PoV Diego
S???1: It sucks, right? Just like your life!
The voice in my mind was that of a playful child.
'Who the hell are you?'
D???2: Shut your trap; your current voice is hideous; change it! Now!
Another voice yelled; this one belonged to a female.
S???3: You were the one who–
Another male voice began speaking.
Fr???4: Jurichi was a good warrior; I wonder if this guy has the potential...
'Who the hell is Jurichi?'
It was impossible to count the voices in my head at once. I tried to yell something, but I could barely hear my own voice.
L???5: Forget it; he lacks the drive; all he really wants is to lay down on a soft mattress and listen to the radio all day long.
S???1: But I like this kind of voice...
'What's wrong with that?'
F???6: Don't forget, guys, that he killed literal children.
Fr???4: They did try to kill him.
S???1: You're stupid; that's the problem!
R???7: To think we would be wielded by such a powerful individual.
"Guys, can you slow down a bit? I can't understand what you're saying."
D???2: Powerful my ass, this guy gets smoked by any capable hunter; trust me, I, who was wielded by one of the members of The Hundred, know what being wielded by a truly powerful individual feels like.
"Sorry?" Someone behind me inquired.
F???6: He belongs to a powerful species, but that's all there is to it. As for the training, he seems to be proficient at sneaking up on people; it's not the most honorable thing, but it's fine so long as you survive on the battlefield.
S???1: Again with that story? Move on, old man; you're not his weapon anymore, so stop mentioning that every goddamn day.
Fr???4: I'm here to serve you, master; if there's anything you need, you can always count on me.
S???1: UWHA! Just how old are you?
D???2: He was the spear saint's weapon, at least when he was alive. Treat him with respect, guys.
L???5: How come you two had such renowned wielders yet somehow managed to become stray weapons, huh? That doesn't make any sense!
R???7: At least you weren't sold by your parents...
S???1: I was.
"Stop!"
Fr???4: Same here!
L???5: I think almost everyone here was sold as a child.
"But I wasn't doing anything wrong!" Answered Forren.
D???2: I'm sorry to inform you that I wasn't; I willingly became a weapon on my last breath.
S???1: I figured he would be different.
F???4: Am I the only one that was born on the sixth?
R???8: We are from the tenth.
F???6: Yep!
L???5: I'm from the fifth!
F???6: I'm from the thirteenth...
S???1: Wow, how did you end up in this hellhole from up there? No, how did you end up becoming a soul weapon in the first place? Aren't they banned there?
F???4: Dubir, they're banned everywhere, but in the sixth, just because a bunch of lunatics committed some atrocities doesn't mean it was legal for them to do so.
"Quiet!" I shouted, but once again I was ignored.
"Diego? What's wrong?" Someone asked me, but the weapons were arguing so much and so loudly that I couldn't even recognize the voice.
S???9: Oi, can you guys stop changing your voice? It's getting kind of challenging to understand who's talking right now.
S???8: Okay, then I'll settle with this one.
"Didn't you hear me? Shut up!" I repeated, but I was ignored once more.
S???1: Hey! Fuck you, dude; just because we're bound to you doesn't mean we'll obey your every order.
R???8: Who do you think is the strongest among us?
S???1: Me, of course! I'm the best drainer with the strongest ability and the most durable and sharp form, unlike some other guys who only have a strong ability and okay durability.
L???5: I'm the one with the most energy out of all of us; I should be the strongest!
R???8: You're a blunt weapon; you're not deadly in any way.
D???2: At least I don't heal the target I'm attacking.
S???9: Don't you dare bring my brother into this conversation!
F???6: He has a point!
"FURY!" I wanted to summon all of the weapons, but I couldn't remember most of their names; I only remembered the name of the sword and the name of the ax.
As the weapon began to manifest its body, I quickly grabbed its handle and smashed my face against its edges as hard as I could, performing a body reset.
S???1: What the-
D???2: Are you crazy?!
S???8: What are you doing?
"Finally, I got some attention from you guys; now you either shut up or we're going to keep dying till dawn." I threatened them.
Before I could smash my head on the ax a second time, Forren kicked the weapon out of my hands. Tried to punch me in the head. Thankfully, I was fast enough to activate my ability before his fist could come in contact with my head; had I not, that would've probably knocked me out.
"Have you gone insane? You almost killed everyone!" Forren shouted while trying to grab my shoulders.
"I have something urgent to do; if you're done stating the obvious, get off me!" I responded to him.
After that, I quietly left the camp to sort out my problems with my weapons, while the younger wolf used his power to compress the gas I expelled with the reset into a small sphere.
When I was done, everyone had already gone to sleep; no one was injured, and no one seemed to have suffered any major health problems from my reckless actions.
We spent the next week trying to come up with a solution to our problems. While Valis and Tsuitame wanted to move out, the rest of us wanted to stay. So we decided to vote.
I, Satsui, and Forren voted to stay; Tsuitame and Valis voted against it; and Folarin asked for some more time to gather her own thoughts on the matter.
We also drank our filtered water. Although it had a horrible taste, we didn't have any problems with it.
The wolves brought back one cool thing: this luminescent flower. They said that as the trees grew larger, more luminescent things appeared that managed to shed light at all times.
The flower was not edible. After Forren ate it, he got diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea. His pupils dilated, and he foamed at the mouth. It took him three days to recover. That would've probably been lethal for us.
The snake they brought back was another curious thing. It had many crystals growing all over its body. Those were not only edible; they were delicious. These sweet, bitter treats melted quickly in the mouth.
Valis made excellent progress with magic, and although I didn't really understand what got better, she seemed pleased about it.
Satsui tried to teach us the aura, but he couldn't do much since Forren was bedridden half the time due to food poisoning.
Tsuitame spent his whole week training and hunting with his brother. I rarely saw him socialize, and when I did, he was mostly around the girls.
Our day would usually begin with Satsui waking us up to teach us Aura. According to what I've learned, the aura is a special power that must be awakened before it can be used. Once awakened, it feeds off your calories, mana, environmental energy, and many other things. As a result, it is much faster to recover than mana.
The awakening process is also weird, as it needs another aura user to do it. It posed a question to me: how did the first aura user come to be in this world?
Another thing I noted is that whenever I try to use my abilities, I cannot use my aura, and vice versa. It could be that I lack enough focus to use both at the same time, but if they're somehow incompatible, then I'll simply stop using Aura as it's far less powerful.
An aura is usually manifested as some sort of element, but there are some exceptions, like the black thing that sometimes comes out of Satsui's body. Each element has its ups and downs, with fire being the strongest element in terms of sheer power, but it's also the most draining of them all as it consumes far more mana than any other element.
The amount of strength it grants is the best among all elements, but that pales when confronted with its destructive power. Unfortunately, that comes with a massive drawback: to use its maximum power, your body will set itself ablaze.
In terms of sheer destructive power, water comes in second, earth third, and wind last. Apparently, there are a lot more elements missing, but those require a special type of training and are incompatible with the four elements.
The theory is quite simple compared to the act. It took me about five days to even feel the aura while training during most of my free time. Even then, manipulating the aura was quite a challenge, as I could barely move it across my body.
Satsui also warned me about a weird energy he felt inside of me. He said that it's something completely different, and it's tied to Forren as well.
In light of these facts, I decided to sneak inside the third stage, and I was met once again with a familiar event.
It was late at night in a cold desert. The sky was clear, filled with stars that reached as far as the eye could see. Five moons dominated the skies.
I was on top of a dune with an army standing in front of me. My task was simple: to kill a king.
Unfortunately, the army was not mine and did not respond to my commands. There were more than five thousand soldiers in front of me.
The city I was supposed to attack was built on top of a massive river, five hours away from where I appeared.
They didn't have any protective walls or anything else to defend themselves against.
This stage turned out to be the easiest, although it was the most tiring. Their army was mainly made up of untrained militia that were also caught by surprise in the middle of the night.
It could've been much easier if the bastards hadn't started setting everything on fire. Compared to the last stage, this time I barely had to swing my sword.
'Progressively harder stages, my ass! These stages are way too simple—so easy that I barely have to do anything! How would the other person react in this situation? I guess this kind of scenario is good to make us accustomed to killing other sentient beings. Yes, that must be it.'
If I had to describe the stage with one word, then that would be realism. Everything from the smell down to the screams of the unfortunate victims of our little raid was so realistic that it definitely felt unneeded. This was just a stage made to test our strength; there was no need to try to make us feel some sort of guilt about the whole thing.
'If this continues to go as smoothly as it is now, I probably won't have to lift a finger. If that's the case, I might as well rest for now in one of these non-flammable buildings, close my eyes, and ignore everything around here until the stage is completed. There's no way I can help these people, so there's no reason to give them too much thought; after all, I've got to keep myself in the best possible condition.'
I chose a small house that was more or less already looted. It was a home close to the city's center, near the river. It didn't have much in it—not a sink, toilet, shower, or modern kitchen. At least it had some lovely rugs.
I started piling the rugs on top of each other. Once finished, I simply used it as my bed and laid there to rest.
I was woken up by some random girl stabbing me. She was crying and trembling. I noticed another woman in the corner of the room, looking the other way. She was curled up and dressed in a white vest. She had smooth, dark skin. Her hair was pulled up in a long braid.
Instead, the girl who was stabbing me was much younger, had short hair and rugged skin, and was half naked with many bruises on her body.
After the reset, I decided to rest on the rooftop.
When I opened my eyes, I was back in our camp, next to the fire.
It was late at night. The sky was covered in a weird fluid, and many sea creatures were swimming in it.
I managed to distinguish a couple of manta rays, some whales, some sharks, and lastly, some penguins. The moon was covered by a school of fish.
One day I will swim there, and it'll be awesome. I'm sure of it.
Folarin was standing in front of me, her arms crossed, glaring at me. She was wearing a white dress.
"What happened? Are you marrying Tsuitame?"
"What are you talking about, you idiot?" She then sat beside me.
"How was it this time?" She asked.
"Weird."
"What do you mean?" She seemed oddly interested in those stages because she was the weakest link.
"The stage completed itself; it didn't need my presence at all." I answered.
"What happened?"
After telling her what happened, she remained silent, thinking.
"So?"
"I think you should've stopped them. If I remember correctly, this trial tests not only our survival capabilities but also our morals. God said that this was a punishment for our cowardly ways."
"Yeah, I remember him saying something along those lines. How annoying. How am I supposed to even deal with an army that big?"
"You're not forced to do it alone." She said.
She kept repeating this for the whole week. Does she not understand why I'm doing this alone?
"Anyway, how is her progress going so far?" I asked about Valis.
"Slow as expected. She still has a long way to go, but I'm sure she will be able to reach heights never seen before once she masters her power."
"If you say so, then I can't wait to see her in action." I said this while stretching my body.
'I don't know how much longer I'll be able to carry them on my own. I hope that by the time my abilities are no longer strong enough to face our enemies, she will have grown into a strong enough figure to replace me. If my body had been rejuvenated by the time I was in my twenties, I probably wouldn't have anything to worry about. The decaying process lasts almost a century, but if somehow my theory is wrong... Then I'll need to speed up things.'
PoV Marcus
Today was my first day outside of our residence. They allowed me to run for half an hour around a football camp.
We live in an abandoned complex. It probably belonged to someone a month ago, but I don't like to stress about those things.
They were surprisingly welcoming to me. I don't think they were as bad as people made them out to be.
Everything started a couple of weeks ago, when they descended from the skies. They apparently murdered a lot of people and forced the rest to live secluded in their homes.
That's the story that's currently being sold to everyone. But that's not true; they appeared a month ago in front of my house.
They were there to speak with my father. They wanted him to hand over his territories. It was hard to comprehend them, but we managed to communicate using signs.
Their goal was simple. They simply wanted our lands to become part of their empire. They had no intention of spilling blood.
But when their army arrived, they were attacked. Most nobles had no intention of handing over their power to some stranger.
The golden army retaliated against the noble faction, and in a couple of days, the noble faction, the royal family, and the hybrid parliament were no longer in this world.
Only ten soldiers remained in this city while the rest split and went to patrol and take control of other cities.
They adopted us, four random orphans, and welcomed us into their ranks. At least for me, the others haven't left their rooms yet.
Then, about a week ago, something appeared in the sky. It was something similar to a hologram but purely made out of magic. It announced the beginning of a special trial and announced our representatives.
I haven't watched much of it because it was boring, but from what I've heard, our team has really powerful warriors.
"Marcus! Dinna, ready!" shouted one of the soldiers.
I was laying in my bed watching someone make a clutch in an FPS game.
"I'm coming!" I shouted back.
I got up from my bed and started making my bed, then I heard someone knocking on my door.
"I said I was coming; give me a second."
'Man! Why can't they wait a second?'
As soon as I got out, I saw Kane waiting outside of my room. He quickly pointed at the clock while complaining in his language.
He is barely 180 cm tall, with broad shoulders and a very bulky body. He is the most ripped member of his group. He has brown curly hair, bushy eyebrows, thin lips, and a fairly small nose. He also has a beard shaved half-assed, leaving many spots unshaved close to his neck.
"I get it. I get it; you're hungry. Should we try calling the others?" I asked.
He looked confused at me, so I started pointing at the other orphans' rooms. He shook his head.
"Sleeping! Umm... Eat later." He said.
'I doubt they're sleeping; last time I checked, they were still scared of you.'
I followed him outside. They loved eating outside, watching the sky, and chatting.
The table was being set by Will. I don't know much about him. He usually spends his time alone, reading something.
He's around 170 cm tall, probably more. With long black hair and a slim figure. His face has no redeeming qualities that make him stand out from the rest. He usually dresses in black whenever he doesn't wear his golden armor.
Areus, Joy, and Daniel were waiting for us while the rest were still hunting.
Areus is a tall, black-haired guy with long, pointy ears and blue eyes. He is probably the only one with whom I can have a proper conversation.
Joy also managed to learn our language well, but he rarely talks, and when he does, it's always to ask for a report on how well the other orphans are doing.
Daniel is the cook for the group. He loves cooking and is probably the kindest person in the group. He is also around 180 cm tall. He's a bit on the chubby side, but not overweight. He has short blonde hair and dark eyes. His left arm bears a large burn mark around his forearm and elbow.
As soon as we sat down, Will started serving us some mashed potatoes, accompanied by a medium-rare rib-eye steak, carrots, and some sauce I didn't recognize.
The soldiers then started happily chatting, laughing, and drinking alcohol.
"Marcus... you train?" Asked Joy
"Are you asking me if I train, or if you want me to train with you guys?"
He simply nodded.
'What?'
Kane tried to pour some wine into my glass but was quickly stopped by Daniel.
"Kane, Daniel, Will, Areus, Hollis, me, Nassus, Setos, Christian, or Hyungtae?" He then asked.
"Are you asking me who I want to train with?"
"Yes," responded Joy.
"If I had to ask someone, it would be Daniel."
"School?" He immediately followed up while also looking into my eyes.
"I-I don't know... it should be closed."
"Closed?"
"School, no work. You… fear." While trying to make them understand through gestures, I said this.
They then started talking among themselves. Kale dismissed Joy's argument, and Daniel seemed visibly concerned. Areus remained silent, while Will seemed to side with Joy and scold Kane.
Following their discussion, Joy began speaking.
"Tomorrow, you train with Areus. Say it to others. You study afterwards."
"Yes... yes… sure." I responded.
'Well, it was bound to happen. Goodbye, my precious holidays. You will be missed.'
Before I could even say another word, Kale came to me and started patting my shoulder.
"Relax, Marcus; school is easy." He said this while also giving me the slowest wink.
"Now go tell the others!" Said Joy after I finished eating my meal.
"And wash your teeth!" He added this before I could even enter the building.
"Yes! I know, I'm not a kid." I shouted in response.
As I walked inside the building where we resided, I took a lift and headed upstairs, where the youngest orphan lived.
His name is Manni; he's approximately 8 years old and 5 years younger than me. He was a neighbor of mine before we became orphans.
He is a hybrid, so he has special hair, but his skin is extremely pale, unlike most hybrids. His eyes always change color from a deep blue to a light green.
I tried knocking but got no answer, so I decided to talk.
"Hey Manni, It's me, Marcus. Can you let me in? I have something important to tell you."
Still no response, so I headed back downstairs and got the master keycard.
As soon as I swiped it in, I heard Manni slamming his body against the door to stop me from entering.
"Manni, if you don't want to see me, at least answer me. Why are you being so cold with me?"
"I don't talk to ass-licking bastards like you." He shouted.
"Now you're really asking for a beating." I said this while pushing the door with all my strength.
As soon as I managed to open a small enough gap, I put my feet in it and continued pushing him away.
"Get out!" He repeatedly shouted while on the verge of crying.
"I'll leave you alone for today if you promise you'll stop ignoring me!" Half way inside his room, I responded.
"No!" He screamed. "John said that we shouldn't talk with the likes of you."
"John is an idiot who got his ass kicked by a girl; do you really want to be like him?"
"John did not betray us and side with the devils." That was a challenging comeback to respond to, but thankfully I wasn't someone who loses arguments.
"Those devils happen to be your new family, whether you like it or not! Now let me go inside so that we can talk."
At last, I managed to make my way in. Manni's room was a complete mess. His television was turned on and connected to some video game I didn't recognize; his bed had the sheets barely hanging; many dirty dishes were hanging around all over the room; and he was stinking.
I immediately opened his window to breathe fresh air while Manni started crying and begging me to leave.
"Manni-"
"No! Shut up!" Mucus started flowing out of Manni's nostrils while he was wiping off his tears with his sleeves.
"Manni, just listen to me this one time, ok?"
He kept crying and saying incomprehensible things.
"Manni, trust me, they're not bad people." He didn't seem to listen.
"Just tomorrow, and if you don't feel like it, then I won't force you anymore, ok?" I then hugged him.
"Just tomorrow, just to meet them once. Then-"
"I…sigh… miss mommy… sigh."
"I know, Manni. I know." I said this while patting him.
"Can you do this favor for me?"
After a long pause, he nodded.
"Now, you should really clean yourself; I'll take care of the rest. Take your time. " He was still sobbing, but he didn't resist much.
First of all, I took the dirty dishes to the sink downstairs, took away all of the dirty sheets and clothes, turned off the screen, cleared the floor of all the trash, made the bed with new, clean sheets, and prepared some spare clothes for Manni.
I asked Daniel to take care of Manni's dirty clothes and sheets, and he happily obliged.
After all of that, I was exhausted. After a quick, steaming hot shower, I changed into my pajamas and returned to Manni's room.
Manni was waiting for me in his bed and asked me to go to sleep, which I accepted, and that's how the day ended.