I woke up around noon, feeling relatively well for the first time in two weeks. That was without mentioning the burn on my body that still caused me to feel an endless pain.

I could feel that my Mana had replenished to about 70% of its maximum capacity. That was due to this pain getting in the way of a full recovery.

“Well that’s more than enough.”

I don’t know if it was due to my continuous use of Creative Magic with Shadow enchantments but my total Mana capacity now far exceeded how much Mana I had before leaving Aldenaf for the Capital.

Let’s see.. if I were to compare how much Mana I had with numbers, I used to have around 500 Mana when I left the village and now I could feel I had about… 10 times more ? Around 5000 Mana at only 70% of my total power… that was considerably above average.

One could even say that I had as much Mana as the best Elven Magicians.

The Elves are usually born with a naturally very high Mana capacity, far exceeding that of the human race.

This was useful to me, because I would need an extreme amount of Mana to reach my goals.

After having woken up, I wanted to check my physical appearance. There was a large mirror in my room that I used to see what I now looked like.

I ordered Wahnsinn to disable『Shadow Skin』and braced myself before looking in the mirror. What I saw was within my expectations but was still horrifying to watch nevertheless.

There was only burnt skin left on my left side. In the place of my left eye, there was now a deep empty black hole. Some bones were also visible on my arm and rib cage. A big part of my lips was now missing as well, fully exposing my teeth.

On the other side, my right eye that used to be dark brown now looked more reddish than anything else and my dark brown hair had turned silver, probably due to the intense stress of the torture.

Wahnsinn reactivated『Shadow Skin』and we left my house.

Since it was noon, the time was perfect. Wahnsinn and I hurried towards the central place of the village, gathering the attention of several villagers.

We were wearing clothes we had found in my cupboard : a white shirt and black pants along with a white tunic. We were also wearing white gloves and a white mask I had kept for one of the village’s festivals where kids dress up as ghosts to scare the evil spirits away.

The mask covered up our whole face and had two small holes for the eyes and a mischievous smirk. The mask was made to cover up my identity and to avoid the villagers from recognising me.

Wahnsinn had enchanted the left half of the clothes as well, to provide extra support during fights, except for the mask that was covered by black on its right half.

As such, we were now wearing clothes that looked like they were designed for a masquerade ball. No wonder why the villagers looked at me with a face full of surprise.

It was clear however, that no one recognised me.

We stood in the middle of the central place, which was just like I remembered. It was a circular place that was located in the centre of the village and where local and foreign merchants would gather every 10 days to sell all kinds of products. Despite the village being very small, it was a popular event that attracted all kinds of people.

However, today wasn’t the market day and as such, there was a relatively small amount of people gathered here.

I first started by using Earth Magic to create a platform on which I stood higher than the other villagers.

There were only around 5 people here, looking at us with astonished expressions. That wasn’t nearly enough. I needed to gather everyone present in the village.

I used Creative Magic to shoot a fireball in the air. It was a rather big fireball that contained smaller ones inside of it, each embedded with the『Flash』spell. I had imagined it to be an explosive fireball and when it reached a satisfying height, it blew up, throwing a huge tantrum among the stupefied spectators. This explosion released 20 smaller fireballs that exploded in the sky at different heights and time, emitting a massive light every time.

As expected, as more and more of these fireworks blew up in the air, more and more villagers gathered to see what was going on.

I heard things such as “Is he a street performer ?” and “Isn’t he casting Magic ? Nah, that’s impossible, I’ve never heard of using Magic like that.”

Finally, most of the village was gathered around me, watching the fireworks with intrigued expressions.

Wahnsinn and I took a step forward and faced the crowd. There were around 50 people there. I started shouting.

“Good day to you, ladies and gentlemen. My name… is irrelevant but you may refer to me as Joker. I am here today, not just to entertain you but also to give you a choice.”

“…”

The villagers were listening closely to what I was saying, not having a clue about the situation.

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“Now, listen closely. Think well and choose wisely for it will be the choice of your life, deciding of your fate. I am now going to size this village as the first milestone for my world conquest. Here is the choice : you may either leave the village safely and never return, stay here and become part of my kingdom or you may refuse to abide and die here.”

I let that information sink in for a good minute. The villagers started whispering to each other and the disbelief soon let place to anger. Some villagers were cowering in fear while others were causing an uproar.

“Who do you think you are !?”

“Sizing the village ? By yourself ? What kind of joke is that !?”

“Someone go get the guards and Tras. They’ll teach this guy a lesson !”

Hearing this, I decided to show them how serious I was.

I located one of the men who were objecting and Wahnsinn quickly beheaded him with a 『Shadow Cut』. Our precision had reached such a level that he was the only one hurt in the process, despite being surrounded by a group of villagers. The surrounding people were splashed by blood and women started screaming while the children didn’t understand what had just happened.

A few people tried to run for their lives but I let them. I did allow them to leave the town if that was what they wanted.

A few moments later, 5 guards came running towards me. Before they were even able to say anything, Wahnsinn slayed them with Shadow bullets.

“I will repeat what I said earlier. Either surrender or leave the village, but do not try to oppose me unless you have a death wish.”

To further crush the resistance,『Exit』spitted out Tras’ body parts. When they saw that, the villagers’ faces changed to show only despair.

***

In the end, against all odds, the day ended with 11 deaths, 44 villagers leaving the town and 3 remaining.

The 3 remaining people were children. Two of them were orphan twins: Burs and Armius, both 11 years old boys that I knew because they used to hang out with Hell. They were easy to remember as they both had red hair and were quite tall for their age. Despite this, Burs had a very shy personality while Armius always clung to his brother.

The third one was a black haired 13 years old girl who looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read. It seems her name was Alae and she was the daughter of the first man I slaughtered. Her mother seemed to have abandoned her when she ran away from the village.

The twins were looking at me with a frightened expression and teary eyes. They were both hiding behind Alae, who despite witnessing me killing some villagers including her own father, didn’t look scared.

“Well, well, boys. No need to look so scared. I’m not going to harm the very first citizens of my kingdom now, am I ?”

“…”

“By the way, you can live in any house you want, I don’t care. I have something important to do so I’m going to leave you now.”

From the moment I called myself Joker on the platform, I started considering Wahnsinn and I as a single entity once again. Zwölf didn’t exist on his own anymore and the fusion of Wahnsinn and him now made up who I am : Joker.

I walked towards the exit of the village that was now deserted. The guards that used to protect the entrance of the village had all been slaughtered so there was now nothing preventing outsiders from entering it.

Now standing in front of Aldenaf, I raised my arms and started spreading Shadow Magic all around the walls. Since I now understood how teleportation Shadow Magic worked, I could control a vast majority of its many uses, which made the process of surrounding the village with Shadow Magic way quicker than it would have been with only Wahnsinn.

I noticed that Alae was silently watching me from inside the town. The twins were nowhere to be seen.

After a while, I felt that the whole village was now surrounded by Shadow Magic. I entered the town once more and activated what I had spent the whole night thinking about.

“Wahnsinn… It’s time to do it. Now !”

“Yes, it is indeed.”

“『Shadow Dome』!”

After activating this spell, the Shadow Magic that was spread all around the village started expanding upwards and soon covered the sky. After a few minutes, the sunlight disappeared as the town was now covered by a dome made of Shadow Magic.

Looking at it from another perspective,『Shadow Dome』was essentially a bigger version of 『Entrance』.

Having the same properties as its smaller counterpart,『Shadow Dome』reacted upon my order to swallow the whole town.

That day, the small village that used to be known as “Aldenaf” was quietly erased from the Sill continent.