Commands were barked, and the small group of soldiers that had accompanied the mage left with two simple orders: protect the tent and its occupants and kill everything that isn’t human. Once they’d left, nothing really changed, which made the whole thing feel anti-climactic somehow.

Benjamin’s friends and the other strangers that were forced to stand there in whatever they’d been sleeping in continued to struggle against the orders of the cute kitsune girl as she lectured them on how glorious it was to kill a wolven, a dryad, or any of the other spirits that made up the shock troops of the natural world. The sounds of struggle got weaker with every passing minute.

Benjamin had opted to stop fighting when he’d gotten his resolve down to the halfway mark. This wasn’t because he was done fighting but because he was saving it for the right moment. He was sure there would be some key moment that he could use to escape, but so far, it hadn’t materialized.

Instead, he just stood there, occasionally glancing at Ethan to his right or Matt to his left, while he tried not to let his favorite waifu distract him too much from trying to figure out what it was the mage and his apprentice were up to as they wandered from person to person. This was hard since Benjamin and his friends were in the front row closest to the bloodthirsty fox girl, and the mage had started with the back row somewhere behind him.

From the sound of the man’s footsteps, they only lingered in front of each person for perhaps half a minute before moving to the next person. When the mage declared the person “unfit for combat” or “completely disposable,” they moved even faster.

When the dispassionate man called one of those out, he uttered a few completely incomprehensible words. Then Benjamin saw a brief flare of green magic light to the tent walls before the pair continued on. He had no idea what that meant, but he did his best to ignore how Kitsune Miku-chan jiggled in her armor while he tried to figure it out.

After the first dozen humans had been ‘initialized,’ the younger man started making more and more comments that helped Benjamin understand what they were doing. “You know - this one isn’t a complete waste,” the younger man said after they lingered for almost two minutes in front of someone before moving on. That was followed by insults for the next couple of guys in line.

He just laughed at the first one, but at the second one, he said, “You know, judging from the state of these doughy men, this might be the most out-of-shape world we’ve ever seen. Maybe we should conquer it instead of just borrowing their citizens.”

“If magic worked there, I’d consider it,” the mage said coolly, “but sadly, the reason why they are so fruitful is because the rules of their universe don’t allow the sort of monsters that we must contend with here on Aavernia.”

Benjamin hoped to hear more about that, but that’s when the sound of battle grew disconcertingly close to their tent. The mage and his apprentice stopped what they were doing for a moment but then continued on as if nothing was happening. The noises were enough to make Benjamin shake in his sneakers, and he could do nothing but listen to the carnage as he parsed the sounds to try to understand what was happening outside.

Though the clash of swords and the roar of battle cries were the most common, there were other, deeper animalistic sounds, too. Roars, grunts, and growls all sounded terrifyingly close. However, even though it sounded like the few soldiers out there were facing an army and the smell of slaughter grew thick in the air, the red fabric of the pavilion never wavered.

Despite the battle raging outside, the mages finally made it to the first row of people in the tent, where he and his friends had been hiding from the terrible deprivations the mages had inflicted on everyone else. It was a terrible moment, and as the pair worked their way down the front of the line, Benjamin could barely hear the sound of the cheering fox girl or the sounds of battle over his pounding heart.

Any second, they'd reach Emma and do God knew what to her. After that would come Matt and then Benjamin himself. It was a terrifying thought but not quite as brutal as the idea that by the time they worked their way to Ethan and Raja just past him, he probably wouldn’t even care what they did to his friends.

He decided that it would have been kinder for whatever the soldiers were fighting outside to come in and rip him to pieces as they got closer, and prayed for that to happen until they reached Emma. Once they got to her, the younger man said, “You know, making a woman with a body like this a soldier would be a real waste, Master. Perhaps you could let me—”

Benjamin had mostly made peace with the fact that he'd never get Emma, even before her sudden engagement to Matt. He’d put that shit behind him, but the idea that some smarmy little fuck was going to get his claws into her with his mind control magic was beyond sick. He surged against his invisible bonds as he drained most of his resolve in a last-ditch effort to break that asshole’s neck.

His efforts were only successful enough that Kitsune Miku-chan fixed him briefly with a dazzling smile and said, “Please calm down before you hurt yourself. I know this part is unpleasant, but you’ll be able to join the fight soon enough, I promise!”

Whether Benjamin wanted to or not, he felt himself calming down immediately. The mages never even noticed his rage as they continued their conversation about Emma without even noticing him.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“We have no need of more pleasure slaves, Kathalles, and if we did, they would be for the prince or his court, not for a lowly apprentice like you. She’s much too willful to make a good transplant for a noblewoman looking to trade up either,” the older man chided, “No, letting you optimize this one would be too much of a temptation, I’m afraid, but since you’ve been observing so patiently, I will let you try your hand at the last few, so after I turn this one into a [blade dancer] observe me closely on the next one, and then you can try.”

“Ah, I see,” Kathalles said, failing to hide his disappointment as he watched his master work. “Yes - I can see exactly why you lined up those stats like that. Very clever, sir.”

As they spoke, they finally stepped in front of Matt, and a cold chill went down Benjamin’s spine as he realized he was next. Being helpless was a terrifying feeling, but even that didn’t have as much impact as it should. Just like his rage over the way the apprentice had referred to Emma, it was muted by a soft veil of words that everything was going to be fine as his resolve ticked down a few more points.

“As you know, the most important thing when it comes to reformatting a character’s system is to work with the grain and do as little damage as possible,” the older mage said, raising a small rod and pointing it at Matt suddenly bringing his character sheet into existence so that everyone, even Benjamin could see it. “Now tell me the first thing that needs to go is.”

“Academic knowledge, just like so many of these others. His medicine is awful high if he isn’t going to be a healer… oh, I know - his love status effect. He’s definitely not going to need that anymore,”

the apprentice said with a smug expression on his face.

In Love with Emma: +5 to all actions involving his betrothed.

“While that status effect is indeed something we can reclaim a few points by removing, it’s something we'll evaluate after all the other changes, because it is most likely to be destabilizing for the subject,” the mage said with a shrug. “There is however one trait on this man’s character sheet that would render him completely unusable if it wasn’t removed first.”

Pacifist: Unable to take violent actions except in defense.

“How useless!” the apprentice said with a laugh. “Why would anyone choose that trait!”

“Well, if you or I were to select it, it would contribute seven build points. That’s practically a level that a focused healer or craftsman could use to increase their abilities,” the older mage waxed absentmindedly. “There are similar traits you could adopt as a mage. Synergistic disadvantages to enable you to outcompete a less devoted competitor at court should you desire, nephew, but in this case, we will have to remove it.”

“A core trait, though - that’s as tied into his soul as his love for the girl you just optimized,” the apprentice said, “won’t this damage his soul quite a bit, Lord Jarris?”

“It will,” the older mage agreed. “For lesser issues, I would leave this in place, but this time, since it must be removed, I’m inclined to replace it with an opposing disadvantage. You would think that adding in something like [ill-tempered] or [belligerent] would exacerbate the problem. However, research indicates that an opposing trait can mitigate the soul damage by up to a third.”

“So, all we need to do is remove the problem,” the mage said as [Pacifist] disappeared from his friend’s character sheet, “add a solution…” As he spoke, [Berserk] appeared in that place as he continued to speak, “and once we verify that the stability levels are still high enough, we can make the other changes we need without incurring soul damage, and now we have a specialized class that will do even better than the average soldier.”

As Benjamin watched, Matt’s character sheet morphed until it was unrecognizable. The class of Healer (apprentice) vanished, along with several other skills, and they were almost instantly replaced by Berserker, and many skills that seemed antithetical to everything that his friend stood for appeared. Leadership became lore (military) and lore (creature), athletics (soccer) became melee combat, and meditation became rage.

At the same time, as all this was happening, Benjamin watched his friend’s appearance start to shift visibly as they adjusted his stats, and his body literally changed to conform with the magic. They dropped Matt’s intelligence and appearance down quite a bit and dumped all those points into strength and agility. It was terrible, but it was even more abominable to watch it happen in real-time.

Benjamin could only watch from the edge of his field of vision as Matt’s formerly good looks faded into something misshapen and angry, and his kind, inquisitive eyes lost their luster. In less than a minute, the friend he’d known since high school went from a familiar face to a stranger.

When it was all over, Matt got a status debuff that said Bound to Serve, but the character sheet winked out of existence before Benjamin could see what it did. That it was going to do nothing positive was obvious enough, but when the sclera and the iris of Matt’s eyes disappeared, and his eyes turned jet black, it became doubly obvious that whatever they’d done to him was utterly inhuman.

It was terrifying, but not as terrifying as when the mage handed the metal rod to his apprentice and said, “Alright, let’s see what you can do with the next one.”

“Really?” the younger man asked. “I didn’t think you’d let me try this for months yet.”

“Why not?” Lord Jarris said with a shrug. “This… Benjamin Newsome… was just going to be another sacrifice for the blood mages. Let’s see if you can turn him into something worth keeping around a while longer, Kathalles, and if you botch it, well - nothing of value was lost.”

Even though Benjamin had a handful of resistance left, he couldn’t even bring himself to struggle because he was too overwhelmed by fear. He’d just seen what they’d done to his friend - to a man that he’d always looked up to, and now a bumbling apprentice was going to violate his soul?

Benjamin still heard the sounds of battle outside, but now he wished once more that one of the monsters would come in and kill them all where they stood.