Chapter 2 - Victor Stein

Known by every race to walk the lands to recorded date, Victor was known to be, uncontestably, the vilest human ever to have lived. Hopefully, none would follow to challenge him for his deserved crown. But, in that same breath, all had to acknowledge his breakthroughs in magical theory. Having both given, and taken life, in equal measure, he refused to answer to anyone for his crimes. Which included, but mind you were certainly not limited to, the killing of an entire city's population. No one or anything, down to the most unnoticeable of insects, were allowed to survive that day.

The brightest of teams of modern-day doctors' collective knowledge of biology paled, in comparison to what Victor had discovered through the combination of surprisingly similar research equipment, and his masterful knowledge of magic.

However, it was through his research that he discovered the cause behind a plague, that was spreading from what was once the capital city Divinum. It was then that he discovered bacteria were also capable of being infected with mana. Unfortunately, it affected them much differently. It was causing the bacteria to, stably, increase the growth rate of the bacteria, while slowing its rate of decay all but to a halt. In a little more than a day, most of the populace had already developed a cough. A month later few had died, but it had retained a 100% mortality rate.

A few villages, about a week out on foot, were found to have been claimed victim. Unable to develop a cure of any kind, he chose what he believed to be the only solution. The deciding factor was the city itself.

Divinum, much like all capital cities in the land, was surrounded by a protective barrier. One of its functions though, was to aid in the natural healing process. Either by luck, or pure genius, it also seemed to aid greatly in the resistance to, and the recovery from infections. As the barrier was responsible for "aiding in the recovery from the sickness," Victor doubted, rather highly, that he could convince them to drop the barrier and just let the "sickness" run its course, effectively killing everyone even more quickly.

This led to him setting off easily the greatest, and most deadly, of his original arcane ritual spells - where he matched, and effectively canceled out, the resonating frequency of all molecular bonds in radius of the capital city of Divinum. A city reduced to dust blown in the wind, in the blink of an eye.

No flash of glorious light. No mighty, all encompassing, concussive explosion. Just. Dust.

But it was in light of what Victor considered to be his life's greatest failure, that he invented what could be, quite literally, hailed as a magical fix-it-all. The elixir that would, quite ironically, later be called the "Elixir of the gods," or Ambrosia.

While it cannot be said that Victor was either a morale, or a good natured - in the conventional sense of the word - type of person. It was also due in part to his mistrust of people. His only companions, of which there were a great many, were Homunculus - artificial life, all made in the image of the only people he was ever able to trust. Both of which were his late wife and daughter. Each killed in a major noble's want for the production rights of Ambrosia, and its creation process.

After he retaliated in pure rage, each of the surrounding nations agreed that he should be approached as an immediate threat.

After years of remaining in seclusion, he approached a nearby village that was suffering from a variant of the mana infused bacteria. Having a means of which to actually heal them this time, he could not help but to extend a helping hand.

A leftover bottle of Ambrosia got into the hands of a merchant, which eventually found its way into the capital city Victus - the new capital of Divinum. Most would see the outcome as karmic balance.

As such, his final words were, "it figures you would be the one that killed me. You, the lofted Hero Prince of Divinum, and me, the newly fabled demon king..." He died while chuckled at his own joke.

But, it should be known that the story did not end there. The prince replied - because of course they do! - "They did not fear you for what you have done. They fear you because you tread dangerously close to the gods."

But, in the end, as luck would have it, the man now in possession of his newly arisen body had none of the qualities that would match him in either fear or respect.

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Scarlet Forrest, the unfortunate happenstance of very hippie parents, was a procrastinator by nature that, by the grace of some evil God, managed to skate his way all through medical school. After which, some poor dumb individual, let him in as a resident surgeon.

However, the God that graced Scarlet must have had a twisted sense of humor, as he disappeared the night before his first duty on call.

Now, he was leaned comfortably back in a chair as Victor Stein, former Demon King of Divinum. He was, only currently, invested in reading one of his bodies many journals.

"What?" He shouted, almost falling out of the studies wingback chair, before breaking into a laughing fit. "You can't be serious. They named their city Victus? I mean," he gestured wildly at himself, the book flapping about chaotically - A Homunculus, in the image of Victor's late daughter Victoria, eyed the journals every movement with rapidly growing irritation.

While it could be said that Scarlet never exhibited behaviors generally attributed to effort, in his studies towards medicine, the same could not be said in his efforts towards astronomy. He took a few courses geared towards it for electives, as well as staying as up to date as possible with published papers.

The Homunculus now appeased, having pried the journal from his hands, huffed out a sigh. she then, rather surprisingly at this point, given how the newly arisen had tormented her and her sisters the last few months, gave him a reply.

"The city of Victus is much older than my master is," she stopped for a second, as she seemed to reanalyze what she had said. "Older than my master was." She then took a breath, seemingly to prepare for a follow-up. "Victor, my late master -" she seemed to stress that last part, "was named after the city of Victus, his birthplace. Then, it just so happened to be the second largest city in the kingdom, so -" she then clapped her hands together, to accentuate her monologue, "- now Victus is the capital. You are taking all of this much too lightly."

The Homunculus then gently put the journal down on the desk, before reaching up with her other hand to grab Scarlet's shirt collar and hoist his head down to eye level with herself. He then got a personal view of what it looked like to watch human's pupil slit open to look like that of a snake, while it took on a slightly pinkish hue.

"You will understand this, human, if nothing else. Sully our master's body in any way, and we will all hunt you down." the slightly pinkish hue from before gradually, and the finally, changed to a deep violet. While her eye color was intriguing enough on its own, Scarlet was too busy trying not to shit himself at the sheer violence promised behind her stare. "Our late master's body or not, we will sooner see it in shreds."

She released her grip after her threat, and he gulped down every iota of courage and pride that he could, to keep his knees from giving out. Not that little girls could not be scary in their own right - have you seen those movies? - but she lost all sense of remaining comfortably within the Uncanny Valley and leapt straight into nightmare territory.

"Yeah -" he all but forced out, "I'll keep that in mind." He chose to sit back down, rather than to remain standing.