1. He returns to his hometown.
*
Surrounded by dense coniferous forests. The morning dew fell with a plop, hitting Fernandez’s nose. Startled, Fernandez woke up and buried himself deep under the tree trunk.
The wet blanket was covered with sharp leaves, and in front of him, the campfire had turned to ashes.
‘Where am I?’
Fernandez held his head and tried to gather his thoughts. It wasn’t easy. At any rate, he hadn’t seen a tree uncontaminated by hellish magic for at least 10 years.
So, to him, this place was… no different from another world.
‘No breathing issues, and the vegetation feels familiar.’
That was the problem. If he had fallen into another world without any protection, the immediate issues would be difficulty breathing and unfamiliar vegetation.
(1) Without knowing the language
(2) Safely opening his eyes
(3) Able to live without any problems
(4) The surrounding environment is not hostile.
A miracle was needed to fulfill these four conditions.
‘There is no miracle.’
Fernandez shook his head and looked down at the blanket. Ironically, it was a woolen fabric from his hometown, now with no trace left.
And the back of his hand that held it was clean, without a single wrinkle, and his entire body was full of vitality.
No matter how well he had taken care of himself, this wasn’t the body of a dark mage who had long passed eighty. Moreover, he wasn’t even someone who took good care of his body.
‘It’s one of two things. Either I’ve gone mad due to extreme magic contamination, or I’ve really returned to the past.’
Whichever it was, it wasn’t something he could figure out by sitting still. Fernandez carefully got up, frowning.
His body, having spent the night in the cold dew, was stiff and sore.
‘Am I the eighty-year-old dark mage Faijashi, or the young Fernandez who hasn’t even had his coming-of-age ceremony?’
That was the first question he needed to answer. Since the mind is bound to the body, he walked into the forest, wary of his increasingly clear mind.
*
After walking through the forest for about an hour, Fernandez cautiously formed a hypothesis and returned to the extinguished campfire.
‘The forest seems endless.’
Either he was lost, had seriously misjudged the direction, or he had fallen into a forest-shaped hell. It was one of the three, and he hoped the first hypothesis was correct.
A single dagger, no detectable magic within his body, and a condition so fresh it felt like he could fly. Everything felt familiar. Just like 70 years ago.
‘I never thought I’d fail at finding my way.’
He must be somewhere in the northwestern part of the Sailinghorn Mountains. If he had really returned to the past.
Before the world was contaminated by hellish magic, before this world was doomed, the only memory he had of sleeping in a coniferous forest was back then.
How did he get out of this forest back then? Why did he go so deep?
‘Damn the Serenad regent.’
He had to choose between running away or committing suicide on his 16th birthday, and he thought dying away from home was better than suicide.
It was good to escape deep into the forest to avoid the pursuers, but he ended up going too deep and losing his way out. Foolishly.
Fernandez wasn’t in a bad mood, though. He still had the strength to move, and above all, the morning forest air was incredibly refreshing.
It was a smell he hadn’t experienced in nearly 30 years. Except for the minor issue of not feeling any magic.
‘I don’t even have the magic needed to summon a demon, let alone the power to call a spirit to ask for directions. The most I can do now is… light a fire with my fingers instead of flint…’
If he couldn’t ask the dead or beings from another world for directions, he would have to seek help from the living.
Fernandez judged so and sat back down in front of the campfire, chewing on some dried jerky.
Though 16-year-old Fernandez didn’t know it, the 80-year-old Faijashi did. If he had lit a campfire without erasing his tracks, the pursuers would surely find him.
And from afar, the sound of startled mountain birds fleeing and the clatter of hooves could be heard.
*
“Oh dear, young master, have you lost your mind?”
A man with a neatly trimmed mustache, sitting on a horse, looked down at him and teased. His attitude was extremely rude for a noble, but quite appropriate for a bastard.
“Yes, thank you for finding me. Your name is…?”
At Fernandez’s words, the man’s face turned red and purple. He thought Fernandez was mocking him.
The man menacingly fiddled with his sword hilt and growled at Fernandez.
“Young master. It seems you haven’t grasped the situation yet, but you’re about to disappear here. Shouldn’t you have run away properly to disappear?”
“I’m a proactive person. Will you proactively ‘disappear’ me?”
The man grimaced, dismounted, and slowly drew his sword. Fernandez chuckled. He pointed his index finger at the approaching man.
“There’s only one magic I can use right now.”
“Magic? Heh. Are you insane?”
“That’s also one of the hypotheses I’m considering.”
When the man no longer engaged with Fernandez and raised his sword high, a spark flashed from Fernandez’s fingertip.
“Ugh!”
The man hunched over, clutching his eyes, and collapsed. Fernandez bent down, picked up the longsword that had fallen from the man’s hand, and slashed his thigh.
-Thunk!
“Argh!”
“It’s just a flint. Even a small spark that doesn’t leave a scratch on the skin hurts when it hits the eye. Now, choose.”
Blood streamed from the man’s thigh. He clutched his thigh, tightly shut his eyes, and screamed while crying.
Fernandez clicked his tongue, stepped on the man’s head, and lightly scratched his throat with the sword.
“Will you disappear proactively, or be dragged away passively?”
“P-please spare me! I just did as I was told! How could I dare harm you, young master!!”
“Hmm, you would have. Alright. Do you want to live and step on your homeland again?”
“Yes, yes!! Please spare me!”
“I feel the same. Let’s achieve our goals together. Lead the way.”
“Huh?”
The man’s eyes widened as if he forgot his pain. In reality, it was just a small spark that stung his eyes but didn’t harm his vision.
The man trembled, looking at the sword tip Fernandez held.
“Let’s go to our homeland. I have something to check.”
The man was convinced Fernandez was insane.
*
The man, tightly bound by Fernandez, led the horse and walked. Fernandez sat on the horse, lost in thought without a word.
The man found the situation both amusing and pitiful.
“Young master. But if you return to the territory like this… will the lord… no, the regent just sit still…? Just ignore a lowly peasant like me and run away…”
“Have you suddenly developed loyalty to me? How so?”
‘If you go with me, I’ll die too!’
The man’s role was tracking, killing, and destroying evidence. Even for a bastard, leaving sword marks within the territory was a serious blow to prestige.
So, they sent pursuers, and if the pursuer was captured and escorted back, the man would surely drop dead.
Even though assassinating a bastard wasn’t rare, it wasn’t something to do openly.
“Don’t worry. You won’t die.”
“What kind of nonsense… but why are you saying such baseless things…”
“If I live, you won’t die. And according to my thoughts, I won’t die for a few years.”
He’s completely insane. Totally gone. The man gave up on conversation and trudged along.
Though his stabbed leg hurt like crazy, the occasional poke from the sword tip kept giving him new energy.
When and how did that brat become so ruthless?
All questions could be answered by the fact that he was insane, and the man was the second to agree with that opinion.
But he wasn’t the last.
There were still many who would nod at the idea that Fernandez was insane, except for Fernandez himself.
*
![[TS] Obsessed Gamer: The Ultimate Return](https://i3.wp.com/novelhitam.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/TS-Obsessed-Gamer-The-Ultimate-Return2.png?resize=85,105 "[TS] Obsessed Gamer: The Ultimate Return")
