When Hardt undergoes his reveal, he is revealed to be a [Dark Sorcerer].
The priest orders Hardt's arrest on the basis of his [Occupation] and has him tortured for weeks before having his mother killed and forcing all the people in his village to stab him. Surviving only through the intervention of Darx, a [Dark Sorcerer] who has been alive for millennia and knows why the Holy Kingdom hates those of their kind, Hardt sets out to become the most powerful [Dark Sorcerer] ever, take revenge for the years of mistreatment he suffered - and stop the local Evil Goddess' plans.
Provides examples of:
- Aristocrats Are Evil: With very rare exception, the lords, nobles, and royalty are all horrible, horrible people, pragmatic villains at best.
- Bewildering Punishment: Hardt, by law, went to the local church where the priest was revealing the special [Occupation] granted by God on all the 12-year-olds. The moment Hardt went to the altar to have his skill revealed, the priest exploded with rage, had him arrested, tortured, but constantly healed up again so he wouldn't die, and then he was let out at his home village where the citizens were commanded, at sword-point, to stab him with a dagger to prove they were "innocent" of concealing a known demon. After all the villagers, stab him, including his best friend costing him an eye and his sweetheart stabbing him in the heart, the priest and his knights drag out his mother and murder her before his eyes! For the "crime" of giving birth to him. This prompts Hardt to seek out vengeance and lose all trust in humanity, except for those that are bound by slave magic to himself, incapable of betraying him.
- Dark Is Evil: Hardt is given the profession [Dark Sorcerer] and is forced by circumstances completely beyond his control to become a truly evil person, motivated entirely by revenge against the whole world and the goddess Fitoria, responsible for his suffering.
- Driven to Villainy: Hardt would have been content with a simple [Farmer] or [Hunter] job that would help his mother. Instead, Fitoria herself slaps him with [Dark Sorcerer], and her priest has him arrested, tortured, his home village forced to stab him repeatedly with a dagger, and his mother killed off before his eyes, leaving him no choice but to turn to villainy to survive.
- Evil Versus Evil: Hardt is a necromancer who unleashes a Zombie Apocalypse on innocents and, at best, is pragmatic in his villainy while his Arch-Enemy Fitoria has brainwashed an entire country of 20 million people and has her priests and acolytes scour the land for certain key individuals that she looks to slowly and surely drain the lives out of for her own ends. She is also responsible for said brainwashed citizens going on repeated crusades on all non-humans with a human supremacist doctrine.
- Fantastic Racism: Goddess Fitoria has raised her country, "The Holy Nation", to be completely human supremacist, and repeatedly launches crusades against her neighbors with even a drop of non-human blood, both against the "Demon King" who can't comprehend why the humans do it and against the "beast-man" nation that has numerous races, including humans, happily living in peace.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Hardt starts out as an ordinary village boy hoping to get an [Occupation] that would help his Struggling Single Mother. With her death, he quickly becomes a force to be reckoned with, capable of taking on Fitoria's elites in even combat, and winning!
- God Is Evil: Godess Fitoria is the Big Bad, enough said.
- Light Is Not Good: Goddess Fitoria is a truly evil bitch who used to be an angel and used a Honey Trap to overthrow the god she served and usurp his position, but could not steal away his power because he scattered it across the world, and she interacts with the world through Human Resources.
- Satan Is Good: The Demon King is, at worst, a shade of grey who only fights "The Holy Kingdom" in self-defense.
- Void Between the Worlds: This is where Darx, Hardt's predecessor, takes him to train him in the use of [Dark Sorcery], and Liscia train him in the sword, making him a martial and magical powerhouse.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In universe. Hardt's Bewildering Punishment isn't the start of his horror. He is a boy raised by a Struggling Single Mother and was constantly subjected to many a Double Standard growing up. The most prominent example being the yearly festival. He was repeatedly forced to go and set things up along with the children of his home village, beaten for the slightest mistake, while the rest were Easily Forgiven. When the preparations were complete, he was then forbidden from participating in the celebration and received no gift, forced to eat hard blackened bread, and when the festival was over, was sent home alone, while his mother had to stay behind and help with the cleanup. Later, much later, he learns he was being discriminated against for no reason.
