Facing the hysterical provocation and the aggressive step forward, Rune merely shook his head helplessly and let out a single, quiet word:

  “Idiot.”

  He turned away, paying the other no further mind, and prepared to continue on his way.

  “Hold it! You’re not getting away today!” The young knight clearly had no intention of letting it go. He waved to his companions and moved to block Rune’s path.

  Without even turning his head, Rune spoke in a calm, measured tone just loud enough for the other to hear:

  “If you don’t want Ella to find out you were peeping at her while she bathed — and you don’t want the entire village to spit on you for it, or worse, have you driven out of Blackoak — then I suggest you start keeping your distance from me. Right now.”

  His footsteps never faltered. His voice carried on, steady and even:

  “I have no interest in wasting time on pointless conflict. Your talent gave you a solid starting point, but whether you make anything of it depends entirely on you. As someone who grew up with you, this is the last piece of advice I’ll ever give you. Goodbye.”

  The words landed like a sudden frost.

  The furious young knight froze mid-step. His face drained of color in an instant.

  He thrust out a hand, stopping his stunned companions dead in their tracks. Terror filled his eyes as he stared at Rune’s retreating back. His throat worked convulsively, but no sound came out. He could only watch helplessly as Rune disappeared around the bend in the village path.

  Once he was far enough away, Rune glanced back toward the village and let out a soft breath.

  He felt a faint twinge of self-reproach for his brief lapse in control.

  He could have ignored it as always, sidestepped the trouble entirely.

  But perhaps — precisely because he was still human, still possessed of emotions and dignity — years of accumulated contempt had finally worn through even his restraint.

  Still, the outcome seemed effective.

  Those words, combined with the pointed “reminder,” should put an end to this petty nuisance once and for all.

  “A wise man should not debate with a fool,” he murmured to himself as he continued toward the forest. “A fool will always try to drag the wise man down to his level, then beat him with experience.”

  He shook his head, the faintest curve touching his lips.

  “Truly… there are no words.”

  The young man was named Gart. Once Rune’s closest friend, his childhood companion.

  From the beginning, Gart had followed Rune everywhere — because Rune was smart. Exceptionally so, even as a transmigrator.

  Rune had been the “brain” of the duo; Gart the “fist.” Together they had been unstoppable, the undisputed leaders of the village children.

  The profession awakening at eighteen should have elevated their partnership to new heights: Rune as a mage, Gart as a knight.

  In theory, the perfect complementary pair.

  Reality, however, delivered wildly divergent gifts.

  Gart awakened as a knight and received three innate skills: one standard Tier 1 powerful combat technique, plus two supportive 0th-Tier basics.

  By comparison, Rune’s outcome was dismal: a single 0th-Tier [Fireball] spell whose potency barely qualified it even as 0th-Tier — more often dismissed as a cantrip.

  A mage who could only cast Fireball.

  The title turned Rune into a laughingstock across nearby villages and towns almost overnight. The label “trash mage” stuck to him like tar.

  The first and most immediate casualty of that title was Gart — his former best friend.

  In the past, Rune’s intellect had made him the natural center of their duo and the entire child group; unconsciously, he had also been Gart’s “leader.”

  Gart had outwardly accepted it, but deep down a thread of jealousy and resentment had always simmered.

  The enormous disparity after awakening caused that suppressed dissatisfaction to erupt.

  He began deliberately provoking Rune, hoping to see despair, frustration, bitterness — the emotions he believed a failure should display.

  What frustrated him most was that he never did.

  Rune remained as calm, focused, methodical, and purposeful as ever — as though the “trash mage” label could not touch his core. That unnatural steadiness only fueled Gart’s rage further.

  So every day, blocking Rune on the way to his training spot and hurling mockery became Gart’s routine.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  In the past, Rune had treated him like an annoying fly — simply detoured around him and moved on.

  This gave Gart a twisted sense of satisfaction: the once-superior Rune now had to avoid him. Yet it also left him unsatisfied, because he could never truly break Rune’s spirit.

  He craved complete destruction — to grind the old “boss” into the dirt, shatter every belief he held.

  Only then, he thought, would the satisfaction be absolute.

  That ended today.

  Rune had stopped enduring. He had chosen to strike back.

  And true to form: when Rune acted, he struck at the vitals — dismantling Gart’s entire psychological defense in a single blow.

  The incident of peeping at Ella bathing should have remained secret.

  Only Rune had stumbled upon it by chance.

  At the time, Rune had urged Gart to confess and apologize to her himself. Gart had begged him to keep silent, swearing he would handle it properly.

  But he kept delaying, avoiding responsibility.

  Rune had seen through him but never exposed it — simply giving him time to resolve it.

  He never expected the matter to remain unresolved when their paths diverged.

  Even less did he expect it would one day become the precise key Rune used to lock down Gart’s arrogance.

  Rune felt no real pleasure in the victory — only annoyance at the wasted mental energy.

  “This kind of thing should not occupy valuable cognitive space.”

  He thought.

  “I need to hurry and apply to Uncle Brog for permission to join tomorrow’s hunt!”

  Rune shook his head and quickened his pace toward the hunting team camp at the heart of the village.

  …

  “Old Barnaby! Another mug of malt — the strongest barrel! Damn, your brew still hits like swallowing fire. That’s what being alive feels like!”

  In the nameless tavern at the center of the hunting camp, a burly man with a full beard — dark stains still clinging to his leather armor — slammed his empty wooden mug down on the rough bar. His voice boomed, roughened by long travel yet rich with satisfaction.

  He wiped his mouth and grinned at the companion beside him.

  “None of that weak piss my wife brews at home — sour as vinegar, makes your face pucker for an hour. Tastes like regret. No kick at all!”

  Laughter rolled through the modest space.

  This was the true heart of the village — not the administrative hall or the square, but this area known simply as the “hunting camp.”

  Unlike the gaudy, neon-lit taverns and inns on the village outskirts — built for passing merchants, adventurers, and travelers — the buildings at the camp’s core were low-key and solid, as though they had grown straight out of the earth.

  Among them, the one the hunters truly called “home” was this unmarked little tavern.

  Blackoak Village was far from an ordinary backwater settlement.

  Its native population was substantial, but the transient population — adventurers, mercenaries, lone wanderers speaking every accent, carrying mismatched gear, eyes sharp with ambition and wariness — often outnumbered the locals year-round.

  All of it stemmed from the village’s hated-and-beloved geographic position: pressed right up against the savage, perilous edge of The Duskwood.

  The Duskwood was not the fringe of any kingdom’s territory. It was one of the vastest and most infamous magical beast habitats on the continent of Eirelan — its depths hiding ancient secrets and lethal fortunes.

  Blackoak Village sat like a rivet driven between that endless green abyss and the restless waves of Shattered Star Bay.

  Geographically it was a salient — three sides ringed by danger — yet that very exposure gave it unmatched strategic and survival value.

  The danger needed no elaboration.

  The Duskwood teemed with magical beasts in countless varieties: from the lowest-tier burrow worms to rumors of ancient dragon descendants lurking in the eternal mists — forming a vast, intricate ecological pyramid that translated to ceaseless threat.

  Any anomalous mana tide or shift in power among the forest’s apex predators could trigger small-scale beast stampedes or frenzies — and the village sat directly in the path as the first buffer.

  On the other side lay Shattered Star Bay: beneath its deep blue surface hid resources even richer and stranger than the land’s — in numbers said to be hundreds or thousands of times greater.

  The periodic rampages of sea beasts were limited by the environment and rarely reached mass landfall — yet the long, storm-laced howls that drifted from the horizon at sea still sent a faint, ineradicable shiver through every villager’s midnight dreams.

  But danger walked hand-in-hand with opportunity.

  The abundant terrestrial magical beasts meant the village could sustain itself — even without heavy reliance on farming — through organized hunts alone: steady supplies of meat, pelts, bones, magic crystals, and rare glands. All were high-value commodities in the outside world, keeping the village coffers comfortably full.

  And Shattered Star Bay’s seemingly tranquil waters concealed “blue gold”: certain marine magical beasts whose materials commanded prices far exceeding their terrestrial counterparts in alchemy, enchantment, and noble luxury markets.

  Every so often, the village sent out carefully planned, high-risk/high-reward deep-sea hunts led by the most seasoned old sailors — who were also veteran hunters.

  Because of this unique, double-edged location — blessed and cursed in equal measure — Blackoak Village had become the single most vital resupply point and staging ground for countless transcendents and adventurers before they plunged into The Duskwood.

  Teams from across the continent gathered here: trading intelligence, replenishing supplies, recruiting temporary members, then stepping — with equal parts hope and dread — into the green abyss that had swallowed countless legends and lives.

  The camp area was therefore perpetually alive with noise: every language, clashing gear, haggling voices, drunken boasts, and stifled sobs blending into constant clamor.

  Yet at the very center of this wide-open chaos stood one stubborn “forbidden zone” — a corner belonging solely to Blackoak Village’s own hunting team.

  This nameless tavern.

  It never hung a business sign. The wooden door usually stood ajar; no barkeep ever solicited customers outside.

  Only the village hunters — guided by familiar scents and an unspoken sense of belonging — would push through that creaking door after a grueling day or a brush with death.

  Outsiders were not unwelcome out of arrogance, but protective instinct.

  This was where hunters shed their external wariness, bared scars, shared fears and pride only they could understand, cursed the damned weather and cunning beasts — or simply sat in companionable silence over a cup of cheap ale and felt, for once, at peace.

  Walls blackened by decades of smoke held worn weapons, massive beast heads, and hand-drawn maps marked with symbols only they fully understood.

  The air forever carried the mingled scents of malt, sweat, leather, rust, and faint blood.

  The floor, polished smooth and pitted by countless mud-caked boots.

  Every day from dusk to deep night, the space filled with the hunters’ rough — sometimes crude — laughter, booming boasts of yesterday’s kills, hushed discussions of tracking techniques, and occasionally — when raising a glass to fallen comrades — a silence so heavy it pressed against the chest.

  This was their den, their sanctuary: an island of raw trust and life-or-death brotherhood utterly distinct from the outside world of transactions, calculations, and unfamiliar faces.

  Right now, the bearded man’s loud demand for another round from Old Barnaby was just the most ordinary ripple on that island — the relaxed clamor of men returning home.

  And behind that clamor lay the village’s decades-long, rust-and-malt-scented balancing act — teetering on the razor edge between magical beasts and wealth, danger and opportunity.