Sion lay bleeding on the ground, a bunch of debris pinning his body as blood pooled below him. Lifeblood was oozing from the hole in his chest, his eyes staring blankly at the horizon.
"Kill them all! Leave none alive!"
Shouts and screams entered his ears, gunshots echoing in the distance. As time passed, more and more bodies fell to the ground, both innocent and attacker alike.
'I guess… This is it…'
Sion's vision dimmed slowly as he beheld a mother holding her child being killed in a spectacular fashion. A shot to the head, and the mother was down. The child, a female in her pre-teens, kept on crying, before another gunshot echoed, the body of the child falling limp onto her mother's corpse.
As all this happened, Sion lay there unmoving, unable to go and help the suffering duo. He wasn't frustrated at the scene, not at all. This kind of stuff kept on happening in this new world they were in.
He recalled the moment the nukes went flying. He was only eight years old then. The city he was in was annihilated, its giant buildings obliterated into dust.
Radiation ran thick in the air, killing most of the humans who survived the initial impact.
His mother, bless her soul, gave everything she had to offer to save him, and his father, the man who brought him here to start a new life, died a few years later.
With the two people he trusted the most gone, Sion had to make the best of his situation. He did odd jobs here and there, delivering some stuff, doing some favors, and cleaning.
He also tried selling his body, and he was mostly bought by older females who wanted to taste, as they said, young blood.
Thank goodness he was 18 at the time, otherwise he would've been broken against those insatiable succubi.
After that, he saved some money to transfer here to get a new job that handed out a fatter paycheck. He worked for a few years, but he wasn't promoted from his grunt position, and he wouldn't have it any other way.
He was content like this. He did menial tasks and was paid for them, all while pursuing his hobby and living the rest of his life happily.
Sadly, all that went to shit when the closest sector went on a goddamn murder spree, with this sector as their first target.
Everyone was killed in their sudden ambush. None were spared. The leader of their enemy, a Radite who had leathery wings and could breathe fire from her mouth, smirked as she punctured a hole in his body, before collapsing a motherfucking building on top of him.
As for how he was still alive, Sion had no idea.
'Damn it… I never got to finish playing that visual novel... I wonder who Yamata ended up with…'
As his eyes slowly drifted to a close, he heard something in his ears.
(What is your name?)
He felt something tug at his body, something warm and fuzzy.
'My name…?'
Thinking of it as some kind of auditory hallucination before death, Sion played along.
'Sion.'
(What is your purpose?)
'To live out a life without regrets.'
(Do you want revenge?)
'No.'
(Do you want to see your parents?)
'I do.'
(Do you still want to live?)
'Of course I do.'
(Then, rise.)
In a split second, Sion felt his entire surroundings shift, bile rising in his throat as he rushed towards a nearby bush and puked his guts out.
'Wait… Puke?'
Slowly steadying himself, he patted his hands on his chest, feeling no pain whatsoever. Looking down, he saw that his clothes were mended and free of any kind of blood.
"I'm alive…?"
Placing his back on a nearby tree, Sion slid to the ground as he stared impassively at his clean hands.
"I'm alive."
A grin threatened to split his face in two, before it died a valiant death and was replaced with a frown.
"I'm alive… But how…?"
(A question I can answer.)
"Who's there…?" Sion looked around him, only to see a barren wasteland, with the only objects of interest being the dead tree behind him and the almost dead bush beside him.
(I am neither here nor there. You may call me Pamant.)
"Pamant… Are you in my head?"
(An astute observation. Yes, you could say that.)
"So… Why did you save me?" Sion was feeling pretty calm, calmer than he'd thought, but he'd been through tough shit, so a voice speaking inside his head was nothing.
(You've piqued my interest. Nothing else.)
"Oh, so a whim, then?" Sion raised his eyebrow, only to hear chuckling resonating in his mind.
(Yes, a whim. Although I have some other personal reasons, I won't be telling you that now. What I will tell you, however, is the power I'm about to give you.)
"… Power…?" Sion's other eyebrow rose, a contemplative look on his face, before he shrugged. "Sure, you've got the power to talk in my mind. I'm pretty sure no Radites could do that, since most of them only had physical powers, not mental ones. I'll believe you."
(You are pretty accepting of the situation, no?)
"Hey, you saved me from dying, and if I'm already dead, then why not play along? Not like there's anything I could do here if I was dead." At his logic, Pamant couldn't help but burst out into laughter.
(I'll admit it, you are the first one to make me laugh in a long time. Anyway, the power I am about to give you is unique, but you will need to figure out the rest by yourself.)
"Is that a challenge?" Sion narrowed his eyes, and Pamant chuckled.
(You could take it as a challenge, or take it as a chore. I don't care which one. If you manage to unlock this power's full potential, you will have the ability to transcend all life in this barren world, and maybe meet me in person.)
"Then, challenge accepted." Sion smirked as he stood up, his clothes fluttering in the wind. His nose then wrinkled as he smelled something foul. "Ugh, what the hell is that smell."
(You'll figure it out sooner or later. I'll see you next time, Sion.)
The voice left him, and Sion stared silently into the horizon.
'Something isn't right… I can see better, hear better, and smell better…' Sion patted his body down and felt something slap him in the face. 'What the…'
Grabbing the thing, he felt some kind of jolt run through his body the instant he did so. Letting it go, he observed it with his eyes and noticed that it was connected to his lower back.
'Well… I think I know where this is going…' Sion patted his head, and he felt two fluffy ears that wiggled with a mental command. 'Yep, I am now a Radite. Is this the power Pamant told me about?'
It was then that something appeared in his vision.
[Quest Generated!]
[Testing your RPG knowledge!]
[Objectives: Complete the tutorial!]
"… Of course…" Sion sighed, a slight smile tugging at his lips. "And thank you, Pamant."