dire time arises.

"So~. Let's get this session done with a little old advice."

"Yes, please."

Anything to get away from him.

"Listen Rudeus. Once you wake up, you will have to train just a little while. Don't do anything specific, and do whatever feels natural to you. I promise you, you will gain useful new spells."

His voice echoed away as my consciousness went off.

***

My eyes sprang open the second I felt my body working again.

Looking up to the sun, it hasn't been that long since I blacked-out out of sheer panic. Probably past noon.

Standing up slowly, I readied myself. Finding out whether I'm still in that demonic form or not.

I looked at my hands and saw... normal and healthy hands. Albeit, normal in the means of not mutated dragon hands. Rolling up my sleeves, I could see that the lavender-purple veins are still there, but less visible.

From looking behind myself, I could see that the second mirror was still standing. There it was. My reflection.

A face with two eyes with no scales under them. The left eye sapphire-blue and right eye emerald-green.

A forehead with three diamond shaped scars and no light energies burning before it.

My hair was.... brown? The original hair color of this body. No more white hair with only the roots as brown.

Has this body perhaps recovered after a mind shattering scare?

To test if this is truly reality and not a dream, I pinched my left cheek.

"OW!"

There was a horrendous pain. I looked at my cheek through the mirror and saw that I actually made my cheek bleed.

What was that? I didn't use that much force… I think.

"Wait, could it be?"

Closing my eyes, I tried to feel my own-

"Wow." I felt more than what I expected right away.

The feeling of mana around me that was faint through meditation before was now wider, just half-heartedly concentrating on it.

I think I sense mana in a hundred or so meters radius.

Funny. Some of the stones of the first mirror also had some faint mana in them. In fact, everything had little mana in them, not just the air.

Although it's risky, I tried casting [Waterball].

Once the water formed, it still ended up being too big. It's about 3 times bigger, even with me holding back a little.

However, thanks to my overly sharp senses, I found the problem.

My body for some reason doesn't just use my own mana pool for the spell, but also the mana around me.

How long has it been like this? No wonder my magic always ended up to big.

The additional boost from it was what changed it.

And now that know that, I can train how to control it and use it for my skills.

I shouldn't stay out here for too long, but with this over sensing ability, I might bring out some starting results.

This will be the start of my training montage.

///

(AN:

Hello there readers.

Yeah, that part with his curse will get some more action in some later chapters.

Don't know if the setting of Hitogami telling Rudeus this was fitting, but I think it will just add to his attempt to make him be trusted by Rudeus.

The next few chapters might take a bit longer as I am still debating on some changes.

See you next time.

Bye.)