I have to admit, they'd make a good chef.
'Were they trained by Gordon Ramsey or something?'
The chicken soup was so delicious and the rice was cooked perfectly to the point where Uncle Roger would cry.
River and Shin really did a wonderful job despite the limited ingredients and the meager time they had to prepare.
After eating, we immediately went to sleep. All of us were tired because too many things happened today. Especially for River and I since we never slept in any decent place ever since we met.
It was one trouble after another.
Because of this and the lingering exhaustion, we agreed to talk things out more thoroughly tomorrow.
The next day, I woke up at the brink of dawn.
Of course, I can't tell if it is really dawn since the whole Black district was located underground. The only proof I had was the clock hanging at the back of the door.
Truthfully, I wanted to sleep more but my body refused. I had no choice but to get up and cool myself on the balcony.
'Guess old habits die hard.'
Even in another body, my insomnia still creeps in from time to time.
CREAK! TING! TING!
The sliding door creaked and the wind chime clanked together.
The metallic sound annoyed me, reminding me of the chains I ran away from not too long ago.
"Fuuu."
I breathed out a sigh.
Right now, I was on the second floor of Shin's house. The only room located here was a huge bedroom for one and a comfort room that wasn't big enough to take a bath in.
'It reminds me of the old days...'
Back when I was 'Han Yuta' on Earth, I used to visit a place like this whenever I had the time.
I was a troubled child. Teachers often threw me out of class and I didn't have a home to go back to apart from the orphanage which was shitty in itself so I ended up visiting that place often.
"Haaa."
I sighed and started thinking of all the problems I had with a calm mind.
Money and power.
Power, in the sense of having the ability to fight with spells, can be attained once we have our official names.
The problem here is the money.
The choice I was thinking about was making a 'school' here. We can slowly live off the student's tuition and grow. However, students don't come pouring at the door that easily.
'Who would trust their child at a new school that had no reputation? Not me, that's for sure.'
It would be too shady for some nobody to start a school all of a sudden. Influence was our greatest weakness as of the moment.
There was also the question of teaching. What will we teach the children? The school I had in mind was not specialized in anything but the basics.
Not only would it fail in the competition of some existing schools here in the Black District, it would also be inferior in resources.
'What can I do? We're still fourteen and we don't know anything unrelated to living dirty.'
Unless any of us three were geniuses in a field, a specialized school was not a choice. That leaves me with the only choice left.
CLANG!
I turned my head slightly at the door to the balcony. It slid open and River came walking with his usual blank face covered in a bandage.
He was adamant in keeping that terrible fashion sense going. At this point, I'm not even bothered anymore.
"Good morning, River. Had a good night's sleep?"
I greeted him. River's face remained emotionless as he asked a question back.
"What made you look so sentimental?"
"Sentimental? Was that how it looked like? I'm problematic right now. Is there something wrong with that?"
"No. Just strange."
I nodded.
"Yesterday, Shin said he's going to buy an ancient stone. Do you think the seller is...?"
"Most likely."
He expressed his agreement with a sigh, a slight shadow pranced around his eyes before immediately disappearing.
"A devil house is involved, huh? Seeing that they already have an agreed place in mind, they probably want to steal his money then kidnap him afterward. Sneaky bastards."
I shook my head and held back a frown.
'No, the sneaky ones aren't the problem.'
I knew very well that the problem also lies in Shin who was innocent enough to believe it. We're in the Black District. I don't understand his lack of common sense.
'Was he new here or something? It's too strange.'
His methods of stealing was polished and something that can only be achieved after training at a young age. Naturally, that's why I assumed he was born and raised here.
But that's not entirely the case, is it?
'Ugh, my head is hurting. I feel like I picked up a baggage.'
Deciding to ignore this thought, I looked at River again for a change of pace. As usual, his calm face managed to clear my head.
"River, do you know why people visit the Church at age fourteen?"
I decided to randomly ask. The clearness was helping me remember the contents I had written in the prologue.
Without missing a heartbeat, River answered.
"To have names."
Nodding my head, reminiscence flooded my brain.
"Yes, it's not really the 'Church' that they're visiting but the 'ancient stone' inside it."
Ancient stone, a medium used to have an official name.
To be honest, the idea of this world's origin was taken from the Big Bang Theory.
While I did try to add a bit of comedy, everything came out as a cheaper version of the said phenomena.
"In history, it was said that this world was a huge ball of power. The power was alive and had a conscience but a few centuries later, something hit it and it broke into millions of pieces."
To be specific, it broke into many uneven pieces.
"The huge chunk of power became the 'Almighty' as we call him."
He was the great God of this world.
"Using the smaller pieces of power, the first thing he did was create a world and weird living creatures to live in it. Next, he gathered the even smaller, nearly dust-like chunks to make a 'stone' called ancient stone. This was his only medium to talk to his creations."
That stone was broken down into pieces and was distributed throughout the whole world.
"A few more centuries passed and the Almighty noticed how weak his creations were. They would die with a little stab, they would fall ill with just a breeze, and they didn't live long."
How did he know? People complained to him using the ancient stone like it was a telephone for room service.
A place was built around the biggest piece of ancient stone and people gathered there to request his help ever so often.
That place was soon called a 'Church' and the people who complained, ahem, prayed a lot became 'Priests' of the Almighty's Church.
They had many complains, I mean, wishes but all of it can be summarized by 'I desire to live with power!' or something along those lines.
The power to heal from an illness.
The power to fight those stronger than oneself.
In the end, they wanted to have power.
I looked beside me and checked if River was still listening before looking back into the distance and continuing with my story.
"Hearing his creation's pleas, he blessed the world with special particles. He gave people 'names' through the medium and only when they are granted with names can they use the special particles to perform spells."
Of course, there were some who can perform basic spells without names yet. But that was because of racial difference.
For example, there was River who can perform a basic illusion spell even though he doesn't have a name yet. It was because of his race. Vampires were probably born with the innate ability to perform illusion spells despite not having any names.
'With this, I understand why people are wary of them.'
Yes, like the reality, racism is a thing here and humans were born inferior to other races.
Back to the topic, ever since the Almighty granted a the access to special particles, a naming ceremony is held when a person turns fourteen.
Fourteen was the age that implicated a vessel's stage of maturity. By the way, vessel is just a fancy term for body.
It just means that when a child turns fourteen, the insides of their body were mature enough to handle the special particles.
Satisfied with my explanation, I smiled and turned to face River to see his reaction.
But that smile instantly faded away.
"You..."
I made a face when I saw how soundly he was sleeping. I didn't notice it earlier since his eyes were open but his stable breathing indicated that this damn vampire was sleeping with his eyes open.
Shaking my head, I used two of my fingers to close his eyes gently.
"This guy is the type to ace at military tactics and physical education classes but would definitely fail his theory class."
CLANK!
The familiar metallic sound echoed in the balcony for the third time this morning. Along with it was a faint footstep of a child and his slightly slurry voice.
"It was an interesting explanation. I knew a bit of history but yours was really detailed."
Shin walked in while scratching his eyes. His yellow hair somehow managed to look neat and silky at the same time despite the terrible bedhead.
I leaned on the rails of the balcony and looked at him with a knowing gaze.
"You were listening in?"
He nodded.
"I heard that in Churches, a person is left alone with the ancient stone. No one should be there when it reveals your name. I don't know what's so important about that. It's just a name."
"Just a name? Wow. Spoken like a true idiot."
I clicked my tongue as he glared at me.
"Official name is not something you share with just anyone. There's a lot to know about names and how important they are. They could have used it to make you a slave, you know? Geez, you were too careless."
"Wha... what?!"
His eyes widened.
"What do you mean?!"
I stood up, raised my hand, and gently patted his golden head.
"Next time! I'm quite hungry so cook me something. River, don't just sleep there and help him."
"Hey! Dark-san!"
I was quite happy to hear him call my name for the first time however, I really was hungry so I ignored him and made my way back down to the first floor.