A Cold-Blooded POV

"This cannot be a coincidence."

This was most likely correct. It was probably true that no one was killed in the dungeon before Blake arrived, but what did that have to do with him? He hadn't killed anyone. He had been recently trying to find out about his unique circumstances for the past two days. Not to mention...

"But my shirt doesn't correlate with that guy's death. The blood on that shirt came from me, not another guy." Blake stated.

Mr. Hartelle's eyes narrowed. "Boy, do you think we are stupid? I've seen you everyday and night when you come back to this here barn, and I've never seen you hurt or bleeding this badly. Hell, are you even injured at all right now?"

Blake subconsciously felt his stomach where he could clearly remember the deep gash-like cuts that were ingrained into his torso by that terrifying giant lizard. However, when he felt his stomach now - they were all gone and healed up. By the time he had awoken in the body of Blake, all the wounds this body had - were gone.

Seeing Blake's actions, the woman quickly injected her input.

"Ha! See, your fine, not even a scratch is on your body. Damn liar! Don't fall for his deceitfulness." She said as she turned around enticing the mob even more than it already was.

To Blake, it seemed none of these people were going to listen, no - more specifically, they weren't trying to listen. It seemed they were hell-bent on painting him out as a killer, and this woman was the main antagonist of them all.

'Seems like they are all trying to exact their personal vendettas against me right here right now.' Blake concluded.

"I didn't kill anyone. Can't you tell that those rips are from claws, not a sword. And even if I did fight against this guy who died; why aren't I hurt? You said it yourself, I'm healthy and fine."

Hearing this, the group of people's blurts and shouts hushed. Even Mr. Hartelle and the obsessive woman couldn't properly answer his question.

The silence was extremely loud.

All of a sudden, the woman blurted something that even Mr. Hartelle could only look at as shameless.

"I-It's because you dodged all of his attacks... Yeah! You were in one of the six great guilds before right? It's obvious that you have more talent than a regular solo dungeon delver."

Blake couldn't even believe what he was hearing - was this lady good in the head? She was literally coming up with her own conclusions over and over.

However, this shameless statement, in fact, began to revive the mob's motivation back up. Seeing this, Blake was about to try to retort the woman's claims once again but something started to seem off...

The woman, she had seemed okay until now - of course, she was highly passionate in her pursuit but all in all she had seemed relatively normal. However, now, as Blake stared at her - after she had forced out those last words, the white sclera in her eyes that caressed her pupil and iris had began to turn extremely red.

Additionally, after Blake had experienced mana overload, along with his physical changes, there were also internal changes - which included him becoming highly sensitive to mana.

Around the woman, a malicious and dark aura began to form - wrapping around her like a cocoon. The malicious aura continued to grow and amass itself, stretching from the woman toward even the other members of the mob. Yet, none of the people around her could see this - not even Blake himself. But he could sense a weird atmosphere growing.

'The hell is wrong with this lady's eyes?' Blake thought.

"You are a murderer, a killer." The woman turned around, glancing at the others in the mob and continued.

"I say we get rid of him right here, right now - before he tries and take even more of our innocent villagers!"

The villagers that stood behind her, once again, grew silent. She wanted to kill the boy? But that wasn't their intentions; the villagers simply wanted the murderer out of Snowspell village.

As the woman looked around at the silent crowd her eyes were dying itself more and more red - still, no one appeared to see this.

Mr. Hartelle dropped his hand on the woman's shoulder.

"Miss, I think we should leave that kind of decision to the Enforcers. We are only regular citizens, this kind of choice would scar most of us for our entire life."

The small woman quickly grabbed Mr. Hartelle's hand and looked deeply into his eyes.

"This boy--no, this murderer, leaving him alive until the Enforcers arrive is too much of a Luxury for him. He deserves exactly what that poor delver got: Death!".

The woman gripped hard onto Mr. Hartelle like she was possessed - looking deeply into his eyes. Finally, the dark red, almost black eyes were finally revealed to him. However contrary to what anyones expectations - Mr. Hartelle replied with some chilling words.

Mr. Hartelle stared deeply at the woman, as if in a trans, then replied "You're right. Let's kill this murderer. He deserves death, so we should accommodate for that and proceed like so."

"What?..."

"But killing someone is..."

"Hey, Mr. Hartelle are you okay?"

Whispers and questions flooded out from the mob that stood behind the duo. The villagers didn't understand the other's line of thought - they weren't here to kill anyone.

Blake glanced at Mr. Hartelle suspiciously. He was suspicious of the fact that the farmer was just against such a outlandish idea a second ago, but now he had switched up immediately after making eye contact with the weird woman.

His heart had been started beating fast, feeling as if it was pumping blood 200 times per minute. Even he didn't understand why he was so calm externally. Perhaps it had something to do with the original Blake's temperament.

The woman twisted her tneck in a abnormally manner - almost snapping it due to the uncalculated amount of strength.

"Don't any of you understand? This is how it must be if we want to keep our village safe. We have to make sacrifices. You've already brought you weapons. Now all we have to do is finish it... So that our sons and daughters are kept unharmed and unexposed to danger!"

The malice filled mana quickly and unknowingly veered around the villagers. A couple more seconds later, the mob slowly began agreeing with Mr. Hartelle and the woman one by one. 𝘧𝓇𝒆𝗲𝓌𝙚𝙗𝓷o𝘷𝒆𝘭.𝐜𝚘𝒎

When everyone once again turned and looked at Blake, he could see it. All of them, all of these people eyes were changing inhumanely. The woman and Mr. Hartelle eyes had already changed pitched black with only the centered pupils a crimson red color.

Blake quickly unsheathed his sword as the villagers began to walk closer to him. Waving his sword warningly Blake called out to the farmer to try to snap him out of it.

"Mr. Hartelle! Mr. Hartelle you need to snap out of it!" pan(da-n0vel.c)om

Chris was scared. These people were going to try to kill him.

He looked down toward his sword which was not shaking in his hands like he thought they would have been. But externally, he really was calm. Not only was his hands not shaking, his face didn't even twitch into a frown or an expression of fright.

Chris tried to calm his inner self. If he could just knock these people out then he wouldn't have to kill anyone.

The first villager walked up on him - swinging a giant plank of wood. Blake easily dodged the swings of this guy.

'His swings are hurried and clumsy. Not to mention, extremely slow' He thought.

After dodging the villagers attacks, Blake quickly hit the guy in the back of the head with the hilt of his sword, knocking him out instantly. The man fell to the ground making a "thump" sound - Blake didn't have the time to catch the guy from falling, he still had to deal with the other villagers who were rushing toward him.

As Blake fought these men and women, he was surprised to find how strong and accurate he had become when using his weapon without ever taking proper practice or training. In addition, as far as he was concerned - he wasn't tired in any sort of way.

Each attack, Blake would cleanly dodge as if he could predict each and every movement. It seemed that because the original Blake was well established fighter, he could use a sword just as good even though he had never used one in his previous life.

Just as he was about to counterattack another villager...

Pain.

He felt a sharp pain skewering through his back. Looking behind him, Blake could see all the people he thought he had incapacitated - now, up and moving. Reaching down his back, Blake's heart dropped and his mind began racing uncontrollably.

There was a large knife stabbed in the right side of his back. He had thought that the villagers were unconscious and dropped his guard behind him.

Instinctively, he went and tried to pull on the knife however...

"Agh!!!"

'It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!'

He quickly gave up on trying to pull out the knife, instead, he rushed toward the wall left of him, where he could view behind him and in front of him.

He literally feel his chest beating so hard that it was making his whole body jump.

It had finally settled in.

'These people... they really are trying to kill me!'

Having the stress of over 20 people trying their hardest to kill you, it made for a real reality check. Chris hadn't fully accepted his new reality. It had a system like how the games he used to design had, it had dungeon and labyrinths, guilds, magic and curses, all this made everything felt to fake to be reality.

However, here and now, it had finally dawned on him how serious this situation was. Blake had finally settled on something.

'If I want to live, I have to kill these people'. These thoughts randomly spawned in his mind but he knew they were true. He could take another chance of knocking them out only for them to stab him in the back once more.

Chris had always known this, it was literally ingrained in his mind from the memories. This world was harsh - much harsher than his previous one. Of course it had laws, but it also had way more dangers. Thinking these thoughts, his heart had reached a even faster pace.

"Diee!!"

The screams of Mr. Hartelle rang out, and the farmer charged at Blake with a machete in his hand. Chris felt like his heart had fallen to his feet, but he readied his sword.

As soon as Mr. Hartelle got a few feet away, Blake swung his sword beautifully. The sounds of meat being cut, blood spurting from deep wounds - he could literally feel the resistance of flesh and bones being torn. All this made him want to stop or hesitate but he couldn't. This is what it took if he wanted to survive!

[You have defeated level 35 Derelicta Humana Farmer]

[You have gained XP]

[Expert Swordsman has reached level 6]

The sound of a robotic voice echoed in his mind, however, Blake completely ignored it - or perhaps he just hadn't heard it.

Blake sliced diagonally, from the right side of the neck of Mr. Hartelle to the armpit of his left arm. This severed almost half of his body, and blood splattered onto Blake's face and clothes. Chris hardened himself, he couldn't allow himself to crack from just this. He still had more people that he would need to kill.

Looking up and around at the other villagers who were walking closer and closer toward him with their weapons, Chris resolved himself.

...

Twenty minutes had passed and the last of the remaining crazed mob had finally fallen.

A lone boy stood in blood soaked snow that, was once a fluffy white. The cold frosty breeze assaulted his body since he was only kept warm by the bloodied white shirt and black pants that he wore.

The boy sat as still as a statue staring at the dark sky that was littered with shiny white dots. Unknown to him, inaudible cackles rang out mixing within the mana molecules before disappearing.

A exhale escaped his mouth, crystallizing and becoming white smoke.

All around him were decapitated, severed, and completely bloodied bodies and body pieces.

A couple seconds later a slight chuckle escaped the boy's lips.

"Heh..."