As I am now, I am physically unable to challenge that man. If the combined strength of Claudia and Marcus wasn’t enough, then I am definitely too weak to do it alone. But I am not starting from nothing.

Shared consciousness allowed me to learn all the sword and dagger movements Cassius was taught over the years. I also am capable of all of his magic, as we learned it and experienced the sensations together.

My goal is going to be simple. Raise my baseline stats across the board of physical strength, speed, endurance, magic capacity, mana manipulation, everything. I will also focus on inventing techniques that will give me a fighting chance. The last thing I will need is fighting experience.

I realized this from the little bit of the Julius fight and seeing Marcus fight on occasion. Strategies, tactics, and awareness of surroundings can make up the difference in skill. At the very least, I don’t want to enter the fight outmatched intellectually.

I will likely start solo adventuring at the end of the year. Until then it is just training. I plan to create a muscle-building workout regimen, but too much muscle could get in the way of agility. I will have to carefully watch to ensure that building on muscles doesn’t cause harm to my movements.

Ok, I have a plan.

…

Octavia wakes me up at dawn and starts preparing breakfast. I barely slept last night. The first thing I do is run around the city walls. Halfway around I start cramping and get tired. I push through anyway.

By the time I get back breakfast is already cold. I don’t mind. I’m not eating for the taste anyway. Breakfast is bread, pork, and water. Octavia offered milk, but I am saving that for when I’m finished working out.

By the time breakfast is finished, I have recovered enough to do sword training. I start by doing 10 push-ups, 10 pull-ups, 20 squats, and a few sprints. I will gradually increase these numbers over time. I practice the movements that have been ingrained into this body and mind for 20 minutes. Then do another set of the split mentioned above. And go back to sword training once more. This process is repeated until noon.

Lunch is ready by then. It is Beef, bread, cheese, olive oil, and milk. Luch is eaten in silence. I bathe after this, to get the sweat from training off me. I also change from the adventuring toga into more comfortable innerwear.

I hand my sweaty clothes to the servant Fabiana and head to the study where Octavia is waiting. She is reading a book when I enter. I sat down and grabbed three others. One is a book on magical theory, one is on manipulation of fire, and one is on support magic.

I am going to finish the night with fire magic, but for now, I will focus on support magic while using the theory book as a reference in case I don’t understand something. The authors of these books are the foremost experts in the world. Claudia was serious about obtaining knowledge.

The reading occurred in silence until I needed to ask Octavia to explain something I didn’t understand about support magic. She has been acting awkward around me since I left my bed.

Oh well, unlike Cassius I have no romantic interest in her. I also don’t care for getting all buddy buddy either. The reason I like having her around is…

I like having her around because she reminds me of the good times when she and Cassius would play together in the yard after studying magic.

Fuck. Don’t get distracted.

If I’m too exhausted to focus on my studies, I cast the spell ‘focus’ on myself and power through. This was uninterrupted until the end of the night came. When a guest came to the estate. I had him retire and gave him an extremely generous pension so that he would never have to work again. He came today to check up on me.

In a wheelchair, he rolled into the house and followed me into the living room. Brennos then pushed himself from the wheelchair onto the couch and looked at me. In the battle with the member of the Spider unit, he seems to have broken his spine. No healing magic can recover that.

“I hear you’re pushing yourself quite hard.”

“Yes.”

“Why? Can you tell me what you are thinking Cassius?”

“I’m going to avenge my family, Brennos. No matter what.”

I hesitated to call them my family before, but, losing them made me realize that’s what I thought of them as. Even if they didn’t see me as family, I still loved them as such. Not being family to them, doesn’t mean they weren’t family to me.

“I… I see. Are you sure that’s what they would’ve wanted?”

“It’s what I want Brennos. That’s what matters. As long as he is alive, I will never sleep soundly again.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Well… If you ever need anything from me, tell me. I will always be there for you Cassius.”

With that, he left. I’m sure he will continue coming over every now and then. I intend to let him do that if he pleases. Cassius liked him, so I’ll put up with him for that.

When Brennos leaves it’s Octavia that sits down next to me. I returned to researching magic. Frankly, I am trying my best to stay away from her for now. I don’t know how to act around her.

In my past life, I might have thought about taking this opportunity to raise her into an ideal bride. But I have no interest in that anymore. All that matters is accomplishing my task. Besides, I can’t take advantage of Cassius’ death to lose my virginity. If I really want to do that, I’ll go to a brothel, or buy a slave.

Buy a slave? Why did I just think that? slavery is disgusting. I thought so at least. Have I regressed as a person even further? I… frankly don’t care about that anymore. Whether slavery exists, whether it’s wrong or right doesn’t matter, what matters is killing that man.

I don’t want to be a good person. I gave up on that in my past life when I learned there are no good people. Only people who pretend to be good while acting in their own self-interest. I learned this when I was in high school.

I distinctly remember it, my high school economics teacher. The first economics class I took. We were discussing net job loss from reducing tariffs. I chimed up in the discussion, stating that even if we lose factory jobs due to competition from foreign producers who produce goods cheaper. The reduction in the price of that good will cause more production in industries that use it, possibly leading to net job creation.

I used tariff increases on solar panels for example. Theoretically raising tariffs on solar panels should create jobs in the solar panel production industry, because domestic producers can compete with foreign producers now. But that doesn’t necessarily happen. The immediate increase in price from the tariffs decreased demand for domestic and industrial use solar panels. Thus, leading to job loss in the installation, sales, transport, storage, and other parts of the industry. Possibly creating a net negative increase in jobs created.

I was proud of this analysis; the teacher commended me. He said that was a brilliant analysis of the subject for a high schooler, and he was always interested when I spoke in class. He later told me one on one that he respected me.

Then I overheard him speaking to some of the popular students. He was a very young teacher, fresh out of college. Thus, he got along with the students very well on a friendly level.

“Do you really like -----?” They asked if he liked me.

“What no! That guy is a freak.” He chuckled and continued, “But I gotta act as a teacher, right? Anyway, just because he gave one decent answer doesn't mean he’s smart or anything. If he was smart, he’d change his outfit, go to the gym, or something.”

I remember thinking ‘Ah, even he too is just pretending.’

Everyone puts on a face, and everyone conforms. This is a fact; we decide the roles others have in society. Then people play out those roles. That is the nature of social creatures, they conform. But eventually the roleplaying ends, that is when true thoughts come out. That’s when true nature comes out.

At first thought, I just wished I hadn’t heard it. But I was eventually glad I did. It made me realize that everyone is selfish, hateful, and evil. I knew that even if they say something nice, they are thinking something else. Everyone is, without exception.

Eventually, I pissed off the wrong people, and I got cornered while in the men’s restroom by those people. They found a toilet bowl filled with human waste. Then they dunked by head in it. I closed my mouth in time luckily. Some got on my hair.

“He’s literally a shithead now!” They all laughed at that.

I screamed and started crying loudly. What else can I do?

Someone ran into the restroom after they heard this. The guys saw who it was and ran out quickly. The person who came in grabbed a paper towel, wiped the chunks off me, and then brought my head to the sink. He got his hand dirty while cleaning shit out of my hair.

I thought to myself. ‘Who would go this far for me? Who would cover their hand in feces so that my hair could be clean.’ The only person I could think of who that would do is my father. But it wasn’t him. It was my economics teacher.

He took me to the showers found shampoo and body wash and waited for me to clean myself before bringing me to the office and getting to report the incident and who did it. My parents thanked him profusely for everything he did before taking me home for the day.

As I went, I said the words to him, “I’m not intelligent because I don’t change my fashion choice or go to the gym, right? Thanks for the advice.”

He looked appalled. Full of despair. That’s what naturally happens when you are revealed for what you are, caught in the act.

He resigned as a teacher not long later.

I don’t know where he is now.

But I’m grateful to him. He taught me what exactly humans are deepest to their core. They are all pieces of shit. They are all scumbags.

Looking back, it makes sense all that happened to me. I had no redeeming qualities. It only makes sense that I was bullied. But I didn’t choose to be that way. In the end, it is all the forces of nature.

The universe made me an ugly loser. The universe made it so ugly losers who can’t defend themselves are bullied. The universe made humans fundamentally evil. The universe made humans social creatures who played roles. The universe made all of this happen, not me. Therefore, all I can do is reject that universe, reject society, reject everything. Be who I am inside to the truest extent. That’s why I don’t feel guilty for leeching off my parents, for making racist and sexist jokes, for hating everyone. Because if everyone is fundamentally evil, then I’m not that bad, I’m just like everyone else, except I show it.

In this world, I will do the same. This time, the universe gave me the power to play the role I truly desire. I will kill that man who took everything from me. I will kill those who try to bully me. I will kill everyone who stands in my way. I won’t give a fuck what people think about me. I won’t bother trusting anyone. I will be who I am inside.

I will give the consideration to Brennos and Octavia that Cassius would have wished for. But it would be stupid to trust them or act nice around them. The only good human that ever existed was Cassius. The rest are all animals. Including me.

…

I spend my days doing exactly as previously described. I push myself to the breaking point every day, fearing that the little effort I fail to provide today will be what causes me to lose.

Every day, every hour, every minute, every second is devoted to perfecting the art of combat. If I fail, I punish myself. If I succeed, I move on to the next task.

That is my life.