I was hiking in the most typical footpath— in the most random street around the outer area of Takihara Mountain village.

When I got swindled by a homeless crackhead. But before uncovering such a bromide encounter. I naturally need to introduce myself.

Partially, I really really don't want to, especially since it's another cliché tragic life that you must be very accustomed to (or perhaps sick and tired of).

Still, if you really want to hear about it, then the first couple of things you probably want to know about is where I was born, how I was raised, and what my lousy life was like.

Well then, let's take a rapid memory lane:

I was named Yami; In a way, it wasn't a splendidly popular name in my area; legends said that I was named that way because my mother liked a character in some kind of Japanese cartoons.

Surprisingly, I also was born in a relatively wealthy family. Yet, (as expected), it's not like I can be part of that lavish world.

Precisely because my mother was merely the family patriarch's mistress, like his many maids and hidden servants, we were given a house and a meager monthly allowance, while my mother works as a maid for the official wife.

I had always found it ironic, serving the woman you roll with her man in cheats.

Adequately, it's not like I'm hating or anything.

After all, we both share the same dreary fate, but that isn't significant in my story anymore simply because she already passed away on my fourth birthday. I don't really know-how. But I'm sure my father had an underhand on the matter; killing an insignificant pawn like her is more convenient to him than drinking water.

My father was what one would call a smooth criminal before meeting him, and an unrepentant cunt just after.

I hasn't been able to cry that day or even feel a shred of sadness; perhaps I was too young to understand, or maybe because even at that point, the times I saw her face can be counted using one hand.

And as the funeral went by, my dad refused to recognize me as his son, which in simple words means 'not an inheritor'.

Thus, I got harshly thrown away.

——

Days dimly overhauled over the early days of my not-so-impressive childhood.

"How could you leave your own blood son to rot in an orphanage?" This question always crossed my mind while spending my childhood in this miserable place.

If none of you heard about an orphanage's livable conditions, let me broaden your knowledge a bit more.

An orphanage is like a civilised jungle where kids compete with each other like some wild beasts for a better chance to get adopted.

In my seldom boredom, I organized a kids ranking system.

In my notes, there existed the division one kids; or how I liked to call them, 'the good looking farts,' they usually intelligent, adorable, and mostly get adopted as fast as charms in a shrine, followed by the mid-tier kids; they aren't as talented as the latter brats, but they at least look presentable to the public eye.

Contrary, there's my kind, the ugly bastards; well, it's not like people don't adopt fat kids. But still, I was an abnormality of abnormalities; my weight was just too much that scares any curious approacher; the only way I can be adopted is if I get sliced up and packed in cans of meat, then I might be able to fix the planet hunger crisis.

Doctors said it's a disease that causes unbalanced hormones, and it will generally fix itself after I hit my puberty.

Without mentioning the silly insults, the kids hurled my way each now and then. My time here was primarily peaceful.

Not that I had nothing to worry about, I was getting older, and my needs and onerous necessities grew parallel alongside it.

I'm not going to lie. Back then, in my naiveness and love for fairy tales, I actually waited for someone to pick me up.

'Someone will,' I assured myself each coming Christmas. Yet, the number of the eager kids only rocketed, and my chances dwelled with each passing month.

Before long (at least to me), at age 12, my innocent ears had to briefly hear the gossips of some of the orphanage employees after one of them mentioned my nickname.

"I think they will kick the frog off this year," said she.

"The director assured that it's just a transportation, but who's he bullshiting? No institute would even try to consider looking at the kid's report,"

A delighted snigger instantly followed her speech by one of the three females standing there.

'So the day finally came, huh?' I thought bitterly. It wasn't an unscheduled shock to me; I always knew this day would eventually come.

However, things didn't happen as they schemed; God, luck, fate, whatever you want to call it—intervened.

In the summer of that year, an incident that trespassed my reasoning sense, to the point that it appeared to me almost like a third-rate plot armor have transpired.

———

New hope Orphanage building, Director's Office.

"As I explained earlier, a grandma agreed to adopt you onto her shrine." said the director with a more delightful smile than me.

'Adoption? H-how? W-why would she?' At this point, I won't adopt myself even if I was begged to. But of course, I smiled back.

And just like that, I accepted the offer without much thinking and later on went all the way into a shrine located in the mountains with the mysterious grandma where people worshipped some kind of deity.

———

My time with the grandma was fleeting, but I undoubtedly could say it was a blissful ride; the grandma was the reverse of the cliche mother in all those Cinderella stories Hollywood milked for years.

'An angel in the disguise of a demon.' As her features weren't exactly in the gracious norm.

In fact, they were so evilly jagged, It occasionally scared the life out of people, but regardless of how she looked, her heart was filled with butterflies carrying honey and sweets to my stomach.

She often told me how much I resemble her, she too got bullied because of her looks, and like me, she found someone that helped her up from that deep dark hole of pessimism and suicidal thoughts; and it was none other than her deceased husband.

I really wished to meet him, but I was too busy getting stuffed with food from her lovely callused hands.

"Grandma!! I'm about to die!" I cried out, grabbing my swelling belly in fear of bursting.

"Shut your mouth! Look at how many pounds you lost! How can you find a wife looking like this!" With a soothing voice, she cooed and lovingly opened my mouth, cramming in all kinds of delicious treats; it was heaven on earth.

I wasn't going to stop anyway, but internally, I sighed, "I can't even walk grandma; let alone find a wife."

My precious time with the holy benefactor of my life ended on my 14th birthday; I was homeschooled, so I didn't have to worry about getting verbally bullied in the class, but if I recall right, it's going to be my third year of middle school when my grandma passed away, I cried for two consecutive days, asking myself why can't she stay with me for the rest of my life?

And while here life-ended, my joyous life also perished on the same day as my good-for-nothing contemptible life displaced every portion of it.

The shrine was pretty famous in the area, so at first, I didn't struggle as much; people would leave their offerings like food, money, clothes in an attempt to get the shrine god's favour.

And as a poor bastard, I will shamelessly use them for my personal needs, 'Gods doesn't need a toothbrush, but I need it. I'm sure if there's a god, he will pardon me.'

However, The government decided that after the original owner died, the shrine will become a national heritage. And It will be placed on lockdown.

The outrageous decision, of course, faced a tremendous backlash from the mountains shrine god's followers. Yet, everything eventually calmed down with time and the right amount of money.

Hence, for the second time in my life, I got kicked out from the last and first place, I called "home."

Life after that was pretty predictable; I was homeless, fat, and wussy, the other kids did drugs, so I gave the field a shot.

I tried to blend as much as possible with my environment. However, I still ended up getting persecuted; nine years of that life was enough for anyone to go insane, and on the last day of my life, before waiting for the loan sharks to take what's left, I found an old man looking like a mix of Gandalf and a kung fu master, begging in the streets.

Some kids trying to steal his hard-earned cash, an idea struck my mind, if I'm going to die eventually, 'Why not farm karma points?'

But after I thought more, 'Actually, screw karma; I heard some beggars hide fortunes up their asses!'

Upon thinking that, I lunged on them, but not as planned and scripted inside of my imagination; those little kids beat me up badly.

After continuously hitting the mountain of fat, they got tired and left.

Watching my failed heroic deed, The wicked Gandalf laughed till his teeth peeked at me from his lopsided mouth; getting up, he said to me, "Young man, I didn't need any help, but I admire your bravery. For sticking for this middle-aged man!"

'Hm? Middle-aged? This delusional ungrateful shit! My bones are all messed up! And now you telling me this?' I thought after gawking at his disturbing grin.

"I know you had it rough!" He said and briefly stared at my butt. "You also have four broken bones, and your ribs are all shattered! Tell me, weak punk, why did you decide to help this beggar? I don't think I have anything valuable to gift you."

'Had it rough? Oh, no, no, no! I don't like where this is going!' I gulped in terror but didn't act accordingly to how I felt.

"Hmph! I didn't do it to get rewarded! My grandma taught me always to help people; whatever they look like doesn't matter!" I painfully exclaimed, flipping my body to hide my precious butt.

"Oh! Your grandma raised you well. Perhaps is she the one who used to live in the shrine beside the mountains?"

"Yes? How did you know?" I weakly shouted.

"Eh, I thought her teachings would be quickly forgotten after all those years, but here you are!"

"Here you are? Perhaps did you have a close relationship with my grandma?" I asked in my shock.

"Well, She was my wife!" He announced with a grin.

"What!? Impossible! Are you that "charming" grandpa she used to talk about all the time? Your face looks like you kidnap children! But wait a minute. Why did you leave her all alone if you're still alive?"

"Yes, that's me, you rude punk, and "No," I didn't leave in my consent; it involves some netherworld affairs that you should not know about now. Anyway, because you helped significantly reduce my dear wife's burden, I will reward your excellent services with my heavenly item and treat you as my successor!"

"Why it seems like you already know what is going to happen even before our encounter?"

"Did I? Hohoho." he let out a weird chuckle.

'And heavenly what? Is this crazy old man on heroin? Ugh! That damned drug screwed yet another life! Grandma will feel super mad when she hears that her supposedly dead husband is a fucking drug addict!'

"Drug addict? You one nasty brat!" He angrily shrieked, lovingly caressing his long white beard to calm himself down.

"Wait, how did you know what I thought?" I questioned.

He didn't answer but brought something from his pocket; I took a quick peek and saw some kind of white shiny cristal rocks with some weird unknown substances.

The rocks looked precisely like meth.

I had a sudden realisation, 'Grandma! This bastard of a husband not only a drug addict, but he's also a drug god. Lord have mercy! Why did you pick this rusty crackhead from all people?'

"Hmph! Stinky brat, that's a five thousand years old white orb! At the time, I was already old; your great-great ancestor was still wet behind the ears. But now, let's finish this matter. I still have some business to attend to; take this item; it will disfigure itself to the most thing you require."

I looked up and saw some dirty set of yellow teeth in front of my face, stinking like it just came out of a horse ass.

Because I was slanted on the ground after the beating, he put them on my chest. "What the hell, old man? Is this the so-called heavenly 'item'? It's just your damned old self-made teeth set!"

While I was angrily looking at him, his skin tone was weirdly getting redder.

'What the hell I'm going to do with some teeth set? Is this bastard old man trolling me?' I thought.

"Cough* like I said, this item would reform itself to the most thing you need, after the long years my teeth already couldn't hold on, being young is surely great!." he looked at the cloudy sky and seems like he's reminiscing on his long lost youthful years.

After the item touched my skin, it magically turned itself into some kind of contact lenses.

I was stunned, though less petrified from the day grandma adopted me.

'How could that even be possible?'

"Hm, I see; look like you are short-sighted; anyway, enjoy, and be extremely careful with the item, do-not-put them if you're not sure about the tremendous change they will bring in the future."

Just like that, he magically disappeared from my sight; after seeing miracle after miracle, I no longer denied this weird old man powers; I might be hallucinating, but who cares? Let's just enjoy the last minutes of my life.

I slowly moved my hands and grabbed them; I crawled and sat beside a wall, inspecting them when one pair slipped past my hands and slammed to the ground; I horrifiedly picked it up and checked if it has any cracks.

'Puph! It seems like it still okay.'

I took a long breath and struggled to put them on; I waited for a long time, but nothing occurred, "What the hell? Why is nothing happening? Did the drugged old man just lied to me?"

Half an hour went by without any changes; I cursed that damned drug dealer old man for taking advantage of my stupidity.

However, after precisely one hour of waiting, something finally let up in my eyes.

Consequently, I heard droning noises in my ear.

<0%.....10%...40%>

I felt a horrible rush of discomfort and pain in my eyes; it itched so much I wanted to detach my eyeballs from my eye socket.

<100%>

I felt my vision blur even more than what it's already been, and a last thought crossed my mind before fainting. 'Brought back? You mean time travel?'