Inside the alleyway, a scene taken out of an American movie took place, the Magic God stood with a bewildered gaze as two boys pointed at him with knives, weird knives that seemed to be shining.
"Take out everything you got!!"
"..."
"Is this some sort of robbery?" He asked, truthfully, these looked more like toys than actual knives... he even touched the shining part and felt the heat coming from it, surprising the two boys who glance at one another, 'Is this guy for real?'
"Are you fucking blind!? or course it is!?"
"..."
With no time for jokes, the Magic God lifted up his hand within this dark alleyway and cast a basic element spell.
Within the next few seconds, the two knives started to heat up to the point they became red!
*SSHH!!!!*
"AHHH!!"
The two boys released their hands from the knives before they charred, howling a little in pain, it felt as if they grasped a frying pan!
"Y-YOU! HOW DID YOU-!" The boys immediately knew they messed with someone they shouldn't, this bastard has heat beams!
And they're even invisible!
Not waiting anymore, Morpheus performed two more basic spells and the two boys' eyes became lifeless behind their shiny glasses.
His magic searched their memories, feelings and overall, their entire record, but he was surprised.
'Why are there so few memories...?' Aside from names, birthplaces and some other key things... the last memories they had was from years ago.
'The Earth... The United Kingdom... London... this is the place where I currently am.'
That, together with some other small things was everything he could extract from the boy's souls...
He also got another piece of important knowledge, currency...
He took several bills from the boys' clothes, there wasn't a lot... he looked at the notes and it was a total of a hundred-twenty 'British Pounds'.
Whatever that meant.
By the time he finished, the knives were already melted into a wisp of lava on the ground, with nothing more to do, he departed as the soul search was bound to be dispelled eventually.
'This world is totally different from the one I came from... there are plenty of things I don't understand either.'
**
**
Many days passed by, days in which he roamed this district, mostly just walking... he didn't need to sleep or eat, but the sudden desire to eat a delicious dish filled his mind.
This is a city that's always active regardless of whether it's day or night.
In fact, the nights are more active, but it's also a city of sin and anarchy... robbery, prostitution and drugs... they abound
...
As he walked through the streets, many other announcements permeating this 'V2' group took place, but they quickly changed to that of a beautiful girl singing, she was everywhere and seemed to be quite famous.
She had silver short hair and touched an instrument called the 'piano.'
He delighted with her voice and eventually found a place filled with food stalls in this place, Barnet.
Morpheus approached the first one, it had a lot of customers and it seemed to be something called 'Hamburger', but upon analysing the content, he realised that there seemed to be something metallic inside the food, it was very small, but metallic nonetheless.
'Disgusting, how can they eat that?' He glared at the dozens of people that were actively ordering and they also seemed to glare at him momentarily amidst the shiny corridors.
It's because his clothes are... weird.
...
After walking through many stalls, he realised many things... first, it is fairly common for humans in this world to have a metallic appendage, 80% of them have at least one metallic 'limb' attached to their bodies, they seemed to call it 'enhancement'.
The second is that his appearance is eccentric, no matter where he goes, he gets gazes fixed on his body.
After rejecting every single one of the food stalls due to the fact that all of them had that 'metallic' thingy in the food, he eventually came upon a lonesome stall on the corner, it was being run by a grandma.
He stopped in front of it and saw that compared to the other stalls, this was fairly common food, something that even he knew, rice and some kind of steak, but she seemed to sink it inside boiling water, something that took away all of those metallic things.
The granny got a little surprised when someone sat on her stall, at this time of the day there are usually no customers, moreover, she usually attends other people around her age, all of them older than fifty, but this handsome boy looks as if he's in her eighteens.
She looked rather delicate and graceful, with no 'shine' or eccentric clothes as the others did, she only had a 'metallic' arm and a metallic 'leg'.
"What can I do for you, sweetheart?~" She immediately attended him with her best smile, thinking that he needed some directions or was lost, his appearance depicted him as a European, perhaps someone that comes here from outside?
"Could I have one of your dishes?..." Morpheus smiled and called her as such, even as his age has already gone past two hundred thousand years, he still felt a sense of respect for the older age, especially this grandma who keeps working so hard even after reaching this age.
!!!
Now that's something she didn't expect, the granny didn't expect him to want to eat her dishes.
"But, my dishes don't have fuel, are you sure?" She tilted her head to the side, usually, that's the reason she doesn't get customers.
"Yes, that's precisely why I don't want them, grandma. could you explain to me what this 'fuel' is?" He requested, only now he knows that those 'metals' are 'fuel'.
'This is a weird world indeed, is it some kind of artificial source of energy? why do they inherit it through their mouths!?'
"... huh? y-you don't know? where are you from, sweetheart?" She refrained from asking him if he comes from under a rock and started cooking a fresh meal.
"I'm from far away... from where I come we don't have those..." He pointed at her limbs and then at his.
"Humm... you see these parts? in order to work properly, they need electricity, each part has an internal E5 generator inside and in order to keep producing that electricity, they need this nano fuel." She took out a piece of a metallic square, like the one that's usually in the food but way bigger.
"The last generation enhancements don't allow you to manually recharge them, instead, food with preservatives and fuel has started to come out fifteen years ago... and as long as your enhancements are compatible you can use these small shards to recharge them, they're produced with a special metal called vanadium."
"..." He took one of them and analysed it, indeed, this small thing has energy inside, a lot actually... he's surprised that so much energy can fit inside this small thing.
"The consideration over its legitimacy took place for dozens of years, but eventually, the corporations won the challenge... but, I'm personally against it... that's why I opened this stall intending to feed those that are against it like me... but there aren't many..." She answered honestly and kept cooking.
The place where he comes from...is there such a place in this world where there aren't enhancements? she'd like to visit it.
"What about you? I see that you're... different... from everyone here." He asked her once again, unlike most of the youngsters and even young adults, she doesn't seem to like the 'shine'.
"Well, I was also younger once, but once you reach a certain age, those things don't look good on you anymore, sweetheart... allow the young ones to use those and I will stick with these rags~" She giggled slightly and kept on preparing her food.
"You're jesting!"
...
The two of them kept chatting about many things, and she felt warm in this young man's presence, he looked rather humble and quiet, totally different to how youngsters are these days.
"Do you know what that V2 group is?" He had heard this name so many times on the streets that the curiosity was only increasing.
"They're terrorists, they keep terrorizing the streets with their nonsense, there are dozens of such groups all around but they're by far the most dangerous."
"What do their activities usually entail?"
"Anything to disturb the public... like the blackout that took place a few days ago, that EMP... it was so terrifying! I heard that ten thousand died because of that, most of them needed the chip for their heart functions or lungs, they perished just like that... those bastards."
"..." He didn't say anything but was inwardly sighing, how could he know that people would die just because they don't have 'light'.
And it turns out in this world, people depend on 'electricity' in order to live their normal lives, those electronic parts, they work with electricity.
He didn't know, but still, those deaths didn't cause him any kind of emotional pain.
"What is your name, sweetheart? my name is Rachel, Rachel Brooks" She finished the dish and presented it in front of him together with a fresh orange juice.
"Morpheus..." He smelled the food and it really looked tasty.
"How much is it?"
"Don't worry sweetheart, for you it's free, you entertained this old lady~" She giggled and watched him eat, it had been a long time since a youngster aside from her granddaughter eats her dishes.
"Hmn, don't be like this grandma... here..." After taking a spoon of the dish and delighting on it, he gave her the hundred-twenty pounds that he took from those boys.
"B-But..."
"Please just take it... I was looking for a tasty dish and I got it... your food is unique."
"..." She could only sigh and take it, she wouldn't deny it twice, they're in need of it after all.
...
For the whole time, she saw him just delighting in her dish, even eating it slowly.
No other customers came as this is not usually the time where her business flourishes, but just today she made more money than most days combined.
"Then, Morpheus, why don't you get a chip? you haven't yet installed one, right? the surgery is quite cheap if you look for the right engineer... someone that will do the job well, I know some of them."
"I refuse..."