TVC BK I, T 0: Character Select

Turn Zero: Character Select

Dust rose around him, stirred up in the chaotic melee of desperate  men and frightened horses. He lay there for a moment, dazed and in  shock. Head ringing from its harsh and impromptu meeting with the  ground. Alas, he could not continue to lie there, not if he wanted to  live at least. Scrambling to his left, Bunpagna narrowly avoided a hasty  stab from an opportunist.

There!

Finding his weapon, he snatched it up and swung wildly, barely  succeeding in knocking away a follow-up strike. Thaddeus was lucky, his  opponent had the advantage but not the skill to exploit it. The other  man was so close, he was almost on top of him. So close that he could  count the freckles on the other man’s face. As it was, he was in the  perfect position for a kick to the balls. Bunpagna didn’t even give the  squealing man time to reach down and cup them before he thrust his blade  into his throat. Squeals turned into wet gurgles. Balls forgotten, the  man fell, clutching at his throat in a vain attempt to stop the  bleeding. He wouldn’t last long but neither would Thaddeus if he  continued to have his back to the ground. Shoving the fallen body aside,  he finally forced himself to my feet. This also gave him a chance to  assess the state of the ongoing battle.

It was a disaster! Most of their men were either dead or dying! 26  bandits had been reduced to 14 in less than a minute. Up ahead, he could  make out the Captain fighting valiantly against the well-dressed  swordsman who was the cause of their misery. Flying streaks of mana rent  the air with shrill screams like drawn-out whistles. The Captain was  putting up a good front but it was already clear he would lose. He could  make out bloody gashes in his clothes. The Captain was bleeding!  Spurred by fear and concern, a part of Bunpagna wanted to rush in and  help but Thaddeus crushed it ruthlessly. There was no room for a mere  fourth-stage cultivator in a battle between two third-shift cultivators.  He had been lucky enough to survive the opening salvo. He very much  doubted he would survive a second. The Captain was a seventh-stage  fighter and he was losing. This swordsman was clearly beyond them.

Unconsciously, his traitorous feet were already taking him backwards.  Realising that, Bunpagna stopped, cold logic warring with his loyalty  to the man who took him in when he had nothing and no one.  Intellectually, Thaddeus knew that the battle was already lost. His best  bet was to flee before the swordsman’s attention turned his way and  yet, Bunpagna was reluctant to abandon his leader. That said, there were  others that did not share his fidelity. As more of the caravan’s guards  swarmed towards them, he noticed many of the remaining gang members  scattering to the four winds.

The Captain must have heard them too because he spared a quick glance  back. Their eyes met, allowing Bun-Thaddeus to catch the despair in his  eyes.

“Run!” he yelled before throwing himself back into the battle with what had to be his dying will.

Thad-Bunpagna hesitated, unwilling and confused. Just then, the  mysterious swordsman managed to slip a wave of sword force past the  Captain’s guard. Right then, everything slowed stretching the moment.  The sounds of the ongoing battle were suddenly muted. Past the  deafeningly loud drumming of his heart, all Bunpagna could see was the  blood spurting from the Captain’s chest. Calling on his internal  reserves of mana, he roared with impotent rage at the sight. The  caravaner lumbering towards him took a step back, startled by his  outburst. Bunpagna cut him down with such force that he damn near  bisected the man. Sparing one last final look at the man who taught him  everything he knew, he turned around and ran.

Tears streamed from his eyes and his attempts to blink them back only  it harder to see his path. However, even when he stumbled, he did not  stop running.

“FUCK!” he screamed to the silent mountains.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fucking…FUCKKKK!!”

This was supposed to be an easy payday.

The caravaners gave up the chase relatively quickly. This was to be  expected. Having already fought to preserve their property, they could  not afford to leave it vulnerable to go bandit hunting in the woods. As a  result, more bandits survived than I reasonably expected. Chugar’s Gang  numbered 32 bandits a total of which 26, including myself, had gone on  the day’s mission. However, I only counted eight other bandits besides  himself, most in various states of injury and distress. The most  grievously wounded were Teirn, who took a crossbow quarrel to the gut  and Casin, who lost an arm. It was highly likely any others more injured  than this were goners.

“We need to leave!” Unojd argued. “We need to get gone before that swordsman and his men come looking.”

I smiled bitterly to myself. No doubt that was what the others were  thinking. There should have been 6 bandits who originally remained at  the base, right now I only counted two. He hadn’t had the time or  wherewithal to check but between the six who were at the base and nine  or so bandits who escaped in the chaos of their failed heist, they  should have had fifteen bandits left. Whichever of his former comrades  arrived first made sure to tell those on duty how fucked they were.  Instead of six, Thaddeus had come back to meet two men panicking with  some of the other survivors. Dissolution was pretty much guaranteed at  this point. Chugar’s gang was done for.

“I saw we wait till Chugar gets back! We don’t do anything until the Captain gives word!

“The Captain is dead Joe!” The “He’s not coming back!”

“Well, I say we wait till we’re sure!”

I lay there on my back, half-listening to the unfolding argument.  Personally, I would say we leave but that was only because I recognised  the trope I had fallen into. There’s only one end for bandits in fantasy  stories and that is death! Today, it was a robbery gone wrong.  Tomorrow, it would be a bunch of adventurers kicking down our doors to  slit our throats for exp and loot. The first chance I’m getting, I’m  hightailing it out of here to a place where no one knows me. Once there,  I’d open a small goods store or whatever the medieval fantasy  equivalent of a chip shop was. The only reason, I did not voice these  thoughts was that I was preoccupied with far more important existential  questions.

Tropes? Fast food? These weren’t the sorts of thoughts that usually  ran through Bunpagna’s head. When I woke up today, I did not even know  what a trope was. That was not the only new thing. As I lay there on  that grimy pallet, new —or were they old— ideas, knowledge and  experiences were constantly flowing into me. Streaming from one life to  the next. In one, I was Thaddeus, a junior acquisitions manager and in  the other, I was a bandit named Bunpagna.

It is difficult to describe just what I was feeling at that moment.

The closest I can manage is comparing it to being dropped into a  video game. The opening credits had scrolled past and the cut scene had  just ended and here I was, dropped into the action to figure things out.  Memories of my new life and my new identity were fresh in my mind as  well they should be; I had lived through every one of them. Except… it  did not feel quite real.

No! That was not the right way to describe it. These new memories,  feelings… they felt real. They were real. Real to my character. However,  they were… distant? Yes. That’s the right word. The video game analogy  was saved. All that happened so far up to the point when I woke up  groggy and on the ground. That was the cut scene. Everything before that  moment was experienced by Bunpagna, the character that I, the player,  was piloting now. I lived them but only through the point of view of  Bunpagna. That provided the distance because I would have made some very  different choices if I was in charge from the start. Bunpagna’s life  was a real recognisable life just not my life as I knew it.

I could only hope this wasn’t the start of some sort of mental  breakdown from being slammed into the dirt by that spooked horse. Let’s  see. A quick search through my new memories revealed Bunpagna was an  orphan half raised by a mother who could best be described as delusional  and paranoid. No other family.

‘Tsk’.

That wasn’t much of a family history and it really didn’t do much to  dissuade that dark voice at the back of my mind that whispered about  dissociative identities and schizophrenia. At least I could say for  certain, the only medical hang-ups Thaddeus’ family had were a higher  than average risk of diabetes. Where did all this leave me? The new me? I  was either an acquisitions manager tripping out, a bandit tripping out,  or given that this was a fantasy world, a ‘jumper’— is that the English  term?

But if I was some isekai type character shouldn’t I have some kind of magic power or special skill?

[Choose Greenmount Fort as base Location?]

[Yes | No]

Okay, magical isekai bullshit for the win. I can work with that.