To be treated like a hunted animal made Noah begin to wonder if the Vermillion Empire was even a country governed by law.
A mere criminal coalition formed by illegal arena organizers and black-market slave traders actually dared to brazenly publish a public bounty in the local newspaper.
It was a complete, arrogant disregard for the law.
'Wait.'
Speaking of which, it seemed he had forgotten a major political premise.
His current fake identity in this world was merely that of an illegal slave.
As such, he wasn't considered an official citizen of the Vermillion Empire, meaning he had zero human rights.
That was one aspect.
Beyond that, there was the political issue of the Vermillion Empire itself.
The kingdom wasn't a place where the King had absolute, final say over everything.
The wealthy nobles—the corrupt kind that appeared in any fantasy novel—would always secretly aid criminals to restrain the King's power, using the chaos to suppress the royal family's authority and maintain the political interests of the noble faction.
This kind of political setup didn't seem particularly unusual to Noah.
If it weren't like this, he actually would have found it strange.
Thinking of this, he murmured to himself, "I see. So the enemy hunting me isn't just some mere civilian gang."
Although this was a modern society where standard firearms were common, Noah was highly confident he could protect himself no matter how many ordinary humans with guns came at him.
What he was truly wary of was this world's unique existence—the Blazers.
The newspaper he had just read contained a massive, full-page bulletin about an upcoming global tournament held by the League of Mage-Knights.
The Seven Stars Sword Art Festival.
According to the newspaper's description, the Seven Stars tournament was a world-class fighting competition for the strongest student Blazers organized by the League of Mage-Knights.
Judging from the historical competition records, powerful Blazers possessed physical strength and magical firepower in no way inferior to Orario's first-tier Level 5 and Level 6 adventurers.
And every single one of them possessed a unique skill or magic.
Among them, the absolute strongest in the world—the ones known as Desperados—could even freely manipulate the flow of time, alter causality, or destroy an entire city single-handedly.
In this universe, it wasn't the atomic bombs "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" that ended the great world war, but a group of monstrous Blazers with heaven-defying strength.
Although such terrifying monsters did exist globally, the small Vermillion Empire did not possess that level of combat power.
Otherwise, it would have long since violently suppressed the illegal organizations currently entrenched within the country.
According to public information, the Vermillion Empire's top national combat power consisted of a mere three C-Rank Blazers.
The League classified Blazers into several strict ranks based on official ability assessments to distinguish the strong from the weak, with the highest officially recognized rank being A-Rank and the lowest being F-Rank.
In the entire global industry, a C-Rank Blazer could already be considered an excellent, highly capable "veteran" among Mage-Knights.
Noah just didn't know what official Rank his own abilities were equivalent to.
When projecting his soul through Yog-Sothoth, he couldn't bring any physical objects with him from Orario.
Without his overpowered equipment like his Raven Feather gauntlets and the Creator-Destroyer, or emergency items like Airmid's Elixirs, his full combat abilities couldn't be utilized.
All he could rely on were his base Level 2 stats and his pure magical skills.
The Hunted
While Noah was lost in his own tactical thoughts, a gentlemanly-looking old man with graying hair slowly walked over to him in the street.
He smiled kindly and inquired, "Excuse me, child, could you tell me the way to the shipping port?"
Noah casually glanced at him, then randomly pointed his finger down an alleyway.
The old man looked in that direction, a troubled, helpless expression appearing on his wrinkled face.
"My sincerest apologies. I am from overseas and am not familiar with the confusing roads here. Would you be so kind as to personally guide me? I am willing to pay you a sufficient reward."
As he spoke, he took out a crisp 1,000 Yen bill from his pocket.
For simply leading the way down the street, this was an incredibly generous reward.
Noah shook his head with a cold, mocking smile.
Everything about this fake "old man" was completely exposed in his vision.
"I have already shown you the way to the port. If you continue to pester me, I don't mind showing you the way to hell instead. How about it?"
Seeing Noah's blatant threat, the kind smile on the old man's face didn't change a single millimeter.
He kept smiling perfectly, making it impossible for a normal person to guess his true, murderous thoughts.
He leaned down and whispered in a low chilling voice, "A disobedient child has to be—"
"Enough."
Before the assassin could finish his dramatic sentence, Noah had already lost his patience.
He waved his hand casually as if swatting an annoying fly, and the old man's words suddenly caught in his throat.
Noah used Weaver to instantly manipulate the oxygen levels in the air directly around the old man's head, dropping the oxygen to less than 5%.
The sudden, violent hypoxia caused the assassin's brain to shut down, making him faint in an instant.
"Even a famous professional assassin should choose his opponents more wisely. A weak, non-Blazer human like you should just retire early."
The old man's body pitched forward, completely unconscious.
Noah simply stepped aside, letting the old man's head hit the brick wall, leaving him with a bloody gash as he collapsed into the dirt.
Within a five-meter radius, Noah had countless invisible ways to take an opponent's life or incapacitate them, especially when the opponent was just an ordinary human without a Falna.
If his opponent were an Orario adventurer or a high-ranking Blazer whose physical abilities completely surpassed the human realm, then such petty localized air tricks would be easily dodged or resisted.
....
The old man's arrival was like a starting gun for the battle to begin.
Everyone in the criminal underworld who saw the massive bounty notice—from street thugs and local gang members to even some foreign mercenaries and assassins staying in the Vermillion Empire—came looking for him one after another.
Constantly harassed by these greedy attackers, Noah hadn't slept for a full day and a night.
His projected body was physically no different from his real one back in Orario.. it also felt pain, hunger, and deeply needed rest.
He was only able to hold on without sleeping because his Level 2 constitution was far superior to that of an ordinary Earth human.
Before he chanted the spell to cancel the projection and return home, time in this virtual world could theoretically be extended indefinitely.
He could even experience a full life cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death here, and to his real self sleeping in Orario, only a single night would have passed.
If he wished, his Yog-Sothoth magic could achieve a true, literal "dream of a lifetime."
"Still no actual Blazers coming for me?"
Noah sat leisurely at an outdoor table outside a fast-food restaurant, eating a modern lunch that tasted incredibly novel to him.
In his hand was no longer a printed newspaper, but a sleek modern smartphone from a famous brand in this world—a highly expensive flagship model, at that.
Stupid assassins came to deliver him free money every single day, so he no longer needed to be frugal.
He had even changed his clothes, buying a highly expensive, designer streetwear outfit.
The store clerk had sworn it was a fine product, meticulously hand-sewn by a local master tailor. But after appraising it with Truth Seeker, Noah was so angry he wanted to curse.
In Orario, 50 million Valis could buy you a legendary piece of armor worth exactly 50 million Valis—something so durable it wouldn't let you die even if you were punched squarely in the jaw by a Floor Boss.
In modern society, spending an exorbitant amount of money could only get you a shirt with a production cost of barely five dollars, simply because its fictional, corporate "brand value" made the product's price tens of thousands of times higher than its actual physical worth.
Capitalism was truly a scam.
Ever since he looted this smartphone, he had become a total phubber, constantly staring at the screen and searching the internet for information about Blazers.
In fact, there was no need to search deliberately.
Everything in this world revolved around Blazers and Mage-Knights, and the daily news was no exception.
Opening the social media feed would show a ton of trending articles about what famous Blazers had been up to recently.
'Huh, what's this?'
Suddenly, Noah saw a somewhat familiar face on the screen.
It was a young girl with fiery red hair and crimson eyes.
Though she was young, her gaze was incredibly resolute and powerful.
"The world's number one in total raw magic power. A genius knight officially judged to be an A-Rank... Stella Vermillion." Noah muttered. "Wait, it's that girl from the arena the other day?"
So she wasn't just a princess and a Blazer.
She was a literal A-Rank monster with the world's largest reserve of magic power.
In this world, magic power was seen as an absolute, unchangeable force related to fate.
The exact amount of magic power a person possessed was permanently determined at the moment of birth, it couldn't be increased through training, nor would it mysteriously decrease.
Blazers could use their magic power to form physical defenses and to massively increase their explosive physical speed, all of which was closely related to their total mana capacity.
Having the world's largest amount of magic power could essentially be understood as having the world's strongest magical defense and the world's strongest magical burst damage.
That girl was actually such a ridiculously powerful existence?
"Pant, pant..."
'Hmm?'
That heavy, exhausted breathing was quite ragged, and it was coming from right beside his table.
'Who is it?'
Noah put down his smartphone, raised his head and looked at the girl who had suddenly appeared before him.
Then he glanced down at the news photo on his phone to compare.
They were indeed completely identical.
"Stella Vermillion?"
Bang!
The girl heavily slammed her hands onto his table.
At the exact same time, she grabbed the iced cola Noah had just ordered and violently downed two-thirds of it in one massive gulp.
Noah stared blankly at the A-Rank princess who had popped up out of nowhere, completely unsure of how to react for a moment.
"Hah! I am alive again!"
The girl's rough, down-to-earth demeanor completely lacked the elegant reserve a royal princess should have.
As for proper etiquette and manners, those could apparently go straight to hell.
She aggressively pulled out a chair and sat down directly opposite Noah.
Fanning her sweaty face with her hand, she complained loudly.
"I finally found you! Seriously, where the hell did you run off to?! You just vanished all of a sudden back in the arena! Is your Blazer ability a spatial teleportation type?!"
Noah saw that the more she fanned herself, the more she sweated under the hot sun.
He casually used Weaver to manipulate the wind and water elements in the air, creating a cool circulating icy airflow directly between them.
The sudden, refreshing coolness made the exhausted girl unconsciously squint her eyes and let out a highly comfortable, cute sound.
"Ahhh—so nice. It is just like sitting inside an air-conditioned room!"
Stella slumped back happily in her chair.
Noah, in turn, casually pushed the sweet mango sundae he hadn't eaten yet across the table toward her.
The girl accepted it with great pleasure.
As if she had truly forgotten her original purpose for tracking him down, she picked up a spoon and began to happily enjoy the cold ice cream.
"Wait! This is not right!"
Stella suddenly seemed to remember her original objective.
She excitedly slammed both hands down on the table again.
The plastic table let out a pained creak, and the plates on it jumped into the air from the heavy impact.
She pointed an accusatory spoon at Noah and asked loudly.
"What is wrong with you?! You have a massive criminal bounty on your head, yet you are appearing so brazenly on the public streets and eating fast food leisurely out in the open?! Aren't you afraid of being attacked?!"
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