Third Year

It was late at night when the quiet streets didn't seem to have any living souls passing through them, which made them gloomy for having almost no lighting at all, a really dangerous time for those who need to use them to reach their goals.

Of course, it would also be best for those who needed to move without being seen, either because they were doing something illegal or for mere survival in the face of the evil that haunted them.

Wearing a patched hood, a figure strode forward, his target only one, a tavern that remained open until dawn.

To the uninformed eye, a tavern that opens when people are going to bed didn't seem like a profitable business and, as a tavern, it wouldn't bring much profit, but as a hub for illegal stuff, the story was completely different.

Amidst difficult times there are always those willing to take risks to make a profit from where most do not see, this was the case of the Bueira tavern, a strange name, a hidden geographical position, they were more than enough for the city guards not even care for the existence of such a place.

The figure stands in front of the worn wooden door, knocks three times, and then knocks a fourth time after a few seconds, and the door opens for him. There he was, a tall bald man, who had a scar on his neck, known only as a tavern keeper, he had never spoken his name, or even if he really owns the place, his mouth only leaves the essentials.

But contrary to expectation, the figure did not enter, moving his dark-skinned hand, a small bag of money, full of gold coins, went to the tavern keeper.

Still holding it, he didn't put the bag away right away, suspicious, he stuck his head out the door, and when he checked that there was no one around.

"Transport starts at dawn and will pause at Bellamy, but the one you are looking for now moves through Lymir Forest."

After finishing talking, the door closed. His eyes were kept hidden by the hood, so no one who saw him would notice, the murderous glow was emitted, finally, the time that he most awaited had arrived.

Wasting no time, the mysterious figure began walking through several alleys disappearing into the darkness of the night.

⊛⊛⊛

Sounds of metal weapons colliding echoed across the mountain, in the arena inside the fortification, a long sword slamming into a pair of daggers that barely deflected the blow.

With less than two days left to complete 3 years since Satoru came to this world, even though he sometimes ventured out of the fortification, he hadn't had any big or difficult problems to solve since the soldiers' attack.

However, something changed in the second year, as overtime, slave traders realized that they could no longer go easy on protecting their merchandise, so every time Satoru came to free the prisoners, the more secure the traders were to go against them the Black Devil.

With not many options left, Satoru was forced to stop when the kingdom began sending entire battalions to fight him, with his identity in danger of being exposed, the Black Devil disappeared or rather changed his target.

Depending on the money he earned from the withdrawals to buy things, he chose to steal merchant carts of jewelry or food with his escape techniques better than ever, he came to be called the Fast Devil, which leaves him amazed by the lack of of people's creativity to give nicknames.

He had even thought about trying to spread nicknames on his own, but the shame of exposing his chuunibyou side was too great, so he kept it to himself, except for one person, Envy, who always loved this kind of thing, which he did. Satoru feared he was taking her down a path of no return, as nice as it was to have someone to talk to about what he liked.

Of course, the frequency with which he went out was even less, which meant more free time, and with the 3-year date coming up, he decided to increase Envy's training load.

But with that also came an unexpected discovery on her part, the young girl often stole a silver coin from Satoru without even realizing it, when he finally found out she had been doing this for half a year.

Surprised by the unexpected ability she possessed, at first he thought it would be a useful thing for her to go out into the world, but he almost forgot that it could also harm her, worried he asked and when did it start.

The answer in turn left him more shocked than he was.

"I was attracted to her, but you never let me have it, so I decided I'd only get one, then the next day I wanted another one, and another one, as I realized you were getting suspicious, I decided to get one whenever you came back with more money, I thought it was unfair for you to keep everything.

Afraid that this little girl was becoming, Satoru had no idea what to say to reprimand her, so he sought advice from Hilda, but she made Satoru wish he had never sought help.

"You're the only one who didn't notice, pay more attention to your surroundings, it's not just because you trust someone you should let your guard down. As for the fact that she's going down a dangerous path, punish her if you are too light she'll keep doing it, if it's too heavy she'll hate you."

Even though he was scolded, at least it served to know how to act, however, that raised another question, if Hilda knew why she never did anything?

The fear of asking was greater, so the subject was buried there in her mind. The next day, Satoru gave a huge moral lesson that lasted almost an hour, and seeing that the girl was almost asleep listening to him, her training began to last longer and became more brutal.

After enduring only two days of training, Envy prostrated himself on the floor and apologized, satisfied with that Satoru took the coins back, frightened by the total amount she had stolen.

Totaling 53 silver coins, which in Satoru's world was equivalent to a good amount, but you couldn't judge a price, after all, you can’t compare the value of money of an outdated system that the medieval era had close to something complex as the monetary values ​​of the 21st century.

So Satoru only estimated that silver was valuable not as a coin, but as a masterpiece.

Not knowing why he was thinking about something so useless, he just scolded Envy again, and after that event, he started counting money every day after waking up, hoping he wouldn't need to talk to Hilda about something like that anymore.

Satoru, now stronger than ever, had adapted quite a bit to Void, as he had dubbed “the thing”, that's because every time he thought of it, he always imagined some kind of space, and because Envy insisted that he call it “ the thing” was too ugly, not that the being itself seems to care about it.

The Void didn't seem to mind at all letting Satoru use it as he pleased, as his entire body was made of the same thing now, Satoru could change his physical structure, which explained his abnormally high jumping over years, reaching 1.85 at that time.

The reason was simple, the more Satoru mass you ingested, the more it was converted into black goo, with that your body being made of it, but imitating a human body, it grew in height and width.

But he could also create solid things with this goo, like his weapon now, a black greatsword with a single-sided blade, the sword itself was quite imposing with a skull on its guard, the reason why his main weapon is this one is the fact that it is the one that most needs the goo to be made, thus being able to change the form to another weapon and still have some leftovers.

When the armor, he wore only a breastplate and pants also made of the goo, the more they could save on weapons and armor, the more they would have for the trip.

After he finished fighting Envy who was panting, Satoru put his sword in the scabbard at his back.

“You've improved a lot, I think you're ready.” Satoru smiled and looked towards Hilda, who was just below, looking out.

"Out there it's not like a mock fight if you choose to leave nothing will be easy especially for someone who doesn't have a family, orphans are not usually very well regarded"

With the same harsh tone as always, Hilda hadn't changed much in the last 3 years, but you could tell that she wanted the good of Envy, she just didn't show it.

"Who says I don't have a family? I have a big brother and you!"

Envy snapped angrily, she might even be maturing, however, her personality didn't seem to change much, Satoru admired that in her.

'Do as you like.' Hilda kept her expression blank and walked away.

Satoru looked awkward, it didn't cost her once in a lifetime to say something to support someone, but that was her style, as long as she kept her being considerate with Envy, there would be no problem.

"I think that's a yes." Satoru held up his hand giving Envy a thumbs-up.

"I think so too, Heehee" Jumping with happiness, the girl could finally leave after 3 long years locked in this fortification.

Seeing the girl in front of him happy, Satoru decided to give the rest of the day off to her, but he had something to do, so he left her free, and went after Hilda in the dining room.

When he saw Hilda sitting, polishing her sword with some oil he had bought.

"I'm going out, I plan to come back tomorrow when I leave" Going straight to the point, there was no reason to hide or lie.

Carefully, the daemon placed the sword on the table and looked at the young man in front of her, it was impossible to tell that this was the same person she had met years ago, what made her convinced was that a part of him had never changed.

"Where do you intend to go?"

"Three years ago a person died without even knowing what would happen to the village, I'm going there to show my condolences and settle the score." Satoru ran his hand over the hilt of the sword on his back, there was one thing he never forgot, something that kept hammering in his head.

"What will change you to do this?"

Walking to the door that led to the kitchen, Satoru didn't turn around, just a few moments in silence.

“Know, if I can keep you two safe."

Neither of them said anything else, Satoru just nodded, he didn't say goodbye to Envy, because he knew he was coming back, this would probably be the final test he would need, but before getting to the point, there was something that he needed to do it first.

⊛⊛⊛

【Villa Emendus】

A small one that owned a few shops, which Satoru used to go to when he needed to shop, after all, it was the “closest” place to the mountains, a place that hadn't been hit by the ashes that destroyed the place he knew when he arrived.

With beautiful green fields, flowers sprouting in the corners of the dirt road, it was a relief for the eyes to see vivid colors after so long living in that sober and hopeless climate.

Knowing that Envy would love to see this kind of landscape as simple as it was, it reminded him that he had to move fast with his chore in this village.

In the beginning, when he first appeared in this place he drew a lot of attention, for his strange appearance, making some people suspicious of him. But with time and the times he used to appear, many already greeted him, and he just nodded.

Going towards a flower shop, Satoru entered and took ten white flowers, he didn't know the name, but he had certainly never seen them in his world.

"Oh, if it's not the mysterious young man, are you going to declare yourself to someone?"

The store owner was an elderly woman and quite small, it was the first time she had seen Satoru directly.

"No, it's for a deceased." Satoru didn't mind the woman's joke, it seems, Envy agreed when she said that his appearance had improved a lot, so Satoru said it was his popular phase that had finally arrived.

“I'm sorry!”

The old woman lowered her head apologetically, to show that she had felt bad about the mess, she deducted two coins from the total amount.

Which at first made Satoru refuse, as it wasn't a big deal, but the woman insisted that it was just to encourage him to talk more, since, in the entire village, the woman was the only one who had heard his voice until the moment, even after completing so many years.

When delivering two copper coins, Satoru grabbed the flowers tightly, now there was only one place left to go.

So when he left the village, he started to run, anyone looking at a distance would think it was some kind of monster, using what he had seen in manga sport, Satoru tried to perfect his running skills as much as possible, managing to run much faster than a horse by the way.

Half a day had passed, soon the sun would start to set, rising the mountain as he backed up and jumped, Satoru approached very quickly his final stop, the black rocks and a big cave, a place where Satoru never thought he would return.

As far back as he could remember, at this point the bones shouldn't even exist anymore, this was the last time he'd seen the man named Victor.

Satoru didn't understand why he cared so much about it, but something inside him didn't let him forget that day when he was supposed to have died too, yet here he was now.

With the flowers placed on the ground, Satoru placed his open hands together and began to pray that the man's soul had passed on to a better life.

Suddenly, he felt a vibration coming from the ground as if something heavy was approaching.

Unhurriedly, Satoru finished the prayer and turned to the cave entrance, there was the one he came to hunt, an orc who lived alone holding a giant club in each hand, it was time to decide at once what plagued his mind.