Young Master's PoV: Woke Up As A Villain In A Game One Day

That worked.

As best as I hoped it would, at least.

The moment I finished speaking, I heard Michael yelling orders and gathering as many Brawlers as he could.

As the only other [B-rank] Awakened on the field aside from me, he was taking charge of the vanguard.

That was good.

With him managing the frontlines, I would have one less thing to worry about.

And not much later, many other Cadets started falling into formations as well.

Not all. Not fast.

But some. Enough to put up a serious fight.

Even getting a trained military unit to fall into line after a bloodbath was hard. Getting Cadets — half of whom were on the verge of a breakdown — was nearly impossible.

So it didn’t happen immediately.

But the process had started.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury to see the formation complete — because the massive earthen hand holding back the cyclops suddenly… exploded.

The sound was like a mountain shattering.

Not cracking.

Shattering.

Chunks of hardened rock blasted out like shrapnel. Some tore through buildings. Others slammed into the ground like meteor strikes. And a few hit Cadets and pulverized them.

Blood sprayed like rain as bodies crumpled like piñatas — limbs bent in directions they shouldn’t bend and screams cut short.

One such boulder — larger than a cart — came hurtling straight at me.

I only had a second to react.

I raised my golden blade and brought it down in a flash, cleaving the boulder in two mid-air like slicing through butter with a hot knife.

Sparks scattered.

Fragments of glowing stone ricocheted behind me with thunderous crashes — one half of the boulder slamming into the remains of a building, the other gouging into the ground like a meteor.

And when I looked up…

All I saw was the cyclops — that goddamn fire-eyed Solbraith giant — emerging from the smoke and flame.

Its smoldering body hissed with steam. Cracks split across its charred rocky skin like fault lines, glowing with pulsing magma.

Its single eye was flaring now — brighter and hotter and wider.

Looking into it felt like staring into the mouth of a volcano.

…A volcano seconds away from eruption.

I didn’t even think before I willed the ground beneath me to rise.

Multiple earthen walls, as tall as the giant and thicker than mountain ridges, surged upward before me and curled overhead like a bunker made of stone.

Just in time.

Because the very next instant, the Solbraith cyclops let out a guttural scream that shook the air — like thunder being strangled.

Its single blazing eye burned even brighter for a moment before a laser beam — a concentrated lance of incinerating fire, honed to a needle-point of destruction — shot out.

It blasted straight into my barrier.

—BOOOOM!!!

The impact wasn’t just loud.

It was cataclysmic.

The barrier detonated on contact.

Stone and soil evaporated.

The ground buckled.

And the sheer heat of the laser turned the air to plasma.

I was already diving to the side — but the shockwave from the attack still caught me mid-air and hurled me.

Even though I wasn’t hit directly, the heat was still unbearable.

My cloak ignited at the edges and my skin felt blistered.

I hit the ground and rolled — once, twice — before slamming to a stop.

My ribs screamed in agony.

My breath was gone.

My vision blurred at the edges, pulsing with red.

I coughed — blood and smoke — and forced myself back to my feet.

My legs were trembling.

My hands shook.

Everything hurt.

But I was still alive.

Because at the very last second, I had triggered one of my defense Cards — «Scaled Hide».

⟨Scaled Hide — Temporarily turns the user’s skin into a layer of semi-draconic scales. Great for reducing physical damage. Very effective against elemental attacks, especially fire.⟩

The outer layer of my skin had hardened into dull, reptilian scales.

It had protected me against the worst of the damage.

I took a deep breath and deactivated «Scaled Hide».

The scales cracked, then flaked off like brittle armor. My skin underneath was red. But intact.

When the dust cleared… and I saw the aftermath—

Everything the laser had touched was… gone.

There was a smoking trench carved clean across the battlefield, like someone had taken a blowtorch the size of a house and just dragged it through stone, steel, and people alike.

The air shimmered from residual heat.

The ground hissed.

And in the middle of that scorched path were silhouettes — shadows burned into the earth like grotesque murals left behind after a nuclear blast.

Cadets who’d been caught in the beam weren’t just dead. They were erased. Gone in less than a second.

Only their outlines, made of ash and horror, remained.

And then… their ashes stirred.

Out of those charred remains, figures rose — twisted, half-formed humanoid shapes with blazing eyes and molten insides, their skin peeling with each step as if rejecting the memory of being human.

They staggered for a moment…

Then turned.

And joined the swarm of monsters.

Just like that, they had become Solbraiths.

I looked toward the eastern exit and saw the giant was still standing.

Still burning.

Still glowing.

…Still charging another shot.

Michael and a few others were rushing in to engage it.

But even from here, I could tell…

It wasn’t going to go well.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, bracing to move—

And that’s when a worm the size of a small truck lunged at me from the right.

Its body was covered in jagged obsidian chitin, cracked in places where molten lava bled through like veins, dripping and sizzling with every motion.

Its circular mouth was full of rings of glowing, serrated teeth spinning around a crucible of fire, ready to melt anything it swallowed.

I sidestepped just in time to avoid being gulped down whole.

But the worm twisted its boneless body mid-air and crashed down toward me like a collapsing lava tower.

The impact shattered the ground.

I threw myself backward, rolling just ahead of the main strike — but the shockwave still exploded outward, flinging burning shrapnel into my arms, chest, and legs.

But I didn’t stop.

Before I even hit the ground, I retaliated.

Mid-fall, I swung Aurieth and a blazing arc of light exploded outward, slicing across the worm’s midsection like a divine crescent.

The creature let out a screech that sounded like molten metal being scraped across glass.

It reared back, wounded…

But not dead.

Of course it wasn’t dead.

I thought about pursuing it, but at that very moment, something else lunged at me from behind — a monstrous ant-thing, covered in cracked black plating and oozing magma from its joints, its mandibles wide and dripping molten fluid.

I cursed and used my innate power.

A massive stone hand rose from the ground and grabbed the worm mid-screech before swinging it like a flaming whip and crashing it straight into the ant-creature’s thorax.

The sound of impact was as grotesque as the impact itself.

The monstrous ant’s carapace cracked violently, then shattered, molten blood spraying out like ruptured pipes. Its mandibles twitched spasmodically before its body collapsed — crushed and splattered under the weight of its fellow monster.

The worm howled again — writhing in the grasp of my conjured stone hand, lava pouring from the gash in its midsection.

But I didn’t let go.

I turned around and hurled it overhead like a slab of meat before bringing it down on another swarm of lesser-Solbraiths that had cornered a group of Cadets.

The worm flew through the air like a flaming boulder and crashed into the swarm.

The impact was thunderous.

A geyser of fire exploded where the worm landed on the other monsters, crushing them like they were hit by a meteor strike.

I sighed as my giant stone hand crumbled into rubble.

The Cadets I just saved looked up at me — wide-eyed, trembling, faces streaked with blood and soot and horror.

“Go join the others!” I yelled.

They hesitated—

Then nodded and scrambled off.

I looked around.

The situation wasn’t much better than it had been a few minutes ago.

But it was getting there.

‘If only we could take down that cyclops and get out of here—’ I started to think…

But my thoughts stopped the moment I saw her.

A white-haired girl — on her knees — silver rapier trembling in her grip. Her leg was badly injured. Blood spilled from a deep gash torn straight through her ankle, staining the ground beneath her.

And looming over her… was a monster.

A hideous, chitin-covered abomination — an ungodly hybrid of a mantis and a scorpion. Its twin scythe-like claws were raised high, each longer than a man. Its tail coiled like a whip behind it, ending in a barbed stinger that dripped molten venom — each drop hissing and scorching the spot on the ground it landed on.

It was going to kill the girl.

And she didn’t even seem scared.

I couldn’t see her properly through the dark and smoke. But I didn’t need to look at her face to recognize her.

Even from here, I could tell…

That young woman was my dear Shadow.

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