Chapter One
"Hey brat come back here!" someone in a large crowd shouted as he attempted to run through it. In front of him was a small figure who nimbly navigated his way through the crowd, weaving past the people in front of him.
"Haha! Pay more attention to your surroundings old man!" Shouted back the kid who had now made it to the corner of an alley. He quickly turned into it and ran as fast as he could to get away from him.
Making it out of the dark alley he ended up back on the main road, but a block down from where the man was. 'This one was too easy' thought Marcellus as he fingered the coppers in the bag he had taken from the man.
10 years he had fought constantly for his life.
10 years he had spent stealing from people just to barely get by.
'I'm so sick of this' he thought, but there was nothing he could do but hope that the future would be better. There was no sign of change so all he could do was hope, but even that was slowly diminishing. He sighed as he walked through the streets looking around him. He was disgusted at how inhumane the world was.
Everything was based on magic. If you were not a mage you stood no chance in this world. Unfortunately for him, Marcellus had not ever been lucky enough to get his hands on a beast soul in his life as they were for the wealthy, not the poor.
Tier one beast souls went for one gold minimum and a tier ten beast soul had an unimaginable cost because even if someone managed to kill a tier ten beast, why would they sell it? If someone at the ninth or tenth stage-managed to kill such a beast they would need it to further their progression.
After tier ten it was said that people transcended and went to a higher plane of existence, but no one was sure what happened.
Marcellus looked at the 20 coppers he had obtained. He wasn't particularly happy with the amount. He had just enough for a meal and some leftover to put into his savings which were necessary if he was going to get out of a life of poverty. As he walked further along the street in a pensive state something grabbed his attention. It was an old man. He looked to be about 80 to 90 years old with grey hair and a grey beard.
What grabbed his attention was not that the man was old, but that he looked extremely wealthy. 'What would a wealthy man be doing in the commoner's section of town?' Marcellus asked himself. He slowly snuck closer and closer to the old man.
He reached out and into the man's pocket and pulled out an orb which was shining ever so slightly and was covered in magician runes. He didn't have time to waste and quickly attempted to bolt in the other direction but the old man grabbed his collar and said, "What do you think you are doing young man?" Stunned at the old man's reaction time Marcellus froze. Quickly regaining his wits he tried to run but the old man's grip was stronger than steel.
"I'm sorry sir, I will return it to you. I don't want any trouble." Marcellus quickly said. The man let go of his arm, turned around, and continued walking. This time it took Marcellus longer to recover from what had happened. 'Why would the old man leave the orb with me without even knowing who I am? Not to mention I stole it.' He thought.
He turned back around to get a closer look at the orb but it was gone. It had simply vanished. Marcellus could have sworn that it was in his hand, how had it suddenly disappeared? He looked around him for any possible thieves or pickpockets that might have taken it from him but found none.
He thought that the orb might have been something extremely precious from the way it looked but considering that the old man had simply left it to him it must not have been that valuable. Having lost one of his winnings today he went home in a slightly sad slouch. He walked around all the people in the street until he reached the edge of the commoner's section and headed towards the slums.
His house wasn't particularly terrible for the slums as he had enough room to sleep and to fit one more person. It was a small run-down shack made of loose looking stones that could collapse at any minute. That didn't bother Marcellus as he had been living there for two years.
He left the coppers in a chest which he had found thrown away in an alley in the commoner's section. The chest was then buried underground, beneath his house, so that no one could find it.
Because Marcellus was out of the water that he had stored for the week, he needed to get more. He started walking away from his house with a relatively large bucket heading to the well. The wells that were in the slums did not consist of clean water but instead dirty and unpurified water. After a 20 minute walk, he finally reached his destination.
Marcellus looked into the well to draw water from it but then he noticed that there was something wrong with his reflection in the water. 'Since when did I have white hair?' He was terrified because even though magic was not rare, it was strange to him as he had never seen it before. His mind drifted back to the old man that had simply let him go. 'Crap, he put a curse on me.' Marcellus thought.
His hair was normally black and his eyes brown but now his eyes had turned light amber and his hair white. He wasn't very strong as he never strengthened his mana or his body so it was that of a normal human. Because of this, even if he wanted to he could not sense magic and although Marcellus never went to school he was not stupid. It was the opposite: he read every book he could get his hands on and whenever he was outside his house, he paid attention to everything around him so that he could learn. He did not read because he enjoyed it but because if he was not smart then other stronger people would have an advantage over him.
Quickly analyzing the situation, Marcellus realized there was nothing he could do. Even if he was cursed what could he do to stop it? He wasn't a mage and knew nothing about mana so how could he stop a curse?
Sighing and chuckling sadly to himself, he gathered the water he needed and began his walk home. After about ten minutes, he heard someone shout his name. "Marcellus! Get over here! You owe me today's pay!" shouted Acrisius as soon as his eyes landed on him. "What is wrong with you today? Did you get cursed? How shitty your luck must be!" he laughed with his friends.
"Acrisius, hey look I didn't go stealing today so I don't have your ten coppers." Quickly replied Marcellus. Visibly getting angry that Marcellus was lying to him, Acrisius punched him in the nose.
"I don't have time for your stupid games today! Boss wants you to pay up so you have to pay. If not with coppers then with blood." He hit Marcellus again in the face knocking him down. Marcellus's nose started to bleed. "Tell your boss that I don't have today's pay. What do you want me to do? Make magic money?"
Acrisius was furious now "You didn't have your pay for the last month! What have you been doing all this time? Sleeping on your ass!" Acrisius and his gang kicked him until Marcellus was bleeding all over. After Acrisius was satisfied, he decided to search him for the coppers. Finding nothing, Acrisius' anger turned to annoyance. "You better have the payment tomorrow or you will regret it," he said as he led his goons away.
"Damn it," Marcellus muttered to himself as he tried to get off the ground. Unfortunately, he did not have enough strength to get up. It was clear to him that he needed to get stronger and only when he got stronger would he be respected.
He lay down in the dirt surrounded by broken stone shaks with narrow streets and a dry dusty climate. It was not a dessert but just a filthy place. The slums were not outside the city as they were part of the commoner's section before they were forced out of the everyday workings of society.
After feeling that he regained a sliver of his strength, he pushed as hard as he could to get up. He could not afford to just sit on the ground doing nothing. He had to find a way to get stronger so that he could escape from the slums and his father's debt. Finally pushing himself up to a standing position he stumbled forward limping in the direction of his house.
He walked the rest of the way until he reached the door and stumbled forward opening it. He then realized that he had left his water bucket back at the well where he was beaten up. He let out a long sigh. 'This is ridiculous, why do I always have such shitty luck?' he thought. He sat in the middle of the room, taking a moment to organize his thoughts before walking back out the door and to the well.
He was in no condition to be walking but still, he managed to reach the point where he had left the bucket. He picked it up and put it behind his back resting the back of his hand on his shoulder while he held it. Then he started the trip back to his house for the second time that day.
He managed to make it pretty far before he heard a scream in the distance. The scream was bone-chilling. After he heard that it came from the direction of his house he quickened his pace ever so slightly because he was still injured after all.
Reaching his house he looked around but saw nothing. 'It must have come from somewhere nearby he thought. He didn't have the resources or the energy to care about others. He went into his house and laid down in the middle of the room and shut his eyes.
He fell asleep pretty quickly.
"Son, I have to go on a trip to pay back a friend. I'll be back soon, don't worry about it." He waved to his father as he walked out of the house into the busy commoner's section's main road.
"Ahhhh!" Marcellus heard while he was upstairs in his room. "Mom!" He yelled as he opened the doorknob with his small hands. He rushed down the stairs as fast as his small feet could carry him. He arrived on the first floor which had turned quiet.
Turning into the kitchen he saw his mother's dead and bloody body laying on the floor at the feet of a man who was holding a dagger. He was wearing a black cloak and a mask. It was hard to see who he was but anyone who looked at him could tell he was a mage. He was tall and muscular but other than that nothing could be seen behind his disguise. "What did you do to my mom!" Shouted an angry Marcellus at the man.
"Your father should have paid off his debt, boy. He made some formidable people mad, so he had to pay for it." He said as he vanished. Marcellus looked everywhere but could not find the man.
It was then that he woke up from the dream. His father was unable to pay his debt so his family paid for it. Marcellus considered himself lucky to be alive. On the other hand, his story was common in the slums. "I need to get stronger,'' he said as he walked towards the door to get to the mercenary association.