Prologue

Resting on the base of a large tree covered with green moss is a man with quite an unusual appearance. Wearing quite an old Victorian styled dusty and quite dirty attire with a mask and hood covering the majority of his face, leaving only a small part of his face, mainly his eyes visible.

He looked serene, resting there until the light of a sunrise pierce through the canopy of the trees and landed on his face. But that isn't enough to wake him up. When the sound of the lively forest and its residents finally reached his ears. His expression turned into a frown as his brows creased. His eyes finally open hastily and widely, as if he just woke up from a nightmare. When his eyes looked at the sunrise, the realization finally dawned upon him. The memories of everything finally registered in his mind.

"I am free... I am finally free! Free from the long night. Free from the Hunt. Free from the dream." He whispers with tears in his eyes as he had never been more grateful to see the bright blue sky. But, his voice sounded more tired than excited.

He didn't move from his present spot. He simply lay against the tree and recalled all the memories that start to feel fleeting but he desperately cling to it despite it being a terrible scar in his mind. He has nothing else. His old self was wiped away and replaced by the current him after being baptized by the Hunt.

He recalled his final moment. The battle he fought against his mentor, his friend and the First Hunter, Ghermen. Toward the end of the Night of Hunt, he made sufficient preparation in order to free Ghermen from his eternal torment. The umbilical cords of the Great One's spawns. With those umbilical cords he consumed, he fulfilled the requirement for his great ascension. To become the Great One and put an end, once and for all to the Hunt. He did and succeeded. He put Ghermen to rest and now free from his responsibility as the Caretaker of the Dream. He fought against Flora and felled it, usurping the Dream from it and becoming its owner. But what happened after that was hazy. He remember hearing the Doll's ever soothing voice and that's where his memories end and now, he found himself in the true waking world.

This is his original world which there's nothing much he could recall from his memories prior to his arrival in Yharnam as those weak memories had long been extinguished. He could only faintly recall the face of a few people he remembers to be important. Perhaps his family. Then he remembered he was supposed to be a student of an academy. But just thinking about the word academy reminds him of the unpleasant memories of Byrgenwerth. However, this world is Earth. A world much advanced in technology compared to Yharnam apparently.

After contemplating his situation, he stood up before dusting his pants from the dirt sticking to them. Then he looks at the path made from the parted treeline that leads him out from the woods.

Now that he looked carefully, he noticed the lack of vegetation and the fact that the trees in the woods are in fact dying. Outside of the woods, unlike the sign of civilization that he faintly recall from his old memories, what he sees is a wasteland that stretched as far as his eyes could see.

Abandoned buildings swallowed by sand blown by the wind and trapped by the buildings, abandoned iron carriage littered the paved road, occasional wild animals were spotted but he noticed all of them are scavenger animals.This is not what his world was supposed to be.

With no destination or direction in mind, without memories of his old identity and driven by curiosity after achieving freedom, he decided to hit the road. He will follow the paved road. He concluded that the road must lead him somewhere that might have people unlike this small abandoned settlement that had been swallowed halfway by the sand.

———

Time flew by quite fast, he had been running along the road for what felt like hours and yet he still couldn't find any sign of life. However, he does see some signs of people being here before and quite recently too.

On a larger settlement that he arrived at, he saw the trail mark of what seems to be wheels but quite wide compared to the carriage wheels although from the vehicles he saw littering the road, apparently a wide rubber wheel is the norm here.

He entered the town in search of people and he did find some. But the people didn't look normal at all. In fact, he doubts they were even alive when rock-like tumorous objects grow on their similarly rock-like skin while they shamble around the town.

As he approached closer to a large building that looks like a warehouse, he could hear shouts in an unknown language but due to his Insight, the whispers on his ears could roughly tell the meaning of those shouts.

"Quickly board the vehicle!"

"Throw the bait!"

Then sure enough, he heard a loud and noisy explosion which seemed to be the bait they were referring to. Meanwhile the people dressed in odd attire similar to protective gears board that iron carriage-like machine with numerous crates as they fled the opposite way from the explosives they threw which attracted the infected people away from them to allow an easy escape.

He continues to watch the quickly leaving vehicles to see what direction it went until it vanishes into the distance before he turns his focus on the horde below. They are sick, it's quite clear from their mannerism and appearance. The only cure he has for them is mercy as any beast and madman that prowled the street of Yharnam during the Night of the Hunt.

"I should probably avoid using bladed weapons..." He made a quick judgment after seeing how the firearms struggle to leave any damage on those rock-like skin. Even though his blades can actually cut through stones like butter, that didn't mean he should and would when he can leave those to his arsenal of Arcane Tools.

Retrieving a familiar whistle from the fog that forms around his hand, he placed the whistle on his lips under his mask and blew it before he waited. Moments later, some patch of the ground became engulfed by fog and a split second later, the jaw of a giant snake snapped close, taking at least half a dozen of the infected with it before it disappeared.

From his bond with the summon, he could feel the emotions of the snake which are disgusting and unpleasant. Apparently, its prey is too hard and rock-like that the snake finds unappetising.

"...sorry." He apologizes to the snake which earns him a hiss that basically says better not feed it anything that isn't meat in the future.

Then he had to change his Arcane tool from a wooden whistle to a soft and squishy eyeball. A soft rub on the eyeball placed on a piece of dirty and quite worn out cloth caused his arcane energy to surged forth and launched a sphere of arcane energy resembling a meteor and crashed to the infected below, killing one on hit as a hole was pierced through its body by the arcane energy that works just like how he expected, very effectively compared to physical attack. But the limited supply of Quicksilver Bullets limit him to only experiment and ensure his theory is correct that arcane energy is very effective against those enemies. Once he did, he changed his Arcane Tool again and took out the Empty Phantasm Shell and applied it on his Saw Cleaver to cut through his enemies better with the layer of arcane edge.

He looks briefly at the enemies below. The prospect that he would have to hunt once more even after awakening in the waking world is definitely not something he wanted or even expected. But as a Hunter bound by his oath and duty, he will not sit idly knowing there is a beast that prowls the streets. He will cure them with his mercy just like how he cured the maddened Yharnamite that roamed the street, the blood drunk Hunters, those who succumbed to beasthood, scholars that went crazy to unravel the secret that should be left unknown and even the divines.

—————