Reintegration to society

"Here i am… Moscow"

Standing on the grass atop a little hill in the north of Moscow, Bruno could already see the outskirts of the city. Since he couldn't run in the middle of the city and didn't have a map, it took him 2 hours of walking to reach the central district.

He had never visited Moscow before, but from the picture he saw when he was little, it definitely shouldn't have looked like that. It was full of skyscrapers and glass buildings, while the Russian-style buildings that should've been in their place were nowhere to be seen.

He wandered around the city a bit before choosing a place where he could leave his things and settle for the time being. He went for a simple three-star hotel; he wanted to try a room in one of those five-star skyscrapers, but his economic situation didn't permit it.

He lived a week without any worries, spending his days researching the world and country's situation. He almost had a heart attack when he saw not two, not three, not four, but FIVE names he knew on the deities list:

his parents, as expected, were on the list, but his older sister (who was three years older than him) and two of his best friends,one from high school and one from middle school,were the unpredictable ones.

He remained shocked by this information. He thought he was dreaming and pinched his cheek, barely feeling it due to his shock. However, he realized he wasn't dreaming.

After just five days, he finished his research, gathering all the information he needed to avoid awkward situations if someone asked him a question.

He slept one more night, and the following morning, after breakfast, he started walking towards the temple. It was summer, but there weren't any kids out playing. The city was quite desolate, only showing some crowd when he reached the central square in front of the temple. To him, the city now seemed like the bustling Wall Street of old New York.

The temperature was around 21°C (70°F), and he made his way through the sea of people, eventually reaching a white diorite stone staircase. This led to a temple resembling ancient Greek architecture, made of white marble with a shiny surface reflecting the early sun. Its majestic facade was supported by 16 massive pillars with rose-petal-shaped engravings.

Once he climbed the stairs, he stood before a glass sliding door. It slid open before he could reach it, only closing after he passed through. He had read about this, a mana-sensing door that only awakened people could walk through, serving to identify new customers and make awakened individuals feel important.

He walked up to the front desk and asked the lady standing there, "Good morning, could you tell me where to register as an awakened?"

When she heard the word "register," her face emitted an uncontained smile, and she respectfully replied, "Good morning, sir. I will personally guide you there. Follow me."

In just a minute, he found himself in a room where they asked him some questions. In their eyes, he was suspicious since he wasn't already registered as an awakened, even though the evaluator recognized him as a Rank Two. They thought he entered a gate without government consent, as the world didn't know about any way to raise awakening rank apart from hunting demons.

He could've told them the truth, but explaining how he found out would be difficult. So, he lied, saying he lived in the woods where a gate opened in his house, luckily just a 1st rank gate.

Gates inside private property were counted as possessions of the owner, so even if someone raided them, the government couldn't do anything.

They let him go and registered him as a Rank Two awakened. For his powers, he claimed he could increase his speed, as his body was higher ranked than it should've been, making it easy to fake a speed boost.

After completing the registration process, he left the temple and, since it was already lunchtime, searched the city for a place that made good pizza. He had to settle for a mediocre one; while it tasted awful in comparison to normal pizza, to him, it was like heaven since he hadn't eaten pizza in over two years.

Sitting at the table of the bar-restaurant, he cursed Gaea, the "system," in his mind. How could she threaten his family?! He was forced to awaken not because he would lose his powers if he didn't, but due to the last condition: All the fates connected with yours will reset.

That meant his parents' powers would be lost too , and the people they angered while climbing the ladder to become deities would most likely kill them. And the same might happen to his sister.

He miscalculated; he didn't think Gaea could intervene with the world's events. He had always taken for granted that the "system" couldn't force him to accept his powers since, if it could, it would have done so from the start.

Trying to understand where it all went wrong, he finished the last slice of his not-so-tasty pizza and left the bar...