1 1. Life Is Full Of S**t (Book Is On Hiatus)

"What does a fool look like?"

A solitary voice reverberated in the grimy expanse of a public restroom adorned with the remnants of a New Year's Party, discarded and forgotten.

"Yeah, that's the face. You did the right thing and got your due. Congrats, Detective Whistleblower. Welcome to poverty."

Bam!

His fist crashed with the wall beside the mirror, cellulose clinging to his bruised knuckles—a ritual of frustration repeated more times than he could count. "That backstabbing bastard!"

"Hunter, come on. The shift is starting."

"Coming, Max."

With a calming exhale, Hunter washed his hands and tired face, running his fingers through his raven hair. Dressed as a garbage collector, he wore the requisite visibility vest and gloves, braving the chilly weather that threatened to freeze his joints.

"You know Manny. He's gonna be the driver tonight. Thanks for fillin' in. I'll treat ya later."

Hunter clicked his tongue, sneering at his friend. "Save the sweet-talk for your girl. I want cold hard cash."

"The treat's an add-on, but you do you." Max shrugged, checking his phone for the time. "Ah, she must be waiting. Anyway, if the supervisor tries to contact you, just ignore the radio. The bastard's prolly nursing a hangover at home and wants us to slave around."

"I am slaving around," Hunter lamented, lighting up a cigarette—a habit acquired in the coldness of the city, both in its heart and the air. "I got a dog-walking gig at eight in the morning, then cooking at the Chinese grandma's place, and then—"

Max had already disappeared, leaving only Manny to hear Hunter's litany of complaints and his schedule filled with odd jobs. A reality of life ever since he lost his job at the Texas Department of Public Safety.

"We go?" 

"Manny, my buddy," Hunter pitifully glanced at the big-bodied, almost round Manny—an immigrant filling in for another worker who oughta be on the job. Despite Manny's huge size, he was as harmful as a Pitbull named Universe Destroyer. "We mighta kicked off from different spots in life, but reckon we're both caught up in this horseshit cycle now."

"Good money in this," Manny quipped in broken English, his goatee dancing as his chin wiggled.

Hunter groaned and moved forward, giving Manny a reassuring pat on the shoulder, urging him into the driver's seat while he clung to the back of the truck. "But not nearly enough..."

Along the well-lit avenues and shadowy alleys of Austin City, the trash collecting truck rumbled, emitting grunts and sporadic squeaks from its breaks. With the cabin heater broken, neither Manny nor Hunter could relish the warmth on that early New Year's morning.

Street after street, block after block, Hunter collected trash from the final stretch of their route—a residential lane with smaller bins, easier on his back, he thought. The job wasn't a breeze, nor was it excessively taxing. But for the pay he was getting, it was sheer nonsense.

"Ugh… finally, the last one." Hunter hopped down from the truck's rear and yanked open the bin lid. It was positioned in front of an immense, aged mansion with all its lights extinguished, not a hint of decoration. "Strange fellers."

Thud!

"Hmm?" Pulling the lever to save time and start the compactor mechanism, he chucked the garbage bag into the truck's rear and heard something fall at his boots. 

"A book?"

He picked it up and tried to view it better under the streetlight. There appeared to be a raised pattern on it, resembling a horned skull. He wasn't sure. But his detective instincts piqued, he opened it and found a sentence on the first page. 

"Choose, mortal. To perish pitifully, or to live gloriously." Hunter murmured as he tossed it in the truck. "Folks 'round here read just about anything these day—"

BOOM!

A gunshot-like explosion rang out of nowhere. 

Hunter's police training kicked in, and he ducked and jumped into the only cover close to him.

"Fuck!" he cursed as his shoulder struck the metallic wall.

"Ha-ha-ha… look at that pussy! Git, git, git... drive away!" A couple of voices could be heard laughing as a car door was slammed shut and tire skids shrieked.

Hunter winced in pain, peeking out to see a gang of boys fleeing in their car after hurling a firecracker at him. "I hate this damn city!"

Beep! Beep!

"Hmm? No! No, no, no!" Alarmed by the sound, Hunter looked around and realized he had jumped into the back of the truck in the pre-compressor. "No, no, no… Manny! Stop it!"

The truck's engine revved, and the beeping sound continued. Hunter tried to jump out of the container bin, but all he saw was the exit closing in from above and below, the hydraulics making a deafening noise as they did their work—crush.

Bam! Bam!

"Manny!" Hunter hollered and slammed his fist on the walls as the last bit of light disappeared, and darkness engulfed him before panic could set in. Like a maniac, he screamed into the void and busted his knuckles, desperately trying to signal Manny or pull the lever mechanism outside.

But nothing happened. Only the haunting sound of hydraulics continued, drowning out his voice.

"Argh! My leg!" He felt a sharp pain in his foot, then the harsh tug, and finally a snap. In the truck filled to the brim with trash, his body began to fuse, harshly compressed. "Not like this… I still got a family m—aaargh!"

Crack!

Incomprehensible pressure engulfed his chest, and the snapping sensation intensified. Breathing became a desperate struggle, and mind-numbing pain followed. His lungs were punctured by broken ribs, and finally, the heart was squeezed.

Blood oozed from Hunter's ears, nose, and mouth as he lost the sensation of pain, unable to feel his own body. His mind silently vanished into the darkness, his last fleeting thoughts running their agonizing course in despair. 

'Mom… Jennie… Mark…' He recalled the faces of his most cherished, unable to even shed a tear of frustration. 'This is how I die? In trash?'

Memories drifted by, ranging from the distant to the dearest—the voices, laughter, cries, and screams all melding into a singular echo. Yet, within that familiar chorus, an odd laughter emerged, devoid of kindness and love. A voice that only held malice and bloodlust.

"Hahaha~"

'Who's laughing?' 

"Go on, Hunter. Taste the forbidden fruit before you choose your next route. Why perish so pitifully when you can live gloriously? It's your choice, to end it all weakly, or victoriously."

'Who's there?'

But no reply came.

There was nothing but darkness, humbling the last of his senses away. 

Confused, scared, devastated, his mind drifted into the unknown—Unaware, into a journey he was about to be thrown.

####

The truck, the blast, the pain, and the darkness—those were Hunter's last memories. Then there was the strange yet familiar sounds of nature he could hear, accompanied by an earthly, pungent scent.

'What's going to happen to Annie?' Knowing he had died, the face of his little sister flashed before the canvas of his shut eyes. 'I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry… I'm so sorry.'

The pungent scent intensified, and Hunter's eyes shot open, widening in alarm. The darkness was gone, the pain vanished, and he found himself beside a dirt road in a green forest, his back resting against a massive tree.

"Oh, thank the almighty Hero God! You're finally awake!" 

A voice he had never known in his life rang in his ears, and he took a better look. That face, those clothes, they alarmed Hunter to no end. "Who are you?!"

On instinct, his hands sought his side waist, but no gun met his grip. Instead, a dagger's handle responded to his touch. He checked left and right, his pupil contracting as he believed he was dead a moment ago. 

"W-Where am I? What is this? Who…" He aimed the dagger at the stranger.

"What do you mean who? You know me..."

Hunter ignored the man and his chatter. He glanced down, finding his legs unharmed, and his hands holding the knife were similarly intact. Even his work uniform seemed unblemished.

"Don't tell me you lost your memories!" The man exclaimed and, despite the dagger aimed at him, leapt over and tried to embrace him. "Rex, I'm your cousin, Kavius!"

'Kavius?' Hunter tried to remember, yet the name eluded him. 'Rex? He called me Rex?'

Noticing the man's quivering lips, it didn't seem like he was acting. The panic and fear seemed real. But that begged the question.

'What in the world is all this?' Hunter struggled to make sense of his surroundings. 'Life after death?'

"No, no, no… I shouldn't have let you. Look at your face… I'm so sorry, Rex…"

'My face?' Hunter touched his own skin, tracing the contours of his jaw, nose, and finally, his fingers brushed over the left side of his face around the eye. 'It stings… blood?'

Lowering his hand, he noticed faint traces of blood on his fingers. "W-What happened to my face?"

"T-The Bloodmoon Ritual." Kavius blurted as he stopped screaming like a maniac. Kneeling down, he wiped the worry away from his eyes. "Rex, that curse mark showed up in the worst possible place…"

"Cursed? Bloodmoon? Buddy, where are we?" Call it a lack of imagination or an occupational habit of a detective; it was too challenging to believe he died and arrived in a different world, such an unbelievable fantasy.

Kavius sighed, pinching the corners of his eyes to suppress despair. "We're at the southeastern edge of the Nine Ring Forest."

"Where in Europe is that? Is this still in America? Medieval reenactment? Larping?"

Breathing audibly, Kavius attempted to answer every question. "This is in the Kingdom of Leopol, inside the Mythia Empire. You are… were the Crown Prince of Kelib, and I'm your cousin. Our fathers were brothers, but my father betrayed yours, the King, with the help of your mother. You were accused as the murderer of your fath—"

"I don't have a father," Hunter blurted out, attempting to stand up despite feeling the weakness throughout his body. "This has to be a dream."

"A nightmare." Kavius barked.

Clop-clop!

"Damn it! Hide! Horses are coming!" Kavius suddenly jumped and grabbed Hunter's arm, pulling him behind a roadside tree. "Remember, never approach people with that mark on your face. You are an Akursed now."

Clop-clop!

Hunter never believed in speaking too much, so he tried to soak in as much information as possible. Instead of resisting Kavius, he silently hid behind the tree and watched the oncoming trio of horsemen.

'Ah, my face still stings.' He clenched his eyes a few times and focused. 'Such big horses. Shire horses? England?'

Moments passed, and the horses reached the closest point. Hunter listened to the conversation of the three men. 'Seems too serious for a bunch of larpers, the armor, and the swords are impeccable. Their speech… wait, what language are they using?'

A colossal realization dawned on him, and he glanced toward Kavius. From the beginning, aside from his thoughts, everything he had spoken was in the same foreign language.

Thud!

"What was that?" Hunter sensed a subtle rustling of leaves behind him and turned swiftly. "A book?"

Not just any book, but the one etched in his memory from his dying moments. The aged, brown cover bore a raised pattern of a horned skull—the same one that diverted his attention and sealed his fate.

'Those words before everything blacked out. That voice knew my name.' Mysteries upon mysteries appeared, as Hunter never realized when he opened the book. 'Wait, this wasn't written here before.'

Ting!

'This sound.' Immediately, he noticed Kavius not responding despite the bell being so loud. He looked back down at the book's page, and words began materializing on it out of nowhere. 'Witchcraft?'

[System Initialisation Complete!]

[Welcome to Trash Information Manager, TIM]

Ting!

[TIM Alert: Aura Infused Horse Dung Detected!]

"What?!"

[Emergency Trash Absorption Activated: +5 Trash Points(TP)]

[Level Up!]