PoV Kane
As I opened my eyes, I found myself lying on an unknown bed in a wooden house. It was an extremely old-fashioned house with a cable phone right beside the bed. Most of the furniture was made out of wood.
'Where am I? I thought while blinking a few times, waiting for my sight to stop being blurry.'
The room had some paintings on the walls representing the golden army riding many winged animals to battle. Some were griffons, some were dragons, and some of them were simply giant birds. They were battling an unknown enemy that only had infantry soldiers.
As I was getting up, a woman came to tend to me. She seemed worried, was speaking a weird language I hadn't heard of, and was stuttering a lot.
She had long, messy brown hair, but somehow I couldn't make anything out of her face. It was a weird feeling; I knew somehow that she was beautiful, and I felt attracted to her, but I couldn't really make anything out of her face.
Behind her was a little girl. She hugged me, and I reciprocated the hug. She was smiling and saying something I couldn't understand. After giving me a kiss on the cheek, she then went outside to play with her little friends who were waiting for her.
My body felt extremely heavy, and when I checked, I noticed multiple bandages covering my body. The woman tried to stop me, but I ignored her and got up.
After I got up, I showed that I was able to move fine. She sighed, kissed me, and then went to the kitchen downstairs. I followed her.
She seemed to complain about something while cooking. Sometimes she would turn to me to make sure I was listening, and when she saw me not paying attention, she then started bombarding me with questions.
I simply responded "ok" to all of them.
"Kane-" she called me.
"Yes?"
In the blink of an eye, the sky turned dark. The kid had returned home and was sitting at the table while the woman was setting up the table. She had called me because I was in her way, still staring at the window.
I was suddenly struck with a strong headache; it was so bad I could barely keep my posture straight, and I had a weird urge to smash everything around me just to remain in pure silence.
She put her hand on my forehead, checking if I had a fever. I brushed her hand off of me and went to the bathroom. Luckily, it had a toilet. I sat there for what felt like an eternity, staring at the door.
When I returned, the dinner had already been served. It was a tasteless broth. As I started eating, the woman added a brown powder to my plate.
"No." I said this while pushing the plate further and further away from me.
She seemed a bit stressed out and started rambling about something important, but I couldn't understand her, so I simply ignored her and poured my dinner onto her plate.
She kept protesting while pointing at my bandages, so I simply started healing them using magic. That meant closing all the wounds and speeding up the regenerating process with mana auras and magic circuits.
As I showed her my now-healed body, she started tickling me. Then someone knocked on the door, and the mood got immediately serious.
It was the first time in probably decades that I woke up out of breath; I couldn't remember what I dreamed. I was sweating profusely. The room was full of mana, and there were some holes in the walls of my room.
It was weird. I felt angry for some reason. I wanted to destroy many things, but at the same time, I felt sad and miserable. As I tried to get up, I felt my entire body shaking. It was trembling like an overloaded washing machine.
'What the hell is this? What happened?'
Was the first thing on my mind. I then peeked into the holes I made in the walls, and thankfully no one was hurt.
'Thankfully, it was just a light nightmare; otherwise, this whole room would've been blown up and the building might have suffered irreversible damages.'
As soon as I got out of my room, I saw Christian. He was injecting lots of mana into the mall to make it sturdier.
"Don't scare me like that. I thought you were about to destroy the entire building for a second." He complained.
"Sorry, I had a nightmare."
"You? That's rare. What did you dream about? " He asked.
But I noticed he was acting a bit different than usual; he wasn't looking me in the eyes as he usually does; he didn't have his usual smug stamp on his face; instead, he was trying to hide his expression and constantly avoiding my gaze.
"I don't remember. Weird, right?"
"Yeah... it's... weird... Well, as long as it's an isolated incident, I think it's fine to leave it at that." He said.
"Anyway, can you replace me for today? I really don't know where to start teaching those kids." He continued while heading towards the exit door.
"I don't know much either. You're the nerd here; we all count on you. I'm sure you'll be fine. You're a prodigy after all." I responded while testing the walls.
"At least for the first lesson, you owe me this one." Chris pleaded while heading downstairs.
"Ok, I get it; I get it, but just for today." I answered.
"You owe me more than one day." He reminded me by pointing at the many holes in the wall I had made.
"You also owe me some favors, but you don't see me complaining about it, jeez!"
He stood there looking at me, probably thinking about what to say next.
"Come on, I just woke up. Let's grab a beer and forget about it." I simply put my hands around his neck and accompanied him downstairs.
"Oh right, I forgot to ask this yesterday, but what happened to the cursed girl?" I asked him in the elevator.
"From what I heard yesterday night, Hyungtae used her as bait to kill some-"
"No need! I already guessed what he did." I don't want to hear about that man.
'Man, he really changed from the last time I saw him; he's become a lot colder and ruthless lately. I wonder what happened to him.'
The sky was still dark, but I could catch some glimpses of the sun.
"Did the citizen finally-"
"Nope, the Combat God locked them up in their own house. He's providing them with food, water, and all other utilities for them." He answered before I finished my sentence.
"The only ones that are not locked are the ones that weren't inside a building during the invasion."
"Ah, be careful; I was tasked today with finding the source of the ashes." I said to him when we reached the ground floor.
"Wait what?" He sounded surprised.
"Hyung wants to put some seals on it to slow down the process of expansion."
"But we have already searched everywhere." He complained.
"Apparently we didn't since the girl managed to find it before us." I responded sarcastically.
"You know what-"
"Too late, I've already accepted since I owe you a favor." I said, running to the refrigerator room.
"Hey, let's bet on it in a chess game. How about that?" He said it jokingly.
"No way in hell, I'm not playing a losing game. If you want it back, how about a 300-meter race."
"If you still think you're the fastest among us today, I'll prove you wrong." He proudly said.
"No ability; let's just stick with aura and a bit of mana here." I added.
When I opened the door to the fridge room, we saw Nina eating a cake. She had already eaten some tarts and had eaten almost a fifth of a chocolate-filled cake.
"I can explain-"
"I'm not really against you eating Nina, but you'll have to work hard to lose that weight." I said to her.
She didn't respond.
'Oh right, they speak another language...'
"It's ok, no problem, you run after."* I said while giving her a thumbs up to appear as non-threatening as possible.
I then took a beer and headed outside while Christian remained there to scold Nina.
"It's ok to eat as much as she wants, as long as she exercises to keep herself in check." I said to Chris.
"She's clearly not doing that. What are you talking about?"
At that point, I simply started laughing.
"From today she will then." I said this while opening the glass bottle and taking a sip.
"Anyway, if you really want to race me, call her in. She'll give us the countdown." I added afterwards.
"No problem." He shouted back.
'So he really thinks he can beat me?'
"Don't regret it later, Chris." I said this while heading out.
He rejoined me later, accompanied by what seemed to be a scared Nina.
"Are you ready to lose your beloved position in the strongest trio?" He taunted me.
"Yeah… sure." I replied while getting into position.
Since we didn't have a running field, we decided to race on the street. We had to go in a straight line until we reached a T-junction, eight buildings down the road.
Nina started the countdown. In the first second that passed, I had already cleared the road in front of me with my mana. At the second, I adjusted my position. At the third, I heated up my body and muscles, making sure they were ready. At the fourth, I started increasing the flow of aura and my body's capabilities with magic circuits. On the fifth, I coated my body in mana to protect it.
When the countdown finished, everything else became invisible to me. The only thing I could see was the road and the finish line, and then I took my first step.
Each step was becoming harder and harder as we kept running. The crystalline coating didn't last long, and I had to constantly feed it more and more mana. The ground below me seemed made of mud. I felt like I was constantly sinking in it.
In the blink of an eye, I found myself in front of the t-junction. I created some chains with my mana and threw them at the ground. As soon as they touched the ground, they attached themselves to it. I wanted to use them to stop myself from crashing against the wall. Unfortunately, the blocks of cement to which the chains were attached easily came off the ground.
'Shit! I forgot this place has almost no mana left now!'
Failing to stop myself, I simply braced for the impact, covering my face and torso with my hands. A few moments later, I heard the second crash.
From what I heard, I crashed into multiple things, but when I opened my eyes, I was back in the starting zone.
'Thanks a lot, Chris; you're a lifesaver, literally.'
"W-what!"* shouted Nina.
As she tried to slowly distance herself from us, she tripped on a rock and fell down.
"I'm sure I saw you destroy everything. How is everything alright?" * She had this weird look; it was a mix of terror and shock put together.
"I'll explain it to her. You have some ashes to search for." I said it jokingly to Chris.
He gave me a snarky smile and then flew away.
"Secret"* I said to Nina while winking at her.
"Me teach you?"* I asked her.
She nodded in response.
"After I teach you, you sleep now. After... you... train a lot."* She didn't seem to understand what I said.
'Maybe I should start carrying that little box at all times, or maybe we should speed up their learning speed... No, for now, let's just keep using the box; they still need time to get used to us.'
I thought while returning to the dining room, where I left my beer and finished it all in one go. I went back to my room, turned on the TV, and started watching the survival show to pass some time.
After a couple of hours, I saw the sun setting, so I decided that it was finally time to wake the others, so I took the key to each one of their rooms and dragged them two at a time downstairs, giving them cereal with some milk and some fried eggs.
They were surprisingly quiet the whole time. The only ones causing trouble were Jonathan and Marcus, so I proceeded to separate the two.
"Today we will mostly train your bodies. We will study a bit, but that's not going to be the focus for today." I announced.
I expected some enthusiasm, but they barely gave a reaction. They were still yawning, eating slowly with their eyes closed. Manni was about to fall asleep while sitting up. Nina didn't seem excited about the idea, but I took that for granted.
'Then let's throw a small bait and hope that it gets their attention. I only hope those kids won't develop weird habits because of me.'
"Are you interested in learning magic?" I blurted it out while thinking.
No one responded. They simply kept eating.
"Well, you know, I'm one of the top three strongest guys in the golden army, so..."
"Sorry, I don't want to train my body six hours a day for the rest of my life." Said Marcus.
'Wow, I didn't expect him to be so straight-forward, but I guess I should've expected that from him. I hope you won't hate me for the harsh training I'm about to give you, it's for your own good, so that in the future, you won't get picked on by the bigger kids.'
Once everyone had finished their breakfast, I took them for a run. We ran all around the neighborhood. Whenever someone was starting to slow down, I would pump some aura into them, regenerating the broken muscle tissue. Eventually, Manni fell down exhausted.
When I decided to carry him on my shoulder, he began to complain.
"Hey, that's not fair; I also want to be carried home." Said Marcus.
Nina also wanted to complain about something, but she was breathing too heavily to talk. Jonathan remained silent.
"Who wants to be carried by me on the way home?" I asked.
All three of them raised their hands.
'Really? Well, it won't hurt them to spoil them once in a while…'
I gently wrapped them in my mana, and once I created a soft yet durable layer on top of them, I lifted them and started flying around town. I would fly around skyscrapers and above empty roads and railroads.
They seemed to have fun. Manni and Jonathan were screaming in pure terror at first, but they got used to it. Marcus was also scared, but at least he wasn't screaming. Nina was the only one who enjoyed the whole thing from the start.
'She's also an interesting one.'
I noticed that Manni was trying to get into a comfortable position to sleep and was now about to fall asleep, so I created a small disc to cover his face from the sun while heating him up a bit. We returned home shortly after he fell asleep.
"I was probably too slow if he fell asleep. It was thrilling, don't you think?"
"Can you teach me that?" Asked Nina.
"Well, yes… It's not a complicated technique by any means; it just requires a lot of mental strength." I answered.
"It was ok." said Marcus.
"Ok you said…" I then started tickling him.
"Come one, admit it; you loved it." I said this while tickling him.
"It wasn't that bad." Said Jonathan.
He then mumbled something incomprehensible all by himself before heading upstairs.
"You can all rest for an hour, then we'll start our lessons. Marcus, you'll be responsible for bringing them here on time." I shouted after he left the room.
"WHAT!" He shouted back.
"We already talked about this. You're the eldest, so you're supposed to set an example for them."
"That's-"
"Marcus!"
"Okkkkkk, ok."
I could hear Nina holding back her laughter in the background.
"Go rest for now. Do whatever you want, except eating, of course." I said this after letting go of most of them, except for Manni, who was still sleeping.
"What's going on here?" Asked Daniel.
'I didn't notice his presence, he must have just teleported himself behind me. He was accompanied by Nassus.'
"We just finished our morning routine of exercise." I explained while the kids went to their respective apartments.
"Okay, have you prepared something to teach them afterwards?" Asked me, Daniel.
"Not really, I was planning on preparing something quickly now." I said I was a bit ashamed of my carelessness.
"Hey, I prepared something nice and easy to learn if you don't mind-"
"Daniel, we need to quickly connect the others." Interrupted Nassus.
"Oh yes, sorry, it's in my room. You have to search for the folder "Alpaca."" He said this before opening a portal and disappearing with Nassus.
"No wait, what should I search for first-" I was too late in replying; he was already gone.
'Well… let's get started then; let's see what Daniel prepared for the kids.
I then headed to his room on the first floor. I found a computer installed near his bed, so after a bit of searching through his stuff, I found the file "Alpaca". It contained some movies with subtitles, a song that spelled the entire alphabet, and some basic lessons on present conjugation.
'Blessed is the woman that will get to marry him.'
I thought while sending most of the contents of the file in my email.
The next step was finding a big enough screen. Most of the screens in the complex weren't as wide as most of the whiteboards they used at my school, but they were still big. Next was putting all the computers in one room and creating a shared folder that had all the materials needed for studying.
I made sure to properly lift every seat and table in order not to disturb the kids. After preparing the "classroom" I decided it was ok for me to check out the internet, and apparently everyone was going crazy over the fact that they couldn't leave their home.
Some shots of me and the kids were popping up randomly in some public news posts while the rest of the world was waiting for our announcement. Chaos was running wild, there were people in the comments theorizing that we were some kind of bioweapon that went rogue, while others thought we were part of a secluded faction that decided to conquer the world.
'What kind of wild... I guess after seeing their national hero show inhuman feats as well as abilities, they started going wild with their theories. Whatever that is, it's not important at the moment.
I searched for some news about the Combat God's trial and found very little information. It was mostly speculative. Apparently, someone recorded the whole thing and was banned from most websites.
'Why are they banning those video clips? What kind of idiot would do such a thing? Have they all lost their sanity? Or are they really dumb enough to defy the will of a god?'
"Why didn't he notice this? And if he did, why didn't he do anything about it?"
'I guess a former gigolo wouldn't know much about politics, or anything for that matter, except how to seduce women.'
At that moment, someone started shouting in front of our gate. It was a group of homeless people that were shouting something I didn't quite understand, so I took the translator and headed out to see what it was about.
As soon as I got out, I shouted at the translator.
"Stop shouting now; speak; what are you here for?"
While most of them seemed scared of me, one of them stepped in front of the rest and started speaking.
"You… bastards… make you pay." His accent was too strong, and the translator had trouble translating his words.
He pulled out a gun and tried to shoot me; I simply created a barrier around myself in response. Looking at them more closely, some of them were too clean to be homeless people, and some others were recording the whole thing on their phones. They were also probably streaming it.
At this point, the kid must've surely noticed them, so killing them here is out of the question. We've made so much progress today, it would be a waste to scare them now.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked politely.
"How dare... murderers."
At this point, a lot of them started to get heated up and started chanting something all together.
I put my hands on the ground and started injecting a lot of mana into the ground below the concrete, then I pulled it and used it to block the homeless people before they could even react to it.
"Who sent you here?" I asked while getting closer.
I noticed that the gun he used was a handgun, or more precisely, a semi-automatic handgun.
The man in front of them simply spat at my barrier and kept shouting words my translator couldn't understand.
'Well, I did the best I could. I'll leave them here for now. When the others return, I'll let them decide what to do.'
I thought while covering their mouths so that they couldn't shout anymore.
When I turned around to go back to the building, I noticed Jonathan and Manni peeking through the windows.
I smiled at them, gave them a thumbs up, and loosened the grip of the dirt around the homeless guys so that they could show that they were indeed alive, I then looked at my watch.
"You have about fifteen minutes left on your break." I announced to them before heading back to the classroom that I had improvised.
And now I can enjoy my fifteen minutes-
"Mister?" The voice belonged to Nina.
"Yes?"
"Oh I didn't realize this was-"
"Oh yes, this is the classroom I made. It's not the best, but we can surely make it work." I said this while pointing at the computers.
"I was wondering if we could also post the lessons online, or stream them?" She asked.
I noticed she was clutching her phone to her chest.
"Yes, of course you can. Do you have other things you want to ask?"
"About the request I made earlier, will you really teach me how to fly?"
"Oh that one, yes... I think I can teach you some magic. As long as you don't tell the others, it will be fine."
"H-how? I'm not a magical creature."
"Oooooooooooh, I get it now. Man, this place has really fallen short of its standards. No need to worry, there is a way for you to get mana." I said this while getting close to her.
"But you'll have to stop holding onto this." I whispered while tapping her phone twice.
After some thought, she handed me the phone, and it turned out that she was streaming the whole conversation. She had nobody watching the stream and about a dozen subscribers to her channel.
"Well, you can spend the rest, I don't know, ten minutes? Whatever, oh right, do you have a group chat with the rest of them?" I said, pointing at the roof.
She nodded and showed me the group chat.
"You can tell the others to come down." I said.
"But you said-"
"Oh, so you were listening... I just changed my mind, so call them here. I doubt they're doing anything useful anyway, so they might as well learn something in the meantime." I said.
She messaged them. Most of them came down, except for Jonathan, who was "still in game".
"Marcus!" I shouted.
"What? I can't pause an online game."
"I'm not asking that. What is he even playing?"
"I don't know, probably an ARPG." He responded while sitting in front of one of the computers.
"Ok, you're free to use the computers however you want until your brother comes back."
"He's not-" tried to rebut Nina.
"From now on, you're all brothers and sisters; I hope you'll get along." I said this while creating a disc of mana and lying on top of it.
"If you want to check the materials for today, everything we'll use for the next couple of weeks is in the folder "Alpaca"; it's in download."
"Can we install some games?" Asked Marcus.
"As long as it doesn't negatively affect your studies..."
He then proceeded to start typing like crazy. Manni sat beside Marcus while Nina was left alone in the other corner of the room.