The next moment, Darius woke up inside a capsule while wearing a mulled and thin costume all over his body.

"God damn it…"

He felt like throwing up from the anguish, which made his entire body ache. His head had been smashed, so he didn't even feel the hit; the instant the pain reached his brain, it stopped. However, the true pain he felt came from overusing his tendons and muscles in an attempt to keep up with his kinetic vision enchanted by the mage's dopamine. After emerging from the capsule, he was hardly able to stand due to a combination of pain from experiencing having a fractured arm and crushed bones.

Although everything he experienced inside that VR was artificial, the pain was still present, making him feel as if it were real.

With all that contraction of the muscles that he unconsciously transmitted to his main body, Darius’ already muscular body became even more chiseled, looking as if his tendons and muscle tissues were made of rocks and iron bars, comparable to harshly trained masters of martial arts.

"Ugh…"

He crashed on the bench in front of the capsule, sweat covering his whole trembling body.

79th time… or was it 80th today? Either way, I died way too many fucking times only to understand that with a human’s body, no matter how well you do, how much you train, or how many drugs you take, you simply can’t match the speed and power of a field-boss monster without the use of gloves. Tsk, are the superhumans the only answer against those monsters? I seriously hate it…

Darius recalled his struggles after slashing the back of the gorilla multiple times, only to deal slight cuts and barely penetrate two centimeters even by using the plasma knife. The golems would normally surround the core’s outer shell with a thicker and stronger shell so it would not be easily penetrated, but they would have to sacrifice the armor for other parts of the body. In the stone gorilla’s case, its back legs were especially weak and easily destroyed, but even so, nothing stopped it from just swinging its body using its two monstrous arms as swingers, sending shockwaves with each movement.

Darius tried to also use his sniper, C4s, grenades, and even a rocket launcher. None worked, and most of the time he was killed even before he could attack, the monster’s speed being superior to any high-ranked monster and more unpredictable than Joshua. The longest and most damage he was able to deal with was with the energy knife that had the blade surrounded by blue plasma, making it buzz and use the force of vibration to strengthen and sharpen the blade, and also a gun for when it wanted to disturb the golem by shooting it’s eyes.

Whenever he tried to do anything else, like using a rifle or a grenade for long-range, the slight moment his focus shifted to change weapons, his whole body would explode from a ridiculous punch or get pulverized by a plasma beam. Simply dodging the beam required his full attention, and even then, because of how thick the beam was, he would still suffer damages by having his armor partially melted or straight out lose a limb.

Obviously, his struggles were still useless, as even that knife was barely dealing any damage to the fortified outer shell of the core.

But what Darius didn’t know was that the feat alone—that he was able to scratch an experienced Field Boss like the Stone gorilla as a simple human—was something that maybe only a handful in the whole globe could do, even between mages.

He was simply unaware of his own monstrous skills, and that baffled anyone who saw him.

[Daniel, I recommend taking a break. You’re overdoing it, and side effects will appear if you continue; like they did just now.]

"… Sure."

Hearing the feminine voice, Darius sighed and decided to stop being stubborn and get up to change.

Normally, Darius would ignore Lola’s advice and end up with multiple micro-muscular ruptures all over his body, needing to enter the "Divine" to be able to even run.

Because of numerous uses, he found side effects that started to burden the healing process, his body getting used to the machinery’s effects. Because of that, he decided to no longer exert himself and just use the tube when truly needed.

Darius entered the changing room to change and grit his teeth as he removed the costume, revealing significant bruises underneath from the Nocebo effect. Contrary to placebo, which is the brain's ability to heal and elevate a person's mood through self-conviction, nocebo is the brain's ability to damage and devastate a person's mood. In our situation, the brain interpreted all of Darius' injuries as real due to the excessively realistic virtual reality and the 100% pain simulator setting. This caused cells to self-destruct in the locations where Darius received the most damage in the VR. Other people with fragile minds have been known to die during virtual reality training, their bodies going into an instantaneous coma as their brains shut down. Because of this, it would take a long time for someone to focus and adjust to the notion that this world is an illusion. Darius, who had gone through that before, found it difficult to fully acclimate to that world and persuade his mind that his virtual reality body wasn't the real one. However, his muscles and tendons were also becoming increasingly stronger as a result of the intense exercise. But, Darius's obstinacy turned even that into a drawback, as he shredded portions of his muscular tissues through excessive use of the VR.

It was also great training for Darius to raise his control over his own brain as well, but this wasn’t his main objective as he just wished to train his combat skills.

-SHAA~-

Going inside the shower, he felt the droplets from the shower like pebbles thrown at him, his red and purple bruised back hurting to the point that it made his face turn grim.

After showering and changing into his usual camo pants and gray t-shirt, Darius got out of the vestiaries and inside the large militaristic base of the Eastern City.

That was the headquarters of the Blue-Spark Army, and although the city itself was quite small because the monsters took control over most of it, the amount of heavy technology and weaponry imbued in that base was something one couldn’t help but admire. The whole place was highly fortified with sturdy metal automatic doors and cameras all over the place, looking like some crazy Ci-Fi base from some movie.

[Daniel. You told me to remind you of "feeding the dogs" after today’s training, whatever that means.]

"Ah, right. Thanks for that."

[By any chance, is it some type of code name for another expedition outside? Will you be fine doing that in your condition?]

"Do I look to be in that much pain to you?"

On the hallway Darius walked through, a camera focused on him, and the feminine voice resounded again with a deeper tone.

[To be honest, the fact that you’re walking with such a calm expression defies all the logic I know about human biology. Are you perhaps of a different breed from us? Or maybe some unawakened Spirit Wielder?]

"Heh, who would’ve thought the stone-hearted woman of the security system would be able to make such a joke? Even more, why does it sound like you’re worried? Lola, you surprise me."

[… I’m serious. Let alone mages; even Spirit Wielders would have a hard time training the way you do.]

"A Spirit Wielder would be able to deal with that gorilla."

[I’m not talking about the VR foe, but the strains suffered by the brain. The data describing your mental and physical state from the past month after the constant VR training has been released by the computer.]

"And? What’s the result?"

[To be honest, terrifying. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve considered you to be a monster.]

"Coming from you, I’ll take it as a compliment."

[Although you were able to partially make your brain aware of the VR influences, once you entered combat, that awareness gradually faded, and the tension and load felt by your VR body became more and more real as you submerged yourself in the machine. Clearly, the more fiercely you struggled, the more real that reality became for you, which is both normal and fatal. But it's the fact that you not only survived but merely ended up with bruises that has me perplexed after 82 consecutive deaths. The tension created on your brain was equivalent to that of an actual fight, but instead of sending signals of death, fractured bones, and internal bleeding, it merely transmitted minor shocks that injured the blood vessels, shredding a few muscle tissues at worst.]

"So I died 82 times, heh. More than I thought."

Hearing Darius’ chuckle, Lola sighed and continued with the same deep voice.

[Daniel, don’t ignore my words.]

"Yes, yes. I heard you. You said that rather than dying, I only suffered slight shocks. But so you know, even those hurt.]

[Sigh~, I’m not saying that your injuries are minor. I’m saying that they’re small in comparison to what you should’ve experienced if not for your ridiculous mental fortitude. It’s like your brain knows you’re hurt, but it refuses to believe it. Or better said, it simply doesn’t care as much as it should.]

"The human brain's not something a simple computer and logic mind could calculate. So if you wish to understand more about this lump of fat we have in our heads, then you better open up more to what you might perceive as impossible. Otherwise, you’ll just end up more confused and limited by your own shortsightedness."

Commenting in a neutral tone, Darius got out of the base and outside the HQ building. He also took out the earphone he used to chat with Lola, then waved at a security camera that was turned to him right at the entrance of the building.

"Now, see you tomorrow. Please save the data of the actual Stone Gorilla and update its fighting power for next time. I’m thinking of using another strategy."

[… Crazy bastard.]

"Don’t use the entrance’s interphone to answer me. You know that’s not approved."

Pressing the [Close Call] button on the interphone near the entrance’s door, Darius then left towards the parking lot, where he left his armored motorbike.

Since his car broke down, Darius decided to just use a motorcycle rather than a car. Because it had a smaller hitbox, was quicker at maneuvering, and was also easier to jump out of in case of emergencies, Darius decided to just get a normal armored bike that was resistant enough to crash into walls.

While walking towards his bike, Darius took out from his breast pocket a slim document with only 2 pieces of paper, both of them also having the profile pictures of a boy and a young man. He grabbed the paper of the young man's, who had a plain face but a warm smile on, his eyes exuding warmth and calmness. His status showed that his strength and agility were equal, his defense slightly lower, his magical defense pretty alright, and his magical prowess even lower. Overall, he had a messy status.

I saw them in my past life and even in the game’s story… Samir is a Spirit Wielder who wields the spear as a Spirit Weapon. His strikes are very amateurish and clumsy, but the strong pressure he releases shows his power. In the game, he doesn’t really appear, but he’s only being talked about as someone who died during a mission from friendly fire while trying to save his friend. In my past life, I completely forgot about it, and the next thing I heard about him was a rumor about some Spirit Wielder dying after running inside a rocket barrage against a wave of infested monsters to save a fallen soldier.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

He then looked through the other profile of a young boy of about 15 years old who tried to pose calmly, but his white complexion showed his confusion, fear, and distrust in anything that was happening. A deep frown appeared on Darius’ face as he sighed, troubled. The kid’s status was low strength and agility, low defense, but ridiculous overall magical traits. It was as if all his stats went only to magical power, magical defense, and mana points.

This kid… His name was Poh? His spirit weapon is a huge fan, through which he’s controlling the wind element. In the story, he was always a depressive kid, and he even ended up betraying humanity after the cultists reached out to him. Being an easily influenced kid with a weak heart, the cultists made him easily fall into chaos and turn him into a demonic wielder. In the end, he died as another boss against the heroes after he went havoc inside other cities near the Eastern frontier. In my past life, I tried to help him by showing sympathy and brotherhood, but he only ended up being more dependent on me and turning into a burden. This time, I’m seriously wondering what the heck I should do with this kid… Maybe simply beat that fear out of him until he grows a self-confidence strong enough to not be influenced by the cult any longer… But how the heck do I do that without actually raising his fears? Damn, kids are such a pain…

As he was thinking on his own, he got to his bike, and just as he wanted to start the engine, he saw from the corner of his eye someone leaning on the wall near his bike, staring at him.

Hm? Did I get to someone else’s bike?

Thinking with half his brain, Darius turned to leave, only to stop and glance again.

No, wait a second. That’s the only black armored bike in the whole parking lot.

After confirming his vehicle, he looked again at the person who was resting near it and saw Lily with a calm and amused smile on her face, as if saying, What are you so confused about?

"… How come you’re here?"

"Do I need a reason to see you?"

"I doubt you’re that free nowadays."

Darius commented plainly and signaled to Lily to just get on as he decided to give her a ride, which Lily accepted wholeheartedly.

When Darius said that Lily was occupied, he was referring to the sudden onslaught of demons that hit Southern City. In order to aid the city, Darius spent around 8 million rozoni on explosives and C4, burying all of the C4 and connecting it to multiple wireless remotes, and doing all of this while remaining hidden from the 3 great guilds and the cultists, who were the true perpetuators and had sent the army of monsters towards the city via AM Sonars.

Darius was able to single-handedly wipe out a large section of the city and kill nearly half of the land forces of the monster waves thanks to his advanced preparations, while also using his gloves' skills to burden the aerial forces of the monsters and having the humans' anti-aerial forces together with the anti-rocket machines' strike down any monster from the sky.

Without Darius' assistance, the Southern City probably could have repelled the monsters, but at a much higher cost.

After a furious struggle, the wave was quickly wiped out before the scouting groups could collect the supplies to aid the battle.

Fortunately, the highest rank was boss-rank, so even though there were dozens of them, they were defeated with a concentrated onslaught that left them with no time to recover. The rest consisted of a few hundred high-ranked monsters, thousands of mid-ranked creatures, and tens of thousands of low- and lowest-ranked monsters.

After the wave was repelled, the amount of materials to process, together with the amount of money needed to be sent to the SA Agency in the South, put a large amount of pressure on all the other 3 cities that needed to loan money and make documents for registering the materials.

Over all, it was a titanic amount of work for a very short amount of time, and as one of the admins, Lily was especially busy.

"I am more occupied than ever, but not something I can’t deal with. So there are no worries about that."

Lily smiled serenely, and Darius, who had grown accustomed to Lily's ludicrous resilience and tenacity, chuckled amusedly.

"You sure are a fearful woman."

"Oh my~ but that coming from someone like you sounds more like mockery."

"Hm?"

When Darius turned to face her after hearing her surprise remark and her typically elegant voice, he saw his profile status from the VR analysis shown on her phone's screen. Since Lily was her best friend and, in fact, her only friend, Lola undoubtedly sent her his info after it finished processing.

"You’re such a busybody. Why do you need to know that?"

"I was worried that you'd kill yourself from overdoing it."

"I already said that there's nothing to worry about."

Darius shook his head after having told her this numerous times. But in a soft voice, she still mumbled without thinking.

"I was just worried about you…"

Darius heard it and also sighed, knowing what she meant. Because Darius’ limits were simply ridiculous for a human, each time new data came out from him, her face would almost turn white, and she would have to ask him numerous times if he was okay, if he wasn’t just playing it tough and was actually suffering from some internal bleeding. Sometimes she even had to examine him with her eyes to find out whenever he was lying or hiding something from her, putting Darius in difficulty since he was yet to tell her of his laboratory. Her constant questioning made it harder for him to keep his laboratory a secret; at some point, he even asked Lola to stop sending Lily his reports, but to no avail, as her words had more authority than his.

Calming himself after seeing her light frown, Darius thought for a bit and started explaining to her after taking into consideration his past experiences with her.

"Lily, humans are similar yet fundamentally different. If you gather a million humans to be examined by the computer, you will see differences among all of them, although the overall data will be similar. However, there are always exceptions, like the mages or the Spirit Wielders."

"But you’re still human… right?"

Lily asked, somewhat unsure anymore, and Darius pointed at her phone as he said calmly,

"As you can tell, my brain waves are much stronger than the average human’s, but it’s nowhere near to a mage's, as my mental fortitude is not acquired from some mutation but from different life experiences and intensive training. The status shown on that data was not gifted to me. I acquired it."

He then glanced at Lily once again and said calmly,

"So that’s why I’m saying you have no reason to worry. I know my limits better than what a computer could calculate."

"… Alright."

Sighing without knowing what else to say, Lily just raised her hands in surrender and said it with a soft smile. Finally being made clear, Darius nodded and asked where to take her.

"Ah, let’s go eat something. I bet you’re hungry."

"What? But I-"

"You know you can't count on any assistance from me if you claim I'm busy again, right? After all, if you can't make time for dinner, you can rest assured that I won't be able to assist you with any future problems either."

"…"

My God, this woman.

Darius was left baffled for a moment but didn’t dare say anything else against it, except for grunting annoyed.

"Fine. But I decide where to eat. No more fancy crap like last time."

"Sure. But you pay."

"Oh~? No longer want to play the independent woman?"

"I’m tired from work, so I want to relax today. I will leave everything in your care."

She leaned comfortably on his back on top of the bike while he drove down the street, a short chuckle escaping him.

After arriving at a simpler restaurant, the two of them sat down and ordered one large pizza for both of them.

"It must be years since I last ate pizza."

"And you still decided to go for a Vegetariana… I thought you liked meat?"

"I do, but I don’t combine it with bread and lactates."

"Wow, why?"

"It sticks as fat."

"You sure are careful with what you’re eating."

"I do care about my body. It’s the only one I have after all."

He smiled while sustaining his chin on his palm while staring at her smiling face. She was indeed much more beautiful than anyone her age, and sure enough, she was even prettier than many other women even younger than her. However, that beauty wasn’t free. She was one to take great care of herself. That’s why she would much rather cook her own food than eat out, avoid sweets and eat only fruits, avoid using too much make-up so as not to damage her skin, and also drink tea rather than coffee in the morning and at night to relax her mind and body. Being a mage also helped her sustain her beauty, as the amount of energy she had was much greater than that of a normal human’s, but the fact that she still struggled to keep herself young wasn’t a lie either.

Many men who saw her would unconsciously lower their gazes, their confidence pummeling at her elegance, most of the time just preferring to admire her from a distance and not necessarily try their chances.

At times, even Darius had a hard time not getting overwhelmed by her beauty and alluring aura, but he still couldn’t help but recognize her disciplined mind and body. After all, another way to tell a person’s worth is by how well they’re able to take care of themselves no matter how busy they might be, something that even Darius fails to do.

He then stared outside the window at the cloudy sky that bordered the purple clouds with the normal gray ones. For the first time in a long time, Darius missed the golden sun and blue sky that seemed so free of worries and stress, a sudden thought making him wonder if it would be a problem for him to just go on a vacation somewhere in the south, where the sun was at all-time high and warm, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to just relax for once after he came back from the dead.

What a shit-world...

In this world, the sky was ashen while purple flashes lit up the sky constantly, giving off an eerie and fearful feeling, as if the sky were waiting to fall onto everything beneath it.

He quickly nullified that thought, as he had no time for rest.

Now, whenever he would gaze at the sky, Darius would only feel the pressure of being too weak and without the needed power to hold it high when the time came and the sky would truly fall onto all.

"Darius?"

"Hm?"

She looked at him confused, and after asking if he was fine, he just waved his hand, telling her not to worry.

He looked back at Lily and saw her usual smile and villainous eyes, but with a soft glint in them, surprising him for a moment. She got closer and asked calmly,

"I’m glad to see you’re fine after everything that happened lately."

"… Yeah. No worries."

He answered back somewhat unsure while evading eye contact, then looked back at her and just turned the subject her way

"What about you? Are you better now?"

"Except that I’m busy all the time, I shouldn’t have any other problems."

She smiled sweetly, then asked once again,

"I saw you looking at the documents of the two new Spirit Wielders. What are your thoughts about them and the mages that came back from the void?"

"A normal mage will have their mental fortitude strengthened through the mutation they suffered to be able to enchant their control over mana. Their mental strength is obviously stronger than a normal human's, with them being able to go through tougher times and easily grow stronger, and their training has to be tougher as well, so their growth can actually be significant."

"So to understand, they’re the ideal soldier. Since you are so interested in them, why not try to train them yourself? I’m sure that with your abilities, you would have the ability to do that, at least for the first part."

"Train them…"

Seeing Darius get so systematic in his descriptions, Lily chuckled lightly, as she already knew all of that, only wanting to know whenever Darius was interested in training the likes of superhumans.

Understanding what she meant, Darius made a plain face and simply added,

"They’re brats with special abilities in front of an elite soldier who trained his whole life in the way of killing and hunting other superhumans… I don’t think I’m the best person to train others."

Mixed feelings swirled inside of him. He was now a part of the cult and was made to even take control over the south-eastern city. Days passed, and now it was about time to do so, when the heroes were also soon to appear in this world, needing to indirectly help them get stronger and lower the losses on the human coalition’s side while at the same time burdening the cult’s authority within the coalition. If anything, each one of these tasks would require him to be cloned at least five times. Having to train the new generation of mages would simply make it even more ridiculously burdensome for him to barely have enough time to think for himself.

"No, I’m a simple human and a former elite at that. I’d rather not get mixed with superhumans at all if possible."

"I suppose you forgot who I am?"

"… There are always exceptions. But only this time. I won’t train mages; I’m too busy for that."

"Fine, I won’t ask you again about that."

So his reason for not wanting to train mages isn’t because he can’t, but rather because he’s too busy… That means he’s confident enough to even do that.

Lily smiled wryly, wondering just how ridiculously strong Darius truly is. She did get the computer data and found out that, overall, he’s on par with a boss-tier monster level. Lola even gave her a message that if he were to use the right weapons, he could rival a Field Boss monster like the Stone Gorilla after a bit of more training. But both Lola and Lily refrained from telling Darius that, afraid that he might actually try it out in real life and risk his life for good.

Although he tried other weapons, Darius never actually thought of using guerilla tactics or fighting inside an area where he had more hiding spots, simply confronting the monster head-on like a Spirit Wielder. Both Lily and Lola knew that if he tried it in an urban area like the city, while also using a vehicle for quick transport, his chances of winning would rise exponentially.

"What?"

She glanced at him with complicated feelings, unsure how to deal with this man, who was just so different from anyone she had met in her life. Darius felt her gaze and asked confusedly, making her just shake her head and continue asking.

"And for how long will you continue training like this?"

"I think I’m done for a while. I’ve got a call from some buddies. I will meet up with them and start a team together."

"Huh? Buddies? You mean other elite soldiers?"

"Yeah, people who got tired of being used like tools."

"…"

At his remark, Lily was able to catch a very short but strong glint of rage in Darius’ eyes, making her breathe in deeply, wondering just what type of team Darius would create together with his friends.

"Why do I feel like you’ll create a force that’ll rival the three guilds?"

"Chuckle, do I look that capable? I’m flattered."

He couldn’t help but smile at her remark, and Lily did the same, both of them just focusing on eating the pizza that arrived in front of them.

In truth, Darius’ aim was exactly that: to create a 4th force that will work for the cult for a while while also assisting the Human Association. But all of this will be only in appearances.

He got a message on his phone, and on it was the message:

[The troupes have been gathered at the Y village. We request your presence, General Daniel.]

The message was from his [Commander]-ranked underling.