The Legendary Pseudo-villain

Hecathe strolled the forest leisurely as he tried to find his way towards the city of Ocasia.

He knew that this forest was infamous for being dangerous. There were a lot of mutants around and they were all waiting for a lone traveler like Hecathe to come here and serve himself in front of them as food.

Mutants were creatures who were once humans. Maybe a few years ago, they could still be considered human, however, a lot had changed and with their current appearance, nobody would ever look at a mutant and call it a human anymore.

Once a person was injected with zelium in this world, they could have three outcomes. The first one being the best where they developed an element and became an ability user. The second was the outcome where the person didn't have any reaction at all and became part of the non-ability users, this was a normal outcome but was still looked down upon. The third outcome was the worst. It was when your body completely disagreed with Zelium and turned you into a mutant being.

Mutants have different forms and different sizes. They look more like animals than they looked like humans. In fact, the only human characteristic that could be observed on their body was their skull that was shaped the same as a human's skull. The rest of their body was twisted and curled, looking more like something that came straight out of a horror movie.

Hecathe had never actually seen a mutant in person but he had definitely seen their pictures on the file that Zather had given him.

With just a look at them and reading about their tendencies to rip off human flesh from the bone, Hecathe was sure that these creatures were horrible things that needed to be feared, however, he was still as carefree as ever when he walked through the forest.

The reason why he was so confident in himself was simply because mutants no longer scared him.

It just so happened that Alphius was also an ability-user and his ability was a rare one that only he had. This rare ability was also the reason why he was in the spotlight during his early days. If his father hadn't been a famous hunter, he would have definitely been labeled a monster and abandoned by the world but just because his father had a good reputation, his ability was seen as something amazing and he was praised for it.

Well... Until his father died, that is. After his father died, the original faces and minds of the people were eventually revealed. Their opinions slowly started to shift and the ability that was once seen as rare and amazing got considered as evil and weird.

Alphius never actually minded it. He wasn't a man who cared about what other people thought of him. Even when they praised him and were nice to him, he didn't care, so naturally, when they turned their backs on him and badmouthed him, he would not care about that either. Maybe this was a reason that contributed to his tarnished reputation. The fact that he didn't care really bugged some people who thought that he was looking down on everyone else just because he was born with a rare power.

The rare power was unnamed by science and it had no official research done on it.

Alphius liked to call it beast control but Hecathe found the name to be a bit too boring and unoriginal.

What the hell was Beast control and why would anyone wanna name their special skill as such?!

However, since the power only had one name given by its owner, Hecathe would naturally respect Alphius enough to let the power keep its name.

Beast control was not considered to be like other elemental abilities. In fact, nobody even knew how it came into existence. Alphius, himself, didn't know how he got such an ability.

It was the power to control all Mutants.

Since the ability was owned by Alphius, Hecathe would also naturally have ownership over it.

This forest was filled with mutants and no matter how lucky Hecathe was, he was still bound to run into some of those creatures.

He wanted to try out the power called beast control and in order to try it out, he needed mutants. Where else could he find mutants in a place where there were no other human souls around?

Hecathe had already read Alphius's research projects on himself so he was sure that he would know how to use this power since Alphius had clearly written it all down.

Alphius was a curious man who wanted to know more about himself. He wanted to know why he was the only one with such a power and he wanted to know where this power came from. Since he was the only one, nobody else bothered to do more research on this new ability. With no information being discovered, Alphius decided to take matters into his own hands and he conducted an elaborate research study on his beast control ability.

Unfortunately, the study was still ongoing when Hecathe entered this world, and hence, the real Alphius was never able to find the truth that he had been looking so hard for.

Hecathe, on his behalf, was determined to do nothing about finding the truth behind this ability.

"If you got a rare ability, enjoy it to the fullest. Why in the heck would you try to make your life harder by asking useless questions?" This was the kind of mindset Hecathe had so it was only natural that the research was not only left unfinished but had already been torn up and thrown in the trashcan by Hecathe.

Hecathe closed his eyes as he tried to remember the technique of use that he had read. He took in a deep breath and tried to sense the mutants. He wasn't too confident about himself so he never could have guessed that he would be successful in the first try itself.

He opened his eyes at the sound of crawling footsteps and his eyes immediately widened as his face cringed up at the sight of all the mutants that had appeared in front of him.

When he saw their photo, he thought they looked horrifying but now that he was standing in front of them, he could say without a doubt that they were much more disgusting and scary looking in real life.

The mutants were of all shapes and sizes but there was one particular mutant that stood out amongst the others and scared Hecathe the most.

It was the mutant that looked to have the body of a giant spider and the head of a human. Well, even the head looked to be black with no nose and huge black eyes with small white pupils. It had a huge mouth that had sharp fangs and it was drooling at the sight of Hecathe.