They call him the Scourge now.
He strikes only at night. A masked figure with no known allegiance, no consistent pattern, no stated motive just chaos stitched into a black cloak and stitched across the mouths of every survivor too terrified to speak.
That's me, of course. But only technically.
In truth, the Scourge is a persona. A veil. A strategy born from necessity and sharpened by spite. Because if the System insists I must be a villain, then fine I'll give it a ghost. A myth. A monster they can't trace.
I don't exist when I wear that mask. And maybe that's what I need. An identity outside of Lucien Malhart, the cursed isekai mistake with thorns for a hand and a camera stitched to his soul.
It started with the Valdris supply line in Ashbridge Hollow.
I'd scouted it a week earlier—cargo wagons, weak guard rotation, smug nobles hoarding food meant for their starving vassals. They'd call it "resource consolidation." I called it bait.
I left them a message. Burned into the dirt with acid and outlined in ash:
"Return what you've stolen. Or I'll take more than food next time."
They didn't listen.
So I listened harder.
____________
It was supposed to be routine. Another supply ambush. Another quiet night of fear and performance.
But Valdris had laid a trap of their own.
The wagon looked ordinary too ordinary. Clean wheels, no mud, no dents, not a single guard visibly armed.
That should've been my first clue.
The second was when the arrow grazed my cheek before I'd even stepped into the clearing.
I hit the ground, rolling behind a rock as the air split open with arrows and spells.
They were everywhere.
Six no, eight Valdris mercs, cloaked in silence enchantments, fanned out from the trees. Two mages, four blades, one crossbowman perched in the treetops, and a masked captain in the center—taller than me, armored in hexed steel, with a scythe the size of a grave mistake.
No time to think.
I activated the Fog Rune, swallowing the clearing in smoke.
"Fan out!" the captain barked. "He's in the mist!"
I wasn't. I'd already moved.
Thunk. The first trap sprung a noose-line yanked one merc into the canopy, where gravity and impact snapped his leg with a sickening pop.
But the second one saw me.
I felt the blade before I saw it cold steel slicing through my cloak and biting into my side. I twisted, adrenaline flaring, grabbed his wrist, and snapped it sideways.
He screamed. I silenced him with my elbow.
Then the real fight began.
The scythe came from the smoke, a gleaming arc of death that carved the air in half. I ducked just in time, the blade grazing my shoulder, cutting deep through leather and into flesh.
Pain exploded like fire.
I rolled. Came up on one knee.
Cast Witchlight.
Blinding flash.
The crossbowman screamed and fell from the tree, hitting the earth with a thud that silenced him for good.
I wasn't so lucky.
The captain was still moving. Fast. Too fast for someone in heavy armor. He swept the scythe at my legs, and I barely managed to leap over it—but he followed with a kick that caught me mid-air and slammed me against a tree.
Everything went white.
My ribs cracked.
The mask cracked.
Blood filled my mouth.
[Warning: Vital Signs Unstable]
[Evil Points Reduced: -50 (Loss of Narrative Dominance)]
The System was punishing me already. I'd lost the thread. I was prey now, not predator.
I stumbled to my feet, chest heaving.
Another spell came at me: ice shards. I shielded it with a flash-barrier rune, but it only dulled the edge. One shard punched through and lodged in my thigh.
I screamed.
He laughed.
The captain stepped through the fog, calm as death. "You're just a man," he said. "Not a myth. Not a monster. Just flesh."
I spat blood. "You talk too much."
I lunged.
He caught my wrist mid-swing and twisted—bones grinding. I screamed again as he wrenched my cursed arm upward, forcing the thorns to bloom involuntarily. They tore through my glove, through my skin, through me.
Then he slammed me down.
Once.
Twice.
The world spun.
[System Penalty: -20% Ability Accuracy]
[Narrative Note: "The Villain is Losing. Viewer Curiosity Spiking."]
I coughed, tasted blood and dirt and ash.
He raised the scythe.
And then—snap.
A tripwire.
The rune behind him detonated.
He screamed as burning oil splashed across his back, sizzling through armor. He turned, swiping blindly—and I tackled him into the mud, knife in hand, eyes wild.
We rolled.
He punched. I stabbed.
He headbutted. I bit his throat.
He howled and flung me off with brute force.
I landed hard vision swimming, lungs on fire.
Then something surged in me.
Not rage.
Not pride.
Desperation.
I activated my last rune.
The cursed seal on my hand unleashed.
Black thorns shot outward like razors on wire, slamming into him and wrapping around his chest, constricting—cutting—drinking.
He choked, eyes wide, scythe falling from his hands.
I stood, limping, dragging myself closer as he tried to claw the vines away. I looked into his face as the blood drained from his mouth, and whispered:
"I'm not a man. I'm not a myth. I'm the nightmare you begged for."
Then the thorns pulled him apart.
Silence.
Nothing but the hiss of dying fire and my own broken breathing.
I dropped to my knees.
Blood everywhere mine, his, maybe someone else's. My vision pulsed with error messages and stat drops.
But I was alive.
Barely.
[System Update: "Unexpected Narrative Pivot – The Villain Bleeds."]
[Evil Points: +1,200 (Scourge Confirmed Real – Fear Elevated to Iconic)]
[Health: 14% Remaining – Recovery Advised]
I collapsed on my back and laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because I'd survived.