Day:0

"Hello there.

And—What-the-hell happened to you?"

The last rays of light hit through the windows on the other side of the room.

A hand tugged on my shirt and pulled me inside.

"Hello?" I murmured.

My hand silently gripped the door knob and shut it.

A girl stood there and shrugged.

"You look like you planted your face into the ground."

She observed me closely.

Her hair was a light shade of blue.

Her bangs were swept slightly to the left side and half covered her eye.

Her hair was longer than the battle standards.

However, she was very, very pretty and definitely had an attitude like me.

I can tell right away.

I didn't really care though.

I am not a big person with big relationships.

She was wearing shorts and one of those standard issue combat tunics without pockets.

I waved and said hello again.

"Roommate I guess?" She shaked my hand and smiled.

"Yes, and no." I clenched my teeth.

She probably felt that something was wrong with my hand.

"Oops, damn; What happened there?"

"Imma probably want to do a left hand shake."

"I am left-handed anyways."

I absent-mindedly took a step backwards.

"I just wanted to see who my roommate is.

What is your name?"

"Aurora."

"Nice, I don't care."

"Oh, okay." She went back to a straight face.

->

Name: Motoki Aurora

Skills: Soul And Weapon, Silent Sprint

Abilities: Spear 2, Polearm 2, Sword 2, Soul Extension, Ballistic Block, Dual Hit, First Strike, Knife 4, Knife 4, Execution, Single Escape

<-

I stuck my left hand into my left pocket.

Being the totally blunt, disrespectful person that I am, I bet that I will have to leave

I fiddled around with my thumb until I grasped the location of a handle.

I rotated my hand around to grip the handle.

A stacked ability list is something to look out for.

I already made myself a target for principles of human nature.

She eyed me as if I was a threat to society, while the room darkened from a cloud blotting out the sun.

"You can agree with me that at this moment, we both got brain damage." I said after a silent pause.

"Dammit, I regret this already." She wanted me to hear that.

I shook my head, expecting something like this.

She had a very very slight northern accent.

Unlike Kaiya she is actually my height.

"Yes, ol' king paying to get ownership of this place is a bunch of crap."

Well damn, pretty face two and one are ones I have to watch out for.

Ned will agree that shit goes down in many many ways.

She went along and settled down on a desk and pulled out some papers.

I hadn't noticed it; her pupils shined in a hue of very dark gray and it was somehow comforting.

I did enjoy achromatic colors too, even though they are considered dull.

I shrugged and walked to the window to see what the view was like.

What is this?

A throwing knife was stuck in the windowsill.

I did not see that just then.

→←

Hey Ivan!

I am on the floor above you.

Throw this knife and the letter back up with your response if you have time.

-Ned the shithead

"Hey, can I ask you a favor? Can you write a response for this idiot while I clean up my hand?" I ask her.

——————

Hey Ivan!

I am on the floor above you.

Throw this knife and the letter back up with your response if you have time.

-Ned the shithead

_________________________________________

Ignore the different handwriting; I will ruin your life.

•

———————————————————————

The steel pen glided over the paper; Aurora quickly jabbed a dot beneath the writing.

She smirked and tied the rolled up paper to the knife.

I just squinted and raised an eyebrow.

"That is stupid, and not really a valid statement." I joked

"That is true."

"No? Or what am I supposed to say?"

"What??"

"Huh?"

"The-hell just happened?"

I turned on the sink to wash my hands.

Ned is an idiot; he is almost as stupid as I am.

I dropped my bag, unbuttoned, and pulled out a piece of cloth.

I usually keep about 5 of those in my bag, along with all the reinforced jars and knives and needles and rope and...

Ahh yes, I definitely keep all of my survival supplies in one backpack.

I wrapped the wet cloth over my hand and kept it down into my burn.

Everything happened to my hands.

Last time I burned myself was 2 weeks ago, when I was starting a fire.

I believe that I have mastered the art of stupidity, but never struck the match the right way.

In the meantime I will be high on life.

Or death, you will never know…

"Jeez!

Life sucks!"

→←

"I gotta respect you for not completely losing your mind out there, but why are you there in the first place?!" He demanded.

I stayed silent and solemnly stared back.

"How did you do…Dammit!

You never answer me seriously anyways." He continued.

He stood up from his seat in front of me and patted my head.

"Sure; what happened is what happened. Did you learn anything today?"

I stood still even after hearing the question.

My eyes shook as I stared at Reed.

His glare was a mix of emotion: People that do not understand him will see emotionless eyes.

Dead set and dead technical.

He was quite literally the kinda older version of me.

Reed's teacher was there.

The battle was over at this point.

The grass was left crushed under the feet of soldiers, and dead soldiers.

The stench was unbearable.

Luckily, Tuck was here to save me from the decaying matter all over the ground.

Reed still did not know I had stabbed a man in the eye.

Some people did not even reach the battlefield when they were trampled over by their own friends.

I had watched as a volley, then a stream of arrows, spear through countless soldiers.

I smiled.

Right then, that kid probably had the blood of 15 different people painted on his clothes and his hands.

The gaining wind pulled, along with the souls of all those people.

I had my sins crawling up my spine, but I couldn't feel them.

Just lost in thought.

The muddy, bloody, puddle of screams and shouts scarred me.

In a good way.

"Dumbass kid." Reed said.

He tossed a knife at me haphazardly.

I caught the knife on the wrong end.

"Ah, SHIT!" I screamed.

"Dude, finally, your senses are back."

"OW, Why?"

Now I have the blood of 16 people on my hand.

"I might have gotten a in-wrong-ish blood transfusion there." I examined my hand still gripped over the sharp edge of the knife.

I let it dig in for a while, the pain was slightly satisfying.

I put the knife into my pocket.

Blood permeated it, cold ass blood.

I walked out of the tent with a devilish grin on my face.

Then I farted from necessity.

At that point I had stopped thinking about it.

Reed looked at me sideways.

Something about his concern, concerned me.s

←→

I went out to take a nice hard feel of the ambience of the city.

A rhythm of people pacing by started to get into my nerves.

At this time the sun was already setting.

Although, to me, I believe it is much like any other evening.

Chilly breezes were an after effect of harsh cold winters in this area.

It will get warmer.

Prices are going down as well as higher demand.

I don't think that will impact my advances in getting a career as "beating people up for political reasons".

However, I want to avoid politics for whatever cost.

I will die not from battle, but from boredom.

I rotated my bag away from my shoulder and obtained the map from my backpack and decided to make some relations with some townspeople.

Backroads and alleyways are always a good option when it comes to going to a location.

I am going to take a quick detour.

This is the best way to do something.

What can go wrong?

Well a lot of things, so be it??

Whatever, time is the essence during this time.

3 essential things before I take on the world.

Notebook.

Me.

Pen.

My early forethought always brings me to deadly territory when it comes to overplanning.

Tomorrow will be the first background checks, documentation checks, garbo stuff like that.

So be it.

Life runs missions.

I will too.

My brother stated that I probably needed a good id card stacked with abilities before I enter the exams and start getting more used to using my skills all the time.

Stacks are done, but experience is null.

I mean, those ghouls I fought were probably the fodder.

They were testing my strength.

I knew that the ghouls all had varying styles.

They also have a different language.

One thing I learned from them is that speaking during a battle sometimes will lower your chances of success.

Even though I wasn't hit, I was fighting for a long time.

Staying careful was hard.

The market had a large amount of movement and was said to have stayed busy late into the night.

After all, the capital was one of the largest inland cities.

However, this city is almost incomparable to the ones near the shore.

The seven ages of exploration and the three ages of technological advancement are coming to a close.

Now since we are in the fourth age of technology, by now I would think that all things that reach this place will be from routes from the seaside.

What would be nice is if I go check out the library here and learn a little bit.

I covered my eyes and surveyed the surroundings.

Many different spots on the grid.

None I should be too worried about…

Unless something comes up that I should deal with.

Yeah.

Pick.

Only.

One.

Plan.

Great new acronym for future missions.

I kinda just thought of it.

Also this is going to be one of my first time doing something this stupid.

You most likely live once, die once, and go astray from this hell.

Gotta try everything for fun.

The amount of shit that might go down is probably a not so not good sign??

I grasped my own hands and looked down.

I might be obsessed with breaking laws, but I don't go as far as murder…

The alleyways were full of drunk, drugged, shady people.

Before I entered, obviously I made my sheathe invisible.

This is about what I was expecting.

Leftover human carcasses, blood, piss, and people barely conscious.

People getting into fights on the backroads were also common.

I would walk past a crossing and would see 2 men slugging it out with broken bottles.

Ahh, the beauty in the world.

I step in an amazing puddle of piss and…

Footprints of ammonia and bacteria.

Sometimes I need to do something to get something.

Sometimes, I forget something.

Just like a usual day.

It was not good or bad.

Probably I went to 7 different locations and they were all crowded like hell.

I probably am going to expect these turnouts all season long.

Many many of the trade ports are running at max capacity and are probably clocking overtime on their import business.

It should be easy to find a notebook around here somewhere.

I mean one that can be any color that I like would work.

I also need one of those metal pens that Joseph made.

I suppose that him being a genius is an understatement.

The whole fact that they are able to be concealed with a lid only made it better for my purposes.

"And I have wandered off in my mind and off my path." I rolled my eyes.

There was a dead end in front of me and I was walking directly at it.

I turned around and went in some random direction that I don't know where.

Here I was in another crowded area.

The streets were as twisty and turny as any part of my town.

This is the most crowded area by far.

I gripped the rolled up map in my left hand.

I unrolled it and looked at the location that I was at.

City center was now very far away.

I looked up from the map.

It looks as if the city is passively divided into a class system where the more wealthy live near the middle and the north western areas.

Now I was in a less wealthy area.

The more populations are contributed by the more cramped conditions.

Funny enough, I feel like a lot of them were still more wealthy than I was.

I can probably find some quality goods in this area.

Honestly, I believe that my brother's style of using the notebook as an intimidation tactic is smart.

It may be put to use in these areas.

I start walking towards the more and more populated and potentially more dangerous territory.

I don't care.

A convenience store would work.

Maybe a pawn store would be good.

"Does this one have any history?"

"Yeah, the owner got iced by disease, then the next owner got iced from murder, the next by suicide, and then lastly the most recent Iced from a dark-mart problem.

Kid, I would not buy this.

They all died before they could write anything on it…" He shook his head.

"Damn; Uh… I am going to take it.

For all the shits in the world that don't exist, I will take it."

"Well, I warned ya buddy."

"I hear your warning.

But that is the type of notebook with a history that I do want."

"Heheh, okay whatever ya want I suppose."

"Well, thank you. I will see you on my deathbed."

"Hehehe… shit."

I chuckled under my breath.

"What the fuck?"

"Hell, I don't know."

"What?!"

I got a notebook that is supposed to function as a notebook.

"No shit!" I murmured.

Damn the things that ended in their deaths.

I will break the chain.

I inhaled.

"Time for some inspiring words."

"WHATTHEFUCKANDSHITAREYOUTHINKINGYOUASSHOLEDICKHEAD?"

"Ahhh… beautiful words.

Of…verbal profanity"

It was pretty late and I decided to set camp on the hill.

The bugs, birds, and probably shit on the ground is going to smear on my clothes, but what the hell.

"Screw it."

The next day would be for background checks, health checks, id checks, shit, crap, more shit."

Sometimes I do wonder…

Why?

What?

Hell?

Some things just don't feel real.

I said many times before that the outdoors is as much indoors as indoors, but I really cannot care less about what I am thinking.

I partly got this "obsession" from my late brother.

Also, it is from another old friend of mine.

It has been a while though.

It would be awesome if I could see her again.

It looks like she won't be back, at least, for a while.

I will focus on my own things for now.

Right now I am practically going in with only 1 goal: to inherit my brother's legacy and do better than him.

He told me to go my own path.

This is my own path.

For all I care, I could die…