The First Kill

Tom was walking down the road when he saw three men standing in the road chatting. Since Tom regularly used mana sense, he saw that the man in the middle was a hollow core rank 5 while the other two were rank 3s. Tom did not think much about it as he walked towards the men.

"Well, well look another victim hand over all your valuables or die on this road."

The man in the center took out a sword as he pointed it at Tom and laughed.

"Bandits of course why didn't I guess as much. Listen I don't want to fight you and I promise you, if you fight me at least one of you will die so how about we just both forget we saw each other."

The leader looked at the other two and laughed when he looked back at Tom, he charged him without saying anything.

Tom grabbed the canteen he had carved out and threw the water in the air. The bandit ignored this and ran right into it. Tom took this opportunity to control the water in the air and splash it into the bandits' eyes.

Momentarily blinded the bandit didn't even stand a chance as Tom took a quick step forward and drove his sword through the bandit's heart.

However, as he looked down at the blood dripping from his sword, he realized that he had just killed a human being for the first time.

A vision of Caxon's memory quickly surfaced and Tom felt as if he was flying and watching the memory unfold from the air.

In the memory Caxon was even younger than Tom was now as he looked down at a man lying on the ground while holding a sword to their throat. At this point in his life Caxon had never killed anyone so he decided to walk away and leave the man alive. However soon after Caxon's eyes expanded in shock as a knife was stabbed into his back.

Caxon turned and saw the man he had just left alive smiling as he went to stab him again, however Caxon's teacher appeared before him and instantly decapitated the man.

"Never forget Caxon, it is good to have mercy sometimes, but it is necessary to be ready for viciousness at all times. I promise you that the moment you forget this will be the moment that mercy dies in your heart."

However, Caxon wasn't able to learn this lesson right away and Tom was quickly pulled to another memory.

The second Tom's mind entered this memory he felt a hate stronger than what he knew was possible.

A middle aged Caxon floated in the air as he looked down on the very bandit camp he had passed by and ignored only 1 week ago. He then flew down and held the body of his first and only student left to rot a spike near the gate as a warning for those passing by.

"Hey who are yo..."

The bandit on the walls went to ask Caxon before his body exploded into red mist.

"I am sorry I failed you."

Caxon stored the body in his storage ring as tears fell from his eyes. However, his sadness quickly turned to rage as he walked through the camp tearing limbs from bodies and slaughtering the bandits like the animals they were. He did not use magic and he did not use weapons; he was already powerful enough to wipe this camp from existence before anyone could resist however, he didn't. Caxon walked through the camp using his raw strength and bare hands to tear the bandits apart as he tried to calm the burning hate in his heart.

Tom watched Caxon's massacre and felt all of his emotions and he cried along with him. As Caxon was still fighting Lanis was ripped from his memory as he heard a yell

""H-HEY WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"

Tom once again found himself in the real world and he thought about what Caxon had gone through.

"It is good to have mercy sometimes, but it is necessary to be ready for viciousness at all times."

Tom whispered to himself before looking at the person who had called out to him.

The fight that proceeded was much different from Toms eyes. Although Lanis had an extremely quick short sprint and his sword handling was pretty good everything else about him was slow and weak.

Tom didn't understand how he could be so fast when running and yet his sword swing was so slow, his throws were accurate but they didn't have any power behind them Tom just assumed he had a weird fighting style and continued to fight him while still allowing him to live since their fight was just a misunderstanding.

When Lanis offered to settle and walk away Tom was already suspicious. The second Lanis dashed at him he was already ready. He used his earth control to trip Lanis sending him flying towards him before he cut his head off without any resistance.

'I really didn't want to do that, but I did give him a chance, huh'

Tom sighed as he looked down at the body of the boy who was just trying to be a hero.

Since Tom had never seen a system message after he first got to this world he was very thrown off and confused, however confusion turned to fear as he read the next few system notifications.