Red.

No matter where you looked, that color was the dominant one in this world. There were rivers of blood flowing down mountains of corpses. The stench of death made it impossible to inhale the air. The seas were polluted with corpses of all kinds of beings. Some looked like monsters, others looked like beasts, while others looked like they came from the heavens. Countless beings all equal in death. Despite the world being in such a state, battles still continued on. The whole world was a huge battlefield that sat on a wasteland.

“Give it up. There’s no reason to continue fighting.”

In this world, a bright light illuminated the land. It was as if the heavens were opening up to bless the mortal world. A voice came from this light and soothe the ears of all who heard it.

*Boom!*

Something fell from the sky and crashed into a volcano. The volcano exploded and lava rained down on the land.

“Give up?”

A dark being emerged from the sea of lava, standing proudly as it arrogantly faced the heavenly light.

“I will not give up. It’s my role to carry out the necessary evil needed to make this world balanced. So to me, you who started this war and threw the universe into chaos is an eyesore.”

The dark being pointed at the light.

“The moment you gave up your role is the moment you became my enemy!”

“We both know that this wasn’t what I had intended.”

The heavenly light answered back.

“True. This was caused by those fools who lost themselves in greed, that’s why I want to eradicate them and this world! I want to reset everything! So, why are you stopping me?!”

“Because you destroying everything isn’t the answer. We must allow them to figure everything out on their own. That’s our role as beings of our level.”

“And I’m saying they are too stupid to admit their mistakes! They’ll continue until everything is destroyed! If that’s the case, why not let me reset everything?! For a new era to be born, you must first destroy the old one!”

“I see that we can’t come to an agreement. It’s regrettable considering that we’ve maintained the balance for so long.”

The dark being laughed.

“Yeah, it’s unfortunate.”

*Rumble!*

The world started to shake and long cracks spread through the world. Volcanoes erupted, tsunamis flooded the lands, and storms wreak havoc in the skies.

“You….For you to even involve him.”

The voice behind the holy light became serious.

“Of course. Just like us, he too protected the balance as our brother.”

“ROOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRR!”

A mountain-sized beast burst out from under the earth and made the world tremble with its roar. This beast was so black even the night pales in comparison, and its red eyes were like a thousand burning suns. Just looking at it made one feel like their heart was gonna give out.

This beast stood in front of the heavenly light and faced it with the dark being.

“Today, even if we fail to defeat you and reset the world, I promise you that we will return one day and end this foolish war! Even if we don’t come back personally, there will be others who will rise in our stead and carry out our wishes.”

The dark being grinned along with the beast.

“Our children will be born from nothing and oppose the laws of this world, Supreme Being!”

The heavenly light was silent for a while. Soon a sigh echoed out in the world.

“Fine. Let the future decide which one of us was correct.”

“Come, Brother!”

The dark being and the beast rushed towards the heavenly light, and a world-shattering battle ensued.

“Ah!”

Miko sat up in his bed with eyes widened and breathing heavily. He looked around and held his head in his hands.

“That was a fucked up dream….”

He removed his hands from his face and looked at them.

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“But it was extremely realistic….Wait, what was it about again?”

While Miko was trying to remember his dream, he glimpsed something on his bedside table. It was a letter with his name on it with the sender’s name below his.

“Nina.”

He opened the letter. His expression darkened as he read the contents. He blankly stared at the letter for a long time before putting it down. He closed his eyes and showed a lonely smile.

“…Thanks for everything, Nina.”

He stood up.

“You’ve just made it even harder not to give it my all.”

It was now three weeks since Miko became a proxy. Over that period he has trained himself from the basics to make up for the years he’s slacked off. He was currently reviewing the basics of magic with Momo.

“There are two ways to use magic; through spells and through raw power. When you use magic via spells, you’ll need to create a magic circle to activate it. The magic circle can be a physical one that is drawn on objects and areas….”

Momo sat down and quickly drew a simple magic circle on the ground. When she was finished, it lit up and a clay doll appeared out of nowhere.

“You can also create a projection of one using your mana.”

Momo stretched her hand out and a magic circle was projected in front of her and a lump of iron appeared.

“Physical magic circles last longer than projections made with mana, thus having longer lasting spells.”

The lump of iron turned into light particles and disappeared while the clay doll remained.

“However, physical magic circles take time to draw, especially for a novice, hence aren’t practical in the heat of battle. It’s best to use them to enchant items, or lay traps that you want to use multiple times.”

She explained.

“As for magic circle projections, these are only used by Spell Masters like myself, because it requires you to picture every detail of the magic circle for every spell you want to use in a flash. In fact, using spells requires memorizing countless magic circles, which only gets more complicated the more powerful a spell is.”

“Hence, most people use magic in its rawest form.”

Momo nodded at Miko.

“The other way to use magic is to grasp the mana in your body and around you, and forcibly create a phenomenon without the conversion that spells do. However, this wastes a lot of the mana you gather because it wasn’t converted to the fullest. This is why spells are stronger and more flexible, but as I said earlier they’re too hard to use. So unless you want to become a Spell Master, you shouldn’t focus on them too much.”

“But it would help to have a few spells in my arsenal, right?”

Momo nodded.

“Well, you’ve already mastered the basics of magic, so I don’t really need to teach you these things. You should’ve also memorized a few spells. I wanted to teach you advanced applications of magic but there’s been a change of plans.”

“What do you mean?”

“Miko, what kind of fighter do you consider yourself to be?”

Tia appeared out of a light and approached him.

“Melee specialist, weapon specialist, Long-ranged, close-ranged, strategic, instinctive? Before you can truly grow you must first understand what your strengths and weaknesses are. You also need to know what fits you the best.”

“While I’d love to turn you into a primarily magical fighter like me, I can’t because it’s not fair to you and your other teachers. This is what Tia and I agreed on.”

“So you decided to postpone my training with you? But Christensen, Kouta, and Kirika aren’t here to teach me.”

Momo nodded.

“True but unlike magic, which relies on an accumulation of knowledge and insight to blossom, what those three specialized in can be honed through battle. That’s what I’m going to have you do.”

“Christensen taught me martial arts, Kouta marksmanship, and Kirika Swordsmanship…So basically you want me to become a serial killer?”

“Huh? How did you reach that conclusion? Absolutely not. Don’t even joke about that.”

“I mean, think about it. I’ll get lots of combat experience and will also get a knack at killing people in various ways.”

“You’ll also be thrown into prison, so no. We have something different in mind.”

Tia took something out of her clothes and threw it at Miko.

“What’s this?”

Miko unfolded the paper and saw that it was a flyer.

“Battalion Arcade?”

He turned towards her.

“Why do you have a flyer for a game arcade?”

“Because that’s where I spend my afternoons.”

“….What kind of goddess are you again?”

“Battalion Arcade is a military-style arcade.”

Tia ignored his question.

“It's an arcade that provides the common civilian with military experience and insight through the use of games.”

“There was such a place here?”

“Not only here, but it’s also a popular method used in many countries. Miko, have you ever heard the name Gamestar before?”

Momo asked.

“I think it’s some kind of a gaming brand. But I didn’t really get the chance to play games when I was a kid with everything going on, so I never got into them. Naturally, I don’t really know much about them.”

“The Gamestar corporation is the leading gaming company in the world. Hand consoles, Mobile games, Virtual reality games, RPG, MMORPG, etc. They dominate them all. Not only that, but they also created the Dimension Drive, a console that sends your body to another dimension to play the game; as well as Dream Scape, a console that allows you to play games in your dreams.”

“So, when you said battles you meant virtual reality?”

“Yes and no. Let’s go there first.”

The three of them went to the arcade that was located in the capital city. When they entered the arcade, Miko couldn't help but be a bit surprised. Normally, an arcade would be filled with children and teens, but this one was different. There were adults everywhere. Some were rough looking, while others looked like the intellectual type. There was a wide variety of people. Of course, there were children, but they were in the minority.

“Surprised? I told you this place taught people the art of war; there are a lot of games here that don't just teach you modern warfare, but also corporate warfare. The game machines have a special mechanism that can expand the players' knowledge using subliminal messaging.”

Miko looked around while listening to Momo. The different machines all had the letter G on them. The G was inside a six-pointed silver star. He figured that this was the logo of the Gamestar Cooperation.

“The owners of Gamestar must be filthy rich.”

“Yes. The Gamestar family are history's greatest gamers, they singlehandedly changed the definition of gaming. They're also heaven-shaking geniuses. It's too bad that they were almost wiped out a few years ago.”

“They almost got wiped out?”

“Yeah. I don't know the details, but I heard the main family, except for the family head, was brutally massacred by unknown assailants. They shut down for a while after that; but eventually came back on track after nearly 5 years, with a new leader.”

“I see. Such a waste of potential.”

Miko looked around again.

“So what do you want me to do?”

Tia lifted a piece of paper with a black spade on it.

“I want you to search for people with this symbol tattooed on them and fight them.”

“Alright, which game?”

“Not just in the games, but in real life as well.”

“What?”

Tia showed an excited smile.

“Your assignment is to hunt down and defeat the Black Spades, a gang of notorious fighters who resides both in the virtual world and in this empire.”