"What kind of world is this?"

Elric felt as if he had woken up from a terrible, prolonged dream.

After his painful end on the cobbled streets of Victoria, Elric had not felt much of anything.

There was a distinct sense of dissolution and paralysis after his final moments. The theorized state of oblivion, he wondered? The Deist groups that had become particularly popular among Imperial mage divisions had often mentioned the state.

Elric, though, found Imperial mages a tad bit... erratic and often held their words with a grain of salt. If he had to converse with magic-wielders, he usually preferred to speak the far more level-headed sorcerers, also known as combat mana-users.

They, much like alchemists, were ground to more practical applications of mana, designing magic formulas and creating mana-infused automatons to do their dirty work.

For a moment, he wondered just how long he had been in that state of oblivion... there was simply no frame of reference for the experience he felt.

Suppressing his thoughts of existential dread, Elric quickly inspected the area of his bullet wound but found no injury. Upon further inspection of his body, he confirmed the painfully obvious.

It wasn't his.

"By God... I've received the constitution of a child."

It was, perhaps, an overreaction on his part.

His body was akin to that of a young man in his late teens. Noticeably, however, the scars and burns that once blanketed his body, sustained both from his childhood in the slums and the brutality of war, had disappeared.

In addition, it appeared he had received a new set of fashionable garments. A clean white shirt and black pants, complete with a somewhat startlingly red overcoat and black top hat, he recognized the style as the latest trend within the youth of the Imperial nobility.

Minimalist and sleek, it was more comfortable than the vests and waistcoats of the previous generation but produced a more modern and civilized look. Such an outfit was also practical in its concealment of the figure, as an increasing percent of the population carried firearms on their person.

In other words, he was the spitting image of a young Imperial noble...

He found it revolting.

Although his new body was still rather repulsive to the former thirty-year-old veteran, he had to admit, though, he still felt grateful to the Peculiar God for his healthier, younger state of being.

It seemed that his final wish had really been granted.

"Save his people, that Peculiar God ordered... Now, what could that entail?"

Before he could ponder his strange savior's words, however, a scarily familiar smell attacked his newfound senses. One he knew all too well.

"Smoke."

Peering above the stalks of wheat that surrounded him, he could see massive plumes of smoke not too far in the distance.

Elric could only fear the worse as a survivor of what the Imperial mages called the Age of Energy, having witnessed firsthand the effects of an exploding automaton or the fallout of an accidental mana blast. Where there was smoke, there were always casualties.

The young man quickly scrambled to his feet and ran toward the plumes, wondering if this was part of the Peculiar God's enigmatic deal.

As he ran through the field, he did feel that there was something was ominous about the smoke. As a former Alchemical Grenadier, he knew what the sound of an explosion and the following fallout were like. Hell, he was often the creator of such artificial explosions.

But he heard no such explosion or the common crackling or whistling that often followed them. It was as if the fire was... cast by a sorcerer?

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"Dear Peculiar God, it couldn't be that you've sent me right back into the frontlines of Krupp Republican territory?"

Krupp sorcerers were infamous for their fire-based magic, with specialized divisions known as Flammenwerfer teams, literally "flame throwers."

In fact, Elric was starting to feel that the distant mountainous landscape was beginning to seem more and more similar to that of the fronts he saw in the Republican Campaigns...

When he finally escaped from the seemingly endless wheat fields, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

It was a moderately sized settlement, reminiscent of the rural villages he briefly encountered during his time in Republican territory, but a thick scent of spilled blood and death corrupted the air.

Quite frankly, it was a miracle that the flames had not spread to the fields of wheat he had just emerged from, but he gauged that at least a third of the village's wooden structures were set on fire.

Elric also noticed something strange about the scrambling villagers who, obviously, were panicking from the situation. They too looked like your average Krupp citizens, but some of them were carrying some truly archaic objects.

"Are those spears? Is that a bow?"

If not for the clear Krupp influence, Elric would have thought them to be some traditional Jundian natives, armed with weapons from the Ages of Antiquity.

At that moment, a group of men on horses with torches in hand rode into the view of the exceedingly confused Elric. It was painfully evident that they were the source of the fire, and they exuded a very familiar aura of bloodlust.

"Bandits? I suppose in the rural countryside..."

One mounted bandit caught sight of the young man, who stuck out like a sore thumb in his bright overcoat and black hat, and began to ride quickly towards him, primitive sword in hand.

Elric knew that the man racing towards him could not be reasoned with.

Whether it was some Republican bandit or even a fellow Imperial, although he doubted it from the bloodthirsty bandit's garments, he could not let his second life be cut quite so short already.

Elric reached for his pistol... the man did not have a pistol.

"Shit."

It seemed that the Peculiar God had neglected to give Elric his sidearm in the second life. Although, in its place, he found a very nice pocket watch.

The mounted bandit was getting closer, close enough for Elric to hear the man's unintelligible yelling.

As Elric quickly checked his overcoat again for a something, anything to deter the fast approaching opponent, he found another strangely archaic artifact.

This one, though, was more familiar to him.

"A wand!?"

Wands had been outclassed a century ago by formula-based firearms, but a few sorcerers still carried them on their person, finding them to be useful outside of combat situations. Elric, however, was not a sorcerer. His mana reserves had been deemed far too low.

He had been an alchemist, one that specialized in the creation and use of mana-based explosives. At times, he might even provide materials for the fabrication of mana-infused automatons.

From his understanding, he could technically use the wand with his pitiful mana reserves. Although, he neither knew how to really use it nor could he guarantee that he would stay conscious after using it.

He did not, however, have the luxury of time as the bandit was a mere couple meters from ending Elric's second life.

Elric drew the ancient weapon from his red overcoat and took a stance as though he was about to fire a percussion revolver. Hoping that its use was similar to the creation of an alchemic grenade, he proceeded to test his theory.

With the mounted bandit now only steps in front of him, time halted.

His mind flooded with otherworldly visions.

Some were familiar: the orphanage, the battlefields, the Peculiar God. Others less so: infinitesimally small substances being broken, the silhouettes of celestial beings seemingly staring at him, a terrifying abyss ever expanding.

Pressure. Mass. Momentum. Energy. Violence.

Horrifyingly complex principles presented themselves before Elric's mortal mind before it hit an unanticipated barrier, giving the man a respite in that frozen moment.

Was this once again the work of the Peculiar God?

Time continued.

For a brief instant, Elric saw an impossibly complicated formula blip into existence, its blood-red characters winding around his arm and weapon at an indiscernible speed.

He somehow recognized the substance immediately. It was the heartbeat of the Age of Energy, the titan-like power born from the core of the earth. A symbol of human triumph over the elements, it powered the colossal wheels of industry and opposed the autocratic nature of mana.

A jet of inconceivably hot, pressurized steam shot out from the tip of the wand.

The bandit fell from his steed, his leather armor cleanly pierced with a bullet-sized hole and with an expression of pure surprise as his internal organs were instantly vaporized.

The viciousness of the attack was not lost in the chaos of the village's battle, as the other mounted swordsmen noticed the cold-blooded death of their comrade. There seemed to be a look of recognition in their eyes, as if they had seen someone like Elric before.

"Ride away! Ride off now! The village has a wizard!"

As the bandits yelled in terror and began to retreat from a single man's attack, Elric's mind once again flooded with unanswerable questions. Looking at the bandit he killed, the bandit's corpse now face down in the dirt, he wondered if this was the Peculiar God's plan all along.

What were those visions? Had he really pulled off a mana-infused attack? Did that bandit say wizard? Shouldn't he have fainted by now?

As he looked up to see the villagers celebrating, he did get the answer to one of his questions.

His vision blacked, and Elric fainted for the first time in his second life.